Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Decim

Chronic on/off lurker
Not sure if this was answered somewhere but is there anything we could get from the Royal Stalker and high tech Atlas? I don't think the weapons or other systems are anything we don't already have, but there might be interesting data on them having been the mechs of high ranking Kuritas. At least doing a deep search of any surviving data before we ship them off.
Technologically and materially there's nothing worthwhile. They're mostly useful as gifts to Siriwan, as trophies showing we prevailed on Nowa Warszawa, or for the history of the things.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Both the "high tech" (in this case I believe it refers to something like "unofficial semi-Royal" as far as tech level goes) Atlas and Royal Stalker are full Star League era designs. We're currently early clan era ourselves, and are able to design and build our own mechs of any weight class except superheavy (all of which are more efficient than canon designs as far as our system is concerned, though the canon designs do get a buff to help account for their popularity and official effectiveness instead of just assuming IS designers are idiots). So no tech bonuses from studying them.

However, the Atlas is the Dragon's personal mech (and thus a very nice trophy), and the Stalker belonged to Siriwan's mother (and is therefore likely a valuable thing to use for diplomacy or dealmaking). In addition, with the exception of the clantech-level gauss weapon in the NRI, Royal tech is better than any of our neighbors can do, so both mechs are extremely valuable to them (as personal mechs for leaders or for reverse engineering).
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
I believe that giving Siriwan both of the BattleMechs makes sense as a diplomatic gesture. She's very big on symbolism, and the symbolism we deliver with that is that the past is behind us all, we are willing to extend the hand of friendship and move into the future together.

It doesn't make any sense to be antagonistic towards her -- unlike the Rasalhaugians, she's never even raised her hand against us at any point, and on top of that she's placed herself at direct personal risk to prove her good faith.
 

WyrmofFrost

Wandering Muse Seeker
Technologically and materially there's nothing worthwhile. They're mostly useful as gifts to Siriwan, as trophies showing we prevailed on Nowa Warszawa, or for the history of the things.
Both the "high tech" (in this case I believe it refers to something like "unofficial semi-Royal" as far as tech level goes) Atlas and Royal Stalker are full Star League era designs. We're currently early clan era ourselves, and are able to design and build our own mechs of any weight class except superheavy (all of which are more efficient than canon designs as far as our system is concerned, though the canon designs do get a buff to help account for their popularity and official effectiveness instead of just assuming IS designers are idiots). So no tech bonuses from studying them.

However, the Atlas is the Dragon's personal mech (and thus a very nice trophy), and the Stalker belonged to Siriwan's mother (and is therefore likely a valuable thing to use for diplomacy or dealmaking). In addition, with the exception of the clantech-level gauss weapon in the NRI, Royal tech is better than any of our neighbors can do, so both mechs are extremely valuable to them (as personal mechs for leaders or for reverse engineering).

right so the mechs are useless techwise as I thought, but did we at least do some sort of check of the data. Say whatever spacetech GPS records where the mechs have been, backlogged sensor records, IFF records, blackboxes, etc. Anything we could datamine for something without damaging the mechs before handing them away?
 

Tel Janin Aman

Well-known member
Comrade
right so the mechs are useless techwise as I thought, but did we at least do some sort of check of the data. Say whatever spacetech GPS records where the mechs have been, backlogged sensor records, IFF records, blackboxes, etc. Anything we could datamine for something without damaging the mechs before handing them away?
All the battleroms from the succession wars will probably be useful at the aerie, see how the IS fights.
 

namar13766

Well-known member
I believe that giving Siriwan both of the BattleMechs makes sense as a diplomatic gesture. She's very big on symbolism, and the symbolism we deliver with that is that the past is behind us all, we are willing to extend the hand of friendship and move into the future together.

It doesn't make any sense to be antagonistic towards her -- unlike the Rasalhaugians, she's never even raised her hand against us at any point, and on top of that she's placed herself at direct personal risk to prove her good faith.
I hate to be that guy, but I think we should still keep an eye on her. What happens if she's assassinated by someone who wants to return to the good old days of her father and resume hostilities with us?
 
Turn 58 - Grinding For Divinity

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 58 - Grinding For Divinity

Meta Event - 29
Dynasty Luck - 7

Imperial Approval - 4
Approval Change - -2
Political Event - 2

Imperial Economy - 1
Economic Event - 5
Research Event - 2

Griffin’s Roost
Economy - 12
Population Growth - 6
Rating Change - 8

Nowy Gdansk
Economy - 12
Population Growth - 10
Rating Change - 7

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt
Economy - 5
Rating Change - 7

Griffon II Orbitals
Economy - 8
Rating Change - 8

Griffon IV
Economy - 4
Population Growth - 3
Rating Change - 7

Plan: Annexation Processes
-Military [$ 32,569,329.52 ]
Construct Silver Tower System Defense Fortress* [90]
Target - 90
Role - 84
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Silver Tower System Defense Fortress* [90]
Target - 90
Role - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Silver Tower System Defense Fortress* [90]
Target - 90
Role - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Silver Tower System Defense Fortress* [90]
Target - 90
Role - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Integrate Nowa Warszawa into Griffon Military [75]
Target - 75
Role - 24
Result - SUCCESS

Upgrade All Endosteel Foundries [70]
Target - 70
Role - 4
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 612,133 ]
90 PPG-01 [85]
Target - 85
Role - 54
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 1,269,322.32 ]
-4 Carrier Wings [75]
Target - 75
Role - 77
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

-1 Planetary Defense Wing [75]
Target - 75
Role - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Pathfinder Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Role - 14
Result - SUCCESS

-3 Standard Mech Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Role - 96, Jarow reroll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Armored Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Role - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Mechanized Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Role - 92, Decim reroll - 23
Result - SUCCESS

-2 CAS Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Role - 56
Result - SUCCESS

-[X] Interior [$ 33,018,750.00 ]
Upgrade Nowa Warszawa Factories [75]
Target - 75
Role - 92, ShadowArxxy reroll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 80 [105]
Target - 105
Role - 33
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 81 [105]
Target - 105
Role - 19
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 82 [105]
Target - 105
Role - 81
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin Inner Asteroid Belt [65]
Target - 65
Role - 75
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Build Orbital Factory Ferro Aluminum Nowa Warzsawa [110]
Target - 110
Role - 42
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Shipyard Nowa Warzsawa [100]
Target - 100
Role - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
Target - 100
Role - 45
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [100]
Target - 100
Role - 68
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [100]
Target - 100
Role - 60
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Evaluate Nowa Warszawa [95]
Target - 95
Role - 69
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - O'Neill Cylinder at Griffin II* [65]
Target - 65
Role - 84, Economist reroll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Arcology Cluster - Griffon IV* [90]
Target - 90
Role - 41
Result - SUCCESS

Diplomatic [$ 2000000 ]

Political [$ 10000000 ]
Form Nowa Warszawa Political Administration [75]
Target - 75
Role - 22
Result - SUCCESS

Research [$ 135890000 ]
Standard HPG Transmitters [60]
Target - 60
Role - 61
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Orbital Infrastructure lvl 6 [90]
Target - 90
Role - 77
Result - SUCCESS

Improved Agriculture lvl 4 [95]
Target - 95
Role - 98
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Intelligence [$ 12000000 ]
Major Internal Security Sweeps on Nowa Warszawa [55]
Target - 55
Role - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Justice [$ 21000000 ]
Extend Imperial Justice System to Nowa Warszawa [75]
Target - 75
Role - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Miscellaneous [$ 10,200,000 ]
Annexation [10,000,000]
Olympics [200,000]

-----

In many ways the next part of the Olympics is your favorite, along with most people on Griffin’s Roost. Especially judging by the massive turnout. It’s not unusual for top level motorsports races in the Empire to have in person attendance numbers over 100k, with hundreds of millions watching from home.

And these Olympics are no different.

There is a complication, though. The Rasalhaguians, outside of some specialty off-road motorcycle racing, have almost no motorsports at all. And even motorcycle racing is more of an offshoot of military training and less of a ‘sport’. Horseback racing? They’d be great at that, but increase horsepower over a single hay-burning equine?

There hadn’t been enough time to fully address that, but the twins were determined to spread the Good News Of Motorsport to the heathens. Sometimes the twins were still 11 years old, even in their 40s. Regardless, they had organized training with several professional teams for those Rasalhaguians brave enough to put on a fire suit and get behind the wheel. Equipment was provided by those same teams, as were pit crews, spotters, and crew chiefs.

It didn’t help them win any races, Team Griffon was utterly dominant on the track, but it did keep them from completely embarrassing themselves, and hopefully the experience would ignite some interest in motorsport back in the NRR.

The final events are the marathons, and they are near perfect mirrors of each other. In the men’s marathon, Team Griffon easily sets the pace and crushes the competition, while the Rasalhaguian runners suffer a litany of woes that are almost comical in their sheer strange circumstances. For part of the race a Rasalhaguian was even leading, until the poor sap caught the attention of a near-gull who decided that something about him was offensive and only enthusiastic beating with its wings would suffice. Their next best runner somehow managed to be the only runner in the entire field to encounter a swarm of bees, took sixteen stings, and had to be taken to the hospital. Runners that were right next to the poor sap weren’t even bothered by the insects. In fact, all of the Rasalhague runners seemed to attract insects and birds in unusual quantities.

Post-race investigation reveals a rather amusing coincidence. The particular brand of laundry soap that the Rasalhaguians had brought from home turns out to act as an attractant to local insect life.

The women’s race, meanwhile, is almost the opposite. The leader until the final two miles was from Team Griffon, but at a point where the marathon course swung near the corner of a nature preserve a wild Castor Wolf pup that had been separated from her pack wound up on the course and decided that said runner looked like a fun playmate. Castor Wolves are known for being extremely docile towards humans, even in the wild, and there have been no documented instances of Castor Wolves actually attacking humans without significant and severe provocation. In this case, the pup decided to gambol along with the running woman, and the two got tripped up together and she went down, leading to her getting a face bath from a happily playing pup.

Unfortunately she hurt her ankle in the fall and couldn’t continue, and Team Griffon had to settle for a bronze, while the Rasalhaguian runner finished first. The pup is back with her pack, after a rather adorable ‘telling off’ by her dam that was caught on video. The image of a pouting pup being carried back into the preserve by an adult Castor Wolf by the scruff of her neck is pure adorableness.

News of the liberation of Nowa Warszawa causes an enormous surge of celebrations and parties throughout the system, especially on Nowa Gdansk among the Polish population. There is a sense that the war isn’t over, but that it is well begun and that you have struck back effectively.

You get word from Nowa Warszawa that they have found a fourth Mech factory buried underneath a mountain on the main continent, oddly enough it had been mothballed decades ago and appeared to have once made Phoenix Hawk mechs, but no mechs of that type have ever been seen in Drac service.

You do have the captured Royal Atlas and Royal Stalker brought to Griffin’s Roost, so that you can decide what to do with them.

A massive report is delivered to you from Nowa Warszawa from the DoME team you'd sent to do an initial survey of the planet.

In a word, the situation is… horrific. There are absolutely no pollution controls on any of the industrial equipment on the planet, no consideration given whatsoever to clean air, water, or anything else, and the place is becoming horribly polluted. Air pollution levels are just barely below ‘unbreathable’ and asthma is a serious medical problem on the planet. Water? You need to boil it at minimum, and in general your forces have been relying on the water distillation and purification systems built into your dropships for potable water. Some of the rivers are so badly polluted by effluent that it is a miracle that they aren’t on fire… wait, some of them have been on fire.

Crop yields are ridiculously low, the planet is barely able to support itself, and in general is in extremely rough shape.

On the positive side, the teams installing updated tooling on the Mech and ASF factories have also installed modern pollution controls, so there is that at least. But none of the supporting industry has any of that.

According to DoME, just to fully refit all of the industry on the planet properly won’t be enough, it’ll stop the bleeding, but the damage is so bad at this point as to be self-sustaining. They recommend approaching this as a terraforming project, because in many ways it will be.

They are compiling their final report for you, which you will have plenty of time to make decisions next year as to funding and allocation of DoME teams, but it looks like the three teams you’ll have available might be very busy over on Nowa Warszawa for some time.

You also receive a report from the teams that Janet has sent over, and it makes for grim reading. The local ‘law enforcement’ forces are less than useless, the local court system is an utter joke and farce, the prisons are pretty much filled with political prisoners while actual criminals are, so long as they were politically convenient to the Dragon, allowed to run free.

The advisors and trainers sent over have recommended scrapping the entire corrupt mess, discharging all of those involved in it, and starting over from the bottom up. The addendum from Special Branch recommends simply shooting every single judge, prosecutor, public defender, prison guard, and ‘friendly persuader’ on the planet out of sheer principle, then shooting them again in case their sheer corruption causes them to survive without a functioning brain, then setting them on fire just to make sure.

Evidently the justice system worked on the principle of ‘everybody is guilty’ as the starting basis, and the only job of law enforcement was to ensure that they arrested a sufficient number of people each week to look like they were doing something. Whether or not a crime had even been committed didn’t matter, they’d just grab the first person they saw when they were in the mood to arrest somebody, and if the ‘friendly persuader’ was male and that person happened to be female, well, a man has needs, and ‘punishing’ an offender is totally alright, or vice versa, or in any way that floated any particular ‘friendly persuader’s boat.

The Justice Department is requesting a massive draft of law enforcement professionals to actually make a dent into the situation and hopefully kickstart an actually ethical and proper justice system, they are also requesting permission to completely purge the local system from the ground up. Mass executions are optional, but strongly recommended as, according to the files, they have plenty of evidence of gross abuses of the civilian population by these people.

It should be noted, that the recommendation is for each of the accused to be given a proper trial by a non-corrupt judicial system before any punishment is levied, capital or not.

[]Follow the main recommendations
  • -1% POP growth on Griffin’s Roost
  • -1% tax rate next turn
  • +5 Rating Change - Nowa Warszawa
  • Prevents certain events
[]Her Majesty is Not Amused, follow the optional recommendation
  • As above
  • -5 Politics
  • +1% GDP Nowa Warszawa
  • +5 approval on Nowa Warszawa
  • -250,000 population on Nowa Warszawa
[]We’ll need to grit our teeth and be patient, it’ll work out in the end
  • Unknown Effects

You receive reports also from your son, who you’ve decided to saddle with being acting Military Governor until such time as a permanent civilian governor is selected. The Home Army has, in the main, come in out of the cold. The radical elements have been shuffled aside to areas where their violent tendencies will not be a problem, while the rest are forming up into a proper planetary militia. He has also started combing through the POWs, using Intelligence assets to filter out those who are actually loyal to the Dragon and those who had been drafted at gunpoint into the Dragon’s service.

With the tooling on the planet and the number of willing recruits he’s been able to put together a Green quality Light Garrison Force. He’s having his MPs and civil affairs people coordinate with the people from Justice to use them as temporary police forces until something permanent can be arranged.

He has reported that a non-military administration has been established, albeit one manned primarily by people from the Griffon system. Security sweeps are ongoing, with a major feature there being that the locals are amazed at how… hands off and concerned with due process, privacy, and human rights your counterintelligence people are. The new orbital yard and factory have been built, and he reports that the decision was made to make the first segment support a single Large Dropship slip; future slips will be dedicated to regular dropships.

Closer to home, the new O’Neill Cylinder has been completed and is now dedicated to housing and rehabilitating freed slaves from Kilburrough. In addition Endo Steel production is up significantly thanks to the series of upgrades to the orbital foundries producing the same, while the local yards have all been expanded. Future Jumpships built at your two main yards will take less time to build now. However, the 2 Caravels currently on the ways will not benefit from this, they will complete next year on schedule.

The Arcology Cluster on Griffon IV has been opened to the public and has proven a great success. In fact, the architects behind the design have won several awards for the beauty of the design combined with the great practicality of it.

Unfortunately focusing development on the Inner Asteroid Belt has run into a snag, right before you made the decision to do precisely that the head of that particular office in the Interior Department had taken sick leave, his deputy had been involved in an accident that took her out of the office for most of the year, and the remaining staff were unable to coordinate well enough without any experienced senior leadership.

The three mech factories have been upgraded, increasing your light/medium mech production capacity significantly.

There was one major issue, a software update was issued to a particular model of precision robotic welding equipment, used in aerospace applications, primarily for high-stress lightweight structures. Unfortunately that software update, while overall quite useful in terms of fixing minor bugs and slightly improving performance, turned out to be a minor catastrophe for Peregrine fighter production, as the update exposed an existing minor bug buried in the control programs for manufacturing structural members for that type of ASF, a bug which had, ironically, been masked by an opposite bug in the main system software. As a result of the need to debug and update those systems and files, production for new Carrier Wings will be delayed until Q1 next year.

The new Planetary Defense Wing for Calliope IV is completed, manned, and dispatched to Calliope IV to great fanfare from the locals by all reports.

Other than that, procurement goes very smoothly. You do visit the new Silver Tower orbital fortress above Griffin’s Roost in person, and it is terrifyingly lethal.

On the research front, R&D into basic HPG installations has hit a minor snag following a coolant leak on the test bed system, repairs will take a few months but they expect to validate the design by Q2 next year.

Work on advanced agricultural techniques has run into an amusing snag… the test farm suffered a security breach when the Department of Periphery Studies decided to use it as their latest ‘project’, and paperwork errors allowed the tenured professionals at Periphery Studies to get inside, where they proceeded to ‘improve’ things. Actual R&D work will be delayed until Q1 of next year.

Work on improving orbital infrastructure had a minor breakthrough, completing on time and slightly below budget, giving Mary at least something positive to report.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
Not sure on the mass executions part. Don't want to set a precedent for victor's justice nonsense. What kind of abuses are we talking about here? Shooting innocents? And are the people we're going to execute diehard Dracs who bent over backwards to commit these crimes for the evulz, or are we going to be executing less than willing Drac soldiers who had a gun held at their head and their family's heads? Also wary of French Revolution nonsense where people with vendettas might slander people they don't like hoping that they get executed (but the text does say that we will have conclusive evidence for anyone who is to be executed).

I am curious as to what that last option will entail.

[X] We’ll need to grit our teeth and be patient, it’ll work out in the end
 

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Not sure on the mass executions part. Don't want to set a precedent for victor's justice nonsense. What kind of abuses are we talking about here? Shooting innocents? And are the people we're going to execute diehard Dracs who bent over backwards to commit these crimes for the evulz, or are we going to be executing less than willing Drac soldiers who had a gun held at their head and their family's heads? Also wary of French Revolution nonsense where people with vendettas might slander people they don't like hoping that they get executed (but the text does say that we will have conclusive evidence for anyone who is to be executed).

I am curious as to what that last option will entail.

[X] We’ll need to grit our teeth and be patient, it’ll work out in the end

I already said it in the post, I will repeat it here.

Any executions with that option will be after full trials to ascertain guilt or innocence, the estimate of 250,000 is just that, an estimate (and a nice round number to make my paperwork easier)

This is not you just flipping the script and executing people because you 'know' they are guilty, these people will have the benefit of a fair and impartial trial.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
[X] Her Majesty is Not Amused, follow the optional recommendation

This is only "victor's justice" in the sense of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals: "just following orders" and "raping, murdering, and torturing those people was totally legal under our bullshit laws!" are not being accepted as defenses.

We're talking Einsatzgruppen, Totenkopf-SS, and Imperial Japanese soldiers level atrocities here.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Not sure on the mass executions part. Don't want to set a precedent for victor's justice nonsense. What kind of abuses are we talking about here? Shooting innocents? And are the people we're going to execute diehard Dracs who bent over backwards to commit these crimes for the evulz, or are we going to be executing less than willing Drac soldiers who had a gun held at their head and their family's heads? Also wary of French Revolution nonsense where people with vendettas might slander people they don't like hoping that they get executed (but the text does say that we will have conclusive evidence for anyone who is to be executed).
Sunhawk responded to the most important part of the question, but I'd like to highlight one more thing I caught in your post - this isn't a purge of the soldiers, this is specifically a purge of the justice system (Police, judges, etc), who were both failing to do their jobs and doing their jobs incorrectly at the same time.

The three options are, roughly (I'm reordering them in severity, numbers are the order they appear in):
3. Let the system and current people stay where they are and try to reform it
1. Bring in people from home and remove the current people
2. Bring in people from home and try and execute the current people

Examples of what they were doing can be seen in the post, here:
Evidently the justice system worked on the principle of ‘everybody is guilty’ as the starting basis, and the only job of law enforcement was to ensure that they arrested a sufficient number of people each week to look like they were doing something. Whether or not a crime had even been committed didn’t matter, they’d just grab the first person they saw when they were in the mood to arrest somebody, and if the ‘friendly persuader’ was male and that person happened to be female, well, a man has needs, and ‘punishing’ an offender is totally alright, or vice versa, or in any way that floated any particular ‘friendly persuader’s boat.

So I'm definitely going with
[X] Her Majesty is Not Amused, follow the optional recommendation
I'd say it's the best option both mechanically and in character.
 

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