Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Turn 16 - Fluff

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 16 - Fluff

“You want me to do what?”

You grin a bit, leaning back in your chair, as you watch Dominique Forsyth boggle across from you.

“Yes, I know you are the opposition leader, Ms Forsyth, but we need to work together as a planet if we’re going to succeed against an entire Great House.” you manage to keep your amusement out of your voice.

“So yes, I would like you to take the lead on this. You minored in Comparative Theology at the U, so I know you are qualified for it. And please correct me if I am mistaken, but I’ve been unable to find any requirement that, as Queen, I must only tap my supporters for things like this.” Your smile broadens a bit as you lean forward.

“Well, put that way.” the slender young woman across from you says. “I accept the charge.”

“Excellent.” you smile, nodding. “I’ve already instructed Dr Young and Professor Chapman to make their people available to you for this purpose.”

You rise from behind the desk to conduct the still somewhat surprised young parliamentarian from your office.

You’d needed to put somebody in charge of running the outreach and education campaign to try and educate the citizens of the planet about the various faiths and prevent problems like the near riot at the Shinto shrine from happening again. A sort of ‘we’re all in this together’ approach, not singling out any single one faith for special attention.

And then you’d decided to kill two birds with one well-aimed stone. Dominique was still insisting that she was in opposition to you, on the principle of opposition rather than out of any genuine disagreement. You had already decided that she was more the proverbial 6 year old in the room pointing out the flaws in the plans that the big brains had. You could work with that.

But you wanted that proverbial 6 year old in your planning meetings picking apart your plans, not working with those who genuinely opposed you out of personal ambition or malice.

If only everything were so easy.

The Pee-Wee Racing League was back in action, and now all three of your little men were racing. It had been bad enough when it was just your eldest, but now the twins are gleefully crashing into each other on their hovercraft, seeming to be racing purely for fun rather than competition, and each time it causes your heart to skip a few beats.

Of course, there were also things that made you so proud you were fit to burst. Jeremy was such a good big brother to his sisters. He’d actually let them decorate his hovercraft racer and managed to not once wince or complain when it came away from their ministrations painted in bright pink glitter paint with unicorn decals all over it. He even tried to talk the scrutineers into allowing Sarah’s stuffed unicorn to remain perched on the bow ‘to keep biggest brother safe!’.

Considering that Sarah was right there pouting, the fact that Jeremy managed to say that it was an important and innovative safety system with a perfectly straight face... and then when the scrutineer insisted that it was against the rules you wanted to grab your little man and fuss all over him when he promptly turned to his little sister and offered to let her put one of her big unicorn stickers on his helmet instead.

He obviously got all of that from you. Willis helped. A little. But it’s his fault that the boys are racing in the first place so he doesn’t get credit. That’s your story and you are sticking to it.

But now you have three boys racing, one in the cutest hovercraft ever, the other two had so far escaped their little sisters attention with how busy they’d been decorating Jeremy’s… you suspect that he intended that as well, looking out for the twins.

Jeremy was as competitive as always, racing near the front in every race and winning a number of them. You’ve seen some of the other boys try and bully him over his racer, only for him to shrug and ignore them. And you’ve also seen the girls his age looking all googly eyed at him. You firmly tell yourself that siccing Janet’s investigators on the girls would be a total misuse of resources. Willis keeps you from doing anything about the would-be bullies, and you are glad for it when you realize that Jeremy is shutting them down quite effectively on his own by simply ignoring them and being the bigger little man. And when one of them tried to get physical, the appearance of Bastet, One (1), Growling seemed to fix the issue right up.

This quickly turned into Bastet, One (1), Purring as the girls and those boys who weren’t bullies crowded around to give the Grifftiger the requisite tribute of scritchies and pettings.

Quan and James didn’t seem to care where they finished in the races, just so long as they had a blast. They were competitive with each other, but they seemed willing to ignore the rest of the racers.

Willis had figured that one out, they were waiting until their big brother was in the Junior League and no longer competing with them to take the racing truly seriously, they were simply learning everything they could about their racers.

Smart kids.

Another thing they obviously got from your side of the family. You earned a proper tickling from Willis for that crack. OK, so he contributed some too. Fine.

Men.

You make a point, like you had with your other kids, of taking little Sarah to one of the recreational pools in the palace complex to teach her how to swim. The pool is open to locals who pass through security screening for free, and is a popular place for families to take their kids during the heat of the day.

You truly enjoy spending time with other parents, especially those not of the nobility or from wealth. It’s a valuable reality check to keep you grounded in the actual concerns of your people, not simply what you are told their concerns are.

Of course, oftentimes your discussions are more about your kids than anything else, and that is just perfect for you. You’d rather spend all of your time talking about your kids.

However sometimes… here you are in the shallow end, working with your youngest along with a few other parents who have their own little kids with them learning how to swim and looking incredibly cute with their water wings.

Then you hear a shout “Last one in is a Kuritan!” from a bunch of boys who come stampeding out of the changing rooms and thunder into the pool like a rampaging herd.

You can’t help it. You start laughing helplessly, quickly joined by all the other mothers.

What a way to think of the Kuritans, as equal to rotten eggs.

Back in the office later that same day you get a memo from Tyler requesting a meeting.

Since he normally just shows up, this actually worries you. And when he shows up for the meeting your concerns grow even more.

He looks gray, tired, worn. Much more so than before. “Your Majesty.” he says with unusual formality, then coughs and looks even older. “I’ve been ordered by my doctors to either retire now and take it easy, or I’ll be dead in a few months.” he manages a smile. “My deputy can handle things for now, but my wife has issued one of her rare ultimatums and I am not going to disobey. I’m sorry, Jacqueline…”

He doesn’t manage to get any further than that before there is a Hug Interrupt. From you. He may be a walking hormone, but he’s been a loyal retainer, and is the great grandfather of your children. Obnoxious man that he is, you still consider him family and love him for who he is.

“Go, take care of yourself, and I’ll bring the kids over to visit this weekend.” you say firmly, kissing him on the cheek.

A few days later you get a memo from his deputy, showing a list of candidates for the permanent position as Minister for the Interior.

[]NameInterior ActionsOther ActionsBio & Specials
[]Roosevelt Weaver31 PoliticalCurrent deputy, senior man in the ministry at this time, well liked by Parliament
[]Bridget Doyle40Currently runs industrial liaisons with the interior ministry, very junior, classmates with Dominique Forsyth
[]Steven Pope31 MilitaryMilitary Liaison within the interior ministry
[]Rose Lawson31 researchUniversity liaison within the interior ministry
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
[X] Rose Lawson. All four of our choices have four actions total; in my opinion, placing the fourth action in research widens our most important bottleneck point.

The Combine "pirates" are likely coming back as soon as they've reorganized and recovered, and since we managed to at least give them a bloody nose, they're surely coming back with everything they've got available, possibly including heavy or assault grade 'Mechs that they've been holding back as a trump card during their "pirate" operations. We don't have the population for attrition fights against that level of concentrated firepower and armor; we HAVE TO "tech up" fast enough to have counters.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
[] Roosevelt Weaver
(Extra political action, we don't really need those)
[] Bridget Doyle
(Lots of interior actions)
[] Steven Pope
(Extra military action, potentially useful)
[] Rose Lawson
(Extra research action, always a good thing)

Personally, I'd go for Lawson or Doyle, those are the areas we need to pick up an action from most. Think I'll give people a chance to think for a bit before I choose, help ensure the choice isn't just everyone following me.
 

Chaeronea

Well-known member
As much as we need Research to develop advanced tech to fight off any further Kuritan raids and Military actions to build and train military forces, but we need Interior actions to get the production facilities for military hardware built, and also to improve the economy enough to purchase and support them.

[X] Bridget Doyle.
 
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Jarow

Well-known member
Fortunately for us, all recruitment takes 1 action, and training 0 (except special cases), so once we get through defense construction and academy expansion there will be minimal strain there. Research will be strained forever because there's just so much we want, and interior is looking to be similar. Currently, Interior is looking to be more likely to have the highest priority stuff (things we need) as opposed to research's mere high priority (things we really want). Guess I'm going to have to give up research ( :( ) and vote Doyle
[X] Bridget Doyle.
 
Turn 16 - Advisors

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 16 Advisors

You spend a few days moping about Tyler leaving. Who’d have ever thought that you’d actually miss the old lech? You still saw him regularly, but it just wasn’t the same without him popping into your office, making some totally inappropriate remark, then vanishing before you or the Sergeant Major could run him down for a well deserved defenestration.

You realized with a pang that part of why you miss that is that it had seriously reduced your stress levels to give you something to focus on that wasn’t really all that important. Whenever you start obsessing over something you find yourself waiting for the Tyler Interrupt, and that won’t happen anymore.

You sigh a bit, looking again over the list of materials you have on the various candidates to replace him. You’d met all of them, here and there, but… none were Tyler.

Another sigh, and you make your choice.

An hour later you have a painfully earnest young woman sitting across from you. You were never THAT young, and certainly never had the look of a puppy dog eager to get on with playing, but Bridget seems to project that sort of energy.

Makes you tired just watching her vibrate in place. Janet isn’t this energetic, even after a mochachino.

In a way it’s refreshing to have somebody so completely different from Tyler sitting in his chair, it helps keep you from comparing her to him.

Parliament is up to its usual tricks. This time in a way that makes you shake your head. There’s a bill on your desk, passed by the barest majority of your most ardent supporters, that would permit the Crown to preemptively silence dissent on ‘matters of grave public concern’, citing the mobs at the shinto temple as evidence of how this is badly needed.

You just want to bang your head on the desk.

[] Agree. You don’t like it, but being able to stamp down on opposition does have its benefits. +1 Crown Influence, -1 Commons and Lords Influence, -10 support in the Lords, -20 support in the Commons, opposition moves to alienated status.

[] Disagree. If people wish to dissent from your decisions, it is up to you to convince them of the rightness of your decision, not force compliance at gunpoint. You have no wish to become a tyrant. This will alienate some of your hardcore supporters, but really, what were they thinking? -10 support in Lords, -10 support in Commons, prevents certain events.

The nationwide religious outreach and education campaign is going quite well. You do get a list of amusing submissions of ‘religions’ which are all traced to the School of Periphery Studies. You never realized there were quite so many variations of ‘flying spaghetti monsters’ with ‘noodly appendages’. You are also pretty certain that the application from the Jedi Order is likely a joke, although that one doesn’t come from the School. A little digging shows it comes from a group of cosplayers in Griffsport who evidently have far too much time on their hands.

The one that provokes the biggest bout of laughter is a submission flagged for your attention by the director of the School of Periphery Studies with a note about how you’d find this one hilarious. An entire religion based around worshipping appliances, especially toasters, and chanting in horrible pig latin about somebody named Blake.

He’s right, especially after you watch the attached video of the ‘High Priest Of Blessed Blake’ exultantly disassembling a toaster and proclaiming each component to be a relic of their Most Holy.

There’s also a video of said High Priest attempting to disassemble the coffee machine, leading to a bitter brawl with nerf bats and swords as the defenders of the coffee pot declared the worshippers of the toaster to be heretics.

You share this one with Willis, who laughs almost as hard as you do.

Then it's budget season. Which is like Rabbit Season, but with 100% fewer Elmer Fudds.

Especially with no Tyler in the room. You’re feeling maudlin again.

General Potter leads off the briefing. “I have a very small number of requests for the crown this year, Your Majesty.” he rumbles from deep within the core of the planet. You swear, one of these days you’ll need a seismograph to record his voice, it just keeps getting deeper. “First of all, a pair of vehicle evaluations for two platforms from Nollak Industries to address the challenges of protecting our field formations from aerial assault. The Skysweeper AA Tank and the Avenger AA hovercraft. Both platforms look promising, but they both need testing. Second of all, 1st Armored’s artillery batteries were stood up straight off the factory floor and are painfully green, plus their scout battalion is almost as inexperienced. I’d like to order 1st Armored back to the training area. Finally I would like to start hardening our critical factories against enemy attack. We’ve already seen that the Kuritans love their atrocities, and it was only God’s good favor that prevented the Gyrfalcon factory from being leveled while it was under construction.”

Bridget is practically vibrating in place from where she’s sitting in Tyler’s old chair. “I’ve been looking over everything and there’s so much that we can be doing.” she says brightly.

You feel older just listening to her.

“First of all, we got the survey of Castor and Pollux which will wrap up soon, but we’ve already identified some great sites for ports. Unlike on Capricorn, we’re recommending distributing the port facilities amongst multiple locations right away. We have two extremely good deep water port sites on Castor, one on the north coast and one along what we’ve taken to calling the Throat. Both are deep water, fairly well sheltered from storms, and have excellent access to fresh water and nearby resources. Some of the others are of lower quality, but one of them is relatively near the complex that we found.”

She shuffles her notes, bouncing a bit.

You feel even older as your mom instincts threaten to kick in and tell the girl to calm down.

“We’ve even found the perfect place for the Castor drop port, and it’s only 200 kilometers or so away from the complex! Down on Pollux we have the second finest natural harbor on the planet, we definitely want to develop that region hard because the terrain is perfect for an industrial city. It would also be a perfect jumping off point for any exploitation of the titanium resource area.”

More note shuffling, more bouncing. Your fingers twitch.

“As for the dire penguins and that titanium deposit. We have a scout team ready to go with some arctic vehicles that are equipped for dire penguin repelling. We’d really like to get that mission started so we can start taking advantage of that titanium. We have industry reps begging us for access, so this should be profitable.”

She beams at you happily.

“Oh! And the Hovercraft Racing League sent my office a request for funding and approval to build a championship quality racing course and stadium! It would have both a long track, a slalom track, and an endurance track for the various forms of top level racing, and would also be available for the planetary championships for the lower leagues!”

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

She is FAR too perky!

Dr Young is her usual steady and dour self, and even she seems to be missing Tyler in some small way, probably like one would miss a toothache. “We’re ready to go with the public-relations anti-drug campaign, Your Majesty. Just give us the word.”

No bouncing, no ultra enthusiasm. Just think, when you were younger you thought she was boring.

Professor Chapman comes in with a very serious expression on her face. “We’ve been in discussions with Parliament and with experts. Your Majesty, it will be expensive at first to make full accommodations and adjust things to fit, but it is time to extend full citizenship to the Grifftigers. This was their planet first, and it is only right that they have a full voice in running the place.”

Then she grins a bit. “Plus I can’t wait to see the expression on some noble lords and ladies faces when Grifftiger peers get seated in the Lords, and the constipated looks on some of our esteemed Members of Parliament when they have to run against a ‘tiger.”

That makes you laugh as well, because you know precisely which individuals she is talking about when it comes to their likely reactions to having to be polite to gigantic felines that could negligently use them for chew toys.

Dr Palmer shows up for her meeting with you. Another familiar face who isn’t too perky…

Well, more perky than she usually is when she’s excited about new Science!.

“We’re almost done with the dropship program, Your Majesty.” she reports. “And I have teams chomping at the bit to get started on cracking spheroid dropships. I’d strongly recommend improving our automation technology as well. Plus the usual basic research. And… did I mention that we have teams ready to start cracking some of the low-hanging fruit of later Star Leaguer technology? Ultra and LB/X autocannons, endosteel, ferrofibrous… all are in reach!”

Harry Owens is still quite forgettable. “We’re still working counter intel, and we’re still hoping to crack that datachip. Other than that, Intel’s good, Your Majesty.”

Janet, on the other hand, is her normal cheerful self. “Ya know, if you decide to make those big cute kitties…” here she pauses to give Sekhmet a tributary scritching “full citizens, I call dibs on them for patrol forces! Royal Grifftiger Mounted Police!” she proclaims grandly, gesturing with her coffee mug. “And beach patrols. Did you know that Great Shark attacks at the beaches are down 10 percent ever since you started letting Sekhmet and Bastet play on the beach?”

You didn’t know that, and soon your conversation with Janet turns more into a discussion about your respective kids than anything business related.

Complete with pictures.
 

Tolack

Active member
[X] Disagree. If people wish to dissent from your decisions, it is up to you to convince them of the rightness of your decision, not force compliance at gunpoint. You have no wish to become a tyrant. This will alienate some of your hardcore supporters, but really, what were they thinking? -10 support in Lords, -10 support in Commons, prevents certain events.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
[X] Disagree. If people wish to dissent from your decisions, it is up to you to convince them of the rightness of your decision, not force compliance at gunpoint. You have no wish to become a tyrant. This will alienate some of your hardcore supporters, but really, what were they thinking? -10 support in Lords, -10 support in Commons, prevents certain events.

[X] Plan: Bring It On
-[X] Military 5
-- [X] Field Test MGMC M1
-- [X] Train complex entry team
- [X]Interior 4
-- [X] Establish harbor on Castor
-- [X] Scout the titanium w/Penguin Fighting Grip
-- [X] Build a Battlemech Factory outside Griffsport
--[X] Build Championship Hovercraft Racing League stadium and course
-[X] Political 3
-- [X] Extend full citizenship to Grifftigers
-[X] Research 3
-- [X] Advanced Infantry Weapons - Energy
-[X] Intelligence 1
-[X] Justice 1

-[X] Train First Armored


Not as much research as I'd been hoping for because of the cost of the interior actions, but these interior actions are needed to push our economy forwards to the point where we *can* afford full slates of the big ticket items. 'coz we're definitely going to need them when the DCMS comes back for ROUND THREE.

P.S.: If anyone agrees with my plan in general but wants to use a couple of extra actions in any category, message me here or on the Discord and we can talk about it and edit it in, in order to not have split votes?
 
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Jarow

Well-known member
[X] Disagree. If people wish to dissent from your decisions, it is up to you to convince them of the rightness of your decision, not force compliance at gunpoint. You have no wish to become a tyrant. This will alienate some of your hardcore supporters, but really, what were they thinking? -10 support in Lords, -10 support in Commons, prevents certain events.

[X] Plan: Budgetary Survival
-[X] Military 5
--[X] ASF Dispersal Fields - Capricorn
(ASF field near other part of nation)
--[X] Harden Factory 1 to 1
(Protect the factory we're more likely to use sooner)
--[X] Train complex entrance team
(Cheap, gets us complex sooner)
--[X] Field Test Skysweeper AA Tank
--[X] Field Test Avenger Anti-Air Hovertank
(Integrated AA for if our ASFs can't deal with enemy)
-[X]Interior 5
--[X] Comprehensive Survey of the twin continents of Castor/Pollux*
--[X] Build a Battlemech Factory outside Griffsport
(Begin battlemech production)
--[X] Scout the Titanium w/Penguin Fighting Grip
(minor GDP boost and get us closer to titanium mine's bigger boost)
--[X] Build Championship Hovercraft Racing League stadium and course
(Happy kids and GDP boost)
--[X] Establish Harbor on Castor
(Next step towards Wolverine compound)
-[X] Diplomatic 3
--[X] Increased funding for the arts
-[X] Political 3
--[X] Extend full citizenship to Grifftigers
(Tiger citizens!)
-[X] Research 3
--[X] Aerodyne Dropships (small)*
--[X] Materials Research lvl 2
(Progress towards tech level 2)
--[X] Improved Automation lvl 3
(Economy Boost)
--[X] Advanced Infantry Weapons - Energy
(One of two weapon types, we want both)
-[X] Intelligence 3
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance
(cheap enough not to stop)
--[X] Decode recovered data drive*
-[X] Justice 2
-[X] Training
--[X] 1st Armored
(Untrained units)

Uses all our important actions, get lots of things we want, and uses up pretty much all our budget.
 

kashim3

Texan, Mandalorian, Alabamian.
[X] Disagree. If people wish to dissent from your decisions, it is up to you to convince them of the rightness of your decision, not force compliance at gunpoint. You have no wish to become a tyrant. This will alienate some of your hardcore supporters, but really, what were they thinking? -10 support in Lords, -10 support in Commons, prevents certain events.

[X] Plan: Budgetary Survival
-[X] Military 5
--[X] ASF Dispersal Fields - Capricorn
(ASF field near other part of nation)
--[X] Harden Factory 1 to 1
(Protect the factory we're more likely to use sooner)
--[X] Train complex entrance team
(Cheap, gets us complex sooner)
--[X] Field Test Skysweeper AA Tank
--[X] Field Test Avenger Anti-Air Hovertank
(Integrated AA for if our ASFs can't deal with enemy)
-[X]Interior 5
--[X] Comprehensive Survey of the twin continents of Castor/Pollux*
--[X] Build a Battlemech Factory outside Griffsport
(Begin battlemech production)
--[X] Scout the Titanium w/Penguin Fighting Grip
(minor GDP boost and get us closer to titanium mine's bigger boost)
--[X] Build Championship Hovercraft Racing League stadium and course
(Happy kids and GDP boost)
--[X] Establish Harbor on Castor
(Next step towards Wolverine compound)
-[X] Diplomatic 3
--[X] Increased funding for the arts
-[X] Political 3
--[X] Extend full citizenship to Grifftigers
(Tiger citizens!)
-[X] Research 3
--[X] Aerodyne Dropships (small)*
--[X] Materials Research lvl 2
(Progress towards tech level 2)
--[X] Improved Automation lvl 3
(Economy Boost)
--[X] Advanced Infantry Weapons - Energy
(One of two weapon types, we want both)
-[X] Intelligence 3
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance
(cheap enough not to stop)
--[X] Decode recovered data drive*
-[X] Justice 2
-[X] Training
--[X] 1st Armored
(Untrained units)
 

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