Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[Winter_Wind45]

[X] Approve
[X] Approve Operation: Don Juan

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 75 - The Song Of The Dead, The Chorus Of Steel

It takes several weeks but the 1st Special Forces Division is dispatched to Okusawa. Two weeks later you receive the combat reports from Operation: Don Juan.

1st Raider Brigade made a mock ASF attack on a nearby bridge, mimicking a flight profile used by the ASF forces that have been supporting the invasion for months now. At the last moment they broke away, shifting to Air-Mech mode, and, flying nap of the earth, attacked the massively fortified production site from the west. All Drac response forces were drawn to this assault, while the 1st Raider Brigade made use of their speed to keep from getting pinned down and destroyed.

While this was taking place, 1st and 2nd Special Forces Brigades approached from the east, making use of the stealth characteristics of their VTOLs to evade detection. In combination with the loud distraction, the special forces units were able to infiltrate the fortifications and plant Enhanced Demolition Munitions… small 5 kiloton backpack nukes, before exfiltrating out. At the mission complete signal the 1st Raider Brigade disengaged at high speed. Moments later the charges detonated, destroying the entire facility.

The Raider Brigade took relatively heavy losses in the fighting, but were able to effectively and efficiently carry out their mission. They provided sufficient distraction and threat to open the door for the stealthy insertion and retrieval of special forces assets into a target that would otherwise have been impenetrable. As a consequence a major production site for Drac mechs, and the only site for the heavy Dragon mechs that have been the core of Drac resistance so far, has been completely destroyed.

1st Special Forces Division has been pulled to the rear for repairs, especially 1st Raider Brigade which will require replacement equipment before being fielded again at full strength. The DURF has sufficient equipment to send forward as the supply situation eases with the new civilian-built Trenton dropships starting to come off the lines. The crews aren’t the best, but for transports like this they don’t really need to be.

The fighting on Okusawa is also revealing a very uncomfortable truth. With the level of indoctrination and fanaticism shown, there really are no truly ‘civilian’ targets on the planet as much as people might wish otherwise. Ordinarily under the Standard Operating Policy that has been in place for the Griffon military from the start every effort is taken to minimize collateral damage, on the grounds that Griffon wages war on the enemy military and leadership, not the civilian population.

There has been a request from the Imperial Griffon Army to suspend that policy for this ongoing battle. They point to the casualties that have been taken due to ‘civilians’ attacking your forces, albeit with crude and makeshift weapons that are generally completely ineffective. The argument is that those poor deluded bastards are going to be killed anyway, that doing so in direct combat is causing psychological anguish to your troops who are having to gun down children, and thus instead artillery preparation should be expanded to disregard collateral damage.

The counterargument is that this policy withstood the situation on Nowa Warszawa with similarly indoctrinated civilian populations and, in the long term, resulted in a loyal and productive core world for the Empire. That it may be hard now to continue to show a mercy that is rejected, but that in the long term the benefits to the entire Empire remaining with clean hands and the ability to say that we always try to minimize harm outweighs the short term harm caused by the policy.

[]	Change the policy	Unknown effects
[]	Maintain the policy	Unknown effects

It is a somber group of advisors who meet with you to set the budget for next year. Many of them have sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, who are either among the casualties of the war so far, or are currently involved in the fighting.

General Stewart is up first. “Your Majesty, we say this every year. More production capacity is always preferable to keeping the same, we need to expand because the needs of the military continue to expand. In light of the events on Sukiashi, we also feel that expanding the orbital defenses of all systems in the Empire is highly desirable, the Silver Tower was able to at least blunt the attack, and a second would have most likely allowed us to stop it. In addition, the PPG-001 proved itself useful; we've been neglecting procurement of those for budgetary reasons. Any leftover DHS and Ferro-Aluminum capacity should, going forward, be devoted to procuring PPG-001’s.”

As General Jenkins comes up, you and he share a look for a long heartbeat, before he fractionally nods. He’s served with you in the fire. He gets it. “Sir, we took hits, we’re still taking hits, but we’re hitting back far harder. Simply to get back to our pre-battle TO&E we will require the following units to be procured.” He brings up the chart, the fact that he’s in full battle face, rather than joking around, is a testament to just why he is in charge of the Army these days for you.

• 7 Standard Mech Regiments
• 4 Mechanized Regiments
• 6 Light Horse Regiments
• 4 Armored Regiments
• 9 Armored Cavalry Regiments

“Our yearly mech production limits are 5 heavy or assault regiments and 11 light or medium regiments worth. We are therefore requesting 5 Standard Mech Regiments, 9 Armored Cavalry Regiments, 2 Light Horse Regiments, all 4 Mechanized Regiments and all 4 Armored Regiments. We would also like two Raider Regiments, 1 Rapid Response Regiment, 3 additional Armored Regiments and 6 additional Mechanized Regiments. This would use up all of our production capacity, Sir, and give us the greatest organizational results.” The procurement requests are put up on the screen.

• Mech Production
  • 5 Standard Mech Regiments
  • 9 Armored Cavalry Regiments
  • 2 Light Horse Regiments
  • 2 Raider Regiments
• Conventional Production
  • 1 Rapid Response Regiment
  • 7 Armored Regiments
  • 10 Mechanized Regiments

General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, while we would like to immediately replace the losses we took on Sukiashi the bases are unfortunately unusable at this time. In addition, we have a large number of stations and carriers that are in need of air groups. Therefore we are only requesting a pair of additional Patrol Wings for Sukiashi, as we believe we can have minimal basing facilities available for them by the time they finish working up.” The procurement requests are shown on screen.

• 20 CAP Wings
• 6 Fighter Wings
• 2 Patrol Wings

Your sister is still in rehab, and is thus not allowed to attend this meeting. Her deputy, however, is. “Your Majesty. We have taken exceptionally severe losses against the Black Steel. We had known that our parasite warships would be outmatched by dedicated Warships, but had underestimated the disparity rather badly, especially in regards to truly heavy warships.” He takes a deep breath. “Even the performance of the Silver Tower at Sukiashi was more a result of the enemy being exceptionally reckless than any virtue of the design, if the enemy McKenna and Quixote had remained at their maximum effective range rather than charged in then the station would have been overwhelmed with minimal damage to the enemy. Therefore the Navy is in a rather disturbed state at the moment. We are reorganizing our planning and procurement departments in hopes of soliciting wider ranges of solutions. For this year, however, we are under the iron law of procurement, and so are requesting the following.”

• Standard Dropships (65 slips)
  • 65 Long Beach class Parasite Destroyers
    • While the Bainbridge has heavier capital firepower, the Long Beach were the most effective screening units for our light warships and the most survivable standard parasite vessel.
• Large Dropships (27 slips)
  • 3 Puller
  • 6 Vandergrift
  • 18 Majestic
    • Next year we will likely need to procure large numbers of planetary defense ASF forces, not procuring Independence class vessels will free up production for this purpose.
• Jumpships (4 slips)
  • 4 Brig
• Warships (8 slips)
  • 8 Fletcher
    • While it is tempting to procure a mix of Dart and Dagger class vessels to make good our losses, the Fletcher is more powerful than the latter and more efficient than the former. We are examining refit proposals under the Le Fantasque project for the Fletcher design to make it more effective against enemy capital units.
• PPG-001
  • Due primarily to limits in Double Heat Sink production
    • 66 PPG-001

Bridget looks… broken like you feel. She lost two sons and a granddaughter in this war so far and it shows in how… grim she is. There’s none of the happy ball of nervous energy that is the norm for your Interior Minister. “Your Majesty, we stand ready to build anything that you need us to build, on time, on budget, or I’ll know the reason why. In addition, while it might not be the best time to think of this, we are in a position to expand the Empire by colonizing New Eden and New Castor.”

She sits back down. Isoroku takes her place. “Your Majesty, both the NRR and NRI have offered to cancel the scheduled Olympic games next year. They have both also offered forces to join us on Okusawa, mostly to free up more of our manpower for the front lines by taking over rear area security needs.”

[]	Accept NRI but not NRR	Improves relations with NRI Harms relations with NRR Chance for COINTEL event with NRI Strengthens position on Okusawa
[]	Accept NRR but not NRI	Harms relations with NRI Improves relations with NRR Chance for COINTEL event with NRR Strengthens position on Okusawa
[]	Accept both	Strengthens relations with both NRI and NRR Chance for COINTEL event with both NRI and NRR Massively strengthens position on Okusawa
[]	Accept Neither	Harms relations with both NRR and NRI No change on Okusawa

For the Olympics.

[]	Cancel the Olympics next year	No Olympics in Turn 76 Note - no chance for Econ boost from Gold Medals +5 Politics +1 Approval Change
[]	The Games Must Go On	Olympics will take place as normal -1 Approval Change -1 Politics

Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, we are well positioned to support the establishment of system governance in both the New Eden and New Castor systems if desired. We recommend against any lobbying of Parliament this year, as the war situation would make the optics of such suspect at best. We do recommend the continued expansion of the Colonial Office.”

Dr Bryant then takes the podium. “We have several teams available for R&D work. We recommend that we commence work on the Class 35 Naval Autocannon and the Kraken-T missile system. We had hoped to commence more civilian-oriented work this year, but the military situation makes that impractical at this time.”

General Messerschmidt is attending remotely from Nowa Warszawa. “Your Majesty, regular POW interrogations are, as we like to say, ‘available’. We have sufficient prisoners to hopefully be able to cross-check any intelligence results, and the nice thing with dealing with fanatics like we are is that they cannot often resist the chance to ‘get one over’ on their ‘inferiors’, makes it real easy to trick them into revealing things they’d probably rather not. Otherwise, our operations on Nya Kopenhamn are continuing as planned and we have nothing special to report.”

Martina is up next. “Your Majesty, as Lien and Bridget both noted, we are prepared to begin the proper colonization of both New Eden and New Castor, even in this year of tragedy. Your Justice Ministry is ready and able to support both projects by expanding our law enforcement system to those systems in a timely and efficient manner.”

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

[X] Maintain the policy

We know that not all of them are crazy. We saw revolts in the last few posts. We will leave the door open for soldiers to surrender. So long as there is hope.

Poor Bridget.


[X] Accept both

Only reason to reject them is if we want to hog the glory. The NRI and the NRR are actually able to contribute and not just get slaughtered (the NRI have railguns, and the NRR held their own against the Dracs).


[X] The Games Must Go On

We'll take a publicity hit now, but hopefully this is the start of a tradition of the people of Griffon holding their heads high.

 

[Winter_Wind45]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

 

[Yacovo]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

Show must go on, and let’s show the Dracs what happens when you mess with this neighborhood.

 

[IceWing_mk1]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

 

[Rukatin]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On
[X] Plan: Keep Calm and Carry On

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

 

[Artifex]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

Hell to the no switching stances on the civvies in war... That would make us a bloodthirster in direct contrast to our mother from whom we gained the "The Just" trait iirc?!

 

[Jarow]

[X] Maintain the policy
[X] Accept both
[X] The Games Must Go On

For most of this, I share Val the Moofia Boss's reasonings. However, for the "Accept Both" option, I'd point out the COINTEL event - if I had to guess I'd say this is a chance at what happened when we supported the NRI and the NRR ended up with some DHS. It's not that big an issue to me, given we have the economic and industrial power to crush them both, but it is a risk worth pointing out.

[X] Plan: Keep Calm and Carry On
-[X] Procurement [$ $351,999,798.66 ]
--[X] Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $118,105,398.60 ] (95)
---[X] 65 Long Beach [95]

---[X] 3 Puller [95]
---[X] 6 Vandergrift [95]
---[X] 18 Majestic [95]
---[X] 66 PPG-001 [95]

--[X] Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $4,764,697.20 ] (75)(->2)
---[X] 6 Brig* [->1]
---[X] 6 Brig* [->0]
---[X] 4 Brig [75]

--[X] Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $178,636,826.67 ] (80)(->3)
---[X] 8 Dagger* [->0]
---[X] 4 Dart* [->0]
---[X] 6 Fletcher* [->1]
---[X] 3 Dart* [->2]
---[X] 4 Fletcher* [->2]
---[X] 6 Dagger* [->2]
---[X] 1 Wolverine* [->2]

---[X] 8 Fletcher [80]

--[X] Purchase New Units [ $ 50,492,876.19 ] (90)
---[X] 6 Fighter Wing [auto]
---[X] 2 Patrol Wing [90]
---[X] 20 CAP Wing [90]

---[X] 2 Raider Regiment [90]
---[X] 5 Standard Mech Regiment [90]
---[X] 9 Armored Cavalry Regiment [90]
---[X] 2 Light Horse Regiment [90]

---[X] 1 Rapid Response Regiment [90]
---[X] 7 Armored Regiment [90]
---[X] 10 Mechanized Regiment [90]

-[X] General [$ 740,138,129.00 ]
--[X] Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station Calliope Nadir [->3]
(Extra defenses for our newest core world. I think I'm going to stick to recharge stations on all zeniths, and core nadirs. We'll see if that changes, but that's my plan for now)
--[X] Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station New Eden Zenith [->3]
--[X] Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station Griffon's Eye Zenith [->3]
(Adds recharge stations to our current systems we don't have one at yet)
--[X] Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station Dragon's Eye* [->1]
--[X] Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station New Phoenix* [->1]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower Nowy Wroclaw* [90]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower Edelsteine* [90]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower Nowa Warzsawa III* [90]

--[X] Construct Silver Tower Sukiashi [->3]
(Old one got blown up, so it needs a replacement)
--[X] Construct Silver Tower New Phoenix [->3]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower New Eden [->3]
(Planets that currently don't have a silver tower)
--[X] Construct Silver Tower 2 Griffons Roost [->3]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower 2 Nowy Gdansk [->3]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower 2 Griffon IV [->3]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower 2 Nowa Warzsawa [->3]
--[X] Construct Silver Tower 2 Calliope IV [->3]
(All our core planets need extra defenses first)

--[X] Colonize New Eden [85]
--[X] Establish System Government - New Eden [85]
--[X] Set up judicial system - New Eden [85]
(I think the economic boosts from one system is acceptable to risk needing to defend. We don't have the ASF production to colonize the other one though)
--[X] Major Economic Investment Calliope IV [70]
(It's a core world now, so it gets the core world economic boost)
--[X] Expand Colonial Office (per level) [75]
(No reason to run into an issue with our ability to manage all our systems)
--[X] Build HPG Station Dragon's Eye* [80]
--[X] Build HPG Station New Phoenix* [80]
--[X] Build HPG Station Griffon's Eye* [80]
--[X] Build HPG Station New Eden* [80]

--[X] Broadcast Propaganda to Nya Kopenhamn III* [~]
--[X] Broadcast Propaganda to Nya Kopenhamn IV* [~]
--[X] Upgrade All DHS Factories [75]
(We need more DHS.)
--[X] Interrogate POWs [75]
(POW interrogation might not get us much, but it might get us something. So it needs to be done)
--[X] Build Orbital Factory DHS New Phoenix [110]
--[X] Build Orbital Factory DHS Kuroisora [110]
--[X] Build Orbital Factory DHS New Capricorn [110]
--[X] Build Orbital Factory DHS Nowy Wroclaw [110]
(More DHS, and helps boost economy of our richest periphery worlds)

--[X] Build LAM Factory on Calliope IV [->1]
(I want a nice round 3 LAMs per turn. Probably going to stop after we get that)
--[X] Build ASF Factory Complex New Phoenix [90]
--[X] Build ASF Factory Complex Nowy Slask [90]
--[X] Build ASF Factory Complex New Capricorn [90]
--[X] Build ASF Factory Complex Nowy Wroclaw [90]
(We need more ASF production. Being built on our viable periphery planets for the econ boost)
--[X] Expand Capital Shipyard* [auto]
--[X] Expand All Shipyards [100]
--[X] Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]

-[X] DoME [$ 1,395,000,000.00 ]
--[X] Terraform Calliope II* [->1]
--[X] Terraform Calliope V* [->1]
--[X] Construct O'Neill Cylinder Cluster in Griff's Leap* [->4]
--[X] DOME - Arcology Cluster Griffon* [->3]
--[X] DOME - Megafactory Griffon* [->2]
--[X] DOME - Megafactory Nowa Warzsawa* [->2]
--[X] Initial Recovery Work on Sukaishi* [->1]
--[X] DOME - Underwater City Griffon's Roost [->9]
(We'll need more money, and a city protected by being underwater might be a bit safer in case of an attack via orbital bombardment)
--[X] Edelsteine Initial Terraforming and Colonization* [->4]

-[X] Research [$ 465,000,000.00 ]
--[X] Lamellar Ferro-Carbide* [->3]
--[X] Analyze Catachan* [75]
--[X] Kraken-T Capital Missile [->4]
(Very useful naval technology)
--[X] Naval Autocannon/35 [->1]
(Potentially useful naval weapon)
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Theory III* [->3]
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Design III* [->3]
--[X] Advanced Standard Core Construction III* [->3]
--[X] Advanced Compact Core Theory III* [->2]
--[X] Advanced Compact Core Design III* [->2]
--[X] Advanced Compact Core Construction III* [->2]

-[X] Miscellaneous [$ 317,100,000.00 ]
--[X] Peacekeeping [2,000,000][->?]
--[X] Megafactory [15,000,000][->1]
--[X] Mass Dropshipping [300,000,000][->0]
--[X] People Purchase [0][->0]
--[X] DOME - Plant Subarctic Forests GIV* [QM Penance][->0]

1.7b leftover. This plan has a strong focus on building defenses everywhere. Which we now know is needed. New Castor colonization isn't happening because we don't have the available ASF production for the white tower jump point defenses we still need to build there. Hopefully the new factories and not building Independences this turn will help us get that back under control.

According to Sunhawk while talking about it, the Kilborrough purchase doesn't require payment to start until next turn, so that's why it's $0. If wrong, it shouldn't affect things too much. Subarctic Forests (the last part of Griffon IV terraforming) is supposed to finish this turn. It got lost off tracker and then we needed the slot it was/wasn't in due to events, so we're getting it for free. Never mind, forest was completed a while ago and my tracking attempt for it failed miserably.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Plan: Keep Calm and Carry On

 

[Rukatin]

[X] Plan: Keep Calm and Carry On

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] Change the policy

WTF, guys!?!?!?!

Not changing the policy means, "Civilian authorities become aggressively delusional and demand that the military continue treating fanatical Drac militia as innocent civilians, regardless of casualties."

[X] Accept both
[X] Cancel the Olympics next year

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

[X] Change the policy

Our soldiers matter more to me than the dracs

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 75 - I, I Am The Sword, I Do The Work Of The Lord

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating rolls

Meta Event	21
Dynasty Luck	37
	Successes
Imperial Approval	5
Approval Change	0
Political Event	-2
	Successes
Imperial Economy	3
Economic Event	1
Research Event	0
Griffon	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	0
Nowa Warszawa	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1
Calliope IV	Econ	4
	Health	0
	Event	0
TTP	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	3
New Capricorn	Econ	0
	Health	3
	Event	2
Nowy Śląsk	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	0
Edelsteine	Econ	0
	Health
	Event	3
Nowy Wroclaw	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	4
Griff's Leap	Econ	3
	Health
	Event	4
New Phoenix	Econ	10
	Health	1
	Event	2

Spoiler: Action Rolls

Plan: Keep Calm and Carry On
- Procurement [$ $351,999,798.66 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $118,105,398.60 ] (95)
--- 65 Long Beach [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 88
Result - SUCCESS
--- 3 Puller [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS
--- 6 Vandergrift [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS
--- 18 Majestic [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 81
Result - SUCCESS
--- 66 PPG-001 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS
-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $4,764,697.20 ] (75)(->2)
--- 4 Brig [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS
-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $178,636,826.67 ] (80)(->3)
--- 8 Fletcher [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS
-- Purchase New Units [ $ 50,492,876.19 ] (90)
--- 6 Fighter Wing [auto]
--- 2 Patrol Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS
--- 20 CAP Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS
--- 2 Raider Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS
--- 5 Standard Mech Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS
--- 9 Armored Cavalry Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 36
Result - SUCCESS
--- 2 Light Horse Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS
--- 1 Rapid Response Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS
--- 7 Armored Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS
--- 10 Mechanized Regiment [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS
- General [$ 740,138,129.00 ]
-- Construct Silver Tower Nowy Wroclaw* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 92
Result -Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)
-- Construct Silver Tower Edelsteine* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 93
Result -Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)
-- Construct Silver Tower Nowa Warzsawa III* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 92
Result -Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)
-- Colonize New Eden [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS
-- Establish System Government - New Eden [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS
-- Set up judicial system - New Eden [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS
-- Major Economic Investment Calliope IV [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS
-- Expand Colonial Office (per level) [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build HPG Station Dragon's Eye* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 8
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build HPG Station New Phoenix* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 52
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build HPG Station Griffon's Eye* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 48
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build HPG Station New Eden* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 48
Result - SUCCESS
-- Broadcast Propaganda to Nya Kopenhamn III* [~]
-- Broadcast Propaganda to Nya Kopenhamn IV* [~]
-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS
-- Interrogate POWs [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 27
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build Orbital Factory DHS New Phoenix [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build Orbital Factory DHS Kuroisora [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build Orbital Factory DHS New Capricorn [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build Orbital Factory DHS Nowy Wroclaw [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 95
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build ASF Factory Complex New Phoenix [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build ASF Factory Complex Nowy Slask [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 46
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build ASF Factory Complex New Capricorn [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS
-- Build ASF Factory Complex Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS
-- Expand Capital Shipyard* [auto]
-- Expand All Shipyards [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS
-- Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

- DoME [$ 1,395,000,000.00 ]

- Research [$ 465,000,000.00 ]
-- Analyze Catachan* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-----

The fighting on Okusawa has reached a critical point. All of the Dragon’s reserves are now committed, apart from the Otomo in his palace. The palace itself is so massively armored and fortified that orbital strikes have been completely useless against it, seeing as how it is buried under a massive mountain range.

The 1st Assault Division had seen absolutely no combat the entire battle to this point, being kept in reserve for just this moment. The transports that had carried them to Okusawa had sat at the center of the ring of dropships at the initial landing zone and hadn’t moved, hadn’t even opened their hatches, all to deny the enemy any idea what was inside.

They relaunched now, and 6 Assault Regiments and 3 Standard Mech Regiments came screaming in on an orbital insertion making use of detachable jump packs. Those packs had been checked, rechecked, double checked, thoroughly overhauled, checked again, and made damn near perfect. And for once the Demon Murphy smiles indulgently, because none of them fail, allowing the entire division to land safely.

The fighting is ferocious between the 1st and the Otomo, who are clearly still the best mechwarriors in the entire Drac force.

You get a video of what happens next, and you resolve to not let Siriwan anywhere near a kitchen or seafood of any variety for, oh, the next million years or so.

Because one of the Griffon Assault Mechs suddenly steps forward and broadcasts a direct challenge to the Dragon, declaring the Dragon to be nothing but a fat and cowardly lizard hiding behind true warriors and unwilling to face an enemy mech to mech, waxing rather poetic about fat politicians aping their warrior betters.

This evidently so enraged the Dragon that he actually took the bait, charging out in his gold plated Atlas to ‘crush the fool who challenges the glorious Dragon!’. It sounds like he’s actually frothing at the mouth.

The ensuing duel is brutal on its own, and remarkably the Otomo stand aside, not interfering at all. Your own forces have no idea what to do in this situation, as it doesn’t exist in any of the training manuals, nor any of the tactical guides, as anything but a ‘don’t do something this stupid you egotistical maniacs’ rule.

In the end the Griffon is victorious, the Atlas goes down as the gyro finally fails due to concentrated damage. The gold plated enemy mech falls face first.

Then the event that will have Siriwan raging for, oh, all eternity, occurs. There’s a brief pause, then the access hatch to the Griffon pops open and Siriwan’s ward, Taikoku Takeda himself, wearing a standard issue Mechwarrior combat suit slides down the deployed rope to the ground, wearing a full daisho set. He then proceeds to march over to the downed mech, use a small breaching charge to force open the cockpit hatch, and physically drags the still alive, but clearly nearly unconscious and injured old Dragon out of the mech.

The young man than snatches the tanto from the Dragon’s belt, holding it up and slowly displaying it to all watching, before contemptuously tossing it aside… the Dragon had failed to commit seppuku when defeated, like an honorable warrior would even in the state he was in. He then removes the rest of the Dragon’s daisho set, snapping each priceless ancient sword over his knee in a further expression of utter and total disgust, his actions showing that the blades were irrecoverably shamed by being wielded by such a complete coward.

And then came the part that brings the pucker factor up to 11, the young man forces the dazed Dragon to his knees, then smoothly draws his own wakizashi in a lightning fast iaijutsu draw, before vertically cleaving the Dragon in half… the sort of execution limited to bandits and honorless criminals in ancient Japan. He then drew out a silk cloth, cleaned his blade with meticulous precision, sheathed it, then clasped his hands behind his back, looking at the closest Otomo mech with a raised eyebrow.

It is silent for a long minute, then first one, then another, of the Otomo mechs powers down.

Contrary to wishful thinking the fighting doesn’t cease, the ISF is still as fanatical as ever, but Drac coordination is completely gone, with the fanatics now launching suicidal charge after charge against your forces. There’s no longer any need for tactics, just holding your ground and turning the front line into a killing field.

You are genuinely shocked just how many casualties you are forced to inflict before the Dracs finally break. At the end the enemy was actually having to clamber their mechs over piles of dead machines just to get the chance to die to your massed fire.

And they kept on coming. Until there are almost none left, and even then your men are having to deal with faked surrenders or injured Dracs with one final grenade to take one more enemy with them. But by the end of the month the fighting is finally over. Okusawa is yours, and in the end you didn’t have to quite kill everybody on the planet.

But you are absolutely certain that a certain Emperor is going to be having his ear twisted hard and getting a combination of a severe dressing down and all the hugs, because you are absolutely certain that Siriwan is going to lose her shit over what the damn fool boy just did.

But in the end it might have been the only way to actually end this. Once the lunatics and utter mindless fanatics were all dead, the remaining civilian and military forces surrendered. Not to you. But to him, as he publicly claims his titles as the rightful Emperor of Japan by virtue of his lineage and his conquest of the ‘false Shogun’ calling himself a Dragon.

You do receive one very unwelcome piece of news. All of the Silver Towers that were supposed to be completed this year will be ready on time after all. Seems that when you expedited the mass production of those 100 Trentons some bright spark had saved a bit of effort and money for the treasury by sending components that should have gone into the stations to the civilian yards to speed up production of the transports.

The stations will be ready next year, and you can’t even be mad at the logistics people, because they adhered to their instructions and fulfilled their jobs perfectly, only they were perfectly accomplishing the wrong thing, sort of, kind of, a little.

A mass of new dropships have been laid down, partially making up for the enormous losses you’ve suffered this year. In addition more jumpships and warships are laid down as well as all of the yards and refit facilities getting a significant upgrade this year. You even get an extra warship slip in the Griffon system.

The upgrades to the Double Heat Sink factories is quite successful, as is the construction of the new sets of said factories throughout the empire. This is a good thing, although now Ferro Aluminium might become more of a bottleneck as you also boosted the manufacturing capacity for ASFs.

In a piece of very nice news the new Megafactory on Nowy Slask has been completed, giving you another production line of Heavy or Assault mechs.

All of the new ASF and ground forces units are operational, the various military academies breathing collective sighs of relief at managing to graduate enough qualified personnel for all of them on time and on budget.

You really need to do something nice for them sometime soon.

New Eden has been properly colonized. The planet will be a nice breadbasket, but not much of a contributor economically due to how poor it is in terms of mineral content. You will not be able to build any meaningful industry here, but over time the exports of foodstuffs should help support the Core worlds quite nicely.

Even though the infrastructure on Calliope IV is, in general, rather shiny and new you do invest quite a bit to beautify things and tie it all together into a coherent theme. The local system government decides to go with a decidedly Germanic style, with faux half-timbered looks, lots of stonework, and public buildings that look like they stepped out of a Gothic revival.

All of the new HPG stations are online, and next year the Fletchers which commission will have the first mobile HPGs, along with HMS Morristown which will be completing her refit in Q1 of next year.

POW interrogations bear some interesting fruit. It would have been nice to have this a few months ago when it would have been useful, but better to have it and no longer need it than to not have it at all you guess.

According to POWs the Otomo have been completely insulated from the ISF fanaticism, as the Dragon evidently believes that simply by virtue of being elite mechwarriors and samurai their loyalty is absolutely assured without any need for any secret police standing over them. Apparently they actually believe themselves to be proper samurai, insist on samurai etiquette, and to the obvious disgust of the POWs who spill the beans actually more or less follow Bushido rather than raw devotion to the Dragon as some sort of living god.

Well, now you know.

The R&D teams working on the Catachan problem report back. It’s… going to be difficult to ever properly colonize the place, even to the minimal amount needed to harvest the harjel precursor chemicals.

The plant life is so incredibly aggressive that it would take months of constant nuclear bombardment with cobalt jacketed warheads to even have a hope of clearing it, and even then there are indications from experimental work that the stuff would evolve to handle it. The only solution they can find is that it appears the plant life is totally non-reactive to, of all things, ferro-carbide armor. Something in the chemical composition of ferro-carbide prevents the plants from latching on, although they certainly try. At least an inch of the substance is required for any meaningful protection, and even then any gaps would be instantly exploited.

What they propose is to build ferro-carbide towers high enough in the atmosphere that the plants simply cannot survive the conditions, then build habitats up there. Scoops made of ferro-carbide would then be used to harvest the harjel precursors. It would be incredibly difficult work, but in the end it may be worth it due to the incredible rarity of the chemicals in question.

Needless to say, if the decision is made to go forward, DoME is going to be very busy here.

 

[Yacovo]

MAXIMUM DISHONORALITY!
Takeda wins.
So Okusawa goes to the TTP?

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

Glad that nutjob is dead even if it won't bring back the untold millions he's ordered killed

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 76 - Here Our Soldiers Stand

Early in January you have a sort of grimly amusing situation on your hands. Resistance on Okusawa has collapsed and your occupation forces are shifting to a post-war reconstruction stance, complicated by the various ISF holdouts and fanatic attacks.

The situation, however, is complicated by the Otomo, who have declared young Takeda to be tenno and Siriwan to thus lawfully be shogun, and who insist that they are merely serving the rightful ruler, not having ever surrendered to a gaijin like your field commander. He, in his turn, is not all that interested in restarting a battle with an ultra-elite Assault weight unit over a point of pride. So long as they obey the kid and Siriwan, that’s fine with him, but he wants them off the damn planet before there are any incidents.

Takeda had never intended this, he had thought he’d be able to overawe them into surrendering... to YOU, not himself, and while he’d expected to get a proper bollocking from Siriwan, the fact that she’s now insisting that since he brought the Otomo home with him, figuratively at least, he’s now responsible for them and she is not, to extend the metaphor beyond the limits of plausibility, going to take them out for walks.

Reading between the lines, it looks like the Otomo are taking a sort of grim amusement at the entire situation. But it is clear from the reports that these men, as there are no women in their ranks, are warriors first, warriors last, warriors always. And when not being warriors they are being warriors. They’re probably being warriors while sleeping. And you thought you were bad in that regard.

The easiest thing to do in this situation is to just let it go, let Takeda and Siriwan handle the mess and wash your hands of the entire affair. Okusawa is too heavily militarized to be easily transferred to the non-militarized TTP, and both Takeda and Siriwan agree that they don’t want the damn place anyways.

Besides, it makes the pre-cleanup Nowa Warszawa look like a pristine natural paradise. According to the reports the pollution is so bad that respirator masks are critical survival gear on some days, and the single leading cause of illness among civilians is tainted water. Simply passing out water purifying canteens to civilians is reducing illness by over 60%.

But the Otomo. Like all elite units of the Dracs it is highly likely that they’ve committed atrocities, although there’s no documentary evidence of this according to Siriwan it would have been standard practice. None of them are talking, and you can’t really prove anything. And you have a sinking suspicion that the easiest way to see them revolt, rampage, and wreak utter havoc is to try and call them on that fact. On the other hand, you have a little list, they’re on the little list, and you don’t think they’ll be missed. You’re sure they won’t be missed.

Great, you are now even thinking in Gilbert and Sullivan, damn the Black Pumpernickels.
You have a few options here.

[]	Let Siriwan and Takeda handle it	Siriwan and Takeda are fully aware of your opinions on this and have both rather fully acculturated to Griffon attitudes on things like war crimes and atrocities. Leave it in their hands to handle things and trust them to do it right. The kid’s heart is in the right place, and Siriwan is very trustworthy (and Grifftiger approved)
[]	Bite the bullet and force them into POW camps	There will be one hell of a fight, because they will not go quietly, and the sheer lethality of these men will lead to a large number of casualties, plus if they succeed at all it will give the ISF holdouts some renewed morale. On the other hand, it would satisfy your own desire for vengeance on these monsters alongside that of many of your own people.
[]	Be sneaky, get them separated from their mechs, then have Spec Ops take them all down hard and fast	As far as you are concerned honorable treatment is for actually honorable combatants. These men claim to be honorable, and by their own twisted lights they may well be, and they did at least honor the results of the duel. But they are monsters, not men, who have doubtless committed atrocities that should see them strung up by the neck until dead in the execution fields. Spec Ops should be able to take them down by surprise and murder all of the monsters.

There’s some extremely good economic news from Edelsteine as an incredibly rare and valuable rare earth element asteroid is discovered and is now in the process of being mined. Investment in mining ventures in the system has skyrocketed, which should put things in an exceptionally good position for the system government in a few years when proper colonization begins with the completion of the current DoME project.

You manage to wiggle a few more details out of the Kilburroughan ambassador at a ceremony for the arrival of the second batch of fetuses and the payment for the same about the attack. ‘Several’ warships, whatever that means, one of which was ‘big enough to survive long enough to scratch our paint! Which is a totally unacceptable act of unconscionable aggression! We will have to spend over a billion credits on completely making the exterior decor right again because it turns out some fragments of paint spalled off of the affected location and is marring the paint jobs of adjacent components of the defense station!’

You are very proud of yourself that you didn’t deck the self-indulgent fool right in the kisser.

Thanh is still in rehab, albeit now rehab with cloned legs that she’s relearning how to use. Your little sister has already forced the doctors to allow her to go back to work. She has insisted on a full Naval Review Board for the performance of the Navy in the fighting. It’s too early to do something similar for the ground forces, as they are mostly still deployed assisting the garrison units as you try and settle things down from a boil to a simmer.

There’s two ways you can handle this, wait until the Army and Aerospace Force are ready to commence their reviews, and combine it all together, or hold separate Review Boards for all three services.

[]	Initiate review boards separately for each Service as well as a later General Review Board	Argument Pro - Each service has expertise in their own operations and conducting their own review boards will allow them to more fully explore their own internal issues. Once this is complete, then the General Board will have a fuller picture to work from Argument Con - It will be more expensive to hold 3 individual branch boards, followed by the General board. Best to just do it all at once and accept the loss of efficiency	Each individual service review will cost $250,000,000.00 and the final General Review Board will take an action and cost $500,000,000.00 Will receive detailed reviews broken down by service to guide future planning, procurement, and design Highest cost, lowest risk of missing things
[]	Combine it all into a single General Review Board	Argument Pro - Ultimately the military is a combined operations force with each ‘slice’ affecting and being affected by the others. Doing all of the Reviews together just makes sense Argument Con - While cheaper and more efficient, a combined Review Board may mask issues that exist solely within the sphere of one or another of the services by overemphasizing ‘joint’ operations	General Review Board will take an action in the planning/budget phase and will cost a total of $750,000,000.00 Will receive a brief summary of broad-based conclusions Cheapest cost, has a chance of missing things

The Olympics are being held in the NRI on Nova Roma. Unfortunately for the first time ever there are no members of the Imperial Family available to send, so you send a delegation headed up by Bastet and your Foreign Minister. Bastet is practically family anyways, is your reasoning for this, and she is rather excited about going. She did earn a light tail swat from the Eldest for gloating about it a little too hard, but you can’t have everything.

Finally, it appears that the Department of Periphery Studies thinks that everybody is being far too serious and have organized a protest about there not being enough protests going on. This is far too meta. Funny though, slogans like ‘Protest something!’ and ‘We don’t know why we’re here, but it seemed like a good idea at the time!’ seem to inspire nothing but giggles. The fact that they are disrupting traffic, spraying silly string everywhere, and generally being their annoying selves… ugggggggg.

 

[Trashman.exe]

[X] Let Siriwan and Takeda handle it
[X] Initiate review boards separately for each Service as well as a later General Review Board

They can deal with this problem and unless Jarow says it's too expensive I'm going with the more boards.