Turn 85 - Limitations Of Human Understanding
The head of the Bourbon delegation, the
Duc de Nouvelle Picardie is blustering more than before, primarily about how insulted he personally is that a ‘mere functionary’ like your Foreign Minister is conducting the negotiations rather than a member of the Imperial family. Ironically he is bloviating about this while your granddaughter’s company is deployed outside the hotel where the talks are taking place on guard duty.
You have footage of what happens next. A few hours later, Erin’s company is relieved by another company in her battalion, but rather than departing Erin parks her
Griffon assault mech off to the side, with the rest of her unit with her. She then takes the time to get out of her standard issue pilot exosuit and coolant suit and exchanges them for more ‘traditional’ mechwarrior wear, which none of your mechwarriors have ever worn but which you’d heard about from Dagny decades ago. A cooling vest, a bikini bottom, boots… and a shit eating grin. Her squad of infantry are in their usual uniforms, and the group of them blithely walk into the hotel.
Right past the august
Duc, utterly ignoring the outraged squawks of offended propriety, and heading straight towards the elaborate wine service, where she grabs a full bottle, tosses it to her sergeant, grabs a second, uses a combat knife to strike off the cork, then takes a swig from it while walking over to the furious old man.
“First Lieutenant Erin Jacqueline Griffith, Crown Princess of the Griffon Empire.” she introduces herself, smirking as she is blocked from approaching closer by the Bourbon guards. “You wanted a member of the Imperial family, you have one, now are you going to waste my time or let me get back to my men? I’ve got work to do, not all of us royal types laze about all day.”
She’s totally channeling your mother, not to mention your little sister who is laughing her ass off next to you while watching the recording. You watch as Leila confirms that yes, indeed, she is the Heir, and yes, she is a Mechwarrior and an officer in the Imperial Griffon Army. All the while Erin is making snarky remarks about puffed up popinjays keeping her either from enjoying the bar or doing her job by wasting her time.
One detail that Leila had mentioned in her dispatch, and which you confirm as you watch the recording. While the
Duc is visibly outraged, he keeps on glancing over at another individual, much less splendidly dressed than the majority of the delegation, who’s been present at every single meeting in the last several months yet has neither spoken once nor done anything to indicate why he was here. And that individual seems quite… enthralled with your granddaughter, if you are any judge of the expression on a young man’s face. And you catch the same thing Leila caught, that when the
Duc started declaring how insulted
he was, the young man had caught the older noble’s eye, and his expression had turned disapproving, for just a flash of a moment, causing the elder to visibly restrain himself and back down.
Evidently Erin caught it as well, because she takes another swig of wine, then names her ‘price’ for wasting her valuable off-duty time to be having one of his ‘useful people, not wastes of oxygen who spend far too much time styling their damn hair’ escort her on a proper bar crawl, and just coincidentally points at the same rather blandly dressed young man as her ‘chosen victim’.
You are rather amused at the flashes of utter panic on the entire Bourbon delegation’s faces at that, including the young man in question, as Erin simply bulls past the guards, grabs the young man in question by the arm, and hauls him off, calling over her shoulder that she promises to return him more or less intact. They cover it well, but you have a suspicion that your granddaughter isn’t the only ‘working’ royal on the planet at the moment. Considering that a half dozen men who’s demeanor screams ‘overworked bodyguard’ chase after the pair, accompanied by the six people of your daughter’s infantry detachment who are ‘on loan’ from the Imperial Guard, well… you don’t need to be an intelligence agent to put two plus two together and get a correct answer.
Several hours later you get a report from Erin herself. She’s managed to get the young man’s full name out of him, after enough alcohol that she unfortunately will have to report herself unfit for duty in the morning. Jean-Pierre Marie Antoine Baptiste Hugo Renaud Gaston Le Gascogne de Estiegny de Bourbon, Duc de Bourbon… and the crown prince of the ruling dynasty for the space Bourbons. And if you are translating her rather drunken ramblings you are pretty sure that you want to meet this young man with your shotgun. A more coherent report from the Sergeant indicates that nothing improper or indecent occurred, apart from some ‘surprisingly good singing’, and that the young man is sleeping it off in the guest officers quarters. The two young royals' respective bodyguards are of the mutual opinion that their charges are typical young idiots, but are ‘relatively promising’.
The report also has rather more details on just why the Bourbons are so insistent about Stahlfurt, evidently the system has long been part of their expansion plans, they’d surveyed it over a century ago and had been planning to send an initial colonial expedition when the Black Steel attacked. The entire thing had been a pet project of the current King, who was ‘rather annoyed’ that you stole a march on him, but not to the level of being obstructionist about it. Rather the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie had ‘won’ the rather vicious political infighting over which of the vassal Ducs would rule the system and is amazingly butt hurt over losing out to you when he didn’t even know he was competing with you in the first place. The young royal had been sent to put a leash on the Duc to keep him from getting the Kingdom embroiled in a war over his own ego.
The civil wars in the Nya Kopenhamn system continue to ratchet up in intensity, with your orbital forces having to continually intercept WMD strikes against the rebel groups. Your ‘advisors’ and agents are having to restrain the rebels from committing atrocities of their own, generally successfully. Granted the percentage of POWs taken is on the low side for the sort of high intensity infantry combat that you are seeing, but at least there haven’t been any outright massacres of surrendered troops or of civilians.
And then it is your favorite time of year again. Budget time!
General Jenkins starts things off as usual. You’d already chased him out of the meeting earlier when he initially showed up wearing the same thing your granddaughter had been wearing but now at least he’s properly uniformed. If a bit dripping from you throwing him into an ornamental pond ‘accidently’ a few times as payback for his alleged sense of humor.
“OK, Big Boss Man.” you silently promise to throw him in the pond again, since Palace Security is still low on the special trick glass for the Window of Defenestration. “Overall we’re in real solid shape. We are, however, running extremely short on Endo Steel, when the new megafactories come online we’re going to run out, and we can’t expand mech production at all until we get more of the stuff. We strongly recommend expanding that production sector next. We’re also running into hard limits on Ferro Fibrous production, and strongly recommend expanding production of that as well.”
He sits down with amazing insouciance, considering that his shoes are still squelching from the water in them and your Imperial Glare.
General Bradley is up next for the Imperial Griffon Army. “Your Majesty, our procurement requests this year are substantially identical to last years, although we do have a number of officers advocating for a dedicated light mech unit. I have my staff studying the possibilities, but they aren’t all that promising at this time. For now we will be continuing the buildup of Heavy and Light Brigade Combat Teams.” She brings up a chart showing the desired procurement, as well as recommendations for production expansion.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- New Strategic Material Factories
- Endosteel
- Ferro Fibrous
- Double Heat Sinks
- Expand Strategic Material Factories
- Endosteel
- Ferro Fibrous
- Double Heat Sinks
- Logistics
- New Port Royal
- Nowy Wrocław
- Okusawa
- New Phoenix
- Procurement
- Heavy/Assault Mechs
- 9 Heavy Combat Team Regiments
- Light/Medium Mechs
- 12 Medium Mech Regiments
- 12 Medium Scout Regiments
- Conventional
- 12 Air Cavalry Regiments
- 9 Heavy Armored Regiments
- 9 Mechanized Regiments
- Misc
- Add 16 Garrison Rating
- Add 16 Militia Rating
General Bradley sits down and General Romanov takes her place. “Your Majesty, the Aerospace Force is in a solid position, albeit we could benefit from increased production of Ferro-Aluminum.” She has a very short presentation, since the procurement requests are very straightforward.
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- ASF Factories
- New Capricorn
- Edelsteine
- Okusawa
- Chuma
- New Castor
- New Strategic Material Factories
- Expand Strategic Material Factories
- Procurement
- 30 Heavy Carrier Wings
- 20 Heavy Fighter Wings
Thanh is in fine form, like always, still teasing you about your granddaughter ‘seducing princes’ and dragging your wife into increasingly elaborate plots to embarrass your granddaughter with over the top wedding plans.
“OK, Your Oh So Imperial Majesty.” she grins at you as you shake your fist at her. “We’re in better shape than the ground pounders and flyboys for strategic materials, but we always want more, so guess what we’re going to be bugging you for. Also, we need more shipyards, so give them to us.” She lifts her nose in the air, sniffs. “After all, the Navy is clearly the most important of the services and…” General Jenkins manages to nail her with a super bouncy ball before you can.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Expand all Orbital Shipyards
- Expand all Refit & Repair Yards
- New Escort Yards
- New Small Warship Yards
- Nowa Warszawa
- Calliope IV
- New Medium Warship Yard
- New Strategic Materials Forges
- Expand Strategic Materials Production
- Upgrade Lamellar Ferro Carbide Factories
- Procurement
- Regular Dropships
- 80 Bainbridge-class Parasite DD
- 1 Lancer-class Parasite AA DD
- Large Dropships
- 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- 6 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
- Jumpships
- Escorts
- Small Warships
- Medium Warships
- EITHER
- OR
- 1 Furious-class Large Light Cruiser
- Miscellaneous
Elizabeth Lee is the next one up, and you are rather grateful that she’s such a steadying force in your cabinet of advisors. Not once has she gotten up to any shenanigans! Bless her!
“Your Majesty, we are prepared to support any construction requests for military production expansion. We do have several recommendations in addition to said requests. Firstly, a further expansion of the civil service would yield significant benefits in terms of future flexibility, giving us the manpower to more efficiently fulfill the myriad and oftentimes mutually contradictory needs of the Empire. Secondly we strongly recommend that we take a slight gamble and embark on a program of new cultural venue construction across the Empire. The last time that we did so it was very well received and we believe that the timing is excellent for a second round of such projects.”
She looks over her notes. “We have a pair of DoME teams available. Colonization of what has been dubbed the Piekło system, after the Polish for ‘Hell’, would require DoME assistance but would be a relatively quick project by their standards. The planet itself is very rich in essential ores, so while it would be expensive in the long term it would be worthwhile. We further recommend that we embark on initial terraforming work in the Chuma system, DoME is standing by for that project at your orders.”
She shuffles her notes again. “In addition to Piekło, we have two additional systems that are potentially colonizable. We have relief operations ongoing to GX-J24, or Bāṛi, and the locals are amenable enough to being amalgamated into the Empire. There will be a need for urgent educational, health, and terraforming initiatives there in the near future to bring the population up to speed, but they should eventually be a valuable addition to the Empire. GX-M22-2 has been dubbed Skała by the survey teams, another Polish word for ‘The Rock’. It is also a highly mineral rich world and useful to us for all that it will be difficult to colonize due to the extreme cold and thin atmosphere. Thankfully we can accomplish this without the use of DoME teams for the initial effort, although DoME will be involved in the future.”
“Finally we have this year's investment advice.” She smiles briefly and brings up a chart for you.
- Core World Development Focus
- Peripheral World Development Focus
- Investment
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zone Development
- Military Industrial Infrastructure
Leila is engaged in the diplomatic talks, and has sent you a memo that there are no new initiatives from the Foreign Ministry this year, although she does draw your attention to the benefits of sponsoring a benefit concert for the Bāṛi natives.
Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, your political team is ready to support the establishment of System governance in the three prospective colony systems. Other than that, thanks to the recent elections and such we have no specific projects in need of budgetary attention apart from Elizabeth’s recommendation that we expand the Civil Service.”
“Your Majesty, we have three R&D teams available.” Grace is up next, looking mildly annoyed although from what you’ve heard this is primarily due to how frustrating it has been dealing with the Kraken-T project. “Several of our more innovative researchers have proposed a new formulation for the ferro-fibrous armor used in many of our vehicles that promises to reduce the bulk while maintaining the protection. It would be expensive to finance that project, but it may be very valuable indeed. We primarily recommend basic science, however, for research this year.” She brings up the chart.
- R&D Project Recommendations
- 3 teams
- Advanced Ferro-Fibrous Armor
- Less bulk, equal protection
- Thermal Dissipation (Advanced)
- Structural Materials (Advanced)
General Messerschmidt has a shit-eating grin worthy of General Jenkins. Uh-oh. “Your Majesty, it is my distinct pleasure to inform you that the NRI’s Senate is debating a proposal to dedicate a week-long festival in Your Divine Honor as well as your sister’s. And evidently a project to create a multi-kilometer high statue to you is underway in the asteroid belt of Nova Jupitereum.” He starts laughing at your expression, as does everybody else in the room, the traitors. “The NRI has also surveyed GX-Q24 and are starting to colonize the system, which they are dubbing Nova Mercurium. The NRR has evidently surveyed GX-O24 but is debating what to do with the system, we haven’t managed to get our hands on the data but that may be moot as one of the leading options is to turn it over to us, as evidently it is ‘something those crazy Imperials would love’.”
Martina is up last. “Your Majesty, apart from support in establishing criminal and civil justice systems in any new colonies, the Ministry of Justice would like to request a further expansion of the IGMP in order to more readily deal with any issues that may arise with the new expansion.”
