Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Turn 93 - Leaving My Family Behind Me

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
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Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 93 - Leaving My Family Behind Me
The largest naval armada in Griffon Empire history has been assembled in the Okusawa system. It has been dubbed the Grand Fleet by a history minded admiral, but Admiral Fisher is not in command, rather Operation Bump, as it has been dubbed, is being led by Rear Admiral Michael von Falkenrick. The Grand Fleet is made up of the following task forces.

NameComposition & Mission
Task Force 1
  • Mission
    • Core unit, anchoring the entire fleet
  • Composition
    • Battlecruisers
      • 4 Scharnhorst-class Battlecruisers
    • Heavy Cruisers
      • 3 Canarias-class Heavy Cruisers
      • 6 Exeter-class Heavy Cruisers
      • 16 Wichita-class Heavy Cruisers
    • Jumpship
      • 1 Windjammer
Task Force 2
  • Mission
    • Primary screening force for the battle line
  • Composition
    • Light Cruisers
      • 14 Dido-class Light Cruisers
      • 9 Cleveland-class Light Cruisers
    • Destroyers
      • 25 Fubuki-class Destroyers
      • 25 Fletcher Flight II-class Destroyers
Task Force 3
  • Mission
    • Independent strike force
  • Composition
    • Light Cruisers
      • 7 Dido-class Light Cruisers
      • 10 Cleveland-class Light Cruisers
    • Destroyers
      • 25 Fletcher Flight II-class Destroyers
    • Corvettes
      • 30 Lyr-class Corvettes
Task Force 4
  • Mission
    • Fleet Train
  • Composition
    • Repair Ships
      • 3 Vestal-class Repair Ships
    • Logistics Ships
      • 12 Supply-class Fleet Logistics Ships
    • Destroyers
      • 10 England-class Destroyers
      • 20 Samuel B. Roberts-class Destroyers

The current planning for Operation Bump is that the initial strike will be at the Griffon’s Eye, to destroy any Black Steel forces still present in the system. Once the system is cleared, Task Force 3 and 4 will remain to engage in salvage while Task Force 1 and 2 proceed to New Eden to resupply. Once Task Force 3 and 4 rejoin the fleet, Task Force 1 and 2 will then proceed to Stahlkampfauge, jumping in well off axis from the usual Zenith/Nadir arrival.

The intention is to jump in far enough out to remain undetected. The fleet will carry along multiple Sentinel-class recon dropships on board the lone conventional jumpship, which will proceed to make a high speed pass through the system, hopefully drawing Black Steel forces out of position while Task Force 1 and 2 creep in under minimal power, the Windjammer will jump out in hopes of fooling the Black Steel into thinking this is a simple recon mission.

Task Force 3 and 4 will be prepared for an immediate jump if needed from New Eden, however the plan is that they will wait for two weeks then jump in together on the opposite side of the system, ostensibly to pick up the Sentinels. As soon as they jump in, Task Force 1 and 2 will go to maximum acceleration and head directly for the main Black Steel base in the system. Task Force 3 will likewise go to full acceleration at the repair yards in the system. Effectively the Black Steel should be caught betwixt and between, with a pair of serious threats that they need to honor, but which would require them to either split up their forces to deal with both or attempt to overwhelm one or the other. Task Force 3 has more than enough acceleration to lead any attempt to intercept them by heavy forces on a merry chase throughout the outer system, while Task Forces 1 and 2 should be able to easily deal with any enemy heavy forces that confront them.

At least that is the plan, and while it is somewhat complicated you have the advantage of the initiative and solid communications, so adjustments can be readily made on the fly as it were.
[]Approve Operation Bump
[]Back to the drawing board boys

The overall economy of the Empire has entered a bit of a slump. It’s still growing, just at a very low rate, and revenues are down significantly as economic activity slows. The Core worlds are pretty heavily hit, although in a bit of welcome economic news Kainga has been officially designated as a Core system, which spurs a small rally in the markets, although nothing massive.

You get a report from the Bourbon battle against the Rouges Noir. The odd behavior observed has been quantified and isn’t nearly as foolish as you’d first thought. The seemingly primitive ‘line up in ranks and fire volleys’ came from stations that were effectively a small caliber naval autocannon, a large magazine for same, minimal attitude control and station-keeping thrusters, and detachable crew modules wrapped in a thin layer of cheap armor and used to deny areas of advance. All of the ‘easy’ routes into the system are covered by these cheap stations, forcing the Bourbons to advance via a round-about route that leaves them vulnerable to constant harassment attacks from flotillas of missile-armed corvettes, combat dropships, and ASF strikes. By the time the Bourbon fleet reached the planet itself they were pretty badly battered, and unable to decisively claim orbital supremacy. They managed contested landings, but it is quite obvious that far from being fools, the Rouges Noir have a very sophisticated and capable defensive scheme in place that relies on a solid reading of the character of the Bourbons. Your forces would be able to break it, mostly because the Bourbons are far more obsessed with individual ‘honor’ and ‘glory’, and thus are rather easily baited into ambushes and distractions.

The fallout from the disastrous Olympics continues. The head of the Griffon Olympics Committee has resigned, along with many of the other senior officials. There are no indications of, nor allegations of, any wrongdoing, but in a statement they take full responsibility for the failures and state that the only honorable thing to do in this case is to resign and allow fresh blood to take over.

There is a tragedy a bit closer to home. Your Political Advisor, Vinh Thuy Lien, was on vacation skiing at a resort on the Phoenix continent of Griffon when she suffered a catastrophic accident, killing her instantly. As far as investigators are able to determine she simply lost control while skiing downhill, hit a tree, and broke her neck.

You attend the funeral, which is a very somber occasion indeed. However, as much as you’d like to take the time to mourn, you need to find a replacement for her as quickly as possible.

Dr Daniel Mitchell (PhD) is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and holds the Eleanor Chapman Chair in the Political Science Department, named after your great-grandmother’s first political advisor. He’s an academic, well-regarded in the field but prone to both the vices and virtues of the breed. For what it’s worth, your great aunt Lisa is lukewarm about him, telling you that he’ll give you solid advice, as far as it goes, but will not be able to keep his own opinions out of it.

Kornelia Zarzycka is your current press secretary. She’s done a solid job, but is very young for the full Political Advisor position, plus has a somewhat adversarial relationship with the press which is excellent for a press secretary, less so for a political advisor.

Fujita Toshiaki is currently the Eldest’s chief of staff in the Senate. The Eldest has playfully threatened to eat you if you poach his chief of staff, but then again, the Eldest was the one who put his name in the nomination pile in the first place. You’ve met the man, and he’s quite competent but in your opinion rather… bland and colorless.

Finja Mayr has recently finished her term as the governor of the Calliope system, and brings with her a host of business contacts. She is fairly well known, but has a number of political enemies even among your supporters due to her history of hard nosed negotiations with the Imperial Parliament.

Tiberius Artorius Luccius is, as the name strongly suggests, an immigrant from the NRI who actually was Lien’s senior deputy. He’s rather young for it, but has already built very strong relations with the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. He’s also already been roped into babysitting duty a time or two, and you’ve known him for years, as he was in your class at Griffin's Roost University and you’d partnered with him on a number of class projects at the time.

[]NameKnown Advantages/Disadvantages
[]Dr Daniel Mitchell PhD
  • Extremely well qualified
    • +5 to target numbers of all Political actions
  • Aloof & Arrogant Academic
    • Each turn, -5 to relations with Senate and Chamber of Delegates
[]Kornelia Zarzycka
  • Young and Enthusiastic
    • Each turn, +1 to Approval Change
  • Abrasive relations with the media
    • Each turn, -1 Approval
[]Fujita Toshiaki
  • Exceptionally Competent
    • Each turn, +5 to relations with Senate and Chamber of Delegates if beneath cap
  • Amazing Power of Boredom
    • Boring… boring… boring… boring… boring
    • IE the QM will write him as amazingly boring
[]Finja Mayr
  • Well Connected in Business
    • Each turn, +1 Imperial Economy
  • Many enemies
    • Each turn, -1 Politics
[]Tiberius Artorius Luccius
  • Parliament loves him & Cookies
    • Reroll first failure of any Chamber or Senate roll
    • His wife bakes the most amazing buckeyes
  • Roman
    • The QM will take this as license to be even sillier with the Romanisms, you’ve been warned!
 

Trashman.exe

Well-known member
[X] Approve Operation Bump
[X] Fujita Toshiaki

Fujita’s benefit isn’t the best but is balanced by the downside not being bad, besides he’s going to be more of a punishment for Sun than us with the fact he’ll have to make him incredibly boring all the time.
 

AlphaOmega

Well-known member
[X]Tiberius Artorius Luccius
Let the deification continue! Who knows, maybe the Emperor who reestablishes contact with the IS will be named Augustus?
 

Jarow

Well-known member
[X] Tiberius Artorius Luccius

Seems a nice bonus, both in quest terms and in story enjoyment.

Fujita ("Boring") is probably the next best, but it's not hard to keep senate/house approval up (provided we keep influence down so they don't go crazy), so he doesn't do much most of the time.

Dr Mitchell (academic) will constantly decrease things, effectively stealing 2 general slots permanently. No.

Kornelia (press secretary) trades a meta stat for the stat itself (and that stat is effectively tax rate, very important). Could be useful, but is very slow to provide benefit.

Mayr (businessperson) trades politics (tax rate meta-meta stat) for imperial economy (very small GDP effect), not really worth it.


No, on to more important matters:

[X] Approve Operation Bump

Hard to argue against killing Black Steel.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
[X] Approve Operation Bump
[X] Fujita Toshiaki

When it comes to my politics...boring is awesome. That, and he really doesn't have any negatives. I like that part.


Though I do want to make sure that we're not leaving any critical areas naked with this attack.
 
Turn 93 - We Worked In Gangs For All We Were Worth

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 93 - We Worked In Gangs For All We Were Worth

Operation Bump - Phase I


The Grand Fleet jumps into the Griffon’s Eye system at 1538 Unified Griffon Time. At 1554 UGT Black Steel fleet elements were detected within the system. Initial identification placed the OPFOR at 4 McKenna-class, 4 Farragut-class, 2 Texas-class and a pair of unidentified 2 million ton warships, they were accompanied by a dozen Essex-class destroyers, three dozen Lola III-class destroyers, and a single Aegis-class ship that, strangely, held well back from the rest of the enemy formation.

Acting on a hunch, Admiral von Falkenrick detached his fastest units, the Bainbridge-class parasite destroyers, to attack that Aegis. Black Steel forces immediately fell back to defend the cruiser, confirming the Admiral’s hunch, and he recalled the parasite destroyers before they could be engaged. After this, he made full use of the massive numbers of ASFs he had available to him to send in strike after strike, while keeping his heavy units well out of reach of the enemy. As he had the positional advantage in that they couldn’t break past him to the KF limit without coming into his range, he was able to bleed the enemy with comparatively minor damage to his own forces although, to be fair, the ASF pilots might disagree with the word ‘minor’.

A week into this sparring, he received an HPG message from New Eden, Black Steel reinforcements had been spotted recharging well away from the jump points, trying to be sneaky. At this point Admiral von Falkenrick changed tactics and closed in aggressively.

He directed his lighter ships to focus fire on that Aegis, while his heavy units brawled with the enemy battleline. In total tonnage the Black Steel still had the advantage, with 10 capital ships that were each individually much larger than anything in the Griffon fleet, but your navy’s tactics nullified much of that advantage. For the first time you actually had more parasite dropships and ASFs than the Black Steel, and used that advantage ruthlessly. The loss of the Aegis resulted in a noticeable decrease in efficiency for the Black Steel forces as their coordination seemed to fall apart.

Phase 1 of the Battle of the Griffon’s Eye concluded with the total destruction of the Black Steel fleet, in exchange for 3 Didos, a pair of Exeters, and a dozen other warship casualties, not counting the eighteen Corvus-class corvettes the Romans lost shielding your own ships from enemy fire in displays of suicidal gallantry. Most of the rest of your forces are damaged to varying degrees.

Admiral von Falkenrick promptly turned his forces around and raced for the Zenith point, as prior analysis of Black Steel tactics indicated that they usually liked to jump in at the Zenith first for combat operations. He got there with a few hours to spare, as the Black Steel reinforcements jumped in three and a half hours later, right into a concentrated crossfire from the Grand Fleet. Sensor logs indicate a pair of McKennas, a single unidentified 2 million ton ship, and a dozen lighter Black Steel warships, a mix of Lola, Vincent and Naga-class vessels, with several additional unidentified medium tonnage warships also destroyed.

Task Forces 1 and 2 promptly recharge for the jump to New Eden, while 3 and 4 remain behind, beginning salvage operations.

-----

You are just a wee bit jealous of Tiberius and his wife, as they already have five beautiful children, with another on the way. He usually brings his kids with him when you recruit him for babysitting duty for Tamara and Lisa. And cookies, his wife’s exquisite cookies.

Wonderful, creamy chocolate, smooth peanut butter, perfectly melded together in a buckeye… your waistline probably won’t thank you for this, but bringing Tiberius on does ensure you have access to those delectable tidbits of culinary joy.

Unfortunately you have to take Tiberius with the cookies.

You remembered his horrid sense of humor too late to forbid it, because at the first official meeting with your new Political Advisor he sweeps in wearing something you were certain his wife would have burned at some point, and amazingly still fits even after all these years. A technicolor fluorescent toga with concealed strips of flashing LEDs to make it all the more fabulous. He’d spent ages tinkering it up for a ‘most tasteless without being risque’ costume contest back when you had both been teenagers at GRU. You and his wife had both worn matching stola that were just as ridiculously tasteless and hideously over the top.

If you didn’t know that he was quite happily married to the woman he’d been dating since middle school, that he’d been utterly and absolutely faithful to her the entire time, and that she was equally besotted with him, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was about as gay as gay could be, as he flounced around in that hideous toga complete with… yup, the neon multi-colored laurel on his head. He minced, he actually minced across to where you were waiting.

And promptly let the ridiculous toga fall off his shoulders, wearing a perfectly sensible and professional business suit underneath it, tossed the laurel off to one of his assistants, grinned, and earned forgiveness for his stunt with a box of his wife’s baking.

He also had the assembled press corps torn between laughing, gaping, and utter and total confusion.

He also brought with him the latest reports, because even in a time of war and recession Parliament was in session.

The first bill on your desk is actually quite welcome. The Administrative Reform Act of 3023 is a well crafted piece of legislation that originated in the Imperial Senate under the watchful gaze of the Eldest but was enthusiastically taken up by the Chamber of Delegates as their way of contributing to the well-being of the Empire in these difficult times. You sniffed a few times, certain that you were smelling some bullshit, because when politicians talk like this… but surprisingly there is very little of the typical logrolling and pork barreling in the final legislative product, which you are quite happy to see.

Ultimately it removes duplicative administrative offices, consolidating back office functions into a single General Services Administration office, eliminating a great deal of duplicative work functions without impacting the front end work of any of your agencies or departments whatsoever. Those backend positions made redundant by the consolidation would see those facing the loss of employment offered retraining in the front-end operations of their respective departments, or if they declined then they would receive generous severance packages and recommendations to private or system entities.
[]ActionArgumentsEffects
[]Sign the Administrative Reform Act of 3023The Civil Service does vital work for the Empire, but the duplication of back end administrative functions results in excessive costs. Reducing these costs frees up funds for more important projects that more directly aid the citizens of the Empire.

Critically, this legislation ensures that even those employees directly affected by the reform will see no harm. They signed on in good faith and it would be a travesty to turf them out willy nilly. The retraining or severance options are far more generous than the private sector offers in similar circumstances, and all reports are that the employees in question are quite enthusiastic about this.
  • Cost of $1,000,000.00 upfront
  • -1 Politics
  • -1 Economic Event
  • Adds +1 to Civil Service Reform level
    • A 10% reduction in general upkeep costs
    • Current level is 2
  • Unlocks certain events
  • Prevents certain events
[]Veto the Administrative Reform Act of 3023Whaddayamean save money? We have plenty of money! We need to spend more of it! All civil servants need to have a permanent vacation budget for New Port Royal to blow the taxpayers money on hookers and blow! (the writer of this analysis has been sacked)

While this is a very good idea, it could set a problematic precedent for the future in that the private sector may come to expect this level of severance packages in the event of mergers and acquisitions.
  • +1 Politics
  • -10 Support
    • Imperial Senate
    • Chamber of Delegates
  • Unlocks certain events
  • Prevents certain events

The second bill on your desk is the Imperial Communications Decency Act of 3023. The title makes you instantly wary, and seeing just who wrote it raises your hackles even further. It’s not a well written bit of legislation at all, and you can already see dozens of loopholes and mistakes that effectively would neuter it even of its primary stated purpose, but you can also see just what is intended.

The father of the suspicious media mogul out on New Eden still has some pull in the Chamber of Delegates thanks to his money, and used it for this. A bill to ban the transmission, reception, or transfer of ‘indecent’ material over the Imperial HPG network, written in such a vague way that it could easily be argued that a picture of an empty beach at sunset could be construed as ‘indecent’ with enough tortured logic. It’s such a ridiculous bit of virtue-signaling that it’s amazing it made it this far, although Tiberius notes that the Eldest was snorting in amusement, and most of those who voted for it did so simply to shut the idiot up who’s been proposing this every… single… session… for… decades…

So naturally you veto it, because it is completely idiotic and only an entitled idiot would think that the great-granddaughter of the woman who’d rejected any form of Prohibition in the Empire would be any less committed to civil rights and the freedom to communicate free of government interference and restraint.
 

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