Turn 121 - Shame On You
In the aftermath of the Battle of Baddorando your allies step up in a rather big way. The NRI has fully taken responsibility for anti-piracy patrols along your galactic eastern and northeastern borders, freeing up the Home Fleet formations that had been handling that duty to be shifted to the Black Steel front. Meanwhile NRR ASF formations have done the same for your Aerospace Force units in both the northeast and southwestern frontiers, further permitting you to shift your forces to face the main threat.
The NRI’s light corvettes are completely unsuitable to face the Black Steel, back in the 2nd Battle of Arvum they were so utterly outmatched that they contributed little more than a minor distraction for the enemy. The NRR doesn’t even have any full warships, relying purely on ASF forces for their navy.
The Bourbons have taken over full responsibility for the RN campaign, freeing up those naval and aerospace forces that were still committed to that theater. Kilburrough lacks military forces beyond their fixed fortifications, but even they are contributing despite not being officially part of your alliance through increased trade volume, mostly in the biomedical area.
Admiral de Palo is expected to recover from her injuries, although she is currently in a medical coma. Admiral Fisher is… reminding you even more of your grandfather in just how grim and determined he’s become. Thankfully Admiral Sims is senior enough, and strong-willed enough, to force the old admiral to take at least weekends off. It’s obvious the old warhorse dislikes that, but is unwilling to force the issue in the face of the united front put on by his most trusted subordinate and his own wife. You have a feeling that as a mere Empress you’d not have nearly as much pull, which in a way is rather amusing.
You do receive a briefing from Admiral Sims about something called Project New Ironsides, from Majeure Electrique in coordination with the Navy’s own BuShips. They haven’t settled on a final name for it yet, but the idea is to build a somewhat cheaper heavy cruiser that is heavily armored enough to stand in the line, even at the expense of armament. The main advantage of the current design is that it has truly titanic anti-fighter and anti-missile capability, meaning that it will require fewer escorts and, once enough full sized capital ships are built to replace it in the line, it would still be a useful close-in escort vessel for the line. The fact that it is fast enough to keep pace with battlecruisers and fleet carriers is a welcome bonus.
| [] | Name |
| [] | Littorio-class |
| [] | Fuso-class |
| [] | Orion-class |
| [] | Nevada-class |
| [] | Write-In (QM reserves right to veto write-ins) |
| Cost | Materials | HP | A/D | Specials |
| $1,638,958,400.00 | DHS, LFA | 5066 | 2966 |
- Armored 210
- AMS 160
- Capital
- Capital AMS 376
- Command 3
- Max Thrust - 6
- Drop Collars - 6
|
One of the other consequences of the Battle of Baddorando is that the
England-class Frigates and
Lyr-class Corvettes of Home Fleet have been transferred to the Grand Fleet in order to bulk up numbers while repairs and rebuilding take place.
A few days later Admiral Sims is back, with another product of the BuShips to present to you as a consequence of the Battle of Baddorando.
“Your Majesty, the
Wright-class Dockable ASF Platform has proven itself very useful indeed, which has led to several junior officers in BuShips working out an additional use for the underlying technology. By incorporating the sensor suite from the
Asheville-class raider into the basic design, they were able to develop a dockable platform equipped with arrays of naval lasers ranging from an octuple 55cm mount in the nose to pairs of quadruple 35cm and class 3 SCL lasers in flanking turrets. Four individual class 40 Hyper-Assault Gauss cannons in fast-track mounts, and octuple 8cm extended range laser turrets round out the offensive armament, with strap on 3cm anti missile turrets and a brace of 5cm pulse lasers for last ditch close-in defense. The same modified drop collars used for the
Wright-class are suitable for the rather cheekily named
Colt-class Defense Blisters. The Lieutenant who was the lead officer for the project rather cheerfully cited the old phrase ‘All men are created equal, Sam Colt made them that way.’.”
You can’t help laughing as you look over the schematics.
| Name | Cost | Materials | HP | A/D | Specials |
| Colt Defense Blister | $5,453,700.00 | DHS, LFA | 366 | 166 |
- Armored 10
- AMS 160
- Capital
- Capital AMS 120
|
There are memorial services for the casualties of the battle taking place across the Empire. Thankfully the Black Steel had once again refrained from targeting escape pods and lifeboats, meaning that the actual death toll is actually significantly lower than previous engagements where fewer ships were lost in absolute terms. It’s still been a heavy hit, however, but you do wonder just what this change in tactics means for the Black Steel.
You get an answer of sorts from the Black Pumpernickels, who are still putting on performances in the Griffon system. Evidently by successfully standing up to them, and even defeating them on occasion, you’ve been promoted from ‘sub-sapient meatbags’ to ‘an almost worthy opponent’ with the corresponding increase in respect from the Black Steel. As such they are taking you more seriously, which means they’ll be less ‘leap and pounce’ and actually use proper tactics and strategies, but they also consider your spacers to be something other than target practice, thus they will now most likely respect your escape pods and such.
Joy.
But now it is budget time, time to see what progress can be made in recovering from this battle.
Amaunet is up first. “We’re all hurting right now, padrone, but from a cold-bloodedly practical point of view we can replace our losses, so this is not a pyrrhic victory no matter how painful it was. The question now will be if we can rebuild our losses faster than the Black Steel can rebuild theirs, and if we are at all fortunate, we can get enough strength into the Expeditionary and Strike Fleets to hit the Black Steel’s production facilities and slow them down even more.”
A faint growl goes around the room at that, and Amaunet nods her massive head. “That being said, General Bradley?”
The pugnacious general takes the podium at that point. “Your Majesty, the Army will continue to defer to the Navy and Aerospace Force for budget priority. I know this is unnatural, possibly heretical, and definitely against all of the rules of Armed Forces budget wars, but we’re doing it anyway.”
Amaunet’s chuffing laughter underscores the grim chuckles that fill the room at that, and you can’t help but smile.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Procurement
- Garrison
- 28 Garrison Divisions
- 28 Militia Divisions
General Perkins is up next. “Your Majesty, the loss curve among ASF formations has undergone a steep rise, undermining the models we’d been using for production requests. As such we will be needing to request that additional factory complexes be built in order for us to further ramp up production.” He looks rather gaunt, as if he’d not been eating correctly. Considering the relatively small size of the Aerospace Force, it’s quite likely that he’s lost quite a few friends in the recent fighting.
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- New ASF Factories
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- Kurortas
- Raj
- Pustina
- Procurement
- 100 CAP Wing
- 25 Carrier Wing
Admiral Fisher stalks to the podium, glaring furiously for a moment, then taking a deep breath. “If you do nothing else, build us more yards. The more escort yards you can get us, the better. They may not be powerful, but we need numbers, and destroyers give us numbers. I’d also like to commend BuShips and, grudgingly, Majeure Electrique’s design staff.” He says the latter as if it physically pains him. “They’ve come up with some excellent designs that should be quite useful to us.”
He brings up the display, his glare hardening as if daring anybody to comment on him actually having something nice to say about a civilian design firm.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Expand all Orbital Shipyards
- Expand all Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Nuova Puglia
- Nuovo Abruzzo
- Nyū Shikoku
- Stenen Tuin
- New Libertalia
- Nuova Tripoli
- Catachan
- Feurstern
- Neuthüringen
- Nowe Mazowsze
- Nox
- Platzregensburg
- Iskra
- New Algiers
- New Clew Bay
- Nubifragio
- Bellaterra
- Bohren
- Landprettig
- Porto Milano
- Shin Tōkyō
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Baddorando
- Sturmland
- Small Warship Yards
- New Castor
- New Port Royal
- Nowy Wrocław
- Nowy Slask
- Chuma
- Awha
- Kaiyo
- Medium Warship Yards
- Glorreich
- New Phoenix
- Okusawa
- Pieklo
- Bari
- Large Warship Yards
- Griffon
- Calliope
- New Pollux
- Nowy Warszawa
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 200 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
- 200 Spruance-class Parasite Destroyers
- 48 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
- 50 Colt-class Defense Blisters
- Large Dropships
- 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- 235 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- Jumpships
- 9 Windjammer-class Jumpship
- Escorts
- 110 Battle-class Destroyers
- 10 Skjold-class Missile Corvettes
- 10 Constellation-class Corvettes
- 50 Tarantul-class Missile Raiders
- 50 Asheville-class Raiders
- Small Warships
- 40 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- 20 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 25 De Grasse-class Light Cruisers
- 4 Hosho-class Light Carriers
- Medium Warships
- 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- 10 Algerie-class Heavy Cruisers
- Large Warships
- 10 Kaiserin-class Battleships
- 6 Jean Bart-class Battlecruisers
- Fortress Command
- Black Tower
- Neuthüringen
- New Algiers
- New Clew Bay
- Nuova Tripoli
- New Libertalia
He stamps his way back to his seat in a ringing silence.
Elizabeth Lee clears her throat. “Interior is ready and able, Your Majesty, like I always say. We’ll get whatever is needed to be built.” She then looks down at her notes. “Otherwise, to start with, we’ve got a number of very bored DoME teams looking for new challenges.”
- DoME
- Planetary Optimization - Peripheral - Nox
- Terraforming
- Porto Milano
- Feurstem
- Steingarten
- Olej
- Neubayern
“When it comes to economic work, our analysts believe that we can make the greatest overall impact with the following array of investments, foci, and industrial zones.”
- Economic Focus, Major Investment & Industrial/Infrastructure
- Economic Focus
- Major Investment
- Investment
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zone
- Hot Mess
- Baddorando
- New Narnia
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Puglia
“Finally, I know we took a bad hit, but we do have the option of continuing survey work to the galactic west. It might be a bit more risky than we expected, but hopefully the losses taken by the Black Steel will give us an opening to expand.”
- Survey Targets
- GX-I17
- Already tentatively named Waypoint 4, this is a Blue-White Supergiant. This is one of two systems with a risk of encountering the Black Steel, but due to the general lack of Black Steel activity in the vicinity this is deemed to be very low risk
- GX-I15
- A yellow main-sequence primary star, slightly hotter than our own, promises a system with at least one habitable world. Astronomers have detected multiple gas giants as well.
- GX-K14
- While technically an ‘orange’ star, K14 is extremely close to the ‘yellow’ temperature scale, with the difference being very subtle. Absorption lines seem to indicate a general dearth of heavy metals in the system, however, making it unlikely that there will be any truly rich planets present
- GX-M15
- Already tentatively named Waypoint 5, this is a Red Giant with a very low possibility of habitable worlds. Like I17, there is an increased risk of Black Steel presence here, however for the same reasons as I17 this risk is assessed as very low.
- GX-O15
- Another orange main-sequence star, unlike K14 there are signs of significant heavy metals present in this system.
Agostino takes over, looking a bit somber. “Your Majesty, I’ve been in close contact with our allies, all of whom are providing what support that they can. In the same vein, I have been consulting with our cultural affairs people about something appropriate for the recent events. They pointed out that the Olympics are next year, scheduled to be hosted in the Glorreich system, and that the organizing committee has already announced that they will be theming the ceremonies and such around recognizing those who fought and died against the Black Steel. We concluded that the best way to honor them, in a manner that would have the greatest impact, would be to ensure that our athletes did exceptionally well next year. As such we propose resurrecting the sports camps that haven’t been run for over a decade now.”
Tiberius is absent, his three youngest sons were among those seriously injured at Baddorando and he was granted leave to take his vacation days in order to take care of his family.
Grace is up next. “Your Majesty, we’ve got 3 teams available and are ready to get to work.” she says a bit grimly.
- Research & Development
- Improved Automation lvl 10
- Improved Education lvl 10
- Micro ER Lasers
General Messerschmidt is up next. “Your Majesty, while we have no budget requests at this time, we do have the results from Kilburrough on the mysteries surrounding the Rouges Noir. They have determined that there were no more than two dozen clone lines involved, all artificially gestated and all showing extensive signs of bioneural tampering. Their brain chemistries were extremely abnormal and well outside of healthy human ranges. The closest equivalent that was found was that of certain hive minded insects. Our engineers working on the SLIC equipment have discovered log files which indicate that this was a completely unauthorized project concealing itself within SLIC but actually working for the Rim Worlds Republic, funded by the Amaris regime. It appears to have been intended as a project to produce perfectly docile laborers incapable of rebelling against authority while still capable of highly technical work.” He looks up and meets your eyes. “The log indicates a 90% failure rate, with failures suffering extremely aggressive brain cancers and strokes, which were seen as ‘acceptable’ by their actual sponsors.”
You throw up a little in your mouth.
