Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

PeaceMaker 03

Well-known member
Queens court , bring them before her like a military tribunal. Queen and 2 Supreme Court judges.

As public as you want it to be. Assuming it is like the US code military justice, your guilty until proven innocent.
Military lawyer should have security clearance, give lawyer two weeks to look at proof and hold the royal court.
Or my preference

Feed them to dire penguins, Queen has a planet to run.
 

Lightwhispers

Well-known member
[X] Public Trial. Let Justice Be Done, Even If The Sky Should Fall
-[X] Public vindication for original actions under our father
 
Turn 23 - Trials, Tragedies, Triumphs... and advisors too

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 23 - Trials, Tragedies, Triumphs… and advisors too

It was a bit exhausting.

On the plus side, the biomedical and surgical teams spent almost an entire day with your daughter in surgery, but at the end she has new eyes, several new internal organs to replace those destroyed or damaged in the attack, and significantly less scarring and external damage.

According to the lead doctor, the surgery had been a complete success, so now when your little girl woke up from her coma she’d not be blind, partially deaf, or having to deal with internal damage. She’d… only… you sigh at that… have to deal with having no legs and only one hand.

On the other hand, the researchers assure you that it would only take a year or so to validate and unlock limb cloning therapies.

Willis is wheeled into surgery on the same day that the trials of Don Stanley and his team commence. You’d already given instructions to the prosecution about how they were expected to conduct themselves and had sent a brief note to the judge requesting that he permit the defense to introduce any evidence that they felt would be helpful to their case.

You were sure that many unflattering things would come out about your father, and you grieved for that, but you’d long known that the idealized vision of your father that you’d had as a little girl was a false one. He’d been a terrible king, you were determined to be a good queen.

You had established for yourself a reputation as a just monarch, as one who was unafraid to face criticism. One who was willing to be amongst her people as just another mom, just another wife, just another woman. You would be damned before sacrificing all of that just to protect the memory of a man whose mistakes had nearly led to absolute disaster.

The prosecution’s case is straightforward. These men and women had stolen weapons, bribed, murdered, plotted… and attempted to commit regicide. The evidence was laid out before the jury without histrionics or dramatics. Simply a cold, hard recitation of facts accompanied by the evidence for said facts.

Janet had assigned one of her best to the case, and he was showing that. There was no need for drama when the case was so clear, and the lead prosecutor walked the jury through the sequence of events without once having to speculate.

Then it was the defense’s turn. The solicitor had tried to impeach the evidence, but had failed as the documentation for it was solid. He was reduced to pounding the table, and all the dirty linen came tumbling out of the closet.

The story of your father’s betrayal. Normally there would be an objection, you’d instructed the prosecutors to allow it. The story of what the Gem’s did to Stanley’s wife and daughters. Allowed without objection. The abuses, indignities… all that had stemmed from your father’s complete lack of backbone, all laid bare before the public and the jury.

The only thing the prosecuting solicitor did with each of the defense witnesses who discussed these stories was to firmly clarify that every single abuse had happened either at the hands of the Gem conspiracy, who the jury and public were reminded had been dealt with firmly and decisively by the Queen, or at the hands of your father.

Then Stanley made the mistake you expected him to make. He took the stand in his own defense. At first it seemed quite effective, as he was a broken man who’d lost everything.

But then the prosecutor came up on cross.

And asked one, single, lethal question.

“After Her Majesty decisively and publicly crushed the Gem Conspiracy, why did you not simply come forward to lay your grievance with the Gems and her father before her peaceably?”

And the floodgates opened. The torrents of vituperative abuse and calumny, the obscenities… Stanley let loose with a string of ad hominem assaults upon the Royal Family that made it crystal clear to everybody listening that it was his own heart’s poison that spoke. That justice had never really mattered to him, that all he wanted was bloody vengeance, not simply upon the guilty, but upon all related to the guilty.

To his credit the defense solicitor tried to get Stanley to stop ranting, but the old man’s blood was up and he refused to stop. The judge tried to stop him from completely alienating the jurors against him, but he just kept on going. He was finally physically dragged from the stand by the bailiffs while shouting about how you were nothing more than a whore and your daughter was a whore-in-training.

He was kept muzzled throughout the rest of the trial, as now that the mask had slipped off he couldn’t stop himself from shouting abuse at the court.

The trial lasts several more days after that, as the case was being handled with utmost attention to fairness and procedure in order to make it absolutely crystal clear that even our enemies could expect true justice in Our courts.

Willis was still in his coma, but there were signs he’d be waking up soon. The operation to repair the spinal cord with cloned nerve tissue had been successful and there was every indication that he’d awaken with full use of his limbs. Thank god for small mercies.

The jury took its time. They’d been firmly instructed to consider their ruling carefully and to take the time to understand the evidence. Nevertheless, two days after the closing arguments the jury rendered its verdict.

All defendants, guilty on all charges.

The case, being one of High Justice, was immediately formally remanded to you for sentencing.

You decide to conduct this openly, in full court. Stanley still needs to be muzzled otherwise he shouts abuse at everybody wearing Royal livery. His compatriots are much quieter, but the light of fanaticism gleams brightly enough that they are all searched very carefully before you are permitted inside the throne room to render final judgement.

You still disliked the stiff formalities of court. They were so archaic, but… it was one more area where your grandfather had been right and your father wrong. They lent dignity to the proceedings, they allowed for the focusing of the mind upon what needed to be done, and they removed passion and impulse from things.

You waited for the formalities to conclude. Then you began, remaining in your throne rather than rising to your feet as you usually did when speaking. You are passing judgement, and that is best done from the throne.

You’d taken the time to personally write your speech, then had Isoroku look it over for any suggested edits, along with Janet giving it a pass.

It wasn’t that long. It wasn’t that passionate. This wasn’t a situation for long-winded speeches. This wasn’t the situation for passion.

“Thirty years ago Our father committed an unpardonable crime, and betrayed those to whom he had sworn justice. We acknowledge this grave injustice. Here, now, We admit that Our father failed in his duty. We, before the eyes of Our people, can only give Our solemn word that We shall not fail as he did.” you look at the band of fanatics who’d tried to murder you and who had put your youngest and your husband in the hospital. “We also formally retract the disavowal of Team Seigfreid and acknowledge that if their warnings had been heeded much suffering would have been averted.”

Stanley is still glaring at you with mad eyes, as if he wants nothing less than to have his hands around your throat.

“If you had come before Us with your evidence, We would have acted sooner. We, however, acknowledge that the betrayal by Our father made that impossible. We dislike this reality, but We refuse to shrink from it. We do not condemn you for this, We merely regret what might have been.”

“It is with a heavy heart that We must pass judgement. Few have been so cruelly used and abused. We, however, cannot turn a blind eye to what you chose to do. You chose the path of premeditated murder. You chose the path of corruption, treason, and regicide. We cannot forgive those choices, for all that We can understand the pain that led you to make them.”

You pause, meeting the mad eyes of a would be regicide.

“We therefore pronounce Our acceptance of the judgement of Our court, reached by a jury of your peers, who heard your defense, considered your circumstances, and rendered a judgement of guilt upon you. We further take up Our sword of justice. You shall be taken from this place, given benefit of clergy, and then shall be transported to the fields of execution. There We command that you shall be placed before a firing squad and shot until dead. So mote it be.”

-----

After that unpleasant roller-coaster it is almost anti-climatic. The group of regicides are brought out to the execution fields and shot by firing squad. You make it a point to watch every execution, you owe it to them as far as you are concerned.

Public opinion is strongly in your favor over this. Polling shows widespread and deep support for the Crown, especially for how you are handling your responsibilities.

It’s comforting in a way.

Jeremy is graduating from high school this year. Not quite the valedictorian, he lost out on that by less than a tenth of a point, but he was still 2nd in his class, with Alita right behind him at 3rd. Both of them intend to spend the next year or so working at the Ngo family fishing business down in Hue Moi. Jeremy at the docks, and Alita in the office.

Sergeant-Major Ngo just smirks as you fuss and fret over their plans but doesn’t comment, since you know as well as she does that your son will be taken care of just fine by the family.

Then it is budget time.

General Swanson has an extensive presentation, which can be summarized quite easily. She wants to see a full battalion-set of Lion tanks procured for 1st Armored as well as 2 more lances of Ambush mechs. She’d also like another infantry regiment for service on Pollux, another platoon of Avenger’s to bring the RRFs anti-aircraft capacity up to snuff, and finally she strongly urges you to build the Ferro-Fibrous armor factory at the L5 point.

General Reyes is excited about the new Eagle fighters, she wants them, she wants all of them, and she wants them yesterday. She points out that the new Enterprise class dropship under construction can accommodate a flight of ASFs, so she recommends procuring a flight of Goshawks for it, establishing the unit that they would be assigned to as subordinate to the AeroForce, and then seconding it to the dropship when completed.

Captain Stinnett has no real requests vis-a-vis the Coast Guard, beyond ongoing design studies into new harbor and coastal patrol vessels. For the dropships, until the first Enterprise is in commission they won’t know for certain, but she does recommend establishing a dropship line for the Harris class dropship transports. With the lead times needed for dropships, better to have them and not need them then to need them and not have them.

General Potter has relatively little to add, beyond a progress report on the expansion of the Aerie and a few minor administrative matters. To his credit he doesn’t try to sneak any more promotions through as ‘routine clerical matters’.

Bridget is back, and while her simple bullet points were so easy last year, this year… she’s BACK.

“Your Majesty we’ve got a bunch of projects finishing up this year knock on wood and then we have choices to make for going forward since we now have a fully operational 2 flotilla coast guard and let me tell you that the shipping industry is real happy with that we can pursue charting and preparing to exploit those neat petrochemical deposits up around Five Fingers did you know that we almost need more petrochemicals now than we did when we used all ICE power I didn’t that was interesting to find out but all of the new uses are fully recyclable so there’s that and we can also build those orbital factories for ferro-fibrous armor or we could build a factory for those new dropships or if we skipped the petrochemical stuff we could build both but I think we shouldn’t skip that because that looks like it could be very profitable for the economy and industry and that would be a great thing.”

Ahhh, Bridget-babble.

You then interrupt an intense contest of rock-paper-scissors between Isoroku and Jake over who goes first. When you point out that foreign affairs always went before politics, Isoroku looks as zen as always, as if he weren’t engaged in a childish game a moment before over this same issue, while Jake just grins.

“Your Majesty, after the success of the Planetary Olympics and the plans to make this a quadrennial event, our cultural affairs people would like to strongly recommend the Benefit Concert as the most appropriate cultural activity this year.” he says smoothly.

Jake interrupts then “And he wants to go on stage.”

“And I want to go on stage.” Isoroku agrees smoothly.

Jake grins. “Well, ya want us to do some schmoozing with Parliament let us know, but we’re pretty good over in the politics section. Working on some ideas to present to you on better managing the old public image, but so far you’ve been doing a bang up job without us breathing down your neck so I figure, let the Queen be Queen.”

You chuckle and dryly thank him for his permission for you, the Queen, to be Queen.

“Think nothing of it, Your Queenness!”

He’s almost as irrepressible as Tyler used to be.

Dr Palmer is grinning over the video call. “Your Majesty, now that we’ve got the HGP unlocked we’ve got so many exciting areas of research! Most relevant, perhaps, is the work on cloning limbs. Not simply for your daughter, although that’s reason enough, but imagine the benefits to soldiers injured in battle. We can also tackle genetic diseases, aging itself, or maybe even start tinkering with our own genome to make future generations faster, stronger, smarter. We’ve got the usual array of potential projects as well, both general science and applied engineering, all of them should be on the datapad I had couriered over.”

Neither Harry nor Janet had any real requests for you beyond continuing the interrogation of the DEST agents.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Two things I'd recommend that advisors didn't mention:
-UAC/5 (we need to use it in order to get other UAC weight classes)
-Train RRF, only one more needed to get it up to fully veteran, and is cheaper to do it before any expansions
 

Wageslave

Well-known member
You mean, UAC/5 that don't suck, right, Jarow?

Otherwise the UAC branch of failed prototypes can be tossed into the dustbin of history?
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Admittedly, we're on a BV combat system instead of the tabletop one (where balance makes them weird instead of an improvement). My own playing around with a UAC/20 worked out pretty well, haven't really played with any other UAC.
 

Decim

Chronic on/off lurker
So, I've got a tentative plan worked out for now.

[X] Plan: Jarow is asleep, post plans
-[X] Military [$34536]
--[X] Expand the Aerie to a full Military University* [->2]
--[X] Harden Factory 2 [65]
--[X] Harden Factory 6 [65]
--[X] Purchase New Units
---[X] 1 Platoon Avenger AAA [60]
---[X] 1 Flight Goshawk [60]
---[X] 2 Lance Ambush Light Mech [60]
---[X] 9 Platoons Lion for 1st Armored [60]
-[X]Interior [$15750]
--[X] Establish Harbor on Pollux* [->1]
--[X] Build infrastructure on Castor* [->1]
--[X] Build Space Station 3 at L5 [->1]
--[X] Build Orbital Factory 4 Ferro-Fibrous at L5 [85]
--[X] Expand Factory 1 to Level 2 (Eagle Factory) [75]
-[X] Diplomatic [$11100]
--[X] Increased funding for the arts [70]
--[X] Advertise for colonists to Pollux [60]
--[X] CULTURE - Benefit Concert [75]
-[X] Political [$1000]
--[X] Extend Administration to Pollux [75]
-[X] Research [$31000]
--[X] Anti-Missile System [60]
--[X] Human Limb Cloning [75]
--[X] Ferro-Aluminum Armor [65]
--[X] Reverse Engineer Suitcase Nukes [60]
-[X] Intelligence [$50]
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance [?]
--[X] Interrogate POWs [65]
-[X] Justice [$0]
--[X] Nada [DC? What's that?]
-[X] Training [$439.6]
--[X] AA Battalion, 1st Regiment of the RRF [85]

It's mostly giving the Advisors what they want, with a bent towards getting more Eagles into the air instead of setting up another dropship line we don't yet have a need for. It's also getting the thermonuclear and AMS lines of research started. Without jumpships or another planet settled, more Enterprise-class dropships to go exploring are more useful than other things. Speaking of which, we should expand that line after the first one is done. The price rebalance makes it worth it now.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
kelgar, investigating for saboteurs kills all research for a turn, so we don't want to do it if we're not certain we'll benefit. We've had one unexplained issue in turn 9

[X] Plan: Jarow is awake, post plan
-[X] Military 5 [$35393.4]
--[X] Expand the Aerie to a full Military University* [->2]
--[X] Harden Factory 2 [65]
--[X] Harden Factory 5 [65]
--[X] Harden Factory 6 [65]
(Harden all three unhardened factories)
--[X] Purchase New Units
---[X] 1 Platoon Avenger AAA [70]
---[X] 1 Flight Goshawk [70]
---[X] 2 Lance Ambush Light Mech [70]
---[X] 1 Flight Eagle [70]
---[X] 9 Platoon Lion Tank [70]
---[X] 27 (1 regiment) Foot Infantry [70]

-[X]Interior 5 [$17000]
--[X] Establish Harbor on Pollux* [auto]
--[X] Build infrastructure on Castor* [->1]
--[X] Build Space Station 2 at L2* [auto]
--[X] Build Orbital Factory Ferro-Fibrous Armor [85]
--[X] Send Coast Guard to chart and survey Petrochemical find off Five Fingers (E2 on map) [->1]
(GDP bonus, potential for more growth)

-[X] Diplomatic 3 [$11100]
--[X] Increased funding for the arts [70]
--[X] Advertise for colonists to Pollux [60]
(Growth)
--[X] CULTURE - Benefit Concert [75]
(Lets keep Approval high)


-[X] Political 3 [$1000]
--[X] Extend government administration to new settlement area - Pollux [75]

-[X] Research 4 [$31000]
--[X] Human Limb Cloning [75]
(Help our daughter)
--[X] Anti-Missile System [60]
(Help us against enemy missiles, no idea how good this is under current system though)
--[X] Reverse Engineer Suitcase Nukes [60]
(Working towards nukes)
--[X] Ultra Autocannon/5 [60]
(We need to use a design of this to get other sizes, and need this for gauss)

-[X] Intelligence 3 [$50]
--[X] Interrogate POWs [65]

-[X] Justice 2 [$0]

-[X] Training [$2366.68]
--[X] RRF [85]

Decim's plan is generally pretty good, just has slightly different priorities than me at present.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top