Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[ShadowArxxy]

Omake: After Action

Flag Information Center - HMS Tethys

Griffin IV:
    Mule #2 (Landed)
    Condor #1 (Landed)

System Space
    Three-Collar Jumpship #1 (Outsystem)
    Three-Collar Jumpship #2 (Outsystem)

    Two-Collar Jumpship #1 (Zenith, Recharging)

    Aqueduct #1 (-> Zenith)
    Behemoth (-> Zenith)

    Union-CV #1 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #1 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #2 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #3 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #4 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #5 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #6 (-> Griffin IV)
    Leopard-CV #7 (-> Griffin IV)

    ASFs: 90
    BattleMechs: 0

The National Emergency Command Post (Afloat) modifications to the old Triton class submarine had converted the vessel's Combat Information Center into a fairly cramped and austere strategic command-and-control facility.

The Queen spent little time in her provided flag quarters during the three miserably tense days between boarding and the arrival of the Combine attack, instead alternating between receiving updates on the strategic situation and spending time in the officers' mess. It was quietly understood that Jackie Griffith despised the royal duty of being safe while her people went forth to fight and die in the name of the Queen, and the ship's officers quietly rotated through in their off-duty hours to keep her engaged in professional small talk.

When the time for battle came, the Queen took station by the master plot and glared at it with a focused intensity, as if she could reach through it to personally smite the little red pips that marked the incoming Combine invaders.

----

"The enemy ASFs have rendezvoused with their DropShips and are continuing to retreat towards Griffin IV." The very, very young Lieutenant at the commmunications console subtly sagged with relief.

"Casualties?"

"All fighter wings report no losses, Ma'am." Word had spread that the Queen responded to "Your Majesty" with a terrifying glare, although no one could actually say who it had happened to. "And the L4 stations are transmitting an all-clear."

"Very good. Chances of a second wave?"

"They lost all of their ground forces when we took out the two DropShips, and the ASFs are too lightly armed to make an unsupported attack worthwhile. The day is ours, Ma'am." The lieutenant really shouldn't have added that, but he could practically see the weight evaporating from her shoulders.

The Queen nodded, her voice soft. "Let's go home."

 

[Wageslave]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
-[X] Offer to Support the measure once the threat has been fully dealt with. Doing it now is premature when there are other priorities at hand.

 

[magusblack]

Man, I would love to see the Darc Commander’s reaction to this backwater, middle-of-fucking-nowhere planet suddenly erupting like a fucking hornet’s nest of ASFs and Hate

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Man, I would love to see the Darc Commander’s reaction to this backwater, middle-of-fucking-nowhere planet suddenly erupting like a fucking hornet’s nest of ASFs and Hate

The officers in command of this mission were on the DropShips that got swatted, because when has the Combine EVER had senior officers who weren't MechWarriors? The minimal escort those DropShips had shows that they were expecting that our dropper choppers would be trying to punch through the fighter furball to take out their carrier dropships, giving the Glorious Samurai Mechwarriors the chance to land unopposed.

By the time they realized that our dropper choppers were going for them, it was too late.

 

[Vilegrave]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change

 

[CurtisLemay]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
-[X] Offer to Support the measure once the threat has been fully dealt with. Doing it now is premature when there are other priorities at hand.

 

[Nikandros]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change

 

[Ridli Scott]

Out of curiosity, does the Combine's assault tactics qualify as War Crimes?

For the Combine that isn't war crimes, for them is another Tuesday.

We need some way to reach them and retaliate in numbers or, at least, in kind. Maybe a lone kinetic impactor to their base.

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
-[X] Offer to Support the measure once the threat has been fully dealt with. Doing it now is premature when there are other priorities at hand.

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

The most ironic thing about this is that I bet the kurita in charge would consider the factory they just destroyed worth more than their entire force.

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
- [X] A public day of remembrance for our losses, both today and in days past.

 

[Ridli Scott]

The most ironic thing about this is that I bet the kurita in charge would consider the factory they just destroyed worth more than their entire force.

Even if the last attack survivors informed him that there was no orbital factory in the planet.

 

[kelgar04]

damn that sucked for us but also really sucked for the dacs need to rebuild our defences and orbital capabilities.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

We don't know that there was there a Kurita present.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

The most ironic thing about this is that I bet the kurita in charge would consider the factory they just destroyed worth more than their entire force.

If they knew or even suspected what the L4 facilities housed, they would have made it a priority target. Fortunately, they shouldn't have any detailed intelligence on our infrastructure, and they only strafed the L4 facilities for a single quick pass.

 

[Ridli Scott]

We don't know that there was there a Kurita present.

Wait? We killed a Kurita. We have to throw a fucking party!!!

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Wait? We killed a Kurita. We have to throw a fucking party!!!

We probably didn't. Our intelligence indicates that the expedition commander is a Kurita, but it's very unlikely that he was personally commanding this operation.

We did probably get a senior officer, though.

 

[Jarow]

I think they thought we were something like the OWA, with an unhealthy fighter focus (also, that we had a lot fewer fighters than we had).

As for senior officers, the operation commander was almost certainly with the ground forces, but this probably still isn't their full forces (where their Kurita would be). Also, the commander of the 90 fighter strong group has to be fairly senior, and was almost certainly on one of the carriers (or in the fighters). Probably also have someone in charge of the base. So they probably lost the highest ranking officer in the system, and probably a notable proportion of the next level down, but overall enough probably survived to manage things effectively.

Just started thinking about force makeup, in comparison to last attack - it was 100% interceptors this time, unlike a mixed group before. Could be at least partially due to having Sabre production (maybe only sabre production), but alternatively they "know" we only have fighters, so no need for dropper choppers. Definitely reinforces our need to hide our dropships, they could make a pretty big surprise.

 

[Culsu]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
-[X] Offer to Support the measure once the threat has been fully dealt with. Doing it now is premature when there are other priorities at hand.

 

[kashim3]

[X] Oppose -1 Approval Change
-[X] Offer to Support the measure once the threat has been fully dealt with. Doing it now is premature when there are other priorities at hand.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 25 - It’s Hard For Thee To Kick Against The Prick

Repairs have been finished quite quickly on the orbitals, the magic of spare parts you guess. Also of modular construction, since you have to build every bit of the orbital facilities on the ground first and in order to save costs they’d set things up as assembly lines for mass production rather than hand-crafting every single little bit.

Activity at Griffin IV has quieted down, the Mule departs and is replaced by another, but no fresh Union-CV returns with it, neither has the Aqueduct. The Condor departs a month later, hooking up with a Jumpship that appears to have brought an unidentified aerodyne and a second Mule. The aerodyne in question seems rather small.

Jeremy returns from his fishing voyage, the holds of the trawler he’d be on bulging with fish, and he’s now ‘officially’ a proper sailor by means of some esoteric rite that you have no understanding of. He and Alita are currently wrapping up their affairs at the Ngo family compound, preparing to matriculate to the Aerie when it opens for students in the new military university.

The twins are having a blast now that the alert is over and the racing season has officially begun. They aren’t winning, the new racers that they are driving are suffering their share of teething pains, but they aren’t embarrassing themselves either and are having fun.

You do troll Willis and Thanh when you wink at them accepting a minor sponsorship deal from Nollak Industries, however. Have to keep the pilot's egos somehow in check.

Thanh has her basic pilot’s license, even if she hasn’t bothered to get her driver’s license yet. She’s working on officially completing multi-engine and instrument ratings, and has solemnly informed you that she intends to be instructor-rated by the time she enters the Aerie.

She’s not racing this year, instead it appears that flying around with Willis in the old Falcon trainer is sufficient adrenaline for her now. She totally doesn’t get any of that from you.

Sarah is catching up in her classes and is doing extremely well with the physical therapy. If you didn’t know about her injuries it would be extremely hard to tell that this girl had been so badly crippled and comatose just two years ago.

Parliament is disappointed at you not supporting their thanksgiving proclamation, but they understand that the threat isn’t over yet and that it would be premature to celebrate now while the sword of damocles dangled above all of your heads.

Then it’s budget time. Yay.

The military budget briefing opens with General Swanson looking pensive. She doesn’t have much for you this year. “Your Majesty, right now our main focus needs to be on solidifying our aerospace defenses. However, with an eye to the future, I would like to recommend that the 2nd Brigade of 1st Armored be configured as a heavy brigade, with all of the armored regiment being composed of Lion Assault Tanks. To that end, I would like to request a full battalion set of Lions this year, with the excess manufacturing capacity being used to bulk out the rocket battalion.”

General Reyes, on the other hand, is looking downright grim. “We came perilously close to disaster, Your Majesty. If those Leopard-CVs had remained in the main furball our entire 1st Interceptor Wing would have been annihilated. I’ve spoken with several designers, and we have a design for a 1300 ton aerodyne dropship that is a pure assault platform. It is specifically designed to mix it up with other dropships and butcher them, while making any interceptors that try to interfere with them truly regret their life choices. It’s expensive, but I’d like to recommend transitioning the Enterprise line over to the new Defiant class ships while also upgrading the facility. I would also like to recommend purchasing as many new ASFs as we can afford this year, especially Eagles but also Roc and Goshawk as well. Of course, we also should perform formal after-action analysis”

General Potter, in contrast, is looking almost normal, although there is a bit of darkness beneath his eyes showing how little sleep he’s been getting. “Your Majesty, I support both of my colleagues, but I also have what may be a somewhat radical proposal. It would drive us into a budget deficit this year, but the long-term benefits are incalculable. Right now, we rely almost completely on a very ad-hoc manufacturing complex. Manufacturers are unwilling to invest in military-related projects because we simply cannot guarantee the supply chain enough activity to make it profitable. Our review of procurement and training highlighted several opportunities for reforms to streamline and strengthen production. If we fully implement everything, it has the potential to almost double our current manufacturing base. But again, it would be extremely expensive and if we implement it this year it would drive us into a short-term deficit this year.”

You wince at that. You’d been managing to maintain surpluses nearly every year of your reign, but the idea had merit.

Bridget is, well, Bridget. “Your Majesty! We’ve got a bunch of stuff we could do over at Interior although I think General Potter has a real smart idea with what they’re proposing it would be expensive this year and really hit our budget next year too but after that it would be pure gravy and really useful because we’d nearly double the number of major factories we can build and thus have so many more production lines we can devote to things speeding up production and making the Dragon really cry and according to Dagny the Dragon really fears yellow birds so maybe we should call something nasty Tweety but I’d recommend either following the General’s advice or building a ferro-aluminium orbital foundry and expanding the ferro-fibrous one so we can really boost production of that and also expand the dropship factory we’ve got and I saw the plans for the Defiant and that thing looks so scary lets build lots of them.”

Isoroku is looking zen as ever. “Your Majesty. We can hold off on any cultural events this year if need be, our approval is sufficiently high and the trends are strong enough in our favor that it should not be harmful, and would save resources for other more militarily useful projects.”

Jake nods in agreement. “There’s really nothing on my end that is urgent, Your Majesty.”

Harry is looking a bit grim. “Your Majesty, we believe we’ve managed to extract as much out of the DEST commandos as we’re going to manage. You have a choice at this point, either keep them imprisoned, as knowing we’re able to hold and break DEST teams would have an… advantageous effect on us interrogating other Kuritan prisoners, or executing the slimy bastards.”

[] Execution is the way
[] Imprisonment is the way

Janet pipes up at that point. “Either option is valid under the laws of war, Your Majesty, and Justice is ready to do either!”