Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Approve
-[X] Hold meeting at the Hachiman shrine
[X] Leave it at the 331st bunker
-[X] Hold meeting at the Hachiman shrine
[X] Leave it at the 331st bunker
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
The 331st bunker is basically a scaled-down Port Castle. It would be a shame not to keep a DropShip on-site for emergency evacuation, and by the time we're willing to show our hand with DropShips, we should have a lot more of them available.
Lightwhispers
Well-known member
[X] Approve
-[X] Hold meeting at the Hachiman shrine
[X] Leave it at the 331st bunker
-[X] Hold meeting at the Hachiman shrine
[X] Leave it at the 331st bunker
Turn 28 - You've been down too long in the midnight sea
Turn 28 - You’ve been down too long in the midnight sea
Two races after the incident with Smirky, as you still call the smirking bastard, Quan gets some payback, with interest. Second to last lap, Smirky was racing for the lead, Quan was right behind him, and hit him at precisely the perfect moment to send his racer spinning out into the barriers and completely ruining his race. Quan wound up wrecking as well, but the cheers and celebration that he received for taking Smirky out like that were… worth it.
The stewards take a rather dimmer view of things than the fans, and suspend Quan from the next race, which leads to a massive fan uproar considering their refusal to do the same to Smirky two races earlier.
Quan declines to appeal the suspension, but then lights a bigger fire when he snarks at the press conference that the suspension simply proves what all the racers already knew, that there are two standards of conduct in the league, one for Smirky’s team, and one for everybody else. Considering that the team Smirky is on has won 5 of the last 6 championships…
The League goes ballistic and extends the suspension for ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’, which then leads to a driver walkout at the next race when every driver NOT affiliated with Smirky’s team simply departs the driver meeting when the League president goes to give the usual pre-speech race and return to their haulers, refusing to participate.
This has precipitated a media firestorm, especially when it becomes obvious that the twins are leading the revolt against the League leadership over this issue. An analysis of past races seemingly shows that the League has indeed been allowing that team to get away with behavior that they harshly penalized other teams for, including deliberately wrecking other drivers, blocking pit stalls, pit road altercations, and even a few pit lane speeding violations which were ‘missed’.
However the League and the team counter with evidence showing that there have been just as many overall penalties issued to the team as to any other, that the main difference between them comes down to two specific incidents where there was no conclusive evidence of deliberate wrecking, and that the pit lane speeding violation issue was down to a technical fault with the timing gear that had benefited every single other racer in those particular races.
The response to that is to show that in incidents where penalties have been levied against the team, they tended to consist of monetary fines with no championship point losses or suspensions, whereas seemingly identical incidents with racers not part of the team have seen both points loss and suspensions on top of the fines. Moreover, when there are on-track incidents involving Smirky especially the League seems to take the attitude of ‘racers will be racers’ and waits until afterwards to levy fines without affecting the race, whereas with other drivers retaliating against Smirky and the others on his team are met with immediate black flags and the attitude of ‘we don’t tolerate this sort of behavior’.
Then comes the kicker, the current League President was, prior to rising to that position, the General Manager for Smirky’s team, of the 5 member Stewards Committee which determines black flags, suspensions, fines, and other punishments to enforce the rules four are former employees of the team.
At this point the media truly ignites. The League President promises to appoint an independent investigator to review all allegations of bias within League leadership, and the entire Stewards Committee resigns. A few days later, after another race is boycotted by the drivers, the League President steps down in disgrace (although the golden parachute he got more than makes up for the humiliation, in your opinion).
A new President is elected by the various owners, and a new Stewards Committee is appointed with no more than a single individual affiliated with any given team on the committee. Racing renews that Saturday.
And Smirky promptly seriously wrecks Quan under caution, sending Quan’s racer flipping end over end, up and over the safety barrier in one of the worst wrecks ever seen. Quan is able to eject clear of the wreck itself, thank God, and Smirky is promptly black-flagged for the incident. Smirky promptly earns even more fan enmity by smirkingly commenting that the ‘little entitled punk got in his way and deserved it’.
Under the new leadership Smirky is suspended for the rest of the season and the team is penalized massively. While Quan’s racer was a total loss he has a backup, and then has a brand new machine courtesy of Jeremy’s MechEng class at the Aerie who had been tinkering on a massively souped up Chasseur as one of their side projects. The new beast is barely race legal.
You most certainly did not take it for a spin around the track to make sure it was suitable for one of your boys, and anybody who claims to have video and photographs of such is a lying liar who lies, lyingly. You had totally confiscated Willis’ camera before you went out on the track, damnit.
Stop laughing, Sekhmet!
The meeting at the Hachiman shrine goes quite well. Gustavson arrives in a shuttle with only a couple aides, and Isoroku and he spend the day at the shrine. Several of the aides appear to be rather contemptuous of the shrine, as it has no signs of veneration to the Dragon, and are quite openly disrespectful whenever the Tai-Sa isn’t in earshot.
None of them seem to have figured out that the giant felines accompanying them are perfectly capable of relaying their words and actions to others.
The Tai-sa’s final offer at the meeting is that in exchange for a 20 year armistice and pledge to not interfere with DCMS operations, that all DCMS forces in system will evacuate, leaving behind the ‘eta servants of the Dragon’ on Griffin V and ‘suitable supplies for such as they’.
Isoroku tells you that it appears the Tai-sa is going to try and get a few more shipments of civilians brought over before the withdrawal. Reading between the lines and based on literary allusions that the Tai-sa made, it appears that the ISF has been making the lives of the conquered civilian population extremely… unpleasant, to the point where Gustavson evidently sees it as a kindness to requisition as many ‘slaves’ from amongst that population as he can get away with and leave them here where they likely won’t be subject to the tender mercies of the ‘Friendly Persuaders’.
Isoroku hastens to add that the Tai-sa never said anything overt, it was all very round-about and subject to interpretation, but he is relatively confident in his analysis. Fumio concurs, noting that if there had been no chance of the gesture being witnessed by other Dracs he’d have given Gustavson the Lick of Approval, he appears to be a generally good man stuck in a very foul system and trying to keep from getting too dirty.
If you agree to this deal it would give several benefits, but also several costs. First of all, it would prevent the yearly Drac disruption of your orbitals and threats of attack, for at least 20 years. 20 years you can use it to build up and be ready to crush the Dragon if it dares show its face again. On the other hand you’d have a planet with a small population of ex-slaves who you would be morally bound to assist, which could become quite expensive and difficult. On the gripping hand, it gives you a second planet with an existing population base that hates the Dragon to work with and grow, perhaps expanding your government to a more imperial model and become multi-planetary.
[] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
[] Disagree - the war continues, immediate attack by in system DCMS forces.
Two races after the incident with Smirky, as you still call the smirking bastard, Quan gets some payback, with interest. Second to last lap, Smirky was racing for the lead, Quan was right behind him, and hit him at precisely the perfect moment to send his racer spinning out into the barriers and completely ruining his race. Quan wound up wrecking as well, but the cheers and celebration that he received for taking Smirky out like that were… worth it.
The stewards take a rather dimmer view of things than the fans, and suspend Quan from the next race, which leads to a massive fan uproar considering their refusal to do the same to Smirky two races earlier.
Quan declines to appeal the suspension, but then lights a bigger fire when he snarks at the press conference that the suspension simply proves what all the racers already knew, that there are two standards of conduct in the league, one for Smirky’s team, and one for everybody else. Considering that the team Smirky is on has won 5 of the last 6 championships…
The League goes ballistic and extends the suspension for ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’, which then leads to a driver walkout at the next race when every driver NOT affiliated with Smirky’s team simply departs the driver meeting when the League president goes to give the usual pre-speech race and return to their haulers, refusing to participate.
This has precipitated a media firestorm, especially when it becomes obvious that the twins are leading the revolt against the League leadership over this issue. An analysis of past races seemingly shows that the League has indeed been allowing that team to get away with behavior that they harshly penalized other teams for, including deliberately wrecking other drivers, blocking pit stalls, pit road altercations, and even a few pit lane speeding violations which were ‘missed’.
However the League and the team counter with evidence showing that there have been just as many overall penalties issued to the team as to any other, that the main difference between them comes down to two specific incidents where there was no conclusive evidence of deliberate wrecking, and that the pit lane speeding violation issue was down to a technical fault with the timing gear that had benefited every single other racer in those particular races.
The response to that is to show that in incidents where penalties have been levied against the team, they tended to consist of monetary fines with no championship point losses or suspensions, whereas seemingly identical incidents with racers not part of the team have seen both points loss and suspensions on top of the fines. Moreover, when there are on-track incidents involving Smirky especially the League seems to take the attitude of ‘racers will be racers’ and waits until afterwards to levy fines without affecting the race, whereas with other drivers retaliating against Smirky and the others on his team are met with immediate black flags and the attitude of ‘we don’t tolerate this sort of behavior’.
Then comes the kicker, the current League President was, prior to rising to that position, the General Manager for Smirky’s team, of the 5 member Stewards Committee which determines black flags, suspensions, fines, and other punishments to enforce the rules four are former employees of the team.
At this point the media truly ignites. The League President promises to appoint an independent investigator to review all allegations of bias within League leadership, and the entire Stewards Committee resigns. A few days later, after another race is boycotted by the drivers, the League President steps down in disgrace (although the golden parachute he got more than makes up for the humiliation, in your opinion).
A new President is elected by the various owners, and a new Stewards Committee is appointed with no more than a single individual affiliated with any given team on the committee. Racing renews that Saturday.
And Smirky promptly seriously wrecks Quan under caution, sending Quan’s racer flipping end over end, up and over the safety barrier in one of the worst wrecks ever seen. Quan is able to eject clear of the wreck itself, thank God, and Smirky is promptly black-flagged for the incident. Smirky promptly earns even more fan enmity by smirkingly commenting that the ‘little entitled punk got in his way and deserved it’.
Under the new leadership Smirky is suspended for the rest of the season and the team is penalized massively. While Quan’s racer was a total loss he has a backup, and then has a brand new machine courtesy of Jeremy’s MechEng class at the Aerie who had been tinkering on a massively souped up Chasseur as one of their side projects. The new beast is barely race legal.
You most certainly did not take it for a spin around the track to make sure it was suitable for one of your boys, and anybody who claims to have video and photographs of such is a lying liar who lies, lyingly. You had totally confiscated Willis’ camera before you went out on the track, damnit.
Stop laughing, Sekhmet!
The meeting at the Hachiman shrine goes quite well. Gustavson arrives in a shuttle with only a couple aides, and Isoroku and he spend the day at the shrine. Several of the aides appear to be rather contemptuous of the shrine, as it has no signs of veneration to the Dragon, and are quite openly disrespectful whenever the Tai-Sa isn’t in earshot.
None of them seem to have figured out that the giant felines accompanying them are perfectly capable of relaying their words and actions to others.
The Tai-sa’s final offer at the meeting is that in exchange for a 20 year armistice and pledge to not interfere with DCMS operations, that all DCMS forces in system will evacuate, leaving behind the ‘eta servants of the Dragon’ on Griffin V and ‘suitable supplies for such as they’.
Isoroku tells you that it appears the Tai-sa is going to try and get a few more shipments of civilians brought over before the withdrawal. Reading between the lines and based on literary allusions that the Tai-sa made, it appears that the ISF has been making the lives of the conquered civilian population extremely… unpleasant, to the point where Gustavson evidently sees it as a kindness to requisition as many ‘slaves’ from amongst that population as he can get away with and leave them here where they likely won’t be subject to the tender mercies of the ‘Friendly Persuaders’.
Isoroku hastens to add that the Tai-sa never said anything overt, it was all very round-about and subject to interpretation, but he is relatively confident in his analysis. Fumio concurs, noting that if there had been no chance of the gesture being witnessed by other Dracs he’d have given Gustavson the Lick of Approval, he appears to be a generally good man stuck in a very foul system and trying to keep from getting too dirty.
If you agree to this deal it would give several benefits, but also several costs. First of all, it would prevent the yearly Drac disruption of your orbitals and threats of attack, for at least 20 years. 20 years you can use it to build up and be ready to crush the Dragon if it dares show its face again. On the other hand you’d have a planet with a small population of ex-slaves who you would be morally bound to assist, which could become quite expensive and difficult. On the gripping hand, it gives you a second planet with an existing population base that hates the Dragon to work with and grow, perhaps expanding your government to a more imperial model and become multi-planetary.
[] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
[] Disagree - the war continues, immediate attack by in system DCMS forces.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
Damn! that is a catch 22 alright.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Welp nothing's stopping us from stabbing them in the back in a decade or so when we have a few hundred ASFs and a couple dozen combat dropshisp to keep the home system safe and we have built the dropships and Jumpships needed to take the fight to them. After all breaking peace treaties is nothing new to the Battletech universe
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Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
mind you that cuts both ways since they will be building up their forces as well.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
To be fair I rather doubt they'll be expecting just how much we'll be able to produce. Moreover I suspect that the twenty years ceasefire was deliberately set so the Dracs will have had time to attack the Federated Suns from the unexpected flank as planned and then come in overwhelming force against us. Needless to say if we're really lucky we'll attack just as they launch their attack on the Suns and thus don't have forces available to respond. After all they don't know we'll have the ability to make Jumpships so they probably think we're safely contained
Jarow
Well-known member
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
More tax rate? That's definitely a good thing, we'll have to see the exact actions/prices to figure out specific plans later.
Also, 20 years? Doubt we'll have had jumpships for long by the time that gets reached, assuming we have. There were previously discussions saying Orbital Infrastructure 10 (meaning at least 7 years there) to build a shipyard, at least one turn there to build it, and then however long it takes to build them. Actually putting numbers together, it might delay a scouting level attack, but we need the delay in being attacked to build up to get to that point. An extra planet may be a short term money sink, but it'll definitely have paid off by the end of the armistice.
More tax rate? That's definitely a good thing, we'll have to see the exact actions/prices to figure out specific plans later.
Also, 20 years? Doubt we'll have had jumpships for long by the time that gets reached, assuming we have. There were previously discussions saying Orbital Infrastructure 10 (meaning at least 7 years there) to build a shipyard, at least one turn there to build it, and then however long it takes to build them. Actually putting numbers together, it might delay a scouting level attack, but we need the delay in being attacked to build up to get to that point. An extra planet may be a short term money sink, but it'll definitely have paid off by the end of the armistice.
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
The Rewards outweigh the risks at this point, we might have to screen those left behind for infiltrators, sympathizers and DEST agents along with improving the planets infrastructure but in the long run the information (and motivation once we hear the slaves horror stories) we can get from this is too good to pass up.
The Rewards outweigh the risks at this point, we might have to screen those left behind for infiltrators, sympathizers and DEST agents along with improving the planets infrastructure but in the long run the information (and motivation once we hear the slaves horror stories) we can get from this is too good to pass up.
Lightwhispers
Well-known member
My preference would be to wait the 20 years, because a reputation for keeping your word can be a valuable weapon... and it gives us the time to properly build up, secure the system, and hopefully get a proper expeditionary force.
The only reason I could think of to refuse would be if we wanted to go all-in and try to pirate their jumpships. Which is way too risky. I do consider it an imperative to free other systems from the Dracs, but we literally cannot at the moment, so agreement gives us a chance to build up.
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
Lightwhispers
Well-known member
@LordSunhawk Just to clarify an element in the agreement - the "not interfering with DCMS operations" clause is trumped by the DCMS withdrawal from our system, right? Just making sure they can't come back, and say that we are forbidden from doing anything to them by the agreement.
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
Seems like a clear cut deal to me. We get them off our back - at least as long as Gustavson is in charge or the operation against the Fed Suns has been successful and gain access to a second populated planet in our system with rudimentary infrastrutcure already in place.
Seems like a clear cut deal to me. We get them off our back - at least as long as Gustavson is in charge or the operation against the Fed Suns has been successful and gain access to a second populated planet in our system with rudimentary infrastrutcure already in place.
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Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Agree - +1% Tax Rate this year, DCMS withdrawal from system, actions related to Griffin V become available
We are very much a little fish in a small pond here. We can’t really afford to say no and risk them coming at us full bore yet so we kinda have to take the deal but at the same time due to their previous actions (and probably a little meta bias) we cannot trust them to hold up their end. Note that Gustavson did not forgo the Combine’s claim to the civilians or Griffin V he merely said that the DCMS would leave, the rest was implied. What is to stop them from sending a “civilian” jumpship to find that we’ve “invaded” Griffin V, and thus violated the armistice, at their convenience? This may buy a brief respite but we must remember that it will not let the full 20 years.
We are very much a little fish in a small pond here. We can’t really afford to say no and risk them coming at us full bore yet so we kinda have to take the deal but at the same time due to their previous actions (and probably a little meta bias) we cannot trust them to hold up their end. Note that Gustavson did not forgo the Combine’s claim to the civilians or Griffin V he merely said that the DCMS would leave, the rest was implied. What is to stop them from sending a “civilian” jumpship to find that we’ve “invaded” Griffin V, and thus violated the armistice, at their convenience? This may buy a brief respite but we must remember that it will not let the full 20 years.