Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

kashim3

Texan, Mandalorian, Alabamian.
[X] Go for it
- [X] As a one-time expense, but they will be closely scrutinized for letting this go on under their noses for so long.
[X] Newport-class
[X] Newport-C
 

namar13766

Well-known member
[X] Go for it
- [X] As a one-time expense, but they will be closely scrutinized for letting this go on under their noses for so long.

Am I wrong in thinking the Empress was a seething cauldron of disconnected rage when she found about the CPS fuckshittery?

[X] Newport-class
[X] Newport-C
 

Jarow

Well-known member
[X] Go for it

This is, weirdly enough, not that big a budget item this turn (about 1/11 of available), making it probably affordable. Especially given I'm pretty sure we can't repair the Morristown until either level 10 or 20 shipyard.

[X] Newport-class

More HP, which I what I considered the most important thing on it. Also a lot cheaper. I'd have traded the capital for more AMS, but still works out fine.

[X] Newport-C

If we're going to be building the other, it'd be easier to keep the same hull for simplifying logistics. Definite advantages to more cargo space and unloading ability given limited loading capacity, but not enough to make me think we need to prioritize it.
 

Artifex

Well-known member
[X] Go for it
- [X] As a one-time expense, but they will be closely scrutinized for letting this go on under their noses for so long.
[X] Newport-class
[X] Newport-C
 

Nikandros

Well-known member
[X] Go for it
- [X] As a one-time expense, but they will be closely scrutinized for letting this go on under their noses for so long.
[X] Newport-class
[X] Newport-C
 

Thors_Alumni

Well-known member
[X] Go for it
- [X] As a one-time expense, but they will be closely scrutinized for letting this go on under their noses for so long.
[X] Newport-class
[X] Newport-C
 
ShadowArxxy - Omake - We Come Bearing Wonderful Headaches (Pt I)

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Omake: We Come Bearing Wonderful Headaches, Part 1

System Defense Command, New Avalon System, Federated Commonwealth

“We have an unscheduled incoming jump signature at the zenith jump point!”

The general alert sounded automatically as the on-duty sensor technician made the verbal announcement and punched the sensor data onto the main screen.

“Tonnage is in the two hundred fifty thousand ton range -- probable Star Lord or Tramp class, but the jump signature is a little off. Might be damaged or heavily modified. Zenith stations have been alerted, secondary sensors are coming online.”

“Very well, maintain a yellow alert until we have positive identification of the JumpShip.”

While the short-range optics on the actual Zenith station would technically see the new arrival first, overall responsibility for traffic management fell to the central command with its nearly Star League grade sensor suite. An unscheduled jump to New Avalon likely meant a JumpShip with a poorly maintained drive limping to the nearest inhabited system, an event which never made anyone happy given how difficult it was to actually fix K-F drives.

“Unscheduled JumpShip has completed transit, standing by for emergence signal and visual acquisition. Transit lag confirms JumpShip tonnage of two hundred forty thousand tons, DropShip tonnage of five hundred thousand tons.” The technician whistled, then frowned. “Two hundred forty thousand doesn’t match any known JumpShip class, and that much DropShip weight means five Behemoths.”

Several increasingly tense minutes later, the mystery JumpShip could finally be seen on the station’s exquisitely sensitive telescope array.

“Oh shit. Look at those transit drives -- that’s not a JumpShip, it’s a WarShip. And those aren’t Behemoths either.” The five massive parasites had much longer ellipsoid hulls dotted with oversized weapon emplacements visible even at this range. “Those have to be some kind of stupidly huge Assault DropShip.”

“Red alert.” Ordered the watch lieutenant, grimly aware that the situation was now greatly exceeding his humble pay grade. “And, ah, wake the First Prince.”
 
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Turn 51 - Life is Old There

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Turn 51 - Life is Old There

You look over the reports from Jane and Michelle and resist the urge to start screaming and breaking things.

The situation is, to put it bluntly, ugly. And there is almost nothing you can do right now, lawfully at least, to resolve it without breaking out your great-grandfather’s toolbox.

There is, simply put, no solid proof that would be admissible in any court.

But you know who is guilty.

Michelle had been the one to notice the discrepancy, the money embezzled out of the CPS budget didn’t add up, there was missing funds that were going somewhere else. However, when she went to the jail to re-interview the only two people who would have been in a position to make such a diversion she arrived to find that they’d ‘committed suicide’ in their jail cells, with nobody having seen anything.

The scene had started being ‘sanitized’ before any external forensics could arrive, but the Griffsport medical examiner had already filed the ‘official’ finding of suicide, after supposedly examining both bodies. But Michelle had realized very quickly that there simply wasn’t enough time for any such examination to occur. Then by the time she had gotten a court order to reopen the examination, the medical examiner's office had regrettably informed her that the bodies had been released to the families who had had them immediately cremated.

Which was funny, because neither of the individuals involved had actual ‘next of kin’.

At that point Michelle had invoked her authority as Special Branch and shut down the entire medical examiner’s office, bringing in the squad to engage in a thorough audit and investigation.

The medical examiner himself, who’d issued all the reports and orders, had been at home when the order was given. It took less than five minutes for Special Branch to arrive at the residence where they’d promptly found themselves in a gunfight with a pair of supposed Griffsport PD officers who were caught red-handed murdering the medical examiner. Neither had been taken alive, and further investigation showed that their IDs were forged and their fingerprints had been burned off with chemicals to prevent discovering their actual identity.

This was when Michelle started getting… creative. The Special Branch collated every scrap of records and material related to anything even vaguely related to CPS. And a pattern started to emerge. Beginning a decade ago records suddenly became… sterile. Most of the experienced case workers in the department started getting promoted to work on Castor and Pollux due to the ongoing issues there but in most cases they weren’t actually replaced. A small cadre of barely qualified replacements, about a tenth of the usual staffing, were brought on board, background checks for new caregivers was shifted to an apparently non-existent new team within the department and the rot took full hold.

And then more patterns start to emerge. On at least three dozen occasions officials within the planetary government had started to look into CPS. Each time, within hours of the first hints of such an investigation, scandals had exploded in every single major media outlet, generally involving claims of official corruption and chicanery, and all just incidentally scuttling the CPS investigations in favor of ‘bigger problems’. Several investigators who persisted had ‘committed suicide’ shortly afterwards, with the suicide findings being issued by the medical examiner who’d been killed by those ersatz cops.

Investigating his finances revealed regular cash deposits being made concurrent with these findings.

Diligent work on the Special Branch’s part dug up some surveillance video which caught the former medical examiner receiving a briefcase from an individual dressed in a rather anonymous suit and tie. Facial recognition on the individual linked him to one of the largest law firms in Griffsport, but when Michelle discretely checked she found that no such individual appeared to exist. The law firm in question is closely linked to the opposition parties in Parliament as well as every single one of the major media conglomerates on Griffin’s Roost itself.

More digging found that on several previous occasions independent media sources had also started investigating CPS, usually after tips from disgruntled caseworkers who had been seeing their complaints vanishing into the aether. In each case the hosting providers for those media companies had suddenly taken them offline following legal complaints… issued by the law firm in question on behalf of non-existent clients. In each case ‘mistakes’ and ‘bugs’ had resulted in said providers not only deleting the sites, along with all of the content on them, but also all backups. In two cases where the independent journalists had continued to pursue their investigations they’d turned up dead… of suicide.

Special Branch is able to get a subpoena and warrant to seize all records of that law firm, only for the building housing it to catch fire within, Michelle timed it, seconds of the warrant being issued. Special Branch promptly audited the IT systems of the courthouse and found a computer worm embedded in the network which had already been in the process of deleting itself. They got enough data off of it, however, to show that it was in communication with computers located in the law offices. Computers which were now so much slag.

And, totally coincidently you are sure, all of the major media sources on Griffin’s Roost are now howling about the Special Branch being supposedly used as a gestapo and secret police against the Empresses political opponents and critics as a sign that she is indeed acting like a tyrant. It would be more impressive if they weren’t all reading from the exact same script in a blatantly coordinated manner.

Michelle has a plan, with Janet’s agreement. There is absolutely no sign whatsoever of the military being compromised. Have the Imperial Guard seize all of the assets of not just the media conglomerates, but all of their boards, senior executives, and major stakeholders. Arrest every single person associated in any way with the law firm in question, even if they technically have Parliamentary immunity.

Janet suspects that ultimately there are only a half-dozen or so actual ringleaders involved, none of them in Parliament, her suspicion rests directly on the moguls who control the media empires in question. All of them are incredibly wealthy, all of them have long been of the self-entitled type that Janet is always suspicious of… and all of them are, in her words, the sort of creeps she’d never trust within a mile of any child. She suspects, based on the fact that they haven’t been targeting anything related to the military or R&D that ultimately this is a group of self-entitled perverts who decided that they should be able to indulge in their slightest whims, no matter who was hurt by it, and had gone about it in a ruthlessly foul way, corrupting everything their loathsome desires required to get what they wanted. They were also very adept at covering their tracks.

[]Crush them mercilessly
  • -50 Imperial Approval
  • +10 Approval Change
  • +5 Politics
  • For 2 turns lose ‘the Just’ effect
  • After 2 turns regain ‘the Just’ and add ‘Defender of the Weak’
    • Gain an additional reroll on negative meta-event rolls
    • On a ‘neutral’ meta-event roll, gain +1 Imperial Approval
  • -1 Influence Chamber of Delegates
  • -1 Influence Imperial Senate
  • -25 support Chamber of Delegates
  • -25 support Imperial Senate
  • Prevents all further events on this event tree
[]Continue to try and do it within the legal system
  • -10 Politics
  • -20 Approval Change
  • Gain ‘Weak’ effect
    • Reroll any positive meta-event rolls
  • Event tree continues
 

edofthesquid

Well-known member
[]Crush them mercilessly

Lance the boil. Absolute worst case we can step down in favor of Jeremy.

Edit: backing off on my gut reaction for a bit. I'll vote properly later
 
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Decim

Chronic on/off lurker
[X] Continue to try and do it within the legal system

I can't agree with the rest of you on this. Government is an agreement between people to bind themselves to restrictions in guarantee for protection from each other and from the government. From this agreement, Rights and Law arises. "Crush them mercilessly" goes after everyone even tangentially involved in this mess regardless if they are guilty or not. Rights, Law, and Due Process are completely discarded in favor of expediency. In doing this, Jackie is explicitly taking a stance of "I'm doing this because I can and it's easier, not because it's right."
 

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