Turn 54 - 20 Million Years Ago
Jeremy is laughing when he comes into the ‘office’ of your hotel suite. “OK, Mom, if I didn’t know that the person behind this is a confirmed practical jokester I’d be asking for referral information to the Department of Periphery Studies, which I might still do to prank the bastard back, but look at this.” he tosses a datapad on the desk as he collapses, still laughing, into the chair on the other side.
You take a look, and at first it looks like a Completely Serious Military Procurement Proposal… until you realize that the reason you are thinking in caps like that is because it is titled ‘Completely Serious Military Procurement Proposal’ and you start snickering. Reading further, whoever this ‘Captain Jenkins’ is has managed to put together what, on the surface, looks serious, until you think about it.
An entire regiment of ‘special purpose artillery mechs’ with no armor, no secondary weapons, a top speed under 20 kilometers an hour… sure that would be a lot of Arrow IV, but there’s an asterisk noting that
simply firing its own weapons would result in the mech’s destruction. This is actually spun as a benefit in terms of ‘reducing long term maintenance requirements and thus eliminating cost-of-ownership expenses over the platforms lifespan’. Then you see the other asterisk noting that simply moving the thing would result in it collapsing under its own mass, which is likewise billed as ‘reducing required training time’ by ‘eliminating redundant operator skill requirements’.
The last page is where you completely lose it yourself, as it gives a ‘desired operator profile’ for these ‘wonder mechs’ being ‘anybody who thinks this is a good idea, and all members of Parliament who aren’t the Eldest, unless the Empress likes them.’.
You manage a straight face for a second, intending to jokingly order Jeremy to approve this proposal, but can’t get it out before you start howling with laughter again.
“Look at the last page.” Jeremy manages from where he’s still fighting a futile rear-guard action against laughter.
You advance to the indicated page, then come dangerously close to falling off your chair. ‘This proposal authored by Totally Not Coordinator Kurita’s Magic Bushido Hands’ with an animated image of ‘jazz hands’.
This Jenkins fellow has a future in comedy, that’s for certain.
“I do have some serious business though, now that that’s out of the way.” Jeremy says as he finally gets under control, allowing you to refocus and nod. “We have a number of light and medium mech designs which are, well, functionally obsolete with our new organizational setup for light and medium mechs. We would like to halt procurement of spare parts and look into recycling existing spares stockpiles of the unused designs.”
[] | Scrap ‘em |
- Next procurement that requires Endosteel requires 9 less resources (next procurement only)
- Next procurement that requires Double Heat Sinks require 9 less resources (next procurement only)
- The following designs will be removed
- Ambush
- Pathfinder
- Skirmisher
- Trooper
- Shortbow
- Crossbow
|
[] | We might someday need them | |
The Griffon teams aren’t doing very well at the moment, although you’d kind of expected that. They’d been almost uniformly crushed in athletics competitions, squeaking out bronze medals at best but generally looking utterly and totally outclassed by the NRI competitors. You expected that as you have High School and lower end Collegiate athletes on your team, versus the best that the NRI has to offer.
The Men’s Gymnastics competition is even more lopsided, as the entire men’s gymnastics team had been trapped in one of the shelters destroyed by the Dracs, along with their coaches and training staff, leaving a group of high school kids to compete who’d never before competed above the club level. The kids were game enough, but you had no truly qualified coaches for them, and none of them had anywhere close to the level of training that would make them competitive. The NRI team showed some incredible sportsmanship, however, as they realized this and took the time to help the youngsters out, even asking the judges at a few points for delays while they gave some valuable coaching to the kids. In the end, while the NRI team handily won every single medal available in men’s gymnastics, even the Griffon fans were cheering them for their exemplary conduct.
Then comes the first shock of the games. Most of the women’s team had also been lost in the attack, but the star of the 2980 Olympics had been recovering from an injury on Nowy Gdansk when the attack happened. She and her personal coach had managed to put together a decent squad, but up until the morning of the competition it was unclear if she’d be medically cleared to compete.
But she did… and she showed just why she’d been so dangerous four years ago. It was obvious that every step she took was painful, but she powered through it to put on a jaw-dropping display, and in the process she took home the Gold. She had to be carried to the medal stand by her coach, but she managed to lead the Griffon women’s team to victory. After the competition she announces that she’s retiring from competition, but that the very young team had agreed to stay together, with her and her coach training them, for the next Olympics.
The Team event? Well, the less said about that the better, you’re not even able to field a complete team, and the NRI utterly crushes you.
The New Rasalhaguian ambassador requests a meeting with you, which you grant. When he is ushered into your presence he wastes no time. He is asking your opinion on whether or not the New Rasalhague Republic would be welcome to compete in the next Olympiad, although he does say that it is unlikely that they’d be able to safely host one of their own and might need to hire one of your jumpships to carry their team to Nova Roma for the competition.
[] | Better to compete on the sporting field than the battlefield |
- Next Olympiad will feature three competitors
- Improves NRR opinion
|
[] | They may no longer be serving the Dragon, but they aren’t your friends and you still don’t trust them |
- No changes in next Olympiad
- Harms NRR opinion
|
Even while you are on the planet of Nowy Gdansk for the Olympics, you still need to deal with Parliament.
There’s an election coming up this year for the Chamber of Delegates, and those politicians who had been backed by the media conglomerates in year’s past are desperate. They also are not the sharpest tools in the shed, but still quite talented in the field of political combat.
They push forward a bill that they must know you’ll oppose, simply to give themselves soundbites that will sound good to low information voters and congenital idiots and, hopefully, land them gigs on broadcast news shows as ‘principled activists’ for years to come.
On the surface the bill looks OK, at least if you go by the flowery summary and description and the speeches that they give. Improved animal welfare and food safety, and linking things to preventing the abuse of ‘the helpless’ at the hands of ‘moneyed interests’.
It’s when you read the actual bill that you want to bang your head on the desk. It not only defines slaughtering herd animals for their meat as capital murder, the language is so loose that technically a farmer harvesting grain is ‘murdering’ the plants. The section banning ‘inhumane forced reproduction’ would not only effectively ban nearly every form of animal husbandry, it would also, technically, ban the use of any sort of mechanized seed planters. It would effectively ban weed control methods of any kind whatsoever, including simply picking the weeds by hand (felony murder!). But they word it in such convoluted and absurd ways that it is impossible for anybody who isn’t a lawyer AND isn’t familiar with highly technical terms to realize what it is saying without it being explained to them.
There’s no way this is going to pass, and there’s no way you’d support it even if it did. It’ll not even make it out of committee. But those backing it don’t care about that, all they want is to have soundbites and the ability to posture about their opponents ‘supporting rape and murder of the innocent!’. You get word from some of their staffers that they even intend to use any attempt by the Crown to set the record straight as ‘Crown tyranny against free expression’.
You are feeling rather vindictive here, this truly is pissing you off, to use the vernacular, and simply ignoring their idiocy might not be the best move.
[] | Ignore them anyways |
- -5 Politics
- +1 Support - Chamber of Delegates
|
[] | Use the IBC to broadcast the details of their plan, using mockery to illustrate just how absurd it is |
- +5 Politics
- +2 Support - Chamber of Delegates
- -1 Influence - Chamber of Delegates
|
[] | These knuckleheads are obviously prime candidates for tenured lifetime appointments to the Department of Periphery Studies |
- -10 Politics
- +5 Approval Change
- -2 Support - Chamber of Delegates
- -2 Influence - Chamber of Delegates
- Unlocks (amusing) Department of Periphery Studies events
|
The Imperial Senate, on the other hand, under the leadership of the Eldest has proposed some very useful legislation.
Specifically in recognition of the recent fighting, and as a means of increasing the strength of the Griffon Empire’s production capabilities, they are proposing an Empire-wide bond campaign to specifically bankroll a Megafactory on Griffon IV as well as a new orbital shipyard above the same planet. As part of the scheme, every holder of a certain value in said bonds would be able to trade their bonds for a plaque on either the Megafactory or the shipyard honoring themselves or the organization or person of their choice.
They are even quite ingenious in how they propose to repay the bonds, specifically assigning a portion of the Senate’s own discretionary budget to the task to repay them over thirty years. The Senate has hired private industrial teams to spearhead the project, much to the mild disgruntlement of DoME, but it does mean that it won’t impact your flexibility in terms of getting things done yourself.
Of course, if the Senate is paying for the whole project, they’d have extra control over the project, so there’s that. Of course, if you supplement the funding, you’d have more control of things, and it wouldn’t actually irritate the Senate as they are just wanting to support the Empire, not gather power or prestige to themselves.
[] | Support the Plan |
- On Turn 59 receive a Mech-focused Megafactory on Griffon IV
- Each turn until Turn 64 receive a free Orbital Shipyard module orbiting Griffon IV
- Will focus on Large Dropships
- After Turn 64 must be turned into a Warship yard
|
[] | Subsidize the Plan |
- Costs 2,000,000 a turn until Turn 59, then 100,000 a turn until Turn 64
- Allows players to choose ASF or Mech for the Megafactory, and likewise Large or Normal Dropships for the Orbital Shipyard and whether or not to continue expanding for more Jumpship production
|