Turn 62 - Well She Got Her Daddy’s Car
There is another serious pirate attack at Griff’s Leap that is fought off with minor damage. It appears that the pirates are attacking in penny packets, each attack is by a different ‘band’ of pirates, judging by paint schemes and communications chatter, and the pirates are attacking with a level of desperation that doesn’t make all that much sense. Thanks to the ramshackle and shoddy construction of the pirate dropships they are pretty much useless against any sort of proper military dropship, let alone the
Bainbridge class pickets. Unfortunately that same fragility makes it impossible to take prisoners for interrogation, as the dropships seem to explode if you look at them sufficiently angrily, let alone fire a subcap weapon at them.
What has been determined is that these are peripheral bands, desperate to make a ‘big score’ to prove themselves in what passes for their society. Ever since you started assisting the NRI the ‘easy times’ for loot and glory for the smaller bands have been over and many of them are on the ropes, as the larger bands prey on them. A few fragments of data indicates that this entire ‘culture’, if you can call it that, is based purely on strength. Corsairs raid, pillage, and bully everybody around them that they can get away with, and only slaves do ‘peasant work’ like farming or mining or manufacturing. And if a given pirate band isn’t confident of their ability to control any given asset they are far more likely to simply destroy it rather than risk it falling into another band’s hands, as anything that strengthens another band is anathema to them.
Cooperation doesn’t appear to be a virtue for these people.
That it also reminds you of the behavior of certain of your politicians and would-be elites is an irony that doesn’t escape you.
The deployment of the new Colonial Division on Nowa Warszawa was fortuitous, as friction between factions there is ramping up rapidly once more. The primary driver of the violence this time around are Home Army extremists. It is frustrating that they are doing it with equipment you’d given the Home Army. Thankfully the Home Army leadership cadres have been extremely helpful in assisting with tracking down the radicals and helping the authorities deal with them, which is just about the only thing keeping the situation from exploding into even greater violence.
But tit-for-tat attacks are driving up the death toll and making it difficult to get anything constructive done. Home Army extremists shoot up a former Drac neighborhood, ex-Drac radicals then toss firebombs at Polish neighborhoods. Then the Home Army radicals use the firebombs as an excuse to shoot up another former Drac area. The new Colonial Division is doing yeoman work keeping the factions separated.
There has been a proposal that has gotten kicked up to your desk for dealing with this. Namely expanding the Imperial Grifftiger Mounted Police and deploying the new units to Nowa Warszawa. The memo was written by a young private in the Colonial Division assigned to Nowa Warszawa who apparently grew up with a grifftiger companion, and who points out that the big cats could well have a salubrious effect on keeping things under control. After all, who’s going to argue with 20 tons of claws and fangs?
Bastet is all for this, as is Sekhmet. The Eldest, when consulted, sees nothing wrong and only laments that he is far too large to go visit himself and express his displeasure with the radicals in person.
[] | Expand the IGMP |
- Increases upkeep by 1,000,000
- Prevents certain events
- Enables certain events
- +1 Economy Rating - Nowa Warszawa
- +1 Health Rating - Nowa Warszawa
|
[] | Let’s stick to conventional forces | |
Meanwhile the Pan Griffon Games have begun, for the first time featuring athletes from outside the Griffon system itself, notably teams from Nowa Warszawa and the TTP. With the far broader athlete pool, the Griffon Olympic Committee is looking forward to addressing weaknesses and finding more talent for the upcoming games in two years.
The initial events, both men’s and women’s athletics, both show the Griffon and TTP teams dominating, with the Griffon team coming out on top of each. The Nowa Warszawa athletes struggle in these events, although most of their issues appear to be a combination of bad luck and simply not being up to the same standard as the others.
In Men’s Gymnastics the Griffon Team manages a bare victory of the TTP team, with a standard of competition well above that seen in the past from Griffon gymnastics. However in the women’s event a young gymnast from Sukaishi who made the age cut off by two days is a standout sensation, performing so far above her older peers that there is serious talk about her being a superstar in the sport before she’s even had her sweet sixteen.
The Nowa Warszawan women’s gymnasts manage to score their teams first silver of the competition, edging out the Griffon women. In the team event, however, the team synergy between the Nowa Warszawans manages a convincing victory, since the TTP phenom wasn’t on the team roster.
In the swimming events the Griffon and TTP teams trade off victories, with the Nowa Warszawans managing a silver medal in the women’s event barely edging out the Griffon women.
One evening during the games you, purely by accident, happen across your granddaughter and Siriwan celebrating a TTP win with a very lewd display of hand holding and absolutely lascivious cuddling. With you catching them red handed, the two finally admit to you that they’re dating and trying to think of a way to ask your blessing for their relationship.
You manage to keep them guessing (and sweating) for approximately a half second before your grin spoils it. After all, you didn’t have that much time until midnight, and if you waited too long then you’d lose your wager in the betting pool.
That’s your story and you are sticking to it.
Not that you think they make a wonderfully cute couple, and with the iron wombs you can even get great-grandbabies out of this. Isn’t that a thought!
You are also presented with plans for future colonization efforts.
Colonizing New Capricorn would help secure your jumpship route to the NRI and the system itself offers multiple potential colonization sites. Colonizing GX-C9 would help secure your northern flank against potential attacks while preventing the NRR from potentially outflanking you there if they decide to expand now that they are no longer in a death grapple with the Dracs.
Therefore you have several options.
Initial colonization of New Capricorn would take 3 years, focusing on the terrestrial planet first with the inhabitable moons coming afterwards. The initial phase would tie down one of your
Enterprise-A class vessels in detailed scouting. A
White Tower system defense fortress would be built in orbit of New Capricorn IV along with a full complement of ASFs and several flights of PPG-01’s.
Initial colonization of GX-C9 would take 5 years. The initial phase would be the same as with New Capricorn, but DoME teams would be required for the initial construction of colony domes.
Actual costs to colonize the two are actually comparable, at least in the initial phases. GX-C9 would require more overall work down the road, mostly from DoME, but would potentially be the wealthier system overall due to the presence of large Germanium asteroid deposits.
The kicker comes in the jumpship requirements to support colonization efforts. It is possible to colonize one or the other without jeopardizing the space lift required for operations against Nova Roma, but trying to do both would preclude such operations until at least two additional
Caravel class jumpships are in service.
[] | Initiate Colonization of New Capricorn |
[] | Initiate Colonization of GX-C9 |
[] | Initiate Colonization of Both |
[] | Colonize neither for now |