Casualties in the Arvum system are high, primarily due to the nature of the ultra-high velocity projectiles that bombarded the planet. Humanitarian efforts are underway, but the surviving locals are grimly determined to rebuild.
You have already tasked your scientific community to come up with any potential solutions to the Black Steel’s latest tactic.
Thanks to the severe damage to the Repair Yards in the Arvum system the Navy is having to rely on their mobile repair ships to make sufficient repairs to permit badly damaged units to jump to other systems with available repair docks, which is significantly slowing down repairs. The Navy is already exploring whether or not it would be more efficient to lay down a large number of additional
Vestal-class repair ships or to build a larger, more capable design.
One area which has the Navy very concerned is that the preliminary analysis of the battle shows just how outclassed the
Mikasa-class parasite battleship truly are in the modern combat environment, while also showing just how critical they were to the success of the fleet against the Black Steel.
In short, brutal as it seems, the
Mikasas absorbed fire that would otherwise have damaged or destroyed full scale warships, thus serving as a sort of ‘ablative armor’ for them, but suffered enormous losses in doing so. Only the fact that they have significantly fewer crewmembers per ship than even a
Battle-class Destroyer kept them from being the single largest source of casualties in the battle, and even so it was a very close run thing for an ‘honor’ that nobody wants.
Admiral Fisher has already informed you that he has tasked his Advanced Projects Group with coming up with ways of automating the
Mikasa as much as possible, in hopes of potentially turning them into completely autonomous drones rather than crewed vehicles.
You have also received the loss reports from the allied contingents in the Arvun fighting. The NRI lost over three hundred of their
Corvus corvettes, representing almost a quarter of their entire navy. The NRR, meanwhile, lost almost ten thousand ASFs across three hundred wings deployed in the system. Percentage wise, their losses were far more severe than your own.
Several weeks later you receive a report from Amaunet about the situation regarding the exosuits. Ultimately, according to the big cat, what happened was a case of different services using different terms for things and people making assumptions based on their own parochial priorities and viewpoints.
The actual directive that had gone out to the three branches was for the joint development of a common exosuit to be worn by all combat crewmen. This was the basis for the issue.
For the Army, ever since the development of the BattleMech there has been a concerted effort to prevent the rise of a ‘Mechwarrior Mafia’ mindset, a major part of this is that in Army regulations, the Mechwarrior is simply the crew of their Mech and, ever since the development of battle armor, viewed as simply the seventh trooper in an infantry squad. Tanks, apart from the smallest hovercraft used by the Rapid Response units, have multiple crewmen, and even the RRF terms their hovercraft drivers as ‘crew’. So to the Army, ‘combat crew’ was universally understood to mean all personnel assigned to the operation of any sort of combat vehicle, be it a Mech, a tank, or a support vehicle.
For the Navy the definition of ‘combat crew’ was basic and universal, all spacers in the navy were the crew of their respective ships, from the smallest parasite to the largest battleship. So ‘combat crew’ was pretty much everybody.
However, the Aerospace Force is different from everybody else. Aerospace Force pilots very much are not considered mere ‘crew’ of their birds, but rather ‘pilots’. This goes back to the very earliest days of the Aerospace Force, primarily due to the influence of your Great Aunt Thanh, who very much shaped the early culture of the Aerospace Force. Your cousins from that side of the family are still highly active in the Aerospace Force, and there is an internal mystique and culture emphasizing the primacy of the pilot. In the Aerospace Force, there are ‘ground crew’, ‘shuttle crew’ and ‘
Sunderland crew’, but the ASFs themselves are piloted by Pilots, not mere ‘crew’. Unlike every other service, each ASF has the name of the pilot emblazoned on it, many have minor bits of personalization such as nose art and, inspired by the example set by Thanh, every pilot resents every second not spent in the cockpit.
So, when the directive came down to develop the exosuits for ‘combat crew’, that directive was faithfully followed. All personnel defined as combat crew have combat exosuits developed to joint requirements that permit them to perform their duties with the benefits of the armored suits. ASF pilots are, by definition, not combat crew, therefore they do not wear those suits. The Imperial Guard and flight demonstration teams make use of the suits purely for aesthetics during parades outside the cockpit due primarily to the fact that in the Imperial Guard there are unit regulations requiring
all personnel to wear the Imperial Guard version of the exosuit to promote uniformity, said regulation being interpreted internally as applying to any occasion in which the Guardsman in question was ‘in the public eye’.
Thus the Aerospace Force officers seconded to the development team were acting appropriately, and indeed all ‘ground crew’ and the crews of the large multi-person small craft used by the Aerospace Force do indeed wear the exosuit. General Zara simply didn’t bother to look into the underlying ‘why’ of why the Aerospace Force wasn’t ordering as many of the suits as he felt they needed, nor ‘why’ they weren’t focusing on the latest upgrades by purchasing new suits, rather, Amaunet notes, the Aerospace Force was quite frugally upgrading their existing suits with, for example, the new gloves, rather than buying all new suits.
Amaunet also notes that the objections from ASF pilots about wearing the exosuits are quite valid. ASF cockpits, by their nature, are significantly more cramped than any other combat vehicle. The Aerospace Force already has to reject pilot candidates who are too tall to fit in the cockpits, and enlarging the cockpits to any significant degree would have severely negative effects on performance and thus effectiveness.
As an example, Amaunet notes that for the
Sparrowhawk interceptor upgrading the cockpit to have sufficient internal volume for the bulk of the exosuit would cost the ASF two 5cm extended range lasers and the entire enhanced targeting computer. Moreover, the exosuits are already as compact as possible given your technology, due to the requirements of the Army, there are no feasible means of creating a more compact suit while retaining any of the benefits endowed by said suits in the first place, which would utterly defeat the purpose of them in any case.
The big cat privately informs you that General Zara, no matter how energetic and brilliant he undoubtedly is, is far too aggressive and impulsive. She notes that she is attempting to work with him in that regard, but that he has alienated the other two service chiefs with his behavior and, in her words, is starting to look like he might taste good with a lovely Chianti. He’s effective, and has brought to light plenty of things which needed to be addressed, but….
| [] | Action | Result |
| [] | Fire General Zara |
- Will need to select a new Army Chief of Staff
- Unknown effects
|
| [] | Don’t Fire General Zara |
- Will retain General Zara
- Unknown effects
|
Parliament is in session, which always is a cause for some heartburn.
You receive a pair of proposals that you will need to consider and render a decision on.
First of all, is the Imperial Communications Act of 3061. The Eldest is actually one of the sponsors of the Act in the Imperial Senate, which causes you to raise an eyebrow since he rarely sponsors legislation.
In brief, the act concerns upgrading the current Academic HPG Network even further by devoting increased funds to deploying even more HPG units to the purpose of mass real time communication across interstellar distances using high-endurance HPG transmitters. In addition, it would open the network up to non-academic users in an effort to stimulate an ‘information economy’ across the Empire.
| [] | Action | Argument | Result |
| [] | Sign the Imperial Communications Act of 3061 | The Academic HPG Network has proven to be a great boon to the Empire in general, permitting researchers and scientists to collaborate freely across interstellar distances. This act simply expands upon that success.
By expanding the reach of the network outside the walls of academia, we have the potential to unleash enormous economic forces. In the short term they may well be disruptive to current paradigms, but in the long term they should unlock new avenues for economic growth in the Empire. |
- Increase Academic HPG Network rating from 2 to 3
- +1 Research Event
- +1 Approval Change
- -1 Economic Event
- Unlocks certain event chains
|
| [] | Veto the Imperial Communications Act of 3061 | The current level of funding for the Academic HPG Network is more than sufficient to account for its needs and to provide the Empire with the benefits we’ve grown accustomed to. Expanding it further is simply unnecessary, and will cause unwelcome economic disruption in a time of war. |
- -1 Approval
- -1 Politics
- +1 Economic Event
|
The other bit of legislation comes with a note from the Eldest strongly opposing it, and considering that it only passed by the most razor-thin of margins in both the Senate and the Chamber of Delegates you are already rather leery of it.
The Foreign Trade Control Act of 3061 is the single most extensive bit of protectionist legislation you’ve ever seen. It would effectively lock out most ‘foreign’ competition in Imperial markets with crippling tariffs, and would force the Navy to spend far more time than you consider even vaguely reasonable in customs enforcement, since the Act would ban the importation of any products that in any way, shape, or form competed with anything domestically produced unless they paid ruinous tariffs.
You barely hesitate a moment before vetoing the monstrosity with quite a bit of almost savage glee. You also take the time to record a statement for the press detailing exactly why, including just how many of the Senators and Delegates who supported it stood to profit enormously by the elimination of competition for their own, personal, businesses. The howls of ineffective outrage coming from the halls of Parliament are music to your ears.
Unfortunately, satisfying as this was, this has a totally unintended side effect.
The Department of Periphery Studies has decided that they really need to try their hand at forming a mock Parliament, and have done so… in the gardens surrounding the Palace, where they are loudly debating such important subjects as banning blinker fluid… at the top of their lungs, while chasing each other around with foam ‘canes’ to administer proper ‘parliamentary beatings’.
QM Note - due to Parliament utterly botching their second roll, get +1 Politics and +1 Approval Change, -1 Influence for the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.
