Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 44 - Hallelujah

Spoiler: Event, Luck and Rating Rolls

Meta-Event Roll - 61
Dynasty Luck Roll - 54

Imperial Approval Roll - 2
Imperial Approval Change - 0
Politics Event Roll - -3

Economy Roll - 1
Economic Event Roll - 2
Research Roll - 4

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 6
Griffin’s Roost Health - 3
Griffin’s Roost Change - 5

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 8
Nowy Gdansk Health - 10
Nowy Gdansk Change - 3

GIAB Econ - 9
GIAB Change - 1

G2O Econ - 3
G2O Change - -3

Griffon IV Econ - 4
Griffon IV Health - 3

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Armed Defense Stations Nowy Gdask* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $165,332.88 ]

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 377,435.00 ]
-2 Flights of Eagles [auto]

-2 Flights of Griffons [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Star Fort Wing [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 2
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Planetary Defense Wings [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Armored Cavalry Regiments [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Standard Armored Regiments [70]
(Going for path 3; it finishes a unit and is actually doable)
Target - 70
Roll - 85, Shandrilessa reroll - 91, ShadowArxxy reroll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin IV [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Shipyard Griffin's Roost [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 27
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

Build Space Station Griffin IV [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 43 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 44 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 45 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

Build Relations with Chamber of Delegates (60)
Target - 60
Roll - 73, ShadowArxxy design reroll - 78, Jarow design reroll - 87, Steve reroll - 80, ShadowArxxy design reroll 2 - 60
Result - SUCCESS

Build Relations with Senate (60)
Target - 60
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

Improved Communications Lvl 5 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

Full-Head Ejection System [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 93
Result - FAIL

VTOL Jet Booster [55]
Target - 55
Roll - 58
Result - Bare Failure (auto success next turn)

Standard Core Construction* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 87
Result - Bare Failure (auto success next turn)

Standard Core Theory* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 96
Result - FAIL

Standard Core Design* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 100, ShadowArxxy emergency reroll - 99
Result - FAIL

Establish Separate Counter-Intelligence Section [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

Establish separate Signals Intelligence Section [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 85
Result - FAIL

Investigate Military Industrial Complex for corruption [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 85
Result - FAIL

-----

You are actually visiting with SARAH on a somewhat casual visit to the bunker when the AI suddenly triggers an alert. The main viewscreen updates… USS Enterprise is making a frantic distress call from Griffon VI that they are under attack.

The initial report is just the basic EMERGENCY flash on the exploration dropships beacon, but within a few minutes you get more data, the oldest dropship in your fleet is under assault from a pair of heavily customized and very flamboyantly painted Avenger dropships… in the markings of the Amaris-affiliated pirates who’d already attacked your system once.

The captain of the Enterprise is a canny and crafty sort, managing to dodge and evade attacks that should have killed the ship and even landing a few hits of his own. But then the dropship is bracketed by heavy naval laser fire and nearly crippled. Nevertheless, they’d managed to build up enough velocity that they were able to get clear, completely dead in space, but clear as the Inner System Patrol raced towards them. Granted, it will take several hours for the Patrol to reach them, but still.

Several hours later the situation is clarified, but is no better. Enterprise had gotten a visual on the warship that had fired upon her… the distinctive shark-fin silhouette of a McKenna-class. By the time the Inner System Patrol had reached the area the warship had evidently jumped out as there was no sign of it.

According to SARAH it’s quite likely that the battleship had mounted a lithium-fusion battery system, although it is also possible that she’d been there undetected for some time as SARAH still has no eyes on that planet.

Needless to say, USS Enterprise is going to require serious repair work, as she is only holding pressure in a few compartments, the drive is shot, the reactor had to go into emergency shut down, and the main sensor suite is a total loss. Moreover, the attack showed the vulnerability of the design, leading to some calls to replace the class with something larger and more capable.

[]	Repair USS Enterprise	Cost 400 Improves Crew to Crack
[]	Scrap her and solicit new exploration dropship design	Remove USS Enterprise from service Opens up new design competition
[]	Do both repairs and solicit new design	Cost 400 Improves Crew to Crack Opens up new design competition

A quarter of the crew were casualties, thankfully the majority were injured rather than killed, but you still wind up attending several funerals. It’s a rather sobering affair.

The news of the attack on USS Enterprise almost overshadows the first Pan-Griffon Games, but only almost.

By the end of the competition there are calls for the heads of the coaching staffs for just about all of the Griffin’s Roost teams, with many of the coaches and team members having to be given police protection. The games are a shambolic debacle for Griffin's Roost, with Nowy Gdansk utterly dominating in many disciplines, including, shockingly, some of the motorsports.

Local news is dominated with the Greatest Fails of the competition, for example the utter and complete travesty that was the Griffin’s Roost Women’s Gymnastics Team managing to fail at every single one of the events so badly that it looked like a pre-school children’s team competing with professionals.

There are a few bright spots in all the gloom. The Women’s Athletics Team is incredibly dominant, with multiple system records being broken by a pair of incredibly talented young runners. The Women’s Swim Team is similarly dominant, while the Women’s Marathon is dominated by a young runner from Pollux. The only sport where the men manage to eek out a victory is at the shooting range, behind an impressive performance at the pistol range.

The Planetary Government of Griffin’s Roost, who had invested heavily in the games, promptly opened up investigations into the performance of the coaches and athletes to ensure there was no hanky-panky going on. You get a report forwarded to you that the conclusion the investigation came to was that everybody involved had done their best, but that the investments had been so heavily biased towards facilities and infrastructure that the coaching staff for most of the teams had been mainly drawn from the high school level, and athlete recruitment had been poor to put it kindly.

Meanwhile you are spending quite a bit of time with very smug Poles from Nowy Gdansk, drinking Polish Vodka and eating pierogies. Thankfully you like both the vodka and the pierogies, but you could do without Jake constantly strutting around like he personally won the events.

The second Star Fort is brought online over Nowy Gdansk to great acclaim and approval, providing even greater protection for the industrial powerhouse that the planet is rapidly becoming.

Procurement overall goes rather well, despite some issues with Jaguar production thanks to a perfect storm of minor labor disputes that just seemed to dog the project. In the end all were resolved amicably enough, and the two standard armored regiments stood up with full complements of their equipment, but it was a nearer run thing that anybody is really happy about. You look into things briefly, but everything appears to be fine overall.

You are kept very busy, in between being present at most of the keel laying ceremonies for new dropships and attending commissioning ceremonies. You are so very glad of the existence of teleprompters, because you are sure you’d have messed up the names more than once without them.

A set of space stations is constructed ringing Griffon IV, giving ASFs places to stage out of if need be. In addition the first two military orbital shipyards have been completed. You tour one of them and are quite impressed, but then you realize that you forgot to address one rather important question… Do you want to build big dropships that would take up the entire current platform, or smaller ones that you can build two of at a time?

[]	Large Dropships GR	Gain 1 Lvl 4 Large Dropship Yard
[]	Regular Dropships GR	Gain 2 Lvl 4 Dropship Yards

[]	Large Dropships NG	Gain 1 Lvl 4 Large Dropship Yard
[]	Regular Dropships NG	Gain 2 Lvl 4 Dropship Yards

While there’s not much economic activity in the small orbital habitats that orbit Griffon IV supporting the terraforming effort there is some, and promoting the light zero-g manufacturing that goes on there has a small effect on the local economy.

Expansion of a number of orbital factories goes rather well, increasing production of endo steel and ferro fibrous armor, as well as double heat sinks.

Jake had an easy time schmoozing with the Senate, it’s with the Chamber of Delegates where things went a bit wonky. Evidently quite a few of the Griffin’s Roost Delegates took a bit of offense at his blatant Nowy Gdansk Pan-Griffon Games fanboyism, leading to it taking far more effort than it probably should have for him to soothe ruffled feathers and increase your support in the chamber.

Mary reports that things in her patch are… not nearly as smooth as she’d hoped. Work on improving communications technology went well enough, despite some hiccups and difficulties, and she reports that they are able to start researching both advanced communications technologies as well as the underlying theories of practical HPG development.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is everything else.

The least bad news comes from the VTOL Jet Booster project. The Jet Booster works very well, or at least they think so, the problem was that the test pilot managed to crash the test VTOL on landing, completely wrecking the bird and setting back getting actual final results until Q1 of next year. The next least bad news comes from the Standard Core Construction research team, who are pretty sure that they know what they are about but a misplaced close paran in their CAD/CAM software configuration resulted in excessive delays and they’ll not be finished until Q2 of next year.

Everything else makes you think that the same people behind the Griffin’s Roost athletics teams in the Games were in charge of the R&D projects.

The Full-Head Ejection system, for example. The testbed actually killed the test pilot when the rockets detonated prematurely due to an electronic fault that had been missed by three separate diagnostics. Reviewing the diagnostic results show no sign of imminent failure, but when the test pilot sat down on the pilot’s seat in the test article the rockets instantly fired before he strapped himself in, killing him, the technician helping to strap him in, and sparking a fire in the test chamber.

The Standard Core Theory team? Well, they had gone out for celebratory drinks after a partially successful model run and wound up all getting arrested for public intoxication, public indecency, disturbing the peace and affray after a rather memorable bar crawl that resulted in over five hundred thousand in property damage and the unforgettable (although you want to forget, desperately) of the project leaders bare buttocks stuck out the plate glass window of what had used to be a very high class bar.

The Standard Core Design team evidently took this as an excuse to challenge for The Most Embarrassing Incident At Griffin’s Roost University This Decade No Prize. And after utterly humiliating themselves in the process, along with spending several nights in jail since nobody wanted to admit to knowing them and they were too drunk to simply bail themselves out, they discovered that they’d been one single mouse click away from deleting all of their work.

Evidently the Intelligence Department isn’t immune either. While the new Counter-Intelligence Section stood up and is now functioning as intended, the Signals Intelligence people evidently are very good at analyzing signals and equally bad at properly filling out paperwork.

Meanwhile the investigation into the Military Industrial Complex for possible corruption is ongoing. So far nothing of note has been found, although this is possibly because investigators spent several months chasing what turned out to be a red herring investigating complaints related to military field rations. One major corporation alleged corruption as they’d lost the contract to a competitor who was charging significantly more than their bid had been. This one actually makes it all the way to your desk, and you wind up ruling that considering that the ‘cheap’ bid was for rations that you wouldn’t feed to rats without feeling guilty about their poor taste buds and stomachs, and the winning rations were actually extremely good, that the corporation complaining could just suck it up.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 45 - A Man is Made out of Mud

Looking back you realize you’d actually heard about the first little domino that fell. A tiny one paragraph story in the Griffsport Times about a small luxury shuttlecraft lease service going bankrupt. You remembered that bit because the business model seemed a bit unique, they leased out ultra-high end luxury shuttles to people on a by-the-hour basis. The company had overextended itself as the sufficient demand for the service never materialized.

Then a company that built custom shuttles went out of business, their latest model year offering had failed to gain any traction in the marketplace, and on top of a few hard years in the past it was too much for them. This story actually made the HD news, but more because a few celebrity analysts had been touting the stock just weeks before the fatal earnings report came out that sank the company.

Then came the first boulder to fall as the avalanche began. A major personal automobile firm announced catastrophically bad earnings, driven by the corporation's complete failure to anticipate shifting market demands combined with excessive structural debt and a botched marketing campaign. The company wasn’t in any danger of imminent bankruptcy, but had announced massive layoffs and that they were closing a number of factories, marques, and product lines.

This was followed on the same day by another manufacturer in the automobile sector announcing one of the largest product recalls in planetary history. It wasn’t anything truly stupendous, the fix would take 15 minutes at any dealership and involved a $5 part. Nobody had gotten hurt, but the product was ‘out of spec’ so the manufacturer was fastidiously making it right at their own expense. That the reason for it being out of spec was that said part was painted the wrong color and thus, if somebody were to open the hood that particular part would clash with the rest of the engine compartment made it just a little ridiculous. But the pump was now primed.

Then a major player in the personal electronics sector announced their own corporate restructuring due to failing to meet earnings targets. And the bears started to roar.

Within an hour automatic triggers had halted trading on all of the Stock Exchanges, but the damage had been done. The market was down almost 25% in a single day, and the Futures market was looking grim.

The resultant slump in the markets led to several small investment firms to fall below Minimum Assets At Hand limits, triggering additional contagion throughout the financial sector as the now over-leveraged firms were forced to frantically raise capital to meet their obligations. This led to several of the largest investment banks in the Empire hitting those same MAAH limits as the capital markets were shaken by events.

By the next morning you were notified that the single largest Corporate Bank in the Empire was facing imminent failure as they had overextended themselves into those same failing investment banks and would fail to meet their own Asset Holding requirements. This had led to several runs on the regular banks throughout the empire as citizens attempted to protect themselves from the possible failures of those banks as well.

It was a serious mess. The economist in you realizes that this is an essential part of the business cycle, that these firms had, despite no wrongdoing or malfeasance, been swept up in a storm of ultimately poor bets on the markets. If they’d zigged instead of zagged they’d have made out like bandits, and indeed a few smaller banks had done just that and would survive just fine. But they’d zagged in a zig situation, and, stretching the metaphor to the limits and beyond, took financial torpedoes below the waterline and were sinking fast.

Your advisors are torn. Bridget puts it very succinctly. “Head says let it go, this will ultimately shake out with a healthier economy in the long term, the companies that are unable to survive this are consuming capital that healthier companies need to thrive. Heart looks at all the people who, ultimately through no fault of their own, are getting hurt by this by losing jobs, investments portfolios, and retirement funds, and wants to step in and make their pain go away by propping up the failing companies.”

That is the rub. You take the time to read through the materials on all of the firms involved, and can see that many of them were older, larger, somewhat sclerotic firms that had been coasting for some time on past glories and reputations. They’d gotten complacent, and it had ruined them. Letting the fire rage in the short term would hurt, no doubt about it, but in the end you’d have nice fertile soil for new companies to rise up in. On the other hand, the sheer human cost could make it such that those companies might be considered too big to fail, because their failure simply hurts too much.

[]	Action	Result
[]	Let the Free Market take its course	-10 Imperial Approval -10 Approval Change +10 Economic Rating +10 Economic Event +10 Rating Change each planet Raise Econ Rating Cap on each planet by 10
[]	Intervene by subsidizing the vulnerable companies	Cost - 1,000,000 Ongoing cost - 100,000 Can cancel at any time, however at that time there will be a 2d5% reduction in GDP for each planet +5% GDP each planet this year only +5 Imperial Approval +10 Approval Change +10 Politics -10 Economic Rating -10 Economic Event -20 Economy Rating each planet Lower Econ Rating Cap on each planet by 10

QM Notes - After 2 rerolls this was the best you got for Meta Event. -30% GDP on each planet. (actual event was -1d4*10 percent reduction, so you got a little lucky)

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 45 - A Poor Man’s Made Out of Muscle and Blood

Reading the papers and watching the news has become a bit of a chore as the bad news continues rolling in. More banks are struggling but there are hopeful signs that the recession will be a short, sharp one.

You are very happy that you organized such an extensive social safety net early in your reign, having done so is paying off as in general the poor and middle class are barely feeling the pinch, rather the wealthy and ultra-wealthy are going to have to buy one less ultra luxury car this year.

Indeed most of the ‘pain’ is being felt by the failed companies themselves, the people employed by them will be fine overall, at worst they have to take some public assistance if their savings are insufficient, but they’ll be on their feet just fine throughout. But some of these companies seem to think they have a God-Given right to make a profit, and that the public purse exists for them to cover their losses.

Considering some of the people who are yelping and whining the loudest you find it very difficult to care. One of the newspapers that has always been critical of you is trying to make hay over this by featuring sob stories from people hurt by the crash, but it is exceptionally hard to generate sympathy for a corporate raider who just last year had been profiled in the same paper gloating over dismantling companies and laying off the workers in order to make more money for himself. That he was now having to liquidate assets in order to avoid bankruptcy is, in your opinion, karmic justice.

Granted it is having an effect, but your own press office is doing their best to mitigate things. It’ll blow over, eventually.

Parliament is a mixed bag, with the Senate actually being helpful under the leadership of the newly elected Senate President… the Eldest. Serves the big lug right to be forced to actually take responsibility for that madhouse for a change.

But he does propose legislation to you that you don’t really object to on its face. Considering that the Griffon II Orbitals have been suffering a great deal from economic malaise, mostly through absolutely no fault of their own, and now this economic downturn is disproportionately affecting businesses involved in that planet's economy as they had been highly vulnerable already.

Moreover, the Orbitals are hosting large numbers of geologists who have been rather poor guests, bringing in everything they need from outside and contributing little to the local economy. You know, thanks to Sarah, that this is sadly typical of the more snooty ‘pure science’ types who populate that department so you aren’t all that surprised that they’d rather import everything from Griffin’s Roost than buy local.

The locals are smarting a bit, though, and the Eldest has proposed an assistance package that could help the place recover more quickly than they had.

In essence it is a public-private partnership scheme. Additional orbital workshops would be built for the civilian market at subsidized rates, with all of the labor coming from the small local workforce, in addition there will be a commitment that, when practical, a full O’Neill Cylinder will be built there in order to boost growth even more.

[]	Support	Costs 250,000 +10% GDP Griffon II Orbitals next 5 turns Doubles effect of focusing development on G2O Requires that first open DoME slot not used for Griffon IV project be devoted to building an O’Neill Cylinder at G2O +5 Politics
[]	Oppose	No effect

The Chamber of Delegates, on the other hand, is being a bit pushier. You’d expected this, considering how many of them owe money and favors to the various players being hurt by the economic downturn.

Their initial proposal you shoot down out of hand, as all it is is a massive bailout of the banks and investment firms at the expense of the taxpayers it is a complete non-starter as far as you are concerned.

Their second proposal is also rejected out of the gate as it would force healthy banks that were more prudent in their investments, but which tended to be much smaller than the now nearly insolvent ones, to prop up their bigger competitors.

Your supporters in the Chamber have been engaged in loud shouting matches with the opposition over the matter and the entire Chamber of Delegates is now completely at loggerheads with each other. This is going to require your intervention if you want to get anything done.

The bills that your supporters are pushing would, in general, enhance the status quo by slightly increasing funding to the unemployment and social safety net schemes, stiffening regulations on investment firms in order to better protect against the sort of cascade failures that just occurred, and increasing the cash on hand requirements on consumer banks combined with a mechanism to automatically close banks in the event of a bank run with increased guarantees on personal accounts via the increased cash-on-hand requirements.

Unfortunately in order to pass any of these you’ll need to bargain with the opposition, who is loudly demanding things that are utterly unacceptable to you. However there are some small areas you might be able to compromise on that will get you what you want, more or less.

[]	Option 1	Give up on the Chamber this year. No bonuses, no penalties
[]	Option 2	Gain 2 items from the Desired List Concede 1 item to the Opposition List -5 Support in the Chamber of Delegates
[]	Option 3	Gain 1 item on the Desired List -5 Support in the Chamber of Delegates -5 Politics
[]	Option 4	Gain 1 item on the Desired List Concede 1 item on the Opposition List

[]	Desired List	Opposition List
[]	Increase Funding to Social Safety Net +5000 Upkeep +1 Unemployment Benefits +5 Imperial Approval	Bail out politically connected corporations +100,000 cost this year +1% GDP this year all planets -5 Imperial Approval -5 Approval Change
[]	Increase Regulation on Investment Firms -1% Interest Rate +5 Economy Rating	Sunset regulations on investment firms +1% Interest Rate -2 Economic Event -5 Politics
[]	Increase Cash-On-Hand Requirements for Consumer Banks + Automatic Bank Closure Mechanism with Account Protection +5 Approval Change -1% Interest Rate	Reduce funding to social safety net in favor of greater subsidies to corporations and banks -1 Unemployment Benefits Gain ‘Regulatory Capture’ tag +5% GDP this year all planets -10 Imperial Approval -10 Approval Change

QM Note - first vote on which option you wish to pursue, then vote for the given number of options on the two lists. When voting just include the description, not the bullet points

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 45 - A Mind that’s Weak and a Back that’s Strong

You are tired, grumpy, and not at all interested in dealing with the Chamber’s crap, especially when in the middle of negotiations they keep on changing their deals, demanding more and more concessions in return for simply continuing to talk, and generally being incredibly useless.

So you cut off all negotiations and inform the Empire that there will be no deals with the Chamber so long as corporate shills and grifters continue to attempt to loot the people’s purse in pursuit of wealth and power.

That really sets a grifftiger amongst the rabbits, as the Delegates start shrieking like gelded deathapotamusaurus about your characterization of them. That you answer their ‘principled protests’ by simply releasing the tapes of the ‘negotiations’ along with detailed documents highlighting precisely what they were demanding and who amongst their backers benefited the most from it just makes them angrier.

Luckily next year is an election year for those twits, and you hope that this might be the ammunition you need to get the morons turfed out of the Chamber for good.

But it is tiring, and you aren’t that young anymore. You’ve been Queen then Empress for 45 years now. There’s plenty to like about it, true, but then there are years like this one where it seems you get no sleep and no time with your grandkids.

You’d been thinking of stepping down and letting your son take the throne, but so far have refrained since A) you love being Empress and B) he loves piloting his big stompy mech and commanding troops. But you are starting to think it may be time to consider stepping down in order to spend more time with the grandkids and put Jeremy in the Big Chair.

[]	Start 5 Year Transition	On Turn 50 Jeremy will become Emperor Lose ‘the Just’ as a tag Lose ‘Butterbar’ Lose ‘Skilled NCO on Board’ Gain ‘Experienced Soldier’ +5 to all military rolls Gain ‘Political Scientist’ Gain 1 reroll of any Parliament support roll Gain 5 turns of ‘Honeymoon Period’ Negates the first negative event rolled to ‘no event’ Minimum +0 Tax Rate Minimum +0% GDP growth
[]	Stay the Course	Be like Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth the 2nd and reign forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever...

Meanwhile you do have some meetings about some replacement mech designs. First to the plate is the replacement for the Chevalier Command Mech. Submissions were sparse for the contest, with designs being proposed from Majeure Electronique and a smaller firm based out of Castor. All three submitted designs meet the requirements.

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Voivode Command Mech	4406.52	DHS, Endo	124	31	Armored 1 Command 1 Scout ECM TAG AMS 1
[]	Voivode-B Command Mech	3628.12	DHS, Endo	120	30	Armored 1 Command 1 Scout ECM TAG AMS 1
[]	Odysseus Heavy Command Mech	4360.32	DHS, Endo	128	32	Armored 1 Command 1 Scout ECM TAG

Meanwhile there are far more mechs submitted for the Trooper replacement program. Evidently far more firms feel confident about their chops at designed medium weight class mechs than heavy ones. Several designs had to be eliminated from consideration due to failing to meet the specifications, but there are still several that have been submitted and meet the requirements.

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Zolnierz Trooper	2154.6	DHS, Endo	72	28	AMS 1
[]	Trooper II Frontline	2570.6	DHS, Endo	84	31
[]	Principes Medium Mech	2907.28	DHS, Endo	76	29	Missile 0, AMS 1
[]	Nu-Trooper	2802.6	DHS, Endo	88	32	AMS 1
[]	Hussar Medium Mech	2269.92	DHS, Endo	72	28	Missile 0, AMS 1

Not long after the meetings conclude to decide on these mechs it comes time to work on the budget.

The military is up first, with General Jackson stepping up to the Podium. “Your Majesty, your ground forces have three requests this year, keeping in mind the budgetary and economic situation. We would like to finish out 2nd Brigade of 3rd Armored and bring both 1st and 2nd RRF up to full Brigade strength. To that end, we are requesting the procurement of 1 Standard Mech Regiment, 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment, and 2 Rapid Reaction Regiments. Looking to the future, we would like for the expansion of Mech factories to be considered to permit the construction of multiple Standard Mech Regiments a year.”

No powerpoints? Not even any slides? Just a handout? THEY CAN BE TAUGHT!

Then General Reyes proves that no, not every military type can be taught the evils of Powerpoint, because she has a powerpoint. Oh lord does she have a powerpoint.

• Fleet Starfighter Force
  • 2 flights of Griffon Assault ASF for Devastation-class vessels
  • Light Carrier Squadrons from Microraptors transferred to Training duties to the new Megaraptors.
• Griffon IV ASF Garrison
  • 1 Patrol Wing
• System Patrol Force
  • 1 Patrol Wing
• Griffin’s Roost ASF Training
  • 1 Training Wing

Salvation arrives in the form of Admiral Benjamin who cheerfully tosses the remote to you, pulls out an old-fashioned poster board and pointer, and gets to it that way.

“Your Majesty, we’ve got a ton of slips open and ready for construction, so allow me to take it.” he grins wickedly “From. The. Top!” He gestures with his pointer and his aide actually presses play on a boombox of all things to give the Admiral some musical accompaniment.

“Starting with the ground based factories. We got us 2 Large Dropship Facilities all set and ready to lay down some more of those sweet sweet Devastation-class ships with all their big honking space guns. Can we pretty please have ‘em both? Then we got 2 Troodon lines all ready to be fired up. Fire ‘em up!” classic sound effect, you can’t help but to laugh. “Then over here, we got us some Defiant lines, a pair of the littlest bad boys in the fleet. Defiants be sexy, yo. Then over here we’ve got a pair of Megaraptor lines just waiting for business. FEED ‘EM BUSINESS!” he makes a flourish with his pointer. “Then we got these 4 Lightning lines, the Lightning is fast as greased itself, and we need all we can get. And then, we get into choices. We’d like to convert the old Velociraptor lines into something more useful, like, say, Tyrannosaurus lines. If we do that Majeure Electronique assures me they’ll be able to lay down and launch the dropships this year, with commissioning next year like normal. And now... “ he nods to the aide with the boombox, who promptly presses a button and a drumroll sounds. “We come to our brand spanking new pretty as a postcard and still with the new car smell, although you can’t smell anything since they’re in vacuum, orbital shipyards. We’d like to lay down a single Langley and a pair of Troodons to escort her bad self. For the foreseeable future we’d like that to be a pattern.”

With that he gives you a florid bow and takes his seat, making you ponder if, through some divine intervention, Tyler managed to have a black grandson who was flamboyant without being a complete lech.

General Potter then takes the stage. “Your Majesty, this will be my last budget meeting with you as your Chief MIlitary Advisor, as I am stepping down at the end of the year. My staff will have a list of replacements on your desk soon.” he looks grim and gray, and you realize with a pang that he’s much closer to 100 than you are. “Regardless, I do endorse all of these suggestions, and do recommend continuing orbital shipyard expansion despite the economic hardships we are experiencing right now.”

You nod sadly as the old warhorse takes his seat once more.

Bridget is up next, and while at first she tries to be slower and more decorous in respect to the mood in the room after that announcement, she can’t help herself and is soon babbling. “Your Majesty, your Interior Ministry is very busy as it stands, but we stand ready to assist with expanding our orbital assets and are getting ready for the next phase of the colonization program which will give us a large number of new things to build especially once the terraforming research finishes up because I’ve seen some of the things they’re talking about already and it would be so awesome to build some of that stuff but we’d need more DoME types and a bigger Interior ministry but that’s a bit off.”

Isoroku is away from the meeting handling preliminary work for next year's Olympics, especially in regards to setting up appropriate housing and such for the visiting Romans. His aid has a short memo from him recommending that this year's cultural event be a benefit concert benefiting economic relief efforts.

Jake is looking as frustrated and irritated as you know you feel about the ongoing debacle that is the Chamber of Delegates. “Your Majesty, I know we’ve been approaching the Chamber with a relatively light hand during elections, preferring to allow the people to decide, but frankly it has become clear that money is talking and the good of the Empire is walking. We can intervene by actively campaigning for Delegates who are willing to put the good of the Empire over their own bank accounts. It will irritate those who are feeding at the trough, but it may be the only way to temper the influence of the ultra-wealthy on the Chamber.”

Mary is uncharacteristically absent from this meeting, although she sent her apologies as all of her teams are hard at work and she’s doing her best to… motivate things along and keep the sort of insanity that happened last year from repeating itself.

Harry Owens is looking serious as ever. “Your Majesty, we will need a decision from you. Our new COINTEL department is seeking guidance over how, well, ruthless you want them to be. Nothing that would actually violate the civil liberties of our citizens, but there is plenty that is unethical while still being, well, legal.”

[]	Low Ruthless	Will unlock the following projects for COINTEL Public education about COINTEL Basic Security Screening
[]	Medium Ruthless	Will unlock the following projects for COINTEL in addition to those above Enhanced Security Screening Automated keyword-based communications surveillance Security Screening for Public Employees
[]	High Ruthless	Will unlock the following projects for COINTEL in addition to those above Establish a Honey Trap School (volunteer ONLY) Pervasive Security Screening Security Monitoring of all Public Employees Security Screening of all citizens involved in government related work

Janet gives Harry a bit of a stink-eye over the ‘High Ruthless’ proposals, but does grudgingly concede that within the limits he gives they would pass legal muster. She herself has nothing new for you, however, as work continues on searching for corruption in the military industrial complex.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 45 - You Load 16 Tons and What do you get?

Spoiler: Event, Luck, Rating rolls

Meta Event Roll - final 93 - Recession! -30 GDP growth all planets
Dynasty Luck Roll - final 63 - no event

Imperial Approval - 4
Approval Change - 6
Politics - 2

Economy Rating - 3
Economy Event - -2
Research Event - 4

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 8
Griffin’s Roost Health - 3.5
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 8

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 7
Nowy Gdansk Health - 6
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 8

GIAB Econ - 6
GIAB Rating Change - 5

G2O Econ - 0
G2O Rating Change - -1

Griffon IV Econ - 3
Griffon IV Rating Change - 5

Spoiler: Action Results

Expand Orbital Shipyard 49 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard 50 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 1117189.96]
-Devastation [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 73
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 27
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 75
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

-Langley [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 8
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 267528.74 ]
-2 Flights of Griffons [70]

-1 Training Wing [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Patrol Wings [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Armored Cavalry Regiment [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Mech Regiment [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 40
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Rapid Reaction Regiments [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Orbital Germanium Processing Facility* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin II Orbitals [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel Griffon IV [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel Griffon IV [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Endosteel Griffon IV [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 77
Result - SUCCESS

Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin VI* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 52
Result - SUCCESS
Luck roll - 82

CULTURE - Benefit Concert [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Actively campaign on behalf of candidates for the Chamber of Delegates [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

LOSTECH - Terraforming Equipment Lvl 4* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

Genetic Engineering Lvl 1* [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 94, ShadowArxxy reroll - 96, Jarow reroll - 24
Result - SUCCESS

Full-Head Ejection System* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 97, Decim reroll - 36
Result - SUCCESS

VTOL Jet Booster* [auto]

Standard Core Construction* [auto]

Standard Core Theory* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

Standard Core Design* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 16
Result - SUCCESS

Establish separate Signals Intelligence Section* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Establish separate Human Intelligence Section [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Investigate Military Industrial Complex for corruption* [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

---

This year has been difficult, there’s no doubt about that, and you’ve been spending long hours in the office rather than spending time with the grandkids like you’d prefer. But you are the Empress, and the crown sits nicely upon you.

Besides, Jeremy would probably keep you from seeing his kids if you forced him to handle all the paperwork.

The number of major financial institutions, both banks and investment houses, that have failed this year is substantial, but by the same token you are seeing lists of new banks and institutions that are replacing them which are both more agile and more cautious when it comes to risk management.

There are some serious shake ups within the upper crust of society as well as a consequence of this, with a number of ‘old money’ individuals going bankrupt due to unwise investments. You find yourself trying very hard to care about this, as even bankrupt these people still have far higher standards of living than the average citizen, and once they’d disposed of some of their assets they are still wealthy by any reasonable standard.

You do need to find a replacement for General Potter, however. The old warhorse is making good on his ‘threat’ to retire, but considering that he’s just seen his hundredth birthday you really can’t blame him. Much.

But you do get a list of replacements from him.

The first candidate is actually the current chief of staff to General Potter. Colonel Karin Stewart already has a distinguished career, although mostly as a staff officer, and has been General Potter’s chief of staff for a decade, turning down multiple promotion opportunities in the process on the grounds that they should go to officers with more field experience than her. Has a solid reputation for integrity and competence.

Then you break down laughing as you see the second name. Your beloved son with whom you are well pleased. Who is looking distinctly grumpy when you call him into your office, much to your great amusement. General Potter does note that he is fully qualified for the position notwithstanding his relation to you. Your son, however, gives you the distinct impression that he’d really rather not be in that position.

Lieutenant General Mary Stannard is the current Commandant of the Aerie and has built up a reputation for moulding new officers out of raw recruits as well as making bricks with very little straw considering how rapid your expansion has been. That she’s managed to maintain the quality of the Aerie’s graduates as well as she has is a strong testament to her competence.

Alexander Nichols is the first private citizen on the list and is noted as being the head designer for Majeure Electrique. When you interview him he comes across as rather eccentric in some ways, with a bit of a scattershot approach to things. In many ways he reminds you of a male version of Bridget, which is a somewhat frightening thought.

Colonel Stacy Bowman is currently Harry Owens’ deputy over in your Intelligence shop. From what you hear Harry does not want to lose her, but she does have a solid reputation.amongst her colleagues both in the military and intelligence communities. When you meet with her you get the impression that she is a solid professional, but is not a very creative thinker.

Colonel Elias Sims runs the Military Intelligence shop under General Potter and is a small, very intense man who seems to have boundless energy controlled by an iron discipline. He came up through the Special Forces community and has a solid reputation as an outside the box thinker.

Brigadier General Reagan Collins has extensive experience in military procurement, having spent almost her entire career in the Quartermaster Corps while currently being assigned as the main military liaison to the Interior Ministry. She has extensive experience with the military-industrial complex, having been one of the officers who spearheaded the reforms which so significantly have improved your procurement already.

The oldest of the candidates, Colonel Thomas Sanders (retired) is a fixture on financial news shows when they discuss the defense industry and is currently the President and CEO of his own construction firm. In his copious spare time he raises chickens on a small farm on Pollux.

[]	Name	Military Actions	Bonus Actions	Other
[]	Karin Stewart	7+1	None	General Potters current chief of staff
[]	Jeremy Griffith	7+1	None	Your son will probably strangle you
[]	Mary Stannard	6+1	+1 Research	Currently head of the Aerie
[]	Alexander Nichols	6+1	+1 Research	Chief Dropship designer for Majeure Electrique
[]	Stacy Bowman	6+1	+1 Intelligence	Harry Owens’ deputy
[]	Elias Sims	6+1	+1 Intelligence	Chief of Military Intelligence under General Potter
[]	Reagan Collins	6+1	+1 Interior	Bridget’s military liaison
[]	Thomas Sanders	6+1	+1 Interior	Retired colonel who currently runs a major construction firm

QM Note - some of these will have hidden benefits/drawbacks that you will discover later.

The final report comes in of the finds around Griffin VI before Enterprise had to flee, combined with some work by Atlantis and Discovery. The report notes that this is just a very general survey, but they’ve found dozens of moons, many of which are very resource rich, small asteroid belts around the supergiant, which are very rich, and they have a laundry list of anomalies that would take further investigation.

They note that they know for certain that they’ve only surveyed a small fraction of what there is to find there, and that future surveys might find other things. For now, it should be possible to build space stations in various orbits, but there would be substantial risks for now. The recommendation is to perform at least two additional surveys before attempting to make use of any orbital resources there.

Geologists get an incredible treat at Griffon II when a mega volcano eruption sends an enormous bolide clear into the orbital altitudes, albeit missing any stations. A fast thinking and incredibly ballsy orbital mining crew manages to snare the bolide before it runs out of vertical momentum and by completely exhausting their fuel reserves (thus requiring rescue) they manage to shift the bolide into an orbital path. Additional mining craft then boost it higher.

They crack the bolide open… and there is enormous excitement. It is nearly pure high grade rare earth ores in enormous crystalline formations. The value of the find is incredible, easily the single most valuable mineral strike in system history by a very wide margin. The mining crews involved become incredibly rich overnight, and the economic outlook for the Griffon II Orbitals improves enormously as well.

Procurement goes exceptionally well, even the two new Rapid Reaction Regiments stood up without a single hitch (you are willing to admit you’d been very nervous about that). 3rd Armored is now at 2 full brigades in strength, all of the Microraptors shifted to Training Command are now at full strength in training birds. All is looking very good in that department indeed.

Considering how long it takes you to attend each and every keel laying ceremony for all of the dropships you are building, the fact that the orbital shipyards have both been expanded, doubling their capacity, is a mixed blessing. You might need to reconsider that policy… wait, you know… you can always assign some of them, the biggest and slowest ships, naturally, to your daughter! Thanh would love it!

The completion of the first orbital germanium processing facility is cause for celebration. A three day celebration with many hangovers. The Roman ambassador is extremely pleased, and the NRI has initiated a proper trade route with you, which is going to start generating some nice income starting next year.

A large number of new orbital factories dedicated to forging Endosteel have come online this year, significantly increasing the capacity for mech construction using the advanced material.

The benefit concert is a bit unusual, by your experience. In the past, such concerts have been the province of the ultra-rich and connected, who would repay the opportunity to be seen at THE social event of the year with generous donations to whatever cause it was supporting. This year there are almost none of the ultra-wealthy in attendance, but income from the event is higher than ever as overflowing crowds of poor and middle class citizens pack the arenas and overflow areas to the seams, and it seems that in aggregate the poorer segments of society are even more generous with their funds than the ultra-wealthy, especially in proportion to their income.

Mary’s personal supervision of the research facilities this year has yielded results.

The Department of Mega Engineering is very enthusiastically talking your ear off about all of the wonderful projects they can now do with the improvements to Terraforming technology. From massive arcology complexes that dwarf the ones on Nowy Gdansk to enormous megafactories, to building massive cities underneath the seas to custom crafting exotic and gorgeous landscapes. The first fruits of this technology are already hard at work on Griffon IV, which has resulted in a small economic boom in the orbital colonies.

Work on genetic engineering has been completed, allowing for in-utero correction of many genetic conditions, as well as work to remove harmful recessives from the genome. One of the first projects is a true cure to sickle-cell anemia, while retaining that alleles benefits against mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

The full-head ejection system is finally perfected. Pilots are of mixed opinions about it, the actual ejection is somewhat rougher, increasing the odds of minor injuries, but in even the harshest environments projected survival rates are far higher.

VTOL Jet Boosters have received final clearance and are now available to VTOL designers. Some wag has already found an ancient television show called ‘Airwolf’ and has somehow snuck a sound clip from the theme song into the activation software for the system, such that if installed without being patched anytime the boosters are engaged the Airwolf Theme plays.

Thanks to the hard work of your researchers you are now able to design and, once the facilities are ready, build jumpships up to 50,000 tons in mass. According to your researchers, more work will need to be done to design and build larger jumpships, but the actual facilities you are building would be able to handle even the largest possible designs.

Separate Signals and Human intelligence departments have now been established within the Intelligence Ministry, giving expanded capabilities. They are still in the process of being staffed and will have proposals for you next year.

Janet comes to you with the results of her in depth investigation into possible corruption in the military-industrial complex. There is next to nothing there, although there are a few minor cases here and there which completely fail to establish any pattern. Most of those had already been caught and had been in the process of investigation and adjudication when Janet’s review caught them as well.

There was one rather amusing bit. The complaints about the rations contract? Well, Janet actually found that the company that had been most vociferously complaining about losing that contract with their sub-par (well, absolutely horrible) offerings had, in fact, been engaging in illegal industrial espionage and attempting to bribe the procurement board. The officers on the board had appropriately reported the attempts to the appropriate military authorities in a timely manner, with none of them actually accepting any of them under the direct supervision of the investigators who were building criminal cases against that company. In the end there are several dozen convictions and most of the board of the company are currently serving custodial sentences at Your Majesty's pleasure in the maximum security facility in Phoenix. You are strongly tempted to order that they be required to eat the rations they’d tried to foist on the military, but Janet dryly points out that that might be a crime against humanity.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 46 - And Did Those Feet?

You summon Colonel Sims to your office to inform him that you’d chosen him to replace General Potter and receive a bit of a surprise.

“Your Majesty, while I am deeply honored by your trust in me, I’m afraid I must decline.” he says, although interestingly his eyes are just as intense as ever. “Your Military Chief needs to be somebody who can work with multiple viewpoints, seamlessly and without fear or favor. I’m afraid that my field role ended when I was a staff sergeant and sent to OCS, and I’ve been a staff officer ever since, moreover one who is focused purely on intelligence matters. I completely lack operational familiarity with anything outside of very small unit special operations, have zero experience with aerospace concerns, nor do I possess any special talent for logistics, organization, or bureaucratic maneuvering. I’m an intelligence analyst, professionally, and if you wanted me for the intel shop I’d feel qualified, but I would be completely unsuited for the role of your Military Chief.”

An honest man, who knows his competencies, knows his flaws, and isn’t afraid to admit the latter? You press him, but he continues to decline, although he does offer to give you a far more in depth analysis of the other candidates for the position based on his personal interaction with them. Somewhat bemused, you agree.

He takes up the list you hand him, and his lips twitch. “The first two, neither would thank you for it although for different reasons. Colonel Stewart is a superb officer, for all that she’s been stuck in staff roles for the last decade. She’s in line to command the 3rd Brigade of 3rd Armored once that stands up, and your son had to twist her arm hard to get her to agree to that. Your son is enjoying himself immensely as a division commander and would be highly… irate.... If you took that away from him. On the other hand, both of them would be exceptionally good at the job.”

He then grins at you. “If you believe the rumors about the Prince being some sort of Mechwarrior Mafioso, though, ignore them, I happen to know that right now he’s down with the infantry forces on a field exercise, slogging through the same mud as them and testing out anti-Mech tactics. He plays the mech dandy to draw out youngsters who actually are, then pushes them straight into joint-ops and requires them to cross train, probably the biggest reason why our ‘Mechwarrior Mafia’ is so small.”

You chuckle, that’s just like Jeremy, to sacrifice a bit of his own dignity for the good of the force. Once again you get some confirmation that someday he’ll make a great King.

“Colonel Stewart doesn’t have the field experience, but she’s a born organizer as well. She’ll be unhappy not to get a Brigade command, but she’ll serve you very well.” he then takes a breath. “General Stannard is, right now, the classic square peg in a square hole and is working miracles at the Aerie. I can guarantee that the very first thing she’ll tell you to do is purchase multiple training regiments to bulk out the Cadre, because that was one thing that General Jackson never emphasized, even when we included expansion recommendations in her briefing materials. Then again, General Jackson has also proven that field training after graduation can be equally valuable to classroom training before, so it may just be a clash of styles. And I know of your dislike for powerpoint, General Stannard actually teaches the Introduction to Powerpoint course at the Aerie. Fair warning.”

He glances back down at the paper. “I’ve met Lex Nichols, there’s not a man alive I wouldn’t rather have drinks in a bar with, but he’s a maverick risk taker who’s never seen a pie-in-the-sky outlandish concept he didn’t think he could make work. He has no patience for accountants, no patience for regulators, couldn’t care less about procedures and rules, if they get in the way of his latest project. He also, bluntly, is a pure technocrat, he doesn’t understand people or their needs, and I’ve personally heard him muttering about how escape pods, life support systems, and crew quarters are simply wasted space ‘luxuries’ that should be minimized or dispensed with because those crews just aren’t real to him. His bosses at Majeure keep him on an extremely tight leash for a reason, Your Majesty.”

He looks again. “Ahh, Stace, fair warning, her and I may have a thing.” his eyes sparkle a bit. “You could say. She’s smarter than her rep implies, she just prefers to first try things by the book and within the rules before getting creative. Honestly, she’d be just as bad as I would be, though, because she lives and breathes intel work. She’d give you her best, but, well, I don’t know if that is what you’d need. Unlike me she’d shut up and soldier on, doing her best, and her best is pretty damn good, but her best is being a brake on Harry, not at running the military.”

“General Collins is good, very good. She’s probably saved the government more money than any three other officers in the Quartermaster’s Corp with her work, and she has the respect of just about everybody in procurement for being somebody who can get things done. She does have the vices of her virtues, though, at budget time she would want to pinch pennies until they screamed for release and begged to be put out of their misery.”

Then he blinks at the final name. “And Sanders is… Sanders. He’s almost as old as General Potter, would probably give you two or three years before retiring for good, and would talk your ears off about his chickens.”

Well, that was instructive. You try again to get him to change his mind, but the Colonel’s adamant that he’d be criminally negligent if he took the job with how poor a fit he’s convinced he is for it.

So that leaves things back up in the air. Lovely. At least you have a bit more information about some of the candidates.

[]	Karin Stewart
[]	Jeremy Griffiths
[]	Mary Stannard
[]	Alexander Nichols
[]	Stacy Bowman
[]	Reagan Collins
[]	Thomas Sanders

The delegation from the NRI arrives for the Olympiad with quite a bit of pomp and ceremony. They’d brought along all sorts of exotica to show off with, and it makes for a very nice show indeed.

They’ve also brought something else… plans and a production license for one of their technologies that you knew many of your infantry types were salivating over, their anti-personnel gauss machine gun. Looking at the plans you are extremely amused to find that it is built on the same frame and configuration as the ancient M2 Browning… it looks like that old dinosaur was as immortal as anything could be. According to the tech rep who turned over the plans they’d tried other form factors and layouts, but trying anything but the classic Browning layout failed miserably.

A few weeks after the Romans arrival Jeremy shows up at the Palace looking rather excited, and promptly insists that you and Willis accompany him to a testing ground ‘for a little treat’.

When you arrive you see something rather interesting. A new battle armor suit, larger than anything that had ever come before it, with the new AP Gauss slotted into the right arm above an oversized manipulator, a submachine gun built into a semi-fixed mount on the right shoulder, a missile launcher very similar to the one on the current top-of-the-line Power Armor (Light) suits on the left shoulder, and a brutal looking three fingered claw on the left arm instead of a hand.

“Behold the Mk I Standard Battle Armor (Light).” Jeremy proclaims, sweeping an arm across the squad of suits. “Bigger, tougher, and stronger than the previous suits, with one party trick that I think will impress you.”

As he spoke one of the Soldatin II heavy battlemechs from 3rd Armored came out from behind a nearby building and positioned itself behind the battle armored infantry.

“That’s a proof of concept machine that the techs are still grumbling loudly at me about.” Jeremy said with a grin. “If you look carefully, though, you’ll see six grab bars welded to the top of the Mech. And there just happen to be six troopers in a battle armor squad, so….” he turns to the lined up troopers and bellows out in his best Parade Ground Roar. “Squad… Mount UP!”

And the six suits promptly fire their jump jets, twisting in mid air and landing at six marked spots on the top of the mech, using the grab bars to steady their landing, and then all six ‘sat’ down.

“One of the things that APC’s that are rated for power armor do is provide umbilical power and life support to the suits. We simply took the same system used in the Bear and applied it to the Soldatin. You can’t see them from here, but there are foot rests sculpted into the armor plates of the mech as well, so the troopers are fairly secure when riding, but can very quickly dismount in the event of battle. In essence, we’ve turned all of our heavy or quad mechs into a Power Armor Rated APC if we deploy this system widely.” Jeremy is looking… smug as smug can be.

He then grins boyishly at you, looking far younger than his 41 years. “It’ll cost us a bit, but with your approval I’ll work on getting the purchase orders approved, because I’d like to see how two entire augmented Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments perform in the field exercises.”

[]	Approve	Cost - 61,000 Upgrade both Standard Mech Regiments to Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments this year (no action required)
[]	Disapprove	No change

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 46 - Was the Holy Lamb of God?

As had been predicted Karin is somewhat upset to be tapped as your military advisor, even if it does mean an immediate promotion to Flag rank. She salutes and ‘soldiers’ on about it, however, swallowing her disappointment at not getting an actual field command (finally).

However this does have some interesting repercussions. She promptly shifts the Ground Forces representative for the budget meetings to General Michael Donnelly, the CO of 2nd Armored, and according to her reports to you will be reorganizing the military presentations for said meetings.

You are rather intrigued by this.

You do get to see the upgrade process for the ‘mechanized standard mech regiment’ in progress, each of the heavy designs are large enough to easily host a full 6 man squad of the new light battle armor, which in and of itself look quite effective.

In fact, you get yourself checked out in the new armor and are rather jealous of the young kids who will be getting to use this from the start. The interior is far more comfortable than the power armor you’d tried out back when they first introduced it and the user interface is massively improved.

So yes, you arranged to have your own suit, you’re sure Sergeant-Major Ngo isn’t objecting to her own suit either.

You attend the opening ceremonies for the first true Olympiad in Griffsport, and it is a wonderful show in and of itself. Isoroku really outdid himself in organizing it. The Roman delegation appears quite formidable, but also are very clearly friendly and enjoying themselves (and buying plenty of tourist kitsch, the reports about profits are looking real good).

Then the games begin. The first events on the calendar are in Track and Field, otherwise known as Athletics. Races, contests of strength, of jumping, of throwing things, all of that.

The men’s competition goes extremely well, the events closely matched, but overall the home team manages to win the preponderance of events in a very well contested set of contests. The athletes certainly seem to think so, as they are seen celebrating together, Roman and Griffon, afterwards. Precisely the sort of thing that sport is meant to do.

The women’s events, however… well. It started out terrible, when the plumbing catastrophically failed in the Griffon Women’s locker room while the team were showering, resulting in the entire team being caught on camera in the altogether fleeing the suddenly scalding hot showers and requiring medical assistance to deal with the minor burns. The visiting lockers showers likewise caused a stampede of unclad athletes, although in their case the water was freezing cold.

After much humiliation on both sides, the actual contests are… sub par and lackluster at best, as the athletes are either nursing burns in sensitive places, or chillblains in sensitive places, and their performances massively suffer. On the other hand, the yellow press is having a field day with paparazzi photos of the athletes until you intervene in a civil suit pressed on behalf of both squads to order the images suppressed for decency's sake.

Then comes the gymnastics events.

The men’s contest is really more a celebration of just how good the Romans are at gymnastics, as they’d clearly sent their A-team in to show off. Not a single male Roman gymnast scores lower than a 9.9 on any of the routines or apparatus, and that single tiny point off was for something so trivial that only one Roman judge spotted it. The Griffon men’s team looked like a bunch of amateurs facing the All-Stars.

The women’s contest, on the other hand, was amazing. The Roman’s were superb, but the Griffon girls were phenomenal. So much so that by the end of it you hear that the top Roman gymnastics schola had been making offers to the girls to attend for advanced gymnastics training. Shockingly, the Griffon girls actually manage to come away with the win, overall.

The team contest? Wasn’t much of a contest, the Romans utterly dominated it from beginning to end.

Parliament, on the other hand, is being Parliament, although thankfully not nearly as annoying as in the past.

Both the Imperial Senate and Chamber of Delegates have presented to you a bill regarding reforming higher education spending, specifically to create competing universities rather than having all higher education under the aegis of either Griffin’s Roost University or the Aerie. The new institutions would still be public, but the argument is that GRU especially has become rather ossified in terms of its willingness to expand subject selections, and the entire higher education sector would benefit from competition.

You do suspect that at least one of the motivations for this is a desire to create additional administrative jobs, but there are quite valid arguments being made. GRU is, simply put, a monopoly on civilian higher education, as such it has very little impetus to innovate or improve, because they have a captive market. To be fair, they have done an exceptionally good job regardless, but it is still a serious concern.

The current plans before you is to establish University systems that would compete with each other for students and thus for funding, with funding being derived from the number of students who enroll as well as their graduation rates, with an external imperial governmental agency, under the aegis of your Research director, handling accreditation of the various schools as well as auditing their performance.

[]	Approve	+50,000 Upkeep +1 Education Level +5 Politics +1 Influence Senate +1 Influence Chamber of Delegates +2 Support Senate and Chamber of Delegates Opens up several event trees
[]	Veto	No change

Another proposal being put forward, this time mostly from the Senate, is to subsidize private commercial jumpship development and production. Commercial jumpships would not be able to handle weaponry beyond incidental meteor-defense suites, and would certainly not be any sane military commander's choice to use for combat operations, but they could allow for the early development of trade routes to your neighbors.

The yards required for such vessels are similar to the ones you are currently working on building, but would completely lack the dropship production capacity and would be exceptionally fragile in comparison to the robust and well-protected yards that are used for military work. As such they’d not be suitable for use in your military shipbuilding program.

If you follow the Senate’s plan, then one refineries worth of germanium would be earmarked to the project, as well as other subsidies, but ultimately you’d gain the start of a true merchant marine.

[]	Yes	Lose 1 CEU 50,000 per turn upkeep +5 Economy Rating Starting on turn 50 have a 50% chance each year of establishing a new trade route per allowed neighbor At this time this would be solely the NRI +5 Politics +5 Research Event
[]	No	No change

Finally there’s a third proposal, this one endorsed by the Eldest, to reserve a ‘significant’ portion of Griffon IV for a massive expansion of the Aerie. A surface area roughly equivalent to the entire continent of Capricorn would be set aside as training grounds and campus area for the expansion. This in some ways would negatively impact potential future growth of any colony on Griffon IV by removing that land from economic activity, but the presence of such a massive training facility would have profoundly positive effects as well.

You do get a laugh out of the note the Eldest left attached to the legislation in which the wily old cat noted that he’d tried to get a rider mandating catnip plantations but was denied. Since you know that catnip has no effect whatsoever on Grifftigers beyond making them sneeze you know he included that just for your amusement.

[]	Do it	50,000 per turn upkeep once Griffon IV is colonized +5 Rating Change - Griffon IV once ground colonization begins -5 Econ Rating - Griffon IV once ground colonization begins -1 Pop Limit Griffon IV +1 Military Research Slot +10 all procurement rolls
[]	Nahh	No change

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 46 - Did the Countenance Divine?

The Olympiad continues with the rest of the non-motorsports events. You manage to take time out of your schedule to attend most of the finals and all of the awards ceremonies.

In both men’s and women’s swimming events the Griffonese teams are dominant, with one of the male swimmers actually setting several planetary records in the process in the 800m event. The Roman teams don’t completely embarrass themselves, but it is clear that the aquatic events are one of your strong points. The Roman ambassador does mention acrobatic diving as a sport, along with synchronized swimming, both things that you hadn’t heard about but when you ask your youngest daughter, Sarah informs you that they were, indeed, events in the ‘modern’ Olympics back on Earth.

Maybe next time.

The Men’s Decathlon is an utter triumph for the home team. A complete and utter triumph. Every single sub event is swept by Griffonese athletes, in all but one case every single one of your athletes finished ahead of all of the Roman ones. By the end it seems that you are as dominant in the decathlon as the Romans are in gymnastics.

Women’s Decathlon, on the other hand, is a much closer affair, with the Romans eeking out a final victory for the gold, but Griffonese women winning silver to prevent a complete sweep. There is one of the crowning moments of sportsmanship, or perhaps sportswomanship as the case may be, during the competition, when during the hurdles event a squirrel runs out onto the track, causing the front-runners to stumble and fall rather than kick the poor thing, with the rest of the competitors promptly stopping and insisting that the event be rerun.

The shooting events are split, with the Roman men handily winning gold and bronze, while the Griffonese women likewise take gold and bronze. An impromptu shoot off between the male and female gold medalists goes for a record 10 rounds without a winner before it is called by mutual agreement. Rumor has it that the two shooters in question were later seen engaging in lewd hand holding along one of Griffsport’s more romantic beaches.

The Men’s Marathon has the misfortune to take place during what is later determined to be the hottest day on record in Griffsport, with almost no breeze at all and truly oppressive conditions. Almost all of the racers from both teams drop out due to dehydration, although thankfully all recover quickly. In the end only three runners reach the finish line, 2 Romans and one Griffonese, and all three manage to stagger across the line in a pack. Since one of the Romans had started at the rear, and had technically run slightly further, they were awarded the gold. The general consensus, though, is that anybody who managed to finish a race under those conditions was a champion and all three were celebrated as such.

The Women’s Marathon was the next day, and it turned out that the hellish conditions of the day before were a prelude to a day of massive storms lashing Griffsport with torrential downpours. All of the women manage to finish, in contrast to the men, but they all look like drowned rats by the end. The Griffonese women manage gold and silver in the race.

There are downsides to holding major sporting events in tropical climates.

And then it’s time to get down to work.

General Stewart takes firm control of the military briefing, rather than letting her subordinates go first she first gives you an overview.

“Your Majesty, we will have two defense stations completing this year, along with various ships, so we will be stressing our strategic resources to provide sufficient aerospace assets for them. We have been falling behind on building up raw production capacity for aerospace and battlemech assets. In a few years when the Nowy Gdansk asteroid redirect mission is completed we will desperately need the proposed Megafactory, in the meantime we strongly recommend expanding ASF production capacity.” She pauses, then grimaces slightly. “Also, currently your Defense and military bureaucracy is headquartered out of a wing in the Palace. That is all well and good, however we are out of space and have officers working out of what should be storage closets. We have identified a site to construct a wholly dedicated office building for the Defense Ministry, to move the lower level functions to in order to free up space here in the main HQ. We strongly recommend pursuing that option.”

She then sits back down, nodding for General Donnely to take over. He puts up a rather simple graphic on the projector. “Your Majesty, as you can see we are in fairly solid shape overall, with two areas that should be addressed. One, completing 3rd Brigade of 1st Armored with the procurement of a Light Horse Regiment, giving us our first 100% complete Division. Based on its composition, we are preliminarily designating it as a Light Divisional Combat Team. Our other area of procurement is to expand the 1st Aerie Cadre with a second Training Regiment.”

He takes a deep breath. “We are also working on some future plans, specifically a proposal for an airmobile infantry formation making use of VTOLs, power armor, and potentially future Land-Air Mechs to serve as pathfinder units in the event of opposed landings on hostile worlds. To that end we have been soliciting proposals for new VTOLs to fill these roles. There were three identified VTOL requirements. An Attack bird to replace the AH-2, a Scout bird to replace the SH-2, and a Transport to replace the CH-2.”

He brings up a new graphic, showing several designs. “For the Attack VTOL we have had four main submissions. The first is designated the Pszczola and is the first of several submissions from Nowy Gdansk. It has a rather conventional main rotor with tail rotor arrangement, with twin 5cm extended range lasers in a chin turret, a single 5cm extended range laser in side mounts, and a 5 tube Artemis-enhanced LRM launcher forward. The second, from the same firm, is optimized for long range and called the Swidnik, with an enhanced PPC in a chin turret and a 5 tube Artemis-enhanced LRM launcher forward. The third submission from this firm is called the Tarnow, equipped with a 20 tube LRM launcher enhanced with Artemis as its sole armament. Lee Aerospace, here on Griffin’s Roost, has meanwhile proposed the AH-3. This eschews the chin turret of most of the Nowy Gdansk designs, instead having quad 5cm extended range lasers in stub wings, a five tube Artemis-enhanced LRM launcher, jet boosters to enhance top speed and it has all of the weaponry tied together to a targeting computer system to enhance accuracy and precision.”

Spoiler: Pszczola, Swidnik and Tarnow basic appearance

https://area.autodesk.com/dynamic_resources/area_learning_tutorials/1144/content/11505525805.jpg

Spoiler: AH-3 Basic appearance

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j_bH_XI4hv8/maxresdefault.jpg

[]	Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Special
[]	Pszczola	874	44	11	Swift, Missile 0
[]	Swidnik	760	48	12	Swift, Missile 0
[]	Tarnow	708	32	8	Swift, Missile 1
[]	AH-3	2626.4	68	18	Swift, Missile 0

General Donnely switches to the next image, which shows two swift looking VTOLs. “Next we have the Scout submissions, one is from a firm on Nowy Gdansk, one is from Lee Aerospace. The first, from Nowy Gdansk, is called the Przebisnieg,” he manages the pronunciation with aplomb, “which is a 30 ton design, armed with a pair of 5cm Extended Range lasers in a chin turret and a full suite of Probe, ECM, and TAG in a mast mount, along with jet boosters for an excellent maximum speed. The second is actually, individually, less expensive from Lee Aerospace, but would need to be procured in groups of 12 rather than 4 due to carrying battle armor infantry to enhance the scouting role. The SH-3 has only a single 5cm extended range laser in a chin turret, along with two tons of space for infantry, the full electronics suite, although in this case only the TAG is actually mounted on the mast mount, and a jet booster for higher top speed.”

[]	Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Przebiśnieg	2810	32	8	Swift Scout ECM TAG
[]	SH-3	5516.4	84	7	Swift Scout ECM TAG APC (PA) 1

“Finally we come to the Transport VTOL” Donnely says, bringing up a final graphic, again showing a pair of submissions. “We once again have one from Nowy Gdansk, and one from Lee Aerospace. The Rosomak is the more heavily armed of the two, possessing a trio of 5cm extended range lasers, while the CH-3 proposal makes use of the new Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifles to serve a minimalist purpose of clearing infantry from landing areas. Both carry a full squad of battle armor infantry per VTOL, allowing a 4 VTOL flight to deliver an entire platoon.”

[]	Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Rosomak	584	28	7	Swift, APC (PA) 1
[]	CH-3	377.2	20	5	Swift, APC (PA) 1

He finally sits down and is replaced by the familiar form of General Reyes and her dreaded Powerpoint Presentation Of Doom. Which she promptly fires up.

• Requirements for new units coming online this year
  • 2 Flights of Eagles for Devastations
  • 1 Standard Carrier Wing for HMS Langley
  • 2 Star Fort Wings for the new Armed Defense Stations at the Zenith and Nadir jump points
• This will be the last year we will be able to simply transfer Light Carrier Squadrons from Microraptors which have transitioned to Training Command to new Megaraptors

And that’s it… that’s her entire presentation. It took five minutes. Somebody has taught her how to give a quick Powerpoint presentation since last year!

Admiral Benjamin is looking as relaxed as ever. “Your Majesty, we got a whole lot of ships commissioning this year, a whole bunch of ships ready to be built this year, and some options for the latter. So… Minion Number One!” he crooks a finger and one of his aides brings up a paper flip chart, which he flips to show, well, a chart.

• 2 Tyrannosaurus yards
  • Build em!
• 4 Defiant Yards
  • Them too!
• 1 general Large Dropship yard
  • May I recommend a second Langley, Your Most Gracious Imperial Majesty?
• 2 general Regular Dropship yards
  • Could it be… Troodons?

By the time you manage to stop laughing at the cheeky entries on the flip chart the good Admiral has sat back down. “Next time I’ll have theme music for that, Your Majesty.”

General Stewart gives him a slightly quelling look, although you can tell it’s more out of habit than any actual offense. “Needless to say, as General Potter used to say, I endorse all of the proposals put forward by my subordinates. Even Admiral Benjamin.” OK, she’s definitely perfectly capable of giving the Admiral shit with a perfectly straight face. She’ll do.

Bridget is, well, Bridget. “Your Majesty we are hoping to finish up the initial terraforming work on Griffon IV this year so hopefully we’ll be completely on track and then we have a year to catch our breath while the political stuff gets going then we get back to terraforming with gusto and we have so many new tricks up our sleeve it's going to be awesome and we’re looking forward to having DoME capacity to do all of them and we’re totally ready to build more factories to feed our military buildup as well as more focused development and once we have slots we can maybe build real arcologies here on Griffin’s Roost too as well as on Griffon IV and Nowy Gdansk and maybe build more O’Neill Cylinders and… well… we can build a lot!”

Isoroku is extremely busy with overseeing the Olympiad, thanks to that no Culture events are practical this year, but he does manage to show up for the budget meeting looking curiously exhausted yet excited at the same time. “Your Majesty, I only have one thing new for you this year, specifically my staff has plans in place for a diplomatic courier service, both to connect with our embassy in the NRI, but also to allow us to make diplomatic contact with others if we choose to do so.”

Jake, meanwhile, is looking very serious. “Your Majesty, we have several major issues coming to a head at the same time. First, our civil service system is starting to get overly bloated and we are having difficulty attracting the best talent, instead being forced to settle for third, even fourth tier bureaucrats who are starting to become a serious problem. My staff has put together a series of intensive civil service reforms that combine measures making it easier to remove non-performing placesetters from positions that they occupy without providing any public service with reforms intended to increase the attractiveness of civil service to the top graduates in relevant fields. Second, and I know Janet disagrees with me on this, our Justice system has not kept up with the sheer size of the Empire. Keeping it small and devolved worked very well for a single planet polity, but soon we’ll have three planets under our control, along with the orbital habitats around Griffon II and the Inner Asteroid Belt. We simply need to expand, or problems like we already see on Pollux might spread. Finally, Imperial Intelligence is in need of expansion as well. This will be a tough sell to Parliament, but it will allow Harry a greater ability to actually make use of our intelligence assets.”

Mary is up next, as usual, with her traditional presentation.

• New Projects
  • Power Armor - Light Battle Armor - Improved
    • New materials and miniaturization would allow for small ECM suites and stealth armor
  • Heavy Subcapital Cannon
    • The heaviest of the ‘sub’ range of cannons, would have the heaviest punch at short and medium ranges of any of our current capital weapons
  • Anti-Personnel Pods
    • Small Explosive Charges intended for clearing large numbers of infantry at close range
  • Heavy Quad Mechs
    • With increased experience with quad mechs, heavier designs are now possible
  • Genetically Engineered Plants & Animals
    • Make use of genetic engineering to optimize existing plants and animals for new biomes, new conditions, or to add useful traits or remove harmful traits
• Recommended Projects
  • Military
    • Aerodyne Dropships (Super Heavy)
    • Spheroid Dropships (Super Heavy)
    • Assault Bipedal Battlemechs
  • Non-Military
    • Advanced Electronics (Advanced) Tier 1
    • High Energy Physics (Advanced) Tier 1
    • Advanced Communications (Advanced) Tier 1
    • Genetically Engineered Plants & Animals

Next up is Harry, who is looking as pleased as you’d ever seen him, if also stressed out, exhausted from overwork, and very ruffled. “Your Majesty, I have another set of decisions for you in regards to Intelligence work. Specifically, how aggressive do we want our HUMINT and SIGINT efforts to be. The more aggressive we are, the more options we’ll have and the higher budget we’ll be consuming, but the highest, well, call it aggression, options carry with them greater and greater risks.”

[]	HUMINT Aggression Level	Example projects
[]	Low HUMINT	Passive intelligence collection Official attaches
[]	Medium HUMINT	Inserting low level agents ‘illegally’ Light recruitment of native agents
[]	High HUMINT	Blackmailing people to force cooperation ‘Sparrow’ schools to generate blackmail material

[]	SIGINT Aggression Level	Example projects
[]	Low SIGINT	Passive Data Collection Place cameras and receivers on diplomatic vessels
[]	Medium SIGINT	Place data taps on foreign communications systems Sneak data collection systems on merchant vessels
[]	High SIGINT	Build dedicated spy dropships

“As for current projects, I know it’s tempting to focus on reducing the influence of Parliament again, but I’d instead recommend implementing some of the COINTEL projects, specifically establishing a Honey Trap school and establishing the public education initiative. The first will hopefully stay well beneath the radar, while giving us immediate benefits, while the second will hopefully pave the way to allowing us to increase security screening without unduly upsetting the average citizens. I am currently working on a proposal to give Janet some oversight authority over Intelligence operations to ensure that we remain firmly within legal limits without any of the sorts of overreaches we’ve seen historically.”

Then it’s to Janet, who is looking a bit unhappy. “You know where I stand on expanding the Justice Department too much, Your Majesty, but certain court decisions are going to force me to reluctantly acquiesce to Jake’s proposal, much as I dislike it. Several Imperial Courts are… well, deviating from the vision we had of them when we wrote the Imperial Constitution, Your Majesty, and increasingly attempting to act as the court of fact finding, rather than a court of appeals. This has meant an increasing caseload on Imperial prosecutors and public defenders, as more and more cases are being initially tried at the Imperial level that should be more local. Unfortunately, unless we take drastic action against those judges, we’re stuck in a vice.”

She takes a deep breath. “As such I see no choice but to expand, and the first area we need to expand is our OrgCrime task force, since that is the most common of the cases that have become Imperial rather than local, and also because I am getting worried about how quiet OrgCrime has become in the last several years. The last time we saw such a pattern was right before the Bratva exploded… and that is making me nervous.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 46 - And Was Jerusalem Builded Here

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating rolls

Meta Event Roll - 57 - No Event
Dynasty Luck Roll - 58 - No Event

Imperial Approval - 3
Imperial Approval Change - -2
Politics - 4

Economy Rating - 0
Economy Event - 0
Research Event - 5

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 4
Griffin’s Roost Health - 3.5
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 2

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 8
Nowy Gdansk Health - 8
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 9

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Econ - 8
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - 3

Griffon II Orbitals Econ - 6
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 5

Griffon IV Econ - 5
Griffon IV Rating Change - 6

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct Armed Defense Stations Zenith* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 66
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Armed Defense Stations Nadir* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard 50 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit
-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 91, ShadowArxxy reroll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 100, Jarow Reroll - 86, Gurk Reroll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

-Langley [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 2
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units
-2 Flights of Eagles [auto]

-2 Star Fort Wings [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Carrier Wing [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Light Horse Regiment [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 86, Jarow reroll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Training Regiment [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard 49 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin's Roost [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 90, Economist reroll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 12 (Battlemech) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 14 (ASF) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 20 (ASF) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Water Seeding Griffin IV* [55]
Target - 60
Roll - 85, Jarow reroll - 91, Jarow reroll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Asteroid Redirect Mission Griffin IV* [65]
Target - 70
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

Genetically Engineered Plants and Animals [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 96, ShadowArxxy reroll - 67
Result - Bare FAILURE

Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 1 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

High Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 1 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Advanced Communications (advanced) Tier 1 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 82
Result - SUCCESS

Aerodyne Dropships (Super Heavy) [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

Spheroid Dropships (Super Heavy) [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

Assault Bipedal Battlemechs [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

COINTEL - Public Education Initiative [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 30
Result - SUCCESS

COINTEL - Honey Trap School [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Organized Crime Task Force [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

The final events of the Olympiad wind up being moved to tracks on Castor due to the heavy storms that are pummeling Griffsport. Nothing terribly unseasonal, but normally the late summer storm season misses the capital and hits western Castor, this year they are running somewhat north of their normal track and are pummeling Griffsport instead.

It happens, and these aren’t the worst storms you’ve seen anyways, but they’re bad enough to force the venue shift for the racing.

The final results are a somewhat satisfying split, 2 wins for each. In hovercraft and formula racing the Griffonese teams prove superior, while in motorcycle and stock cars the Romans pull off squeaker victories. The racing is hard, competitive, but quite clean. There’s only one serious incident, in the stock car race when a tire went down causing a Big One on the back straight. No serious injuries, just many battered cars.

In the end the home team has won 9 of the 17 contests, a very satisfying conclusion to the first full Olympiad. The Roman delegation cheerfully announces that they are gearing up to host the next one in four years time and officially invite you to visit for it.

[]	Go for it!
[]	Be a homebody and watch on HD

With the sporting events over you are able to focus on things more, well, normal. Your grandson is actually starting university early, attending Griffin's Roost University and double majoring in Economics and Philosophy, on a pre-law track. Jeremy is proud as heck of his son, and you and Willis both make a point of attending his graduation ceremony (and cheerfully telling him stories of Jeremy’s slacking off to take a wanderjahr rather than attending University early, causing your son to glare at you ferociously).

The twins had taken gold and bronze in the hover racing event at the Olympics, but have already announced their retirement from racing in favor of running the race team that they founded. They’ve also informed you, quietly, that they and their wives are now planning on having more kids, since their eldest are old enough to babysit.

And Thanh was upset with you again, after discovering that not only was her transfer request to HMS Lightning denied, but that instead she’s just been assigned to command HMS Langley’s battlegroup, rather than the ship herself. And has been promoted to Commodore, making her even grumpier. In her mid 30s and still a complete spitfire.

Sarah is now a tenured History professor and in line to eventually become the Star League History Chair at GRU. Her husband, meanwhile, has shifted to administrative work and is now the Assistant Dean of the entire History Department.

All three new VTOL designs are being sourced from the same small firm on Nowy Gdansk, and you’re already hearing rumbles of discontent from the Quartermaster Corps when it is learned that the new attack VTOL uses completely non-standard connectors, bolts and access panels, complicating logistics for the new design.

Both the Zenith and Nadir jump point defense stations have come online on schedule, along with their associated air wings. In addition, the two orbital shipyards have been expanded as well, significantly increasing your yard capacity.

You attend a large number of commissioning ceremonies for new dropships, so many that you are very grateful for the cheat cards with the new ship’s names on them because otherwise you’d mix them up terribly. It is in the course of doing this that Admiral Benjamin sends you a proposal.

Specifically, he proposes that, in order to free up names for larger dropships that ship’s of the Defiant-class be redesignated purely as their hull numbers. He includes with the proposal a precis of current crew reactions to the concept, which in general are supportive if not enthusiastic.

[]	Response	Effect
[]	Keep on as current	QM has to keep on mining old Royal Navy torpedo boat and destroyer names and will eventually go mad
[]	Redesignate only new construction	Easiest for everybody involved
[]	Redesignate all	Second easiest for all involved

QM note - this is primarily a QM SANITY CHOICE, the Royal Navy actually did this historically, you’ll have the ‘Cricket’ class, that suddenly goes from insect names to just hull numbers for example, along with pretty much all but the earliest torpedo boats. And, of course, historical destroyers and torpedo boats of the early period had service lives measured in less than a decade, and then names get re-used. HELP!

You also attend a large number of keel laying ceremonies, and again need notecards to keep the names of the smaller ships straight.

First Armored is now at full establishment strength, and the 1st Aerie Cadre has expanded as well, giving you some breathing room on training new mechwarriors. With the future expansion of the Aerie on Griffon IV this should go a long way to easing the strain on your training establishment.

A number of Mech and ASF factories are expanded, increasing production rates significantly thus easing some of the limiting factors on military growth. With the possibility of going on the offensive against the Dracs looming on the horizon this is becoming more and more important.

Economic activity on Griffin’s Roost is solid, and the extra development assistance goes a long way towards growing the economy during the recovery from the recent recession. Interestingly, Pollux is emerging as a bit of a dark horse economic engine, with agricultural exports surging throughout the system.

You do get two reports out of DoME, one of which you expected, one of which has you reaching for a bottle while you try and decide if the report writers are crazy, or if the universe is.

The deorbit of the large ice comet has been completely successful, the impact zone was carefully calculated so that the actual surface impact deformed the crust in such a way as to force the existing hyper-deep ocean to, well, become less deep. As a consequence there is currently an enormous amount of rain, heavy storms, and in general the weather forecast for Griffon IV is ‘monsoon with a chance of thunderstorm’ for the foreseeable future as things shake out.

It’s the Asteroid Redirect mission that has you reaching for the bottle of the good stuff. On the one hand, they have successfully redirected the chosen asteroid into Griffon IV orbit. On the other hand whoever was in charge of assaying the asteroid obviously fell down on the job. It was supposed to be a simple metal rich asteroid, a rather common sort of body from the inner asteroid belt.

Right up until the final days of the redirect mission that’s all anybody thought it was. Until an intern rechecked the numbers, scratched their heads, and asked the five year old in the room question… why were the mass density numbers inconsistent with ordinary metallic asteroids? This prompted a thorough reassessment of the initial assay, even as the asteroid settled into orbit, with the discovery that it isn’t a ‘metal rich asteroid’, it’s a germanium rich asteroid.

Motherlode has arrived, boys and girls, bonanza time! You are pretty certain that the authors of the final report were inhibing celebratory champagne by the bottle full while writing it, and you feel like doing the same while reading it.

You receive somewhat mixed reports from the Aerie and the GRU R&D teams. The work on genetically engineered plants and animals has run into some minor snags, mostly to do with some minor technical gremlins with the equipment that have technicians tearing their hair out. According to the reports you have read it is just a delay into 2nd quarter of next year, the bugs in the systems are being worked out and everything is back on track.

Work on advanced electronics, high energy physics, and more advanced communications systems have progressed very well indeed, with researchers extremely excited about the possibilities that their research has opened up in multiple fields.

R&D teams report success in simulations for the design and construction of ‘super heavy’ class aerodyne and spheroid dropships, although no actual designs have yet been proposed for construction work in that area is ongoing with multiple design tenders being considered.

The Aerie is very proud to demonstrate an assault-class battlemech prototype, although it is far from ready for production. You get a memo from Jeremy that they are still wrangling over final design requirements for a production model, but he includes a few notes about the current thinking. It’s something to plan for, certainly.

The first public-service announcements regarding counter intelligence and internal security are moderately well received, some commentators are making noise about ‘tyranny’ and ‘secret police’ but the fairly anodyne nature of the advice given in the PSAs seems to have made such talk have little to no traction. You just hope those same commentators never hear about the new honey trap school that has been very quietly hidden in a quiet corner of the Periphery Studies campus.

Janet sends you a report accompanied by a holo, showing Jane’s reaction to learning that she’s being put behind a desk as part of the new organized crime task force. You needed the laugh.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 47 - War is coming swiftly

You are having a leisurely lunch with Willis on a bright and sunny January morning in Griffsport when the alert sounds.

Emergence signatures at the Nadir jump point. By the time you make it to the Palace command room the situation has been updated. A trio of jumpships have made an unscheduled appearance and have launched twenty dropships and a small swarm of fighters… Drac dropships and fighters.

SARAH is able to provide immediate data thanks to the Nadir Defense Station’s advanced sensor arrays. The three jumpships are a pair of Monoliths and a single Merchant, none of which are in her database and all three of which show signs of being newly constructed. They do not deploy jump sails, rather SARAH notes signs that they are quick-charging their jump cores off of their reactors.

The twenty dropships are evenly divided between new-build Achilles class vessels, with the addition of twelve small turrets distributed around the hull and wings, and Leopard-CVs, also newly built. All are in DCMS markings.

The newly arrived Dracs do, at least, make a broadcast that is directed at the Defense Station.

“The Claws of the Dragon are upon you, surrender like the cowardly dogs you are, or be destroyed where you stand.” comes from a sneering DCMS ‘samurai’. Before you can even consider a response Commodore Elizabeth Smith, the CO of the Nadir Defense Force, replies for you… with the opening barrage from the Star Forts Sub-Capital Weapons, both the SCL/1 and LSCC.

The Nadir defense wings launch, along with the 10 Defiants. Any reinforcement from the Inner System Patrol, Capital Fleet, or Home Fleet would take days to arrive, the jump point defense squadrons receive constant danger pay for a reason.

[]	Scramble Home Fleet anyways, Admiral Benjamin has already given such orders
[]	Overrule the Admiral, keep Home Fleet where it is.

Over the next several hours the battle plays out. If it weren’t for the presence of the Star Fort the Nadir Defense Squadron would have been crushed, even though the Defiant-class is significantly more dangerous even than the much larger Achilles, they are still outnumbered 2 to 1 just in dropships, and then there are the swarms of 10 of the half-size squadrons of Sabres and a reinforced double ‘squadron’ of Shilones.

As it is, the squadron is still defeated without bringing the DCMS forces into Combat Loss Grouping. Even with the advantages of the Star Forts raw firepower, the Dracs are able to press the attack. It becomes clear that these are crack pilots with a great deal of combat experience under their belt. With the Star Fort burning around her, Commodore Smith orders the surviving Defiants to break off. Almost the entire ASF double wing had already been lost at this point. HMS Valiant, HMS Diadem, HMS Glowworm and HMS Gnat are shattered wrecks, and you clench your fists in rage as the retreating ships sensors show DCMS ASFs deliberately destroying escape pods and lifeboats.

Twenty four hours later, the trio of jumpships leave the system, having completed the fast-charge of their drives. An arrogant “You should have surrendered, dogs.” is broadcast right before they leave.

First blood is, once again, the enemies.

The Nadir Defense Squadron is gutted, rescue ships arrive and find that the Dracs had indeed used any escape capsules they spotted as target practice, but have also evidently salvaged some of the wreckage from the Star Fort and lost dropships. Miraculously, Commodore Smith and her command staff survived, although all of them were pretty badly injured, by hiding in the ‘storm cellar’ of the station, which had somehow maintained atmospheric integrity despite the destruction of the station itself and hadn’t been noticed by the Dracs.

In light of this you will need to redeploy some assets. You strongly suspect that the DCMS might strike at the Zenith point next, or return in greater force to the Nadir, or even make use of a pirate point to strike again. The six surviving Nadir Patrol Defiants are pretty seriously damaged, but the crews are perfectly willing to get back into the fight if you order them to.

You have several deployment plans that you can use at this point.

[/I]

[]	Plan	Deployment
[]	Alpha	Home Fleet to Nadir Jump Point Capital Fleet reinforces Zenith Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs
[]	Beta	Home Fleet to Zenith Jump Point Capital Fleet to Nadir Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs
[]	Charlie	Inner System Patrol to Nadir Jump Point Capital Fleet to Zenith Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs
[]	Delta	Inner System Patrol to Zenith Jump Point Capital Fleet to Nadir Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs
[]	Echo	Inner System Patrol to Nadir Jump Point Home Fleet to Zenith Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs
[]	Foxtrot	Inner System Patrol to Zenith Jump Point Home Fleet to Nadir Jump Point Surviving Nadir Patrol units are withdrawn for repairs

You do not know where the Dragon will strike next… and you cannot be strong everywhere.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 47 - Ardenner Ground is Burning

Home Fleet arrives at the Nadir jump point several days after the Dracs have departed, while the Inner System Patrol concentrates and reaches the Zenith several hours before that. Capital Fleet takes over the Inner System Patrols route shuttling between Griffin’s Roost and Nowy Gdansk.

And then you wait. And wait. Nothing happens. Space Guard vessels are able to assist the badly damaged remains of the Nadir System Patrol, along with the few surviving pilots and crew from the destroyed Star Fort to Griffin’s Roost for repairs and recovery. The final bill for repairs comes to $94,000.

But there are no further incursions. SARAH picks up what might have been a Jump Signature extremely far beyond the jump limit, but several hours of observation show nothing there. HMS Lightning herself makes a high speed burn to the location and finds nothing of interest. If something had been there, it had been detected leaving, but SARAH notes that at the range involved it was far more likely to have been nothing but a transient astrophysical phenomena creating a false positive. Considering you’d just been attacked, however, you feel it was a good idea to at least check.

Thanh had remained in Griffsport, as the Langley battlegroup wasn’t actually stood up yet. As such she winds up being the one to bring to your office a set of proposals from the Naval planners about potential reorganizations of the fleet in light of the recent battle.

You have several options, actually. First is to continue with how it is organized now, the 4 Defiants commissioning this year would all be assigned to the Nadir Patrol to make up the losses and growth would continue in the same vein it had been.

Second is a relatively minor reshuffling of some forces about. HMS Langley and HMS Lexington would be shifted to Capital Fleet, the two new Tyrannosaurus-class ships HMS Doon and HMS Kale would be assigned to Zenith and Nadir patrol respectively to beef them up, otherwise everything else would continue as before. Home Fleet would remain the heavy hitter, Capital Fleet would have the slower vessels but would retain a very strong ASF force and solid punch, while the two tripwire patrols would be beefed up.

Third is a far more radical restructuring. HMS Langley and Lexington would be shifted to the Capital Fleet as before, along with HMS Doon and HMS Kale to the jump point patrols. However a new Strike Fleet would be formed, with the Lightning class dropships as the core, future Troodon production would be divided between Home Fleet and the Inner System Patrol, and new tenders for a fast carrier and a fast escort to boost the anti-missile and anti-fighter defenses would be let out to support the new Strike Fleet.

[]	Business as usual
[]	Minor reshuffle
[]	Major restructure

Shortly after that you have the hardest duty of all for a Monarch, the funerals of those who died in Your service. Sadly almost all of them are empty casket funerals, there being no actual body to recover, and in many ways that makes it even harder for everybody involved.

Over fourteen hundred of your naval personnel, dead. A hundred wounded, the vast majority of the dead had been in escape pods that had been used for target practice by the Dracs.

And they have the sheer gall to call you barbarians.

You make certain to attend every single funeral and personally meet with the bereaved relatives of those who died. It’s a horrible duty, and the realization that if it had been any larger in scale you simply wouldn’t have enough hours in a year to do so in the future is… humbling.

You like to think that it helped them, in their grief, to know that their monarch, the woman who’d ordered them into that position, grieves with them.

The rage among the population is a palpable force, thrumming in the air. The ‘word on the street’ is that the only good Drac is a dead one, and you’ve already taken steps to provide extra security for the various Shinto and Buddhist shrines on the planet to avoid any mob activity.

Thankfully that doesn’t happen, especially after the head priest of the main Hachiman shrine in Griffsport is interviewed on HD bitterly condemning the Dracs as apostates against true Bushido, that they are bandits, not warriors. The sheer venomous rage of his denunciation seems to have defused any collateral blame against the Asian community, much to your relief.

And then something does happen. A single Scout jumpship appears at the Nadir point, carrying no dropships, although it does deploy a single tiny Dropshuttle. It is transmitting the IFF of the New Rasalhaguians. Thankfully the Home Fleet forces hold their fire, as they transmit a request for diplomatic talks in the hope of normalizing relations, with a very apologetic statement that they’d been delayed by a jump sail deployment failure or they’d have brought warning of the Drac assault. Sarah confirms evidence of field-expedient repairs to the reefing assembly for the jump sail, so it appears very plausible that they had indeed attempted to warn you.

[]	Receive the emissary
[]	Reject talks

On a lighter note, after several quiescent years, the Department of Periphery Studies is up to shenanigans again, and it provides a welcome break to the depressing aura of rage.

Begun, the great Trebuchet Launched Pumpkin Wars have. Thankfully the staff is able to limit them to firing at targets floating out at sea, but still, the massive trebuchets are quite amazing. The fact that different groups of… tenured professors… of the Department are dressing up in hilarious outfits as part of this entire thing is even more amusing.

What makes it very stress-relieving for you is that you get a neatly handwritten (in crayon) proposal from the Department of Periphery Studies School Of Pumpkin Chunkin on the proper use and deployment of pumpkin chunkin’ trebuchets in planetary defense and their application towards terraforming, anti-ship attack, and package delivery.

This comes to your desk right after the Roman ambassador brings you a notice that the Romans are adding men’s and women’s wrestling to the Olympics, and inviting you to add a single event of your own. You’d been at a loss… but….

[]	Pumpkin Chunkin’ it is
[]	Write-In something else (make it fun!)

Meanwhile, Parliament is in an uproar, the recent attack has them in a tizzy.

Amongst the various administrivia motions and authorizations that come from them, there are several proposals, mostly from the Imperial Senate, and considering that all of them have the Eldest’s paw print of approval on them…

First is a pretty straightforward increase of benefits to the survivors of those lost in combat operations against the enemy. Currently survivor benefits include full pay at the lost’s highest pay grade for 10 years, followed by 100% pension benefits for life. The proposal in question is to increase the time span for full pay benefits to 25 years with pensions calculated as if the deceased had continued ordinary pay-ins to the pension fund as well as received ‘average’ promotions over this time. The reasoning given is that it has been seen that the military has become a full-time career for many people, with military personnel in all branches devoting their entire working life to the military. There is very little opposition to this, mostly from fiscal hawks who are worried about the effects on the budget.

[]	Do it	+5 to Procurement target numbers (easier recruitment) +5 Politics +100,000 Upkeep
[]	Don’t	-5 Approval Change

Second is a proposal backed by a number of senators from Nowy Gdansk. There is a large region on the Southern continent that has been designated for industrial use, they propose that a large dropship production facility be built there with Imperial funding. The actual work would be overseen by the Nowy Gdansk planetary government.

[]	Approve	Next 5 years, 2,000,000 a year in costs At the end of 5 years Receive 5 Rating 4 Large Dropship Yards Receive 10 Rating 4 Dropship Yards
[]	Disapprove	No effect

Finally is one that is somewhat controversial, but again does have the Lick Of Approval from the Eldest. In light of the situation with the Dracs, you’ve been at a semi-war footing for decades now. The Senate proposes to go to a full war footing. This would have deleterious effects on your economy and possibly on non-military R&D, but would significantly facilitate military growth and expansion. There would also be serious social changes as a result of this, and the Eldest admits that he is ill-equipped to judge that aspect of things.

[]	Support	Reduce positive GDP growth on all planets by 50% If GDP growth goes negative, increase loss by 50% +5% Tax Rate each year +10% Interest Rate each year Non-military R&D projects take +2 years Military R&D projects take -1 (minimum 1) year +10 all military procurement targets Population becomes increasingly militarized Unknown social effects Unlocks event chains
[]	Veto	-5 Approval -5 Approval Change

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 47 - Fight For 18 Days of Battles

The naval reorganization goes very smoothly indeed, with the senior-most Lightning CO being promoted to Commodore and placed in charge of the new Strike Fleet. This has resulted in many hours of staff meetings hashing out future expansion plans, as now the three ‘mobile’ fleets are each somewhat unbalanced. Home Fleet lacks light units to serve as a screen, Capital Fleet likewise is lacking such, but has a surfeit of ASFs to make up the lack, Strike Fleet has no ASFs at all, and has such high tactical acceleration that only your interceptors are more maneuverable than they are.

Admiral Benjamin has also sent you a memo recommending that once their current surveys are completed that the 5 Enterprise class survey ships be either refitted or replaced, and that in the future the exploration fleet is to operate as a single unit rather than spreading out as they have been.

[]	Approve Exploration Changes
[]	Disapprove Exploration Changes

The representative from the New Rasalhaguians arrives. Yvette Johansen is not exactly what you’d expected, being a tiny woman who barely tops five feet in high heels and looks like a particularly energetic exhalation would knock her over.

According to her, the NRR had assets tracking the force that attacked you and had dispatched Yvette to warn you in a show of good faith and in the hopes that the warning would be a good first step in normalizing relations. She carried with her a message from Anton Gustavson, the leader of the New Rasalhaguians.

“Your Majesty, the war with the Kuritans continues. We are at a stalemate, lacking the ground forces to successfully drive the Dragon off of their worlds, while the Dragon lacks the aerospace forces to permit him to land his superior ground forces on our own. Agents have managed to send word, however, that the Dracs are planning to strike at you in the very near future, in hopes of a ‘quick victory’ to demonstrate their strength. We are hopeful that this warning will be sufficient to permit you to defeat the attack. If so, congratulations. If not, please accept my condolences for your losses and my prayers that you are able to make them good. Major Johansen is authorized to give you our latest intelligence estimates of the Dragon’s production capabilities. She is also authorized to act as my ambassador pro tempore with full plenipotentiary authority to negotiate on my behalf. I know that you have little reason to like or trust my motives, as not so long ago we faced each other on the battlefield. It is my hope that we can move past such differences and establish peaceful, if not cordial, relations.”

The estimates of DCMS production is… sobering. They have the ability to construct 1 Monolith a year from their largest yard over Nowa Warszawa along with a full 20 modified Achilles. They are also able to produce up to 10 Leopard variants a year as well as a half dozen Overlords from a secondary orbital yard that they are still in the process of expanding. The only two ASFs they have in production are Sabres and Shilones. Mech wise, they now have production facilities for Dragon, Catapult, Jenner, Phoenix Hawk, Shadow Hawk, Victor and Atlas mechs. A Rasalhaguian raid managed to destroy their Panther factory, and according to the report it has not been rebuilt.

According to Yvette the Rasalhaguians have been providing limited support to continuing insurgent activity on Nowa Warszawa.

Yvette floats the possibility of a formal peace treaty between the Griffon Empire and the New Rasalhaguians.

[]	Begin formal negotiations for a peace treaty
[]	It’s still too soon, we don’t trust these Rasalhaguians any more than the Dracs

It is then time for your favorite time of the year. Budget time. Please try and keep from being overly sarcastic, thank you very much.

General Stewart is up first. “Your Majesty, a general overview before we get into specifics. Construction of a dedicated HQ is on track and we hope to report completion by Q4. Our Personnel department has finalized the revamped survivor benefits as of last week and it has been determined that those lost in the recent action at the Nadir point qualify ex post facto for the increased benefits. General Griffith will be presenting the ground forces section of the briefing, General Reyes the Aerospace section, and Admiral Benjamin the Naval section. General Griffith?”

Your son stands up, smirking slightly as he twirls the remote in one hand before activating the screen. “We have several priorities this year, Your Majesty, and several options for how to best fulfil them. Specifically, we are hoping to complete either 2nd or 3rd Armored division by the addition of their 3rd Brigades. If we choose to go with completing 2nd Armored, we would need to procure 2 Standard Armored Regiments and a single Armored Cavalry Regiment. If we decide to take this route, we recommend procuring a 3rd Training Regiment to start establishing a 2nd Aerie Cadre to be based on Griffon IV. If, however, we complete 3rd Armored to full establishment strength, we would need to procure 1 Standard Armored Regiment, 1 Mechanized Standard Mech Regiment, and 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment, leaving us no free mech production for expanding the Cadre. The Aerie has informed us that they are currently not seeing any bottlenecks in Mechwarrior training.”

He changes to a new slide. “Regardless of which route we take, now that Griffon IV is at least marginally habitable, we will need to begin garrisoning the planet. However, currently there is a distinct lack of facilities to support any ground garrison unit. Therefore we recommend that we hold off on the procurement of any garrison forces until after the Colony is actually established and has the ability to house and feed the men. We do recommend continued expansion of mech production facilities in order to increase the total numbers we can procure in a given year.”

He then shifts to the next slide, which shows three assault mech designs, along with details about them. “Next up, we have three proposals for a new Trooper Assault Mech. The Sabaton features a trio of gauss rifles, a quartet of extended range 5cm lasers, and a single Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifle. This design has the highest downrange damage potential of the three, but is hampered by a highly vulnerable XL engine and being massively more expensive than any of the other competitors. Second is the Pattern 1b Assault Mech, which mounts a pair of gauss rifles, a pair of 5cm extended range lasers, a laser anti-missile system and an anti-personnel gauss rifle. The design also features a targeting computer, giving exceptional precision, however it also uses endosteel for the main structure. Finally the Doppelsoldier proposal features a pair of gauss rifles, a pair of AP gauss rifles, an enhanced extended range PPC, and a single 5cm extended range laser. This design only uses double heat sinks and is the cheapest of the three, although it lacks the sheer firepower of the Sabaton or the precision of the Pattern 1b.”

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Sabaton	9102	DHS	188	28	Armored 1
[]	Pattern 1b	4266	DHS, ES	188	28	Armored 1, AMS 1
[]	Doppelsoldier	4036.8	DHS	184	27	Armored 1

Another slide comes up, this time showing a pair of missile support mechs. “We have had 2 submissions for the Assault Missile Mech request for proposals. The Pattern 3 Assault Mech makes use of double heat sinks and endo-steel, as well as an XL fusion reactor, to achieve higher mobility, including limited jump capacity. It is armed with a pair of 20 pack long-range missiles with Artemis enhanced targeting, a laser anti-missile system, and a single enhanced PPC, all linked into a targeting computer for increased precision. In addition the Pattern 3 features an ECM suite. However the design is expensive, and relatively vulnerable due to the XL fusion plant. The Longbowman proposal also features twin 20 pack long range missiles with full Artemis support, makes use of a machine gun based anti-missile system, and has a pair of enhanced PPCs to supplement the missiles. This design only uses double heat sinks and a standard fusion engine, giving less mobility but greater survivability.”

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Pattern 3	6112.76	DHS, Endo	172	24	Armored 1 Missile 2 AMS 1 ECM
[]	Longbowman	4537.6	DHS	180	26	Armored 1 Missile 2 AMS 1

“Finally,” Jeremy continues, bringing up a final slide showing two different command and artillery mechs. “We have had 2 submissions for the Command/Artillery Support competition. The Pattern 2c features a single Long Tom filling the entire right side of the mech, with an enhanced PPC, a 5cm extended range laser, and a machine gun based anti-missile system. This design has the requisite command console, beagle active probe, and ecm suite while using both double heat sinks and endo-steel. The Trebuchet Assault Artillery mech has a pair of Arrow IV launchers with substantial ammunition backed up by a pair of extended range 5cm lasers in the central torso. This design only uses double heat sinks.”

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Pattern 2c	4788	DHS, ES	172	24	Armored 1 Artillery 3 Command AMS 1 Scout ECM
[]	Trebuchet	4854.4	DHS	168	23	Armored 1 Artillery 6 Command ECM Scout

General Reyes is up next, and fires up the dreaded powerpoint of doom. “Your Majesty, with the new construction coming online we only need to procure a single Standard Carrier Wing. In addition, we recommend the procurement of a Planetary Defense WIng for Griffon IV, our lower manning requirements means that we will be able to support the unit even as the initial colonization begins.”

She then takes a breath. “In light of the significant losses sustained in the Nadir point engagement, it is now believed that the composition of the Star Fort ASF Wing is… less than optimal. The Goshawk IIG, AKA the Gausshawk, has proven to be a solid garrison bird due to not making use of any strategic materials. However, it has now been shown that an air wing primarily composed of them is inefficient in regards to handling massed DCMS attacks. On the other hand, their integrated AMS did come in very handy in blunting the massive missile attacks of the Dracs. With your approval we would like to begin the process of procuring a new heavy dogfighter to supplement the Eagle and replace the Goshawk 2G in the Star Fort Wings. The general desired capabilities are as follows.”

• 65 ton design
• 8/12 thrust profile
• Equipped with at least 1 Laser AMS on the tail (similar to Goshawk 2G)

Another slide… “Another proposal is to preemptively authorize first strike with Alamo-class Nuclear Anti-Ship Missiles in the event of another DCMS attack. This would require us to forward deploy our Alamo arsenal to the Star Forts. This would give us a substantial advantage against enemy dropships, however our analysts are concerned that our reliance on dropships for our own defenses, along with our fixed defenses, large number of orbital installations, and the relative vulnerability of the same may make us far more vulnerable to nuclear strikes than the DCMS. Nuclear strikes of this nature primarily benefit the attacker, not the defender, and the fear is that going nuclear may well, in the long term, result in far greater harm to ourselves than to the Dracs. For now this is only in the realm of thought exercises, we would need to modify the Star Forts to support nuclear ordnance before any decision can be made.”

Admiral Benjamin then takes the podium. And has his aide bring in the flip chart and begin passing out handouts rather than use powerpoint. Bless the man.

“Your Majesty, we have 9 ships commissioning this year, and a whole bunch of open building slips to fill. We’re planning on assigning the two new Tyrannosaurus-class ships to the jump point defense squadrons to give them some more heft, the four new Defiants to the Nadir squadron to replace losses, the Troodons to the Inner System Patrol, and the Langley to Capital Fleet. We will have the following slips open for construction.”

Class	Available Building Slots
Defiant	2
Tyrannosaurus	2
Devastation	2
Langley	1
Lightning	4
Megaraptor	2
Troodon	2

“In addition, we have 1 Large Dropship and 2 regular Dropship slips available thanks to the expansion of the Orbital Shipyards. We recommend procuring a third Devastation and a pair of Tyrannosaurus class ships. We also, of course, recommend continued expansion of the orbital yards.”

He then takes a very deep breath and looks… old and tired. “Finally, Your Majesty, we should conduct a thorough after-action review of the Nadir action. Commodore Smith retains my full confidence, despite this defeat, and I would like to strongly recommend her retention in command of the Nadir Patrol squadron. If there are any heads that need to roll over that defeat, Your Majesty, it is mine, for failing to ensure that she had sufficient assets on hand to fulfill her mission.”

General Stewart then retakes the podium. “Your Majesty, while I fully endorse the need for a comprehensive after-action review, I do not feel that any heads need to roll over the Nadir action, the Nadir Patrol performed as well as could be expected of them against a much stronger than expected attack. I would like to state that we will need to replace the Nadir Star Fort, and I have directed my staff to begin consideration of satellite defense facilities to complement the Star Forts.”

Bridget is up next, or she would be if she weren’t out on Maternity leave. You are terrified about how hyper her kids will likely be. She did, however, send an assistant who has the Interior's briefing.

“Your Majesty. We are ready to commence proper colonization of Griffon IV’s surface. Initial colonization will require environmental domes and suits. DoME is chafing at the bit to get started on additional projects, however as we will need 3 DoME teams for the next stage of colonization of Griffon IV we recommend keeping them on the leash. We stand ready to support any construction projects. In terms of direct economic support, we recommend doing so on Griffon IV, as we calculate this will have the greatest relative benefits this year.”

OK, her assistant is as dry and boring as Bridget is perky and hyper. You manage to stay awake through the dull monotone delivery… barely.

And then Isoroku is up. “Your Majesty, the Olympics were a great success for us, and we are looking forward to the Pan-Griffon Games next year, as well as the next full Olympiad in Roman space. Work on the Diplomatic Courier Service is going well and we are in discussions with both the Free Folk and the NRI to provide jump services for it. For this year's cultural affairs event we are recommending a memorial monument to those lost in the Nadir assault.”

Jake’s up next. “Your Majesty, we may be busier than a one armed paper hanger, but we’re ready to support the extension of Imperial governance to Griffon IV.”

Short, sweet, hard to beat.

Mary is looking quite chipper, and apparently is going to not be short, sweet, but hopefully will be hard to beat. She promptly fires up her presentation software.

• New Military Projects
  • Aerodyne Dropships (Maximum)
    • Aerodyne Dropships up to 35,000 tons
  • Spheroid Dropships (Maximum)
    • Spheroid Dropships up to 100,000 tons
  • Improved Large Laser
    • While in and of itself not a significantly effective weapon compared to existing weapons, this system is the culmination of advanced materials, power generation, and heat dissipation research. Mastering the practical application of these theoretical advances could lead to significant improvements for all laser weapons.
  • Improved Large Pulse Laser
    • Similar to the Improved Large Laser, in and of itself not a significantly capable weapon system, but it allows for proof of concept and practical application of theoretical R&D
  • Improved PPC
    • Same as above, only more so
  • Improved Gauss Rifle
    • This would be a significant improvement on existing equipment, while also allowing for practical engineering on theory-crafted science
  • Improved AC 2/5/10/20
    • This is more engineering proof-of-concept rather than any practical weapon systems, but would allow for future research into improved LB and Ultra systems
  • Improved LRM
    • Advanced materials should allow for a significant reduction in mass of LRM launchers. It should be noted that it is expected that advanced fire control systems may have some difficulty with the new launchers, especially in dropship mountings. (QM note - IC explanation for MML bug related to Improved LRM and Artemis IV)
  • Improved SRM
    • For SRMs the missiles themselves are improved, giving greater range from launchers of the same mass
• Research Recommendations
  • Military
    • Improved Gauss RIfle
    • Improved LRM
    • Spheroid Dropships (Maximum)
  • Non-Military
    • And 3 advanced R&D areas

Harry is up next for Intel. “Your Majesty, the public education campaign is going very well, as such we think it may be wise to go… carefully… in terms of ramping up COINTEL procedures. We recommend implementing only the most basic of general security screening, as well as implementing more comprehensive screening for all public employees.”

Finally Janet is up. “Your Majesty, we’re in position to extend law enforcement to Griffon IV. In addition, I strongly recommend that we engage in some serious prison reform, our maximum security facility is growing more and more overcrowded and we may start having serious issues there unless something is done.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 47 - We Will Resist And Bite

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating Rolls

Meta Event - 66
Dynasty Luck - 60

Imperial Approval - 3
Approval Change - 5
Political Event - -2

Imperial Economy - 2
Economic Event - -1
Research Event - 8 (critical success)

Griffin’s Roost Econ - 11
Griffin’s Roost Pop - 13 (critical success)
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 9

Nowy Gdansk Econ - 8
Nowy Gdansk Pop - 11
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 3

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Econ - 1
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - 1

Griffon II Orbitals Econ - 3
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 1

Griffon IV Econ - 1
Griffon IV Rating Change - 5

Spoiler: Action Results

Construct dedicated expanded Defense HQ* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 78
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto succeeds next turn)

After Action Review [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS (6 degrees)

Establish Planetary Government - Griffon IV [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $ 1166634.02 ]
-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 7
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 23
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 8
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

-Langley [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 73
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 233137.72 ]
-1 Planetary Defense Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Carrier Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 22
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Training Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 75
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Armored Cavalry [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 3
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Training Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Standard Armored Regiments [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Orbital Germanium Processing Facility* [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 53
Result - SUCCESS

Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin VII* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 83
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin VIII* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS (18)

Colonize - Griffin IV Surface [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Nowy Gdansk [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 73
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Diplomatic Courier Service* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 79
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

CULTURE - Monuments Ho! [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Continue to expand DoME *[65]
Target - 65
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Imperial Intelligence* [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Justice Department* [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 82, Jarow Reroll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

Genetically Engineered Plants and Animals* [auto]

Thermal Dissipation (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

Structural Materials (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Power Transfer (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

Spheroid Dropships (Maximum) [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 91
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

COINTEL - Basic Security Screening [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 87
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

COINTEL - Public Employee Security Screening [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 78
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

Establish Imperial Justice System on Griffon IV [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

Prison Reform [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 69
Result - Bare FAILURE (auto success next turn)

-----

Negotiations with Yvette and the New Rasalhaguians is… slow. She is a very canny negotiator, and it is obvious that they feel that while they would like to have reasonably friendly relations with you, they aren’t really all that worried either way. As far as they are concerned this is simply a matter of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, and they are attempting to at least make it so you aren’t actively their enemy.

Ultimately all you are able to achieve is a straight peace treaty, they promise not to attack you, you promise not to attack them. You leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. They need all of their jumpships to prosecute their war with the Dragon, and so are unable to provide you with any of them to use the collars. They do leave open the possibility of future trade, and they do promise to pass along any usable intelligence on the Dracs.

In short, they don’t care about your clay, they have their own clay and they want to keep the Dragon clay from taking their clay. You have no idea why Yvette used that as the analogy.

So in the end a protocol is worked out for communications between the Rasalhaguians and you, if they need to get in contact they will send a single Scout class Jumpship and transmit a code sequence upon arrival. Likewise you are given a code sequence to transmit if you ever get your hands on a Jumpship and need to get in touch with them.

[]	That is That
[]	Write-in questions for Yvette

Several weeks after the Rasalhaguian delegation departs you are awakened in the middle of the night by a resounding BOOM and the entire palace shaking like a living thing. The on-duty security officers charge into your bedroom and haul you off to a secure room, where you discover that a heavy-lift cargo dropship launching from the Griffsport Drop Port had somehow exploded in mid air, showering the area around the Palace and government district with flaming debris.

There’s a mad scramble to figure out what happened and to secure the debris. Multiple sites in the vicinity of the Palace wind up shut down for weeks until finally a grim verdict is determined once the black boxes for the dropship are found.

Not sabotage, not any action of any outside power, just a heavy-lift cargo company that had been cutting unacceptable corners on maintenance, falsifying the maintenance logs, using substandard replacement parts purchased from unapproved suppliers in order to save money and increase profits. The company had actually been scheduled for a complete surprise audit of their maintenance logs by your transportation safety authority the day of the accident, as whistleblowers from amongst the maintenance crews had reported sufficient concerns that health and safety was getting involved, which would have likely resulted in massive fines for the company.

A maintenance issue would be identified, or a standard maintenance interval would arrive. A maintenance crew would be assigned the task, but informed that a different team would handle different aspects of it. As this was normal procedure at 24/7 operations it wasn’t seen as unusual. So the initial crew would catalog the issue and it would go into the system and they move on to the next assessment. This cataloged issue would then be… massaged… by members of middle management in order to reduce costs, with, for example, parts that had reached end-of-life and would require replacement marked as replaced, even though they were still installed. The next shift would then get the altered work order and perform the work, but would have been provided with parts that were marked as on spec and standard, but which were actually cheap shoddy knock offs. The middle managers involved would often use data stick ‘hack packs’ to reset the maintenance interval warnings on certain parts in order to prevent their manipulations from being discovered.

Ultimately this resulted in a fuel pump failing spectacularly on lift off, causing a cascade failure that resulted in the detonation of the main reactors of the dropship as multiple safety systems failed due to being well off spec.

In the end it comes down to simple, pure, greed on the part of corporate officers and upper management, enabled by a compliant middle management that had significant incentive to cooperate with the higher ups and sufficient shell games that the front line employees genuinely were in the dark until they started to see through the shell games and promptly started reporting the situation to the relevant authorities, who had followed their procedures properly, although said procedures did take an excessive amount of time in this case.

The sheer number of bureaucratic offices that had needed to sign off on the audit was a bit mind-boggling. That there had been no leaks was a testament to how everybody involved was genuinely honest and doing their jobs honorably and well, but the sheer inertia had worked against everybody here. Nobody had failed to do their jobs, there were no delays that couldn’t be attributed to the natural consequences of the bureaucratic structure.

Reaction is swift now, though. The entire corporate board of the company, along with every single one of the executives, about 80% of middle management, the owners, directors, and management of the fly-by-night suppliers dealing in counterfeit parts, several criminal figures who were engaged in cybercrime to cover up the malfeasance, all were arrested and charged to the maximum extent possible under the law. None of the front-line workers at the transportation company wind up charged, after it is determined that over 70% of them had filed whistleblower complaints about the situation, the vast majority in the days leading up to the tragedy. Those who hadn’t had been far too junior to even know how to file one, being newly hired apprentices, or various low-level administrative, marketing, sales, and secretarial figures who had no way of knowing anything hinky was going on as it was well outside of their wheelhouses.

Beyond the several hundred dead and thousands injured from the rain of debris, this results in a number of unfortunate consequences.

First of all, construction teams working on the new Defense HQ were diverted to help with the cleanup operations, resulting in delays on completion of the new HQ until 2Q next year. Counter intelligence agents that should have been involved in setting up the new security screening systems had also been diverted, work on the new systems won’t be in place until 3Q of next year. Justice Department officials who were working on prison reform likewise wound up tasked with handling the prosecutions instead, delaying implementation of the prison reform proposals until 1Q next year. The lead Foreign Office official working on the Diplomatic Courier Service was injured by debris, and this has delayed work on that until 2Q next year. The R&D teams who had been working on the maximum mass spheroid dropship project had been pulled off of their work to assist in the analysis of the accident, as a result their work was delayed until 1Q of next year. Finally the teams from Interior who had been working on focused development for Nowy Gdansk had been caught at the Drop Port when this debacle occurred, delaying their departure significantly and resulting in delays in that project until 1Q next year.

You wind up spending a great deal of time attending commissioning ceremonies for all of the new dropships that have come online this year. You’ve decided that in the future you will attend the major units that commission and send one of your kids, or Willis, for the others.

The after action review of the actions of the Nadir Defense Squadron has been completed. The review validates the tactical decisions of Commodore Smith, highlights the effectiveness of the Dracs large numbers of missile armed ASFs in reducing your own ASF forces effectiveness, shows that the basic tactical doctrine underpinning the Defiant class is sound, with a few minor adjustments required, and winds up praising the elan and skill of the six surviving crews, all of whom are now rated as Crack.

On Griffon IV there is an enormous ceremony as the first domed habitation units are opened up and ground colonization officially begins. Due to the sheer difficulty of expanding habitation, population growth will be slow for now, until terraforming reaches a point where people can survive outdoors unprotected. Government domes are open, as are law enforcement facilities. The Griffon IV Aerie outpost is open as well, and the 2nd Aerie Cadre is already beginning to settle into their new home. The 5th Planetary Defense Wing is likewise stood up and ready for action.

In general procurement goes extremely well, with large numbers of new dropships laid down which will be commissioning next year. The 2nd Armored Division on Nowy Gdansk is now at full establishment strength.

The two orbital shipyards have been expanded further, increasing your production capacity greatly. There is some talk about whether it may be a good idea to start an orbital yard over Griffon IV.

The survey of Griffon VII is completed. The Ice Giant is extremely electrically active, with enormous magnetic storms that are absolutely fascinating to study. The planetary ring is primarily composed of massive ice boulders that are nearly pure water, giving you a ready source of fresh water if need be. In addition, one of the smaller moons has enormous deposits of valuable metals, and the largest of the moons, while completely unsuitable for colonization, is large enough to shield anything in orbit of it from the Ice Giant’s magnetic storms, making it an excellent site for orbital facilities. That moon also has enormous hydrocarbon seas frozen under ice, and is highly geologically active, as a consequence generating a serious magnetic field of its own which is why it is such a good candidate for orbital habitation.

You attend the Battle of the Nadir Memorial’s unveiling and are rather impressed by it. A ⅓ scale cast bronze replica of a Defiant class, stunning in the sheer level of detail, is mounted on a marble plinth, upon which are engraved the names of every person who fought in the battle, the dead engravings filled with gold leaf, the injured with silver leaf, and the rest with bronze. Those who were killed in action are surrounded by cartouches, and it is noted that as the survivors pass away the monument will be updated.

Despite all the disruptions from the crash, the expansion to DoME does finish on schedule, giving you an additional team of mad engineers (who are far more practical than mad scientists, which makes them very scary indeed).

Hiring to expand the Intelligence and Justice ministries has been quite successful, increasing their manpower and allowing for more work to get done.

New genetically engineered plants and small animals, primarily insects, are now part of the terraforming toolkit, allowing for a broader menu of options when it comes to terraforming work, especially on Griffon IV. While a number of new startups specializing in this have sprung up around Griffin’s Roost, there has been some backlash over fears of genetically engineered organisms being eventually weaponized.

Work on Thermal Dissipation, Structural Materials, and Power Transfer fundamentals has gone extremely well, with Mary reporting that her R&D teams are very pleased with their deeper understanding of these areas.

In addition there is something extremely unexpected. The same R&D team that had completed work on the Heavy Subcapital Cannon has had another breakthrough, a full barrel length version of the same weapon that fully replicates the performance of the Class 10 Naval Autocannon, according to SARAH’s records. A cooperative venture between Lee Aerospace, Majeure Electrique, and the Royal Griffon Aerospace Werks has resulted in the development of the Mark 1 Naval Defense Station, designed to function in parallel with the Star Fort station.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 48 - We Are The Chosen Ones

You find out some more details about the Rasalhagian/Kuritan conflict from the emissary. For one, it has not gone nuclear, mostly due to both sides more or less existing in a state of MAD in regards to nuclear ordnance. While the Rasalhagians would love to trade with you, especially for military supplies, unfortunately they have barely enough jumpship lift to maintain their current position, the only reason the Scout was available to deliver the warning was due to its disabled drop collar and defective energy sail mechanism. If the situation changes they would be more than happy to trade, but they cannot produce their own jumpships at all.

It pretty much all comes down to that, no jumpships.

Place for refugees? They’d love to send non-combatants who want to escape the warzone to someplace safe. No jumpships to transport them.

Refit facilities? They’d love to send their oldest dropships and ASFs to be refitted to more modern standards, or even get full overhauls. No jumpships to transport them, and they need them in action too much anyways.

Industrial capacity? They’d love it! They’d buy you dry of mechs and tanks and ASFs and dropships if they could. No jumpships to transport it to them, though, or transport the payment to you.

Knowledge? Unless you happen to have the plans for jumpships you’d be willing to sell them… oh, and if they’d have to take their production facilities offline to upgrade things that would likely result in them suffering excessive losses. They are stuck under the Iron Law of mobilization, at this point any upgrades or improvements would be a double-edged sword that would injure them a great deal.

The suitcase nukes? Thanks but no thanks, we don’t have any DEST units trained in their use anyways, and they’ve likely passed their ‘use by’ date irregardless.

With that the emissary heads off to return to Rasalhagian space.

Meanwhile the Free Folk show up in the system with an offer for you. They have a trading partner coreward who is in the market for advanced autocannons, specifically Ultra AC/5. They are offering to trade you the basic system scans for a system that is within a single jump of you in the direction of the Romans, although it is somewhat outside single jump range for the Romans. Likewise it is away from both the Dracs and the Rasalhaguians, and in the opposite direction of the Rim Worlds Remnant.

The Free Folk do stress that they do not want production plans or anything like that, and advise you to ‘black box’ the UAC/5s to prevent reverse engineering.

[]	Go for it	Obtain basic system survey data on a nearby system that is a good candidate for expansion once you have jumpships Costs 10,000 to procure the UAC/5 Improves Free Folks opinion of Griffin’s Roost
[]	Don’t go for it.	Reduces Free Folks opinion of Griffin’s Roost

The extreme volcanism on Griffon II has increased yet again, with giant lava ‘fountains’ bubbling away as the entire surface of the planet is now lava. DoME is still coming up with increasingly wild concepts for how to terraform the place, but for now geologists are flocking to the orbital habitats, causing a serious economic boom there as this time they are actually being good guests and purchasing necessities and such from the local population.

You see some fascinating videos, including what looks like a water fountain ‘bubbler’ of lava, only this bubbler is almost 2 kilometers high.

There is what at first appeared to be a classic Pollux Man moment on Pollux, only it turned out to be the result of a terrible prank gone horribly wrong by a bunch of Castor-based college students on winter break. Nobody is sure what the morons were thinking, but the end result was the death of all six students involved, along with a dozen or so serious injuries amongst the locals and several less serious injuries to first responders. The very bright pink explosion? Visible for miles. As far as anybody can tell, the idiots were having Fun With Chemistry and blew themselves up.

Your eldest granddaughter, Tien, has gotten a Sweet 16 present from beyond the grave from Tyler… and you want to dig him up so you can throttle and defenestrate him properly. In a large box purportedly from the single most exclusive lingerie shop on the planet, thoroughly packed in almost a cubic meter of foam, Tien finally finds the actual gift: a set of keys to the latest model Lee Automotive ultra-luxury all-terrain SUV with every single possible option.

And a gift card to said lingerie shop.

Well, ‘gift card’ is saying it lightly. A gift card large enough to purchase one each of the entire inventory of said lingerie shop.

Twice.

Meanwhile, Thanh and Petra have finally given you another grandbaby, the first in a few years, with a daughter in the iron womb.

You never get tired of grandbabies.

Your grandson John has started at the Aerie, with plans to go on the Mechwarrior track like his dear old dad. He looks very fine indeed in his cadet uniform. Of course you then promptly embarrass the heck out of him by fussing over his uniform, wiping away some imaginary lint, and generally going full ba on him. Then you compound the embarrassment by doing the same to every single other cadet at the induction ceremony.

You hear through the grapevine later that the DI’s for the induction class have officially stated that they’ve had fewer things to yell at cadets concerning their uniforms this year. Evidently the threat of having the Empress herself come and fuss over their uniforms is inspiring great attention to detail.

You’ll take that as a win.

The twins’ team is doing exceptionally well, now that the twins are devoting full time to running it rather than racing as well. In the first three races of the season in the Hovercraft league they have 2 wins, 3 top 3’s, and 5 top fives between the three racers they run. In the Stock Car league they have a single win and two top 5’s, while in Formula Racing they have a pair of podiums.

Sarah has published another book, this time on more recent events and comparing them to historical antecedents.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 48 - We Are The Holy Ones

You have a rather lengthy meeting with your son and Admiral Benjamin discussing several military topics. Evidently Jeremy had been put in charge of a working group to coordinate assault transport requirements with the Navy.

He starts off with some really good news, and a memo from Mary in the R&D area. Two specific projects from the Aerie had been completed slightly ahead of schedule, albeit at a higher ‘burn rate’ in cash than otherwise meaning that they’ll still cost your budget this year as much. Specifically the improved gauss rifle and improved long range missile systems. Then you find yourself rolling your eyes and mock-threatening Jeremy with a rolled up newspaper when you find out that they’d done it in order to finalize a new Assault Mech design to replace the still not built Ritter and Longbowman designs, specifically the Gryphon Assault Trooper mech, armed with a pair of the new improved gauss rifles and a pair of the new improved 20 pack long range missile systems, allowing a single mech to fill both the direct assault and fire support roles.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Gryphon Assault Trooper	1172	ES, DHS	188	38	Armored 1, Missile 2, AMS 1, TAG

Then comes the meat of the meeting. There are two different deployment profiles that are being considered for getting Armored Divisions into play in system invasion scenarios in which they would need to make opposed landings. Your current arrangement with convertible cargo dropships has been judged to be quite useful for shuffling forces within the system, or for non-contested landings and such, but woefully inadequate for actually forcing a landing against hostile forces.

There are several options being presented. All of them have different attack transports for conventional and mech forces. The question becomes how many eggs do you want in a single basket, thus vulnerable to interception.

“Your Majesty, we have two different concerns for a successful landing, especially a contested one. First, we need to secure the LZ, and second we need to be able to support the forces involved in the invasion. Since we’ve never actually had to accomplish this mission for real, we’ve been limited to simulator work on it, along with exercises. Conventional forces, tanks and such, are vital for the success of an invasion, but of very limited value in the initial landings as they take an excessive amount of time to deploy from their transports and are of limited combat effectiveness until they are formed up in their formations. Mechs, on the other hand, can deploy rapidly from their transports and are combat capable from the instant the bay doors are opened. Indeed, with drop packs, they can be inserted from orbit.” Jeremy is handling the presentation while Admiral Benjamin looks on.

“For our conventional armored forces, we propose the Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport. This is a 30,000 ton spheroid dropship, capable of carrying an entire Standard Armored Regiment as well as a squadron of aerospace fighters. Three Tarawas would be required for 3rd Armored, while 1st and 2nd Armored would require 6. As an aside, for future Armored Divisions we are recommending a force composition similar to 3rd Armored for any unit that may be tasked with initial planetary invasion duties.”

He puts up a slide showing the details for the Tarawa

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials	Yard Type
Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport	182,394.8	FA, DHS	694	404	Armored 24 Missile 48 AMS 32 Artillery 60	Large Dropship

“As you can see, it includes a substantial artillery battery, a full dozen Long Toms and 8 Arrow IV’s. Once grounded, the Tarawa would provide immense support to attached units in the initial phases of the campaign until the battle moves out of range of the LZ.” Jeremy grins slightly. “Similar to the Fortress concept from SARAH’s files.”

“Now we come to the battlemech transports, and here we have two different options. One is to make use of Battalion-level transport assets, capable of carrying an entire battalion of 36 mechs plus attached battle armored infantry. Thus, each regiment would require 3 of these transports, which we have dubbed the Osumi-class Battalion Assault Transport. The advantage of this approach is that it minimizes the total number of drop collars a Division would require for transport, but at the risk of the loss of entire Battalions in the event of the loss of a single transport. The alternative is to make use of smaller Company level transports, each carrying a dozen mechs plus their attached battle armor assets. This would require 9 dropships per regiment as opposed to 3 for the Osumi, but with our forces spread out amongst more platforms the loss of one or two would be less devastating. The design we’ve worked out for this is the Albion-class Company Assault Transport.”

“We thus have three options, standardize on the Osumi, accepting the tradeoff of greater vulnerability to losses, albeit from an exceptionally well protected platform, for greater efficiency in terms of collars, standardize on the Albion, reducing our vulnerability to losses due to lost dropships but requiring substantially more collars, or build both and use them as appropriate, for example if an enemy has very strong orbital defenses we may want to use Albions for the initial landings, but if we have orbital supremacy we would use Osumis.” Jeremy shrugs. “I would recommend the mixed approach, but that, Your Majesty, is up to you.” he smirks at you, the scamp.

[]	Name	Cost	Mats	HP	A/D	Special	Yard Type
[]	Osumi Battalion Assault Transport	115,204.32	FA DHS	452	252	Armored 15 Artillery 18 Missile 48 AMS 34	Regular Dropship
[]	Albion Company Assault Transport	65,938.32	FA DHS	330	160	Armored 12 Artillery 12 Missile 10 AMS 36	Regular Dropship
[]	Approve both

He grins at your reaction, then continued “For the purpose of sustaining an invasion for any length of time we would need plentiful logistics, however for a combat logistics platform we are facing the same trade offs as for the assault craft themselves, they are most efficient the larger they are, but the larger they are the greater the loss of a single one would be. Therefore, Admiral Benjamin’s people have developed the Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transport, on the hull of the Osumi-class BAT.”

Name	Cost	Mats	HP	A/D	Specials	Yard Type
Sosumi Combat Logistics Transport	106,538.32	FA DHS	417	217	Armored 15 MASH Command 1 Missile 48 AMS 40	Regular Dropship

“And finally, we got something special for you, Your Majesty. The boys and girls in the Rapid Reaction Force have been agitating for more offensive roles, arguing that their combination of high speed and relatively low logistics footprint made them ideal for raiding. We decided to model that role, and it worked out quite well. However it requires a very specialized transport to make it viable. Enter, the Coyote-class Fast Attack Transport.” his grin at this point is positively vulpine.

Name	Cost	Mats	HP	A/D	Specials	Yard Type
Coyote Fast Attack Transport	83,496.24	FA DHS	370	220	Armored 10 Armor Piercing Missile 6 AMS 18 Swift	Regular Dropship

All in all it is a rather productive meeting.

And then Parliament decides to do their thing (™) (all rights reserved) (you have a headache) (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up) (where’s the beef).

The first bill is rather… well, you had been half-expecting it, half-dreading it, ever since the explosion on Pollux. A number of Delegates, seized with the politicians desire to Be Seen Doing Something About A Crisis in order to loudly pound their chests about Doing Something About A Crisis When Other Side Will Not because obviously this Crisis Is Incredibly Important And Therefore All Who Support Me Are On The Right Side Of History, have decided to introduce legislation flat banning the private ownership, use, sale, or possession of ‘any substance capable of, or a component of a compound capable of, or a component of a mixture capable of, being used to manufacture fireworks’. Every single farmer everywhere promptly facepalms, as do miners, industrial workers, and people with a shred of common sense. The politicians in question, however, are all from safe urban districts where their voters probably think that the food in the grocer’s shows up magically from within the trucks that deliver them.

They are very entrenched, very loud, and very stupid. You’ve had to deal with these morons before, yet they never seem to completely go away.

The idiotic bill is dead on arrival, most Delegates and Senators aren’t nearly as stupid as these idiots, but it still is a waste of your time and energy.

The second bill, however, is a cat of a different coat indeed. It is actually, and yes, you are very surprised by this fact, topical, relevant, helpful, and considerate of potential ramifications. You very nearly drop the bill in shock at this, because it wasn’t written by the Eldest, nor by any of your own parliamentarians. Mirabile Dictu, somebody in the Chamber of Delegates is actually, le gasp, COMPETENT.

The bill in question concerns mineral resource rights in the Asteroid belts. Currently the system is fairly ‘first come, first served’, with the first individual or company who surveys a given asteroid granted mineral rights to mine said asteroid, said rights being transferable. The bill actually addresses several potential problems with such a system, while still incentivizing exploration and mineral claims.

In brief, the bill legally allocates all potential claims, be it for minerals, volatiles, or even bodies large enough to support facilities and potential future settlement, directly and permanently to the Crown, establishes a Crown Commission to oversee these claims, and establishes a fixed process by which prospectors can register their discoveries and thus be granted exploitation licence to said discoveries from the Crown. It quite rationally addresses the adjudication of disputes between prospectors over first discovery, establishing a review process by which the Crown Commission would investigate and make a fair determination in such disputes.

It is a very rational bill, and you kind of like it. However it’s been proposed by the opposition, and there are elements among your supporters who are unwilling to give the opposition any win whatsoever, regardless of how good an idea it is.

[]	Support anyways	Adds ‘Crown Reserve’ as a permanent trait +1 to Econ Event +5 to Rating Change for GIAB and GOAB -5 support Chamber of Delegates -5 Politics
[]	Oppose	-5 support Chamber of Delegates

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 48 - In Glory We Return

The Pan-Griffon Games are a tremendous success.

The Opening Ceremony was a lovely celebration of dance and energy, featuring many of the most popular musical acts around. Hosted in the main Arcology of Nowy Gdansk, this year's Games were the largest yet, and were very much a warm-up for the actual Olympics which will be held in 2 years in the NRI.

It started with Athletics, and the local Nowy Gdansk fans were ecstatic as their men’s team absolutely trounced the Griffin’s Roost team in all disciplines, only for the Griffin’s Roost women to return the favor the next day.

The Gymnastics competitions, meanwhile, were a fascinating study in form and choreography, with absolutely superb performances put in by all of the athletes involved. The Nowy Gdansk team took the women’s and team competitions, but the Griffin’s Roost men absolutely dominated in the men’s competition.

The swimming competitions were, as seemed normal by now, dominated by the Griffin’s Roost teams, with commentators noting that, outside of heated pools like those used in the competitions, swimming on Nowy Gdansk was something you did if you wanted to commit suicide.

The decathlon was closer, but in the end of competition the Nowy Gdansk team came up just short of the Griffin’s Roost team in a closely fought battle that came down to the final events. The shooting events were split between the Nowy Gdansk and Griffin’s Roost teams, with some spectacular shooting on display from all involved.

The men’s and women’s marathons were similarly split, with the women’s race coming down to the closest photo finish ever seen in the event. Luckily the timing was to the hundredths, which had seemed excessive in the past but in this case the difference between first and second was precisely 1/100 of a second.

It was the various motorsports events which were, in many ways, eye opening. For one thing, the Griffin’s Roost team suffered debacle after debacle, almost seeming completely cursed as tires blew, lug nuts failed, mechanical failures, and memorably, in the Hovercraft race, a seabird slammed into the cockpit of the lead racer right as the last lap started, causing a chain reaction accident that took out all of the Griffin’s Roost team. It was only in the Motorcycle race that they managed to win. Most galling of all were the multiple penalties during pre-race inspections that resulted in the Griffin’s Roost cars generally starting at the back, even after exceptional qualifying. And then there was a massive scandal, as it turned out that the regulating body had mistakenly loaded LAST YEARS settings into the scanners for the inspections of the Griffin’s Roost teams, who were compliant with THIS YEARS regulations. Since in order to speed up inspections the two teams had gone through parallel inspection lanes, and the Nowy Gdansk team’s inspection lane was loaded with the correct settings… the outcry is only stilled when the twin’s, who were managing the Griffin’s Roost team for the competition and who are already slated to do the same in the Olympics in two years, publicly praised the Nowy Gdansk team and stated that so long as steps were taken to ensure such a debacle didn’t happen again, and that those responsible were appropriately punished, they wouldn’t protest the results or require a redo of the races. And that they were going to evaluate all the driver’s based not on their finishing order but on the basis of their actual performance on the track, IE fastest lap times, pit crew performance, and the rest.

Then come the four new events, the wrestling and fencing. In men’s wrestling the Nowy Gdansk team is utterly dominant, crushing the Griffin’s Roost men and making them look like professionals going after little kids. The Griffin’s Roost women’s team, however, is nearly as dominant over their rivals.

Men’s Fencing comes down to the absolute last match, as both teams were perfectly tied up to that point. In foil and saber, nearly every single match ended in a 0-0 tie, and not for lack of skill, the level of skill was so high that the contestants simply couldn’t manage to score on each other. The epee matches, meanwhile, were also consistently tied, only this time because both competitors were scoring repeated simultaneous touches. In the end it came down to a single touch in an epee match that was judged to not be simultaneous by approximately a tenth of a second.

Women's fencing was… a debacle in some ways. The Nowy Gdansk team made a brave show of it at the press conference afterwards, but they were utterly snakebit when the night before the match there was a fire in the hotel the team was staying at, resulting in the entire team being forced to forfeit due to being in the hospital with mild smoke inhalation, minor burns, and generally being in absolutely no shape to actually compete. Investigation shows that a Nowy Gdansk Rat, a particularly hardy breed of rodent, had managed to get into the walls of the Hotel and had chewed through the wiring, causing an electrical fire, unfortunately the equipment that lost power first had been the regular internal fire fighting system… and the rat’s dying moment had involved spasms so powerful that they had dislodged a critical pipe which had resulted in it blocking part of the positive pressure system, rendering much of the normal firefighting response rather… anemic.

The Griffin’s Roost team winds up putting on a fencing exhibition instead of a contest, and announce that they were donating the proceeds to the Griffon Women’s Fencing Association. They also scheduled a rematch several days after the Pan-Griffon Games ended, ultimately winning the match.

And then it was time for your favorite time of year. Budget time!

General Stewart leads off, accompanied by Jeremy for the Army, General Reyes for the Aerospace Force, and Admiral Benjamin for the Navy.

“Your Majesty, as a broad overview, we have proper Jumpships on the horizon, therefore it is time to start planning for our counter-offensive against the pestilent lizards. As such, we will be advising a shift in focus, slightly, towards actual combat transports for the Navy. For the rest, General Griffith will brief on ground forces, General Reyes on ASFs, and Admiral Benjamin on the Fleet.” she then steps back and your son steps up to the podium.

“Ground Forces are in relatively solid shape. First addressing training requirements, with the settlement of Griffon IV we are opening up more extensive training facilities there. As such, we recommend the procurement of a Standard Armored Regiment and a Rapid Reaction Regiment to round out the 2nd Aerie Cadre. Then…” he pauses for a moment. “We will need to address the composition of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Armored Division. Your Majesty, after extensive simulation work and analysis, we have come to the conclusion that the 3rd Brigade should be the ‘door knocker’ formation, the heaviest, nastiest, toughest, formation we can put together. As such, we are advising against a combined arms approach for the 3rd Brigade. We need a concentrated punch at the schwerpunkt. Thus we are recommending that the 3rd be made up of three Mechanized Assault Regiments. 1st and 2nd Brigades would be the maneuver formations, taking full advantage of their mobility and combined arms nature, while the 3rd would be held in reserve in order to deliver that concentrated assault needed for a decisive victory.”

He checks his notes. “Combat exercises between 1st and 2nd Armored have shown the value of anti-missile systems, although the lighter composition of 1st Armored’s Light Horse Regiments has resulted in higher losses even when victorious. We are currently investigating several upgrades making use of the latest technology that may prove decisive, but have nothing concrete to propose at this time. The list of mechs being examined for upgrade possibilities is as follows: The Shortbow, the Crossbow, the Archer, the Mongol, the Uhlan, and the Rittmeister. We are also looking into potential upgrades for the following armored fighting vehicles: The Legionnaire, the StuG G Hetzer, the Lion II, the Jaguar, the Tiger, the Bear IFV, the Gavin M3 Hetz configuration, the Arbalest LRM Carrier, the Bombard Heavy LRM Carrier, and the Skysweeper. Finally we are looking at upgrading the Bloodhound and Fox Terrier hover tanks.”

“We currently can manufacture a single heavy or assault regiment per year, if we spend this year and next upgrading the Mech factories on Griffin’s Roost, we’ll be able to double our production, specifically with Factory ID 3, 6, and 9.” he pauses. “The core of the Dracs forces are swarms of elite light mechs, Your Majesty. We won’t be able to match them on skill and combat experience alone with light units, even individually superior machines. I would much rather have a crushing advantage over them that all of their skill and elan cannot hope to match.”

He steps back. He managed that entire presentation without a single powerpoint slide… you’ve trained your son well.

But then General Powerpoint Herself comes up, and sure enough, she fires up the powerpoint and you are doomed.

“Your Majesty, we have the following dropships coming online this year that will require air groups. HMS Attacker and HMS Chaser will each require a Light Carrier Squadron, HMS Saratoga will require a Standard Carrier Wing, while HMS Repulse, HMS Zealous, and HMS Lord Clyde will each require a flight of Eagle II’s.” she drones a bit, reading her slide, then switches to the next one, causing you to twitch. “We recommend the procurement of a second Planetary Defense Wing for Griffon IV in addition to the Star Fort Wing for the Star Fort that should be coming online this year. Finally we recommend the procurement of a Training Wing for the Aerie expansion on Griffon IV.”

She then switches to yet another slide. “We have a number of designs that we are reviewing for potential upgrades thanks to new technology. Specifically, the Goshawk IIG, the Roc, and the Griffon. We hope to have concrete designs on the table later this year.”

She then steps back to let Admiral Benjamin take over. A three slide powerpoint, better than some that she’s done in the past.

Admiral Benjamin, of course, doesn’t use powerpoint, instead he’s got a very junior ensign who looks absolutely terrified by the oceans of gold braid and exalted ranks she’s surrounded by holding a pointer and standing next to an old-fashioned paper flip chart.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of metal coming online this year. I’ve been reviewing their working up and all of the crews are looking wonderful. Going forward, we have a bunch of open dockyard slips, so Andrea? First chart please!”

The young ensign promptly flips to the first chart and holds the pointer to the first entry.

“First up, existing yards that have been building the same thing for a while. We recommend that they keep on doing so. We have three yards with experience cranking out the Tyrannosaurus-class, four for the Defiant, two for the Troodon and a single Langley-line. Next sheet!” the ensign had kept up quite well, tapping her pointer on each entry as they came up. She flips to the next page, which has a great big abstract image on it.

“For the new lines? Logistics, Your Majesty, Logistics. To transport 1st or 2nd Armored we would require the following, Andrea?” the ensign flips to the third sheet. “We would need 6 Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transports, one each for each Standard Armored Regiment, then either 9 Osumi-class Battalion Armored Transports or 27 Albion-class Company Armored Transports for the 3 Mech Regiments. Then we would require 9 Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transports for each Division. For 3rd Armored we would require 2 Tarawa-class, 18 Osumi-class, and 9 Sosumi-class. We would also require a bird with 4 ASF bays to carry the balance of the Divisions attached ASF complement. If we want to use our RRF units for raiding and recon? Then we’ll need 3 Coyote-class for each RRF. In short, we’re going to need a lot of assault transports. We therefore… next sheet, Andrea…”

The young ensign flipped the sheet. “Recommend we build 1 Tarawa, 1 Osumi and 1 Sosumi this year. And…” his grin became positively predatory “we have teams looking at upgrades for our current designs in light of new technologies, we’ll get back to you when we have something concrete, Your Majesty.”

General Stewart takes the podium again, as Admiral Benjamin nods to the ensign who scurries off with the flip chart, although not before handing you a sheaf of papers containing all of the Navy’s recommendations. “Your Majesty, needless to say I fully endorse my subordinates recommendations.”

And then it’s Bridget’s turn, and she has been on a strict ‘decaff only’ rule for a week. It doesn’t help. “Your Majesty! We’re ready to start on the next phase of terraforming Griffon IV and I’ve got really eager DoME teams all set to get started on making that place real pretty and habitable again plus I’ve got people ready and eager to get to upgrading factories and we’re doing some forward planning for next year too when we should have some more DoME teams ready to go and we’re thinking Arcology Clusters on Griffon IV to really turbocharge settlement there but maybe a Megafactory or even more O’Neill Cylinders, we’re not sure!”

She didn’t breath a single time throughout that.

Isoroku is off overseeing the after-action for the Pan-Griffon Games, and he sends a single memo just reading ‘Waiting on the Courier Service).

Jake is looking rather harried “Your Majesty, we’re handling the final steps for the projects you gave us last year, my people will get ‘em done this year, but apart from maybe schmoozing with the Delegates we don’t recommend anything new at this time.”

Mary is as she ever is, ready with her custom presentation software.

• New Projects
  • None
• Recommended Projects
  • Non-Military
    • Industrial Mechs Tier 5
      • Expensive, however it improves our abilities in regards to DoME projects, with a large number of very expensive such projects in the works this would be a valuable way of improving our chances for early success
    • Advanced Standard Core Design
    • Advanced Standard Core Theory
    • Advanced Standard Core Construction

Short and succinct this year, at least.

Harry isn’t present, but then again the Intelligence Department is fully engaged in finalizing the new security screening processes. Janet, meanwhile, is present.

“Your Majesty, we’ll be finishing up the Prison Reform work shortly, it’s mostly done but for some final paperwork. I would strongly recommend giving me permission to run a full corruption audit this year, however.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 48 - We Slay The Dragon

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating rolls

Meta-Event Roll - 2 - got 2 auto-successes on rolls + early access to tech
Dynasty Luck Roll - 64 - No event

Imperial Approval - 1
Approval Change - 5
Political Event - -1

Economy Rating - 2
Economy Event - 6
Research Event - 4

Griffin’s Roost Economy - 10
Griffin’s Roost Pop Growth - 5
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 3

Nowy Gdansk Economy - 11
Nowy Gdansk Pop Growth - 6
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 3

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Economy - 3
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - -2
Griffon II Orbitals Economy - 7 (critical)
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 2

Griffon 4 Economy - 6
Griffon 4 Pop Growth - .3
Griffon 4 Rating Change - 7

Spoiler: Action Results

Military [$ 2,363,923.26 ]

Construct Armed Defense Stations Griffin IV* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

Construct dedicated expanded Defense HQ*
[Auto]

Expand Orbital Factory 42 (DHS) [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 88
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Ferro-Aluminum GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 92
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $857,262.96 ]
-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 91, ShadowArxxy reroll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 98, Gurk reroll - 73
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 40
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 100, ShadowArxxy reroll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-Langley [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 73
Result - SUCCESS

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

-Tarawa [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 97, Jarow reroll - 46
Result - SUCCESS

-Osumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

-Sosumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 380,015.80 ]

-3 Flights of Eagles [auto]

-1 Planetary Defense Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 36
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Carrier Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 91, ShadowArxxy reroll - 24
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Light Carrier Squadron [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 2
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Training Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 23
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Star Fort Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Mechanized Assault [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Armored Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Rapid Reaction Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

Interior [$ 16,060,000 ]

Build Orbital Factory Ferro-Aluminum GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory Ferro-Aluminum GIAB [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 84
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 3 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 6 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 9 [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Nowy Gdansk* [auto]

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Asteroid Redirect Mission Nowy Gdansk* [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

Diplomatic [$ 1020000 ]
Have Exploration Fleet Survey GIAB* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 87, Economist reroll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Diplomatic Courier Service* [auto]

Political [$ 30000 ]

Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin VIII* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin VII* [auto]

Build Relations with Chamber of Delegates [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 71
Result - FAIL

Research [$ 24800000 ]

Spheroid Dropships (Maximum)* [auto]

Improved Gauss Rifle* [auto]

Improved LRM* [auto]

Intelligence [$ 185000 ]

COINTEL - Basic Security Screening* [auto]

COINTEL - Public Employee Security Screening* [auto]

Justice [$ 2010000 ]

Prison Reform* [auto]

Anti-Corruption Investigations [55]
Target - 55
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

-----

Just when you thought it was safe to walk the streets, the Department of Periphery Studies is at it again, somehow managing to organize a massive protest march straight through the center of downtown Griffsport. Protesting, as far as you can tell, for ‘volcano privacy rights’ concerning geologists observing the ongoing eruptions on Griffon II. Evidently, according to the signs carried by the not very coherent but very enthusiastic protestors, showing videos of volcanic eruptions is pornographic as it is showing a ‘naked’ planet, stripped of her crust and exposed to the lewd and lascivious eyes of perverted scientists.

Most of the marchers are kids who are obviously treating it as a joke and an excuse to take a day off from school. Said enthusiasm for goofing off vanishes rather quickly when an enterprising police sergeant starts broadcasting through a megaphone that any school age kids still on the streets in ten minutes will be reported to their mothers and that the Empress has personally recommended that they get sent to bed without dessert.

Even many of the Periphery Studies professors take THAT threat seriously.

You do have a few decisions to make, however. General Stewart was serious when she spoke of the need to modernize equipment in light of the latest advances in technology, but the reality is that a wholesale replacement of everything would be ruinously expensive. Therefore she wants to prioritize, and wants you to decide on the priority. Lovely.

[]	Priority	Designs to be Upgraded
[]	1st Conventional Vehicles	Legionnaire STuG G Hetzer Lion II Jaguar Tiger Bear IFV Gavin M3 ‘Hetz’ Arbalest Bombard Skysweeper Fox Terrier Bloodhound
[]	1st Battlemechs	Shortbow Crossbow Archer Mongol Uhlan Rittmeister Pathfinder Mk II
[]	1st Aerospace Fighters	Goshawk IIG Eagle Roc Griffon
[]	1st Dropships	Defiant Microraptor Velociraptor Warrior Lightning Tyrannosaurus Utahraptor Megaraptor Devastation Langley Troodon

[]	Priority	Designs
[]	2nd Conventional Vehicles	See above
[]	2nd Battlemechs	See above
[]	2nd Aerospace Fighters	See above
[]	2nd Dropships	See above

[]	Priority	Designs
[]	3rd Conventional Vehicles	See above
[]	3rd Battlemechs	See above
[]	3rd Aerospace Fighters	See above
[]	3rd Dropships	See above

[]	Priority	Designs
[]	4th Conventional Vehicles	See above
[]	4th Battlemechs	See above
[]	4th Aerospace Fighters	See above
[]	4th Dropships	See above

QM Note - vote for 1 option in each of these 4 categories TRO is HERE

Reports come in from the survey crews of the Inner Asteroid Belt. They’ve mapped out the orbital dynamics of the single largest asteroid in the belt, that resembles nothing so much as a slightly distorted rugby ball in appearance. The stability of this asteroid, combined with the relatively clear space around it, makes it highly suitable to serve as an anchor for an Asteroid Base, which would increase the population of the Belt by nearly a factor of 10 and allow for the construction of a single orbital shipyard, if so desired.

Reports from the two outermost giant planets are… interesting. Griffon VIII has far stronger magnetic fields than expected, at least close in to the planet itself, and has a number of scientifically interesting moons, moonlets, ring formations, and other astronomical phenomena, but relatively little in the way of commercially viable resources. Griffon VII, with the massive protoplanet moon, is an extremely radioactive environment. Surveys concentrated on the moon, and have found large deposits of metals that, if the radiation issue can be dealt with satisfactorily, be commercially viable.

The arrival of the large captured asteroid in Nowy Gdansk orbit, combined with the economic incentives and focus, have resulted in a massive economic boom on the planet, sending its GDP soaring. The Planetary government on Nowy Gdansk is taking the increased funds from trade and taxation and investing it in a massive capital construction project inspired by DoME, specifically a Megafactory complex oriented towards Battlemech construction, joining the current complex that is already the primary source of Assault weight mechs in the Empire.

Jake is incredibly grumpy. The opposition leaders he’d been scheduled to meet with and schmooze stood him up in favor of a fundraiser, in a blatant show of disrespect for the Crown by the most… obstreperous elements of the opposition. Several of the more extreme members are demanding significant concessions from the Crown before being willing to even discuss a proper meeting. Most of the opposition rank-and-file are far less salty, and do meet with Jake and indicate that they would like to be more supportive, and are convinced that their voters want them to be, but the party leadership is in the hands of the more obstructionist faction at the moment.

Factory expansion, shipyard expansion, and the construction of new orbital foundries for Ferro-Aluminium armor all come off without any actual issues of note.

The new Orbital Defense Station comes on line in Griffon IV orbit, providing the planet with high-grade fixed defenses. Likewise, all military procurement proceeds with little hitch, apart from some paperwork snafus that are dealt with without causing any schedule slippages.

There is one event, though, in regards to procurement of interest. HMS Vistula, a Tyrannosaurus-class vessel, has been presented to the Navy by the citizens of Griffin’s Roost as part of their commemoration of their liberation and joining the Empire. They’d managed to build her sub rosa alongside HMS Attacker… you hear some good-natured grumbling from the Fleet about where to put her, but in the end she’s assigned to the Capital Fleet.

The new Diplomatic Courier Service is up and running, although they’ll need Jumpships to be truly effective your Foreign Office has made arrangements with the Free Folk to serve as transports for Courier shuttles.

It yields almost immediate results, in early December a message is couriered back with an offer from the NRI.

[]	Accept	Griffin’s Roost will… Design a basic single-collar Jumpship for the NRI NRI will +1 Trade Route NRI Provide technical assistance in regards to designing larger Jumpship cores.
[]	Reject	No change

Design work on theoretical 100,000 ton spheroid dropships has been completed, along with the final details on dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for the improved gauss and long range missile systems.

Basic security screening and employee screening protocols are put in place with remarkably little public concern, mostly thanks to the educational campaigns. The opposition does howl, moan, and cry about ‘encroaching dictatorial oppression’, but it seems their howls, moans, and cries are falling on fairly deaf ears.

Prison reform is finally fully on track. A combination of the construction of new prisons for maximum security inmates, mostly on the continent of Phoenix, combined with significant increases in non-prison alternative sentences for non-violent criminals. Significantly, despite early fears that such reforms would result in rich criminals being able to wiggle out of their sentences most of the reforms instead target crimes most prevalent amongst the poorest elements of society.

So you have rich kids cooling their heels in jail (when appropriate to their crimes, which tend to be rather more violent, ironically, than poorer kids) while poorer kids are ‘forced’ to participate in apprenticeship schemes that give them significant life skills, thus potentially raising them out of poverty. As Janet puts it, win-win.

The anti-corruption probes, however, reveal something that bothers you. Pollux, for all the jokes about Pollux-man and the reputation of the place, is probably the cleanest major jurisdiction, followed by Nowy Gdansk and Capricorn. The single most corrupt jurisdiction, in regards to official corruption in all of it’s forms, is Castor, which everybody had always considered to be the well-run counterpart to the dumpster fire that was Pollux. What is galling is that the party that supports you the most fervently is up to their well-bred eyeballs in that corruption.

That doesn’t protect them, you aren’t called The Just for nothing after all, and ironically it seems to strengthen your reputation for probity.

QM Note - the 'free' Tyrannosaurus-class ship is due to a goof on my part, you only had 2 slips free for them, but I recommended building 3, then RNJesus reached down and saved me from my blunder by critically succeeding on the roll for the 'extra' ship.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 49 - On a Dark Desert Highway

You are on the horns of a dilemma. You have in front of you a number of excellent refit designs for the various dropships, which in most cases focus on seriously increasing firepower, although in one case it instead focuses on taking an already quite deadly escort carrier and making it, in the words of the review board, ‘fit for human occupation’ as the original was extremely crowded.

The problem is that in order to properly implement the upgrades across the board you’ll need to shuffle the various in-service dropships through the yards to be refit. In the future it may be necessary to have technically obsolete, at least in terms of the bleeding edge tech, ships remain in service without overhauls for extended periods of time, but for now it is just possible to cycle the entire existing fleet through the yards within the year… but it would preclude being able to lay down new construction this year.

Bridget has a long term solution for you, to start building refit yards separate from the building yards. But that doesn’t help you right now.

[]	Refit now	Cost 1,463,384.91 No new dropships may be laid down this year
[]	Defer to later	Can continue to build current designs Costs for the refit program will go up

However the refits are, in general, worth it.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Defiant II Assault Dropship	42164.64	FA, DHS	285	155	Armored 8 Swift Missile 5 AMS 16 Armor-Piercing
Warrior II Assault Carrier	84267.68	FA, DHS	488	218	Armored 22 Capital 3 43 Missile 8 AMS 12
Lightning II Parasite Destroyer	104442.24	FA, DHS	535	305	Armored 18 Swift Capital 3 39 Missile 20 AMS 24
Devastation II Parasite Cruiser	399253.12	FA, DHS	1262	1002	Armored 21 Capital 2 190 Capital 3 218 Missile 48 AMS 36 Command 2 Armor-Piercing
Megaraptor Refit Parasite Escort Carrier	100578.24	FA, DHS	452	252	Armored 15 Missile 8 AMS 12 Armor-Piercing
Tyrannosaurus Refit Parasite Destroyer	129741.84	FA, DHS	666	456	Armored 16 Capital 3 63 Missile 14 AMS 60 Armor-Piercing
Langley II Parasite Carrier	295886.64	DHS	519	289	Armored 18 Capital 3 40 Command Missile 6 AMS 48
Velociraptor Refit Aviation Dropship	90879.84	FA, DHS	555	305	Armored 20 Missile 6 AMS 20 Armor-Piercing
Troodon Refit Parasite Missile Boat	100931.04	FA, DHS	610	410	Armored 15 Capital 3 20 Missile 6 AMS 58 Armor-Piercing

A solid upgrade proposal is also received for the Microraptor, but with those being relegated to training roles it is ultimately decided to set those plans aside for the time being.

Interestingly, the Devastation refit turns the vessel into a flagship on top of being your most lethal combat vessel. Expanded accommodations, separate flag facilities, and enhanced communications systems allow the vessels to command entire fleets if need be. As such, there is talk about reorganizing the fleet once more into a larger number of smaller task forces led by Devastations. These task forces would then, as needed, be assembled into larger fleet units.

You decide that you haven’t given your eldest daughter enough paperwork lately, so you have Admiral Benjamin assign Thanh the task. You do sweeten the deal, however, and when your beloved and feisty daughter complains to you about Yet More Staff Paperwork, you note that you are considering her for command of the fast wing of the fleet. Then you shoot down her hopes by noting that she’d still be barred from the cockpit of an ASF.

You still got it.

There’s one other bit of naval news, Lee Aerospace and the Royal Aerospace Werks have unveiled the Sentinel-class Parasite Scout Cruiser, a 35,000 ton high speed monster of a scouting platform. It is actually equipped with an updated version of the Enterprise-class’s sensor suite, expanded and made even more capable, and hosts a pair of the survey shuttles the current explorer uses, although it lacks the vehicle bays for ground exploration.

The thought is that you pretty much lack a good, solid, combat reconnaissance platform, and the Enterprise-class is almost certainly not up for the job no matter how many upgrades you try on the basic frame. The older bird is too slow, too small, and too fragile. It is hoped that by the time you are building jumpships and beginning to act more aggressively, that you’ll have at least 2-collar designs in service. One collar would be occupied by a Devastation to defend the jumpship, the other by a Sentinel which would commence a high-speed survey of the target system, singing the troll song while leading the defenders on a merry chase.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Sentinel-class Parasite Scout Cruiser	388666.08	FA, DHS	748	598	Armored 10 Capital 2 76 Capital 3 90 Swift Command Missile 16 AMS 32

In a somewhat surprising bit of news a small startup company has emerged in the Griffon II Orbitals, building a compact building platform that provides a pair of construction docks sized for small dropships. Indeed, the only current military dropships in production that could be built there would be Defiants, and the company evidently planned for that by purchasing production licenses for the upgraded design. As such, starting next year, you’ll have a pair of dedicated Defiant slips available, assuming you go forward with the refit programme this year.

A scandal erupts in the Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt stations when it is learned that an unscrupulous mining company has been engaging in highly unethical workplace behavior, resulting in a short strike and then a full investigation of the company by the authorities. Fines have been levied against the company and several corporate officers are facing prosecution on top of a major shareholder lawsuit against the board which looks like it will result in a complete clean sweep at the top for the firm.

You check with Janet, evidently the only reason the company had gotten away with it as long as they did was that they’d bribed the union official who was responsible for actually filing any complaints with the authorities, said official had then lied to the workers that complaints had been filed while, in fact, not doing any such thing. That particular official is currently in protective custody and is also facing prosecution. The actual authorities acted within hours of finally receiving a complaint, resulting in commendations being placed on their records for their diligence.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 49 - Up Ahead In The Distance

You are absolutely certain that Willis knew about this, but hadn’t warned you. The massive bulk of the new Imperial Yacht, HMS Renown, loomed over the palace from the nearby dropship pad, evidently the ‘essential renovations’ work that had been done there had been a cover to prep it for a hundred thousand ton monster of a dropship. The ship was impressive enough, but the detailed work… There was actual gilt filigree and designs adorning the vessel, including a fifty foot tall enameled Imperial Crest that seemed to have the blacks done in sheets of jet, actual gold, and artificial rubies for the eyes. The bottom third of the hull seemed to be solid gold, for God’s sake, and as you watch you see the carbon scoring from reentry and landing fall away under the water curtain of the pad cooling system, leaving the gold pristine. Above the gold, and providing a backdrop for the filigree and the enormous Imperial Griffon, the hull seemed to be an enameled eggshell white that positively glistened in the sun. It looked like somebody had seen an image of one of those ancient Faberge eggs and got inspired.

“The entire hull has a centimeter thick layer of transparent armor of the same sort used on ASF cockpits.” is a wholly inadequate explanation for why somebody thought this was a good idea. Then you realize that it had to be Willis, and the Lee family is infamous for their flamboyance.

Later that day you tour the interior. The crew spaces are well enough appointed and somewhat oversized, but when you reach the entire three decks set aside for the Imperial party it again gets ludicrous. Luscious hardwood paneling everywhere, with plush and gloriously scarlet velvet padding. More gold filigree work, acceleration couches that look like they could double as massage tables… oh wait, they all have individual heating, cooling, and massage functions, not to mention built in drink cabinets. The ‘deck’ is covered with luxurious carpeting, although Thanh is able to point out all the clever tricks used to conceal service hatches without blocking them. There are mirrors everywhere, conformal video screens… then you find the zero g pool... the bathrooms feature gold plated convertible toilets (with regular and zero-g modes)... there’s a proper old style lounge, a full-service beauty salon, a private and public dining room… it is all far too much.

Sergeant Ngo takes the time to show you the security features, your personal suit of power armor is in a discrete charging cubicle with automated gear to help you put it on in an emergency, for example. From her smirk, you know full well that she was also in on this, and didn’t bother to tell you about it.

Then you peak into the hangar decks and have to resist the urge to throttle your laughing daughter as your jaw nearly drops… gold plated Eagle ASFs? A pair of shuttles that faithfully mimic in miniature the ridiculously gaudy exterior of the ship itself?

This monstrosity has to cost more than a dozen regular combat dropships! And just as you are winding up to complain about the sheer extravagance and waste of money, Willis pulls the most treacherous move yet and reveals that the entire thing was paid for via a subscription campaign conducted by schoolchildren throughout the Empire and the decoration scheme had been the one the darling little demons, including some of your own grandchildren you realize, voted for.

So you grit your teeth, smile broadly, and pretend to be totally fine with it all, even as the economist in you curls up and sobs in the corner joined by the infantrywoman you once were. At times like this you miss the mud.

Parliament, especially the Lords, is being unusually helpful, working with your advisors to make final arrangements for Jeremy to temporarily hold down the fort as Regent while you are absent from the Empire and on your trip to the NRI.

They are also conducting some actual business this year. The scandal from the Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt is spreading, as several other instances are discovered of corrupt union officials taking bribes from corrupt corporate officers to conceal worker abuses. A pattern soon emerges, showing that one of the largest and most powerful unions in the Empire seems to be quite thoroughly corruptible, at least at the upper ranks. Arrests and prosecutions are showing up in the news feeds on a daily basis, mostly of union bosses, but also a good number of corporate officers who’ve been bribing them to look the other way.

Janet wants to unleash the Special Branch on the unions. That could get… spectacular.

[]	Cry Havoc and let slip the Jane of War	Progresses the event chain
[]	Can’t we all just get along?	Progresses the event chain

Parliament, meanwhile, wants To Act And Be Seen Acting. Oh boy. There are two competing proposals, both of which have at least some bipartisan support between your supporters and opponents. One is to impose stricter Imperial oversight over unions, the other is to establish independent Imperial ombudsman offices outside both union and management control for individual employees to report abuses to without needing to first go through union or management channels.

[]	Imperial oversight over unions	-5 Politics +2 support Chamber of Delegates +2 support Imperial Senate +1 Approval Change Prevents certain events
[]	Imperial Ombudsman Service	Upkeep of 50,000 a year +3 support Chamber of Delegates +3 support Imperial Senate -5 Economy Rating -5 Economy Event +1 Approval Change Prevents certain events
[]	Why not both?	Upkeep of 50,000 a year -5 Politics +4 support Chamber of Delegates +4 support Imperial Senate +2 Approval Change -5 Economy Rating -5 Economy Event Prevents certain events

You hadn’t noticed, with how busy you’ve been, but now that it’s reached the headlines you do pay a bit of attention, mostly for the sheer… impact. And that was a bad pun, because the event in question is the collision of a small train of asteroids into Griffon VI’s atmosphere resulting in some absolutely glorious imagery. Astronomers estimate that this is something that happens roughly once every ten thousand years or so, as the supergiant acts as a gigantic broom sweeping up orbital debris before it can threaten the inner system. The extra-system comet that hammered Griffon II is a stark reminder of what could happen absent such protection, and seeing impact features in the atmosphere of the supergiant larger than Griffin’s Roost itself is… mind-blowing.

Some scientists do bring a troubling supposition to you, however. Griffon VI is a failed star, a supergiant that is just barely short of igniting into a full fledged star in its own right. They are a bit concerned, what happens if Griffon VI ever accumulates enough mass from debris to cross over that threshold and ignite into a second star in the system?

[]	That is worrisome, put DoME on the case!	Event Chain VI-D
[]	Time for Science!	Event Chain VI-S

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 49 - There She Stood In The Doorway

It takes a few weeks. But one evening you are watching the news when there is a breaking story… the headquarters of the single largest labor union in the entire Empire is on fire. Or at the very least has billows of smoke coming out of every window, door, ventilation grate, HVAC exhaust… only the smoke is very white and, when fire crews first arrive, they find streams of union employees staggering out of it sobbing their eyes out and looking truly miserable as it turns out to be clouds of mild tear gas.

Then come reports from the second largest union headquarters, and the third… in the course of a half hour, every single major labor union headquarters in the entire Empire is flooded with tear gas.

Every. Single. One.

The next day there is mass consternation as every single union reports that all of their internal files and servers are missing. Two days later, just under 5% of the senior union officials in the Empire are under arrest on charges of fraud, bribery, racketeering, criminal conspiracy, and a host of other charges, with a dozen particular standouts actually being charged with full up misprision of treason and treason as it is discovered that they had been actively plotting on ways to sell out the Empire to the highest bidder and had attempted to communicate with the Dracs every single time they’d attacked the system.

90% of the charges are actually relatively minor felonies, many of which are quickly reduced in plea bargains to misdemeanors by prosecutors, but about 20 former officials, aside from the dozen traitors, are facing hard time. Using testimony from many of those who turned state's evidence, about a hundred corporate executives are also arrested for similar charges, hundreds more are facing investigations for lesser charges thanks to the evidence discovered.

In the end, unleashing the Special Squad results in a mix of excellent results (specifically the would be traitors) and somewhat embarrassing optics, as Jane somehow managed to give an interview on the entire affair live on the largest system news channel. And was very Jane about it.

Griffin’s Roost University is tasked with investigating Griffon VI for potential ignition, giving their astrophysics and astronomy departments something to do. You hope to hear back from them Soon™.

Your attempt to present Jeremy with a special Regency Uniform to wear next year is thwarted when his Command Sergeant Major accompanies him to the presentation carrying oversized vibro scissors to ‘trim’ the great big giant pointy bits. Your beloved son with whom you are well pleased knows you FAR too well and had realized just what you were going to attempt to saddle him with. You do manage to get him to agree to wear the Regency Crown you’d had prepared, mostly because you’d bribed his daughters to give him Big Cry Eyes when he tried to refuse.

What, a crown featuring giant pink amethyst hearts, unicorns, and all the glitter your youngest grandchildren were able to stick on it isn’t manly enough for him?

And then it is your most favoritest time of year, and more so because NEXT year it’ll be your son who’ll have to do this… BUDGET TIME.

General Stewart leads things off. “Your Majesty, off the top thanks to the refit schedule we will likely be spending somewhat less than usual, however Admiral Benjamin has several proposals for bolstering our defenses that I think would be an excellent use of our funds. That being said, General Griffith?”

Jeremy decided to wear the regency crown, owning the joke, to the meeting. “OK, mom.” he smirks, abandoning normal protocol. “Ground forces are in solid shape. 3rd Armored needs 2 more Mechanized Assault Regiments, we can stand up one this year, and the final one next year. We also need to continue expanding our Mech production capacity. The new facility that will be finished in 8 years on Nowy Gdansk will be incredibly useful, but we need to continue to spread our production out somewhat. To that end, we recommend building 3 level 1 Battlemech factories on Griffon IV as the start of military production on that colony. Long range plans are to build these factories out to level 3, to support the production of light/medium regiments on Griffon IV.. The Colonial population is not large enough yet to fully merit a garrison deployment, but we are constantly evaluating the situation.”

He shuffles his notes. “On that note, we are recommending procuring a second Imperial Guard regiment to be based on Nowy Gdansk, in light of the increasing industrial importance of the planet.”

He then yields the floor to General Powerpoint herself, who immediately brings up… a Powerpoint.

“Your Majesty, Your Aerospace forces are in solid shape this year. We have a Langley commissioning this year, which will require a Standard Carrier Wing, we have a Tarawa for which we are recommending a newly designed unit optimized for a mix of Aerospace Supremacy and Ground Support that we are provisionally designating as a Regimental Support Squadron, 3 of which would form a Regimental Support Wing.” she says, moving through her presentation. “The squadron will consist of one flight each of Eagle, Griffon and Goshawk ASFs.”

Another slide. “We are also recommending the procurement of an Interceptor Wing to be based on Griffon IV to supplement the current defenses in place there. Finally a 2nd Training Wing also to be based on Griffon IV. Furthermore, in terms of future industrial expansion, we recommend building a trio of level 1 ASF factories on Griffon IV.”

Finally the Torture By Powerpoint is over and Admiral Benjamin steps up.

“Well, Your Majesty, we’re not going to be laying down any new droppers this year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do things to continue to boost our defenses. My procurement teams inform me that we’ll be able to use their incomparable talents to consolidate sufficient contracts to build sets of Mark 1 Naval Defense Stations around all of our existing Star Forts. So, since we have 4 Star Forts in service, with 1 more coming online soon, we would need 5 sets of four Mk 1 NDS’s each. Otherwise, we’re in good shape, although we are working on a Request for Proposals for a standardized training dropship that would be suitable for also training up command crews for future Jumpships and Warships. We’ll get back to you on that soon.”

General Stewart retakes the podium. “Until Griffon IV expands enough to support a full garrison, the current ground forces should be sufficient there. We should also make sure to continue to expand production of Double Heat Sinks, Endo Steel, Ferro Fibrous, and Ferro Aluminium strategic materials.”

Jeremy stays in the room for the rest of the briefing, idly toying with the Regency Scepter you’d given him, with even more glitter all over it, while managing to keep a suitably grave expression on his face. He’s being a real good sport about all of this, since you’d managed to get your youngest grandkids, his nieces and nephews, to agree that since he’ll be temporarily taking over for an Empress, this obviously made him an Honorary Princess, and he needs Proper Equipment for it all.

He drew the line at cross dressing.

Bridget was her very Bridget-ty best. “Your Majesty we’ve got a whole bunch of stuff we can build this year. DoME has two free teams, and while I know that one is committed to building a habit in the Griffon II Orbitals, I’d like to unleash the other to build an Arcology Cluster on Griffon IV so we can get some rapid growth there and make it useful as soon as possible! Looking at the requests from the army and ASF force we’d need to build 6 factories on the planet, we can expand the shipyards as normal, and maybe even start building a dedicated Refit and Repair Yard for the future.”

Well, she was briefer than usual at least.

Isoroku will be accompanying you to the NRI, so he’s off getting prepared for that, although he left a note recommending holding an art show for the big cultural affairs event this year.

Jake is looking quite annoyed, what with having to deal with annoying Delegates all the time, who are currently yapping at him about the crackdowns on Union corruption. “Your Majesty, the only recommendation I have is to continue expanding DoME, those mad boys have proven very useful so far, so keeping them properly fed, watered, and out of the madhouse is probably a good thing.”

Mary has her normal presentation, although she does give a short preamble. “Your Majesty, we currently don’t have any new R&D projects, so here are our recommendations.”

• Non-Military
  • Life-Extension Therapy Lvl 3
    • Our experts consider this to be the basis for a number of fascinating projects related to gerontology.
• Military
  • Sub-capital Missile - Stingray
    • Shorter ranged than the Piranha, but with enhanced armor penetration.
  • Sub-capital Laser/2
    • Shorter ranged but heavier punch than the existing SCL/1

Harry is looking annoyed. “Your Majesty, I’ve gone over everything and we have confirmed that those traitors were indeed in communication with the Dracs, specifically.” he looks downright furious. “They were the crew of a cargo dropship that was near the attack before the last strike at the Nadir. At that time they managed to transmit on a tight-band radio a message to the Dracs and also evidently managed to hand over the full design specifications for the anti-missile system, making use of a message buoy that they released while ‘fleeing’. During the strike at the Nadir they were running a cargo ship that had just resupplied the Star Fort. Considering that they were carrying spare parts for our most advanced weaponry, we have reason to believe that they may have managed to turn over samples in the confusion of that attack.”

Janet takes over. “Under interrogation they have admitted their guilt, almost boasting about it all. We have determined that they were unindicted co-conspirators to the Gem Conspiracy who managed to hide from us at the time and have been nursing traitorous plans ever since. As they kept their plans incredibly tight to their chest, using their position in the Merchant Sailor’s Guild to ensure that their tiny clique would be in positions where they could cause this harm. We are currently investigating their relatives and colleagues to attempt to ensure that we’ve rooted out the entire traitorous crew.”