Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 49 - Welcome to the Hotel California

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating Rolls

Meta Event Roll - 24
Dynastic Luck - 48

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

Imperial Economy Rating - 3
Imperial Economy Event - 7
Research Event - 6 (unlocks Max Tonnage Aerodyne Dropships)

Griffin’s Roost Economy - 7
Griffin’s Roost Population Growth - 12
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 7

Nowy Gdansk Economy - 5
Nowy Gdansk Population Growth - 12
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 8

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Economy - 1
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - 3

Griffon II Orbitals Economy - 7
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 1

Griffon IV Economy - 1
Griffon IV Population Growth - 4
Griffon IV Rating Change - 4

Spoiler: Action Results

Military [$ 699147.41 ]
Build factories for ASF Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

Build factories for ASF Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

Build factories for ASF Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

Build factories for Battlemech Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Build factories for Battlemech Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 265225.16 ]
-1 Regimental Support Squadron [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Standard Carrier Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 19
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Interceptor Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 1
Result - Critical SUCCESS

-1 Training Wing [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Mechanized Assault [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Imperial Guard Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

Interior [$ 14781250 ]
Focus Development on Griffin Inner Asteroid Belt [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 91, Economist Reroll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 3 (Battlemech)
Target - 95
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 6 (Battlemech)
Target - 95
Roll - 95
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 9 (Battlemech)
Target - 95
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

Build factories for Battlemech Griffon IV [115]
Target - 115
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Construct Refit and Repair Yard [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

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

-[X] Diplomatic [$ 70000 ]
CULTURE - General Cultural Festival [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

[X] Political [$ 510000 ]
Build Relations with Chamber of Delegates* [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 100 - ShadowArxxy reroll - 99
Result - FAIL

-[X] Research [$ 26100000 ]
Hyper-Pulse Generators - Theory* [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 74
Result - FAIL

Industrial Mechs Tier 5* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

Sub-capital Missile - Stingray [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 36
Result - SUCCESS

Intelligence [$ 1500000 ]
COINTEL - Security Screening of Citizens Involved In Government-Related Industries [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

COINTEL - Security Monitoring of all Public Employees [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 91
Result - FAIL

-----

The final preparations for departure are a bit time-consuming, with a large number of details needing to be ironed out to deal with the fact that you’ll be out of contact for almost an entire year. In general it involves a great deal of contingency planning, meetings, and above all else paperwork. But in the end, Jeremy is ready to handle things for a year in your absence.

Before you depart you look over the paperwork for the end of the year.

The new factory construction has gone extremely well, with all new facilities, from the new Battlemech and ASF factories to the expansion of the two shipyards and the construction of the new Refit and Repair Yard, coming in on time and on budget.

All new units have stood up successfully, with one stand out.

The new Griffon IV Interceptor Wing, the 401st Interceptor Wing, has… earned a rather dubious nickname but in the process has also proven to be a cut above the expected skill level of a brand new unit out of the Aerie.

It is also the only all-female unit in the entire AFGE, from the Wing Commander all the way down to the most junior enlisted in the wing mess. The fact that this seems to have happened entirely by accident, with every indication that the ordinary process of mixing veteran pilots and crews from existing units with rookies from the Aerie being assigned based on a mix of class standing and indicated preference having been followed… yet everybody in the unit is female.

And they completely scandalized the good people of Griffsport, where the unit was initially formed before transferring to Griffon IV, by engaging in a truly epic bar crawl of colossal proportions. They managed to get back to base just minutes ahead of the local constabulary, whom the Wing CO managed to tie down in so much red tape that they gave up on pressing charges of lewd and lascivious conduct, public drunkenness, public nudity, and disturbing the peace. Charges that would have stuck, if it weren’t for the sheer inventiveness of the CO whom you never want to play poker against, because she managed to, with a perfectly straight face, stonewall the local police for long enough that the… uhhhh… ladies… of the unit were able to sober up just enough to get back into uniform and pretend to have never actually been engaged in such lewd behavior and that obviously some scofflaws had stolen uniforms from the base laundry and impersonated them.

However, the wing nickname of ‘The Strippers’ has stuck, and it would probably take an Act of God to get it changed this side of the Second Coming.

The art exhibition has gone exceptionally well, with artists from across the Empire converging on Griffsport to display their work. The current art style is one you somewhat like, focusing on portraiture in a very… Dutch Baroque style, at least according to the critics and art historians who wrote up commentary and guides.

Jake is making no progress whatsoever with the Chamber of Delegates. Friendly delegates are quite willing to meet with him, so there’s no loss of support, but the opposition is deep in campaign mode for next year's elections and are far more interested in ‘proving their independence’ from the Crown then giving Jake, or you for that matter, the time of day.

R&D is a mixed bag. Work on the Stingray missile has been successfully concluded, with test articles fired successfully and showing promise as a hard-hitting anti-Dropship weapon. Likewise new innovations in Industrial Mechs, including massive new construction mechs that dwarf any battlemech ever envisioned, have moved from the drawing board to production. On the other hand, the R&D teams working on HPG theory are running into significant issues, making little progress this year and requiring more time, and funds, to continue hammering away at the problem.

Security screening for defense related industries is going smoothly, with the people involved being quite understanding of the need, especially in light of the recent events. Implementing a broad-based security monitoring system for all public employees, on the other hand, has run into technical difficulties of the legal kind, as a court has halted implementation of the new protocols until various legal challenges are worked out.

And then it is time to head off, accompanying the Griffon’s Roost Olympic Team to the NRI for the competitions next year. A Free Folk jumpship with a pair of collars is at your disposal for this journey, and HMS Renown along with a chartered transport carrying the team, docks with her in late December. A day later the first jump was made.

Upon arrival, the exquisitely sensitive sensors on HMS Renown pick up contacts creeping towards the arrival point, showing the sensor readouts to the NRI liaisons reveals them to be pirates, from one of the nastier bands that regularly raids the NRI. Evidently this group has been looking for the new trading partners of their regular targets in order to raid you as well.

Red Alert… All Hands Man Your Battle Stations.



Posture during the initial merge (capital phase)

[]	Aggressive	2x damage caused/received
[]	Balanced	Normal
[]	Defensive	½ damage caused/received

 

[LordSunhawk]

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Coming

Several moments after HMS Renown detached from the Free Folk Jumpship the drives of the smaller four of the eight contacts lit off, with swarms of tiny fighters erupting from the four larger contacts.

“Tentative IDs based on the NRI warbook, Four Hive-type dropships, 4 Stinger-type dropships, expecting 128 Swarmer-type fighters.” came from the Tactical section. Thanh nodded as she looked over her own displays at the command station.

“Very well.” she said, watching as the separation between the battleship and the jumpship slowly rose. “Status.”

“All compartments reporting at Battle Stations, all ASFs reporting ready for launch, we are thirty seconds from crossing out of the exclusion zone.” her XO reported from his station next to her.

“CAG, launch all birds.” Thanh gave the formal command as she looked over at the CAG. “Pattern Alpha. Comms, anything from our playmates out there?”

“Nothing yet, ma’am.” came from Comms.

The CAG was working his own console then reported simply “Launching.”

Moments later from each of the launch bay doors pairs of Eagle ASFs launched. As Renown wasn’t a dedicated carrier they weren’t able to launch the entire squadron at once, but by the time the battleship had passed the clearance zone from the jumpship 20 seconds later all 12 Eagles were in the black and forming up.

“Well, I didn’t want to talk to them anyways.” Thanh smirked slightly. “Tactical, you are cleared to fire once you have targeting solutions. Helm, maximum thrust… thataway.” she airily waved at the display in the vague direction of the incoming pirates.

“Thataway at great speed, ma’am, aye.” came from the helm station.

The massive drives of the battleship came to life, turning plasma into thrust and quickly bringing the massive ship up to her maximum thrust of 3g.

The combined closing velocities rapidly mounted, as both sides were obviously quite eager to get in range. Thanh absently noted the extremely sloppy formations on the other side. The four Hives were just sitting there like big fat juicy targets, the four Stingers were charging at them like four individual ships, not bothering to keep any sort of formation whatsoever between them and thus already out of mutual supporting range, while calling what the Swarmers were up to a ‘formation’ was an insult to the term, Thanh was mildly impressed that none of those idiots had managed to collide with each other so far.

Times seemed to crawl, in that strange way it does under combat conditions in which an individual second can either last an eternity or flash by faster than thought.

Then they were in range. Piranha missiles erupted from their launchers, streaking downrange at punishing acceleration rates as they sought their targets. Sub-capital naval laser mounts made final adjustments and discharged the first actinic blasts of the engagement. The heavy cannons waited, tracking, adjusting…

The enemy seemed to flinch at being fired upon from so far away, but whatever they lacked in morality, never let it be said that the pirates lacked courage. Despite the extreme range fire, they pressed on, shaken and rattled perhaps as their ‘formation’ became even more disorganized.

You will shortly be in range of your conventional weaponry, the sub-caps have taken a serious toll on the enemy, at least in regards to armor damage and completely scattering them, but now the fight will be getting… serious.

Round 1 posture (the merge, initial turn of regular combat)

[]	Aggressive	2x damage inflicted and received
[]	Balanced	Normal damage inflicted and received
[]	Defensive	.5 damage inflicted and received

QM note - all capital phases are now complete.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Of Another Commie Horde!

As the enemy forces entered range Thanh nodded to the Tactical section and CAG. “Release the fighters, commence evasion pattern Delta. Helm, vary thrust from 1.5 to 2g in coordination with tactical. Once those Hives are in range, see if you can pop them with the big lasers.”

Outside the 12 Eagles surged forward to intercept the shaken mass of enemies before they got within easy range of the battleship. Clouds of missiles erupted, met by the flashs of laser anti-missile systems. The enemies volleys were utterly futile, the superior point defense of HMS Renown effectively no-selling them.

The enemy force seemed to melt, the utter lack of unit cohesion combined with the mounting armor damage swiftly transformed into complete chaos and short-lived ugly fireballs. The Eagles focused on the vastly more numerous Swarmer-type fighters and it quickly became obvious that the pirates were thoroughly outmatched.

It was a classic turkey shoot. None of the Eagles were even hit, much less damaged, even though they were outnumbered 12 to 1 as it turned out there were a total of 144 of the little fighters. HMS Renown herself mostly ignored the dogfight, trusting in the Eagles to deal with the tiny pests while focusing her own fire on the larger Stinger-type dropships.

The fighting never even got close enough for HMS Renown to have to take any actual evasive action. The sheer firepower going downrange seemed to melt the enemy away like ice before a flamethrower. At one point one of the Stingers tried to flee, but it was useless, a single contemptuous volley detonated its drive. In the distance the Hive type ships were now trying to flee, but HMS Renown had far too high of a delta-V advantage over them for that to ever work out.

The question is, simply annihilate them in place, or cripple them, board, and take prisoners. So far, you’ve lost nobody… and it would be trivial to destroy all four of the Hives. Boarding them may yield prisoners and intelligence, but would place your marines at risk.

[]	Slaughter Them
[]	Capture Them

 

[LordSunhawk]

When Will The Vultures Arrive?

The only obstacle the quartet of Hive-type ships present in terms of running them down is time, and even that is quite trivial. They’d just reached relative equal velocity with you as you overhauled them, thanks to some careful planning on the helmsman’s part, and singular carefully aimed PPC hits disabled their transit drives with ruthless efficiency, leaving them helplessly adrift.

With that the shuttles launched, carrying the boarding parties. The Marines had expected some resistance, and weren’t disappointed in that there was, in fact, some resistance. Not much, to be fair.

On the other hand, the reason for the lack of effective resistance enraged the boarding parties and only iron discipline had allowed for any prisoners to be taken.

Each of the Hive-type ships had about a dozen ‘marines’ on board, none of whom met the boarding parties in the airlocks. Instead they were scattered about, drunk or high, engaging in… fornication… with slaves, who were then being murdered as the drunk pirates finished with them.

There weren’t many prisoners taken, but iron discipline allowed for a few to survive the ass kicking the Marines inflicted on the pirates over this. The reports rather tactfully describe most of the lethal injuries among the pirates as ‘pelvic’. And all of the survivors had… ummm… ‘pelvic’ trauma as well.

The problem, however, is that the ‘flagship’ of the pirate formation had been one of the Stinger-type dropships that is currently an expanding ball of debris. So there is very little intelligence to be had, given that none of the pirates seem to know anything beyond how to murder, rape, and pillage. You have no idea when the jumpships are scheduled to return, nothing.

The other problem is that there are so many rescued slaves that you’ll need to make a decision. Few as the pirate survivors are, you lack the life support capacity across HMS Renown and the transport carrying the Olympic team to convey both them and the freed slaves out of the system.

Now, pirates have always been considered hostis humani generis, as have slavers, and these scum are both. They have no useful intelligence to offer, as none of them know where their bases are or anything else of actual use.

Therefore, it would be quite lawful to simply space the bastards, which would be the quickest means of handling the issue and would result in you having barely enough life support capacity to convey all of the freed slaves to NRI territory, where you are assured by the liaisons they will be well treated as most are NRI citizens. You could take the time to give all of the pirates summary courts-martial and then space the bastards, but that would leave you stuck here in system for several weeks while going through the motions and require a number of the ex-slaves to remain aboard the hulked Hive-type ships.

You could, if you were feeling excessively charitable towards the scum, take them along, but that would require leaving behind freed slaves, and you are not willing to do that. You could have the Free Folk jump back to Griffon’s Roost, pick up a pair of dropships including, perhaps, the Tarawa-class transport, return and load all of the prisoners and freed-slaves aboard and send them back home.

You have options…

[]	Action	Result
[]	Space the bastards	Journey continues uninterrupted
[]	Hold Courts-Martial	You’ll arrive late, but with such a story to tell
[]	Fetch reinforcements	You’ll arrive late, with a great story to tell as above, but also gain a few hundred refugees.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-NRI - Faster!

In the end you wind up summarily spacing about three quarters of the captured pirates, most of whom were badly injured already. Of the remaining quarter, all of them had explosive collars locked around their necks as involuntary pirate cannon fodder, and only the powerful jammers of HMS Renown had kept the pirates from detonating them. All of these were surviving pilots of the Swarmer-type fighters, and getting them out of their cockpits safely had been… fraught. For one thing, those fighters lacked anything even vaguely resembling an ejection seat, nor did they have any real life support beyond a bottle of compressed oxygen tack welded to the cockpit interior. The pilots themselves had barely adequate g-suits that were not in any way pressure-resistant, nor did they have helmets of any kind. Any breach of the cockpit, no matter how minor, was an instant death sentence, and the cockpits had no armor whatsoever.

So each of the dozen surviving slave-pilots had to be carefully towed into the launch bay by one of the rescue shuttles, the bay repressurized, then crews had to unbolt the canopies and remove the explosive collars from very grateful people.

The three dozen actual pirates? Well, they were cursing up a storm as they were forced into the airlocks, then dumped out into the black. Nobody was at all sorry to see them go.

The remaining two weeks of the journey were rather uncomfortable, as both dropships were packed to the limits of life support by rescued slaves. There were no further incidents, however, and HMS Renown safely arrives in the NRI capital on schedule to a minor media firestorm.

A minor one that turns into an absolute megastorm when news comes out about the defeat of the Pirate force. A force that size is considered a serious threat by the NRI, and the realization that your YACHT was powerful enough to utterly annihilate it without any trouble whatsoever sends shockwaves.

You do get one very unpleasant surprise shortly after landing, when the twins burst into your hotel room. They had just gotten the schedule for the motorsports events and were absolutely livid, as the Romans had ‘helpfully’ scheduled all four race series to run simultaneously rather than sequentially. That meant that since many of the Griffin’s Roost drivers were supposed to race in multiple series that they’d either have to forfeit half of the races completely or race short handed, which would be almost as bad as scoring relies on a point system based on finishing order and cars not present would be scored as zeros.

The Romans are unwilling to change the schedule, leading the twins to some very creative cursing as they divvy up drivers as best they can. Then comes another explosion when it is learned that the Romans had also dedicated a separate set of tracks for the Griffin’s Roost teams to practice on, which were significantly different from the competition tracks thus denying the teams the ability to actually test configurations in practice for the main race. The Roman’s response that this allows both teams to have unlimited practice time does absolutely nothing to ease tempers.

You manage to talk the twins down from their threats to withdraw their teams from the events in protest. Regardless, you are not a happy Empress over this, which you communicate quite firmly to the Romans. The Prefect in charge of all of this is an oily sort of fellow. You don’t believe for a moment his protestations that he’s personally unfamiliar with motorsport, so he had not expected any issues whatsoever and was certainly not intending to unfairly stack the deck.

You’ll remember this.

The Opening Ceremony is an absolute spectacle that lasts almost twice as long as the longest one you’d ever been in back home. You had thought some of those shows had been over the top, and this one makes them all seem restrained and modest. And then the games were on.

You cheer yourself hoarse at the athletics competitions, which wind up with the Griffin’s Roost men dominating the Romans, while the Roman women have a solid victory over the Griffin women. At least here there is absolutely no shenanigans, with excellent sportsmanship on display throughout.

You had been tempted to snub the gymnastics competitions in retaliation for the motorsports shenanigans, but in the end decide to be the better person. And you are damn glad you did.

Yes, the Women’s Gymnastics competition is about as one-sided as you expected, with your girls looking like grade-school kids versus professionals. But then there’s the men’s competition.

At first it seemed like it would go as expected, but your men’s team hangs with the best the Romans have to offer… and then start to pull ahead bit by bit. Tiny little errors, here and there, by the Romans… and near absolute perfection from the Griffin men. The crowd is absolutely stunned as, by the end of the competition, the gold AND silver medals are won by Griffin men.

The team competition? Well, that went more the Romans way, although your athletes did make it closer than the Romans probably expected.

In the midst of all of this you have a series of meetings with the Roman consuls, which are rather friendly. And they have a proposal for you.

Would you be willing to sell them dropships like HMS Renown? Pretty please with a side of look at all these resources and valuable materials they are willing to give you!

[]	In Principle sure, let’s talk about it	Starts event chain “Arms Sale” +1 relations with NRI
[]	Sorry, no super parasite warships for you	-1 relations with NRI

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-NRI - Stronger!

You attend another meeting with the military leadership of the NRI for an overall briefing on their current situation, as a sort of ‘here’s why we really need what you might have to sell us’ thing. And it’s… not the best. Not grim, but worrisome. Pirate raids are up 25% and it appears that the pirates have either found somebody willing to sell them more advanced kit or they’ve managed to build production capacity somewhere. Moreover, the pirates appear to have obtained drop collar equipped jumpships from some source.

When you see the imagery you barely resist the urge to face palm, it looks like the pirates have somehow hooked up with the Dracs, as the markings on several of the ‘pirate’ Tramps are very familiar to you from the early raids on Griffin’s Roost.

It’s not all bad, the NRI has a new dropship class in service inspired by reports and previous tech exchanges. The Quinquereme-class has proven itself in combat against the pirates and even assisted in the capture of one of the Tramps. However losses have been heavy and the NRI is in desperate need of assistance. They are building Quinqueremes as fast as their production facilities allow, but for every two built they lose one, albeit after killing three to four times its tonnage in enemy units.

What the NRI is requesting is something to supplement the Quinquereme, something in the same tonnage range, but armed with subcapital weapons. They are willing to outright give you the captured Tramp in exchange for the design work and the use of subcaps, and will purchase at full price all combat dropships that you are willing to sell to them. They are also willing to trade you their best gauss rifle technology in exchange for ASFs, their latest design doesn’t use any strategic materials and they are willing to hand over the full production specifications for them. They will buy ASFs for a 25% premium over the ‘regular’ purchase price.

The initial deal offered would thus be as follows.

• You will obtain the following up front
  • 1 Tramp jumpship, will require refurbishment
  • Clan-grade Gauss Rifle and regular AMS
• You would agree to the following
  • Turn over 1 subcapital weapon design
  • Design a 5000 ton size class dropship using said subcapital weapon
  • Sell said dropships for full price to the NRI (the profit factor will come from the difference in production cost to you and said full price)
  • Produce ASFs which do not require strategic materials at a 25% profit factor over production costs

[]	It’s a deal!
[]	Not gonna happen
[]	Counter-offer (write-in)

Meanwhile in the Wide World of Sports, the competition opens in the pool… and the Griffin’s Roost athletes utterly dominate their NRI rivals with the Romans only winning a single bronze medal across all swimming events. The medal count somewhat conceals how hard the Romans worked, as the actual time margins between the winning swimmers and the first Roman ones is very small, in the Women’s 500 meter freestyle, for example, 1st to 4th place (the highest placed Roman swimmer) is separated by about a tenth of a second. There does seem, to your pleasure, to be a great deal of Olympic comradeship between the competitors on both teams, they raced hard, but afterwards they joined together to celebrate either personal bests or victories with no rancor.

The decathlon is another gold medal sweep for Griffin’s Roost after two days of fierce competition. Both the men’s and women’s teams do exceptionally well. In the men’s event there is an example of superb sportsmanship, two competitors in the 1500 meter hurdles collide with each other and go down, but both athletes get back up and proceed to help each other complete the course before they limp over to the medical personnel who clear them for further competition once they’ve gotten a chance to recover a bit.

The shooting competitions saw flawless performances by both the men’s and women’s Griffon teams. Once again the Griffin’s Roost teams dominate the podium.

Two tough days for the Romans is punctuated with their sole victory in the Men’s marathon. The Roman and Griffon competitors managed a true photo finish, with the Roman runner edging out the Griffon one by literally a fingertip length. The women’s race is almost as close, with the Griffon women winning by a hands length. Considering it was a marathon, such incredibly close finishes are very spectacular.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-NRI - Higher!

A deal is agreed to, generally on the terms the Romans offered, but with the fine details awaiting the work of the various lawyers and such. You’ll have the offered schematics by the time you are ready to depart for home in a few months.

Meanwhile, the motorsports events start. It’s a single day of racing at four different tracks in the same complex. You choose to attend, spending time at each of the tracks in the complex in a show of support for your people but it becomes very clear that the ‘fix’ so to speak is in. Mathematically, due to how points are awarded for each finisher, unless all of your drivers defeat all of the NRI drivers it is impossible for your teams to win. If even one of the NRI drivers finishes ahead of one of your drivers, or if any of your drivers are taken out in an accident or due to mechanical failure, then the NRI will win.

Or, of course, if your drivers drive dirty and wreck every one of the NRI drivers, but the twins decide to take the high road.

Sure enough, the NRI wins all four events, without a single NRI driver finishing higher than 4th.

To their credit the local fans seem almost as furious about this as the twins, and even the NRI drivers make comments in the post-race interviews indicating how dimly they viewed this entire situation. The prefect who set it all up is as smug and smarmy as ever.

Then is very shocked when he gets fired from his position and stripped of his rank for ‘publica infamia nimis’, was stripped of his trabea and expelled from the Senate. He departs a broken man, amidst the jeers of his former peers.

Quiet discussions with the consuls reveals that the ex-prefect had actually been ordered by the Senate weeks before the races to change the schedule to be more fair and had then drug his feet on doing so until it was too late to make the required changes. Unfortunately he had high enough placed patrons that until public outcry grew strong enough that the consuls could act their hands were tied. The conduct of the twins and your race teams, racing hard but cleanly, and not publicly expressing their outrage over the prefect's actions, had won sufficient admiration from the public that the prefect’s patrons didn’t dare continue to protect him from the consequences of his actions.

The wrestling and fencing competitions are held in the midst of this tumult and are split, with the Griffin’s Roost men winning both of their competitions, while the Roman women triumph in theirs.

At the end of the day, Griffin’s Roost won 11 events to the NRI’s 10.

QM Note - Post 1 of 2 for today!

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-GR - Work It

<Jeremy POV>

Mom made this seem so damn easy, but as far as you are concerned sitting here in her office behind her desk with all of the weight of responsibility on your shoulders? You are really glad that this is temporary.

You would much rather be in command of your division. You understand military politics, it’s the civilian stuff that is driving you up the wall already. You have petitions from various groups wanting patronage, you have appeals from other groups wanting you to rule this way or that way on their issues, you have members of the Chamber of Delegates and Senate barraging you with paperwork and requests and… argggggg…

So far pointing out that you were only keeping the seat warm for your mother has deflected all but the most persistent. That won’t last forever.

Thankfully both Bastet and Sekhmet had stayed behind, and having two grifftigers glaring murderously at the most stubborn politicians had proven to be an effective means of getting them to listen to you.

And now you are having to deal with this. Admiral Jamison Kirk of the Exploration Fleet has unilaterally ordered USS Challenger and USS Atlantis to depart their surveys of the Griffon Outer Asteroid Belt and join USS Enterprise, USS Columbia and USS Endeavor at Griffon VI, and he hasn’t bothered to file a report as to why. He’s also declared the Griffon VI planetary system an exclusion area, summoned a dozen of the most powerful System Patrol tugs, and requested that Admiral Benjamin deploy Capital Fleet, Home Fleet, and Strike Fleet to Griffon VI, all without telling him, and by extension you, just why.

[]	Indulge the Admiral	He has a solid reputation for loyalty to the Crown and is widely considered a steady sort, not prone to fits of whimsy despite his name. If he’s being this secretive, he’s probably got a good reason.
[]	Deny the request	You are not going to deploy so much force that far away from anything strategically important without a DAMN good reason, reputation be damned.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-GR - Make It

You can’t spend much time stewing over what is going on at Griffon VI because your nephew Thomas is in the hospital following a severe accident involving a stoned driver who’d disabled the manual operation lockouts of a stolen delivery truck and plowed into the school bus your baby sister’s eldest son was riding in on a class trip.

Luckily the safety systems on the school bus worked as advertised, flooding the vehicles passenger compartment with a fireproof aerogel foam that absorbed most of the shock and protected the children from the worst of the impact. Unfortunately a dozen kids are still in the hospital, mostly for precautionary reasons. Thomas is one of them, and he’s already complaining that he’s fine. Sarah and Tony are already at the hospital and are keeping you updated.

The responsible driver is in custody and has a history of DUI, indeed his manual operator's permit had already been permanently suspended years ago, he’d then spent five years in jail for violating that suspension and had only been released from prison a few months ago. In the stolen truck the police found over a ton of some of the few drugs that are, in fact, still illegal due to how incredibly dangerous they are.

Within a week or so the entire drug operation has been rolled up, all of those involved had multiple priors and are facing life sentences due to the sheer number of laws they were found to have broken.

Parliament, meanwhile, is not taking ‘I’m only a placeholder!’ for an answer and have sent several proposals to your desk.

The first one is a somewhat thorny one. A group of Senators and Delegates have proposed releasing the schematics and production of all ‘strategic materials’ to the private sector, on the grounds that operating such a massive industrial operation is not something that government should do and that this will save the Treasury an enormous amount of money as they will no longer be on the hook for the upkeep, construction, and maintenance of all of the foundries and orbital production lines.

On the one hand, it would make it far easier to mass produce military units as you won’t have to juggle the availability of strategic materials, plus it would save the crown a nice chunk of change. On the other hand it would make it utterly impossible to maintain any sort of security over such materials. All of your advisors are firmly against this proposal.

[]	Support	Removes the requirement to factor in strategic materials for unit acquisition Zeroes out upkeep for orbital factories used for strategic materials Unlocks potential events +5 Economic Event -5 Research Event +5 support Senate +5 support Chamber of Delegates +1 Influence Senate +1 Influence Chamber of Delegates
[]	Oppose	-5 support Senate -5 support Chamber of Delegates +10 Politics -5 Approval Change -10 Approval Rating Prevents potential events

The other proposal only will pass if you back it. A small pacifist party has made it into the Chamber of Delegates and has part of its platform sharply limiting military spending. They have proposed legislation limiting military spending (procurement+upkeep) to $1,000,000.00 a year and making it mandatory for the Empress/Emperor to obtain a declaration of war from both the Senate and Chamber of Delegates prior to deploying any military forces outside of the Griffon System.

[]	Back it	+1 Influence Chamber of Delegates +1 Influence Senate Limits military spending to a total of $1,000,000.00 a year This is a total of military upkeep and projects Restricts the ability to deploy forces out of the Griffon system without Parliamentary approval
[]	Let it die	+5 Approval Rating

Several days later you finally hear from Admiral Kirk. The entire formation is returning to Nowy Gdansk, as that is where the nearest yards are located…



And they are bringing something with them. SLS Morristown, the Potemkin-class Troop Cruiser which had served as the main colony ship transporting your ancestors to this system has been found… intact.

The accompanying report indicates that it will take years of dedicated work to make her operational once more, due to centuries of neglect while she drifted in orbit of Griffon VI within the planetary rings, concealed by several large moonlets.

The transit drive, KF core, life support, reactor, weaponry… nothing is actually operational, but all of it can, according to the evaluations of the experts, be made operational. The structure itself is fundamentally sound.

And she is an awe-inspiring sight. Even the largest dropships in service are utterly dwarfed by the titanic vessel. The SLDF markings are vividly visible, and despite the flaws imparted from centuries of micrometeorite bombardment the brilliant white paint scheme gleams in the light of the sun.

The media is in a frenzy. This is history happening before everybody's eyes. By the time the formation is entering Nowy Gdansk orbit there are swarms of private shuttles rented by media companies are waiting for them, and Admiral Benjamin rises to the occasion. The combined fleets are in perfect order, executing the orbital insertion burns in perfect synchronization made possible by support from SARAH.

Griffin’s Roost has a Warship.

Griffin’s Roost has her original colony ship.

Your little sister, of course, is very annoyed. She wants to be out there because this is the historians wet dream, on the other hand, she doesn’t want to leave her eldest son (who is still protesting that he’s fine, really, and can mom please stop it with the excessive momming?).

Tony is hard-pressed keeping her calm, with predictable results as a few days later you learn that Sarah is pregnant again, with twins.

You are pretty sure Mom will be happy with that, maybe even more than with the discovery of SLS Morristown.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50-GR - Do It

You and Tony have both suffered appropriate punishment for informing Sarah that no, in her condition she isn’t allowed to personally join the teams looking over SLS Morristown. And your shins might even recover before mom gets home, so there’s that.

Regardless, Sarah and, well SARAH are now fully ensconced in remote monitoring of the derelict ‘troop cruiser’ as she is brought to orbit adjacent to the orbital shipyard orbiting Nowy Gdansk.

You, meanwhile, have other concerns. You had always laughed at the shenanigans from the Department of Periphery Studies. Now you realize that as humorous as they are they are also a source of ulcers, because guess what, they’re at it again.

They are currently laying ‘siege’ to the palace, well, not the palace itself, but rather the palace gift shop, protesting the lack of availability of collectible model kits of SLS Morristown. Evidently the ‘Periphery Studies Model-Making Association of Model-Makers and Modelers Society For The Advancement of Modeling, Model-Making, and The Letter M’ is Highly Offended (you can hear the capital letters) that there isn’t already a 1/48 scale model of SLS Morristown available in the gift shop and they intend to camp out at the gift shop until such a model is in stock!

Now this wouldn’t be a major problem, except that they are blocking not only the entrance to the gift shop, but also monopolizing the nearest bathrooms and are using the locker room facilities for the nearby public pool as well. This is when they aren’t distracted by showing off their admittedly very nicely done ship models IN said pool. Or crashing their flying models into trees, lampposts, and in one memorable incident into the crotch of the protest leader. Or running around with the non-flyable models held high and making appropriate ‘vroom vroom’ noises.

And since Griffsport police and Palace Security have a hands-off policy in regards to the tenured faculty of the Department of Periphery Studies you’re stuck having to wait until they find some other hair-brained venture to distract them.

At least you can’t hear the chants inside the Palace itself.

And then it’s time for the budget meeting.

General Stewart starts it off, as always. “Same drill as every year, Your Highness.” she actually smirks at your glare at that. “But this year General Dunn of the 1st RRF will give the ground forces briefing. General?”

General Faye Dunn does not look like what you’d expect the commander of the highest average speed force in the military to look. She’s over six feet tall, built like a linebacker, has a figure that could be accurately described as ‘Raphaelite’... and a reputation as a devil-may care daredevil in a hovercraft who regularly participates in Chasseur races against the best pilots under her command… and usually wins.

“Your Highness, we have several different options this year for military procurement. With the continuing expansion of Mech factory capacity and the increasingly close achievement of our goal to be able to strike back at the Dracs we will need to make some decisions as to how to do so. The Long-Range Planning Board has made several recommendations.” she begins, not bothering with any powerpoints or display aids, but rather speaking from memory.

“In short, we have three options for our primary offensive forces. Each has differing logistics requirements. We have labeled the three options Steel Wall, Flexible Response, and Rapid Assault.” she finally nods to an aid, who turns on the display to show the three options. “Choosing any of them does not preclude the others, however they would stand as guides for procurement.”

Option	Description	Unit Composition	Transport Requirements
Steel Wall	The ‘heaviest’ of the three options, intending to crush the enemy with overwhelming firepower making use of massed assault mechs	6 Mechanized Assault Regiments 3 Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments	6 of a proposed new Landing Ship (Battlemech) - Regimental 9 Osumi-class Battalion Assault Transports 9 Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transports Total Collar Load - 24
Flexible Response	A balanced force comprised of a mix of mechanized and battlemech units. This formation is closely based on the historical Star League unit organizational structure.	1 Mechanized Assault Regiment 2 Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments 3 Armored Cavalry Regiments 3 Standard Armored Regiments	18 Osumi-class Battalion Assault Transports 3 Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transports 9 Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transports Total Collar Load - 30
Rapid Assault	A force mix optimized for high speed raiding and recon, preparing the battlefield for follow on strikes from heavier units or serving as part of deep strike raids.	3 Rapid Reaction Regiments	9 Coyote-class Fast Attack Transports 3 Coyote-class Fast Attack Transports configured for cargo Total Collar Load - 12

She shuffles her notes. “I will note, Your Highness, that a lighter ‘Rapid Assault’ option would have only a single Rapid Reaction Regiment, require 3 Coyotes and 1 cargo-modified [/i]Coyote[/i]s and would suffice for most raiding, insurgency support, and special operations support missions with a collar load of 4. An even lighter configuration would have only a single battalion sent, giving a collar load of 2.”

“In terms of procurement this year, we recommend completing 3rd Armored with a single Mechanized Assault Regiment as well as procuring a Light Garrison Force for assignment to the 2nd Aerie Cadre to expand our infantry training capacity as well as serve as the main garrison force, for the time being, for Griffon IV as a whole. In addition we recommend procuring a Training Regiment for a 3rd Aerie Cadre to be stood up on Nowy Gdansk to both augment the garrison there as well as increase our ability to train mechwarriors as fast as mechs are produced.”

At that the statuesque woman stepped back and returned to her place with the other briefing officers.

General ‘Powerpoint’ Reyes then stepped up, and sure enough loaded up a powerpoint. “Your Highness, this year our main focus is on completing the latest upgrade cycle. All upgrades have been finalized and are in progress as determined previously however this results in us not having any production capacity to spare for new construction this year. We do not that with the upgrades to the Goshawk IIG to the IIIG configuration they are no longer the ‘low strategic material usage’ light fighter, but are rather a high performance strike bird. As such, we are going to be requesting proposals for a militia/garrison fighter that is ruthlessly optimized for simplicity without the growth potential that has seen the Goshawk grow to a frontline strike ASF. Beyond that, we strongly urge continued upgrades to ASF production capacity and strategic material production.”

Well, that was only 2 slides, not so bad from her.

Admiral Benjamin is all smiles as he takes the stage. “Well, Your Highness, how much you wanna bet your mom is going to use the discovery of SLS Morristown as an excuse to retire since you’re doing such a great job.”

You groan and give the good admiral a death glare, which bounces off of his grin without doing any damage whatsoever, damn him.

“More seriously, that ship’s in the hands of the eggheads right now, because pretty as she is and regardless of how much potential she represents, we still need to get her fixed up and in fighting trim before she’s any use to us. So our focus is still back here at home for now, along with planning for the future of bringing the fight to the damn dracs. So… without further ado… Lieutenant?”

His aid brings one of the Admirals beloved flip charts up.

“First of all, as General Dunn alluded to, we are studying a regimental mech transport, roughly equivalent to the Tarawa, to bring an entire Mechanized Assault Regiment to the field at once. We consider these to be second-wave transports, with the Osumi’s still being the initial landing force due to their not risking entire regiments to the loss of a single transport. The Imperial Griffon Aerospace Werks is studying the requirements and have promised to have a proposal for consideration in the near future.” he nods to the lieutenant, who flips to the next sheet.

“Secondly, it’s time to decide on which training dropship we’ll procure. The Microraptors have served well so far, but they are too small to be fully viable and we are already running into significant training bottlenecks. We have 2 proposals, one from Majeure Electrique and one from a start up here in Griffsport called Ensign Aerospace. Both meet the minimum requirements and would be suitable for the role.” on the chart are the specifications for the two designs.

[]	Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Magic Feather Training Dropship	48965.04	171	101	Armored 2 Capital 3/26 Missile 4 AMS 8 Command 1
[]	Ensign Training Dropship	42195.44	239	89	Armored 10 Capital 3/13 Missile 2 AMS 4 Command 1

“Now for the fun and expensive part, laying down new construction, Lieutenant?” another page is flipped on the chart. “Since we have all of our slips freed, and a clean slate thanks to all of the upgrades, we’re able to do things differently. First of all, we have 7 slips free that are suitable for Large Dropships. We are recommending the following.”

1. Devastation Parasite Cruiser
2. Devastation Parasite Cruiser
3. Tarawa Regimental Assault Transport
4. Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship
5. Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship
6. Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship
7. Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship

“In addition we have 31 regular slipways available for construction, Lieutenant?” another flip of the chart.

1. Defiant
2. Defiant
3. Defiant
4. Defiant
5. Troodon
6. Troodon
7. Troodon
8. Troodon
9. Troodon
10. Troodon
11. Troodon
12. Troodon
13. Tyrannosaurus
14. Tyrannosaurus
15. Tyrannosaurus
16. Tyrannosaurus
17. Megaraptor
18. Megaraptor
19. Lightning
20. Lightning
21. Lightning
22. Lightning
23. Osumi
24. Osumi
25. Osumi
26. Sosumi
27. Sosumi
28. Sosumi
29. <Winning Training Dropship Design>
30. <Winning Training Dropship Design>
31. <Winning Training Dropship Design>

“Finally, we urge that expansion of the two shipyards as well as the Repair & Refit Facility continue as before, however instead of a pair of regular dropship slips on the Griffin’s Roost yard we strongly urge instead building a Large Dropship slip. 31 regular dropships at a time should be sufficient for our requirements, but we currently can only build 7 large dropships at a time. For expeditionary use, large dropships are far more efficient.”

He then grins. “And that, Your Highness, is that, and here’s hoping that Her Majesty doesn’t decide to throw you under the bus, might want to start thinking of ways of tap dancing out of that one.” his smirk is positively evil. Damn him!

General Stewart retakes the podium. “Well, needless to say I endorse all but Admiral Benjamins teasing.” her smirk is almost as bad as the Admirals, making it plain that she would join in but is trying to keep it professional. Damnit!

Bridget is heavily pregnant, but still just as perky as ever. “Your Highness! We have a bunch of building projects in progress and I’ve got eager beaver crews ready to do more, like expanding more stuff! DoME is completely tapped out, at the moment, but happily working away, but I’ve got at least supervisory capacity to expand and build plenty of orbital foundries and factories so just give the good word!”

Isoroku is off with her Majesty, his deputy for Cultural Affairs is filling in. “With the Olympics being held off world this year we’re able to focus our attention on some cultural programming here at home, Your Highness, I recommend holding a benefit concert with the theme being the recovery of the Morristown.”

Jake is present, and is looking harassed. “Your Majesty, I’m still trying to deal with the Chamber of Deputies, who are still being stubborn even after the recent elections. However, I do recommend starting on Civil Service Reform, the benefits well outweigh the costs, by our analysis, and hopefully it may help dislodge some of the more stubborn Delegates from their refusal to even meet with representatives of the Crown.”

Mary is next, from R&D, with her typical presentation. “Your Highness, we have a few research teams free and eager to get started on SLS Morristown.” she fires up the presentation…

• New Projects
  • Full survey of SLS Morristown
    • Before we can hope to begin repairs, start researching the technology on board, or anything else, we need to do an overall survey.
• Recommended Projects
  • Full Survey of SLS Morristown
  • Either of the following
    • Light Battle Armor - Improved
      • Would permit us to make use of several theoretical upgrades, including stealth armor. Would be highly useful for special operations units
    • Improved PPC
      • In and of itself probably not a useful weapon system, as it is eclipsed in nearly every way by our existing weapon systems, but the miniaturization techniques may prove to be something we can in the future incorporate into our current models.

Harry is also off with your mother, so his deputy simply reports on the ongoing work with enhancing public employee security monitoring. Intelligence recommends holding back on further projects for now.

Janet has kept fairly quiet so far. “Your Highness, Justice is in good shape, with no real priorities beyond maintaining public order at the moment. I do recommend following Jake’s recommendation on Civil Service Reform, however.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 50 - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Spoiler: Event, Luck, Rating Rolls

Meta-Event - 1, confirmation roll- 1
Dynasty Luck - 17

Imperial Approval - 0
Approval Change - 0
Politics - 0

Economy Rating - 2
Economic Event - 0
Research Event - 7 (critical)

Griffin’s Roost Economy - 11
Griffin’s Roost Population - 5
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 8

Nowy Gdansk Economy - 8
Nowy Gdansk Population - 12
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 4

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Economy - 2
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - 0

Griffon 2 Orbitals Economy - 0
Griffon 2 Orbitals Rating Change - 2

Griffon IV Economy - 4
Griffon IV Population - 6
Griffon IV Rating Change - 5

Spoiler: Action Results

Military [$ 4,546,972.29 ]
Construct Armed Defense Stations Nadir* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 36
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 36 (DHS) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for DHS Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for DHS Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for Ferro Aluminum Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 3,751,871.12 ]
-Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 92, Jarow reroll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

-Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 100, edcalaban reroll - 42
Result - SUCCESS

-Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

-Royal Sovereign Parasite Battleship [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation Parasite Cruiser [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

-Devastation Parasite Cruiser [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 77
Result - SUCCESS

-Tarawa Regimental Assault Transport [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

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

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

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 45
Result - SUCCESS

-Defiant [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 78
Result - SUCCESS

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

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 78
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-Troodon [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 46
Result - SUCCESS

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

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

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

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

-Tyrannosaurus [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 53
Result - SUCCESS

-Megaraptor [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

-Lightning [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

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

-Osumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-Osumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

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

-Sosumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-Sosumi [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

-Ensign [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

-Ensign [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 220,533.80 ]
-1 Mechanized Assault Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Training Regiment [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-1 Light Garrison Force [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 24
Result - SUCCESS

Interior [$ 14,577,500.00 ]
Focus Development on Griffin IV [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 7
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for Ferro Aluminum Griffon IV [120]
Target - 105
Roll - 3
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for Ferro Aluminum Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 81
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for Ferro Aluminum Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Build Orbital Factory for Ferro Aluminum Griffon IV [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [100] As large dropship yard
Target - 100
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - O'Neill Cylinder at Griffin's Roost* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS

Diplomatic [$ 30000 ]
Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffon VI* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - N/A (overridden by meta-event)
Result -

CULTURE - Benefit Concert [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

Political [$ 1,510,000 ]
Build Relations with Chamber of Delegates* [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

Continue to expand DoME* [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 52
Result - SUCCESS

Research [$ 26,300,000.00 ]
Hyper-Pulse Generators - Theory* [45]
Target - 45
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS

Subcapital Laser/2* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 24
Result - SUCCESS

Life-extension therapy Lvl 3* [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS

Full Survey - SLS Morristown [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 16
Result - SUCCESS

Power Armor - Light Battle Armor - Improved [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

Intelligence [$ 500000 ]
COINTEL - Security Monitoring of all Public Employees* [65]
Target - 85
Roll - 84
Result - SUCCESS

-----

You decide that you really hate jumping, but it is still totally worth it. Seeing smells, hearing colors, and smelling musical notes gets old after the first time. But you are back home, jumping into the Nadir jump point.

HMS Renown promptly detaches from the Tramp-class jumpship that is now your first actual honest to god Jumpship. You haven’t yet decided what to call the 3 collar vessel, but she would need quite a bit of work to get completely up to snuff. The K-F drive was fully functional, but HMS Renown had had to supplement the defective main reactor with power from her own reactors and the jump sail was… difficult to work with at the best of times, twice requiring small craft to deploy to support suited up techs to get recalcitrant systems to behave themselves in order for them to deploy or retract.

You had intended to spend the trip back to Griffin’s Roost proper reviewing what has been going on, but are promptly distracted by a message from your son… you are a grandma again! So instead of reading briefing documents and watching the news you are engaged in the far more important activity of cooing over baby pictures of a pair of fraternal twins cradled in the arms of your youngest daughter.

It doesn’t take long after you arrive at Griffsport and the Palace to realize that your son had cunningly distracted you. He actually met you at the Palace drop port, officially handed over command to you, then rather than accompanying you to see your new grandbabies he almost fled, saying he had promised his wife and kids to take them on a cruise on SS United States and that he was late.

So he was out of range when you walked into your daughter’s room to see the new grandbabies and promptly got ambushed with your history geek daughter wailing about her heartless brother and husband keeping her from visiting SLS Morristown.

What.

Back up. Hold on… WHAT?

Thus you discover that while you were away your beloved son and heir had presided over the discovery and salvage of the Potemkin-class ‘troop cruiser’ that had served as the primary colony transport for your ancestors… and the fortuitous breakthrough in missile technology that led to a production ‘Manta Ray’ missile system… and he had been so afraid you’d decide that this meant he should stay on the throne that he’d cunningly distracted you with grandbabies, handed you back the crown, and skedaddled before you found out.

You love your son, and your husband, who is currently howling with laughter at the expression on your face as you realize just what is going on, while your daughter continues to complain about the menfolk keeping her away from the new discovery.

You love them a great deal.

You are going to check to see if the special window is still installed for proper defenestrations of both of them at the first opportunity.

Because this is worthy of the Window Of Tyler Defenestration.

After an appropriate amount of grandbaby time, however, it was time to finally get to work and to actually read the reports.

You had seen the completed mass of the replacement Star Fort at the Nadir, combined with the reinforced patrol squadron the jump point was reasonably secure. You also have reports of two clusters of ferro-aluminium and double-heat sink orbital factories in Griffon IV orbit. From the assessments you are seeing it looks like the biggest deficit in terms of production will soon be Ferro-Fibrous armor for ground forces, followed by Endo-Steel for mechs.

Your son had handled going to the various keel-laying ceremonies and such for the massive tranche of new production dropships that were coming online, which was one of the more annoying chores that you normally had to handle. Perhaps you’ll make him continue to do that, but that would require him to give up 3rd Armored and stop handling ground forces for you overall. Decisions, decisions.

You do receive a briefing on the progress for the future ground forces upgrades and to your surprise they are not, in fact, fully ready yet.

“Your Majesty, we are at a point of crossroads. Right now, the bulk of our ground forces are functionally behind the curve of our state of the art, the impact is most severe in our conventional forces, but we are seeing issues with several of the older mech designs as well. We have units in service still using non-extended range lasers, regular PPCs, and even conventional autocannons, in some cases we are already starting to have issues with spare parts for some of them due to original equipment manufacturers going out of business or changing their product lines too much.” the crisp young officer giving the briefing is one of your son's top subordinates for operational planning, and she is obviously quite good at giving briefings.

“We have contracted with a number of consulting companies to add to our in-house analysis, and have been in discussions with the prime contractors for the various units and have a solid plan for simultaneously upgrading our existing units, adjusting our force structure to accommodate tactical and strategic realities, and doing so without wasting too much money.”

“First of all, we have upgrade plans for just about every vehicle in service. As of right now, the only combat vehicles not in line for an upgrade are those that have either been determined to have no practical combat role going forward, like the Phalanx, the Weasel and the Foxhound 2, or are weapon systems that are due to be transferred in full to planetary authorities, such as the remaining Tritons, Cutlasss and Persistences. The Legionnaire is a special case, as while there are no remaining vehicles of that type in our service we have received inquiries from the NRI embassy about possible export for a tank in that weight class, and an upgraded version of the Legionnaire using similar tech to the NRI has been mooted by the Royal Tank Factory.” she checked her notes, so far she’d been mostly speaking from memory.

“In terms of adjusting our force structure, the lack of dedicated command and control vehicles for our armored forces, the lack of an artillery platform for our rapid reaction forces, and the vestigial nature of our VTOL units have been addressed. In addition, field experience from various exercises has determined that the initial enthusiasm for mounting long-range missile tubes on battle armor was, to be frank, excessively optimistic. Even with TAG support the relatively small number of actual missiles that the infantry could carry proved less than useless. A Mk II standard suit has been designed and is in the final phases of testing, replacing the long-range missile launcher with a twin pack of short-range missiles mounted on the shoulders, with the laser rifle mount being shifted to the left arm and the anti-personnel gauss rifle remaining on the right arm.” she grins slightly, shifting one shoulder to cause a bit of light to glint from her Infantry badge. “I’ve actually been part of the test, Your Majesty, the new suit has identical controls to the current one, but feels more balanced when jumping plus firing the two big FU missiles on the shoulders is a trip.”

You can’t help but laugh at that.

“As to not wasting money, the new technology that we have access to thanks to the NRI has resulted in all of the last rounds of upgrades to our ASFs and Dropships to be already slightly behind the curve. We in Ground Forces would rather not have that happen as dramatically to us so we’d rather take a bit more time and get it right than rush ahead and have to come to you, sheepishly, cap in hand, and ask if we could pretty please have an upgrade pass authorized. Sergeant Flieschman hammered it into my skull when I was a dumb second louie that while an ounce of sweat in training would save a gallon of blood in combat, proper planning and preparation saved on both.”

Ahhh, Sergeants Wisdom, you glance over to Sergeant-Major Ngo and have to resist a laugh at the proud ‘ahh, an officer who could be taught not to make messes!’ expression on her face.

“Therefore, instead of racing ahead, we have a two year upgrade plan prepared. It will require a complete pause in ground forces acquisitions for the period, and will have some significant up-front costs for changing long-term contract terms and supporting industry while it retools to the new standards, but in the end we will have a far more capable ground force ready to be deployed offensively against our enemies.” she then pauses, looks up, and grins slightly. “I’m afraid that I’ll need to put up a slide, Your Majesty, but I assure you it is for visual reference only.”

And then she does so, and you can’t help but to laugh as the slide is simply the hand-drawn AFGR logo your loving son had drawn as an eight year old.

“Yes, General Griffith put me up to that, Your Majesty.” she smirks a little. “During the upgrade period we will be doing the following. First, 1st Armored will be reorganized on a new ‘Light Division’ model, consisting of three brigades, each consisting of 1 Standard Armored Regiment and 2 Light Horse Regiments. 2nd Armored will be reorganized as a new ‘Divisional Combat Team’ model, consisting of 3 brigades, 1st and 2nd brigade consisting of 2 Standard Armored Regiments and 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment while 3rd Brigade would consist of 2 Mechanized Standard Mech Regiments and 1 Mechanized Assault Regiment. 3rd Armored will be reorganized as an “Assault Combat Team’ model, consisting of 3 brigades, 1st Brigade consisting of 2 Standard Armored Regiments and 1 Mechanized Assault Regiment, 2nd and 3rd Brigades would consist of 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment, 1 Mechanized Standard Mech Regiment, and 1 Mechanized Assault Regiment.”

She again consults her notes. “Other changes of note, 2nd Rapid Reaction Force will be redesignated 1st Special Operations Group, the existing Rapid Reaction Regiments assigned to the force will be administratively redesignated as 2nd Brigade, 1st Rapid Reaction Force and will remain on Nowy Gdansk. 1st Special Operations Group will be a dedicated raiding and special ops unit making use of VTOLs equipped with the new stealth armor. The intention is that when we start raiding the Dracs that these units will be the bleeding edge of the spear, linking up with resistance groups, engaging in supply raids, and generally making the Dracs really regret their life choices. Considering how the stealth battle armor looks… I know I’d be terrified if I had to fight them, unless, of course, I was wearing a Mk 2 suit.” she grins and brings up an image… and it is quite terrifying indeed.

“Finally, the entire upgrade and reorganization plan is intended to avoid impacting actual unit readiness during the process, units will be phased through the requirement phase during normal training rotations, receiving the new kit at the start of the rotation and thus being qualified on it by the time they finish without impacting combat readiness, the old kit will not be taken in for refurbishment until the end of that cycle.”

You’d already authorized the upgrade cycle several years ago, this was simply a briefing on the progress of it and it looked like they were merging the combat vehicle and mech phases they had initially envisioned. The price tag is a bit steep at first glance, but compared to the possible costs associated with redoing the dropship and ASF upgrade cycles? A bargain, especially considering the sheer size of the ground forces.

QM NOTE - this is an event, not a decision.

• Next 2 turns
  • No procurement of any ground forces
  • 5 million per turn expense
• After 2 turns, all units upgraded to new standard, including procurement of required equipment. Will not consume strategic materials.

A number of economic incentive plans have been enacted for Griffon IV, subsidizing shipping costs for manufactured goods from Griffon IV to markets on other planets in order to spur manufacturing on the new colony. Several small factories have begun operation to take advantage of the subsidies and the economy indeed grows measurably.

The new O’Neill Cylinder (and you still need to find somebody who can explain just why they are called that, you do not believe Jane’s explanation that it is because you ‘kneel’ in awe at seeing it) is completed in Griffin’s Roost orbit. The massive structure is incredibly impressive and results in a massive boom as many wealthy people spend enormous amounts of money to purchase ‘land’ on the interior of the station. Economic activity is good.

With all of the major events going on you almost completely miss the report on the benefits concert that was held in parallel with the opening of the Cylinder. It appears to have gone quite well.

Jake was finally able to get around the recalcitrant leadership of the Chamber opposition and meet directly with those members who had been loyal to them, boosting the crown’s image amongst them quite effectively.

The Department of Mega-Engineering has expanded yet again, although this time you get a begging note from Mary over at Griffin’s Roost University pleading with you to please stop poaching her best and most innovative engineers for, in her words, ‘glorified ditch digging’.

Other than that complaint, Mary’s reports to you are filled with excellent news.

Work on the theory behind Hyper-Pulse Generators has concluded. While it’s a long way from creating practical hardware, the math behind how something like that would work appears sound, and researchers are highly optimistic that they can eventually actually build the things.

The Subcapital Laser/2 project has also concluded successfully. The individual mounts are heavier, primarily out of a need for more robust focusing equipment to allow even greater concentration of energy upon the target. As a consequence of the increased focusing the weapon system suffers somewhat in terms of absolute range, but the greater punch appears to be an acceptable trade off.

The work on life extension technology is a bittersweet triumph. Sweet because there are significant benefits in terms of, well, life extension, bitter because it means you have less of an excuse to retire soon. And that it came too late for Tyler so you can’t throw him out the window of Tyler Oppression, of course. The research teams are very enthusiastic about multiple avenues of research that are now open to them, ranging from improving the anti-agathics themselves to ways of slowing the effects of aging itself, so that you aren’t spending so many decades suffering the aches and pains of age.

And then you get to the full survey of SLS Morristown. The ship had been mostly properly shut down and ‘safed’ prior to being abandoned in orbit, with appropriate measures taken to seal off and preserve everything. According to the last log entry recovered by the survey team the ship had been abandoned on the grounds that the K-F Drive had failed multiple inspections and could not be certified as safe for operation.

Unfortunately time had taken a great toll on the mighty vessel. Orbiting in an orbital plane filled with small bits of debris had resulted in multiple minor hull breaches as well as abrasive damage to the entire exterior. The report lists page after page after depressing page of system failures, faults, and problems.

Ultimately it will require a great deal of R&D work, the completion of at least a minimally capable yard to house her for the actual work, and some truly eye-popping sums of money to get the old girl back up and running, but the surveyors are very confident that it can be done and that she can in fact be brought fully back up to spec.

The report from Mary is in her usual style.

• New Research Projects Available
  • Naval Lasers
  • Capital Missiles
  • Naval PPC
  • Warship Sub Light Drives
  • Warship Armor - Ferro-Carbide
• Existing Projects that will benefit
  • K-F Drive Theory Tier 2

The survey report also indicates that there are large amounts of information that they still do not know about the ship. Additional surveys will be required to discover all that there is to know about her. The report cites hundreds of items that the crews have absolutely no idea the relevance of. Therefore there will need to be more surveys in the future.

Finally you get a short memo from Harry detailing the successful implementation of security screening for all public employees accompanied by a recommendation to hold off on further COINTEL projects for now.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Almost Heaven

It’s taken months, thanks to the low acceleration rates of Jumpships, but the Tramp has been moved to the Griffin’s Roost orbital shipyard complex for refurbishment. Thankfully, while the yard cannot build new jumpships yet, it can support repairs and inspections. The yard estimates that the Jumpship will be fully reconditioned and ready for service by the end of the year.

Your son is back on duty, despite your playful threats to abdicate and make him take over. Of course, he’s also studiously avoiding all of your efforts to trick him into standing next to the Window Of Tyler Defenestration, especially after you learn of him personally signing off on naming the new command assault mechs the ‘Empress’.

The ‘protest’ occupying the Palace gift shop has moved on, the tenured faculty of the Department of Periphery Studies finding other things to distract them. You don't know what it is, but you are sure it’s only a matter of time before something else both amusing and annoying springs forth from there.

However there is a situation that has bubbled out in Griffsport itself that has reached ‘official’ Imperial attention, although you’ve been aware of it for a few weeks before it reached that point. Several weeks ago there was an enormous scandal that rocked the capital, as the local Child Protective Services office was found to have engaged in enormous coverups of rampant child abuse within the foster care system. Hundreds of children in the system were found to be suffering from systemic abuse, both physical, emotional, and sexual, from caregivers within the system itself, with nary a peep out of the caseworkers. Parents who attempted to complain about the situation were threatened with having their children taken away permanently unless they dropped the complaints.

What really pisses you off, beyond the fact that kids were suffering, is that before the Imperial system had been put in place and you had been Queen you’d substantially increased funding for Child Protective Services in the face of previous problems in the area, and the planetary government had increased it even further. When you’d last dealt with this, funding levels were sufficient to ensure 1 caseworker for every five children in care, with additional staff available to handle instantaneous surges of up to 50% without dropping below the 1 to 5 ratio. The planetary government had actually increased funding even higher, mandating a minimum 1 to 4 ratio. Official reports from CPS showed, until this scandal, an official 1 to 3 ratio, however those had been scrubbed from public sites and the current leadership of CPS, facing this scandal, is whining that they weren’t budgeted enough funds and are ‘grossly understaffed’ due to ‘high rates of burnout amongst caseworkers’. Believable, if you aren’t looking at their own reports to the planetary government detailing their adherence to guidelines, and if the funding they were given wasn’t generous enough to maintain staffing even in the face of ‘burnout’ and ‘fatigue’.

The planetary government was furious, the voters are furious, everybody is furious at CPS. The abusive foster ‘caregivers’ are being prosecuted vigorously, and even before the planetary government had escalated this to official Imperial involvement you’d prepped the Special Squad.

Jane and Michelle had already reported back, in their typically flamboyant manner. Until ten years ago the system had been healthy, and had, under the previous administrators, actually achieved the 1 to 3 ratio their reports had continued to claim, and had even managed to handle the burnout issue with regular rotation of front-line caseworkers to non-case related positions. In that time there were credible reports of abuse in on average 1 in 20,000 cases, and all such reports were properly followed up on and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, with CPS removing the children immediately from the situation, providing counselling and support, and strengthening screening procedures.

Then the old leadership had retired with a change in Griffsport administration, and the new leadership… well, you are sure that they didn’t start out corrupt, but slowly rot had creeped in, until by 5 years ago the ‘actual’ case ratio was down to 1 to 20 and most of the budget was spent on administrative costs, including opulently lavish ‘team building retreats’ for senior staff, prodigious ‘performance bonuses’ for same, and damn near zero oversight over the conditions at foster caregivers. Turnover among frontline staff had skyrocketed, with caseworkers who left being required to sign comprehensive NDAs, allegedly due to child privacy laws, which had managed to conceal the situation from the public.

Until a group of worn-out, ground-down, and angry caseworkers walked out, refused to sign NDAs, and loudly complained to the press. Two of them were shot at home, leading Griffsport police to place them all under protective escort. And then the entire shambolic mess came tumbling down.

Michelle had found hundreds of official complaints filed by caseworkers about the situation, all hushed up and covered up by senior officials in the department. Jane had found at least three cases where particularly tenacious whistleblowers had been murdered to preserve the corrupt status quo.

Over 90% of the ‘caseworkers’ receiving paychecks from the department don’t even exist, the money pocketed by the corrupt officials.

The Griffin’s Roost planetary authorities have cracked down hard on the Griffsport local government over this, and have initiated full audits of all other CPS offices on the planet. It is strongly suspected that the entire Griffsport governing council will very likely wind up under indictment in the near future.

Where things get touchy is that a good number of the indicted officials have personal and professional links to Senators and Delegates from the party that supports you the most in the Imperial Parliament. Thankfully none of the actual abusers have any such links, thank God for small mercies, but this could turn into a serious black eye on your supporters' faces.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum. You keep out of that portion of the investigation, allowing the chips to fall as they may. In the end only two Senators and a single Delegate are close enough to the actual suspects to see any actual blowback strike them.

You dodged a bullet there.

The planetary government is asking for a significant one-time funding boost from the Imperial treasury to finance putting affairs back in order.

[]	Go for it	1 time 20,000,000 expense +5 Imperial Approval
[]	They’re on their own there	-5 Approval Change

In other news, you have on your desk proposals for a new regimental assault transport for battlemechs, along with logistics vessels based on the same hulls. The intention is to reduce the collar load for your heavy mech units in order to speed up the time table for beginning actual offensive operations against the Dragon.

One design is from the Royal Griffon Aerospace Werks in conjunction with Majeure Electrique, a 49,500 ton design with a small sub-cap missile punch but a very hefty artillery punch with a dozen Long Tom’s and a four pack of Arrow-IV launchers. Interestingly the design has one feature exclusively intended for clearing dropzones, a six-pack of Streak-equipped Short Range Missile-6 systems intended for final clearance fire before final touchdown.

The other is from a company on Nowy Gdansk formed by a number of second-generation descendents of the Polish refugees who were first on the planet. Huta Stalowa Wola Nowy Gdansk is already heavily involved in Mech and armored fighting vehicle manufacture on planet, and is one of the contractors involved in the current project updating your ground forces. The Polnocny is a massive 64,900 tons and has a peculiarly squat profile, being significantly ‘wider’ than it is tall.

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Newport-class	$237,809.60	FA, DHS	776	426	Armored 30 Capital 3/54 Artillery 48 Missile 20 AMS 60
[]	Polnocny-class	$346,245.20	FA/DHS	741	421	Armored 27 Artillery 36 Missile 36 AMS 120

The companion logistics vessels may be built on the same hull, but if desired could be on different hulls.

Interestingly, the Polnocny-C has over 3000 tons more cargo capacity than the Newport-C. In addition she is able to load and unload cargo somewhat faster than the smaller vessel as well. The logistics teams approve of both designs, it should be noted, but they did make a point to draw your attention to this disparity.

[]	Newport-C	$217,649.60
[]	Polnocny-C	$307,465.20

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Life is Old There

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

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

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

But you know who is guilty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - All My Memories

You, Michelle, and Janet all have one thing most certainly in common. You are all mothers and grandmothers. Jane, on the other hand, has never had any kids and is able to bring a bit of perspective to this. Up to this point the only thing that has truly protected the plotters has been that they’ve been operating in the shadows with nobody knowing to watch for them. They’d now burned all of their assets in the effort to protect themselves, but people like that would be constitutionally incapable of not trying again.

The law firm had set up new offices in an office building owned by one of the media companies in question, one which was howling denunciations both of the CPS corruption (laying them at the feet of everybody but the people who’d actually been in a position to make decisions about the situation) and shrieking that the Throne was scapegoating people merely for opposing her ‘foolish’ policies and trying to claim that the destruction of the original law offices had been a deliberate act, eliding over the warrants and court orders.

Unfortunately, Jane points out, for the scum, that particular office’s IT connectivity went through a Lee Communications node… a node which a simple, discrete, call had enabled the Special Squad to fully suborn. Every single bit of communications traffic into or out of that office building was now passing through Justice’s hands… completely legally.

It would take years to discreetly reroute things, all of the network nodes in that area were LeeComm after all.

All four of you get positively evil expressions on your faces at that.

For the next several weeks the fiery denunciations from the press continues… and then there is the first nibble. A communication from one of the moguls in question to one of the top lawyers at the firm, requesting a ‘sanitation’. Minutes later that lawyer leaves the office and is expertly tracked, with SARAH’s assistance, to a particular strip bar in one of the poorest parts of town, a place where such a high-priced lawyer shouldn’t have any business.

A Special Branch agent is able to slip inside, and records footage of the lawyer meeting with a pair of men who are quickly identified as dishonorably discharged members of the military… both of whom had been courts-martialed during the Bratva mess on charges of assault and under suspicion of committing both rapes and murders, although they’d not been convicted on the latter charges. Money is observed changing hands and the lawyer departs.

The two men leave shortly afterward and are almost pathetically easy to track, given that you know about them. Fifteen minutes later they are seen in a residential neighborhood right outside Griffsport City proper. The Special Branch strikes right as the pair are observed forcing open the door of a residence, taking both men down with tranq darts.

The residence is of a young woman who had evidently been in a relationship with the son of one of the moguls. Under questioning from the Special Branch she reveals that the relationship had been extremely abusive, with the son regularly beating her and forcing her to engage in unwanted sexual practices. The son had regularly used the threat of having her and her family ‘sanitized’ if she tried to leave him or did anything at all that he disliked. The father had repeated those threats and she had personally witnessed both the father and the son at ‘parties’ that were glorified brutal orgies featuring underage ‘entertainment’... and she had seen other people who’d tried to go to the police with this being tortured to death.

Special Branch checks Griffsport PD remotely, making use of SARAH to secretly access all relevant records. There were four complaints registered into the system, all four of which included the complainants requesting protection due to reasonable fear of retribution, in all four cases said protection was granted by the office responsible for arranging such, and in all four cases the complainants subsequently disappeared. Further checks show that there were a total of three officers and one bureaucrat involved in all four cases. The three actual officers are found to be front line personnel who would be involved in pretty much anything that went through the PD HQ, but the bureaucrat… had vanished at the same time as the medical examiner, and checks of financial records show that he was living well beyond his means.

That bureaucrat also matches the physical description of one of the common ‘guests’ at the ‘parties’.

But so far you only have something concrete for one of the six suspects, and increasing suspicion of the rest. To act now would reveal too much. You recall a case study you read about in college, and which you’d heard Jeremy refer as well, the Coventry Question. You have an intelligence source that is superbly capable of winning the war, and is always accurate. You know from it, and it alone, that the enemy is planning something that will cause a great deal of loss of life, but is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme. You can easily shift your defenses and take action to save thousands of innocent lives, but it would risk revealing your source, and if the enemy realizes you have that source you’ll lose it…

So Special Branch takes the young woman into very special protection, hiding her on board HMS Renown, in fact, and fakes her death. They also fake the death of the two contract killers in a convenient accident, with the residence of the young lady burning down around them as the forensics will show, the killers got ‘creative’ and decided to use arson, only to get caught inside and killed as well.

Since at least a half-dozen of the murders attributed to this cabal were arsons, you are pretty sure the bastards won’t catch on, and judging by several intercepted communications from the lawyer in question they had been planning on hiring some other killers to kill the two you have stashed away in custody.

The noose is starting to tighten.

QM Note - each update will now feature a decision as to whether or not to shut down surveillance and take down the criminals. Until this decision is taken, ‘the Weak’ will continue to be in force. Each decision will show the percentage chance for all of the criminals to be caught and lawfully convicted.

[]	Strike Now!	17% chance of lawfully convicting all conspirators Ends ‘The Weak’ +5 Approval Change if convictions succeed +5 Politics if convictions succeed
[]	Continue Surveillance	Continues ‘the Weak’ through next update
[]	Continue surveillance while turning loose Intelligence on captured accessories	Has a chance of accelerating the process of lawfully convicting the criminals Has a chance of weakening the lawful case against the criminals

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Miner’s Lady

The continued surveillance pays off several weeks later when a call from one of the other oligarchs is recorded to the law office. This time requesting that they ‘fetch lot seven and twelve’ from ‘storage’ for delivery to an isolated cottage owned by the oligarch in question.

A lawyer is tracked into a very seedy part of town, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Griffsport. What happens next has the Special Branch almost jumping without orders, but they manage to restrain themselves.

The lawyer is driving a rather subdued off-road work vehicle that looks appropriately battered for the neighborhood. He pulls up to a small ultra-subsidized housing development, built decades ago as part of a project to provide extremely low-cost housing for the very poorest citizens. One of the units is evidently this ‘storage’... a hard-faced woman meets the vehicle, money is exchanged, and four children are shortly afterward brought out of the residence and loaded into the rear of the vehicle. None of them look older than maybe ten. The team maintains surveillance while records are checked. According to everything you have there should be no children at all in this residence, none are enrolled in the school system and nobody in the building is drawing child assistance money from the state. Further probing finds substantial monthly payments from the law office to the residence.

The vehicle heads to a second location, which is much like the first, and after another exchange of money with a particularly nasty looking man a pair of young boys are loaded into the vehicle, which then heads towards the vacation cottage.

More records are checked, collated, and significant gaps are found. Facial identification of the boys brings a match to two brothers who were entered into the Child Protective Services system last year, but with a note that they had returned home after their home circumstances had improved and they were back with their parents. Cross-checking finds that to be a false notation, because the brothers' parents are both currently working as asteroid miners in the Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt. A discrete inquiry finds that the parents had left the children with their grandparents while the parents were on a 5 year contract. Checking again finds that the grandparents are both deceased under what had been ruled to be ‘natural causes’ but which appear to be very suspicious circumstances, messages from them to the parents originate from within the law office. Checking station records finds evidence of payments from the law office as well to two other miners on the same platform. A ‘random’ security sweep discovers items that could easily be used to stage an ‘accident’ eliminating the parents.

Observation of the cottage finds the oligarch and his family ‘enjoying’ the youngsters, sickening everybody involved. Worse yet, one of the guests at the cottage is the current President and CEO of Tank-X, a financial wunderkind who’d maneuvered himself into control of the company via a leveraged buyout, forcing out the company's founders. You’d met the man, you’d sat across a conference table from him as he pitched upgrade plans for the various Tank-X vehicles in service. And you’d never suspected a damn thing about the sociopathic bastard.

Armed with the profiles of these ‘storage’ sites you now have a half dozen or so under surveillance. You’ve only got sufficient proof to nail 2 of your six suspects, along with their hanger-ons. But you want the whole enchilada, every single one of these sick monsters. None of the 6 children are harmed beyond the obvious, being returned to 'storage' following the depraved 'party'.

[]	Strike Now	34% chance of lawfully convicting all perpetrators If successful Ends ‘the Weak’ +10 Approval Change +10 Politics +1 support Chamber of Delegates +1 supper Imperial Senate
[]	Continue Surveillance	Continues “the Weak” through next update
[]	Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories	Has a chance of accelerating the process of lawfully convicting all targets Has a chance of weakening the case against all targets

You can’t focus solely on this, as much as you want to you have other business that needs to be dealt with. First of all, design proposals for the new garrison ASF are now available. Several designs had been rejected before getting this far, either for using technology that wasn’t yet read for production or because the designer had completely forgotten about the effects of heat build up and therefore had massively over-gunned the design.

In the end there are three serious proposals. One is from a tiny design house in Griffsport and sports no less that FOURTEEN AP Gauss rifles, five in each wing and four on the nose, with a single conventional AMS mounted on the tail. Of the three is it the prettiest in design, which makes sense considering that the designers come from an art background, and it is quite appropriately named the Spitfire.

The second comes from Lee Aerospace and has a nearly identical layout to the old Falcon II training birds, with a pair of extended range 5cm lasers in the nose, flanking a single anti-missile system, and a single extended range 3cm laser on each wingtip. A single extended range 5cm laser serves as a tail stinger. It is noted that this design shares significant parts commonality with the older design despite being 20 tons heavier.

The final design is built around a 20 tube long range missile rack and a pair of extended range 5cm lasers, one in the nose, one in the tail, along with an anti-missile system nestled underneath the bow laser. In general this one is quite the ungainly bird, with a single laser fore and aft, a gimballed AMS underneath the bow laser, and a big gawping ‘mouth’ filled with the 20 tubes of the missile system. It is nevertheless a ruthlessly practical design, but it will not be winning any beauty contests.

[]	Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Praesidium ASF	271.27	23	13	Armored 1 AMS 1 Missile 1 Swift
[]	Mustang Militia ASF	244.50	22	12	Armored 1 AMS 1 Swift
[]	Spitfire Militia ASF	266.62	22	12	Armored 1 AMS 1 Swift

And then you need to deal with Parliament. The opposition is in an uproar, egged on by the media oligarchs, and are trying to cause the maximum amount of distraction, but your supporters are remaining very disciplined and with the Eldest growling at the worst offenders in the Senate business is getting done.

Indeed, while there are a number of bills laid before you that you reject out of hand, including an incredibly ridiculous proposal out of the Chamber of Delegates and one of the oppositions biggest priorities which would create a permanent Imperial CPS system… and place it under the control of a Parliamentary committee that is a who’s who of those members linked to the oligarchs. You take enormous pleasure in that monstrosity dying in the Senate under the gimlet gaze of the Eldest.

The media, of course, flips out over the fact that the Eldest then pointedly shredded the document with his massive claws while glaring balefully at the senator who’d been stupid enough to try and get it passed.

You’ve got a little list… and none of them will be missed… once you have the proof you need.

One proposal that you are strongly tempted to get behind creates incentives for businesses to open offices on Griffon IV, providing subsidies for needed infrastructure construction to support them. It will be expensive, but should have some serious payoffs long term.

[]	Support	Up front cost of 5,000,000 Increases upkeep costs by 150,000 +5 Economy Rating on Griffon IV +5 Health Rating on Griffon IV Increases Rating Change cap on Griffon IV to 105 Increases Economy Rating cap on Griffon IV to 135 Increases Health Rating cap on Griffon IV to 130 Changes Griffon IV Pop Growth Factor to .2 (from .1)
[]	Oppose	No change

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Dark and Dusty

You receive an odd mix of good and bad news. The bad news? All of the Enterprise-class dropships have been grounded, inspections have revealed excessive metal fatigue in critical parts, a result of the dropships having been built with an insufficiently robust internal structure as well as ‘first dropship’ mistakes in stress calculations. It has only been the great professionalism of the crews that have prevented any catastrophes so far.

The five vessels are quickly stripped of classified equipment and all find homes in museums eager to have pieces of history.

The good news is that the Royal Griffon Dropship Werks had been working on a private venture exploration dropship, intending to use the completed vessel as a sample to excite interest for the project. The company, sensing an opportunity for wonderful PR, instead turns over the completed vessel to the Imperial Griffon Navy. The Navy, in turn, staffs the new ship with the crews of the 5 retired vessels, allowing it to be put in immediate service. She is thus immediately commissioned as the new USS Enterprise, causing some wags to dub the class the Enterprise-A class, which, well, turns out to be what they decided to name them anyways.

Your palm has a loving encounter with your face, and you remind the Exploration Fleet that your requirement that they all wear red shirts remains.

If they want to keep the Star Trek references going, so can you.

The surveillance of the oligarchs and the law firm that is in this cessit up to their perfectly tailored armpits continues. The two that you already have more than sufficient evidence against are still the only ones currently active, although the investigators are seeing signs that the other four main targets are still in communication, they just haven’t done anything incriminating enough yet to build a solid case.

It grates, but you are building up resources. Armed with the profile of the stash houses that have already been detected the Special Branch now has full surveillance on over a dozen additional locations that fit the criteria. They have also identified about a half dozen properties where it appears there has been ‘activity’ in the past and are keeping them under surveillance as well. Every single lawyer, paralegal, secretary, researcher, and even janitor who works for the law firm in question is under unremitting surveillance with the Special Branch drawing in auxiliary assets from Intelligence and SARAH.

The media, meanwhile, under the oligarchs control, is continuing to throw smoke everywhere they can. You do catch communications from them which rather undercuts the network's pious protestations of being ‘neutral journalists’ who simply follow the story. There will be a number of very juicy defamation suits after all of this is over.

Work on the upgrades for your ground forces are continuing, although it won’t be until next year that they are fully completed.

And surprisingly, considering how you usually feel, you find yourself actually looking forward to budget time for a change, as it gets your mind off of the foulness festering in Griffsport.

General Stewart is up first. “Your Majesty, we have a number of very important decisions coming up in the next few years, as we are finally poised to begin actual offensive operations against our enemies. General Griffith?” she turns to Jeremy and yields the floor to your son.

“We are currently fully invested in the upgrade process for our ground forces, but that has not stopped us from doing extensive simulator work. We have identified a number of minor issues with the current upgrades, at least from a doctrinal standpoint. However it was pointed out that, well, we’d already dropped the ball on at least one of them from the start.” Jeremy looks a bit chagrined.

“Specifically for our Armored Cavalry units. Originally we had intended them to be used for securing beachheads for our dropships during assault operations, however in the latest set of upgrades the Uhlan II is losing their jump jets, making them less flexible in this specific mission, while the rest of the upgrade massively boosts the mechs lethality and flexibility in every other scenario. Likewise the Rittmeister never had jump jets, meaning that the mission was compromised from the start.”

“To solve this without holding back the current upgrade program we propose the procurement of a specialized jump-capable combined Command/Missile mech to be paired with our existing Wolf Spider and Orb Weaver mechs. We are also investigating a potential upgrade of the Soldatin design, removing the third enhanced PPC as well as five heat sinks, mounting a pair of 5 tube improved LRM launchers on the ‘shoulders’ and an Anti-Missile System in the center torso, along with a quintet of jump jets. Preliminary work shows that an increase in armor will also be possible. Once we have more information on these designs we will update you.” he checks his notes.

“In addition, we have set aside a portion of the military reservation on Griffon IV for a Dedicated Upgrade and Refurbishment Facility, which in the future should streamline unit upgrades as technology advances. It won’t do much for the expense of upgrades, but it will keep the factories free for production.”

He steps back, as She Who Speaks In PowerPoint steps to the podium and… fires up her beloved powerpoint.

“Your Majesty, with the dropship procurement this year we will be needing the following aerospace assets.”

• 4 Assault Carrier Wings
• 2 Assault Carrier Squadrons
• 2 Flights - Griffon II
• 1 Regimental Support Squadron

Good god in heaven, somebody showed Miss Powerpoint how to add animations to her slides.

“We continue to foresee requirements to increase production capacity for ASFs and strategic materials, as such, we recommend the expansion of factories 46, 47, and 48, as well as of Ferro Aluminium and Double Heat Sink production.”

In that short presentation she went through 10 slides. With animations. Lord help us all.

Admiral Benjamin has his beloved flip chart. “Your Majesty, only got 2 slips free this year, and both of ‘em are looking prime for the new transports, 1 Newport and 1 Newport-C. And if you could continue to prioritize them large droppers, we’d appreciate it muchly.” he then grins boyishly. “Oh, and if you can pull another miracle out of hammerspace, we’d love more Potemkins this century!”

You can’t help it, and the good admiral barely manages to dodge a wadded up piece of paper.

General Stewart doesn’t bother to stand back up. “Needless to say, I endorse the lot of that. I would add that once we start offensive ops we’re going to need yet more space for planning and such, so another HQ expansion program is on the menu.”

Bridget is very Bridget, although now that she’s married and has kids she is far more bearable. She’s still banned from coffee though.

“Your Majesty! We have some new things we can do over at DoME in regards to Griffon IV, now that the terraforming has progressed as far as it has. Namely, we can start planting forests! This will be a critical milestone, as it will start the process of releasing free oxygen and consuming carbon dioxide and nitrogen. We currently have 3 different types to choose from, although once the oceans are sculpted we’ll have a 4th. The eggheads were going on and on about required humidity and rain levels and were on the fifteenth slide of their powerpoint when I insisted they summarize in a way that won’t melt brains smaller than Mary’s. So the easy easy easy way, we currently got 1 unit of water available on the planet, because of the comet we crashed into it. To get more we need to sculpt out them oceans and lakes, oceans will get us effectively 2 units due to evaporation and such, lakes 1. If we want tropical forests, you know, Tarzan style jungle, we need rivers to be all ready, because those take lots and lots of water. So right now we can plant temperate forests or subarctic forests. Once the oceans are done we’d be able to plant kelp forests and encourage coral formation, but we’re a way off from that. So what the eggheads over at DoME want to do is plant either a temperate or subarctic forest, your choice. Otherwise we’re all set to build factories and forges and whatever else you need!”

You glance over to Mary, who’s shaking her head with a fond smile on her face, then nod to the ebullient Interior Minister.

Isoroku is looking as zen as ever. “Your Majesty. After the success of the Olympics and the positive impact we’ve made on the NRI due to how handily we handled those pirates, it may be possible to begin actual discussions about a formal military alliance against our mutual foes. With your permission I can begin that process. Meanwhile, here at home, may I recommend endowing a proper Imperial War Museum? I’ve been through the Royal Families collections and there is plenty there for a good solid basis.”

Jake is not looking zen, and he’s not looking happy either. He’s got kids the same age as some of the victims of the oligarchs, and has a missing distant cousin that he now suspects vanished into their maw. “Your Majesty, the behavior of the press has been abominable and unforgivable. I know we have freedom of the press, but this is going too far. I would like your permission to establish a proper Imperial Broadcasting Corporation to counter the current situation with something fully under our control and oversight.”

Mary is her usual self, with her custom presentation program already up and running as she stands behind the lectern. “Your Majesty, the basic survey of SLS Morristown shows that she is sound and can be eventually repaired, but we will need to do a far more comprehensive and thorough survey first. In addition, we have a number of new areas of research.”

• Life Extension Therapy - Lvl 4
  • Increases probably maximum lifespan even further
• Medium Battle Armor - Basic
  • Significantly increases the weight capacity for our power armor troopers
• Hyper-Pulse Generators - Theory Lvl 2
  • Our scientists believe we are very close to moving from pure theory to starting engineering work
• Improved Anti-Aging Treatments Lvl 1
  • Also called ‘Prolong’, slows aging overall
• Improved Elder Quality of Life Lvl 1
  • More advanced treatments for arthritis, joint and bone problems, and other side-effects of advanced age

She then brings up the next slide, showing recommendations.

• Military R&D
  • Full Survey - SLS Morristown
  • Improved PPC
• Non-Military R&D
  • Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 2
  • High-Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 2
  • Advanced Communications (advanced) Tier 2

Harry is again not present for the meeting, having sent his deputy once more. In this case it is due to him handling some internal Intelligence issues, specifically the discovery of a data leak that appears to be for the purpose of industrial espionage over various maintenance contracts. Nothing sensitive was compromised, as counter-espionage methods more than sufficed to sniff out and plug the leak.

Janet meets your gaze, and you can tell she is just as furious as you are. “Your Majesty, we at Justice need two things. An expansion of the Special Branch, and authorization to go through the criminal bench with a fine toothed comb to make sure we have no corrupt judges. For… obvious reasons.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 51 - Country Roads

Spoiler: Event, Luck, and Rating rolls

Meta Event Roll - 75 - Corruption Crisis
Dynasty Luck Roll - 62 - no event

Imperial Approval - 6
Approval Change - 6
Political Event - -1

Economy Rating - 6
Economy Event - 1
Research Event - 6

Griffin’s Roost Economy - 5
Griffin’s Roost Population - 9
Griffin’s Roost Rating Change - 3

Nowy Gdansk Economy - 6
Nowy Gdansk Population - 10
Nowy Gdansk Rating Change - 3

Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Economy - 10
Griffon Inner Asteroid Belt Rating Change - -2

Griffon II Orbitals Economy - 2
Griffon II Orbitals Rating Change - 4

Griffon IV Economy - 2
Griffon IV Population - 4
Griffon IV Rating Change - 2

Spoiler: Action Results

Military [$ 16,147,863.42 ]
Expand Factory 46 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 47 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 96
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Factory 48 [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 91
Result - SUCCESS

Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - 455,459.20 ]
-Newport [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-Newport-C [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

Purchase New Units [$ 162429.22 ]
-1 Regimental Support Squadron [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-4 Assault Carrier Wings [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Assault Carrier Squadrons [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-2 Flights of Griffon ASF [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

Interior [$ 19185000 ]
Expand Orbital Factory 39 (DHS) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 1
Result - CRITICAL SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 59 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 60 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Factory 61 (FA) [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

Focus Development on Griffin II Orbitals [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Refit and Repair Yard [100]
Target - 100
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Griffons Roost [100]
-Large
Target - 100
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

Expand Orbital Shipyard Nowy Gdansk [100]
-Large
Target - 100
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

DOME - Nowy Gdansk Arcology* [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 96
Result - Bare FAILURE

Diplomatic [$ 6060000 ]
Have Exploration Fleet Survey GOAB* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Endow Imperial War Museum [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

CULTURE - General Cultural Festival [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

Political [$ 6000000 ]
Civil Service Reform* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

Charter Imperial Broadcasting Company [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 19
Result - SUCCESS

Research [$ 19750000 ]
Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

High Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 2 [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

Justice [$ 30000000 ]
Expand Special Branch [65]
Target - 65
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

Investigate Criminal Justice System [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-----

All is mostly quiet on the oligarch front, although one of the targets has been in communication with the lawyers to arrange a ‘get together’ early next year, which may well give you evidence against a third of them, but the language used is ambiguous enough that it wouldn’t yet help in court.

Doesn’t mean that you don’t have the Special Squad staking out the site for this ‘get together’, a rather lovely oceanside villa on the coast of Pollux with absolutely spectacular views. Unfortunately for the oligarch, this includes spectacular views from across the channel… their ‘private get together’ won’t be very private.

You’ve had a few meetings with Janet and several senior prosecutors discussing the case. They can guarantee convictions on the two you’ve already gotten evidence on, but not yet the others. So you are going to have to wait out a holiday season knowing that these monsters are out there. God willing, next year they’ll no longer be a problem for anybody but Satan having to keep them company for eternity.

So you’re feeling vindictive. Bastards have earned it.

In rather more positive news, you have received the design proposals for both a new command mech for air-droppable forces and for the potential upgrade to the Soldatin II. The command mech, called the Horse Archer is intended to cover the roles of both the Uhlan and the Rittmeister, as both a command and fire support mech.

The new Soldatin is precisely how your son described it, trading the Marauder-style enhanced PPC on the back for a pair of 5 tube long range missile racks, an anti-missile system tucked under the nose, more armor, and jump jets. The raw firepower has dropped, but the design is significantly more flexible now.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Soldatin III	1130.33	ES, DHS	34	34	Armored 1 Missile 0 AMS 1 TAG
Horse Archer	839.02	DHS	26	26	Armored 1 Missile 1 AMS 1 Command 1

There is one fly in the ointment. Upgrading the Soldatin II to the III standard would be a significant boost in capability for your standard line unit, but it coming as it does at this late of a date it would cause a degree of chaos in the final stages of the upgrade process… chaos it might be worth stirring up.

Going forward with the upgrade at this time would involve cycling all of the several hundred Soldatin II’s through the factories, delaying the ability to procure mechs, at least, for another year. It would also be expensive, initial estimates are around $5,000,000 for the upgrade and pilot retraining costs. On the one hand, expensive and time consuming… on the other probably worth it, because the new design is a significant upgrade indeed.

[]	Go for it	1 time cost of $5,000,000 No mech production next turn
[]	Wait For Now	Once the DURF is online it will cost $3,000,000 to perform the upgrade

The proposal for ‘Pathfinder Regiments’ is also on your desk. On paper there is a surfeit of command capability, but it is pointed out that most of the Horse Archer mechs won’t have an officer sitting in the back seat.

Each Pathfinder Lance would comprise 1 Orb Weaver Scout/Recon Mech, 1 Horse Archer Command/Missile mech, and 2 Wolf Spider Cavalry mechs. A Pathfinder Company would be 3 Pathfinder Lances, a Battalion 3 Companies, and a Regiment 3 Battalions. All mechs in the unit are jump-capable quads, making them ideal for orbital drops. The tactical concept is that such a regiment would be dropped from orbit to secure the LZ for the rest of the invasion force. Once the LZ is established they would serve as an LZ security force, protecting the grounded dropships.

Simulations show that such a force would be rather effective.

You only have to attend a pair of keel-laying ceremonies, which is a relief, but you then have to go to a massive number of commissioning ceremonies. You are very tempted to hunt down the officers responsible for some of these names. HMS Ribble? HMS URE? Then there’s HMS Kunatava, which you are dead certain will be nicknamed something incredibly rude. You were once infantry, you know how grunts think. All of this pales when you realize that your beloved son had authorized one of the new Royal Sovereign class ships to be named Empress of Nowy Gdansk. You are morally certain that he was smirking when he signed off on that.

He is almost certainly going through the Tyler Lee Memorial Defenestration Window!

You check the paperwork and the ASF contingents for all of the new dropships are ready on time and under budget. You check that, and learn that a paperwork snafu on the supplier's end resulted in them only billing you for 4 of the 5 Assault Carrier Wings that they delivered.

QM NOTE - I gave incorrect numbers for required ASF wings in the advisor post, consider this a QM freebie to you.

Bridget is giggling, positively giggling, when she informs you that the same contractors who’d managed minor miracles on multiple other orbital foundries and forges had done it again, the Double Heat Sink production line they’d been upgraded had, well, been upgraded well beyond what you pair for, two upgrades worth of upgrade for the price of one upgrades worth of upgrade.

The rest of the upgrade crews only deliver what you paid for. But they do all deliver it on time and to spec, so there’s something to be said for that.

Thanks to the investments from your government several new orbital refineries come online around Griffon II, boosting economic activity yet again.

This is somewhat of a mixed blessing. There is an enormous amount of material in orbit suitable for mining, but compared to, say, an asteroid belt or an entire planet it is quite finite. Luckily the new Enterprise is able to finish up the survey work on the Outer Asteroid Belt. The bad news? As long as Griffon II is producing it would not be economically viable to start mining operations there. The good news? When the debris field around Griffon II is depleted then it would be pretty straightforward to tow the equipment out to the Outer Asteroid Belt and continue mining there.

You are getting very close to being able to start producing Jumpships in your own yards, albeit currently very small ones. Roughly 80% or so of the way there. The refit yard is also coming along nicely.

Bridget does have one unfortunate thing to report. An industrial accident at the construction site of the new Arcology has pushed back completion for a year. Fortunately there were no serious industries and ultimately it is determined that it was pure bad luck that led to the problem, with no design faults, materials faults, or personnel faults found. That Nowy Gdansk Gull that somehow managed to fly directly into the rotation mechanism of one of the heavy lift cranes and jam it is determined to be at fault. Although how the hell it managed to do that has everybody scratching their heads.

In the mood you are in from HMS Empress of Nowy Gdansk you decide to blame Jeremy and move on.

The new Imperial War Museum is opened to some fanfare, corresponding with the general cultural festival organized by the Culture Ministry. It seems to go quite well, all things considered.

The civil service reform efforts have been completed. Surprisingly the total number of people on the government’s payroll barely budges, but there’s a great deal of reshuffling and reassignments going on reducing duplication while finding other areas requiring the talents of those made redundant. In the end the bureaucracy should be much more efficient, which pleases Jake to no end.

The Imperial Broadcasting Company is also chartered, to howls of outrage from the big media conglomerates who now have to compete against it. It is quite satisfying seeing the smug ‘journalists’ looking worried about their careers, and the rage from the oligarchs is a cherry on top. The IBC is not only allowing you to completely bypass those gatekeepers, but the firm commitment to always having iron-clad sourcing and, most importantly, proof should lead to it seriously challenging the others credibility.

You get reports from Mary that the scientists involved in the work on both high-energy physics and advanced electronics are very satisfied with progress in those fields and hope to see applications to other research areas.

Very discrete recruitment efforts enable the growth of the Special Branch. Finding the right people for the posts is very difficult, but Michelle is able to do it.

About a dozen judges find themselves removed from the bench as investigators discover conflicts of interest, illegal activity, and general ethical lapses. Another half dozen are ‘missed’ by the investigators… but you are watching those bad apples very carefully, as every single one of them is on the payroll of the law firm working for those oligarchs.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 52 - Oh God, our Heavenly Father

The ‘get together’ on Pollux takes place as scheduled, and it was just as bad as you had feared. About a half-dozen kids ranging from 6 to 14 from various stash houses, all of which you had under surveillance thankfully, were gathered by lawyers from the law firm and transported to the property, and a thoroughly disgusting ‘party’ takes place.

Janet convinces you not to watch the footage, but rather gives you the summary version. One of the oligarchs you already had enough on and 1 you previously hadn’t were present, along with members of their families. A number of lesser lights who had previously not been on the radar had also been present, and were now all under surveillance themselves.

You also are told that they’d gotten somebody inside, so you even had footage from inside the buildings where the external surveillance was unable to look. Janet is smirking about this, and mentions off-hand that it wasn’t Special Branch who pulled that trick off, and have you seen Harry lately?

Several increasingly incredulous minutes later you manage to extract the story from your old friend. Your Intelligence Minister decided that if you want something done right you need to do it yourself, and had somehow managed to infiltrate the catering staff of the event with all of the nifty spy toys your Intelligence Agency has been developing for a field test… and Harry had been a field agent before getting promoted to run the agency.

Janet manages to squelch your bellows of outrage over Harry being able to get out in the field by promising that when the time comes to swoop in and take out all of the scum you are more than welcome to be present, so long as you are wearing a stock Mk II battle armor suit with no identifying marks and do not open the helmet or your big mouth.

She also advises you to keep calm about this, as much as she wants to personally use those bastards genitalia for experiments on the boiling point of, well, genitalia while still attached to the host organism, she wants to catch them all, all of their hangers on, all of their accomplices, all of their enablers. Every single bleeding one of them.

[]	Strike Now	50% chance of of lawfully convicting all primary perpetrators 10% chance of also sweeping up the entire support network If successful (primary perpetrators) Ends ‘the Weak’ +15 Approval Change +5 Approval +10 Politics +2 Support - Chamber of Delegates +2 Support - Imperial Senate If successful (support network) Prevents future ‘Official Corruption’ negative meta-event rolls for 50 rounds Grants “Champion of the Weak” 1 reroll of any negative or neutral meta-event or dynasty luck check
[]	Continue Surveillance	Continue ‘the Weak’ through next update
[]	Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories	Has a chance of accelerating the process of lawfully convicting all targets Has a chance of weakening the case against all targets

On a far happier note, the Tramp, now renamed Unicorn, evidently after the first ship to sail under the Cunard name, for some reason, is now ready for service. You later find that the person doing the naming is a big ocean liner geek… your beloved husband. He’d not mentioned this to you.

You have several potential uses for the 3-collar jumpship. The military wants to load up three Devastations and go raid the Dracs, since the Royal Sovereigns aren’t ready yet. They even have A Cunning Plan. One so cunning, you think, they could pin a tail on it and call it a fox. They’ve been training multiple crews onboard Unicorn for the past year, you see. So they want to load those crews up on the Devastations, and jump to one of the major jump points for Nowa Warzawa and engage in some Grand Theft: Monolith on any Kuritan jumpships present.

Another option is to use Unicorn to transport Enterprise-A, a Sosumi for logistics support, and a single Devastation to either Calliope, the system you got basic star charts for from the Free Folk, or the currently unnamed system just to Coreward of Griffon, to obtain detailed charts and potentially colonize.

Or finally you could take a pair of Devastations and a civilian cargo hauled and engage in some commerce and pirate-hunting on the route between the NRI and Griffon.

[]	Install and play Grand Theft Monolith
[]	Griffon Will Grow Larger
[]	A huntin’ we will go!

Meanwhile, in even happier news, Quan, James, and Thanh are all having more grandbabies for you to go all ba over! Each of the twins have annoyed their wives by, well, impregnating them with more twins, and Thanh is actually the one acting as Mom for her and her wife’s latest bundle of joy. Since, as your daughter grumps at you, you have effectively barred her permanently from the cockpit so she might as well have a kid.

You can’t resist. You solemnly inform your beloved spitfire of a daughter now that she’ll have a child of her own she’ll understand. You promptly are treated to a twenty minute daughterly freakout.

You still got it.

Jeremy then shows up with paperwork. Your beloved son, with whom you are well pleased, is still destined for the Window Of Defenestration, but this is business, so you let it pass.

The proposal is for the new deployable combined arms Armored Division. Like the current ‘heavy’ or ‘assault’ unit, such as 3rd Armored, it will be very mech heavy, primarily because of the sheer versatility of mech platforms in multiple terrains. It would consist of three brigades. First Brigade would have a single Pathfinder Regiment to secure the LZ during initial landing, and a pair of Standard Armored Regiments to solidify control of the LZ during the operation. Second Brigade would consist of an Armored Cavalry Regiment for screening purposes, and 2 Standard Mech Regiments as the primary striking force. Third Brigade would have a trio of Assault Regiments in order to utterly break the heaviest enemy defenses.

He and Admiral Benjamin also have some other proposals. The Coyote design is, in many ways, an excellent raider transport, Unicorn alone could transport an entire Special Forces Regiment using them. However the design has one critical weakness. She carries nearly no cargo and would thus be utterly unable to actually support the units it is carrying organically. They wish to either discretely hire Majeure Électrique to produce a modified Coyote that corrects that deficiency, preserving a level of secrecy for special operations, or open up a design competition for a replacement.

[]	Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
[]	Hold a competition

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 52 - Oh, God - And My Father, who is also in Heaven

You get good and bad news on the oligarch front. One of them drops dead of a massive stroke. Good news, bad news, at the same time. His son immediately makes moves to consolidate control of his father’s companies, and that little bastard is an even worse piece of work than his father according to surveillance. It’s not even two hours after his father’s reported death that the little shit is recorded discussing ‘eliminating’ his younger brothers and his mother with the law firm in order to silence them, or eliminate them from the inheritance.

And the rat bastards at the firm immediately start activating contingencies to accomplish just that, unfortunately for the lawyers, and the little bastard who is now their boss in this regard, the ‘contract’ for the murders is given to several Special Branch agents, with a parallel contract to eliminate the hired guns given directly to Jane in one of her various disguises.

The lawyers obviously think that they are clever, having hit men kill the targets, then promptly getting murdered themselves would completely muddle any trail to them, after all.

Special Branch outdoes itself on this one with a flair worthy of the finest heist movie. The team swoops into the three residences of the targets, completely disabling all security systems and ‘slaughtering’ the guards, staff, and targets before themselves getting ‘killed’ by a sniper.

Of course, all the ‘bodies’ are fake, the forensics and law enforcement people who handle the scene are all undercover Special Branch as well, and all the ‘dead’ are hustled off under sedation to a very well hidden facility in Five Fingers for… a frank discussion of their circumstances and how they might earn the chance of continuing to breath. Freedom? Not an option for these people, they’re all complicit in horrific crimes. But they’ll not be cut, drawn, and quartered, which seems to be more than enough for these worthless pieces of scum.

The elder brother is acting all cut up about this, wailing and sobbing for the cameras, but you catch him wiring a bonus to the lawyers for their neat wrapping up of loose ends and him gloating about him now being able to consolidate all of the family fortune.

Thanks to the arrangements of the law firm, you manage to pinpoint about a dozen more corrupt officials, including at least one more judge who, in exchange for a substantial bribe, delayed a critical search warrant that the ‘investigators’, actually more Special Branch officers, had requested. The minor detail that they requested the warrant from that particular bench precisely in order to get proof of the judge taking bribes? We won’t mention that minor detail too loudly.

Janet still wants to hold tight. You have the majority of the big fish dead to rights, albeit not all of them. But you are starting to positively identify more and more of the little guys, the minnows just waiting to become sharks someday if the current sharks are taken out. She uses a chess analogy, any single pawn has the potential to become a queen.

[]	Strike Now	66% Chance of lawfully convicting all primary perpetrators 25% Chance of also sweeping up the entire support network If Successful (Primary) Ends ‘the Weak’ +15 Approval Change +10 Politics +5 Approval +3 Support Chamber of Delegates +3 Support Imperial Senate If Successful (Secondary) Prevents future “Official Corruption” Meta-Events for 50 rounds Grants “Champion of the Weak” 1 reroll of any negative or neutral meta-event or dynasty luck check One time +1% GDP all planets
[]	Continue Surveillance	Continue ‘the Weak’ through next update
[]	Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories	Has a chance of accelerating the process of lawfully convicting all targets Has a chance of weakening the case against all targets

HMS Ocean of the Devastation-class, along with USS Enterprise-A and CLT-01 are sent off attached to Unicorn to the Calliope system. You are expecting a preliminary report with the return of Unicorn and CLT-01 for resupply in a month or so, barring something more significant happening.

About a day after their departure, the New Rasalhaguian Scout jumps into the system and broadcasts a request to meet.

According to their representative, the Dracs are planning a ‘significant’ strike on Griffon in the next several months. They have reason to believe that the Dracs have gathered upwards of 20 Monoliths in Nowa Warszawa to transport the attack and their spies report that the Dracs seem ‘confident’ that they’ll be able to land a significant force. They stress that they do not have precise force composition numbers, nor do they know the exact target, but the Dragon has been… quiet lately, likely building up for this attack, and the estimate of 20 is just that, an estimate, it is possible that there might be more involved.

They give you dossiers and profiles on the likely Drac commanders, which should be helpful on a strategic and tactical level as it gives your people insights on their opposition. Unfortunately they lack sufficient Jumpship lift to provide you with anything more than intelligence and well wishes.

Mobilizing your forces fully would cause some significant economic disruption, but it would allow you to be ready to react immediately no matter where the Dracs show up. One benefit of doing so is it would allow you to bring the new Mk I Defense Stations online a bit early, which could prove decisive in blunting an attack on the Jump Points or directly on Griffin’s Roost.

Home Fleet would cover Griffin’s Roost, Capital Fleet would cover Nowy Gdansk, the Inner System Patrol would mostly concentrate on Griffon IV, although some of their units would also cover Griffon II, while Strike Fleet would cover the Inner Asteroid Belt. The jump point defenses themselves would be on full alert, acting as the tripwire response.

Much as you want to forward deploy more forces to the jump points, the fact remains that the Dracs have shown a willingness to use pirate points in the past, and that threat must be honored.

[]	Mobilize NOW	ALL PLANETS -5% GDP this turn Fully Mobilized!
[]	Wait until they show up	Normal alert… no changes… wait for it… wait for it...

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 52 - May The Light

About a month after the Scout jumps out SARAH spots something. A lesser surveillance system than she would have never spotted a thing, but about a month transit time further out from the Zenith and Nadir jump points there are large jump signatures. Resolution is absolutely lousy at this range, and even the best telescopes can only tell you that there’s now something out there doing, well, something.

Whatever it is isn’t closing in yet, and a week after initial detection SARAH picks up evidence of something jumping out, leaving behind something that is rather large and looks, in the incredibly fuzzy imagery caused by the sheer distance, like a pair of modular space stations with large rotating gravity decks. You can’t be certain, but there appear to be smaller objects moving around these stations which from this distance could only be dropship scale.

[]	Send forces to investigate (from Jump Point flotillas)
[]	Steady on....

Back on Griffin’s Roost, the investigation is continuing but with no real progress. A few more minor fry are spotted here and there, but with the incoming threat it looks like everybody involved is pulling in their horns, so to speak.

This hasn’t stopped the various media conglomerates from running ‘reports’ that try and compare the Dracs to your grandfather… favorably. Alleging that for all of the ‘rhetoric’ from the Crown about the Drac ‘threat’ that the Dracs supposedly killed fewer people than the ‘tyrants’. The Imperial Broadcasting Corporation counters these reports quite ably with the most lethal weapon of all… truth, and public opinion of the credibility of the conglomerates ‘journalists’ is plummeting at breakneck speeds.

This of course leads to the conglomerates ranting about ‘Imperial propaganda and lies’ and directly accusing you of infringing on the rights of Griffon citizens by ‘stealing their tax dollars for the purpose of falsifying history’. They even start outright accusing the Crown of stoking ‘racist hatred’ against Asians, conveniently ignoring the actual facts of the situation and that it was these very channels which had stoked the ethnic riots that you’d had to suppress early in your reign. And when the IBC counters their lies with recordings of their own ‘journalists’ stoking riots the conglomerates immediately run to court screaming about copyright violations. Which the IBC gleefully covers in full as an excuse to show the offending clips over and over and over again.

Jake is mean when he’s in the zone. According to internal polls you’ve seen right now the conglomerates rate somewhere between syphilis and herpes on the popularity scale. Personally, you are rather glad that he’s on your side. Especially after the IBC starts interviewing family members of deployed sailors about how the major media conglomerates coverage is personally affecting them.

A week passes, Parliament is starting to get in a bit of a tizzy. Due to security considerations you haven’t released news of the Dracs' arrival in the backside of beyond, so you have Senators and Delegates complaining about the mobilization… when the complaints become moot. A swarm of primitive jumpships tentatively identified as being those of the pirates who normally plague the NRI appear in the Inner Asteroid Belt.

Strike Fleet promptly moves to engage, while calling for reinforcements from the Inner System Patrol. The initial skirmishing at capital range is devastating for the pirates, with none of the enemy vessels, all of the ‘Stinger’ type, which or effectively space technicals when all is said and done, escaping damage. But quantity has a quality all its own, and in the Asteroid Belt, constrained by the need to defend vulnerable civilian installations, the Lightnings of Strike Fleet are unable to fully exploit their great speed. The situation is only salvaged by the arrival of the fast elements of the Inner System Patrol, which slam into the pirates with brutal efficiency and eradicate them.

Efforts are immediately made to capture the pirate jumpships, but these pirates show no mercy because they know they will receive no mercy, and surrender is not part of their language. Of the twenty primitive jumpships that came in with the raid, all but 5 of the pirate jumpships destroy themselves in frantic hot-loaded jumps, smearing themselves into atomic mists across the belt, while the remainder self-destruct rather than allow themselves to be boarded.

No vessels were lost, although there are significant injuries to the crews with about a dozen fatalities. The damaged ships are cycled through the Refit & Repair facilities and are quickly back in action. A quick analysis of the action results in the Inner System Patrol and Strike Fleet swapping roles, with Strike Fleet taking over the mobile reserve role and the ISP patrolling the Inner Asteroid Belt.

Investigating the wreckage of the pirate vessels finds significant evidence of trade or possibly subsidization with or from the Dracs. Many of the dead pirates have personal sidearms of the sort common to the Dracs, for example.