Turn 69 - You Got A Lady
A pirate Jolly Roger jumped into Edelsteine, at the Nadir point, and was promptly vaporized by the jump point defenses when it attempted to hijack one of your Caravels that was in the area. The Caravel took light damage and required some dry dock time to ensure the hit she took didn’t compromise the jump core, but all indications are that it should be fine.
About a week later another, larger, pirate attack occurs at the same jump point, large enough that the local CO sends out an SOS over HPG. Only for the next message to be a rather dry ‘Never mind’ accompanied by the imagery of a familiar Gilbert & Sullivan loving Texas class battleship arriving and promptly engaging the Jolly Rogers with great glee, broadcasting ‘Huzzahs’ and ‘Have at thee, foul villain!’ on all channels while cheerfully blasting them to bits and pieces.
The Black Pumpernickels are apparently putting on a touring show of HMS Pinafore at the moment, and thought blowing up pirates was a very Royal Navy sort of thing to do. They’ve also somehow heard about your retirement next year and are asking if you’d like for them to put on a grand performance of the Mikado in honor of your retirement.
Oh, and the Black Pumpernickels also have some intelligence for you, the Free Folk were last sighted to the Galactic Southwest of you and as of at least three years ago were fine, having enjoyed a lovely performance of The Sorcerer.
Meanwhile there is a bit of a situation on Nowa Warszawa. Surveyors have discovered a large underground facility on an otherwise empty island in the tropics while making preparations for the start of a major resort construction project. The facility is old, long predating the Drac occupation of the planet, but there are zero records about it. Exploration teams have found it to be completely deserted, just bare ferroconcrete walls and ceilings and floors. There are generators and such which are still fully functional, but when activated they just turn the lights on and operate ventilation fans. A thorough search finds no active or inactive electronics, no signage of any use in identifying the facility, and the layout is almost painfully generic to the point where it could be just about anything.
Historical groups wish to preserve it, but the current landowners are leery of this as it would require them to radically change their plans for the site. The sort of high rise luxury resort they were planning to build to maximize access to the island's beaches would be unable to meet building code with this structure underneath without destroying it. The investors point out that there is absolutely no sign of what this facility was for, who built it, or what the significance is, thus it surely has little to no true significance in comparison to their own development plans. Historical groups point out that it is clearly extremely old, dating back to within a few years of the initial settlement of the planet, so it surely does have some significance, even if you don’t know what it is.
This has turned into a legal battle, and it has landed on your desk. The developers want permission to destroy the empty facility in order to build their resort, historical preservation groups want the facility preserved and the property seized by the government to prevent development which would threaten the site. Both sides have won dueling court orders, and both have valid legal precedents backing their claims, enough so that the courts have punted to you.
Lovely.
In more positive economic news, the CEO of Calliope Motors, Melissa Podebrat, is again in the news with yet another new car announcement, this time for a new ultra sophisticated supercar that appears destined to show up on pinups for the next fifty years. It’s about as different from their aggressively simple and rugged Renegade as possible, but swiftly ignites immense interest from the motoring public.
This has further boosted the already white hot Calliope IV vehicle manufacturing market.
And then it was time for your last planning meeting. You will totally miss this. Really. Honest.
General Stewart is up first, as always. “Your Majesty, we’ll have our first domestically produced Warships ready this year. Our plan is to focus on filling out the final bits of our initial TO&E that we planned out a decade ago, then next year we’ll have a clean slate for future expansion or any changes that may occur. With that being said, Colonel Michaels?”
A different officer than last year then takes the podium. “Your Majesty, your ground forces are in fairly solid shape, but we do have several final additions for this year.” He doesn’t seem to be all that polished a speaker, but he’s doing better than some. “We would like to fill out the following units. The Imperial Guard Division, 1st SpecOps Division, 1st Raider Brigade, 2nd Assault Division, 6th Infantry Division, and the 3rd Cavalry Division. To do so would require the procurement of the following units.” He brings up a chart.
A different officer then steps to the podium. “Your Majesty, this year we will potentially build a pair of White Tower platforms in the Nowy Wroclaw system, as well as the 10 Independence class vessels that will be coming into commission this year.” The young woman, an ace pilot named Colonel Penelope Romanov, who served in the recent fighting in NRI space prior to her promotion to a staff position, is somewhat smoother in her presentation. “We also need to better protect the small stations currently in Edelsteine space from pirate attack. Therefore your Aerospace forces recommend the following.”
She brings up a well-organized chart.
“In addition, while it is not yet relevant, staff is currently working on an RFP for a new trainer, to incorporate a dual-control cockpit configuration to enhance basic flight training in order to supplement the current trainers in service. Right now student pilots have no opportunity to train ‘in the black’ with a backseat instructor, the Aerie has requested that we study the tradeoffs required to create such a capability.”
A gruff fireplug of a Naval captain is up next. “Your Majesty, your Navy has one final request… more warship slips. 8 is not enough. We have 2 Darts finishing this year, which is good enough for a start, but we want to increase our fleet rapidly with the evidence of greater threats in our area. So far we’ve only met the friendly bits of the Amaris Remnant, not the aggressive ones. That being said, our transport forces are in need of a significant boost. By procuring as many of the new Trenton class vessels as we can we can retire the older Newport, Tarawa, and the Osumi class vessels, as well as shelve the Albion and Coyote designs. Scrapping the Sosumis is less important, as they still serve a useful logistics function.”
He brings up another chart.
The military folks have barely sat back down when Bridget blurs into motion, hops behind the podium, and is speaking almost before she’s in range of the audio pickup.
“Your Majesty we have some new things to build although we probably should get the researchers to fix the clothes eating bug before we do some of them but regardless we can build even more strategic material production if you want plus we can expand our Germanium refining capacity even more which would be a good thing if we’re planning on building more warship slips and we can colonize Nowy Wroclaw right away even if the clothes eating bacteria is still there but maybe we can come up with some way around that by sending I dunno nudists and people who wear polyester or something like that but we can definitely expand there and then build more things there to boost our overall economy like HPG stations and recharge stations and commercial space stations and stuff like that plus we can maybe even do some expansion of military-industrial infrastructure on Calliope IV since it’s still technically a peripheral world although that new Klinge is real awesome and I’ve got one on order and it’ll be so cool and oh we can afford more capital slips so please can we build them.”
One breath is all it takes and she’s off to the races. You actually will miss this part of the briefings, Bridget is always fun to watch.
Isoroku is as blase as ever. “Your Majesty, give me the word and I’ll put together a diplomatic team to head to Kilburrough to represent our interests there, we already have a suitable site picked out for the Kilburrough embassy to us. Following the principle of keeping your enemies closer, we’re proposing to locate their embassy right next to the Palace. With a nice convenient square in front for the Department of Periphery Studies to hold events.” On anybody else the tiny twitch of the lips would be a hungry predatory shark grin.
“That being said, we would also recommend hosting an art show this year, showcasing the talents of artists from outside the core worlds.” another brief twitch of the lips. “I am thinking ‘Liberty & Justice’ would be a suitable theme to welcome the new embassy with, yes?”
Jake nearly knocks Isoroku off his seat with a single bear paw as the Political Advisor waits for his Foreign Office counterpart to sit down before rising to make his way to the podium. “Your Majesty, if you decide to expand to Nowy Wroclaw, my office stands ready to extend government services there. Beyond that, I would recommend further expanding the Colonial Office to keep ahead of our growth curve.”
Dr Bryant is up next. “Crude jokes aside, Your Majesty, we do have R&D teams who believe that they can solve the bacterium issue on Nowy Wroclaw for relatively little investment of funds and time. Other than that, the only other priority we would have is to perhaps expand our labs on the Commercial stations, which would reduce costs elsewhere.”
Harry is looking utterly exhausted, as he’d only just arrived a half hour before the meeting from the NRR. “Your Majesty, we have teams of PsyOps specialists prepared to swing into action in the Nya Copenhamn system, broadcasting agitprop intended to undermine the populations' loyalty to the extremists in charge of the two planets. All we need is permission, and yes, Janet, we have put in place the oversight requirements you recommended last year.” he manages a tired smile at your Justice Minister.
Janet laughs at that and pretends to be surprised, although it’s clear that she’s satisfied on that point. “Well this is our last rodeo, Your Majesty.” she says with a grin. “Then retirement beckons while all the rest of you schlubs get to keep on slaving away.” There is general laughter at that. “I’ve got a team ready to go with experience setting up colonial courts and such for Nowy Wroclaw, just let us know and I’ll turn ‘em loose on the poor schmucks who decide to settle there.”
A pirate Jolly Roger jumped into Edelsteine, at the Nadir point, and was promptly vaporized by the jump point defenses when it attempted to hijack one of your Caravels that was in the area. The Caravel took light damage and required some dry dock time to ensure the hit she took didn’t compromise the jump core, but all indications are that it should be fine.
About a week later another, larger, pirate attack occurs at the same jump point, large enough that the local CO sends out an SOS over HPG. Only for the next message to be a rather dry ‘Never mind’ accompanied by the imagery of a familiar Gilbert & Sullivan loving Texas class battleship arriving and promptly engaging the Jolly Rogers with great glee, broadcasting ‘Huzzahs’ and ‘Have at thee, foul villain!’ on all channels while cheerfully blasting them to bits and pieces.
The Black Pumpernickels are apparently putting on a touring show of HMS Pinafore at the moment, and thought blowing up pirates was a very Royal Navy sort of thing to do. They’ve also somehow heard about your retirement next year and are asking if you’d like for them to put on a grand performance of the Mikado in honor of your retirement.
| [] | Defer to the Lord High Executioner! |
|
| [] | You have a little list |
|
Oh, and the Black Pumpernickels also have some intelligence for you, the Free Folk were last sighted to the Galactic Southwest of you and as of at least three years ago were fine, having enjoyed a lovely performance of The Sorcerer.
Meanwhile there is a bit of a situation on Nowa Warszawa. Surveyors have discovered a large underground facility on an otherwise empty island in the tropics while making preparations for the start of a major resort construction project. The facility is old, long predating the Drac occupation of the planet, but there are zero records about it. Exploration teams have found it to be completely deserted, just bare ferroconcrete walls and ceilings and floors. There are generators and such which are still fully functional, but when activated they just turn the lights on and operate ventilation fans. A thorough search finds no active or inactive electronics, no signage of any use in identifying the facility, and the layout is almost painfully generic to the point where it could be just about anything.
Historical groups wish to preserve it, but the current landowners are leery of this as it would require them to radically change their plans for the site. The sort of high rise luxury resort they were planning to build to maximize access to the island's beaches would be unable to meet building code with this structure underneath without destroying it. The investors point out that there is absolutely no sign of what this facility was for, who built it, or what the significance is, thus it surely has little to no true significance in comparison to their own development plans. Historical groups point out that it is clearly extremely old, dating back to within a few years of the initial settlement of the planet, so it surely does have some significance, even if you don’t know what it is.
This has turned into a legal battle, and it has landed on your desk. The developers want permission to destroy the empty facility in order to build their resort, historical preservation groups want the facility preserved and the property seized by the government to prevent development which would threaten the site. Both sides have won dueling court orders, and both have valid legal precedents backing their claims, enough so that the courts have punted to you.
Lovely.
| [] | Decide in favor of developers |
|
| [] | Decide in favor of preservationists |
|
| [] | Punt to next year and make Jeremy solve it |
|
| [] | Make like King Solomon and split the difference |
|
In more positive economic news, the CEO of Calliope Motors, Melissa Podebrat, is again in the news with yet another new car announcement, this time for a new ultra sophisticated supercar that appears destined to show up on pinups for the next fifty years. It’s about as different from their aggressively simple and rugged Renegade as possible, but swiftly ignites immense interest from the motoring public.
This has further boosted the already white hot Calliope IV vehicle manufacturing market.
And then it was time for your last planning meeting. You will totally miss this. Really. Honest.
General Stewart is up first, as always. “Your Majesty, we’ll have our first domestically produced Warships ready this year. Our plan is to focus on filling out the final bits of our initial TO&E that we planned out a decade ago, then next year we’ll have a clean slate for future expansion or any changes that may occur. With that being said, Colonel Michaels?”
A different officer than last year then takes the podium. “Your Majesty, your ground forces are in fairly solid shape, but we do have several final additions for this year.” He doesn’t seem to be all that polished a speaker, but he’s doing better than some. “We would like to fill out the following units. The Imperial Guard Division, 1st SpecOps Division, 1st Raider Brigade, 2nd Assault Division, 6th Infantry Division, and the 3rd Cavalry Division. To do so would require the procurement of the following units.” He brings up a chart.
- Imperial Guard Division
- 1 Imperial Guard Regiment
- 1st SpecOps Division
- Two Options
- First, assign 1st Raider Brigade to 1st SpecOps
- Requires procurement of 1 Raider Regiment to complete unit
- Second, procure 3 Spec Ops Regiments
- First, assign 1st Raider Brigade to 1st SpecOps
- Two Options
- 1st Raider Brigade
- See 1st SpecOps Division
- Would require 1 Raider Regiment to complete TO&E of unit
- 2nd Assault Division
- 1 Standard Mech Regiment
- 2 Assault Regiments
- 6th Infantry Division
- 1 Armored Regiment
- 2 Mechanized Regiments
- 3rd Cavalry Division
- 2 Light Horse Regiments
- 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment
A different officer then steps to the podium. “Your Majesty, this year we will potentially build a pair of White Tower platforms in the Nowy Wroclaw system, as well as the 10 Independence class vessels that will be coming into commission this year.” The young woman, an ace pilot named Colonel Penelope Romanov, who served in the recent fighting in NRI space prior to her promotion to a staff position, is somewhat smoother in her presentation. “We also need to better protect the small stations currently in Edelsteine space from pirate attack. Therefore your Aerospace forces recommend the following.”
She brings up a well-organized chart.
- 10 Carrier Wings
- To be assigned to the Independence class carriers
- 2 Fighter Wings
- If any White Tower stations are procured this year in Nowy Wroclaw
- 1 Light Fighter Wing
- To be based out of the small habitats, these ASFs have the lowest logistical footprint while being more survivable than the Gyrfalcons of the Interceptor Wings
- The Peregrine Light Fighter has already proven itself as part of the Carrier Wing units already deployed on our carriers.
“In addition, while it is not yet relevant, staff is currently working on an RFP for a new trainer, to incorporate a dual-control cockpit configuration to enhance basic flight training in order to supplement the current trainers in service. Right now student pilots have no opportunity to train ‘in the black’ with a backseat instructor, the Aerie has requested that we study the tradeoffs required to create such a capability.”
A gruff fireplug of a Naval captain is up next. “Your Majesty, your Navy has one final request… more warship slips. 8 is not enough. We have 2 Darts finishing this year, which is good enough for a start, but we want to increase our fleet rapidly with the evidence of greater threats in our area. So far we’ve only met the friendly bits of the Amaris Remnant, not the aggressive ones. That being said, our transport forces are in need of a significant boost. By procuring as many of the new Trenton class vessels as we can we can retire the older Newport, Tarawa, and the Osumi class vessels, as well as shelve the Albion and Coyote designs. Scrapping the Sosumis is less important, as they still serve a useful logistics function.”
He brings up another chart.
- Regular Dropship procurement
- 46 Trenton class
- Scrap or sell the following
- Newport - 23 dropships
- Tarawa - 12 dropships
- Osumi - 4 dropships
- Large Dropship procurement
- 6 Independence
- 12 Shannon
- Jumpship Procurement
- 1 Caravel
The military folks have barely sat back down when Bridget blurs into motion, hops behind the podium, and is speaking almost before she’s in range of the audio pickup.
“Your Majesty we have some new things to build although we probably should get the researchers to fix the clothes eating bug before we do some of them but regardless we can build even more strategic material production if you want plus we can expand our Germanium refining capacity even more which would be a good thing if we’re planning on building more warship slips and we can colonize Nowy Wroclaw right away even if the clothes eating bacteria is still there but maybe we can come up with some way around that by sending I dunno nudists and people who wear polyester or something like that but we can definitely expand there and then build more things there to boost our overall economy like HPG stations and recharge stations and commercial space stations and stuff like that plus we can maybe even do some expansion of military-industrial infrastructure on Calliope IV since it’s still technically a peripheral world although that new Klinge is real awesome and I’ve got one on order and it’ll be so cool and oh we can afford more capital slips so please can we build them.”
One breath is all it takes and she’s off to the races. You actually will miss this part of the briefings, Bridget is always fun to watch.
Isoroku is as blase as ever. “Your Majesty, give me the word and I’ll put together a diplomatic team to head to Kilburrough to represent our interests there, we already have a suitable site picked out for the Kilburrough embassy to us. Following the principle of keeping your enemies closer, we’re proposing to locate their embassy right next to the Palace. With a nice convenient square in front for the Department of Periphery Studies to hold events.” On anybody else the tiny twitch of the lips would be a hungry predatory shark grin.
“That being said, we would also recommend hosting an art show this year, showcasing the talents of artists from outside the core worlds.” another brief twitch of the lips. “I am thinking ‘Liberty & Justice’ would be a suitable theme to welcome the new embassy with, yes?”
Jake nearly knocks Isoroku off his seat with a single bear paw as the Political Advisor waits for his Foreign Office counterpart to sit down before rising to make his way to the podium. “Your Majesty, if you decide to expand to Nowy Wroclaw, my office stands ready to extend government services there. Beyond that, I would recommend further expanding the Colonial Office to keep ahead of our growth curve.”
Dr Bryant is up next. “Crude jokes aside, Your Majesty, we do have R&D teams who believe that they can solve the bacterium issue on Nowy Wroclaw for relatively little investment of funds and time. Other than that, the only other priority we would have is to perhaps expand our labs on the Commercial stations, which would reduce costs elsewhere.”
Harry is looking utterly exhausted, as he’d only just arrived a half hour before the meeting from the NRR. “Your Majesty, we have teams of PsyOps specialists prepared to swing into action in the Nya Copenhamn system, broadcasting agitprop intended to undermine the populations' loyalty to the extremists in charge of the two planets. All we need is permission, and yes, Janet, we have put in place the oversight requirements you recommended last year.” he manages a tired smile at your Justice Minister.
Janet laughs at that and pretends to be surprised, although it’s clear that she’s satisfied on that point. “Well this is our last rodeo, Your Majesty.” she says with a grin. “Then retirement beckons while all the rest of you schlubs get to keep on slaving away.” There is general laughter at that. “I’ve got a team ready to go with experience setting up colonial courts and such for Nowy Wroclaw, just let us know and I’ll turn ‘em loose on the poor schmucks who decide to settle there.”
