Turn 83 - Itchy Trigger Finger
A major battle has broken out between ISF fanatics and Okusawa security forces on the grounds of the Shinto temple that had been built there. By the time your own forces arrived the fighting was more or less finished. The temple was completely involved in flames, with no hope of saving any of the structures, but the local security forces had managed to wipe out the attackers.. Without your help. A number of the monks and priests of the temple were killed, and all of the survivors and much of the local forces were seriously injured, but they won, which is a major shot in the arm to their morale. A follow-up report several days later says that the local community has banded together to rebuild the temple.
New Phoenix is hit by a small Black Steel raid that is handled by the local garrison, a pair of Vincents are no match for your defending forces after all. One Dart sustains some slight damage and spends a few days in the repair yards to deal with it. No dropships were lost, the two Majestics and two dozen Bainbridges barely engaged the enemy before the combined Dart, Stiletto and Dagger squadron took down the seriously outclassed pair of enemy corvettes. A clever sensor officer onboard one of your Majestics notes that there is absolutely no sign of any atmosphere or decompression when the enemy ships are destroyed according to spectroscopic analysis. This leads to an exhaustive survey of all extant sensor data and it is determined that at no point in any of the Black Steel raids, from all the wreckage you’ve recovered, you’ve yet to find anything even vaguely resembling fragments from any sort of life support system.
There is, however, a near disaster. One of your five Monolith class Jumpships that you captured from the Dragon is transporting the 4th Brigade Combat Team to a training exercise when utter pandemonium breaks out. The jumpship attempted to jump as normal, but was still there afterwards… without a core, and a completely freaked out and panicking crew and passengers. Every single person on board the jumpship and all nine dropships are utterly convinced that they are dead. They saw the explosion coming for them, they felt the flames and the blast, they heard it, they smelled it, they tasted it. The stories are consistent across the entire crew, every single dropship crewman, every single member of the 4th.
After days of head scratching and trying to figure things out an answer is sort of found. Every single clock onboard any of the ships, every single person's watch, everything that measured time, was a quarter second out of sync with everything else. The only explanation that even comes close to making sense is that the Monolith suffered a catastrophic misjump and detonated its core, but the very process of detonating the core sent the jumpship that quarter second back in time, rewinding the event and leaving everybody alive.
Study of KF physics has a reputation for being the single most reliable indicator of somebody who will someday be offered a prestigious tenured position in the Department of Periphery Studies, and this is borne out here because this is utterly maddening to try and parse.
It doesn’t help that everybody involved is suffering from such extreme PTSD that they have all been placed on mental health leave, being transported (under sedation) to a dedicated facility that specializes in treating PTSD.
The remaining Monoliths are ordered to remain in place while careful inspections are carried out on their jump cores, likewise the captured Tramps are subjected to equally careful inspections. Microfractures are detected in the cores of two ships, both among the oldest of the captured vessels. In neither case is the damage deemed to be critical, however out of an abundance of caution both vessels, which luckily were in the Griffon system already, are brought to the repair and refit yards for thorough overhauls of their cores.
And now it is time to work on the budget. Hurray.
No really. Hurray.
Let’s try this again. Hurray.
General Jenkins is grinning… and it is not a nice grin. “Well, Boss, we’re in pretty good shape, regardless of anything else. This year, if all goes according to plan, we’ll complete our ninth large mech production site, allowing us to build an entire Assault division in a single go. The problem lies in deciding how to expand from here. We should build additional mech production in groups of three, simply to allow us to continually produce complete formations rather than having to break up production over multiple years. I’ll let General Bradley give you the details there. General Romanov is going to be talking about increasing ASF production some more, as well as ferro-aluminum production, and your sister is going to troll the hell out of you like she always does, fair warning so you don’t blame me. That being said, General Bradley?”
She steps up to the podium, activating the display. “This year we will not be requesting maximum production, in the hopes of clearing the deck for being able to build a full Assault division next year. We will be constructing three more Light Brigade Combat Teams, these units are proving exceptionally efficient in exercises and simulations and we are looking forward to actual live fire testing in the future. Likewise the Light Armored Divisions are proving their worth as well. That being said, we would like to focus on increasing our production capacity. As General Jenkins noted, for mech production we strongly recommend building factories in three factory blocks, which unfortunately leaves us in a bit of a pickle. DoME is responsible for constructing megafactories, which produce our heaviest mech designs. There are only 2 teams available according to Elizabeth, so we are requesting that these teams be held in reserve this year so that next year we can begin simultaneous construction of fresh megafactories in the Griffon, Nowa Warszawa, and Calliope systems. We are also requesting that new Mech factories be built in the New Phoenix, New Castor, New Pollux, Edelsteine, New Capricorn, and Okusawa systems. Finally we are requesting a total of 15 new Conventional Military Factories spread across Kainga, New Port Royal, and Griff’s Leap.”
She brings up the full request on the display for your review.
She loads up the display, which promptly starts playing an ancient music video found in SARAHs databanks all those decades ago, one which causes you to introduce your palm to a loving encounter with your face, which as we all know is forbidden love.
After the laughter and threats of defenestration die down, she brings up the actual request.
She shuffles her notes a bit. “In regards to the factory production question, we have reorganized here in Interior, making oversight over factory production more efficient. A single team can now oversee construction of a given factory type in multiple systems, although limitations in vetted contractor availability do still limit us to one such project per system unless we are building conventional vehicle factories, in which case we estimate that we can build five at the same time per system.”
She sets down the notebook and picks up a heavy folder. “For development and investment opportunities our experts have the following recommendations.”
You had sent Leila off to the NRI to deal with some minor diplomatic matters between your respective nations, mostly revolving around the Oculus Venetus system. She’d informed you before her departure that there was nothing pressing from the Foreign Office, although Cultural Affairs wanted approval to build a memorial to those lost at the Battle of Stahlfurt.
Therefore Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, with the Chamber elections next year we do not recommend engaging in any lobbying efforts this year as they would likely be redundant. We are prepared to support the establishment of new system governments in both the Chuma and Stahlfurt systems with your approval.”
Grace is up next. “Alright, I’ve got seven teams and labs eager for work. To start with, the odd interference with HPG transmissions in the Kainga system is causing a mild uproar in the KF crowd, they’d like to conduct a number of experiments and try to figure out what is causing the issue. Next we would like to strongly recommend dedicating teams to the next generation of standard core jumpships. I know they aren’t as sexy as compact core vessels, but they serve a critical purpose. Finally we would strongly recommend funding research into fundamental Kearny-Fuchida theory itself. We have the remote facility, and we have a number of geniuses just a step or two removed from being committed to the Department of Periphery Studies. Plus our engineering teams have run into a bottleneck in terms of further improving the compact core. Last, but certainly not least, I’ve requested this before, our weapons development people are eager to work on it, and unlike the other projects these are fairly cheap. Yes, I’m bringing up the advanced machine guns and flamers again.”
General Messerschmidt is up next. “Your Majesty, I have very little to report this year, we are still monitoring Nya Kopenhamn, the NRI hasn’t done anything that I can use to troll you, and apart from setting up an outpost on GX-O25, the NRR is quiet this year.”
Martina is up last. “Justice is prepared to support the colonization efforts on Chuma and Stahlfurt if desired, Your Majesty, otherwise we strongly recommend financing the semi-decadal review and rationalization of the Empire’s legal and regulatory codes.”
A major battle has broken out between ISF fanatics and Okusawa security forces on the grounds of the Shinto temple that had been built there. By the time your own forces arrived the fighting was more or less finished. The temple was completely involved in flames, with no hope of saving any of the structures, but the local security forces had managed to wipe out the attackers.. Without your help. A number of the monks and priests of the temple were killed, and all of the survivors and much of the local forces were seriously injured, but they won, which is a major shot in the arm to their morale. A follow-up report several days later says that the local community has banded together to rebuild the temple.
New Phoenix is hit by a small Black Steel raid that is handled by the local garrison, a pair of Vincents are no match for your defending forces after all. One Dart sustains some slight damage and spends a few days in the repair yards to deal with it. No dropships were lost, the two Majestics and two dozen Bainbridges barely engaged the enemy before the combined Dart, Stiletto and Dagger squadron took down the seriously outclassed pair of enemy corvettes. A clever sensor officer onboard one of your Majestics notes that there is absolutely no sign of any atmosphere or decompression when the enemy ships are destroyed according to spectroscopic analysis. This leads to an exhaustive survey of all extant sensor data and it is determined that at no point in any of the Black Steel raids, from all the wreckage you’ve recovered, you’ve yet to find anything even vaguely resembling fragments from any sort of life support system.
There is, however, a near disaster. One of your five Monolith class Jumpships that you captured from the Dragon is transporting the 4th Brigade Combat Team to a training exercise when utter pandemonium breaks out. The jumpship attempted to jump as normal, but was still there afterwards… without a core, and a completely freaked out and panicking crew and passengers. Every single person on board the jumpship and all nine dropships are utterly convinced that they are dead. They saw the explosion coming for them, they felt the flames and the blast, they heard it, they smelled it, they tasted it. The stories are consistent across the entire crew, every single dropship crewman, every single member of the 4th.
After days of head scratching and trying to figure things out an answer is sort of found. Every single clock onboard any of the ships, every single person's watch, everything that measured time, was a quarter second out of sync with everything else. The only explanation that even comes close to making sense is that the Monolith suffered a catastrophic misjump and detonated its core, but the very process of detonating the core sent the jumpship that quarter second back in time, rewinding the event and leaving everybody alive.
Study of KF physics has a reputation for being the single most reliable indicator of somebody who will someday be offered a prestigious tenured position in the Department of Periphery Studies, and this is borne out here because this is utterly maddening to try and parse.
It doesn’t help that everybody involved is suffering from such extreme PTSD that they have all been placed on mental health leave, being transported (under sedation) to a dedicated facility that specializes in treating PTSD.
The remaining Monoliths are ordered to remain in place while careful inspections are carried out on their jump cores, likewise the captured Tramps are subjected to equally careful inspections. Microfractures are detected in the cores of two ships, both among the oldest of the captured vessels. In neither case is the damage deemed to be critical, however out of an abundance of caution both vessels, which luckily were in the Griffon system already, are brought to the repair and refit yards for thorough overhauls of their cores.
And now it is time to work on the budget. Hurray.
No really. Hurray.
Let’s try this again. Hurray.
General Jenkins is grinning… and it is not a nice grin. “Well, Boss, we’re in pretty good shape, regardless of anything else. This year, if all goes according to plan, we’ll complete our ninth large mech production site, allowing us to build an entire Assault division in a single go. The problem lies in deciding how to expand from here. We should build additional mech production in groups of three, simply to allow us to continually produce complete formations rather than having to break up production over multiple years. I’ll let General Bradley give you the details there. General Romanov is going to be talking about increasing ASF production some more, as well as ferro-aluminum production, and your sister is going to troll the hell out of you like she always does, fair warning so you don’t blame me. That being said, General Bradley?”
She steps up to the podium, activating the display. “This year we will not be requesting maximum production, in the hopes of clearing the deck for being able to build a full Assault division next year. We will be constructing three more Light Brigade Combat Teams, these units are proving exceptionally efficient in exercises and simulations and we are looking forward to actual live fire testing in the future. Likewise the Light Armored Divisions are proving their worth as well. That being said, we would like to focus on increasing our production capacity. As General Jenkins noted, for mech production we strongly recommend building factories in three factory blocks, which unfortunately leaves us in a bit of a pickle. DoME is responsible for constructing megafactories, which produce our heaviest mech designs. There are only 2 teams available according to Elizabeth, so we are requesting that these teams be held in reserve this year so that next year we can begin simultaneous construction of fresh megafactories in the Griffon, Nowa Warszawa, and Calliope systems. We are also requesting that new Mech factories be built in the New Phoenix, New Castor, New Pollux, Edelsteine, New Capricorn, and Okusawa systems. Finally we are requesting a total of 15 new Conventional Military Factories spread across Kainga, New Port Royal, and Griff’s Leap.”
She brings up the full request on the display for your review.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- Hold 2 DoME teams in reserve for next year
- Construct 6 Mech Factories
- New Phoenix
- New Castor
- New Pollux
- Edelsteine
- New Capricorn
- Okusawa
- Construct 15 Conventional Military Factories
- 5 - Kainga
- 5 - New Port Royal
- 5 - Griff’s Leap
- Procurement
- Heavy/Assault Mechs
- 1 Standard Mech Regiment
- Light/Medium Mechs
- 9 Medium Mech Regiments
- 9 Medium Scout Regiments
- Conventional Vehicles
- 9 Air Cavalry Regiments
- 8 Light Mechanized Regiments
- 16 Light Armored Regiments
- Garrison Forces
- Add 1 Garrison Rating to New Port Royal
- Heavy/Assault Mechs
- Production
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- Construct 4 ASF Factories
- Griffon
- Nowa Warszawa
- Calliope
- Nowy Wrocław
- Construct 4 ASF Factories
- Procurement
- 30 Heavy Carrier Wings
- 6 Heavy Fighter Wings
- Production
She loads up the display, which promptly starts playing an ancient music video found in SARAHs databanks all those decades ago, one which causes you to introduce your palm to a loving encounter with your face, which as we all know is forbidden love.
After the laughter and threats of defenestration die down, she brings up the actual request.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- 1 Medium Shipyard
- Griffon
- 2 Light Shipyards
- Nowa Warszawa
- Calliope
- 5 Escort Yards
- New Port Royal
- New Capricorn
- Griff’s Leap
- New Phoenix
- Edelsteine
- Expand all Refit & Repair Yards
- Expand all Naval Shipyards
- Note, final expansion planned for the near future, primarily to equalize production of standard dropships year to year.
- 1 Medium Shipyard
- Procurement
- Regular Dropships
- 81 Long Beach Parasite Missile Destroyers
- Large Dropships
- 30 Saipan Parasite Carriers
- 6 Enterprise-B Parasite Exploration Vessels
- Jumpships
- 2 Galleon Jumpships
- Escorts
- 5 Haida Light Destroyers
- Light Warships
- 4 Wichita Heavy Cruisers
- Medium Warships
- 1 Exeter Heavy Cruiser
- Miscellaneous
- 341 PPG-001
- Regular Dropships
- Production
She shuffles her notes a bit. “In regards to the factory production question, we have reorganized here in Interior, making oversight over factory production more efficient. A single team can now oversee construction of a given factory type in multiple systems, although limitations in vetted contractor availability do still limit us to one such project per system unless we are building conventional vehicle factories, in which case we estimate that we can build five at the same time per system.”
She sets down the notebook and picks up a heavy folder. “For development and investment opportunities our experts have the following recommendations.”
- Core World Focus
- Calliope
- Still the poorest of the three Core systems, focusing here will help even things out, especially as the system is in the midst of a minor growth spurt thanks to refit contracts to Calliope Motors.
- Calliope
- Peripheral World Focus
- New Castor
- With nearly the lowest per-capita GDP in the Empire, New Castor is in the process of turning the corner economically thanks to a strong showing from the metals refining industry this year. Focusing here should help reinforce this success.
- New Castor
- Economic Investment
- New Capricorn
- The system is in the midst of a significant economic growth period. Until Okusawa fully settles, reinforcing economic success in the New Capricorn system would be highly useful for future growth.
- New Capricorn
You had sent Leila off to the NRI to deal with some minor diplomatic matters between your respective nations, mostly revolving around the Oculus Venetus system. She’d informed you before her departure that there was nothing pressing from the Foreign Office, although Cultural Affairs wanted approval to build a memorial to those lost at the Battle of Stahlfurt.
Therefore Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, with the Chamber elections next year we do not recommend engaging in any lobbying efforts this year as they would likely be redundant. We are prepared to support the establishment of new system governments in both the Chuma and Stahlfurt systems with your approval.”
Grace is up next. “Alright, I’ve got seven teams and labs eager for work. To start with, the odd interference with HPG transmissions in the Kainga system is causing a mild uproar in the KF crowd, they’d like to conduct a number of experiments and try to figure out what is causing the issue. Next we would like to strongly recommend dedicating teams to the next generation of standard core jumpships. I know they aren’t as sexy as compact core vessels, but they serve a critical purpose. Finally we would strongly recommend funding research into fundamental Kearny-Fuchida theory itself. We have the remote facility, and we have a number of geniuses just a step or two removed from being committed to the Department of Periphery Studies. Plus our engineering teams have run into a bottleneck in terms of further improving the compact core. Last, but certainly not least, I’ve requested this before, our weapons development people are eager to work on it, and unlike the other projects these are fairly cheap. Yes, I’m bringing up the advanced machine guns and flamers again.”
General Messerschmidt is up next. “Your Majesty, I have very little to report this year, we are still monitoring Nya Kopenhamn, the NRI hasn’t done anything that I can use to troll you, and apart from setting up an outpost on GX-O25, the NRR is quiet this year.”
Martina is up last. “Justice is prepared to support the colonization efforts on Chuma and Stahlfurt if desired, Your Majesty, otherwise we strongly recommend financing the semi-decadal review and rationalization of the Empire’s legal and regulatory codes.”