Turn 88 - Painful to Me
You have a rather grim duty to perform, as your great-grandmother’s body has arrived along with a large honor guard from the Crimson Storm. The escort is a bit unsettling at first, but you soon relax around them, they seem to consider you to be an honorary family member of theirs. It’s a bit creepy that they show it by offering you extensive cybernetic upgrades, but that seems to be their way of showing affection. After all, to them you are ‘squishy’ and ‘easy to hurt’, which worries them because they hate losing those they love to silly things like disease, bullets, or old age. You do discover that they have dialed back the level of their cyberization massively, at least until they are ‘old’ by their society's lights, at which time they receive the full package, hopefully after having and raising multiple children.
Sadly the funeral will serve multiple purposes. Firstly, for your great-grandmother as originally planned, secondly for your grandfather, as the doctor’s had disconnected life support after verifying a complete lack of brain activity and scans showed that he was, to all intents and purposes, already dead, and finally for your great-aunt Thanh and all of those lost in the Battle of Oculus Venetus.
Surviving ships have managed to limp into repair docks, and salvage crews have been spending the last few months combing the wreckage. Sadly none of the salvage from the Black Steel consists of anything you don’t already have beyond badly mangled bits of electronics that are utterly indecipherable but which are so badly damaged as to be completely useless.
You do have to pick a new CO for the IGN. You have five candidates to review.
Admiral Kenneth Jackson is the current second-in-command of the Navy, with a solid combat background including service in the Battle of Okusawa. He has a reputation of being a methodical planner with an excellent eye towards logistics, and for the last five years he’s been serving as Thanh’s principal deputy. His file does note that he is not an exceptional strategist or tactician, his strengths lie in more administrative duties despite his sterling combat record.
Admiral Vanessa Jones is the current CO of Naval Training Command, overseeing the training of new crews and officers, with a sideline in naval doctrine development and study. She is an academic officer, with relatively limited combat experience since she reached Captain’s rank. She is by far the oldest of the candidates, and would likely only serve for a few years before retiring.
Admiral Joshua Castro is the current chief of procurement for the IGN, having been recently promoted to the position following his excellent performance shepherding the Exeter project through to completion. Despite his ‘shore side’ accomplishments he is also a veteran combat officer, having served as the first CO of HMS Wichita prior to being promoted to oversee the Exeter project, where he commanded the ship, then still on her shakedown cruise, to victory over a Black Steel ship that well outmassed her.
Admiral Rachel Hebert is currently in command of Fortress Command, overseeing the extensive network of orbital and jump point defensive stations throughout the Empire. She is young for her rank, with an extensive reputation as go-getter with a peerless record in combat, including as the XO of HMS Wichita during her storied first action. Your fiance actually served under her command at one point and strongly recommends her, although he does caution you that she has absolutely no tolerance for bullshit whatsoever and will likely clash hard with General Jenkins.
Admiral Frederick Fisher is a bit of a dark horse candidate for the position. He is disliked by most of the Navy establishment as a harsh critic of what he terms ‘complacency’ and ‘lack of vision’, with a record of writing biting reviews in professional journals tearing into his colleagues for various ‘sins’, mostly ‘slavishly copying the Star League’ design practices rather than boldly experimenting to find what truly is the best paradigm for naval operations. If it weren’t for the fact that your grandfather had protected his career he’d have been beached a long time ago, although you do not know why grandfather did that.
There are only four events for the Olympics taking place in this period, mostly due to the Motorsports events being pushed back to closer to the end of the competition.
In Men’s Soccer, the Rasalhaguians continue to show their utter dominance of the pitch, scoring more goals in just the gold medal game than the other three teams combined for in all matches. Granted, the NRI and Team Griffon manage to score at least once against them, but the Bourbons fail to manage even that. The matches overall are quite friendly, despite the dominance, with the four teams joining together for a post-competition celebration that, unfortunately, led to all team members spending the night in jail after their party got just a wee bit out of hand.
The women’s soccer match is equally friendly, with the Bourbons managing to take the Gold in a penalty kick shootout with the Rasalhaguians, while Team Griffon has to settle for Bronze. The women’s team’s celebrations sort of collided with the men’s team’s celebrations, and as a result, well, the jails are rather full of footballers.
The baseball tournament is hard fought and amazingly close, with every single game going into extra innings and plenty of examples of superb sportsmanship and athleticism from every participating athlete. The Rasalhaguians take Gold, the Bourbons Silver, and Team Griffon Bronze, but every single game could have gone the opposite way.
The softball tournament, on the other hand, is marred by a cheating scandal, as the aristos of the Bourbons, once more primarily from New Picardy, are caught outright cheating with implanted buzzers used to signal signs, corked bats, and concealed ‘sticky stuff’ dispensers. The level of cheating is such that the team is completely disqualified from the tournament and barred from the stadium. In the end the Romans manage to defeat Team Griffon in the 23rd inning after a truly epic marathon game.
And now it is what your grandfather sarcastically called his favorite time of year. You are not looking forward to it, being Empress is hard enough without endless budget meetings, but the business of Empire is no respecter of your wishes. At least you’ll be able to look forward to your wedding next month.
General Jenkins is looking more serious than you’ve ever seen him before, with lines of grief in his expression that look quite out of place on the man you’d always thought of as the consummate ‘competent clown’. “Your Majesty. With the recent losses we find ourselves with a shortage of heavy units, but on the plus side all of our current designs operated within the expectations that we had for them in the recent battle.” He takes a breath, and from the times you’d sat in with your grandfather you know he’d normally be making a wisecrack right about now, but instead he simply nods to General Bradley.
“Your Majesty, the Army was not involved in the recent battle. We do evaluate that we will require more endo-steel, ferro-fibrous, and double heat sink production for the future, but that is a near universal requirement. For procurement we intend to focus on lighter units, apart from a single new Assault Division.” She brings up the chart on the screen.
Elizabeth is up next. “Your Majesty, we have at least two new colonization projects that are worth pursuing. GX-G24, the world that suffered that massive impact and has the massive storms, has been dubbed Awha, or ‘Storm’ in Maori, by the survey crew. The planet is quite mineral rich and a colony there would be very productive. In the long term we’d want DoME to address the storm issue, but that isn’t critical. The agricultural world we found has been dubbed Bauernparadies by the survey crew, or Farmer’s Paradise in German. Much like New Eden the world would be a superb source of high quality food for our more crowded Core systems. Thankfully the system wouldn’t require any terraforming whatsoever. In both cases, we would need Political and Judicial teams to handle their end of things,” she smiles over at the other two advisors who nod back, “and additionally in Bauernparadies’ case we would need our political teams to also lay the groundwork for declaring it an Imperial breadbasket.”
She shuffles her notes. “Thanks to the growth in the Empire we believe that it should be possible to recruit a twelfth DoME team to augment the eleven we currently have. In addition we do recommend further increases in the Civil Service. I know it is becoming exceptionally expensive, but the efficiency arguments still hold strong. In addition we recommend boosting the budget for Imperial Parks & Recreation, as we continue to live under the specter of war morale will be of increasing importance, best that we keep on top of things in that regard.”
“We have a single available DoME team right now, we have several options for it but thanks to the critical need for additional warship slips we recommend building a Medium Shipyard in the Dragon’s Eye system.”
She then brings up a display of investment, focus, and economic growth projects that Interior is recommending.
Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, as Elizabeth informed you, if we do decide to colonize the new systems we have political teams ready to assist in organizing and implementing new system governments in either or both. In addition, we are quite ready and able to facilitate the expansion of DoME or the Civil Service. That being said, you will need to address Parliament in the near future, there are no indications of any issues in that regard, your grandfather’s supporters have all pledged their support to you, and nothing I have seen shows there to be anything of concern.”
“Your Majesty, I have seven R&D teams ready and eager to start work,” Grace begins almost before she reaches the podium. “And I have plenty of projects that we recommend we pursue. As Admiral Jackson indicated, we have a number of projects directly in support of the Navy that we would like to pursue, plus several more broad ranging ones.”
She switches on the display. “First, for the military, on top of researching even larger warships, we also would like to initiate a comprehensive study of the performance of our existing designs, with a focus on further improving our design philosophies for the future. We have reason to believe that our current design paradigms may not be fully ideal, as we are effectively building our warships much like the Star League did, as massive jump capable dropships with even bigger guns, rather than taking a clean sheet approach. I have some very eager researchers who’d like to see about changing that. In addition, thanks to our friends in the Crimson Storm, we have design notes on extremely compact 3cm pulse lasers that would also apply to our laser anti-missile system. We strongly recommend pursuing this research.”
She checks her notes. “Finally, we recommend basic research into improved materials and power generation, as well as either dual-purpose capital lasers for the military or, if the budget allows, improved terraforming equipment for DoME.”
General Messerschmidt looks… reduced, much like General Jenkins, your Intelligence chief was extremely close to your grandfather and is obviously still mourning him. “Your Majesty, we have little to report beyond initial infiltration into the New Bourbons and ongoing success in our counterintelligence efforts.” He grimaces. “Normally I’d bring up some of the latest shenanigans from the NRI concerning… well, you know. But I guess I can say that his death hasn’t slowed them down any so far. I’ll let you know if they do anything amusing, I guess.”
Martina is last. “Your Majesty, in addition to providing support for establishing legal and justice systems in any new colonies we may establish, it is time for our regular review and streamlining of the Imperial legal and regulatory codes. With your permission we’d like to do a more in depth effort this year, in hopes of extending the amount of time until we need to do this again by a few more years.”
You have a rather grim duty to perform, as your great-grandmother’s body has arrived along with a large honor guard from the Crimson Storm. The escort is a bit unsettling at first, but you soon relax around them, they seem to consider you to be an honorary family member of theirs. It’s a bit creepy that they show it by offering you extensive cybernetic upgrades, but that seems to be their way of showing affection. After all, to them you are ‘squishy’ and ‘easy to hurt’, which worries them because they hate losing those they love to silly things like disease, bullets, or old age. You do discover that they have dialed back the level of their cyberization massively, at least until they are ‘old’ by their society's lights, at which time they receive the full package, hopefully after having and raising multiple children.
Sadly the funeral will serve multiple purposes. Firstly, for your great-grandmother as originally planned, secondly for your grandfather, as the doctor’s had disconnected life support after verifying a complete lack of brain activity and scans showed that he was, to all intents and purposes, already dead, and finally for your great-aunt Thanh and all of those lost in the Battle of Oculus Venetus.
Surviving ships have managed to limp into repair docks, and salvage crews have been spending the last few months combing the wreckage. Sadly none of the salvage from the Black Steel consists of anything you don’t already have beyond badly mangled bits of electronics that are utterly indecipherable but which are so badly damaged as to be completely useless.
You do have to pick a new CO for the IGN. You have five candidates to review.
Admiral Kenneth Jackson is the current second-in-command of the Navy, with a solid combat background including service in the Battle of Okusawa. He has a reputation of being a methodical planner with an excellent eye towards logistics, and for the last five years he’s been serving as Thanh’s principal deputy. His file does note that he is not an exceptional strategist or tactician, his strengths lie in more administrative duties despite his sterling combat record.
Admiral Vanessa Jones is the current CO of Naval Training Command, overseeing the training of new crews and officers, with a sideline in naval doctrine development and study. She is an academic officer, with relatively limited combat experience since she reached Captain’s rank. She is by far the oldest of the candidates, and would likely only serve for a few years before retiring.
Admiral Joshua Castro is the current chief of procurement for the IGN, having been recently promoted to the position following his excellent performance shepherding the Exeter project through to completion. Despite his ‘shore side’ accomplishments he is also a veteran combat officer, having served as the first CO of HMS Wichita prior to being promoted to oversee the Exeter project, where he commanded the ship, then still on her shakedown cruise, to victory over a Black Steel ship that well outmassed her.
Admiral Rachel Hebert is currently in command of Fortress Command, overseeing the extensive network of orbital and jump point defensive stations throughout the Empire. She is young for her rank, with an extensive reputation as go-getter with a peerless record in combat, including as the XO of HMS Wichita during her storied first action. Your fiance actually served under her command at one point and strongly recommends her, although he does caution you that she has absolutely no tolerance for bullshit whatsoever and will likely clash hard with General Jenkins.
Admiral Frederick Fisher is a bit of a dark horse candidate for the position. He is disliked by most of the Navy establishment as a harsh critic of what he terms ‘complacency’ and ‘lack of vision’, with a record of writing biting reviews in professional journals tearing into his colleagues for various ‘sins’, mostly ‘slavishly copying the Star League’ design practices rather than boldly experimenting to find what truly is the best paradigm for naval operations. If it weren’t for the fact that your grandfather had protected his career he’d have been beached a long time ago, although you do not know why grandfather did that.
| [] | Kenneth Jackson |
| [] | Vanessa Jones |
| [] | Joshua Castro |
| [] | Rachel Hebert |
| [] | Frederick Fisher |
There are only four events for the Olympics taking place in this period, mostly due to the Motorsports events being pushed back to closer to the end of the competition.
In Men’s Soccer, the Rasalhaguians continue to show their utter dominance of the pitch, scoring more goals in just the gold medal game than the other three teams combined for in all matches. Granted, the NRI and Team Griffon manage to score at least once against them, but the Bourbons fail to manage even that. The matches overall are quite friendly, despite the dominance, with the four teams joining together for a post-competition celebration that, unfortunately, led to all team members spending the night in jail after their party got just a wee bit out of hand.
The women’s soccer match is equally friendly, with the Bourbons managing to take the Gold in a penalty kick shootout with the Rasalhaguians, while Team Griffon has to settle for Bronze. The women’s team’s celebrations sort of collided with the men’s team’s celebrations, and as a result, well, the jails are rather full of footballers.
The baseball tournament is hard fought and amazingly close, with every single game going into extra innings and plenty of examples of superb sportsmanship and athleticism from every participating athlete. The Rasalhaguians take Gold, the Bourbons Silver, and Team Griffon Bronze, but every single game could have gone the opposite way.
The softball tournament, on the other hand, is marred by a cheating scandal, as the aristos of the Bourbons, once more primarily from New Picardy, are caught outright cheating with implanted buzzers used to signal signs, corked bats, and concealed ‘sticky stuff’ dispensers. The level of cheating is such that the team is completely disqualified from the tournament and barred from the stadium. In the end the Romans manage to defeat Team Griffon in the 23rd inning after a truly epic marathon game.
And now it is what your grandfather sarcastically called his favorite time of year. You are not looking forward to it, being Empress is hard enough without endless budget meetings, but the business of Empire is no respecter of your wishes. At least you’ll be able to look forward to your wedding next month.
General Jenkins is looking more serious than you’ve ever seen him before, with lines of grief in his expression that look quite out of place on the man you’d always thought of as the consummate ‘competent clown’. “Your Majesty. With the recent losses we find ourselves with a shortage of heavy units, but on the plus side all of our current designs operated within the expectations that we had for them in the recent battle.” He takes a breath, and from the times you’d sat in with your grandfather you know he’d normally be making a wisecrack right about now, but instead he simply nods to General Bradley.
“Your Majesty, the Army was not involved in the recent battle. We do evaluate that we will require more endo-steel, ferro-fibrous, and double heat sink production for the future, but that is a near universal requirement. For procurement we intend to focus on lighter units, apart from a single new Assault Division.” She brings up the chart on the screen.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- Strategic Materials Production
- New Factories
- Endo-Steel - Okusawa
- Ferro-Fibrous - Okusawa
- Double Heat Sinks - Okusawa
- Expand Production
- Endo-Steel
- Ferro-Fibrous
- Double Heat Sinks
- New Factories
- New Factories
- New Logistics Factories
- 9 on New Port Royal
- 20 on New Pollux
- New Logistics Factories
- Strategic Materials Production
- Procurement
- Mechs
- Heavy/Assault
- 6 Assault Regiments
- 3 Standard Mech Regiments
- Light/Medium
- 12 Medium Scout Regiments
- 12 Medium Mech Regiments
- Heavy/Assault
- Conventional
- 12 Air Cavalry Regiments
- 24 Light Armored Regiments
- 12 Light Mechanized Regiments
- 18 Garrison Regiments
- Militia
- Add 15 Militia Rating
- Mechs
- Production
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- New ASF Factories
- Okusawa
- New Pollux
- New Castor
- Chuma
- Edelsteine
- New Strategic Materials Factories
- Ferro-Aluminum - Edelsteine
- Expand Production
- Ferro-Aluminum
- New ASF Factories
- Procurement
- 30 Heavy Carrier Wings
- Production
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- New Production Facilities
- Small Warship Yards
- Calliope, New Port Royal
- Medium Warship Yards
- Griffon, New Capricorn, Nowa Warszawa
- Small Warship Yards
- Refit & Repair Facilities
- Upgrade all Refit & Repair Facilities
- New Production Facilities
- Procurement
- Regular Dropships
- 50 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
- 23 Long Beach-class Parasite Destroyers
- Large Dropships
- 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- 11 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
- Jumpships
- 15 Windjammer jumpships
- Escorts
- 20 Fletcher Flight II Destroyers
- Small Warships
- 6 Wichita-class Heavy Cruisers
- Medium Warships
- EITHER
- 2 Exeter-class Heavy Cruisers
- OR
- 2 Kongo-class Battlecruisers
- OR
- 2 Furious-class Large Light Cruisers
- OR
- 1 Exeter AND 1 Kongo
- OR
- 1 Exeter AND 1 Furious
- OR
- 1 Kongo AND 1 Furious
- EITHER
- Miscellaneous
- 757 PPG-001
- Regular Dropships
- Production
Elizabeth is up next. “Your Majesty, we have at least two new colonization projects that are worth pursuing. GX-G24, the world that suffered that massive impact and has the massive storms, has been dubbed Awha, or ‘Storm’ in Maori, by the survey crew. The planet is quite mineral rich and a colony there would be very productive. In the long term we’d want DoME to address the storm issue, but that isn’t critical. The agricultural world we found has been dubbed Bauernparadies by the survey crew, or Farmer’s Paradise in German. Much like New Eden the world would be a superb source of high quality food for our more crowded Core systems. Thankfully the system wouldn’t require any terraforming whatsoever. In both cases, we would need Political and Judicial teams to handle their end of things,” she smiles over at the other two advisors who nod back, “and additionally in Bauernparadies’ case we would need our political teams to also lay the groundwork for declaring it an Imperial breadbasket.”
She shuffles her notes. “Thanks to the growth in the Empire we believe that it should be possible to recruit a twelfth DoME team to augment the eleven we currently have. In addition we do recommend further increases in the Civil Service. I know it is becoming exceptionally expensive, but the efficiency arguments still hold strong. In addition we recommend boosting the budget for Imperial Parks & Recreation, as we continue to live under the specter of war morale will be of increasing importance, best that we keep on top of things in that regard.”
“We have a single available DoME team right now, we have several options for it but thanks to the critical need for additional warship slips we recommend building a Medium Shipyard in the Dragon’s Eye system.”
She then brings up a display of investment, focus, and economic growth projects that Interior is recommending.
- Investment and Focus
- Economic Focus
- Core World
- New Port Royal
- Peripheral World
- New Pollux
- Core World
- Investment
- Edelsteine
- Major Economic Investment
- New Capricorn
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- New Pollux
- New Castor
- Edelsteine
- Nya Kopenhamn
- Kainga
- Military Infrastructure expansion
- Chuma
- Bari
- Skala
- Pieklo
- Economic Focus
Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, as Elizabeth informed you, if we do decide to colonize the new systems we have political teams ready to assist in organizing and implementing new system governments in either or both. In addition, we are quite ready and able to facilitate the expansion of DoME or the Civil Service. That being said, you will need to address Parliament in the near future, there are no indications of any issues in that regard, your grandfather’s supporters have all pledged their support to you, and nothing I have seen shows there to be anything of concern.”
“Your Majesty, I have seven R&D teams ready and eager to start work,” Grace begins almost before she reaches the podium. “And I have plenty of projects that we recommend we pursue. As Admiral Jackson indicated, we have a number of projects directly in support of the Navy that we would like to pursue, plus several more broad ranging ones.”
She switches on the display. “First, for the military, on top of researching even larger warships, we also would like to initiate a comprehensive study of the performance of our existing designs, with a focus on further improving our design philosophies for the future. We have reason to believe that our current design paradigms may not be fully ideal, as we are effectively building our warships much like the Star League did, as massive jump capable dropships with even bigger guns, rather than taking a clean sheet approach. I have some very eager researchers who’d like to see about changing that. In addition, thanks to our friends in the Crimson Storm, we have design notes on extremely compact 3cm pulse lasers that would also apply to our laser anti-missile system. We strongly recommend pursuing this research.”
She checks her notes. “Finally, we recommend basic research into improved materials and power generation, as well as either dual-purpose capital lasers for the military or, if the budget allows, improved terraforming equipment for DoME.”
General Messerschmidt looks… reduced, much like General Jenkins, your Intelligence chief was extremely close to your grandfather and is obviously still mourning him. “Your Majesty, we have little to report beyond initial infiltration into the New Bourbons and ongoing success in our counterintelligence efforts.” He grimaces. “Normally I’d bring up some of the latest shenanigans from the NRI concerning… well, you know. But I guess I can say that his death hasn’t slowed them down any so far. I’ll let you know if they do anything amusing, I guess.”
Martina is last. “Your Majesty, in addition to providing support for establishing legal and justice systems in any new colonies we may establish, it is time for our regular review and streamlining of the Imperial legal and regulatory codes. With your permission we’d like to do a more in depth effort this year, in hopes of extending the amount of time until we need to do this again by a few more years.”