Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

LordSunhawk · Jul 1, 2022

Turn 98 - In All Affairs Of State

You spend several lovely weeks with your kids attending the Pan-Griffon Games, which are being held in the Calliope system this year. Of course, this also means that your kids wind up adopting some ‘cute’ lystrosaurus, and the family raptors are having a grand old time of things.

The most surreal part was playing fetch from the cockpit of an assault mech with a Rex. Evidently young Rex’s loved to play fetch, and even had favorite colored balls when there were more than one youngster in a particular territory. Rex populations were slowly rising, now that the issues with the Allosaurus packs had been dealt with quite decisively, but thankfully the birthrate was low enough that there was little risk of overcrowding. Interestingly, Rex’s that lived near the human outposts on the planet tended to have territories a fraction of the size of Rex’s further out, giving some interesting insights into just how smart the massive predators really were.

The Games were enjoyable as well, with a number of surprises as some Peripheral colonies managed to win medals, including a few golds, in sports previously dominated by the Core worlds. The celebrations by those teams are quite nice, and you have strong hopes for the next Olympics, especially in these sailing events that the Bourbons are insisting on.

You have a quiet word with the current head of the Special Branch, setting out the parameters for what you want done with the infiltrators from the Rouges Noir. You are assured that they will handle the situation with maximum discretion. Meanwhile, you arrange with General Messerschmidt that any future ‘refugees’ from there will be quite courteously brought to the ‘new refugee center’ in Griff’s Roost, which just so happens to be the maximum security orbital prison there.

You also direct the General Staff to update all war plans related to the Rouges Noir, as they had effectively declared war upon the Empire and you have no intention of letting this pass without consequences. Unfortunately the Black Steel is your primary focus right now, but once your production reaches the point where you can divert forces… you anticipate with a certain cold glee the reaction you’ll get. They like mass swarm attacks? You have all the artillery.

Speaking of the Black Steel, your navy manages to chase off an honest-to-god Bugeye spy ship from Feurstem. Otherwise the Black Steel hasn’t shown up, although the NRI reports a few sightings of light units.

Your suspicions about the silence from Periphery Studies are fulfilled when they suddenly declare themselves to be ninjas, dress in ridiculous ninja suits with absurd hairstyles, and are running around doing ‘ninja things’, generally with foam rubber throwing stars, nunchakus, and truly hilarious attempts at martial arts. They seem quite enthusiastic about this latest pastime.

Of course, they then promptly stage an assault on the Imperial Senate, seeking to accomplish an S-ranked mission to kidnap the Eldest, or so they say as they besiege the poor security staff with foam rubber shurikens and run at them in a truly ridiculous pose. The Eldest finally comes out, lays down, and informs everybody that the Periphery Studies ninjas ‘petting jitsu’ is quite enjoyable, but they are missing spots and need to train more.

Which prompts them to charge back to campus for MOAR TRAINING. Periphery Studies, gotta love ‘em.

And now it is budget time!

General Jenkins leads things off. “Your Majesty, next year we’ll be starting procurement of ground forces again, so these meetings will take a bit longer in the near future. For now the Army just wants more strategic materials for maximum construction rates. The Aerospace Force is wanting to replace the old Falcon trainers as well as get authorization for a mass upgrade of several of their units, and the Navy is doing obscure, obscene, and possibly heretical things in hopes of getting more ships.” He nods to General Bradley.

“Your Majesty, the funds spent on SLEP efforts over the last several years will soon bear fruit. Much of it has been devoted to our production capabilities, allowing us to make the transition without any additional expense to the Treasury. However, we will need to continue to focus on building up our strategic material production capabilities. Thanks to the significantly improved efficiency, we will be able to procure a pair of Infantry Divisions, plus potentially a pure Mech division, each year, which is a significant improvement to the situation, but we hope to increase production enough to be able to procure even more forces.”

Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - Upgrade all DHS Orbital Factories
    - Upgrade all Ferro Fibrous Orbital Factories
      - Highest priority
    - Upgrade all EndoSteel Orbital Factories
- Procurement
  - 30 Garrison Regiments
  - 30 Militia Rating

General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, the Falcon ASF has served as our trainer for over 75 years and is, by far, the oldest piece of equipment still in service with the military. While we have been updating it over the years, the fact remains that it is an old design of very limited relevance. Worse, the 3cm and 5cm lasers used by the design are painfully obsolescent and out of production. We are fortunate to have a fairly substantial stockpile of these weapons, but that stockpile is starting to run low. In addition the airframes are useless in terms of training maintainers, due to the complete lack of anything even resembling modern systems.”

She brings up a slide, showing two different proposals. “We have two proposals to address this. One would completely retire the Falcon platform, replacing it with a dedicated training variant of the Sparrowhawk interceptor. The advantage of this approach is a significant simplification of our logistics system due to the extremely high commonality of parts with the base model, while the proposed Sparrowhawk-T is deliberately designed to allow trainees to be trained with a mix of lasers and missiles. The disadvantage is a nearly 50% higher cost to procure the Sparrowhawk-T over the other design.”

“The other option is to simply update the Falcon platform to the modern era, making use of modern materials, systems, and equipment. The Falcon III is significantly cheaper than the alternative, while keeping a rather loved airframe in service. The Falcon was our first front-line ASF, Your Majesty, and there are plenty of people in the Aerospace Force who would much rather see it remain in service.”

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Spd	Specials
[]	Sparrowhawk-T Trainer	$3,213.33	DHS, FAA	23	13	17	Armored 1 Missile 1 AMS 1 Swift
[]	Falcon III Trainer	$2,165.87	DHS, FAA	11	11	18	Swift

“As far as procurement goes, we do need to expand our training establishment, Your Majesty, but we also have sufficient stockpiles to build the existing trainers if need be.”

Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Procurement
  - 30 Heavy Carrier Wings
  - 30 Attack Wings
  - 30 Training Wings

Admiral Fisher had been giving General Jenkins a stink eye for a while, but now he takes the podium. “Yes, we need lots of ships, yes we need more shipyards, yes we’re going to cost the Treasury more money, no I don’t think they’ll like it, and no I don’t particularly care. The Navy is the front line of defense against those Black Steel bastards, and we need to make sure it is strong enough to finally crush them like the rats they are.”

Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
  - Orbital Shipyards
    - New Shipyards
      - Stahlfurt
      - Olej
      - Nox
      - Calliope
      - New Capricorn
    - Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
  - Refit & Repair Yards
    - New Yards
      - Raj
    - Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
  - Escort Yards
    - Bohren
    - Iskra
    - Stahlfurt
    - Skala
    - Chuma
    - Bari
  - Small Warship Yards
    - New Castor
    - New Pollux
  - Medium Warship Yards
    - Griffon
    - Calliope
    - Nowa Warszawa
    - Okusawa
    - New Phoenix
    - New Port Royal
    - Nya Kopenhamn
    - Kainga
    - Edelsteine
    - New Capricorn
- Orbital Defenses
  - Jump Point Defenses
    - Glorreich
    - Pryyemnyy
    - Novalar
    - Shin Tōkyō
  - Black Tower
    - Stahlfurt
    - New Port Royal
    - Kainga
    - New Pollux
    - Nox
    - Iskra
- Procurement
  - Standard Dropships
    - 100 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 40 Trenton-class Transports
    - 18 Ensign-class Training Dropships
  - Large Dropships
    - 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    - 17 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 34 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 1 Canopus-class Parasite Battleship
  - Jumpships
    - 7 Windjammer-class
  - Escorts
    - 30 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 30 Lyr-class Corvettes
  - Small Warships
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 5 Hosho-class Light Carriers
  - Medium Warships
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers

Elizabeth Lee is up next for Interior. “Your Majesty, unfortunately all but the dedicated planetary optimization DoME teams are hard at work on various projects. For the planetary optimization team, we recommend dispatching them to the Pieklo system this year.”

She checks her notes as she brings up a display. “Prospects for economic investment and growth are generally solid this year, Your Majesty, and with a new Core world we have an opportunity to massively invest in that system's infrastructure with corresponding benefits.”

Economic
- Economic Focus
  - Core
    - New Capricorn
  - Periphery
    - Bohren
- Massive Investment
  - Core
    - New Castor
  - Periphery
    - Awha
- Investment
  - Kainga
- Major Investment
  - New Castor

“In addition we have three systems that we can begin colonization efforts in immediately, and a fourth that will have to wait until next year. We strongly recommend initiating colonization of all three. In addition, it is important for us to continue expanding the colonial office in order to handle this growth.”

Colonization
- Glorreich
- Pryyemnyy
- Novalar
Establish System Government
- Glorreich
- Pryyemnyy
- Novalar
Establish Justice System
- Glorreich
- Pryyemnyy
- Novalar

Leila is in the NRR coordinating with them for hosting the Olympics in two years, according to her dispatches they are hoping to make it a statement Games and have heavily invested in putting on a superb show. You can’t wait to see what they manage.

You had wondered why Tiberius was handcuffed to his chair, looking mulish, but you discovered that your husband had figured out his next prank and preempted it. It’s nice to see the tables turned!

“Yes, yes, laugh it up. We’re ready to establish those system governments that Elizabeth mentioned, and I have all sorts of wonderful places to trot you out for PR work.” His eyes glitter with a bit of malicious glee, and with a sinking sensation you realize that it is likely you’ll be spending time at the most embarrassing events the stinking prankster can find in revenge for this.

Totally your husband’s fault.

Grace is off in her labs, since there are no teams available for any projects, but she does send a memo detailing some interesting theoretical work that a small engineering firm in the Kaiyo system has come up with, potentially allowing more compact heat sinks for use in battlemechs. Your Mechwarrior soul leaps in joy at the news.

General Messerschmidt is off scheming with the Special Branch, and you leave him to it.

“Your Majesty, it’s time to revisit streamlining Imperial laws and regulations again. I’ve got teams ready to get started on it.” Martina tells you, smiling a little at your sigh. It’s always so much paperwork when this happens!

LordSunhawk · Jul 4, 2022

Turn 98 - Ra Ra Rasputin

Meta Event	10
Dynasty Luck	59
	Successes
Imperial Approval	-3
Approval Change	-4
Political Event	-2
	Successes
Imperial Economy	7
Economic Event	3
Research Event	7

Griffon	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	1

Nowa Warszawa	Econ	14
	Health	0
	Event	3

Calliope IV	Econ	3
	Health	2
	Event	4

TTP	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1

New Capricorn	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	2

Nowy Śląsk	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	0


Edelsteine	Econ	5
	Health	1
	Event	1

Nowy Wroclaw	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	4


Griff's Leap	Econ	5
	Health	N/A
	Event	2


New Phoenix	Econ	5
	Health	2
	Event	3

New Eden	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	1


New Castor	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	2

Okusawa	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	0

New Pollux	Econ	12
	Health	5
	Event	3

New Port Royal	Econ	2
	Health	14
	Event	3

Kainga	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	4

Chuma	Econ	1
	Health	10
	Event	5


Stahlfurt	Econ	0
	Health	N/A
	Event	0


Bari	Econ	12
	Health	0
	Event	1


Skala	Econ	0
	Health	2
	Event	4


Pieklo	Econ	12
	Health	1
	Event	0


Nya Köpenhamn	Econ	5
	Health	0
	Event	1

Bauernparadis	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1


Awha	Econ	10
	Health	3
	Event	1


Kaiyo	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	3


Bohren	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	1


Grand View	Econ	3
	Health	10
	Event	3


Iskra	Econ	2
	Health	3
	Event	4


Raj	Econ	12
	Health	3
	Event	0


Feurstem	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	5


Pinball	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1


Catachan	Econ	4
	Health	3
	Event	5


Nox	Econ	4
	Health	1
	Event	2


Olej	Econ	5
	Health	0
	Event	5

Plan: Colonies!
- Procurement [$ 2,224,514,687.79 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $227,149,323.80 ] (95)
--- 100 Bainbridge [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

--- 40 Trenton [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

--- 18 Ensign [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS

--- 34 Aetna [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 66
Result - SUCCESS

--- 17 Meteor [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Saipan [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

--- 1 Canopus [95]
Target – 97
Roll - 29
Result – Bare FAILURE (autosuccess next turn)

-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $3,262,009.49 ] (85)
--- 7 Windjammer [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $952,650,520.00 ] (85)
--- 30 Fubuki [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Lyr [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Dido [85]
Target – 85
Roll – 95, Jarow reroll – 96, ShadowArxxy reroll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Hosho [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Prinz Eugen [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

-- Purchase New Units [Minor Unit - $ 26,535,268.80 ] (90)
--- 30 Attack Wing [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Heavy Carrier Wing [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Training Wing [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 81
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Garrison Regiments [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 82
Result - SUCCESS

-- Increase Militia Rating of System [$ 14,917,565.70 ] (95)
--- 30 Militia Regiments [95]
Target – 95
Roll - 91
Result - SUCCESS

- General [$ 194,555,383,994.00 ]
-- Construct Oasis II Heavy Recharge Station Raj Zenith* [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 40
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Jump Point Defenses in Glorreich [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 16
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Jump Point Defenses in Pryyemnyy [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Jump Point Defenses in Novalar [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Jump Point Defenses in Shin Tokyo [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Colonize Glorreich [80]
Target – 80
Roll – 100, General reroll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

-- Colonize Pryyemnyy [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

-- Colonize Novalar [80]
Target – 80
Roll – 94, General reroll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Glorreich [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Pryyemnyy [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Novalar [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 16
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Justice System - Glorreich [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 3
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Justice System - Pryyemnyy [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Justice System - Novalar [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Colonial Office (per level) [75]
Target – 75
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

-- Focus Development on Core World New Capricorn [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

-- Focus Development on Peripheral World Bohren [80]
Target – 80
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Peripheral Investment Awha [75]
Target – 75
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Core Investment New Castor [75]
Target – 75
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-- Economic Investment Kainga [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 82
Result - SUCCESS

-- Major Economic Investment New Castor [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Endosteel Forges [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Ferro Fibrous Forges [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 82
Result - SUCCESS

-- Rationalize Legal Codes [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 40
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bohren [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Iskra [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Stahlfurt [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Skala [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Chuma [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 52
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bari [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Orbital Shipyards [105]
Target – 105
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Refit & Repair Yard [105]
Target – 105
Roll - 95
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Light Warship Yard New Pollux [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Light Warship Yard New Castor [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 19
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Kainga [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Port Royal [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Edelsteine [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Nya Kopenhamn [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Phoenix [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Okusawa [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Capricorn [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 53
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Nowa Warzsawa [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Calliope [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Griffon [85]
Target – 85
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

- DoME [$ 24,500,000,000.00 ]
-- Make Kaiyo a Logistics Hub* [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Kaiyo - Stage 0* [70]
Target – 70
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Bohren - Stage 0* [70]
Target – 70
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Grand View - Stage 0* [70]
Target – 70
Roll – 91, Event reroll - 52
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraforming Bari - Stage 1* [70]
Target – 70
Roll - 24
Result - SUCCESS

- Research [$ 141,020,000,000.00 ]
-- KF Drive Theory Tier 4* [90]
Target – 90
Roll - 37
Result - SUCCESS

-- Improved Anti-Aging Treatments Lvl 2* [75]
Target – 75
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

-- Commercial R&D [-]
-- Industrial R&D [-]

- Miscellaneous [$ 198,100,200,000.00 ]
-- People Purchase [100,000,000]
-- Local Sportsball [200,000]
-- Orbital Modernization [198,000,000,000]

-----

The Imperial Senate is once again under siege from the Department of Periphery Studies ninjas, demanding a rematch with the Eldest and claiming that their power levels are now over 9000, whatever that means. The crazy haircuts with liberal use of styling mousse and hair dye are a bit odd, but well within the usual Periphery Studies shenanigans. The hard working teaching assistants and staff of the Department have procured all of the bouncy castles in the capital, since the tenured faculty are convinced that they can fly if only they bounce hard enough.

You had to put your foot down when your aunt gifted your eldest daughter with a dirtbike. Tamara pouts, but she’s only allowed to ride it under close supervision of her bodyguards, and only on the Imperial estates on the Capricorn continent. It’s an ancient model lacking even the most rudimentary of safety features, after all, dating from your great grandmother’s day. Why your aunt thought this was a good idea… then again she is RRF and they are all insane.

A small Black Steel raid in the Bohren system prompts the deployment of the Grand Fleet, although nothing comes of it by the end of the year. In general Black Steel activity is relatively light this year, which has you rather nervous as this usually means they’re about to make a major push somewhere.

You receive reports from the Special Branch, in general the elimination of Rouges Noir ‘refugees’ has gone quite well, with a growing pile of ‘unsolved’ murders and ‘suicides’. They did get a little too creative a few times, but so far it seems to have flown under the radar. You have a quick talk with General Messerschmidt, having a half dozen of the terrorists ‘commit suicide’ as part of the Crack Rouges Noir Suicide Squad is just a little too on the nose.

Oddly enough, the media mogul on New Eden that you’ve been concerned about, where that particular bit of shenanigans happened, actually helped with the coverup without even being prompted.

Interesting.

Your daughters have indeed adopted a pair of lystrosaurus, so for the price of having two adorable little goofy dinosaurs eating all of your shoes and being appallingly roly poly and cute about it, you have a constant supply of lystrosaurus tail steaks. A fair trade, although it is quite hard on your shoes.

The family raptors seem to enjoy playing ‘roll the lystrosaurus’ games, although interestingly they are quite careful not to actually hurt the silly, if delicious, creatures.

There is a small bit of difficulty surrounding the construction of the single new Canopus-class Parasite Battleship, evidently a paperwork mixup resulted in the wrong transit drives and reactor core being delivered to the yard, resulting in a delay as the proper equipment is procured.

The rest of the building program goes quite well indeed, as does the expansion of your shipyards, which will allow for some significant new construction going forward.

The R&D work on improving your understanding of K-F physics has had one side effect in that you are now able to begin building large warship yards, since the general parameters of what such large cores would require are now known. Unfortunately these yards are large, expensive, and will take two years to build. Admiral Fisher informs you that the Navy is going to recommend that you only build ten more medium yards next year, before focusing on a mix of large and small yards, along with constant expansion of the escort yards. According to him, having a constant production of 20 heavy cruisers a year is more than sufficient, especially as proper capital ships start joining them.

The new jump point defenses in the four recently surveyed systems have been constructed, and colonies established in three of them. Glorreich is proving to be a quite impressive system, even more than the initial surveys indicated, with the initial colonists reporting absolutely wonderful conditions well in excess of expectations.

General Jenkins has sent you a memo noting that both Glorreich and Novalar would make excellent sites for future major bases, supporting expansion efforts in those areas of the Empire while also giving your naval forces additional basing facilities further forward.

The Colonial Office has been further expanded, although the margins between the office capacity and the number of colonies they are supporting is growing uncomfortably thin. There is talk about hiving off responsibility for Imperial administration of Core Worlds from the Colonial Office into a new organization that would expand as needed, but nothing has been formally proposed as of yet. This may relieve the pressure somewhat on the Colonial Office, but it would also add additional layers of complexity to the Imperial administration which may be… contraindicated.

The economic development and investment work of the Interior Ministry continues to produce stellar results, allowing systems to grow to their potential with careful investing, focus, and subsidies. The infrastructure of New Castor in particular has been brought up to the standards of the other Core Worlds, to the local inhabitants' satisfaction.
The work on rationalizing the legal codes of the Empire has been completed. This is a never-ending struggle, as it is in effect an attempt to stem the universal truth that the bureaucracy always expands to meet the needs of the bureaucracy, and that mere mortals are not meant to ever understand the inner workings of the bureaucracy. It’s a hard fought battle, but one that you are determined to win in the end.

After all, bureaucrats are the generators of paperwork, and thus by definition are all spawns of Satan and destined for the deepest pit. You remind yourself that actually saying that tends to result in you getting more paperwork, so you resolve to keep your mouth shut.

The upgrades of the strategic material orbital factories has been completed successfully, further boosting production levels.

Finally, in addition to completing work on expanding your knowledge of Kearny-Fuchida physics, your R&D teams have completed work on further enhancements to anti-aging treatments, to great acclaim throughout the Empire that reflects well upon you.

LordSunhawk · Jul 4, 2022

Turn 99 - O’er Hill, O’er Dale

The year starts with some mixed news in the Griffon system itself. A fairly large jumpship yard has been seized by the system government due to criminal tax issues on the part of the investment partnership that owned the company as part of a fairly intricate conglomerate. The partnership in question had been engaging in systematic tax evasion and illegal financial practices and as part of the legal settlement had been dissolved. The Griffon system government has transferred the yard complex to the Empire, giving you five additional slips that, with a small amount of relatively incidental work, can be used as Escort yards.

In some ways this is worth the economic disruption in the capital system, in others it is unfortunate as it negatively impacts the economic growth of your single largest and strongest economy.

There are two pieces of much better news, however.

First of all, the Department of Periphery Studies has ended their latest siege of the Senate building and the bouncy castles are back where they belong, to the relief of parents throughout Griffsport. You are mildly terrified over what those lunatics will come up with next, however.

And you are pregnant again! All of your kids are excited to have another little sister on the way. They’re such good kids!

There have been a number of minor Black Steel incursions along the galactic northwestern frontier of the Empire, never more than a corvette or destroyer in strength, retreating the moment any defending forces move against them. You’ve managed to destroy a pair of Black Steel Vincent’s, as well as a lone Lola. A pair of unidentified roughly 240,000 ton corvettes were far too fast for your forces to intercept.

You get reports from the NRI that they have colonized a new system at GX-M35. The system primary is particularly bright and intense, and the habitable planet in the system is far hotter than you’d be willing to settle on, but the mineral wealth of the system makes it attractive nevertheless. The Romans are calling it Novae Libyae, with a certain bit of tongue in cheek humor you guess.

The Rasalhaguians, meanwhile, have made up for their relative quiet in the expansion front by claiming a pair of new worlds at GX-Q25 and Q26. Both systems have red dwarves as primaries. Neither are all that interesting in many ways, being broadly comparable to the majority of your colonies in terms of wealth and habitability, albeit without the benefit of your pet madmen in the Department of Mega Engineering.

One significant benefit of your allies expanding is that there is an uptick in trade between your polities, which will have nice benefits to your tax base going forward.

The Bourbons are being rather annoying. The King is willing to turn over the survey and astrographic information for the Rouges Noir, but the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie has put together a formidable coalition behind demands that before anything else you be made to turn over full compact core technology, as well as supply, for free, the Ducal navies of the Bourbons with new vessels. Not, of course, the Royal Navy, just the Ducal navies, with the unspoken but very strongly implied subtext that if you dare supply the Duc de Nouveau Paris before the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie that there will be… difficulties.

Judging by the expression on your old friend the Duc de Nouveau Paris’ face, as well as the evident exasperation felt by the King, you are quite certain that the royal family of the Bourbons is as fed up with the arrogant ass as you are, but unfortunately the Bourbon political system gives the various Ducs an enormous amount of power.

You take great pleasure in how the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie turns a bright purple in rage as you sweetly simply reply with ‘No’ to his demands. Too bad he doesn’t suffer a full on apoplectic fit, although his heir is, sadly, an even more arrogant ass of a man. And a sexist prick to boot. Not to mention a handsy boor that you had to deal with on New Port Royal during the early negotiations.

While you watch the Duc smirk as the King informs you, reluctantly, that the Bourbons will not be able to assist you with astrographic information in this case, you manage to keep an expression of mild regret on your face. Since no sooner have they left the system than General Messerschmidt walks in with a datastick that was ‘accidentally’ left behind by a no doubt highly embarrassed Duc de Nouveau Paris which just happens to contain the requested astrographic information.

Clearly a shameful oversight on the part of a young and forgetful Duc who certainly would never have dreamed of undermining the political maneuvers of his rivals in the Bourbon aristocracy in such a blatant and obvious manner. Why, it’s almost as if he didn’t also accidently include some rather embarrassing blackmail material concerning the… totally legitimate businessmen working with the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie importing things on your ‘do not export’ list. Material which you hand off to Justice for some rather pointed conversations about the importance of following the law.

This, unfortunately, results in the collapse of a trading house in the New Capricorn system, causing some severe economic disruptions there as that houses ‘totally legitimate’ business practices implode. Thankfully nothing truly critical was lost, only older militia and garrison grade kit, but it is still very annoying.

Your ambassador to the Bourbons reports several weeks later that the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie is quite furious about the loss of such a profitable operation, and reportedly spent several days in a raging funk, rampaging through his palace throwing a truly colossal snit fit. The ambassador sadly informs you that the diplomatic pouch that is en-route from the Bourbons most certainly does not contain video recordings of the Duc throwing a temper tantrum like an overgrown infant, and most definitely doesn’t include examples of local satirical magazine’s takes on the subject. After all, such material would be most inappropriate for inclusion in an official diplomatic pouch, and the ambassador would never do anything so… undiplomatic.

He recommends viewing the footage without any children present as the language might be inappropriate. He also includes the Duc de Nouveau Paris’ recommended wine list to accompany the material.

LordSunhawk · Jul 5, 2022

Turn 99 - Was It High? Was It Low?

Two different bits of news come across your desk on the same day. First, a massive 9.1 earthquake rocked New Phoenix, although thankfully the epicenter was in a sparsely inhabited region mostly used for training by the local major Army base. Both damage and casualties are minimal, much to your relief. The system government is extending the seismic sensor grid to improve coverage, previously it was mostly focused on the settled regions of the chilly world.

The second thing is a report of a truly spectacular meteor shower in the Grand View system that’s projected to last at least a week. Unfortunately no dropships are able to approach in order to land during this event, causing some economic disruption, but the visuals are truly amazing. None reach the ground, burning up in the upper atmosphere, and the resulting surge in tourism neatly offsets the economic effects.

Closer to home, a group of would-be ‘big game hunters’ had to be rescued from a rampaging herd of deathapotamusaurus after the idiots decided to ignore all rules and common sense and tried to take down a nursing cow. The news is featured across multiple news channels due to it being a slow news day, and frankly you are amazed that the idiots remember to breathe, let alone tie their own shoes. You are pretty sure that walking and chewing gum at the same time might be beyond them, but they’re scions of extremely wealthy families so who knows, they might have well-hidden depths of something other than empty-headed entitlement.

Very well-hidden, from listening to interviews with the morons. Luckily they will be protected from their own idiocy by spending a year or two in jail on various charges, and their families will be feeling a slight lightening of their deep pockets to pay for the rescue.

It’s probably too much to hope that this will prompt their families to take them in hand, but maybe jail will accomplish that, since you most certainly do not have ‘luxury jails’ for wealthy prisoners, so those morons, perhaps for the first time in their lives, will be spending time where they aren’t waited on hand and foot.

Makes you very happy that you are following your own parents and grandparents’ examples and having your kids doing chores around the palace, including having to clean their own rooms, help with laundry, spend time with the grounds crews, and the like. Your eldest is a surprisingly good cook for her age, although you do watch her like a hawk in the kitchen.

Tiberius and Elizabeth Lee come to you with proposals for the Colonial Office. Tiberius is, as typical for him, having a grand old time by showing up in a full set of Lorica Segmentum, the ‘muscle’ variant, complete with an actual laurel wreath on his head. You, of course, had forewarning of this and had arranged a proper response, as you’d called his wife and arranged for his kids and yours to be plied with sufficient candy and given cans of silly string to ambush him as he walks in, ruining his grand entrance as he wails about betrayal and declaims a long speech bemoaning his fate.

Once that’s cleaned up, Elizabeth and you laughing at his put upon expression, you get started with the actual purpose behind this meeting.

The Colonial Office is growing larger and larger, and becoming a greater and greater drain on resources, while becoming more and more critical for the proper and efficient running of the Empire. Worse, as your rate of expansion increases it is becoming harder and harder to keep an adequate buffer against growth, risking overloading the entire system and causing unfortunate issues across the board.

Reforming the system is possible, but there are several ways to go about it with attendant positives and negatives.

The least expensive option would be to simply remove Core worlds from the purview of the Colonial Office. This would free up a large number of bureaucrats, but would create the risk of instability within the Core worlds causing serious issues Empire wide with fewer levers of control to steer clear of such issues. Every year the Colonial Office acts to rein in overly ambitious system government’s within the Core who try to wag the dog, so to speak, and removing that control rod would be risky.

Alternatively, creating a separate office dedicated solely to the Core Worlds, moving oversight to said office, and moving on with a bifurcated system of a Colonial and a Core Office could be a highly balanced solution to the issue. There would be significant upfront costs as well as increased yearly maintenance and salary costs, but this would restore the margin of growth that you used to have in the Colonial Office while avoiding any issues caused by lack of oversight.

Finally you can simply leave things as they are, accepting the growing expenses of keeping up the Colonial Office.

[]	Action	Argument	Effects
[]	Steady on, no changes needed	The old adage “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” seems to apply here. The current system may not be working perfectly, but it is working. Thus there is no urgency in ‘fixing’ a possible future problem	No change
[]	Simply remove Core worlds from the Colonial Office	The Core Worlds are the economic, cultural, and social heart of the Empire, considering them ‘Colonies’ in need of mother-hen oversight is overly controlling. Sure there might be issues, but vaguely defined ‘issues’ and ‘maybes’ should not determine policy.	Subtracts Core Worlds from Total Worlds for purposes of the Colonial Office -2 Imperial Economy +1 Research Event +1 Politics Chance of Core events each year
[]	Establish the Core Office to handle Core World issues	Yes, the Core Worlds require different treatment than the peripheral colonies, but they still need oversight. Just look at all the shenanigans that Parliament gets up to on a regular basis to see what headaches just letting the Core worlds do whatever they want will lead to. A balanced approach is best, keeping our hand on the control rods, but dividing them between Core and Periphery.	Upfront cost of $12,000,000,000.00 Increases upkeep by $100,000,000.00 times the number of Core Worlds Subtracts Core Worlds from Total Worlds for purposes of the Colonial Office +1 Approval +1 Economic Event

Parliament is, in fact, in session. Freed from the silly tyranny of the Department of Periphery Studies, the Senate sends to your desk the Defense Act of 3029. The Senate notes the invaluable assistance given by the NRR and NRI against the Black Steel menace, and in the legislation makes it easier for the Crown to provide direct technology transfers and assistance to both polities. Moreover, a fund would be established by Parliament to subsidize the military forces of our allies, both financially and through direct material transfers. Finally, the legislation notes the positive effects of the purchases made from Kilburrough and authorizes the Crown to negotiate an increased flow of optimized infants into the Empire to take fuller advantage of the genetic engineers expertise.

[]	Action	Argument	Effect
[]	Sign the Defense Act of 3029	Our allies have proven themselves by fighting and dying at our side, sacrificing their lives to help us defend our worlds from the Black Steel. That has earned them considerable goodwill within the Empire. Moreover, despite initial misgivings, the trade with Kilburrough has been a net positive for the Empire, and simply ignoring such a potential resource would be a serious mistake	Up front cost of $1,000,000,000.00 Improves relations with NRR, NRI, and Kilburrough Harms relations with the Bourbons Yearly cost for population transfers from Kilburrough increased to $100,000,000.00 times the number of systems in the Empire +1 Trade Route +.05 Trade Efficiency
[]	Veto the Defense Act of 3029	Our ‘allies’ are in this for their own purposes, there is no point in helping them, especially since at some point we’d probably like to conquer them ourselves rather than letting them continue this charade of independence.	Harms relations with NRR, NRI, and Kilburrough

LordSunhawk · Jul 7, 2022

Turn 99 - Where the Hell Did That One Go?

General Jenkins, General Romanov and Admiral Fisher come in for a brief conference to brief you in on recent developments.

“Your Majesty, as the overall military establishment continues to grow it has reached a point where a separate joint Fortress Command is needed to manage our fixed defenses. In the past we have primarily involved the regular Civil Service personnel within the department to coordinate the procurement, construction, and staffing of defense stations. With the changes, we will be shifting to a similar procurement model as the one used by the Navy.” General Jenkins begins.

“As such some costs will need to be adjusted. For one thing, we will no longer be using multi-year contracts for the Oasis II stations, shifting to the more expensive but quicker single year model used successfully for Silver Towers and Black Towers. In addition, we will be commissioning a range of new defensive installations, taking advantage of the greater flexibility that the procurement model gives us in order to maximize efficiency.” Admiral Fisher puts in. “The Navy will be the lead service in Fortress Command, in conjunction with the Aerospace Force. We already have initial plans in the works for small fighter platforms, auxiliary weapon platforms, and other such things.”

He frowns a bit then, then plows onward. “I am forced to admit that discussions with Kilburrough have been very helpful in this regard. We’ve had an opportunity to examine their aptly named ‘Doom Stations’ and that has given us some good ideas on building our own such networks.”

General Romanov then takes over. “Your Majesty, we will be letting out solicitations for a new heavy long-range patrol fighter for Fortress Command, once we have proposals in hand we’ll be submitting them for your approval.”

General Jenkins takes back over. “We have negotiated with the contractors working on the current in-progress Oasis II platforms and they have agreed to accelerate completion of the current tranche, in exchange for preferential consideration on future tranches so long as all requirements continue to be met or exceeded. As a consequence, the four under construction Oasis II stations should, god willing, complete this year at no additional cost.”

QM Note - orbital defenses (including jump point defenses, black towers, silver towers, and oasis IIs), no longer consume actions, freeing up those slots in the action economy. They are now part of Procurement, and should be budgeted under that heading. The current ones will complete this turn without any need for a roll and at zero cost to this turns budget.

The establishment of the new Core Office has gone without any serious hiccups, easing the strain on the Colonial Office, although you do get a memo advising you to continue expansion in order to ensure that the current margin isn’t depleted.

The elimination of Rouges Noir operatives has been completed by the Special Branch, with refugee and intelligence records confirming the clean sweep. The various radical groups that these operatives had formed are still around, but significantly reduced in capability. They are mostly concentrated within academia at the moment, but thankfully not in any sort of position of influence. Your great-aunt is monitoring the situation.

You spend several relaxing days on the beach with your family, taking time away from the stresses of rulership. Thankfully for once it appears that the universe agrees that you need time off, with no crisis waiting for you when you return, nor any emergencies interrupting your vacation time.

Well, apart from a wave demolishing your daughters ‘masterpiece sand castle’ before it was finished, but that’s just nature being mean. You are almost certain that your daughter will find the video of her ‘sternly lecturing’ the ocean to stop being mean intensely embarrassing in her teenage years.

And then it was time for the yearly budget meetings.

General Jenkins starts things off as usual. “Your Majesty, this year we will be starting Army procurement back up, albeit at a divisional rather than regimental level. We will also be continuing our strategic material production expansion as well as building more Black Towers to stiffen our defenses. General Bradley?”

General Bradley takes the podium, looking her usual self. “Your Majesty, strategic materials continue to be the primary constraints that we are facing for military expansion. Under the SLEPP program we were able to upgrade our mech factories and optimize the conventional factory complexes. Strategic materials, especially endo-steel and ferro-fibrous armor, continue to be the primary limiter on expansion. Our current goal is to achieve a force structure robust enough to have an infantry division backing the garrisons on every planet, with additional units available for offensive operations.” She brings up several charts which show the issues graphically.

IwSfWW4i67cTl9YIsvIoN1Dwh8jQ2wvlWwEISKfCY1HcVXTxwV1VDYl5vqpY9sjl9cJhIb1_qXH-HOvRSh3aIO3dLROcczF-7hIaFwJltH2C6rFr0GSSyNPKFByu1_ynhYl_isnkYnP_i3sDT6g

“It should be noted that Double Heat Sinks are used by everything apart from conventional vehicles and infantry, making that a highly stressed resource to begin with. The recent advances in Ferro Fibrous armor has resulted in lighter mechs making use of the material to improve their protection, placing additional strain on that resource. Endo steel has the least stress at the moment, however it is used by our most capable ground units, making it a priority as well.”

She then brings up the chart showing production and procurement requests.

Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - Expand all DHS Orbital Factories
    - Expand all Ferro Fibrous Orbital Factories
    - Expand all Endo Steel Orbital Factories
- Procurement
  - Conventional
    - 2 Infantry Divisions
    - 8 Garrison Divisions
    - 8 Militia Divisions
  - Battlemech
    - 3 Battlemech Divisions

General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, we are still awaiting industry response on the patrol fighter requirement, until that time we propose to continue to expand to fill gaps within our force structure while also beefing up our fleet support units.”

Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- 30 Heavy Carrier Wing
- 30 Medium Fighter Wing
- 30 Heavy Fighter Wing

Admiral Fisher positively saunters to the podium next. “Like always, the Navy wants it all, we want it now, and as we are the ferro carbide walls of the Empire, we probably need more than we can actually build. Some of our requests are in the nature of planning for the future, others are to hopefully build up enough capacity and strength to be able to go toe to toe with the Black Steel anywhere they might decide to strike.”

“That being said, I am happy to report that we have sufficient forces that, in an emergency, we should be able to cover two simultaneous Black Steel incursions, so long as they are no stronger than previous ones. This will leave us with no strategic reserve at this time, and would require us to neglect all of our other responsibilities, but we can do it if needed. The good news is that if the rotten bastards give us just another year we will be able to handle a pair of attacks and have a reserve.”

Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
  - Orbital Shipyards
    - New Shipyards
      - Stahlfurt
      - Olej
      - Nox
      - Calliope
      - New Capricorn
      - Glorreich
      - Pryymenyy
      - Novolar
    - Expand all Existing Orbital Shipyards
  - Refit & Repair Yards
    - New Refit & Repair Yards
      - Pryymenyy
      - Glorreich
    - Expand all existing Refit & Repair Yards
  - Escort Yards
    - Bohren
    - Iskra
    - Stahlfurt
    - Skala
    - Chuma
    - Bari
    - Glorreich
    - Pryymenyy
    - Novolar
    - Grand View
  - Medium Warship Yard
    - Nowa Warszawa
    - Okusawa
    - New Port Royal
    - Nya Kopenhamn
    - New Capricorn
    - New Phoenix
    - New Castor
    - New Pollux
    - Edelsteine
    - Kainga
  - Large Warship Yards
    - Griffon
    - Calliope
- Procurement
  - Standard Dropships
    - 100 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 70 Trenton-class Transports
    - 23 Queen-class Transports
  - Large Dropships
    - 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    - 17 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 34 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 13 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
  - Jumpships
    - 8 Windjammer-class
  - Escorts
    - 40 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 30 Lyr-class Corvettes
  - Small Warships
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 10 Hosho-class Light Carriers
  - Medium Warships
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- Fortress Command
  - Black Tower
    - Stahlfurt
    - New Port Royal
    - Kainga
    - New Pollux
    - Nox
    - Iskra

Elizabeth Lee takes the podium after the Admiral saunters back to his seat, looking just a trifle annoyed at the arrogant ass of an admiral. You can sympathize, he’s incredibly competent, and yet still makes you want to punch the smug off of him.

“Your Majesty, I have a lot of material to go over.” She begins, smiling a bit. “The economic situation in the Empire is solid, and growing more so. My contracts division is ready to support all of the requested new production facilities from the military, and our economic focus and investment teams have recommendations as well. In addition, we have five DoME teams ready and waiting for assignments.”

“To start with, the next system that is projected to join the Core worlds is Nowy Wroclaw, as such we are proposing to focus somewhat there in order to best prepare the system for the transition. Additionally we have been analyzing economic trends elsewhere in the Empire, which is informing our further recommendations.”

Focus & Investment
- Economic Focus
  - Core
    - New Phoenix
  - Periphery
    - Nox
- Investment
  - Massive - Core
    - Griffon
  - Massive - Periphery
    - Nowy Wrocław
  - Base Investment
    - Nowy Slask

“We have no major infrastructure investment targets this year. The volume of production facility improvement requests from the military will, unfortunately, preclude wider directed industrial expansion this year.”

She changes to the next display. “As I said earlier, we have five DoME teams available, Your Majesty. In consultation with stakeholders we have the following recommendations. These will support future expansion, improve the responsiveness of our military, ease logistics, and have significant positive economic impacts.”

Department of Mega Engineering
- Establish Colony - Shin Tōkyō
- Construct Major Army Base - Glorreich
- Construct Major Army Base - Novalar
- Construct Major Fleet Base - Glorreich
- Construct Major Fleet Base - Novalar

She looks over at Leila, your Foreign Minister, then back at you as the other woman joins her at the podium. “Finally, Your Majesty, we both strongly recommend initiating a fresh campaign of major cultural venues throughout the Empire, we believe that the risks are worthwhile due to the benefits that we could gain.”

Elizabeth sits back down, leaving Leila at the podium. “In addition to the cultural venues, Your Majesty, the Foreign Office would like to recommend the normalization of relations with Kilburrough, including establishing a proper embassy there. While we may never be friends, the purpose of diplomacy is not merely to work with those you like, but also those you dislike.”

You are a bit suspicious as Tiberius is wearing a rather ordinary suit. Your suspicions are affirmed when he stands up, and he is wearing the most ridiculous shoes you’d ever seen, which play trumpet fanfares as he strides to the podium. His sense of humor will be the death of you… from laughter.

“Friends! Griffons! Your Majesty!” more laughter greets the rather over the top start. Tiberius grins and settles back to a more professional tone. “Us on the Political side of life have three projects we’d really like approval for, not to mention budget for. A Public Relations campaign, starring you, yourself, and your stunt double. The expansion of the Colonial Office to keep ahead of things by the widest margin possible, and a general expansion of the civil service to allow us to efficiently spend all of this money I am assured we are making.”

He then returns to his seat, to the dolorous sound of laments chanted by his footwear.

Grace takes over at this point, to the relief of everybody involved. “Your Majesty, we have six R&D teams eager and ready to get to work.”

R&D
- Civilian
  - Improved Elder Quality of Life
    - Life spans are expanding, let’s make the most of it
- Military
  - Advanced Compact Core Construction VI
  - Advanced Compact Core Design VI
  - Advanced Compact Core Theory VI
  - Advanced Double Heat Sinks
  - Advanced Sensors

General Messerschmidt is grinning, but doesn’t bother with the podium. “Your Majesty, I bring to you excellent news! There has been a new statue to Your Divinity unveiled, quite literally, on the new Roman colony world of Novae Libyae. I have not, alas, been able to source imagery of the new statue, but my agents assure me that it is quite tasteful and not at all featuring a 15 meter tall nude bronze centerpiece devoted to Your Majesty as a fertility goddess. I find that statement suspiciously specific.”

Meanwhile, behind him an image shows up on the screen of a fifteen meter tall nude bronze statue that is clearly you as a fertility goddess.

Martina isn’t present, as she is currently overseeing the wrapping up of the operations against the fake refugees.

LordSunhawk · Jul 10, 2022

Turn 99 - While the Caissons Go Rolling Along

Meta Event	12
Dynasty Luck	5
	Successes
Imperial Approval	1
Approval Change	1
Political Event	0
	Successes
Imperial Economy	3
Economic Event	1
Research Event	3

Griffon	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	1

Nowa Warszawa	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	0

Calliope IV	Econ	6
	Health	3
	Event	4

TTP	Econ	-2
	Health	6
	Event	1

New Capricorn	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	4

Nowy Śląsk	Econ	0
	Health	6
	Event	3


Edelsteine	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	4

Nowy Wroclaw	Econ	0
	Health	6
	Event	3


Griff's Leap	Econ	0
	Health	N/A
	Event	4


New Phoenix	Econ	1
	Health	12
	Event	3

New Eden	Econ	5
	Health	0
	Event	3


New Castor	Econ	4
	Health	5
	Event	5

Okusawa	Econ	1
	Health	5
	Event	1

New Pollux	Econ	2
	Health	5
	Event	2

New Port Royal	Econ	2
	Health	14
	Event	1

Kainga	Econ	5
	Health	6
	Event	0

Chuma	Econ	4
	Health	2
	Event	1


Stahlfurt	Econ	12
	Health	N/A
	Event	0


Bari	Econ	12
	Health	0
	Event	0


Skala	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	3


Pieklo	Econ	4
	Health	4
	Event	3


Nya Köpenhamn	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	5

Bauernparadis	Econ	1
	Health	3
	Event	2


Awha	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	4


Kaiyo	Econ	5
	Health	2
	Event	4


Bohren	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	2


Grand View	Econ	2
	Health	4
	Event	3


Iskra	Econ	5
	Health	1
	Event	3


Raj	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	0


Feurstem	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	1


Pinball	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0


Catachan	Econ	12
	Health	0
	Event	2


Nox	Econ	0
	Health	3
	Event	2


Olej	Econ	10
	Health	0
	Event	3


Glorreich	Econ	3
	Health	1
	Event	4


Pryyemnyy	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	2


Novalar	Econ	1
	Health	3
	Event	3

Plan: This plan is your plan
- Procurement [$ 24,551,024,074.28 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $276,461,314.00 ] (95)
--- 100 Bainbridge [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 95
Result - Success

--- 70 Trenton [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 92
Result - Success

--- 23 Queen [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 92
Result - Success

--- 34 Aetna [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 91
Result - Success

--- 17 Meteor [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 90
Result - Success

--- 30 Saipan [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 90
Result - Success

--- 13 Canopus [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 92
Result - Success

--- 1 Canopus* [auto]

-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $3,728,010.84 ] (85)
--- 8 Windjammer [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 97, Jarow reroll - 3
Result - Success

-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $1,051,998,110.00 ] (85)
--- 40 Fubuki [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 32
Result - Success

--- 30 Lyr [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 33
Result - Success

--- 20 Dido [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 29
Result - Success

--- 10 Hosho [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 68
Result - Success

--- 20 Prinz Eugen [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 10
Result - Success

-- Purchase New Units [Minor Unit - $ 284,142,539.44 ] (90)
--- 0 Fighter Wing [auto]
--- 30 Heavy Carrier Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 16
Result - Success

--- 30 Heavy Fighter Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 24
Result - Success

--- 30 Medium Fighter Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 17
Result - Success

--- 2 Infantry Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 29
Result - Success

--- 8 Garrison Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 51
Result - Success

--- 8 Militia Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 40
Result - Success

--- 3 Battlemech Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 75
Result - Success

-- Fortress Command [$ 22,934,694,100 ] (90)
--- Construct Oasis II
---- Glorreich Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 89
Result - Success

---- Shin Tokyo Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 15
Result - Success

---- Pryyemnyy Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 4
Result - Success

---- Novolar Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 24
Result - Success

--- Construct Black Tower
---- Stahlfurt [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - Success

---- New Port Royal [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 89
Result - Success

---- Kainga [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 88
Result - Success

---- New Pollux [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 73
Result - Success

---- Nox [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 29
Result - Success

---- Iskra [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 36
Result - Success

- General [$ 274,025,000,000.00 ]
-- Focus Development on Core World New Phoenix [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 14
Result - Success

-- Focus Development on Peripheral World Nox [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 78
Result - Success

-- Massive Peripheral Investment Nowy Wroclaw [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 30
Result - Success

-- Massive Core Investment Griffon [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 67
Result - Success

-- Economic Investment Nowy Slask [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 48
Result - Success

-- Expand Civil Service [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 68
Result - Success

-- Expand Colonial Office [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 1
Result – Critical Success

-- Public Relations Campaign [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 19
Result - Success

-- Major Cultural Venues [70]
Target - 70
Roll - 52
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Stahlfurt [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 39
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Olej [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 19
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Nox [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 43
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Calliope [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 68
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard New Capricorn [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 5
Result – Critical Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Glorreich [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 52
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Pryymenyy [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 72
Result - Success

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Novolar [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 60
Result - Success

-- Expand Orbital Shipyards [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 23
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 18
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Iskra [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 26
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Stahlfurt [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 4
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Skala [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 70
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Chuma [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 33
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Bari [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Glorriech [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 60
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Pryymenyy [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 77
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 27
Result - Success

-- Construct Escort Yard Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 23
Result - Success

-- Establish an embassy on Kilburrough [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 95
Result – Bare FAILURE (success next turn)

-- Build Orbital Factory (90)
--- Build New DHS Factory Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 83
Result - Success

--- Build New Endosteel Factory Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 50
Result - Success

--- Build New Ferro Alumnium Factory Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 84
Result - Success

--- Build New Ferro Fibrous Factory Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 75
Result - Success

--- Build New Naval Armor Factory Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 58
Result - Success

-- Upgrade Germanium Processing Facilities [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 95
Result - Success

-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 25
Result - Success

-- Upgrade All Endosteel Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 7
Result - Success

-- Upgrade All Ferro Fibrous Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 25
Result - Success

-- Construct Refit & Repair Yard Glorreich [110]
Target - 110
Roll – 100, ShadowArxxy reroll - 95
Result - Success

-- Construct Refit & Repair Yard Pryymenyy [110]
Target - 110
Roll - 17
Result - Success

-- Upgrade Refit & Repair Yard [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 32
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Pollux [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 42
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Castor [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 21
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Kainga [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 31
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Port Royal [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 20
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Edelsteine [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 97, General reroll - 83
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Nya Kopenhamn [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 40
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Phoenix [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 76
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Okusawa [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 52
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard New Capricorn [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 3
Result - Success

-- Build Medium Warship Yard Nowa Warzsawa [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 23
Result - Success

- DoME [$ 32,000,000,000.00 ]
-- Planetary Optimization (Peripheral) - Pieklo* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 1
Result – Critical Success

- Research [$ 526,020,000,000.00 ]
-- Commercial R&D [-]
-- Industrial R&D [-]

- Miscellaneous [$ 13,000,000,000.00 ]
-- Core Management [12,000,000,000]
-- Defense Act [1,000,000,000]

-----

You have come to the conclusion that one baseball fanatic is a ruddy bore, two are an annoyance, and three or more become the Kilburrough equivalent to the Foreign Office during a pennant race. Because absolutely nothing is getting done on the embassy front throughout the fall and into the winter because apparently everybody in any position of authority on Kilburrough is out of the office every day watching baseball.

Leila is tearing her hair out in frustration and the entire project of establishing an embassy there has been utterly delayed because of baseball. Couldn’t they at least have the good taste to have it be motor racing instead?

Speaking of motor racing, your daughter is in the cutest ‘bitter rivalry’ ever with a young boy who drives just as aggressively and well as she does, leading to the two constantly battling for the lead, spinning each other out (and getting black flagged for it) when the frustration boils over, and the cutest ‘fights’ with neither of them backing down one millimeter. You are rather proud of Tamara for never once bringing up that she’s the Crown Princess, despite the fact that her ‘rival’ is the son of a mechanic and about as common as it is possible to be. The boy's parents are just as amused by the situation as you are, and to their credit appear utterly indifferent to the vast gulf in social rank. You are there as a mom, not as Empress, and that’s that.

After you toss General Messerschmidt into an ornamental pond a few times (the window is getting a bit cliche, you decide), you do admit that the statue is rather tasteful, with all of the prurient bits tastefully concealed behind a massive cornucopia from the front, and the bronze wheat field behind. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.

Colonization efforts have begun on the future city-planet of Shin Tōkyō, which has DoME rather salivating at the opportunity to design an entire planet-wide uber-arcology. You have a funny feeling that you may have unleashed a monster, as evidently that particular DoME team has been taking inspiration from watching the ancient Star Wars movies.

As part of the new cultural venues construction effort a massive multi-theater performing arts complex has been built in Griffsport itself. You attend the grand opening and the incredible architecture is truly moving. A semi-circle of classical outdoor theaters rings the complex, allowing for over a dozen simultaneous performances with discreetly concealed modern amenities and features, meanwhile the central building is a soaring neo-baroque masterpiece that seems to soar effortlessly into the sky, housing a massive opera hall as well as multiple theaters of various sizes and configurations.

Equally grand venues of various types have been built throughout the Empire, to a nicely enthusiastic reception from the citizenry although the usual suspects are whining about ‘wasting’ money on the arts.

While the Civil Service expansion goes exactly according to plan, growing your corps of civil servants such that you should be able to accomplish more each year with your budget, the Colonial Office massively exceeds expectations, almost doubling the effective growth without any real extra budgetary impact due to the clever and capable recruiting done within the Imperial university system.

Fortress Command, in the first year of existence, has already grown substantially, with five new Black Towers as well as a number of additional Oasis II recharge stations being constructed.

More pertinently, Fortress Command has selected three finalist designs for the patrol bomber competition. The requirements were for a long-range, high endurance sensor platform suited for independent squadron patrol. A minimum of 10 tons of fuel, an extensive sensor suite, and a dedicated sensor systems officer made for a unique set of demands for the various aerospace firms in the Empire to meet.

The first proposal was centered around a powerful Hyper Assault Gauss system, albeit with limited ammunition, along with a mix of extended range and pulse 5cm lasers as well as 20 racks of long-range missiles. The design has slightly heavier armor around the cockpit than the others in the competition, but the cockpit itself is still a weak point as it is in all ASFs. The Kestrel is considered a bit of a dark horse, as it has less combat endurance than the competition due to ammunition reliance and relatively poor anti-missile defenses.

The second is a fighter entry called Project Mariner from Majeure Electrique. Although the company had been out of the ASF game for decades at this point, the new design shows that they certainly haven’t lost their edge. With a sophisticated array of 5cm pulse lasers linked to a targeting computer, the Mariner is certainly a formidable craft, especially with the twin Artemis-backed long range missile racks and the trio of gauss anti-missile systems spread between the wings and the stern. The design has a bit more fuel, and is the least expensive, however evaluators note that the anti-missile armament is purely ammunition based and the only long range armament are the long range missiles, which likewise are ammunition dependent, thus reducing combat endurance.

The final entry is the Lee Aerospace Sunderland patrol bomber. Marginally the most expensive of the three entries, the Sunderland features a terrifying array of 5cm and 8cm pulse lasers, backing up a quartet of laser AMS systems and supplemented by a pair of Artemis-backed long range missile racks. Unlike the other submissions, the Sunderland eschews ammunition based armament, with the 8cm pulse lasers capable of handling long range engagements without the need to make use of the missiles. The main weakness is that the stern is only covered by a pair of laser AMS systems, permitting only short range ‘tail stinger’ operation when they are switched over to standard targeting.

[]	Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
[]	Kestrel	$11,163	FAA, DHS	53	33	Armored 2 Missile 4 AMS 2 Fuel 10 Speed 8
[]	Mariner Patrol Bomber	$11,160.15	FAA, DHS	54	34	Armored 2 Missile 4 AMS 3 Fuel 10.5 Speed 8
[]	Sunderland Patrol Bomber	$11,265	FAA, DHS	54	34	Armored 2 Missile 4 AMS 4 Fuel 10 Speed 8

Economic growth is quite solid throughout the Empire, helped by the excitement generated by the cultural venues project. The regular investments and focused attention has also paid off, boosting economic performance and strengthening the economic underpinnings of many worlds within the Empire.

The DoME teams assigned to Pieklo manage a minor miracle as their efforts result in significantly more impressive final results than originally planned. System economic growth has grown even more robustly than originally projected, as the entire planetary ecosystem has been improved. One thing that is noted is a persistent faint smell of lavender that a native plant now gives to the entire atmosphere.

On that note, while grueling, the public relations campaign has been an unqualified success, with Tiberius noting that your popularity rating, especially among the common citizens, is extremely healthy as people gain confidence that you do truly have their best interests at heart and will do everything in your power to serve them properly as their Empress.

It’s quite satisfying

Production infrastructure of all types continues to grow, increasing your robust industrial base in a manner that will hopefully allow you to continuously sustain growth across all sectors, both civil and defense. New shipyards of all kinds have been built, with the first large yards under construction in the Griffon and Calliope systems respectively. You are setting the groundwork for building true capital ships as quickly as possible.

Likewise refit & repair capacity has been significantly boosted, easing logistics burdens in the process.

Massive tranches of new warships have been laid down and/or commissioned this year, boosting your navy significantly. Likewise the first new formations for the Army have been fielded, strengthening your ground based punch quite nicely.

LordSunhawk · Jul 11, 2022

Turn 100 - Looking Out A Dirty Old Window

You are called into a meeting early in January with the strategic planning and operations staff led by General Jenkins.

“Your Majesty, based on all available intelligence, which was fed into SARAHs data banks and analyzed, we have two possible near term targets for the Black Steel, based on pattern analysis of past attacks, incursions, and sightings. The problem is what we do about it.” Jenkins looks unusually tired, in your experience, but then again he is getting old.

“We have several options, all with varying risks. First, we maintain the same posture we’ve kept from the start, keeping our heavy units in nodal points and relying on system defenses to blunt the initial attack to give us time to react. Second, we make use of this analysis to pre-deploy our forces to one or the other potential target, each of which are roughly equally likely to be attacked. Or third we split our forces, taking advantage of our growing number of Prinz Eugen-class heavy cruisers to abandon the ‘swarm’ tactics we’ve used until now.”

Admiral Fisher frowns at that. “I’m confident in our designs, but the Black Steel are an extremely tough adversary, no matter what we choose we’ll take casualties. The question is how badly we’ll be hurt at this point. Until we have proper capital ships of our own in a few years I would hesitate to claim any equality with the Black Steel. That being said, even splitting our forces would allow us to deploy 20 Prinz Eugens to each potential target, which is a heavier force than we’ve ever deployed to any Black Steel attack period.”

General Jenkins coughs and takes over. “That being said, dividing our forces could easily lead to defeat in detail, and picking wrong could have equally damaging effects. The two potential targets are far enough apart to preclude easily supporting each other, as it would take a minimum of a week to move from one to the other, while a nodal force could respond in as little as a few hours if nodally deployed.”

“The projected targets are the Bohren system, at GX-G22, and the Pryyemnyy system at GX-H19. SARAH gives equivalent odds for each, approximately a 45% chance of an attack in the next month. Other systems in the region have probabilities below 1%. Our other analysts concur.” He looks a bit grim, reminding you of your grandfather for a moment. “The hammer will fall in either of those systems, we just don’t know which one, and if we guess wrong a lot of people will die, Your Majesty.”

You take a deep breath, one of the jobs for the Empress was being the final decider of such things. In an old quote you’d read in one of your textbooks, the ‘buck’, whatever that is, stops at your desk. And is probably not nearly as cuddly as your lap lystrosaurus.

You don’t have a lap lystrosaurus, nobody has ever seen a lap lystrosaurus, let alone on your lap, and all rumors, images, reports, and recordings to the contrary are lies concocted by lying liars who lie, lyingly.

So you stroke your totally non-existent lap lystrosaurus while you look at the astrographic map and ponder the situation.

[]	Action	Result
[]	Deploy the full Grand Fleet to Stahlkampfauge as a nodal defense force 1 jump away from each target	Whichever system is attacked has a 25% chance of suffering 1d100 times 1 million casualties from orbital bombardment Suffers -1d10% GDP
[]	Deploy the full Grand Fleet to Bohren, the more heavily populated and prosperous of the two worlds	If Bohren is attacked Resolve battle as full Grand Fleet vrs attackers If Pryyemnyy is attacked Suffers 1d100 times 2 million casualties from orbital bombardment Base GDP growth for turn drops to 0 Suffers a further -1d20% loss of GDP
[]	Deploy the full Grand Fleet to Pryyemnyy, the colony in this system lacks the resilience of Bohren and is at greater risk of annihilation if attacked	If Pryyemnyy is attacked Resolve battle as full Grand Fleet vrs attackers If Bohren is attacked Suffers 1d100 times 2 million casualties from orbital bombardment Base GDP growth for turn drops to 0 Suffers a further -1d20% loss of GDP
[]	Split the Grand Fleet in half and cover both	Splits Grand Fleet in half, resolving any attacks as half of Grand Fleet vrs attackers

Having this hanging over your head somewhat sours your mood. You do approve the new Sunderland Patrol Bomber to go into full production despite the last minute submission from Majeure Electrique of a revised Mariner prototype. You do instruct Fortress command to fully test the Mariner-II competitively with the new Sunderland as a possible supplemental patrol bomber.

You are still a bit grumpy when you head off to attend the Opening Ceremonies for this year's Olympic Games. You are quite proud of yourself for concealing your bad mood so well, although you now well understand just why your grandfather became as much of a workaholic as he did. You force yourself to relax, you have experts handling the actual field command, you are not a naval officer, and you have to trust that they know what they are doing.

The Athletics events start out on a very positive note for Team Griffon, with the Griffon men walking away with a well-earned gold medal, while the women are barely edged out by the Rasalhaguians and wind up settling for silver. Team Griffon then goes on to dominate the decathlon events, taking gold by a hefty margin against strong Rasalhaguian and Bourbon teams.

You have become so accustomed to Roman dominance in gymnastics that for decades now the real battle has been for silver. So you, and millions, then billions, of screaming fans across the Empire are truly thrilled as Team Griffon shows that they are not willing to settle. In the Men’s event, Team Griffon gymnasts managed a string of perfect 10s, defeating a powerful Roman team by a convincing margin. In the Women’s event, Team Griffon did nearly as well, but still better than their Roman competition. The Roman’s top female gymnast, widely considered even in Griffon space to be the finest gymnast ever, actually loses to a young phenom from Edelsteine who matches her move for move, then takes the lead with a stunning display of athleticism.

As a result the Team event for gymnastics is the most watched competition so far, exceeding past Games by a wide margin as the Empire seems to come to a standstill for a single day. Both Team Griffon and the Romans put on spectacular shows, to the point that the final scores are perfectly tied at the end of the regular competition. The execution scores were perfectly tied, the starting difficulty scores were perfectly tied… all of the normal methods for a tie breaker are, well, tied. After a consultation, to loud roars of approval that threaten to bring down the stadium, a joint gold medal is awarded for the first time in the Olympic games.

After the excitement of the gymnastics competitions, the swimming events seem almost tame. Team Griffon, however, apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that things should be tame, and set multiple Olympic records in both the men’s and women’s events on the way to two more gold medals.

Finally the shooting events are held, and the Romans manage to barely defeat the Griffon men, while the Griffon women bring home yet another gold medal.

By the end of the first weeks of competition, Team Griffon had taken home all but 2 of the gold medals, and in each case where they failed to take gold they took home silver. It’s a dominating performance unlike anything ever seen before.

LordSunhawk · Jul 12, 2022

Turn 100 - Friday Night And Everyone’s Moving

You are having lunch with your family when one of your aides discretely hands you a memo stating that the Black Steel attack you’d been worried about has struck the Bohren system, and that the Grand Fleet was responding.

There’s nothing you can really do at this point other than wait, so you manage to smile to the aide who delivered the memo and carry on with dinner without overtly letting on about what was going on, after all your kids are too young to worry about such things.

You spend the afternoon in the palace command center, however, watching as the updates come in. The Bohren system defenses did their best, but the Black Steel attack was far too large for them to hold off, while not destroyed the orbital stations were mission killed in relatively short order and the planet itself suffers a light bombardment before the Grand Fleet arrives in force.

The battle lasts for several days, as the Black Steel abandon the orbitals to engage the Grand Fleet in a running battle across the system. In the end, despite heavy losses, the Grand Fleet is able to defeat the Black Steel, the few surviving enemy ships successfully fleeing.

Battle of Bohren
- Black Steel
  - Estimated enemy forces
    - 10 unidentified 2 million ton battleships designated ‘Brawler’ type
    - 10 unidentified 2 million ton battleships designated ‘Volley’ type
    - 12 McKenna-class Battleships
    - 8 Farragut-class Battleships
    - 10 Texas-class Battleships
    - 30 unidentified 1 million ton cruisers designated ‘Sniper’ type
    - 15 Aegis-class cruisers
    - 5 Cameron-class Battlecruisers
    - 50 Lola-type Destroyers
    - 100 Essex-type Destroyers
    - 100 Unidentified 500k ton destroyer designated ‘Harasser’ type
    - 1000+ unidentified parasites
    - 32,000+ Black Wasp drone ASF
  - Estimated enemy losses
    - All but 5 ‘Volley’ type, 2 McKenna, 10 ‘Sniper’ type, 20 ‘Harasser’ type
- Grand Fleet
  - Destroyed
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers out of 40 deployed
    - 16 Dido-class Light Cruisers out of 80 deployed
    - 4 Erebus-class Light Cruisers out of 4 deployed
    - 2 Brooklyn-class Light Cruisers out of 2 deployed
    - 2 Atlanta-class Light Cruisers out of 2 deployed
    - 6 Cleveland-class Light Cruisers out of 6 deployed
    - 65 Fubuki-class Destroyers out of 125 deployed
    - 75 Lyr-class Corvettes out of 155 deployed
    - 2 Hosho-class Carriers out of 7 deployed
    - Dropship Losses (100% of deployed dropships were constructive losses)
      - 200 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
      - 40 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
      - 30 Long Beach-class Parasite Missile Destroyers
      - 68 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
      - 34 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
      - 14 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships

Unlike previous engagements, despite the heavy hull losses, actual casualties were extremely low, due primarily to the effects of HarJel systems in the naval vessels hulls preventing catastrophic atmosphere loss, giving time for crews to reach escape pods and lifeboats. In addition, the HarJel systems in the deployed ASFs allowed the vast majority of downed pilots to be recovered despite the near total loss of their airframes. The wings in question can be easily reconstituted from spares kept in DURF storage.

Bohren itself has taken relatively light damage, considering the intensity of the bombardment, although civilian casualties are heavy. Unfortunately several of the main shelters for the capital city of the planet were directly struck, resulting in enormous loss of life. The local economy has been rocked, but should be able to recover on its own.

The losses among the parasites is a bit disheartening, the carriers and missile ships especially. They are supposed to remain well back from the battle and provide support, however it appears that the Black Steel planned for that and made use of massive drone dropship swarms to directly target and destroy the support vessels.

Admiral Fisher and Admiral Sims have been heard muttering about coming up with a solution to the ‘squishy’ parasite carriers. You are a bit worried about what madness they might come up with.

Scratch that, you are utterly terrified of what madness they might come up with.

But in a good sort of way.

You do get one bit of unalloyed good news, as the New Castor system government, in conjunction with the citizens of the system, apparently decided to celebrate their becoming a full Core world in a big way, by funding the construction of a rather large ship building complex. A trio of new Small Warship Yards, along with a quartet of new Escort Yards are now available this year, giving a small but welcome boost to your shipbuilding capacity.

Parliament is in session, which is always… fun. The Chamber of Delegates is relatively quiet this year, with no significant legislation originating there. The same cannot be seen with the Imperial Senate.

The Small Business Act of 3030 is on the table. The act is fairly wide ranging in its scope, but quite carefully crafted as you’d expect from something done under the personal supervision of the Eldest. The issue that the Act is intended to address is the continuing disparities between the economies of scale enjoyed by the largest corporations and that enjoyed by small businesses. While the majority of your actual economic growth is driven by small business, the fact remains that this is due to the sheer number of them, and every year the vast majority of new small businesses wind up failing.

One of the factors regularly cited in such failures is running out of operating capital, which is pretty much a no-brainer as far as you are concerned, but the materials supporting the legislation points out that in similar circumstances larger corporations that are facing identical circumstances have a much easier time securing financing to bridge the gap, not because of anything corrupt or illegal, but simply because said corporations have far more assets to put on the table as collateral for temporary loans. And as they say, if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, you have a problem, if you owe the bank a billion dollars, the bank has a problem.

In short, size matters.

The Small Business Act of 3030 seeks to address this in a rather clever manner. Imperial grants would be available to entrepreneurs wishing to open small commercial banks specializing purely in small business loans, which would likewise be subsidized by the Imperial government. These banks would be under heightened scrutiny from the Bank Regulation Board and required to operate under close oversight, furthermore they would only be allowed to make loans that the existing commercial banks deem too risky due to lack of collateral and similar factors. Borrowers would still be expected to repay any loans, but if they do default and the default was in good faith, that is with no whiff of corruption, mismanagement, or dirty dealings, then generous repayment terms will be available backed by the Empire.

[]	Action	Argument	Effects
[]	Sign the Small Business Act of 3030	Many of today's corporate titans started out as small businesses long ago. As such, supporting such businesses simply makes good economic sense. Calliope Motors, for example, went from a small mom-and-pop shop to the largest automobile manufacturer in the Empire. Small businesses contribute enormously to the success of the Empire, and we need them contributing, not fretting over whether or not they’ll survive the ordinary market fluctuations of the economy. This legislation carefully addresses the primary challenges faced by small businesses in a way that avoids the pitfalls of most subsidy schemes. By giving those dispersing the subsidy a strong financial incentive to do so wisely rather than frivolously, with solid oversight from an already established and effective system that has become known throughout the Empire for its probity and fairness, the ordinary concerns behind ‘welfare’ systems are pretty much eliminated.	Increases Small Business Subsidy rating to 2 Effectively gives a base .1% GDP boost to all systems in the Empire Increases Bank Regulation Board rating to 2 +1 Imperial Economy +1 Economic Event +1 Politics
[]	Veto the Small Business Act of 3030	Let’s be real here. If a small business fails because it ran out of money, that is the small business owners problem, not the Empire’s. They gambled, they lost, better luck next time. It’s not the government’s job to ‘help’ these people, they need to help themselves or stay in the regular workforce. Period. Dot. End of line.	+1 Approval Change

Over in the Olympics, Team Griffon continues to dominate.

In wrestling, the men’s team holds off a determined Roman squad to secure the Gold medal in the final round, which features some exceptionally skilled wrestling indeed. Likewise, the women’s team secures Gold over the Rasalhaguians in a thrilling contest. Albeit one with a rather infamous wardrobe malfunction that is splashed across all of the sports pages.

No, to answer a particularly impertinent, not to mention highly amused, reporter, there are no plans to implement naked wrestling, even if said wardrobe malfunction seems to indicate such is in the cards.

The fencing matches are exceptionally close, although you do appreciate when Team Griffon, the Romans, and the Rasalhaguians decide to play a bit of a practical joke on everybody by showing up with fence posts and rolls of wire mesh, along with spades, for the initial event introductions. Team Griffon, despite being informed that the event does not, in fact, include the 100 yard Fence Post Planting Contest, went on to win both the Men’s and Women’s events in the type of fencing that involves long pointy metal things poked and slashed at other people with long pointy metal things, while wearing mesh outfits and following esoteric rules that you still don’t understand even after watching numerous competitions.

You do understand archery, and Team Griffon again seems to be pros competing against high school kids as they cruise to dominating victories in both the men’s and women’s events. In a rather emotional moment, the captain of Team Griffon’s men’s archery team turns out to be a Bohren native, who dedicates the competition to the people of that system who lost their lives in the recent Black Steel attack.

The Naked Volleyball tournament starts out with a laugh and a joking reference to the wrestling incident, with all four teams for both the men’s and women’s competition showing up wearing burqas and carrying large day-glo orange signs reading ‘WARDROBE MALFUNCTION IN PROGRESS’. After the laughter subsides things go back to normal, with Team Griffon well… putting on a show, so to speak, and parading all over the stiff competition.

OK, I’ll stop.

LordSunhawk · Jul 14, 2022

Turn 100 - Hot-Shot, Give Me No Problems

Your favorite events of the Olympics are now at hand, and with your children in tow you make a point of attending all of the races, much to their enjoyment and approval.

However the Hovercraft races start off with a massive controversy, as crew members from one of the Bourbon drivers are caught attempting to sabotage a Team Griffon hovercraft after inspections had been completed. As a result the Bourbon team is completely disqualified, with the offending driver, a particularly obnoxious fellow from Nouvelle Picardie, being particularly foul mouthed in the process.

The races continued, however, and as usual Team Griffon thoroughly dominated in all four disciplines. After the controversy in the Hovercraft race, the Bourbon team, this time led by a Nouvelle Normandie rider, manages to take silver in the Motorcycle race, while in the Hovercraft, Stock, and Formula races the Romans take solid silvers, actually making the racing a bit more exciting than usual for the leaders in a few cases.

You get back to the palace just in time to be ambushed by Admiral Fisher and Admiral Sims carrying large binders containing their latest madness about to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world as chaotic thirsting gods laugh and scheme and… OK, they just want to show you some designs and make you do paperwork.

Which is bad enough.

The Battle of Bohren had shown the vulnerability inherent in the relatively fragile parasite carriers, and the dynamic duo had a two pronged plan to address this.

First would require relatively minor modifications to the docking collars of the Hosho class, minor enough that they can be handled by their own crews once the parts are delivered. They would then each be able to carry 10 of the new Wright Dockable ASF Platforms, derived from concepts put together for independent ASF stations to thicken jump point defenses. These platforms, unlike dropships, would be semi-permanently installed on the host carrier, each carrying a full wing of ASFs and attendant small craft, while being armed with an array of anti-missile and anti-fighter weapons. An innovative derivative of the standard pressurized repair bay would be used to allow rapid mass launches of the ASF complement. The remaining five collars would still be open for use by Saipan parasite carriers, as well as the various other parasite designs.

The second is a derivative of the Dido-class optimized for anti-fighter/anti-missile operations by means of a significant armament swap. The balanced armament of the original vessel would be replaced by an impressive array of naval capital and subcapital lasers, with four of the original ten docking collars given preliminary modifications such that if the Wright proved viable they would be able to be carried by the new Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruiser.

Name	Cost	Materials	HP	A/D	Specials
Wright Dockable ASF Platform	$2,759,951.00	LFA, DHS	367	187	Armored 8 AMS 20 Capital AMS 2 Missile 88
Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruiser	$172,984,820.00	LFA, DHS	2453	1553	Armored 60 Capital AMS 312 Capital 2/127 3/664 4/831 Command 3

It should be noted that despite using warship grade armor, the Wright is capable of being built in standard dropship yards for a fraction of the cost of the Saipan-class parasite carrier.

Periphery Studies has gotten up to their usual shenanigans, causing your face and your palm to resume their torrid and forbidden love affair in reaction to the utter insanity.

Somebody who should have known better let them see some ancient cartoons stored in SARAHs database, and now you have most of the esteemed tenured faculty of the department running around in turtle costumes, demanding pizza, and hitting things with foam rubber ‘ninja weapons’. At least the various pizzerias in Griffsport are doing land sale business this year thanks to this.

And now it is budget time, at last. You still don’t really understand why this is supposedly a time of dread and despair.

General Jenkins starts things off. “Well, Your Majesty, I’m sure you’re getting tired of me constantly harping about logistics, but guess what, I’m going to be harping about logistics and strategic materials. And this time even Admiral Fisher is going to be whining at you about it, which will be different. General?” He turns over the podium to General Bradley.

“Your Majesty, our expansion continues to be constrained by strategic materials rather than by factories, so we will continue to urge for expansion, especially for ferro-fibrous armor. Other than that, our requests will be quite similar to last years.”

She first shows a graph, improved over last years, showing the strategic material situation visually.

DdNOPlQbPs9apBi5uRAci5_PNv3RCw1QBXkwfA_VuKwbBedr_FLesni5YiC815DYxvQCeir0y3UO27S3uBA6AYvij5U9cBm3bjGjkvQnpCM__eBKhDA6dz_l0fbT9GtPfY099Ndf6NGTN2LdG1Y

“As you can tell, we added the most common form of RCT Division to the comparison to make it more comprehensive.”

She then brings up the desired budget items for the year from the Army.

Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - Upgrade all DHS Orbital Factories
    - Upgrade all Ferro Fibrous Orbital Factories
    - Upgrade all Endo-Steel Orbital Factories
- Procurement
  - Conventional
    - 2 Infantry Divisions
  - Battlemech
    - 3 Battlemech Divisions
  - Garrison
    - 8 Garrison Divisions
    - 9 Militia Divisions

General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, we are ready to begin procurement of the new patrol bombers, as well as continue to beef up our offensive and defensive ASF forces. We are doing relatively well in terms of strategic materials.” She smiles a bit slyly at that, causing you to laugh as you catch the subtle jest.

Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Procurement
  - 30 Heavy Carrier Wings
  - 30 Patrol Wings
  - 30 Naval Patrol Wings

Admiral Fisher is looking grumpier than usual, glaring at General Jenkins, before silently putting up a chart as he begins to speak.

linBvDuXpITptuONz-EU9OLudeNLcXPpOMXRko_xJZGh66kR4hm5xGqzI3D7WhQlJWs_DROJ9Rvh1PdOQ6JEyv-f-_5KBpIyHTbPjyc27JTFK-qmgKo96vj4CPR7tjC4hvwKR_jdndtcDvwS-3I

“Yes, get it out of your systems, we’re starting to run up against limits in jump cores. We had hoped to have finished the latest round of systemic upgrades via R&D by now, but growth in production capacity, while otherwise excellent, has resulted in us bumping up against the limit. So yes, we need more germanium refining capacity to maintain a margin for the next couple years before the major improvements roll out.”

He glares around, daring anybody to comment, before continuing. “That being said, we intend to investigate the potential for the Wright platforms, if they prove viable we’ll begin mass production. We’ll be taking one of our Hoshos in hand to act as the testbed mothership, build a block of 10 of the platforms, and see how it goes. We’re also requesting a tranche of the new cruisers, I’m not going to try to pronounce that name, some of the designers are apparently Italian and bored me to death arguing for it. And, of course, we’ll be continuing to grow our production capacity and our fleet.”

Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - New Germanium Refinery
      - Nowy Wrocław
    - Upgrade all Germanium Refineries
  - Orbital Shipyards
    - Upgrade all Orbital Shipyards
  - Refit & Repair Yards
    - Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
  - Escort Yards
    - Construct new Escort Yards
      - Bohren
      - Iskra
      - Stahlfurt
      - Skala
      - Chuma
      - Bari
      - Glorreich
      - Pryymenyy
      - Novolar
      - Grand View
  - Small Warship Yards
    - Construct new Small Warship Yards
      - New Phoenix
      - New Castor
      - New Pollux
      - Edelsteine
      - Kainga
  - Large Warship Yards
    - Nowa Warszawa
    - Okusawa
    - New Port Royal
    - Nya Kopenhamn
    - New Capricorn
- Procurement
  - Standard Dropships
    - 200 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 10 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
  - Large Dropships
    - 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    - 17 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 34 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 26 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
  - Jumpships
    - 1 Windjammer-class
  - Escorts
    - 40 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 40 Lyr-class Corvettes
  - Small Warships
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
  - Medium Warships
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- Fortress Command
  - Construct Black Towers
    - Grand View
    - Novolar
    - Bauernparadis
    - Pinball
    - Feurstem

The Admiral sits down and Elizabeth Lee takes his place.

“Your Majesty, we have a rather comprehensive economic improvement program lined up for your approval this year, which should hopefully lead to more rapid advancement in our economic growth across the board, but especially in the Periphery.”

She consults her notes. “To begin with, we have reworked the programs intended to encourage the development of infrastructure and industrial zones within the Peripheral colonies, as such we would like to make the following recommendations.”

She brings up a small chart.

Construct Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Nowy Wrocław
- Glorreich
- Iskra
- Awha
- Pieklo
- Nowy Slask

“We are primarily targeting the most minerally productive systems first, and the one closest to becoming a Core World and thus ineligible for the program.”

She then brings up a somewhat more familiar chart. “Next, Your Majesty, our economic development and investment teams have the following recommendations.”

Economic Focu & Investment
- Focus
  - Core
    - Nowa Warszawa
  - Periphery
    - Nowy Slask
- Massive Investment
  - Core
    - New Phoenix
  - Periphery
    - Bari
- Investment
  - Grand View

“In terms of survey work, we have three firm recommendations and one that is a bit risky.” She smiles a bit. “In a very British understatement sort of way.”

Survey Targets
- GX-E28
  - An Orange main sequence star, astronomers predict several terrestrial worlds in the system along with at least one large gas giant. Modeling seems to indicate more than one might be in the habitable zone
- GX-C26
  - A Yellow main sequence star, and the most likely source of the HPG interference we have been experiencing. Astronomers are quite confused by the system and caution that the dust levels around it make it very hard to know what is there. The only reason we are recommending sending a survey fleet and not a battle fleet is that your great-grandmother seemed to find whatever was here to be something to be amused by, rather than threatened by.
- GX-N19
  - A Red Dwarf, at the high end for size and luminosity of the spectral class. Astronomers predict at least one habitable planet in the system based on their observations.
- GX-L17
  - A highly stable Red Sub Giant with a companion Brown Dwarf, expectations are of at least one and potentially several habitable planets in the system, although astrophysicists caution that it is highly unlikely to have significant metal resources

“Finally, we only have a single DoME team available, the one dedicated to Planetary Optimization. This year we are recommending the Pinball system.”

Interestingly, all of the rest of your advisors have sent notes indicating that they have no pressing budget requests this year. Tiberius is vacationing with his family, General Messerschmidt is meeting with officials from the NRR about future intelligence cooperation, your Foriegn Minister is personally overseeing the final establishment of the Kilburroughan embassy, and your Justice Minister is off with her new grandson.

LordSunhawk · Jul 17, 2022

Turn 100 - We’re The Kids In America

Meta Event	12
Dynasty Luck	32
	Successes
Imperial Approval	5
Approval Change	-1
Political Event	-1
	Successes
Imperial Economy	4
Economic Event	-2
Research Event	1

Griffon	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	2

Nowa Warszawa	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	1

Calliope IV	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	4

TTP	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	1

New Capricorn	Econ	12
	Health	1
	Event	4

Nowy Śląsk	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	4

Edelsteine	Econ	2
	Health	3
	Event	3

Nowy Wroclaw	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	1

Griff's Leap	Econ	2
	Health	N/A
	Event	0

New Phoenix	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	5

New Eden	Econ	4
	Health	4
	Event	2

New Castor	Econ	1
	Health	2
	Event	5

Okusawa	Econ	12
	Health	0
	Event	4

New Pollux	Econ	2
	Health	12
	Event	4

New Port Royal	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	0

Kainga	Econ	5
	Health	2
	Event	1

Chuma	Econ	5
	Health	1
	Event	2

Stahlfurt	Econ	5
	Health	N/A
	Event	2

Bari	Econ	3
	Health	4
	Event	5

Skala	Econ	3
	Health	3
	Event	1

Pieklo	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	5

Nya Köpenhamn	Econ	5
	Health	0
	Event	3

Bauernparadis	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	0

Awha	Econ	0
	Health	5
	Event	3

Kaiyo	Econ	0
	Health	12
	Event	3

Bohren	Econ	3
	Health	12
	Event	3

Grand View	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	0

Iskra	Econ	12
	Health	10
	Event	0

Raj	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	4

Feurstem	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Pinball	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	0

Catachan	Econ	2
	Health	0
	Event	3

Nox	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	3

Olej	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	3

Glorreich	Econ	3
	Health	5
	Event	3

Pryyemnyy	Econ	2
	Health	5
	Event	0

Novalar	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	3

Plan: Mystery Solving
- Procurement [$ 244,513,898,794.07 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $3,089,728,650.00 ] (95)
--- 200 Bainbridge [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 89
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Wright [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

--- 34 Aetna [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 87
Result - SUCCESS

--- 17 Meteor [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 88
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Saipan [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 94
Result - SUCCESS

--- 26 Canopus [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 90
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $9,320,027.10 ] (90)
--- 1 Windjammer [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $11,638,300,300.00 ] (90)
--- 40 Fubuki [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

--- 40 Lyr [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 53
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Dido [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 17
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Giuseppe Garibaldi [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Prinz Eugen [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-- Purchase New Units [Minor Unit - $ 343,036,066.97 ] (90)
--- 0 Fighter Wing [auto]
--- 30 Heavy Carrier Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 7
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Patrol Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 88
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Naval Patrol Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

--- 2 Infantry Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 12
Result - SUCCESS

--- 8 Garrison Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

--- 9 Militia Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

--- 3 Battlemech Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 90
Result - SUCCESS

-- Fortress Command [$ 229,433,513,750.00 ] (90)
--- Build Jump Point Defenses
--- Construct Silver Tower
--- Construct Oasis II
---- Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

---- Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

---- Raj [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

---- Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

---- Bauernparadies [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 53
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Black Tower
---- Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

---- Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

---- Bauernparadis [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 15
Result - SUCCESS

---- Pinball [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

---- Feurstem [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 78
Result - SUCCESS

- General [$ 332,393,000,000.00 ]
-- Focus Development on Core World Nowa Warzsawa [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 98, Jarow reroll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

-- Focus Development on Peripheral World Nowy Slask [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Core Investment New Phoenix [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Peripheral Investment Bari [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 98, ShadowArxxy reroll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Economic Investment Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-E28 [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-N19 [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-L17 [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-C26 [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 8
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Iskra [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 88
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Awha [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Pieklo [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Nowy Slask [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Civil Service [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Department of Mega Engineering [75]
Target - 75
Roll – 94, General reroll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Orbital Shipyards [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 79
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 60
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Iskra [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Stahlfurt [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Skala [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 78
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Chuma [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bari [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Pryymenyy [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish an embassy on Kilburrough* [auto]
-- Expand Colonial Office (per level) [75]
Target - 75
Roll – 99, General reroll - 42
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Orbital Factory (90)
--- Build New DHS Factory Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

--- Build New Endosteel Factory Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 65
Result - SUCCESS

--- Build New Ferro Alumnium Factory Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

--- Build New Ferro Fibrous Factory Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 6
Result - SUCCESS

--- Build New Naval Armor Factory Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Germanium Processing Facility Nowy Wroclaw [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Germanium Processing Facilities [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 46
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Endosteel Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 10
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Ferro Fibrous Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Refit & Repair Yard [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 100, General reroll - 96
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Small Warship Yard New Pollux [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 32
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Small Warship Yard Kainga [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Small Warship Yard Edelsteine [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 7
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Small Warship Yard Nya Kopenhamn [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 69
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Small Warship Yard New Phoenix [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 72
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Calliope* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Griffon* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 54
Result - SUCCESS

- DoME [$ 32,000,000,000.00 ]
-- Terraform Catachan - Stage 0* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 35
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Calliope II - Stage III* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Feurstem - Stage 0* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Iskra - Stage 0* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Pinball - Stage 0* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

-- Terraform Raj - Stage 0* [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

- Research [$ 526,020,000,000.00 ]
-- Improved Elder Quality of Life Lvl 2* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 56
Result - SUCCESS

-----

The new sailing and rowing events draw quite a crowd, mostly out of curiosity since neither sport has ever been all that big in the Griffon Empire. You’d been on sailboats a few times in your life, but just for relaxation at various resorts that used them for short cruises in scenic areas.

You have a funny feeling that both sports will be far more popular soon, and that you probably could boil a kettle on the forehead of the steaming mad Bourbon ambassador. Because despite this only being the third year of existence for the Team Griffon rowing and sailing teams, they still somehow manage to take gold in all four events. What’s worse for the Bourbons, who’d been quite vocal about how good they were at this, they only manage to cling on for three bronzes, with only the Rasalhaguians doing worse on the water.

However it appears that whatever magic Team Griffon had somewhat deserts them after this, as apart from the softball tournament, where they take the gold after a rather spectacular tie-breaker game, they have to settle for silver in all of the remaining events. This Olympics has been rather amazing, not a single medal less than silver, and a medal in every single event, the vast majority gold.

There are quite a few celebrations across the Empire over this. Your face and your palm engage in some forbidden romance, however, when you read the reports from Okusawa. The local garrison evidently challenged the 1st Rapid Reaction Division to a drinking contest, which spiraled out of control to the point where the entirety of the local garrison, the entire 1st RRD, ⅔ of the police units in the city in question, about half of the population of said cities, and a good percentage of the planetary militia are nursing the mother of all hangovers, nobody can say just where they found that particularly eye-searing shade of fluorescent orange paint which now appears to be the color of choice for downtown, the new fashion item of choice is the kilt, generally worn without anything else, and nobody is at all sure just quite how they managed to get a Trenton-class dropship parked on the roof of City Hall without damaging the structure, which is not rated as a dropship landing pad.

General Bradley advises you to put it down to RRF shenanigans and just leave it at that, it’s better for your sanity, and for your liver because trying to figure them out leads to mass alcohol consumption.

You are quite proud of your shipbuilding industry, as most of the losses from the recent fighting have been made good due to the sheer output. You’d rather they not have to constantly play this sort of catch up, but the enemy has a vote too, and the Black Steel are annoyingly dangerous.

The first large shipyard slips have been built, even though you don’t have anything to put in them yet. The construction crews are going over their new facilities with a fine-toothed comb, since these are the largest space docks ever built. Hopefully in a few years you’ll be able to start using them, but it’s nice to have them now.

Additional shipyards have been built throughout the Empire, raising your production capacity even more. While you hope that once the true capital ships arrive you’ll be able to meet the Black Steel on a more even ground, for now you are having to substitute quantity, with all that that implies.

The new army units have stood up for service, with the main focus continuing to be on defensive forces apart from the three new Battlemech Divisions. With the growth in strategic material availability, especially ferro-fibrous, General Bradley reports that they’ll soon be able to build additional RCTs rather than Battlemech Divisions, giving more flexible combined arms units. As it is, they are still hoping to get to the point of being able to field three new infantry divisions a year, in hopes of meeting their goal of having 1 infantry division on each settled world to back up the garrison with a potent maneuver force.

The new Oasis II and Black Tower stations have come online, thickening your orbital defense grid. The Northeastern flank of the Empire is now well protected with the Black Tower stations, which also boost the density of your HPG early warning network and make it far more difficult for a surprise attack to take down portions of the HPG network.

You begin to get back reports from the scouting expeditions.

The expedition to GX-E28 promptly dubs the system the stone garden, or Steingarten as the expedition CO is of German stock. While there is a single, small habitable world in the system, as well as a large gas giant that is slightly larger than Jupiter, the rest of the system consists of massive asteroid belts. They aren’t particularly rich belts, being mostly chondrite and stony asteroids, with almost no metallic ones detected. There are deposits of Germanium, however, making the system a viable target for colonization.

GX-N19 is a binary system consisting of a red and brown dwarf. There’s only a single planet in the habitable zone, and it is a cold desert world with very little moisture, no standing water, and a relatively thin, yet breathable, atmosphere. On the other hand there are large deposits of easily accessible titanium and rare earth metals, making the system quite valuable from a pure resource extraction viewpoint. The Polish survey crews have dubbed the system Pustina.

GX-L17 by contrast is a rather gloriously tropical water world with epic coral reefs, small atolls, extremely colorful fish and birds, spectacularly beautiful weather, amazing beaches, and all of the fixings for a vacationers paradise. What it lacks are easily accessed mineral deposits, as even the asteroid belts are nearly barren of anything valuable. The system has been promptly dubbed Kurortas by the survey crews.

Of course, the one report you’ve been waiting for is delayed, as you’ve heard absolutely nothing back from the survey team to GX-C26 other than a horribly garbled report that they’d arrived. The HPG transmission was so badly affected by whatever interference originates in that system that your best experts were only able to extract that out of what was a much larger message.

You set that aside for now as you read over the economic reports. Interior reports that all of the projects initiated this year have achieved full success, with extensive details showing precisely what industries and businesses were focused on across the various systems involved. By all accounts it appears that things have gone quite well, and you are rather pleased by the attention to detail shown in the reporting.

The new infrastructure and industrial zone projects have your particular interest, as one of your papers back in school had been about the importance of building up Peripheral economies in this manner so as to prevent excessive concentration of industry within the Core. Despite a few minor hiccups, especially in the Iskra system, all projects have been completed on time and on budget, yielding the results you’d expected which are quite nicely in line with the results you predicted in that long ago paper.

You are not grinning smugly, like a smug thing. Anybody who says that is obviously influenced by Tiberius being a little shit and declaring it to be so.

The Civil Service and the Colonial Office have both been expanded with no issues, as has the Department of Mega Engineering, although it must be said that the interview process there for new mad scientists and insane engineers did involve quite a few more explosions than you’d expected.

Leila comes back from Kilburrough convinced that not only are the natives crazy, but that if she never has to sit through another twelve hour discussion about the infield fly rule it will still be too soon.

The various DoME terraforming projects have been very successful across the Empire, with the local system authorities from each system practically begging for you to continue with the next stage of projects immediately if not sooner due to the excellent results shown.

The R&D work on improving the quality of life for the elderly has been quite successful, with one wag putting it as ‘150 is the new 30!’. You wonder if you need to raise retirement ages, but decide against it for now since eventually you’d really like to retire. You most certainly do not want to be like your grandfather and work yourself into an early grave.

The day after Christmas the HPG interference abruptly clears up, moments later your HPG network starts getting bombarded with properly formatted messages advertising a plethora of products, ranging from furniture, to meatballs, to pencils of all things, to holographic televisions, personal electronics… you also get a somewhat sheepish apology from an Amaris Remnant group calling itself the Masters of Ikea about the interference.

At this rate your face and your palm are going to be making a permanent acquaintance.

LordSunhawk · Jul 19, 2022

Turn 101 - Isn’t it rich? Aren’t we a pair?

In early January you read some interesting reports, the local Griffon system government has begun a massive infrastructure and public buildings refresh on their own, using their own resources rather than Imperial ones. The list of projects is enormous, ranging from drop ports to roads to government office buildings and the like. Every bridge, tunnel, and dam in the entire system is slated for refurbishment, every road is slated for resurfacing and reconditioning, every drop port is slated to receive completely new terminals and facilities.

As a consequence there is a massive surge in economic activity within the capital system, especially from construction and engineering firms salivating over the massive influx of contracts available.

You finally get the report from the expedition that had been sent to what you now know are the so-called Master’s Of Ikea. Evidently they arrived in the system and were immediately deluged with very happy messages welcoming them as the first customers they’d ever gotten, the system itself had no actual terrestrial planets, but had shell after shell of space stations. Evidently unlike most of the Amaris Remnant factions the Master’s of Ikea hadn’t completely cyberized and had been able to reproduce naturally, but were still distinctly odd in other ways.

They’d built a massive array of HPG transmitters, enough for continuous 24/7 transmission, in order to broadcast advertising for their goods, which while certainly including furniture, is of a far wider gamut than the name ‘Ikea’ implies. It’s just that their systems were calibrated to a completely different format than yours, which resulted in gibberish and interference rather than coherent messages being received by your equipment.

They appear to be enormously happy to finally have customers, so much so that they are practically begging for your merchants to come and visit and they’ll make them such deals! They’d been at the point where they were preparing to build massive merchant caravans to go out and find customers since none ever came to them despite their advertising.

Well, your companies are certainly very eager to do business with the Master’s of Ikea, so you arrange for a delegation to be sent to work out an equitable trade deal. You have a funny feeling that your experience dealing with the shenanigans of the Department of Periphery Studies, not to mention Kilburrough, might prove handy here.

Speaking of Kilburrough, the ambassador from there has made an offer for the Team Griffon baseball team to receive ‘advanced instruction from people who actually know how to play baseball’. They point out that you are the acknowledged experts at motorsports and playing naked volleyball, but they are baseball fanatics, thank you very much.

[]	Action	Result
[]	Off to baseball camp they go	+2 dice to Baseball rolls in the Olympics Improves relations with Kilburrough
[]	We don’t want our baseball players to be infected with Kilburroughness	Harms relations with Kilburrough

Elizabeth Lee and Tiberius show up with a proposal for you. Lee Aerospace had taken the R&D data acquired concerning ‘doomstack’ style defense stations and developed an innovative variation on that theme, the Colony Core Modular Station. A set of five 2.5 million ton modular stations capable of housing a million people total. The stations are built with a massive manufacturing module capable of building identical stations, so long as raw materials are provided, allowing for the Colony Core Modular Station to expand itself to keep up with a growing population.

Such a facility would permit the colonization of systems that are completely devoid of convenient planets or large asteroids, such as the Dragon’s Eye, Griffon’s Eye, and Stahlkampfauge systems to start, not to mention Waypoint One. Doing so would allow you to build even more small shipyards, up to Escort Yards, while turning systems that currently are nothing but navigational waypoints into productive systems.

Unfortunately this would be expensive to do, as the Colony Core Modular Stations are not cheap.

Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Specials
Colony Core Modular Station	$19,209,597,500.00	30670	8720	Armored 2095 AMS 600 Capital AMS 3360 Capital 3/4950 Purchasing this permits the colonization of an otherwise uncolonizable system with the following values Initial POP - 1 million Initial GDP - 10 million Initial Econ Rating - 55 Initial Health Rating - 55 POP Limit - 1 Infrastructure - 20 Factory - 10 Any success on an infrastructure roll, instead of increasing Factory rating, increases POP limit by 1 OR Factory rating by 1

The situation on Skala has finally been fully resolved, with Imperial Griffon Army forces returning to their usual duties rather than peacekeeping operations. The economy in the system is still shaky, but the artisans are back at work while the lunatics and fanatics are rotting in prison cells.

Your eldest daughter has turned 11 and thus is allowed to begin racing midgets on dirt tracks in addition to hovercraft. You once again have to be very vigilant to keep the palace motor pool, not to mention your cousins, from souping up your daughter's racer. This is a family affair, not for professionals to meddle with. You’ll do your own tuning and souping up, thank you very much.

That being said, you still quite enjoy getting to get out of the Palace and among the people at the track, and rather enjoy the fact that the other parents there treat you as one of them rather than some remote Empress. It’s… relaxing, in many ways. Your position is a seductive one, and you do not want to turn into your grandfather so obsessed with the work that he worked himself into an early grave. You understand him, yes, but you’d rather be more laid back than that.

Your second eldest daughter seems to enjoy tinkering with the racers more than actually racing, but your third eldest has inherited your eldest’s hovercraft and is racing it in the little kid’s league while her big sister helps you with your eldest’s midget. She’s actually becoming quite a good little mechanic, if you must say so yourself. She’s certainly got good instincts for it.

There has been minor Black Steel activity around Pryyemnyy, but nothing serious enough to merit dispatching the Grand Fleet, just the sort of probes for data that you’ve become used to. Until you wipe out wherever the Black Steel depot is in this area these sorts of things will continue between major attacks. SARAH is attempting to make use of various advanced analysis techniques to narrow down where that depot is, but you only know that it is somewhere within a maximum of two jumps from Pryyemnyy and Bohren, and probably in an otherwise uninhabitable system.

LordSunhawk · Jul 20, 2022

Turn 101 - Isn’t It Bliss? Don’t You Approve?

The Department of Periphery Studies is up to their shenanigans yet again, although this time it is truly amusing rather than a stimulus for mass face palming.

They’ve decided that if they stand really still that nobody can see them, as they practice the art of Not Being Seen. They have also decided that the most appropriate way to walk if they can’t be still is to be as silly in their walk as possible, grading said silly walks via what they are calling the Ministry of Silly Walks. Not to mention the senior tenured faculty who make up the Spanish Inquisition and are never expected.

Yes, somebody showed them Monty Python, and they’ve decided to emulate it. With hilarious results. You personally think that the pop-up Argument Clinics are a wonderful touch as the residents of Griffsport play along with the madness with good humor.

In other, more consequential, news, a large mining and refining operation on Edelsteine has invested heavily into a massive Ferro Fibrous armor forging facility, taking advantage of the rich deposits of precursor minerals and their expertise in zero-g alloying and refining. The facility was built under license from the local system government and is now available for Imperial use, thus giving a nice solid boost to your Ferro Fibrous production levels outside of normal channels.

That should prove useful as it should allow for you to recruit three rather than two infantry divisions a year, allowing your defensive forces to be filled out faster. Considering the volume of infiltration attempts by the Rouges Noir, and the reports you have about how effective their surface-to-orbit defenses are, you’d really like to be able to build out your offensive ground forces, because despite the enthusiasm of the Navy you highly doubt you can just orbital bombard your way to victory with those lunatics.

Parliament is in session and there are several bills for your consideration.

The first is the Farm Act of 3031, which will increase the agriculture subsidy across the Empire in an effort to keep up with the overall growth of the population and economy. As before, the subsidies would primarily be for the purpose of capital improvements, such as new farming equipment, as well as general agrarian infrastructure development. The overall costs would be relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, while the benefits would be useful.

[]	Action	Argument	Result
[]	Sign the Farm Act of 3031	The agricultural sector is critical to the well-being of the Empire. While it may not be flashy, and is certainly not a path to tremendous wealth, farming is the bedrock upon which everything else is built. Without food, you die. The proposed legislation simply increases the subsidies for capital improvements already available to farmers, allowing them to purchase the newest equipment, which is substantially more expensive than the equipment available at the time the original subsidies were passed. This will have positive knock-on effects throughout the economy as well.	Raise agricultural subsidy level to 2 Adds roughly $78,000,000.00 to base upkeep cost Adds approximately .1% to system GDP growth per turn +1 Politics -1 Economic Event
[]	Veto the Farm Act of 3031	We never should have started subsidizing farmers, and certainly shouldn’t increase the amount of money we waste on this boondoggle. The free market is more than capable of handling this issue, if farmers are unable to afford needed equipment this is quite likely because they shouldn’t be farmers in the first place. Already it is possible to replace nearly all agricultural products with synthetic foods derived from industrial processes, including perfectly healthy insect proteins, there’s no need to subsidize farming just because it is so romantic to eat ‘real’ food, if you want to eat ‘real’ food, then get rich enough to afford it without these ridiculous subsidies.	-1 Imperial Approval +1 Economy

The second piece of proposed legislation comes as the result of campaigning by environmental activists. They readily acknowledge that the Empire is quite conscientious about maintaining a healthy balance between the wild environment and economic needs, and that industries throughout the Empire are very good about minimizing pollution and avoiding destructive practices. The concern comes from some edge case situations that have been cropping up where, they acknowledge, there are no perfect solutions, and certainly nothing that should apply generally. What they are requesting is that the Empire establish a dedicated environmental tiger team dedicated to solving these edge case situations as they come up in an expedited fashion, rather than the ad hoc arrangements that have been previously the case.

You look through the provided documentation, which stretches all the way back to the clothes eating bacteria of Nowy Slask. Catachan seems to produce most of the current edge cases, but there are others scattered throughout the Empire as well. None particularly serious, and as you can see the ad hoc work seems, so far at least, to be effective in managing them without seriously compromising either the environment or the local economy, but you can certainly see the value in maintaining more consistent and formal oversight over such situations.

Industry groups are fully on board with this proposal as well, as it ensures consistent clarity in these situations and provides them with the assurance that their concerns will be heard in such scenarios.

[]	Action	Argument	Result
[]	Sign the Environmental Act of 3031	All this act does is formalize and make permanent the ad hoc cross-ministry teams that currently address the sort of edge cases not explicitly dealt with in existing regulation. These teams will have no more authority than the previous model, the primary advantage being that there is a consistent point of contact and responsibility for the issues rather than the more ad hoc arrangement that currently exists. Both environmental and industry groups are pushing for this.	Creates the Environmental Protection Reaction Committee within the Ministry of the Interior. Upkeep will be $1,000,000.00 per planet in the Empire Prevents certain events
[]	Veto the Environmental Act of 3031	The system isn’t broken, we shouldn’t be meddling about trying to fix it anyways. What we have works, and there have been no disasters or catastrophes on account of it. All this does is provide employment for a few more bureaucrats, cost us money even when there are no such cases to be dealt with, and no doubt both the activists and the industry groups foresee some way that they could pervert this in their favor.	-1 Politics

LordSunhawk · Jul 22, 2022

Turn 101 - Don’t You Love Farce? My Fault I Fear

A pair of Black Steel Congress-class Frigates were driven away from the Pryyemnyy system, prompting the immediate deployment of the Grand Fleet to the system just in case. After several weeks it becomes obvious that it was just another recon probe and not a precursor for an attack, as evidently the nearest Black Steel base is still rebuilding after the Battle of Bohren.

Meanwhile in a blast from the past a couple Jolly Rogers show up and engage the light picket you have in the Venenatus system, being handily dispatched even by the very light units present there to protect your interests in the system. The behavior of the attackers is identical to that of the pirate bands that used to cause trouble in this region, however your evolved doctrines and equipment allow you to actually rescue most of the slave pilots before the pirates are able to activate remote destruct sequences on the Swarmer type ASFs.

Initial interrogations show that the pirates are based out of the galactic northeast, and have evidently found a ‘sponsor’ of some sort who is providing them with equipment and slaves. The liberated slaves were children when brought to the pirates base, having spent most of their childhood in pens aboard dropships transporting them from wherever they’d originated, they say that their parents told them stories about the Federated Suns and the Taurian Concordat, a few about the Magistracy of Canopus, and even one evidently had Capellan Confederation ancestry.

The freed slaves are very willing to talk, giving you everything they know without requiring any real prompting, and your counselors are already preparing to work with them as refugees.

General Messerschmidt does note that one thing comes up over and over again, in all of the stories their parents worked for the same organization that supposedly betrayed them to the pirates who enslaved them.

Comstar.

You’d heard the word before, reading old documents from the debriefing of Dagny back in your great-grandmother’s day. An organization that managed interstellar communications and was supposedly a large NGO charity.

Something to consider.

Meanwhile closer to home there is a somewhat delicate matter to consider. Years ago your grandfather had approved the research and development into exotic genetic modifications which required in vitro application. The ethics panels overseeing this had put together exceptionally robust and sound processes to ensure against abuses and prevent serious issues.

They hadn’t anticipated this.

One of the new athletes for Team Griffon who is the single hottest athlete on your women’s decathlon team had undergone those procedures, with feline DNA augmentations. In short, the top female decathlete in the Empire is a catgirl. She runs faster, jumps higher, recovers faster, swims better, is physically stronger and more resilient, and much more agile, than any baseline human, male or female. Part of this is that she is extremely dedicated to her craft, training hard and well, part of this is simple genetic advantage on her human side, as her parents were elite tier athletes in their own right, as were her grandparents and great-grandparents. Part of it is the extreme synergy between her own human heritage and the catgirl augmentation package.

For all of that, she is exceptionally popular with her teammates, as she is a genuinely nice person who even her rivals know works twice as hard as anybody else, yet is still willing to drop everything to lend a hand to even a competitor. She has a strong enough sense of sportsmanship that, when in one hurdles race she spotted that one of her competitors hurdles was placed incorrectly, such that it would be impossible to successfully hurdle it with the standard timing, she pulled up and called for an immediate stewards inquiry rather than put a competitor at a further disadvantage. She still won the race when it was restarted with an Imperial record pace, but the fact that she was willing to bend over backwards to make sure the contest was fair won her many plaudits.

And she qualified for Team Griffon, not merely in the Women’s Decathlon, but also the Women’s Athletics, Women’s Swimming, and Women’s Marathon teams.

Neither the NRI nor the NRR have raised any objections, they are quite familiar with your genetic augmentation programs after all. You know for a fact, though, that once the Bourbon’s see her on the track they are going to start raising a massive ruckus.

Now there have been augmented people before in the games, although most of them had been purely aesthetic, such as elf ears and such, with minimal to no actual impact on competitiveness. Even when there had been an impact, in general the physical differences had been minor enough that it had never been an issue. But in this case you have a very obvious catgirl, complete with tail, ears, and digitigrade legs.

[]	Action	Result
[]	And? The worst that will happen is the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie sending a Very Angry Letter(™) to be read by an extremely bored Duc de Nouvelle Normandie while you both try very hard to pretend not to find it all hilariously funny	Receive a Strongly Worded Letter written in Giggle Translate French from the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie +10 successes at Women’s Athletics, Swimming, Decathlon and Marathon The Duc de Nouvelle Picardie will have yet another reason to hate your guts Not that that’s any different from normal
[]	Funny as that would be, let’s at least try to be diplomatic and not rub the Bourbons nose into things?	You will not receive a Strongly Worded Letter written in Giggle Translate French from the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie You will not even win a copy of the home game

Meanwhile, it is budget time!

General Jenkins is up first. “Your Majesty, there is really one area where we need to continue to focus on increasing strategic material output, and that is Ferro Fibrous. This is not, however, a signal to stop expanding production of other strategic materials. Better to have more than we need than not enough, after all. General Bradley?”

The Army CO stomps up to the podium. “First things first, the current situation in regards to strategic materials.” She brings up the display, showing a familiar graphic.

9JOWC9wBBdqaKBXRc5V3CYfjSqCMHnWA8kwDpagptQaY9e5dg98fH-dXrBJEtuFItxtGujZUcRTprXpYg8T8kx8BEsSlU8ApGgfrmSrE26zcwCmHDBOVetkP1nkOUk_Ao5bK2gTeDzg-pSFyb3bHojU

“We can now build three Infantry divisions a year, Your Majesty, which will allow us to hopefully complete our planned defensive force expansion in less time than we’d feared. Continued growth of production is paramount, however, since as the Empire expands so do our defensive commitments. One bit of good news, we have been able to clear and contract with additional construction companies, so now we are able to build up to five new facilities of any given type of strategic material forge per year, rather than only one. Even so, the most efficient method of growth remains a combination of new and upgraded facilities.”

She checks her notes. “Overall our procurement requests remain very similar to last years, updated to take into account the changing production levels.”

Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
  - Conventional Factories
    - 5 new Conventional Factories on Glorreich
    - 5 new Conventional Factories on Novolar
    - 5 new Conventional Factories on New Phoenix
    - 5 new Conventional Factories on New Pollux
  - Strategic Materials
    - Endosteel
      - 5 new factories
      - Upgrade existing factories
    - Ferro Fibrous
      - 5 new Factories
      - Upgrade existing factories
    - Double Heat Sinks
      - 5 new Factories
      - Upgrade existing factories
- Procurement
  - Conventional
    - 3 Infantry Divisions
  - Battlemech
    - 3 Battlemech Divisions
  - Garrison
    - 8 Garrison Divisions
    - 9 Militia Divisions

She sits down as General Romanov takes over the podium. “Your Majesty, extended tests have allowed us to work out the ideal wing composition for the new Wright-class pods. We do not need to procure any new types of birds, but the best use for these pods appears to be defensive in nature, countering the Black Steel’s swarm ASF tactics. Therefore we have organized the Fleet Defense Wing, composed of squadrons of those ASFs that have historically performed best against the Black Steel Black Wasp swarms. We continue to be comfortable with our production output, 90 wings a year is at the sweet spot for our current training facilities after all.”

Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Procurement
  - 30 Heavy Carrier Wing
  - 30 Fleet Defense Wing
  - 30 Naval Patrol Wing

Admiral Fisher is already heading towards the podium even before General Romanov sits down, then glares at everybody for a moment. “The Navy continues to hold the line, and if given enough resources can start to push the bastards back more readily. We’re a few years away from our first real capital ships, but our men and women in the fleet are using what we can give them to the best of their ability. Therefore, we need to make sure to give them more of what they need.”

He pauses a moment, then brings up a graphic. “I know that some of you will want to see this, so take a look, the upgrades last year brought our Core situation into the green, and the pending boost to overall germanium refinery efficiency that we are anticipating in a few years should solve the issue for the foreseeable future. If you want to spend money on padding the difference, feel free, but we’re not requesting it just on a maybe.”

8NFcNDZBhszxlU-AAiMJG9HDd7iJSILZWS6VpqwhYVOEszrA8Urg3ZXfLpAi5yEtyfE-JWdfa9eViJ3y1zteYpJWeZsWoyMVYDVrr4xzJK_7on8hUD2TA-UvdhVyq-PXdJ7-X6CPXc20w-pGwcfJJhw

“For the rest, we propose continuing to build up Fortress Command, and build the fleet as much as possible.”

Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - OPTIONAL - Germanium Refineries
  - Orbital Shipyards
    - Upgrade all Orbital Shipyards
  - Refit & Repair Yards
    - Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
  - Escort Yards
    - Bohren
    - Iskra
    - Stahlfurt
    - Nox
    - Chuma
    - Bari
    - Glorreich
    - Pryymenyy
    - Novolar
    - Grand View
  - Large Warship Yards
    - Griffon
    - Calliope IV
    - New Phoenix
    - New Castor
    - New Pollux
    - Edelsteine
    - Kainga
    - Nowy Wrocław
- Procurement
  - Standard Dropships
    - 200 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 20 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
    - 4 Trenton-class Transports
  - Large Dropships
    - 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    - 16 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 32 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 32 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
  - Jumpships
    - 8 Windjammer-class Jumpships
  - Escorts
    - 40 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 40 Lyr-class Corvettes
  - Small Warships
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 10 Hosho-class Carriers
  - Medium Warships
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- Fortress Command
  - Build Jump Point Defenses
    - Steingarten
    - Pustina
    - Kurortas
  - Black Tower
    - Steingarten
    - Awha
    - Bohren
    - Kaiyo
    - Olej
  - Oasis II-recharge stations
    - Steingarten
    - Pustina
    - Kurortas

Elizabeth Lee is up next, once the good admiral sits back down. “Your Majesty, Interior is prepared to fully support colonization, terraforming, and economic development projects this year.” She smiles a bit.

“To begin with, there are three systems which are candidates for colonization. We have coordinated with DoME to come up with a new classification system for prospective colonies to better reflect the amount of effort needed to make them independently viable.” She brings up a small chart to explain it.

Habitability Index
Gaia	An absolutely ideal system
Terran	Fully independent of any need for external support to maintain the population, capable of becoming a Core world
Habitable	Can survive without special equipment, but still dependent on terraforming equipment to some degree or another. Not Core qualified
DoME 0	The DoME rating indicates the tier of terraforming that needs to be completed to qualify a system for Habitable. Once this is accomplished, one additional terraforming project will result in the system reaching ‘Terran’ level and becoming capable of becoming a Core world
DoME 1
DoME 2
DoME 3
DoME 4
DoME 5
None	Cannot be terraformed in any way, usually denotes a system that requires Colony Core Clusters to settle

Mineral Wealth
Ultra-Rich	Major easily accessible deposits of industrial metals
Rich	Good access to significant industrial metals
Average	An average world
Poor	Difficult to access industrial metals
Ultra-Poor	Extremely difficult to access industrial metals
Negligible	No industrial metals present

“As such, we’ve rated the three new potential colonies by these criteria.”

System	Habitability Index	Mineral Wealth Index
Steingarten	DoME 4	Ultra-Poor
Pustina	DoME 2	Rich
Kurortas	Gaia	Poor

“While on the surface Steingarten is a poor choice to colonize, it is ideally located to serve as a trade port with the Masters of Ikea, making it valuable for its location if nothing else.” Elizabeth explains. “We are prepared to support colonization efforts in all three systems.”

She checks her notes. “Next, with Nowy Wrocław now being a Core world, it is possible to invest heavily into the infrastructure of the system in an effort to quickly bring it up to par with the rest of the Core. In addition, we have the following recommendations this year for economic foci and investments.”

Economic
- Focus
  - Core
    - New Capricorn
  - Periphery
    - Nox
- Investment
  - Massive Investment
    - Core
      - New Pollux
    - Periphery
      - Nox
  - Investment
    - Nya Kopenhamn

“Finally, we have a large number of idle DoME teams, and idle DoME teams are recipes for shenanigans and hilarity, neither of which would be particularly useful right now. I for one do not wish to wake up to find a thousand meter tall statue of myself floating in the asteroid belt. We have the following project recommendations for those mad lads.”

DoME Projects
- Terraforming
  - Bari
  - Pieklo
  - Awha
  - Iskra
  - Kaiyo
- Study Venenatus Ecosystem

Leila is looking rather exhilarated, as if she’d downed a bit too much caffeine before the meeting. “Your Majesty, I’m still enthused by just how well our Olympic team did last year, as such we won’t be recommending any sports camps or such. Rather we recommend that we hold a Cultural Festival of some sort, simply to celebrate the people who live in our Empire.”

Tiberius had been absent, but as if summoned by some means, and you pretend not to see Admiral Fisher discretely putting his mobile phone away, he bursts into the meeting room, wearing a full suit of Lorica Segmentum, his helmet cradled under one arm, and flanked by… your palm resists the urge to meet your face in loving embrace, and you likewise remember that the security system is catching all of this and you can ask them for pictures later, as all of your kids, and his, are lined up next to him in play versions of the same armor, complete with foam rubber ‘gladius’.

You have an even harder time keeping from laughing as he begins his ‘Speech To Caesar’.

“Ave gloriosissimi Caesar! Nos, Tui fideles servi, Imperio et Tibi servituri sumus! Ad mandatum tuum gloriosum exibimus ad impiam chartam et officialitatem ad percutiendum imperium tuum divinum infestandum!” he declares in a ringing voice, drawing his own foam-rubber sword and thrusting it in the sky, as all the kids call out a slightly ragged, but extremely cute ‘AVE!” in response.

In a more normal tone, grinning slightly. “Or, at least, your political office is ready to support anything you need, including those new colonies, plus if you want we can hire more bureaucrats for you to curse.” He pauses. “If we have the budget, we might want to consider increasing the Parks & Recreation budget as well. The growth of the Empire is putting strain on the existing recreational infrastructure and our people would appreciate expanding it some.”

He then pauses, flourishes his sword, and declares. “Legionaries! About FACE!” the younger kids giggle as they turn around and proceed to march out of the room and back to the park.

Grace is giggling as she takes the podium. “How do I follow that, Your Majesty? We have one free team, unless you wish to release the two teams doing contract research, and we recommend having them work on advanced high energy physics research.” She grins and sits back down.

General Messerschmidt is absent, overseeing the questioning of the pirate prisoners and liberated slaves, but he’s sent a memo stating that there’s nothing of significance that Intelligence requires budget wise this year.

Martina is similarly engaged, although primarily with the liberated slaves as she oversees efforts to fully regularize their legal status in the best, most respectful, manner. She did send a memo that her department is ready to support extending the legal system to any new colonies founded this year.

LordSunhawk · Jul 25, 2022

Turn 101 - And Where Are The Clowns? Send In The Clowns.

Meta Event	27
Dynasty Luck	40
	Successes
Imperial Approval	1
Approval Change	1
Political Event	-2
	Successes
Imperial Economy	0
Economic Event	0
Research Event	0

Griffon	Econ	7
	Health	3
	Event	2

Nowa Warszawa	Econ	3
	Health	1
	Event	5

Calliope IV	Econ	3
	Health	4
	Event	4

TTP	Econ	1
	Health	6
	Event	2

New Capricorn	Econ	0
	Health	6
	Event	2

Nowy Śląsk	Econ	0
	Health	2
	Event	0

Edelsteine	Econ	2
	Health	4
	Event	3

Nowy Wrocław	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Griff's Leap	Econ	6
	Health	N/A
	Event	1

New Phoenix	Econ	0
	Health	5
	Event	4

New Eden	Econ	5
	Health	2
	Event	5

New Castor	Econ	5
	Health	0
	Event	3

Okusawa	Econ	6
	Health	2
	Event	5

New Pollux	Econ	7
	Health	0
	Event	3

New Port Royal	Econ	3
	Health	0
	Event	2

Kainga	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Chuma	Econ	5
	Health	2
	Event	2

Stahlfurt	Econ	4
	Health	N/A
	Event	4

Bāṛi	Econ	4
	Health	4
	Event	3

Skała	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Piekło	Econ	2
	Health	0
	Event	1

Nya Köpenhamn	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	4

Bauernparadis	Econ	0
	Health	5
	Event	2

Awha	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1

Kaiyo	Econ	12
	Health	4
	Event	4

Bohren	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	5

Grand View	Econ	4
	Health	4
	Event	4

Iskra	Econ	4
	Health	3
	Event	0

Raj	Econ	2
	Health	0
	Event	1

Feurstern	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	0

Pinball	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Catachan	Econ	5
	Health	6
	Event	4

Nox	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	2

Olej	Econ	2
	Health	0
	Event	3

Glorreich	Econ	10
	Health	3
	Event	0

Pryyemnyy	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1

Novolar	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	1

Plan: Continuing Pattern
- Procurement [$ 252,502,321,683.77 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $3,196,478,700.00 ] (95)
--- 200 Bainbridge [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Wright [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 46
Result - SUCCESS

--- 4 Trenton [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Saipan [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 59
Result - SUCCESS

--- 32 Aetna [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 84
Result - SUCCESS

--- 16 Meteor [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

--- 32 Canopus [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 66
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $74,560,216.80 ] (90)
--- 8 Windjammer [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $11,638,300,300.00 ] (90)
--- 40 Fubuki [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 87
Result - SUCCESS

--- 40 Lyr [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 2
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Dido [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Hosho [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Prinz Eugen [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-- Purchase New Units [Minor Unit - $425,494,173.21 ] (90)
--- 0 Fighter Wing [auto]
--- 30 Heavy Carrier Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 47
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Fleet Defense Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Naval Patrol Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

--- 3 Infantry Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 22
Result - SUCCESS

--- 8 Garrison Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 25
Result - SUCCESS

--- 9 Militia Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

--- 3 Battlemech Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-- Fortress Command [$ 237,249,946,400.00 ] (90)
--- Build Jump Point Defenses
---- Steingarten [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 42
Result - SUCCESS

---- Pustina [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

---- Kurortas [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 22
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Silver Tower
---- Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 66
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Oasis II
---- Steingarten [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

---- Pustina [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

---- Kurortas [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

---- Nowy Wroclaw [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Black Tower
---- Steingarten [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 89
Result - SUCCESS

---- Awha [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 18
Result - SUCCESS

---- Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 75
Result - SUCCESS

---- Kaiyo [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 20
Result - SUCCESS

---- Olej [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 77
Result - SUCCESS

- General [$ 498,331,000,000.00 ]
-- Focus Development on Core World New Capricorn [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 100, Jarow reroll – 96, Jarow reroll – 98, ShadowArxxy reroll - 83
Result - SUCCESS

-- Focus Development on Peripheral World Nox [85]
Target - 85
Roll - 30
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Core Investment New Pollux [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 42
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Peripheral Investment Nox [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 92, ShadowArxxy reroll - 58
Result - SUCCESS

-- Economic Investment Nya Kopenhamn [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 50
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Civil Service [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Colonial Office (per level) [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 11
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand High Security Prison - Griff's Leap [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 75
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-F21 [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 21
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Colony - Steingarten [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 3
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Steingarten [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 4
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Legal System - Steingarten [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Colony - Pustina [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 71
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Pustina [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Legal System - Pustina [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Colony - Kurortas [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Kurortas [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Legal System - Kurortas [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 76
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Orbital Shipyards [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 89
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bohren [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Iskra [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 38
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Stahlfurt [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Nox [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Chuma [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 22
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Bari [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 89
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 73
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Pryymenyy [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 33
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 82
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 74
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand DURF* [60]
Target - 60
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Endosteel Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 9
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Ferro Fibrous Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build New Orbital Factory (90)
--- 5 DHS Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 66
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Endosteel Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 26
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Ferro Fibrous Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 16
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Naval Armor Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Conventional Military Factory (90)
--- 5 Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 62
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 New Phoenix [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 34
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 New Pollux [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 67
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Military Logistics Factory (95)
--- 5 Griffon [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 91
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Nowa Warszawa [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 93
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Calliope [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 55
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Edelsteine [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 64
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Germanium Processing Facilities [95]
Target - 95
Roll - 63
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Refit & Repair Yard [105]
Target - 105
Roll - 13
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Okusawa* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard New Port Royal* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 31
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard New Castor* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard New Capricorn* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Nowa Warzsawa* [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 14
Result - SUCCESS

- DoME [$ 136,000,000,000.00 ]
-- Expand R&D Complex on Core System Calliope [70]
Target - 70
Roll – 98, Hellspawn reroll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Major Army Base - Glorreich* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 29
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Major Army Base - Novolar* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 28
Result - SUCCESS

-- Planetary Optimization (Peripheral) - Pinball* [80]
Target - 80
Roll - 61
Result - SUCCESS

- Research [$ 511,020,000,000.00 ]
-- High Energy Physics (Advanced) Tier 6 [90]
Target - 90
Roll - 85
Result - SUCCESS

- Culture [$ 1,250,000,000 ]
-- Culture - Cultural Festival [75]
Target - 75
Roll - 41
Result - SUCCESS

-----

The Bourbon ambassador is looking torn between laughter and concern as he comes to meet with you with the long awaited missive from the arrogant twit otherwise known as the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie. He advises you to not be drinking anything and asks that you please stay seated, before sitting down himself. And beginning to read in the most pompous imitation of the twit you’d ever heard, causing you to already start giggling.

Madame,
La conduite honteuse de votre Empire est un affront aux peuples civilisés du monde entier. Votre utilisation de telles abominations en tant qu'individus génétiquement modifiés simplement pour tricher lors d'événements sportifs est un signe certain de votre dépravation morale personnelle et de votre infériorité intellectuelle. Vous êtes une honte pour la race humaine, et dans un monde juste, vous seriez traîné hors de votre repaire crasseux et présenté à la guillotine par des hommes convenables et dignes.

Tout l'univers peut voir que vous êtes un lâche lâche, indigne de son trône, accroupi sur une insupportable collection d'argent arrachant des paysans et des scélérats sans la moindre once d'honneur, d'intégrité ou même d'humanité. Les insectes piqueurs des champs sont supérieurs à votre sale espèce et tous les hommes civilisés de valeur abjurent vos lâches manières.

Sachez donc que le duché de Nouvelle-Picardie bannit désormais tous vos paysans et marchands de notre noble terre. Nous exigeons que notre Roi dénonce vos manières insolentes et lâches, et exige que vous vous soumettiez immédiatement à la justice plutôt que de vous recroqueviller derrière votre faux trône.

MORT AU GRIFFON, MORT À VOTRE MAISON PUTRID

Chaleureusement,
Le Duc de Nouvelle Picardie

You’d taken French in college, and you are quite glad that you followed the ambassador's advice. For all of the incredibly arrogant and annoying proclamations from that corrupt fatarse this one takes the cake, especially the ending. Cordially?

Once you get your giggles under control you decide that there really is only one response to that. You have your secretary print up an admissions form for a prestigious senior tenured position within the Department of Periphery Studies, fill it out in the good Dukes name, and hand it over to the ambassador to deliver to him as your response.

He immediately gets the joke, and then drops a minor bombshell, the Bourbon king, in consultation with the other Ducs, other than Nouvelle Picardie that is, is requesting a flotilla from your Navy and, say, a few divisions of ground troops to engage in ‘exercises’ within the Kingdom, location to be decided, but quite likely rhyming with Nouvelle Picardie. A quite bland ‘of course, the local Duc would be responsible for any damages and indemnities that arise from these exercises’ cements that. It looks like the Bourbon king is tired of the good Duc.

[]	Action	Result
[]	Agree	A small task force centered around a quartet of Prinz Eugen-class vessels will be dispatched for ‘exercises’ that just coincidentally include ‘stomping through the palace of the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie and accidentally stepping on the fat slug’ Massively improves relations with the Bourbons Ends the hilarity that is dealing with the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie Keeps me away from Giggle Translate
[]	Disagree	MOAR GIGGLE TRANSLATE!

The Department of Periphery Studies has heard about the catgirl athletes and has decided that simply adding a cat-ear headband and fake cat tail taped to their backsides will result in them becoming supreme athletes. This has predictable results, and thankfully the dedicated staff of research assistants, interns, and administrative staff, AKA the psychiatric nurses and doctors of the Department, take plenty of pictures.

This proves a mixed blessing, as the economic development staff of the Interior Ministry is laughing so hard at the videos that they almost forget to file the paperwork for the economic focus work on New Capricorn by the deadline. Oops, but they do manage after a frantic all nighter, so all's well that ends well.

Economic development goes quite well across the board, in fact, with significant benefits to all of the peripheral and core systems involved in this round of work. You make a point to send nice gift baskets to everybody in thanks for their hard work.

The civil service and colonial office continue to grow with the expanding needs of the Empire. You get a note from the Justice Ministry confirming the successful expansion of the High Security Prison complex in Griff’s Leap.

The initially hopeful survey of GX-F21 turns a bit sour as the initial excitement over finding a quite beautiful Earth-like world turns to disappointment when the mineral assays come up extremely negative. The planet isn’t as good of a candidate for an agriworld as New Eden or Bauernparadis, but has zero worth for mining or effective industrialization either.

You receive significantly better news from Steingarten, as the colonization teams manage to discover several previously overlooked ore deposits, as well as reevaluating the seismic survey and discovering some excellent candidate regions for heavy industry on the planet. Overall thanks to the very low initial population in the domed settlements the per capita GDP of the colonists is surprisingly high, and projected to continue to grow. You have a feeling that the colonists who took a chance on the planet with the original mineral reports are feeling just a bit clever right now.

The colonization of Pustina and Kurortas were both accomplished successfully, adding three new systems to the Empire. Kurortas is already showing signs of being a tourist draw, as the truly spectacularly beautiful climate is perfect for relaxing vacations.

The number of available dropship yards has gone up quite nicely with the latest round of expansion, with many facilities reaching their maximum size and now able to build escorts and jumpships. Likewise the expansion of strategic material production has resulted in significantly higher yields for these vital resources.

The growing number of major warships in your fleet, even if not true capital line units, has allowed the Admiralty to formally create an Expeditionary Fleet in addition to the existing Grand Fleet, allowing for a degree of greater flexibility. The Grand Fleet is much larger still, but the Expeditionary Fleet is a potent formation in its own right, rivaling the Grand Fleet of just several years ago in combat power. Vice Admiral Fujita has been placed in command of the Expeditionary Fleet, promoted from Admiral von Falkenrick’s deputy.

An Empire-wide Japanese cultural festival is held to great acclaim. Thankfully the Department of Periphery Studies was far too busy with their latest catgirl obsession to engage in any ‘cultural’ shenanigans this time around.

R&D work on high energy physics has yielded a number of interesting avenues for future research, but no great breakthroughs immediately.

LordSunhawk · Jul 26, 2022

Turn 102 - Well A Man Come On 6 O’Clock News

After consultations with the Bourbon ambassador you determine several things. The Bourbon king has decided that he can no longer tolerate the Duc du Nouvelle Picardie undermining his authority, that said Duc is clearly plotting a civil war anyways so it’s not like he’s going after an actually loyal vassal, and the other Ducs are clearly fully in agreement that their annoying colleague would be much more pleasant to remember than to deal with.

You will be activating one of your Corps, consisting of the HQ, an Armored Division, a Pathfinder Division, and three Regimental Combat Team Divisions. A total of 54 regiments will be deployed on 162 Trenton-class transports, along with a dozen Newport-C logistics vessels to support the ground forces. The Expeditionary Fleet will be the primary naval contingent, however the overall operational commander will be General Leah-Marie Fitzpatrick of the Imperial Griffon Army.

You almost feel sorry for the Duc du Nouvelle Picardie, since General Fitzpatrick had been your overall Division CO when you were in the Army and had a reputation even then as a hard nosed bulldog who probably showed up in the dictionary next to the words ‘relentless’ and ‘tenacity’.

You also send Special Branch along to augment the usual counterintelligence sections of your deployed units, no sense making it easy for spare parts and such to discover a burning desire to walk with Jesus to the Bourbon laboratories. You somehow forget to mention this to the Bourbon delegation, certainly an oversight on your part as you are totally convinced that they would never once do any such thing.

Incidentally, you have some lovely bottom land to sell, and a beautiful bridge across the Griffsport harbor, at a reasonable price!

The Pan-Griffon Games have begun, to much hooplah and applause. Your eldest daughter is incredibly happy, as you’ve decided that her first ‘public duty’ as your Heir will be to officially open the Games in your stead. You’re sitting in the Imperial Box right behind her, but you found it so cute how diligently she practiced her speech in front of the mirror, then promptly discarded it and instead waved enthusiastically at the wildly applauding crowd in the stadium before getting a hilariously panicked ‘oh shoot, I forgot my lines’ expression before straightening her shoulders and winging it, managing to get all the important parts said in the right order to thunderous applause.

You now have teasing material for years.

You get even more a few weeks later when the elected head of the Nowa Warszawa system government arrives in Griffsport to much pomp and circumstances to officially greet Tamara as the Księżniczka Nowej Warszawy, or Princess of Nowa Warszawa, as has been traditional for the Imperial Heir. It somehow slipped your mind to warn her about this, as is also traditional in your family ever since your Great-Grandmother ambushed your Grandfather with it.

And in a tradition you’d forgotten about, Bastet and Sekhmet promptly treacherously betray their liege and assist your daughter in tossing you into the pool. Your husband's laughter, and the fact that he’s carrying the camera and just happens to be in the right spot to get the shot, proves that he too was involved in this sly, treacherous, underhanded, hilariously funny betrayal of Imperial dignity. The only response possible in such a circumstance is to splash all of them and turn the situation into a giant family splash war in the pool.

Sadly for the Imperial dignity, your kids are getting better at splash wars. Fortunately, Tiberius doesn’t know what the word dignity means, and having found out about something immature happening within a light years radius, he shows up with his wife and kids and promptly joins Markus and you in fending off the juvenile hordes in epic water combat.

A few days later you receive a report from the system governor of Glorreich. A start up company on the fairly new colony world has proposed a rather clever refinement of the Enhanced PPC system that has been standard issue in the Griffon military for ages, making use of materials used in the lighter, but much less potent and extremely rare, Improved PPC. You can already hear the collective groans from the current corporations heavily involved in PPC production over missing the obvious upgrade path for what is already an exceptionally potent weapon system.

Another memo, this time from the Bāṛi system, is less sanguine. The system governor reports that even though they expect the system to achieve a large enough economy to qualify for Core status in just a few years, the habitability levels are still not high enough to qualify for the status. It will be a minimum of 9 more years, according to the best estimates of the experts in DoME, for the habitable planet in the Bāṛi system to be fully independently capable of sustaining its population without any external terraforming support, a critical component of becoming a Core world.

Pieklo, the other Periphery system on the cusp of becoming a Core system, is in a less difficult position, as it is expected that the current round of terraforming underway by DoME should, barring any unforeseen complications, permit the system to be rated as independently habitable in approximately 4 years, a year or two after the economic figures would otherwise permit the system to be declared part of the Core.

Interestingly, Nowa Warszawa is seeing a small dip in population this year, primarily due to internal migration to various Periphery systems in pursuit of new opportunities. It’s less than a half-percent drop, and in many ways it is welcome as the Nowa Warszawa system was on the verge of no longer being able to rely on its own agricultural sector for basic foodstuffs as opposed to the more exotic crops supplied by the agriworlds.

The Navy was able to capture a partially intact Black Steel drone fighter. Sadly the computers and electronics were completely wrecked, but the frame and surviving equipment gives you a solid baseline for these drones. SARAH is able to identify it as a BlackWasp ASF, at least in internal arrangement, as the external frame had enough differences to fool the warbook. The wreckage has been turned over to Griffin’s Roost University and the various R&D teams to work out everything they can from it, and the Aerospace Force is going over it with a fine-toothed comb in hopes of finding weaknesses that they can exploit.

LordSunhawk · Jul 27, 2022

Turn 102 - GrandPappy Told My Pappy

You read the executive summaries of the test reports concerning the Hosho light carrier paired with the new Wright dockable platforms with the newly developed Fleet Defense Wing formations. The general verdict is highly positive, in simulations the combination is extremely capable against the ASF swarm tactics commonly used by the Black Steel. It is hardly a perfect defense, as the Black Steel units will almost always outnumber the Fleet Defense Wings, but it is more efficient than previous tactics.

It is noted that while this is a partial solution to the drone ASF problem, it only exacerbates the drone dropship problem. The main issue is a lack of collars on fleet units. Analysts are requesting a supplemental heavy cruiser design built on a similar paradigm to the Potemkin as effectively a dropship carrier. There’s a note from Admiral Fisher that they’ve been studying just such a proposal, but it is far from ready for construction.

The Pan-Griffon Games are going extremely well, and your daughter continues to have the time of her life as the official hostess of the event. She’s gotten much better at remembering her lines, but her sheer enthusiasm and joy is infectious. The crowd response to her is exceptionally positive, and she has thrown herself into the role with wild abandon.

Of course the family raptor pack is getting in on the fun, and at the Decathlon medal ceremony decided that they, not your daughter, were to give the concluding speech and proceeded to chirrup, churr, and look incredibly pleased with themselves while she stifled giggles behind them. The fact that they somehow managed to get raptor-sized top hats and monocles? You had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

Of course this inspired the two griffkittens, Wadjet and Tefnut, to try to top the dinosauroid pests in the swimming ceremony. The fact that they were wearing full griffkitten tuxedos complete with honest to god stovepipe hats and enormous fake mustaches… and then gave the relevant speech in amazingly snooty accents in a devastating imitation of the mannerisms of the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie… You have to concede that the cats won that round.

Speaking of Nouvelle Picardie, the task force that has been formed to handle the situation there has assembled in Nouvelle Paris and will be jumping into the Nouveau Picardie system in several weeks.

There’s a very interesting situation here in Griffsport. It’s long been well known that the only reason that Rexes are able to be contained in their enclosure at the Griffsport Imperial Zoo is that they quite like it and enjoy the attention. However everybody knows that they are more than intelligent enough, not to mention strong enough, to defeat any reasonable measures confining them to the enclosure.

A truly stupendously stupid and malevolent idiot learned this the hard way when he decided that a remote viewing area of the Rex habitat was the perfect place to abduct a young schoolgirl and, figuring that nobody was close enough to hear or see what he was doing, attempt to rape the poor girl. Only to find himself being plucked off of her by a rather irate momma Rex, deposited inside the enclosure, roared at, inspiring the idiot to take off running, only for the other Rex in the enclosure to give chase, keeping just barely behind him and roaring every so often whenever the moron slowed down. They kept this up until the zoo police showed up and arrested the numbskull. Momma Rex meanwhile kept the girl company until her own parents, along with responding law enforcement, arrived, and when they did they were treated to the sight of the girl riding around on the back of the Rex like a big giant pony.

The idiot is going on trial in a week. Public sentiment towards the Rexes is universally positive, with nobody seeming all that bothered by this demonstration of the fact that the giant dinosauroid predators were not at all contained.

The Imperial Parliament is debating a measure related to military upkeep expenditures. A proposal has been tabled which would further streamline military logistics by applying the latest in computerized inventory tracking and management systems. The current logistics system was state of the art… two decades ago. While only marginal improvements in the overall cost of maintaining a military force are expected, even marginal decreases in expenses are, in the words of the sponsoring Senator, ‘a great deal of real money’.

Initial setup costs might be a bit high, but within 2 years the improvements would more than pay for themselves. If applied to the current year's maintenance and upkeep budget, the improvements would save over $8 billion. Like the Senator said… real money. And as the military continues to grow, the savings will grow as well.

Some media types have made big claims and tried to make hay over the fact that the company which developed the proposed systems is listed on the Griffon stock exchange, with the entirety of the Senate and Chamber of Delegates owning stock. Others have pointed out, quite dryly, that this is due to the fact that the blind index fund that all members of Parliament are part of holds stock in literally every single company listed on every single stock exchange in the Empire, specifically one share in each company per current member of Parliament. Said share is purchased the day that a new member is seated OR a new company is listed, and sold the day that they are no longer in Parliament, with any aggregate profit forming the basis for their retirement payout. They also, quite dryly, note that this is the only investment that sitting members of the Imperial Parliament are allowed to hold while they are in office precisely to preclude even the appearance of insider trading.

The repressed frustration on the face of the media idiots over that self-own is glorious to behold, in your opinion.

[]	Action	Argument	Results
[]	Sign the Military Logistics Modernization Act of 3032	The cost of maintaining the Imperial military has been rising rapidly, especially naval support expenses. While this is necessary in order to properly defend ourselves and project power beyond our borders, this does reduce the amount of funds available for other purposes. Modernizing the logistics system would allow us to partially counter this expense while ensuring that the quality of support that we provide the men and women in uniform remains high.	Upfront cost of $15,000,000,000.00 Increase Logistics Efficiency Rating to 3 +1 Research Event +1 Politics
[]	Veto the Military Logistics Modernization Act of 3032	The military is nothing but a costly drain on the Exchequer and needs to be reduced outright, not these gimmicks with logistics. While we need some naval units, we can eliminate all of the useless ground forces units and save even more money than this ridiculous proposal would. We could likewise eliminate all of the transports that we waste money on procuring for the worthless ground forces. Future wars will be fought purely in space, there is absolutely no need for ground forces of any kind, eliminate the Imperial Army is what I say.	Increase Economic Event rating by 1 -2 Imperial Approval -10 support Imperial Senate Chamber of Delegates

You read the ‘argument against’ statement and make a note to go hunt down the chief designer of Majeure Electrique and toss her out the Window of Defenestration a few times on general principle.

LordSunhawk · Jul 29, 2022

Turn 102 - Take All The Rope In Texas

You can’t help it. You giggle when you see the name that the operational planners have put on the operation against the Duc de Nouvelle Picardie… Operation Special Delivery. You know that the names are assigned randomly, but apparently the random generator also dislikes the pompous ass and assigned a quite appropriate name.

The Bourbon forces engage in the bulk of the initial orbital fighting, with the Duc’s forces quite vigorously contesting them among transmitted cries of outrage. Your forces were assigned to seize the orbital shipyards and industrial complexes, which they manage quite handily. General Fitzpatrick’s initial report indicates that the security forces on the complexes didn’t seem all that well motivated, generally putting up a pro-forma show of resistance, mostly giving their commander time to read out an obviously scripted declaration of eternal loyalty to the Duc, usually in a rather resigned and resentful tone, then falling all over themselves to surrender.

Intelligence, however, indicates that the Duc’s actual loyalists, outside those concentrated in the fleet units battling the other Bourbon formations, are all planetside, and are very well paid indeed for their loyalty.

The attached 1st Pathfinder Division has, according to the General’s initial report, dropped on the planet’s southern continent and secured a beachhead; follow-on units are in the process of landing. Casualties so far are quite light, however orbital reconnaissance shows that Ducal forces are well dug in and preparing for an extended battle. The General concludes her report stating that they expect heavy action to begin as they push into the targeted cities, since the rules of engagement restricted indiscriminate artillery bombardment due to the presence of so many civilians.

Closer to home, the Pan Griffon Games continue, in counterpoint to the much more lethal ‘games’ on Nouvelle Picardie. The competition continues to be intense, giving you hope for a successful Olympics in two years.

The motor racing events are particularly exciting, with some of the most intense action you’ve yet seen in the Stock Car events. No clear winners emerged until the very last lap, with over fifty lead changes, a dozen cautions, and the winning car barely edging out the second place car in the final straight by less than a tenth of a second.

Trade has begun with the Masters of Ikea, with your merchants reporting quite positively about this faction's willingness to do honest business. Reports come in that the system itself has no actual habitable planets, but it does have exceptionally dense asteroid belts. The Masters of Ikea have made full use of the resource rich nature of the system and have built literally millions of space stations of many and varying sorts, including entire rings of the most lethal defense stations you’ve yet seen. Judging by debris fields, it appears that the Masters of Ikea and the Black Steel are not on anything even vaguely resembling friendly terms.

A series of scouting runs from Black Steel light units in the Pryyemnyy system has been judged to be a likely prelude to a full scale assault on the relatively new colony. As a precaution the Grand Fleet has been deployed to the system, along with raising the systems defenses to maximum alert.

And now it is time for your yearly budget meetings, which you still find far more enjoyable than not.

General Jenkins is up first. “I’ll keep this briefing brief, Your Majesty.” His lips quirk at the laugh that stirs around the meeting room. “Continued growth and expansion is required for us to stay ahead of the curve and, hopefully, be able to continue to both protect our Empire and project power throughout the local region. I’ll leave it to the others for specifics, General Bradley?”

The CO of the Imperial Griffon Army takes the podium. “Your Majesty, our continued expansion of strategic materials is highly welcome, but we still have a great deal of distance to cover. We are still limited to a maximum of 3 Infantry Divisions a year, and as the Empire continues to grow our requirements for that unit type also continues to grow.”

She brings up a chart showing the current strategic production vs usage.

J1McQyTCAgX6VVwR9g23wa_w0IN0yzU4ETV3HQQ7wbeYicKFcWOWWGEPicE_Afxut2tTxS2MO-eYY-5CoSa_arH-qsR-ONyeKO82qcTt7k_9_2u1kfWe_Imo102vFo1sqstaG0qi_Q_FigRzv_NU3Es

“Accordingly we are making the following production and procurement requests.” She continues once you’ve had a chance to review the data.

Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
  - Strategic Materials
    - New Factories
      - 5 Double Heat Sink
      - 5 Ferro Fibrous
      - 5 Endo Steel
    - Expand Existing Factories
      - Double Heat Sinks
      - Ferro Fibrous
      - Endo Steel
  - Logistics Factories
    - 5 Each
      - Kaiyo
      - Iskra
      - Pinball
      - Catachan
      - Steingarten
- Procurement
  - Conventional
    - 3 Infantry Divisions
  - Battlemech
    - 1 Regimental Combat Team Division
    - 2 Battlemech Divisions
  - Garrison
    - 10 Garrison Divisions
    - 10 Militia Divisions

She takes her seat and is replaced by General Romanov. “Your Majesty, the Fleet Defense Wing concept has proven to be very successful in exercises and simulations, as such we intend to deploy these units on a wide scale in conjunction with greater deployment of the Wright-class platforms.” She brings up a fairly short and simple chart.

Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Procurement
  - 90 Fleet Defense Wing

“In addition, we are continuing to work with industry on determining innovative and effective solutions to the Black Steel drone fighter threat. While the Fleet Defense Wing is effective, it is hoped that there might be other solutions as well.”

Admiral Fisher is up next. “OK, like always, we want it all, we want it now. Yes, we’ll be building a ton of the transportable ASF platforms, we’re also working with industry on more efficient designs for future use as the Wright-class was intended as a proof of concept. With the resurgence of actual pirate threats we’ll be building additional England-class Frigates as escorts as well.” He brings up the charts, taking his time. “First of all, the strategic material situation, especially keeping in mind the pending improvements in Germanium processing facilities, are more than adequate for our needs.”

Qar5q6JVcY1AxNCkjAqWLDZPefN7yo4yTsWXk5Zn55p81cNUB8RCrA2CPeCESyZbP0ATAS_jsrsg1BlH0zM08fGTE7sx8zFYIy-mJBgERuYR9XwhT-iVv-JxI94ympq144GE0qxpJPh0374_Bo2sVJc

Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
  - Orbital Shipyards
    - New Orbital Shipyards
      - Pustina
      - Kurortas
      - Steingarten
    - Expand Existing Orbital Shipyards
  - Refit & Repair Stations
    - Expand all Repair & Refit Stations
  - Escort Yards
    - Steingarten
    - Pustina
    - Kurortas
    - Raj
    - Olej
    - Feurstern
    - Pinball
    - Awha
    - Catachan
    - Nox
  - Small Warship Yards
    - New Castor
    - New Port Royal
    - Kainga
    - New Capricorn
- Procurement
  - Standard Dropships
    - 100 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 50 Long Beach-class Parasite Destroyers
    - 90 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
    - 1 Trenton-class Transport
  - Large Dropships
    - 20 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 40 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    - 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    - 32 Canopus-class Parasite Battleships
  - Jumpships
    - 9 Windjammer-class Jumpships
  - Escorts
    - 20 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 20 England-class Frigates
    - 40 Lyr-class Corvettes
  - Small Warships
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
  - Medium Warships
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
  - Large Warships
    - 2 Potemkin-class Troop Cruisers
      - NOTE - the staff at our yards are confident that they can build these vessels despite their size due to the relative simplicity of the hulls
- Fortress Command
  - Jump Point Defenses
    - Arvum
  - Oasis II
    - Arvum
  - Black Tower
    - Arvum
    - Pryymenyy
    - Shin Tōkyō
    - New Eden
    - Bāṛi

He takes his seat and your Interior Minister replaces him at the podium. “Your Majesty,” Elizabeth begins, “Interior is prepared to support all requested expansions of our production capacity. In addition, we have the following recommendations in regards to economic growth, both in terms of the traditional focused growth initiatives and investments, but also with dedicated Infrastructure & Industrial zones.” She brings up a small chart.

Economic Investment, Focus, and Zoning
- Economic Focus
  - Core
    - New Pollux
  - Periphery
    - Bohren
- Major Investment
  - Core
    - Nowy Wrocław
  - Periphery
    - Awha
- Investment
  - Okusawa
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
  - Glorreich
  - Pryyemnyy
  - Novolar
  - Awha
  - Grand View

“We have a number of survey targets, and this year we are in a somewhat unique position of being able to survey two systems with one expedition. GX-P21 is a Blue Supergiant with no evidence whatsoever of any planets of any kind, a quick survey to ensure against Black Steel presence is all that is required.”

Survey Targets
- GX-O21
  - A red dwarf primary, however astronomers indicate the presence of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone and some indications of multiple gas giants.
- GX-P21
  - Blue Supergiant, quick survey required to ensure against Black Steel installations in system
- GX-P20
  - Yellow main sequence star, there is ample evidence of a life-bearing world in the system according to our astronomers, along with plenty of other major system bodies.
- GX-O17
  - Red Giant primary, however there are indications of the presence of asteroid belts in the system that may be useful
- GX-I33
  - Red dwarf primary, the presence of at least one habitable world has been confirmed from interviews with rescued pirate slaves who describe it as ‘very wet’.

“We are, of course, prepared to fully support the colonization of the Arvum system, although it is important to note that the system is likely going to be primarily valuable due to strategic location rather than inherent economic wealth.” She then turns the page. “We have multiple DoME teams available this year, Your Majesty, as such we have the following recommendations for them.”

DoME Projects
- Planetary Optimization
  - Glorreich
- Terraforming
  - Pryyemnyy Stage 0
  - Glorreich Stage 0
  - Olej Stage 0

Leila takes the podium from Elizabeth. “We have teams working with the Bourbons in regards to our joint operations, and so far they are going quite well with no issues of significance to report. Otherwise, our administration of the Pan Griffon Games is taking up the majority of my ministries attention this year.”

Tiberius is up next. “Your Majesty, I’m in the unusual position of asking you to not spend money this year, specifically on the continued expansion of the Civil Service. While expanding the Colonial Office will allow for us to keep well ahead of the curve, right now we have definitely hit the point of very rapidly diminishing returns on expanding the Civil Service, and the yearly expenses associated with maintaining it are becoming uncomfortably high. I have teams investigating potential avenues for streamlining and incentivizing greater efficiency within the Civil Service itself, and will report back to you when I have anything concrete to report. By the same token, we are just as prepared as the Interior Ministry to support the new colony project in the Arvum system. Lovely place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there, would be bored to tears.”

Gloria comes up next with the R&D requests. “Well, Your Majesty, I know you read the report about the potential of fusing the Improved and Enhanced PPC technologies together. Our R&D teams are eager to work with the company involved in developing this technology to a usable state, as it is expected to have significant benefits across the board to our combat vehicles, mechs, and fighters. As such, we strongly recommend investing the money needed for this project.”

General Messerschmidt is looking a bit smug. “Special Branch and counterintelligence assets have prevented a small number of ‘accidental requisitions’ of the more portable of our tech, Your Majesty. Nothing particularly of note, and our agents report that at least some of the cases might have been genuine accidents. We’ll keep you posted in that regard. Meanwhile, we have reports from the NRR that the Rasalhaguians have deployed a new type of patrol small craft that is reportedly a quite effective craft, details are very sparse as our agents have little but a few fuzzy images to work from.”

Finally it is your Justice Minister’s turn. “I have two reports, Your Majesty. First, in regards to the case involving the Rexes at the Griffsport Zoo, the perpetrator has been found guilty on all counts, but has appealed to the Crown for leniency, on the grounds that he was heavily impaired on multiple drugs at the time of the act and was thus not responsible for his own actions. Of course, it is your decision, but ever since your great-grandmother’s time the standard has been that if you choose to take mind-altering substances that you are wholly and completely responsible for your actions while on said substances, with no pleas of diminished capacity being accepted.”

[]	He chose to take the drugs, follow precedent
[]	Precedent or not, he was not in his right mind, accept the appeal

“Otherwise, we’d like to get in front of things in regards to analyzing and streamlining the regulatory and legal system once again, rather than waiting until the last year. I have a team standing by to accomplish this.”

LordSunhawk · Aug 3, 2022

Turn 102 - Whiskey For My Men, Beer For My Horses

Meta Event	2
Dynasty Luck	22
	Successes
Imperial Approval	1
Approval Change	2
Political Event	-2
	Successes
Imperial Economy	5
Economic Event	5
Research Event	3

Griffon	Econ	1
	Health	5
	Event	4

Nowa Warszawa	Econ	2
	Health	-1
	Event	1

Calliope IV	Econ	6
	Health	0
	Event	2

TTP	Econ	1
	Health	0
	Event	2

New Capricorn	Econ	5
	Health	6
	Event	1

Nowy Śląsk	Econ	5
	Health	6
	Event	1

Edelsteine	Econ	2
	Health	1
	Event	2

Nowy Wroclaw	Econ	2
	Health	1
	Event	0

Griff's Leap	Econ	1
	Health	N/A
	Event	5

New Phoenix	Econ	0
	Health	2
	Event	0

New Eden	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

New Castor	Econ	4
	Health	2
	Event	4

Okusawa	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	0

New Pollux	Econ	0
	Health	6
	Event	5

New Port Royal	Econ	1
	Health	2
	Event	1

Kainga	Econ	2
	Health	0
	Event	0

Chuma	Econ	12
	Health	3
	Event	2

Stahlfurt	Econ	0
	Health	N/A
	Event	1

Bāṛi	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	3

Skała	Econ	2
	Health	4
	Event	4

Piekło	Econ	2
	Health	2
	Event	2

Nya Köpenhamn	Econ	12
	Health	2
	Event	5

Bauernparadis	Econ	3
	Health	5
	Event	0

Awha	Econ	1
	Health	12
	Event	1

Kaiyo	Econ	4
	Health	0
	Event	0

Bohren	Econ	0
	Health	4
	Event	5

Grand View	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	1

Iskra	Econ	5
	Health	3
	Event	2

Raj	Econ	3
	Health	4
	Event	2

Feurstern	Econ	4
	Health	4
	Event	2

Pinball	Econ	5
	Health	5
	Event	1

Catachan	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	5

Nox	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	3

Olej	Econ	0
	Health	0
	Event	0

Glorreich	Econ	2
	Health	10
	Event	3

Pryyemnyy	Econ	10
	Health	1
	Event	4

Novolar	Econ	10
	Health	2
	Event	1

Steingarten	Econ	3
	Health	2
	Event	4

Pustina	Econ	1
	Health	1
	Event	4

Kurortas	Econ	0
	Health	1
	Event	4

Plan: Why am I still following precedent
- Procurement [$ 247,664,909,097.26 ]
-- Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $3,312,121,879.00 ] (95)
--- 100 Bainbridge [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 93
Result - SUCCESS

--- 50 Long Beach [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 91
Result - SUCCESS

--- 90 Wright [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 95
Result - SUCCESS

--- 1 Trenton [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 41
Result - SUCCESS

--- 30 Saipan [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 31
Result - SUCCESS

--- 40 Aetna [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 51
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Meteor [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 63
Result - SUCCESS

--- 32 Canopus [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 44
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Jumpship [Jumpship Construction - $41,940,121.95 ] (90)
--- 9 Windjammer [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Lay down Warship [Warship Construction - $11,875,991,100.00 ] (90)
--- 20 Fubuki [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 16
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 England [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 41
Result - SUCCESS

--- 40 Lyr [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 7
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Dido [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 5
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 7
Result - SUCCESS

--- 20 Prinz Eugen [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 58
Result - SUCCESS

--- 2 Potemkin [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 36
Result - SUCCESS

-- Purchase New Units [Minor Unit - $ 649,654,496.31 ] (90)
--- 90 Fleet Defense Wing [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 31
Result - SUCCESS

--- 3 Infantry Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 54
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Garrison Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 26
Result - SUCCESS

--- 10 Militia Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 59
Result - SUCCESS

--- 2 Battlemech Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 45
Result - SUCCESS

--- 1 Regimental Combat Team Division [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 66
Result - SUCCESS

-- Fortress Command [$ 231,785,201,500 ] (90)
--- Build Jump Point Defenses
---- Arvum [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 42
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Silver Tower
--- Construct Oasis II
---- Arvum Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 83
Result - SUCCESS

---- Stahlkampfauge Zenith [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 56
Result - SUCCESS

--- Construct Black Tower
---- Arvum [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 8
Result - SUCCESS

---- Pryymenyy [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 37
Result - SUCCESS

---- Shin Tokyo [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 62
Result - SUCCESS

---- New Eden [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 8
Result - SUCCESS

---- Bari [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 56
Result - SUCCESS

- General [$ 335,505,000,000.00 ]
-- Focus Development on Core World New Pollux [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 98, Jarow reroll – 96, ShadowArxxy reroll - 40
Result - SUCCESS

-- Focus Development on Peripheral World Bohren [85]
Target - 85
Roll – 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Core Investment Nowy Wroclaw [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 96, Jarow reroll – 91, Hellspawn reroll – 93 ShadowArxxy reroll - 44
Result - SUCCESS

-- Massive Peripheral Investment Awha [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 49
Result - SUCCESS

-- Economic Investment Okusawa [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 70
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Glorreich [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 54
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Pryyemnyy [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 69
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Novolar [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 41
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Awha [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 79
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Infrastructure and Industrial zones on Grand View [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 11
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Colony - Arvum [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 35
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish System Government - Arvum [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 69
Result - SUCCESS

-- Establish Legal System - Arvum [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-O21 [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 24
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-P21 [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-P20 [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 3
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-O17 [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 45
Result - SUCCESS

-- Survey GX-I33 [80]
Target - 80
Roll – 3
Result - SUCCESS

-- Rationalize Legal Codes [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 47
Result - SUCCESS

-- Expand Orbital Shipyards [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 94
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Steingarten [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 83
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Pustina [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 27
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Kurortas [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Raj [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 27
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Olej [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 34
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Feurstem [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 85
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Pinball [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 43
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Awha [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 89
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Catachan [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Escort Yard Nox [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 12
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Pustina [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 26
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Kurortas [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Orbital Shipyard Steingarten [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 28
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Military Logistics Factory (95)
--- 5 Kaiyo [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 64
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Iskra [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 41
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Pinball [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 82
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Catachan [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 41
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Steingarten [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 42
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All DHS Factories [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 62
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Endosteel Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 82
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade All Ferro Fibrous Forges [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 7
Result - SUCCESS

-- Build Orbital Factory (90)
--- 5 Build New DHS Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 53
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Build New Endosteel Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 64
Result - SUCCESS

--- 5 Build New Ferro Fibrous Factory [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 40
Result - SUCCESS

-- Upgrade Refit & Repair Yard [105]
Target - 105
Roll – 60
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Nowy Wroclaw* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 44
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard New Pollux* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 37
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Edelsteine* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 24
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Nya Kopenhamn* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard New Phoenix* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 52
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Calliope* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Griffon* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 18
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Large Warship Yard Okusawa* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 12
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Small Warship Yard New Port Royal [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 15
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Small Warship Yard Kainga [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 35
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Small Warship Yard New Castor [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 68
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Small Warship Yard New Capricorn [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 57
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Small Warship Yard Nowa Warzsawa [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 23
Result - SUCCESS

- DoME [$ 134,500,000,000.00 ]
-- Construct Major Fleet Base - Glorreich* [75]
Target - 75
Roll – 72
Result - SUCCESS

-- Construct Major Fleet Base - Novolar* [75]
Target - 75
Roll – 72
Result - SUCCESS

- Research [$ 751,020,000,000.00 ]
-- Advanced Ground Combat Doctrine* [90]
Target - 90
Roll – 14
Result - SUCCESS

-- Improved Germanium Refining Lvl 3* [95]
Target - 95
Roll – 51
Result - SUCCESS

-- Commercial R&D [-]
-- Industrial R&D [-]

- Miscellaneous [$ 15,000,200,000.00 ]
-- Griffball [200,000]
-- Military UPS [15,000,000,000.00]

----------

There’s still been no major attacks from the Black Steel, although probing actions involving a few fast ships continue, along with increasing minor raids on shipping. The galactic northwestern frontier is seeing activity all along it now, creating strategic uncertainty about the Black Steels plans for their next move.

The NRI is reporting a number of pirate raids on their galactic northeastern systems, especially Novagalicia. Their forces have been able to handily handle the ramshackle ‘Jolly Rogers’ used by the pirates, but it is tying up forces that would otherwise be available to help counter Black Steel activity.

In more positive news, the NRI has informed you, and your spies confirm, that additional Corvus production lines have been built and output of the little corvette is ramping up rapidly. Over half of the new production is slated for the formations dedicated to the defensive alliance.

The NRR has expanded again, to GX-R27, an asteroid heavy system which they have dubbed the Great Belt, or Storte Belte in Norwegian.

The Rasalhaguian government is going through a bit of a transition, as the old Prime Minister has retired and elections are being held, so far quite peacefully in comparison to previous ones. None of the leading candidates are actually objectionable, as the alliance with the Griffon Empire is quite popular among the Rasalhaguians. Your ambassador reports that she doesn’t expect any complications in the alliance, nor serious upheaval.

General Messerschmidt is a bit grumpier about things, although it is more out of pique than anything else, as one of the leading candidates is, in his words, ‘the bastard who managed to trick our counterintel people over and over again and make us look like chumps.’ Apparently the good general is still not over so much gear ‘walking with Jesus’ during the Okusawa campaign.

There’s a bit of a scare, on an Imperial scale, from New Castor as a major bank is blown up in a rather thunderous detonation that results in the death of several thousand people. There are initial fears that this might be somehow political or terrorist related, but it soon becomes clear to investigators that it is the result of stupidity. A gang of would-be bank robbers attempted to blow up the vault door in the bank in order to loot it, and grossly miscalculated just how much high explosive they’d need to do the job. By several orders of magnitude. All of the bank robbers were in the blast radius, and investigators have concluded, after a thorough investigation, that they were simply criminals trying for a big ‘score’ who had somehow managed to utterly fail at basic math and symbol recognition. The symbol ‘g’ is for grams not kilograms. It should have been a 15g charge on each of the hinges and a 20g charge on the locking mechanism…

Of course, jokes in terrible taste are immediately made about how New Castor is where Pollux Man had moved, which causes you to roll your eyes in exasperation.

You get the survey results from GX-P21 pretty quickly. As expected, the system is completely barren of anything, due to the enormous nature of the blue supergiant star at the center of it. The only value to the system is as a waypoint, and as such it has been dubbed Waypoint 2.

The latest Pan Griffon Games are widely seen as being exceptionally successful, and your daughter continues to have a blast at the Closing Ceremonies.

Afterwards you take a week-long cruise on the SS United States around Capricorn as a family vacation, taking time to visit the old Ngo compound there. You have a great time just relaxing with the kids and your husband.

Then it’s time to put the nose back on the proverbial grindstone. You spend quite a bit of time visiting naval shipyards in the Griffon system for commissioning ceremonies and keel laying ceremonies for the latest vessels in the Imperial fleet. Of particular interest are the new Potemkin troop cruisers being built as interim vessels in the new Large Shipyards, you’d budgeted for two, you’d ordered two, one each from the Griffon and Calliope yard, yet the construction crews for the newest Griffon and Calliope yards got just a trifle excited, along with construction crews, and in an excess of youthful enthusiasm have laid down two additional hulls straight from the gate, giving you four of the venerable design right off the bat.

The rest of the procurement program across the entire Griffon military is quite successful. The new ground combat doctrines produced from the Advanced Ground Forces research are in the process of being implemented, with the fighting on Nouvelle Picardie expected to be a good early test. The conflict there is still primarily jockeying for position, rather than pitched fighting, but that is expected to change in the new year.

Orbital fortification construction proceeds as planned, with a growing number of systems benefiting from the presence of a Black Tower defense station.

The Arvum system has been colonized. As expected, there is next to no mineral wealth available in the system, and while the planet is large it is not fully terraformed yet, making turning it into another agriworld a non-starter currently. Growth is expected to be slow at first, but it is hoped that once DoME is done with things it will be practical to devote the system to agriculture.

Economic investment and growth throughout the Empire is quite good, with the investments and focuses of your Interior Ministry yielding the expected results despite some minor bureaucratic challenges in several cases.

What was not expected, but is very welcome, is that the establishment of specialized industrial zones on several planets, specifically Novolar and Pryyemnyy resulted in unexpected synergistic growth in the industrial sectors and economies of the two worlds, which had previously only been considered to be rather average in terms of potential economic growth. Both have now been reclassified as ‘rich’ by the Ministry on account of the changes.

The Justice Ministry has reported success in the rationalization efforts, continuing the endless war against regulatory creep.

The survey of GX-O21 has discovered a very beautiful terran world with a truly spectacular ring system of its own and very lovely native flora which has been found to be 100% compatible with human biology. Unfortunately the system, while very pretty, is also pretty much devoid of any significant mineral deposits, earning a rating of ‘Ultra Poor’ by the Interior Ministry upon review of the reports. It is very pretty, however, and the survey crews have dubbed the system Landprettig in celebration of this.

GX-O17 is a Red Giant, however there is a habitable zone planetary moon orbiting a super Jupiter. The planet isn’t particularly rich in minerals, although it isn’t poor either, earning a rating of ‘Average’ from the Interior Ministry. However the planet would require substantial terraforming before being completely habitable, on account of the absolutely torrential rains of unusually alkaline water that renders most agriculture very difficult while being very unpleasant to be in. As a consequence, the survey crews have dubbed the system Nubifragio.

GX-I22 is similar in some ways to Nubifragio, in that the habitable planet is subjected to torrential downpours, however in just about every respect the system is completely different. For one thing, the central star is a red dwarf, the rains are quite pleasant and pure water, the soil is quite fertile, and in general if you don’t mind always needing an umbrella that planet is quite nice to live on. The survey crews have named it Platzregensburg and the Interior Ministry has assessed the planet’s potential economic growth as average.

The final scouting reports come in from GX-P20. The main habitable planet in the system is a ‘super earth’, being 25% larger than most terrestrial planets, with a somewhat higher planetary gravity as a consequence, but apart from that the system is gorgeous. While there are signs of a failed colony on the southern continent, all indications are that this was due to pirate raids rather than anything else, because the survey crews have found nothing inimical to human life in the local ecosystem. Introduced plants and animals thrive here from the failed colony, including large numbers of wild dogs, cats, and birds that are obviously descendents of pets kept by the colonists. The survey teams have dubbed the world ‘Bellaterra’ and the Interior Ministry has rated it as ‘Rich’ in terms of economic potential.

The major fleet bases on Glorreich and Novolar have been completed a year ahead of schedule and somewhat under budget thanks to enthusiastic contributions from the local populations of the two worlds.

You read over the reports for new yards, factories, and such and are quite pleased by the successful expansion of your construction and strategic material production capacity. In addition to that, improvements in Germanium Refining techniques have significantly boosted the number of cores available for FTL capable ships.

LordSunhawk · Aug 4, 2022

Turn 103 - Sometimes It’s Hard To Make Things Clear

The early phases of the fighting on Nouvelle Picardie reveal several things about your current force organization. First, your infantry is supreme on the battlefield, easily dominating the non power armored troops of the enemy. In open terrain and in situations where mobility is important your armored vehicles and mechs are exceptionally lethal combatants, able to reach out and destroy any enemy that they can see.

But in built up terrain, in close quarters, and in situations where you simply cannot keep the range wide open to take maximum advantage of your long range missiles, gauss rifles, and enhanced PPCs the calculus shifts rapidly. In the very conditions where you’d expected your heaviest and most heavily armed units to be their most effective they are proving rather disappointing.

For example, the Hyper Assault Gauss rifles of the Merkava X and the latest model of Griffon are extremely lethal, especially at great range, combining heavy hitting power with superb accuracy. But it’s impossible to carry enough ammunition for them to keep them in action for extended combat, plus once the range closes to short and medium distances the balance quickly shifts to lighter, faster firing weapons that are able to sustain action past the point where the giant guns run out of ammunition.

The Enhanced PPC and LRM armed Soldatin had similar issues once the ranges closed in tight, with no dedicated close-in weapons the heavy mechs frequently had to retreat in order to prevent themselves from being swarmed in built up terrain, the ammunition supply for their LRM rack becoming a distinct liability even with the benefit of CASE. The PPC, while exceptionally deadly, was utterly useless against infantry and complete overkill against light vehicles. And where did infantry and light vehicles come into their own? Close terrain where they’d be able to get in range without you being able to do a damn thing about it.

Certainly, if you didn’t care about collateral damage and could just hammer things flat with artillery bombardments none of this would matter. But you aren’t the Dracs, you haven’t drunk the Atrocity-chan Kool Aid, and would much rather that your soldiers remained soldiers, not monsters.

Under these conditions many of the design choices made by the SLDF in the historical files make far more sense. While not as efficient on paper, mixed armaments and units give the commander far more flexibility in real world conditions. It is counterintuitive to mount weapons and systems that are not the absolute ‘best of the best’, but oftentimes it turns out that those weapons actually do have a good reason for existing, you just hadn’t yet faced those reasons.

A field refit of the Patton IV has shown a great deal of promise, where the LRM racks, extended range 5cm laser, and TAG gear, along with associated ammunition and electronics, are removed and replaced with a trio of 5cm pulse lasers and an additional ton of ammunition for the HAG/40. Hull ammunition detonations have been completely eliminated in this variant, and while the tank completely loses all indirect fire capability, it has already earned a reputation as a complete nightmare for enemy infantry and light vehicles in urban terrain, savaging them with the lasers even after the main cannon runs out of ammunition.

A similar field upgrade to the Merkava X has yielded similar results, although this time it features a quintet of the 5cm pulse lasers replacing both LRM launchers, their ammunition, and associated electronics including the TAG gear. While this reduces the overall punch of the vehicle, it does make it a lethal anti-infantry and urban combat tank.

The fighting continues on Nouvelle Picardie since, unlike the Dracs, the Duc’s forces are unwilling to just charge out in suicidal charges into the open to demonstrate their samurai spirit. Inconvenient that.

Closer to home, due to the synergy between the proposed advanced ER PPC and the existing Improved and Enhanced models the amount of time required for the R&D project has been drastically cut, although it will still cost almost a half trillion. Not small change by any measure.

The Department of Periphery Studies is up to their usual shenanigans again. The hard working assistants and staff have managed to keep things mostly contained, but they are disrupting traffic again as they’ve apparently decided that the little minifigures included in popular plastic brick construction sets are actually real people who are being enslaved by those playing with said sets, and are marching for Brick Lives Matter.

Since said marches seem to feature them showing up at the Palace parks with their sets, building them, then marching around chanting absurd phrases while pretending to be full sized brick people… yeah, welcome to the wonderfully weird existence of those in range of the Department of Periphery Studies, bring your sense of the absurd, because it’s about to get strange.

New Castor is experiencing a mild recession this year as several companies file for bankruptcy amid a slowing economy. There’s a generalized malaise about the planet this year that is negatively affecting growth. Analysts are divided as to the cause, but the general consensus is that having one of your biggest megascrapers fall down due to gross stupidity might just be considered bad business.

The Black Steel are continuing their harassment raids all along the northwestern frontier, disrupting commerce in that entire region. Your strategists believe that they are attempting to get you to spread out your forces in response to the attacks so that you will be weak wherever they intend to strike in earnest. The three most likely targets are Arvum, Pryyemnyy, and Bohren. In an attempt to mislead the Black Steel you have deployed the NRI Corvus-class vessels that are part of the treaty widely to those systems that are being raided, along with numbers of your own Lyr-class corvettes. Merchants are being organized into convoys, accompanied by England-class Frigates, while the Grand Fleet is concentrated in the New Phoenix system in order to respond as quickly as possible to any actual assault.

LordSunhawk · Aug 4, 2022

Turn 103 - And I Know That The Moment Is Here

In early April Operation Camel is initiated, the next Black Steel probe on the Arvum system is only responded to with ASF and parasite response, meanwhile the Grand Fleet has moved up to Bohren and is waiting to strike in the event that the Black Steel takes the bait.

Several weeks later they do indeed take the bait, as a large Black Steel force jumps into the Arvum system, blasting the Zenith White Tower into wreckage en passant before thrusting hard for the inner system.

The Grand Fleet then responds, split into two task forces.

Grand Fleet TF 1
- Main Force
- Composition
  - Core
    - 40 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruiser
  - Inner Escorts
    - 100 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 20 Hosho-class Light Carriers
    - 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
  - Outer Screen
    - 150 Fubuki-class Destroyers
Grand Fleet TF 2
- Orbital Blocking Force
- Composition
  - Core
    - 20 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruiser
    - 5 Scharnhorst-class Battlecruiser
  - Inner Escorts
    - 6 Wichita-class Heavy Cruiser
    - 20 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    - 20 Dart-class Light Cruisers
  - Outer Screen
    - 30 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    - 14 Fletcher-class Destroyers
    - 20 Samuel B Roberts-class Destroyer Escorts
    - 12 Dagger-class Corvettes
    - 190 Lyr-class Corvettes

Task Force 1 jumps in behind the Black Steel force and moves to engage them as quickly as possible, while Task Force 2 takes advantage of a pirate point to jump in close to Arvum and establish a strong blocking position to defend the planet in conjunction with the orbital defenses, which include a Black Tower-station.

Task Force 2 was never engaged. Task Force 1 engaged the Black Steel forces, which were centered around 20 of the Brawler-type 2 million ton battleships with a relatively light screening force of a hundred unidentified 600k ton heavy destroyers. There were no upgraded SLDF designs in the enemy formation at all.

The fighting rapidly became extremely brutal, with the Black Steel forces taking full advantage of their ability to accelerate at maximum g load for as long as their fuel held out to maintain the maneuver advantage over Task Force 1.

The new Fleet Defense Wings proved their worth, effectively countering the Black Steel BlackWasp swarms, however the reduced anti-dropship punch forced the 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class vessels to take great risks, risks that in the end led to the loss of all ten of them, to screen out and engage the massive numbers of drone dropships involved in the Black Steel strike. While all ten were lost, they accounted for themselves so well that there is little to no doubt left in any observers that the design is highly capable and useful to the Navy.

Casualties across the board were fairly heavy in Task Force 1, with the loss of over half the Prinz Eugen’s and Dido-class ships involved, as well as just under half of the engaged Fubukis. In exchange the Black Steel force was completely mauled, without a single enemy survivor and no significant losses to the planet at all, as the fighting never even got close.

-----

Meanwhile, fighting on Nouvelle Picardie continues to be a slog, with the Ducal forces holding out stubbornly in their fortifications and cities, forcing your troops to fight their style of battle rather than your own. It’s quite frustrating, as you possess far greater firepower across the board, but just simply cannot make efficient use of it due to the terrain and rules of engagement.

You learn from General Jenkins that General Bradley has been using the performance of units in this battle as a means of winnowing out significant portions of the ‘Old Guard’ procurement officers who had long resisted her attempted reforms of design practices on the basis of performance in exercises and against the Dracs.

Thankfully the prevalence of powered armor, especially the pilot and vehicle crewman suits, is having an excellent effect of reducing actual casualties, even if the loss of equipment and the failure to secure objectives is becoming a bit embarrassing. The nice thing is that the Ducal forces are facing defeat in the long term, since while your forces are poorly configured for this sort of combat, the Ducal forces are completely outclassed if they ever come out of their fortifications and urban areas. You can correct the equipment deficiencies you face, the Duc cannot say the same.

-----

You receive a large number of complaints from many companies involved in the consumer products industry about the sheer difficulty faced in competing against the Masters of Ikea, due to a combination of high quality and extremely low prices due to them having enormous inventory that they are extremely eager to move. As a consequence, your own domestic manufacturers are unable to compete on either price or quality, since apart from the extreme high-end hand crafted from local materials market, it is impossible to compete on either basis with the Masters of Ikea. Their quality is right at the top end of the market, and their prices are at the very lowest end of the market.

Right now the only thing that is keeping any of your domestic firms afloat when facing this competition is the high cost of transportation, which is dropping rapidly as a number of shipping firms have entered into high volume shipping contracts with the Masters of Ikea. Your own analysts indicate that within a few years, if nothing is done, the cost of shipping will drop enough that your domestic manufacturing base for consumer products will be completely wiped out.

The Masters of Ikea appear to have no interest in competing in the durable goods sectors, so the majority of your manufacturing base is relatively safe, but consumer goods has long been a highly profitable sector which has faithfully paid their fair share of taxes over the decades that the Empire has existed, nor were any of the major companies in the sector implicated in any of the scandals and plots of your great-grandmother’s day. And now they are facing ruin.

This is a complicated issue with no simple solutions. You do have several options for how you want to approach this, however.

[]	Option	Description
[]	Convince the Masters of Ikea to raise their prices to match the quality level of their goods	So far the Masters of Ikea have struck you as being a bit quirky but generally friendly and eager to be friends in order to do business. Convincing them to raise their prices in order to compete on a level playing ground might well be possible.
[]	Impose compensatory tariffs on the import of consumer goods from the Masters of Ikea	The real issue is the cost differential and the fact that the Masters of Ikea are able to effectively dump inventory into the market at minimal cost, tariffs would allow you to even the playing field whether or not the Masters of Ikea agree, but could cause issues in the long term.
[]	Do nothing	Sink or swim, you are not going to intervene in a case like this. If those companies can’t compete on this basis, then perhaps it is best for them to die and be replaced by more profitable ventures.

Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)

Das BOOT (literally)