Turn 72 - This Time It’s For Blood
The Griffon and Roman Women’s shooting teams are given the most amusing punishment you’d ever heard of, as apparently the judge in the case found things just as hilarious as everybody else, and obviously agreed that the dumbarses had well and truly earned their atomic wedgies.
They are required to spend a collective 12 hours of community service signing copies of the most amusing photograph of the event at a children’s community center at an anti-bullying event, with the theme ‘if you are a bully, this might happen to you when you run into a bigger fish.’ Both teams completely ham it up, hiring local acting talent to dress up as over the top police officers to ‘drag them to their doom’. Then the local police join in, and you are absolutely rolling on the floor as they all show up wearing Groucho Marx glasses and fake noses and mustaches. And foam rubber riot batons, which they proceed to use to silly effect.
Great fun is had by all. Including the judge, who showed up dressed as Judge Dredd, complete with a Lawgiver pistol firing nerf darts. You and the NRI ambassador also put in an appearance once it became clear it was becoming an event.
The Griffon system government promptly embarked on a series of massive public works projects using the funds set aside for the purpose by the Infrastructure Act. Reading the reports you are shocked at the sheer scale of the projects undertaken, but reading more closely shows that none of them are, individually, at the scale of a DoME project, there’s just a ton of them going on at the same time, all with the same goal of massively boosting the system economy.
Considering that as far as you can tell the Griffon system has never seen this much activity at once? You believe that ‘massively boosting’ might be a case of great understatement.
A new colonization dropship design has entered production in the civil sector. Able to carry 10,000 passengers in reasonable comfort, the new design has revolutionized internal immigration and colonization efforts. As a consequence, workers can more easily follow the money, so to speak, and travel from system to system as they are needed.
((QM Note - as a consequence, the 2d6 roll for additional population in Peripheral systems is now a 5d6 roll, the multiplier is still 100,000))
At the Olympics, you are still not totally comfortable with the Naked Volleyball, considering it a gimmick at best, but to be fair it is a gimmick that is drawing in the crowds and the revenues, making hosting the games actually profitable for the host planet, unlike in the past where the local economy tended to suffer a bit. Griffon in general isn’t all that prudish either, and you certainly aren’t, but it does seem a tiny bit tacky.
But still, you do attend, even if you go to the Men’s event more for your wife’s benefit than your own. Even if she’s trolling you terribly with comments about how you needed to go out there and ‘represent’. You’ve been married over 40 years and you still sometimes act like newlyweds, you suppose that’s the secret to a happy marriage. So of course you promise to ‘represent’ if she does so at the women’s match, leading to a playful tussle.
The Griffon men do very well, winning the actual matches, even if the Rasalhaguians clearly ‘showed up’. You are pretty certain that if the matches were decided by the vote of the women in attendance the Rasalhaguians wouldn’t have had to settle for silver. Just saying.
The Women’s event was more heavily attended, as seemed usual, and Team Griffon dominated quite handily. And other body parts too. But you keep it professional. Your nephew, Jeremy Paul, the youngest son of your brother James, is out there cheering on his girlfriend, who’s the team captain for Team Griffon. There is naked handholding going on. It is exceptionally lewd, even after his girlfriend pulls on a track suit after the match.
You then head over to watch the soccer matches at a rather lovely stadium that is packed. Team Rasalhague has been surprisingly dominant in the preliminaries, and that continues in the actual tournament itself. In three matches they score 10 goals, while allowing none. Team Griffon is crushed by the Romans in the semi-finals, resulting in them getting a bronze medal for the Men’s tournament.
The Rasalhaguian women are even more dominant in their tournament, scoring 12 goals and allowing none. Team Griffon is able to manage a second place finish, however, holding the Rasalhaguians to only a single goal in the final match.
Team Griffon comes roaring back in baseball, however. An eight inning no-hitter in the opening game set the tone for the entire tournament, with the Rasalhaguians coming in second based on point differential with the Romans. In softball Team Griffon once more is dominant, although in this case based on pure offensive output as the scores put up by the softball team look like they belong in a football game or something. This time the Romans managed to edge out Rasalhague for the silver.
Even here on Nowa Warszawa, attending the year long festival of sport that is the Olympics, you cannot escape the dread budget meeting monster.
General Stewart is up first. “Your Majesty, the military has grown large enough that a reorganization might be required, at least in the near future. We’ve been drawing up plans for this for some time, so all we would need is approval for implementation. In addition, the Aerie is starting to have some issues with the sheer numbers of recruits. The Calliope Military Academy is helping immensely, but we are seeing numerous issues recently.”
She brings up a display. “In short, we would solve both problems at the same time. A new Griffon Naval Academy will be established, based out of the Griffon system. They would focus on training crews for Jumpships and Warships. The Aerie itself would refocus itself solely to Aerospace, training Dropship crews and ASF pilots and support personnel. The Calliope Military Academy would be joined by the former ground training facilities and personnel from the Aerie, who would be reorganized into a new school focused on all ground forces, with the CMA focusing on infantry and conventional forces, and the new Griffon Military Academy focusing on Mechs.”
She brings up another slide. “At the same time, the AFGE would be reorganized. A General Staff will oversee the entire military, reporting directly to the Crown, and would be responsible for overall administration. The Imperial Griffon Navy will focus purely on Jumpships and Warships, the Imperial Griffon Army on all ground forces, and the Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force on all dropships and ASF units. In terms of seniority, the Navy will be the Senior Service in the black, the Army on the ground, and the Aerospace Force during landing operations. Ground fortifications would come under the Army, and space fortifications under the Navy.”
“Meanwhile,” she continues, “even while reorganizing, we still would like to stress the importance of continuing to grow our production infrastructure in order to maximize our capabilities. We are growing, which is stretching our forces, but we have a growing number of serious threats to deal with, which require greater concentration of forces. Once we’ve eliminated the Dracs from the equation the situation should ease, at least to some extent, but until then we need to grow as much as possible.”
She steps back, and Colonel Jenkins takes the podium, still irrepressible. “Ground Forces has a number of requests, Sir.” he says, cheerfully ignoring the traditional protocol of calling you ‘Your Majesty’, which you rather appreciate actually. “To start with, we need us a Raider Regiment, and we need it assigned to the First Rapid Reaction Brigade. Next, we need four Assault Regiments and a single Standard Mech Regiment, to fill out the 7th Assault Brigade and the 8th Assault Brigade. Then we’d like you to spend our hard earned tax dollars on three Armored Cavalry Regiments and four Light Horse Regiments, as we work on building another Cavalry Division. Finally, the 7th Infantry Division has been asking us about a little brother, so we’d like to get one by procuring three Armored Regiments and six Mechanized Regiments to keep the infantry and trackheads happy and well fed. And finally, 4 Garrison Regiments just to keep the lights on and clean the barracks.”
OK, so the cheeky bugger knows he can get away with that, and it does cause you to laugh as you look over the charts.
- LAM Production
- Large Mech Production
- 4 Assault Regiments
- 1 Standard Mech Regiment
- Medium Mech Production
- 3 Armored Cavalry Regiments
- 4 Light Horse Regiments
- Conventional Units
- 3 Armored Regiments
- 6 Mechanized Regiments
- Garrison Units
Colonel Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, we have 10
Independence class carriers commissioning this year, as well as at least one
Oasis II and potentially several
White Towers. As such we are requesting sufficient ASF wings to fully equip these new assets. At minimum this will mean 10 Carrier Wings and 4 Fighter Wings, plus 1 Fighter Wing for each
White Tower.”
She checks her notes. “For your future consideration, we currently are testing two new ASFs and a new Wing organization, but they are not yet ready for use. We will report the results of the evaluation early next year.”
- 10 Carrier Wings
- 4+X Fighter Wings
Your sister Thanh is actually presenting the Naval estimates this year, and she’s smirking at you. “Well, Your Majesty, Your navy.” she manages to pronounce the Capital Letter In Really Big Font, damnit, “is expanding. Here is our proposal to You.” DAMNIT THANH!
- Conventional Dropship
- 49 Lancer Parasite Escorts
- Large Dropships
- 4 Enterprise-B
- 11 Majestic
- 11 Shannon
- 4 Sentinel
- Jumpship
- Warship
“Oh, and Your Majesty?” she says, so sweetly it gives you diabetes. “Give me more Warship slips to play with.”
Bridget is in a very Bridget sort of mood, like she always is, this time though she’s not mainlining coffee for a change. “Your Majesty. We are ready to begin the colonization of the system we have dubbed New Phoenix for its similarity to the Phoenix continent on Griffin’s Roost. This will be rather expensive, as we will need to build insulated shelters for the initial colonists and they will immediately begin work on colony domes. In addition, we would like to build a new Germanium Processing Facility in the Griff’s Leap system to process the Germanium we are mining there in situ. Our economic teams are ready to work with system governments on focused investments, we recommend both in the Griffon system and once more in Calliope for the greatest return on our investment. Additionally, we recommend outright investing in the economy of New Capricorn in an effort to help pull them out of their economic slump a bit faster. Finally, we have teams poised and ready for any construction or expansion projects you desire for us. Our DoME crews are ready to tackle the terraforming projects in the Calliope System, for example.”
Isoroku is out and about, schmoozing with his counterparts from the NRI and NRR, and his current deputy is handling the briefing. “Your Majesty, about the only thing we have to potentially promote this year, due to the Olympics, is further funding of sports camps for those sports where we might be falling behind a bit. Otherwise, our slate is clear.”
Jake is looking even more run down than before. “Well, Your Majesty, if we do colonize New Phoenix you’ll be wanting us to establish the system government there, which we’re ready to do. In addition, of course, to expanding the Colonial Office some more, trying to get those insufferable jackasses in the Chamber of Delegates to behave, and maybe engaging in some Civil Service expansion so we have more people available for projects overall. Give the word, and it will be done.”
Dr Bryant is up next. “Your Majesty, we have multiple teams ready to engage in R&D work, and have several recommendations in that regard. Some are for future benefits, some are engineering work on new systems.” She fires up the presentation.
- 5 Lab Teams available
- Research Expansion
- Construct New Labs on Nowa Warszawa
- Construct New Labs in the TTP
- Improve Commercial Stations with Orbital Laboratories
- R&D on new systems
- Swordfish Anti-Missile Missile
- Sub Cap Lasers as Capital AMS
General Messerschmidt is up next, looking a bit uncomfortable out of uniform. “Your Majesty, we have identified two potential openings in the situation surrounding Nya Kopenhamn that we can take advantage of. One of the worst demagogues on Nya Kopenhamn II has been identified and will be in a relatively isolated location in the near future. We have an agent who has gotten deep enough inside their security apparatus to safely send us copies of his schedule. This individual is exceptionally charismatic and ruthless and is personally responsible for hundreds of ‘sacrifices’ of ‘unbelievers’. Eliminating him, especially if we do it discreetly, would be immensely damaging to the fanatics on NK II. Second, we have identified a major agricultural complex on Nya Kopenhamn III that is growing a genetically enhanced strain of the poppy plant. The enhanced heroin refined from this plant is extremely addictive and adds extreme hallucinations and psychotic breaks to the usual effects of the drug. It is also extremely popular among the most lunatic fringe of the crazies on NK III. Therefore, we recommend striking this complex with tailored herbicides to destroy the crops.”
Martina Kalinowski is up next. “We have discussed the legality of both the assassination and the herbicide strike with the Intelligence people already and are satisfied that no legal boundaries will be broken by either. We are prepared to lay down the foundations for expanding the legal system to New Phoenix if required. Otherwise we are in good shape here, Your Majesty.”