Turn 74 - Cum Angelis et Pueris
The NRR Opposition makes a last gasp attempt at gaining power, or at least making the elections appear illegitimate, by organizing a massive ‘march’ on the Thing to protest the presence of your forces on the planet, obviously hoping to ignite a major confrontation.
It falls completely flat, certainly a large number of thugs and bravos bought and paid for by the party elites show up, and they are certainly spoiling for trouble, but the common citizens of the city who had in the past shown up for these things are nowhere to be seen. All of your forces are in power armor or armored vehicles and just impassively remain in position, allowing the marchers to do their best to cause trouble. Oddly enough, clubs, molotov cocktails, bricks, pool cues, and the like are remarkably ineffective at provoking any sort of reaction.
It winds up being several hours of futility on the mob's part, ended more by the rioters becoming exhausted and simply giving up on provoking a reaction. The icing on the cake? The Brigade CO is a devious and evil SOB who deserves either a medal or a court-martial… none of the suits of power armor had anybody inside, and the AFVs only had a single gunner each who had been allowed to bring headphones to listen to music and play games. The mob had been trying to get reactions from what were, in essence, a force of mannequins. He’d used spare suits that had disabled weapons and locked down controls, with his actual forces remaining in their barracks watching the hilarity on monitors.
You figure that once the elections are over and your forces are withdrawn you’ll let that tidbit leak out, just for the pure lulz.
You get word from Thanh that she and her staff have decided that the seven warships that will be commissioned this year will not be included in the operation against Okusawa, instead forming a reserve force at Sukaishi. The crews will not have had the opportunity to exercise with the actual attack force, and Thanh would rather have a well-drilled unit than all possible hulls. Also, HMS Morristown is scheduled for a minor refit to correct a few trivial issues in the electrical system that have been cropping up, she’ll help transport the first wave to Okusawa before returning to the Griffon system for a six month yard period. According to the memo it’s pretty minor stuff, but Thanh sees no reason not to get the work done as soon as possible.
You look over the reports on the latest set of exercises and they are looking good. Your fingers are itching, as you really wish you could take operational command and finish this war off in the field, but your new duty station is at the Palace thanks to your Mother abdicating, and while rank hath its privileges, it also hath its responsibilities.
The news from Calliope about the Pan-Griffon Games so far shows that the host team is, to use the vernacular, killing it. While Team Griffon and Team Nowa Warszawa are doing well enough, and the teams from the smaller colonies are focusing on only a few sports each rather than fielding full crews, Team Calliope is right up there with the big two, and actually looks set to possibly tie Team Griffon’s medal count.
Agents in the NRI are reporting a planned colonization expedition to the galactic east, evidently they’ve surveyed a planet out that way that they are planning on claiming for themselves. Your agents have forwarded to your intelligence people the executive summary of the survey report, which appears to show a pair of marginally habitable worlds with extremely rich mineral deposits and exceptionally dense asteroid belts. The report indicates that the NRI intends to name the system Nova Jupitereum.
Your mental antennae are twitching at the name and you have a bad feeling that this is going to be very embarrassing to you personally. Since one of the people listed as receiving the summary report and proposing the name is the ‘Chief Priest’ of the Temple that is supposedly to you.
Your eldest granddaughter has graduated early from high school and has been accepted into Griffin’s Roost University, triple majoring in philosophy, political science, and economics. She’s quite a scholarly girl, and has already informed you that she’s going to then go on to the Aerie once she’s old enough, since they won’t take her until she turns 18. Considering that she’s John’s oldest, if and when she becomes Empress nobody will be able to claim she’s not a bonafide genius.
Your son, of course, is proud as a peacock for his daughter and has taken a short leave from the 3rd BCT for her graduation ceremony and to spend a few weeks with his family prior to returning to the round of preparation exercises for the invasion of Okusawa.
The trial for the double murder on the Palace steps is underway, with the perpetrator still completely refusing to say a word to anybody about the case. Not even his lawyers have been able to get him to say anything, and he refuses to respond when asked for his plea by the judge. This, of course, is feeding media speculation and turning the trial into a bit of a farce, at least from the perspective of an outsider, as the legal procedures for dealing with a completely uncooperative defendant are systematically followed in their entirety. Everything is being done precisely by the book, with absolutely no shortcuts of any kind. This means that just the initial phases of the trial will take all year, but needs must when the devil drives.
Parliament is back in session. With the loss of two of your most reliable supporters in the Assembly you don’t see as much of a benefit from your local political offices as you’d hoped, as the new Delegates seated who support you are offset by the loss of those two. By-elections will be held by the end of the year, however.
The Senate is as reliable as always, and while the Chamber isn’t particularly helpful they aren’t being unreasonable either. So it looks like things will get done this year at least, despite the poor start of things.
The first bill being proposed is the Colonial Land Allocation Act of 3004. The CLAA would revamp the current procedures put in place at the start of Griffon colonization efforts. All Peripheral systems would be affected, but in general the Senators and Delegates from those systems are cautiously in favor of the reforms. Surveyed systems would be zoned into Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Infrastructure, and Government regions by the current experts within the Interior Ministries Department of Colonial Affairs following the same guidelines as currently put in place, however the individual parcels within those zoning segments will be subdivided differently for auction to colonists. In addition, to cut back on speculation, only actual colonists will be permitted to purchase Residential or Commercial parcels at auction, while Industrial ones will remain open to investors. Parcels that are not sold at auction will remain owned by the System government to be distributed at future auctions, with the proceeds financing infrastructure improvements.
Supporters point out that many of the issues related to the peripheral colonies stem from rampant real estate speculation, especially those systems that are promising but not fully habitable. Speculators on Griffon and, increasingly, Nowa Warszawa and Calliope are snapping up significant blocks of parcels of prime residential and commercial property then holding on to them, demanding massive markups to sell them to those who would actually use said parcels. By requiring that actual residents of the colony in question get priority on land parcel auctions in these categories this should end this practice.
The speculators in question are rather opposed to this, pointing out that this is a very profitable business for them. The problem is that they are also making use of these parcels to engage in completely legal tax shenanigans with their systems of residence. By declaring, for example, an unused residential parcel on New Capricorn as their ‘primary residence’ for tax purposes, a Griffon resident is able to avoid paying certain tax assessments that they would normally be required to pay as a Griffon resident. And since they actually have no physical presence on New Capricorn and thus generate no economic activity, the various excise taxes used to raise revenues for local governments are thus starved of income. It’s pretty scummy, but also completely legal as it stands. The CLAA would effectively kill this particular dodge.
The Chamber has added a few minor provisions that increase the final budget cost of the bill, but nothing that you particularly oppose. A few minor grants to community projects in their home districts, primarily.
[] | Support the Colonial Land Allocation Act of 3004 |
- +10% base POP growth on all fully established Peripheral Worlds
- +1 Infrastructure per turn on all fully established Peripheral Worlds to Infrastructure 100 (max)
- Infrastructure will now have a new function in the quest economy
- Each turn roll against the Infrastructure score of each system. On any degree of success add +1 Factory Rating. On a critical success also add +10% GDP and add a single factory of a type determined by QM roll from the following 1d10 roll
- 1 - Medium Mech Factory
- 2 - ASF Factory
- 3-10 - Strategic Resource Factory
- Factory Rating will now have additional effects
- Factory Rating/10 percent bonus to GDP
- In addition, Combat Vehicle Production will now be linked to raw factory rating
- Total Factory Rating/10 non Mech regiments per turn
- +10 Politics
- +1 Approval Change
- One time cost of $20,000,000
- +1 Support - Chamber of Delegates
- Imperial Senate support is CAPPED
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[] | Oppose the Colonial Land Allocation Act of 3004 |
- -5 Politics
- -1 Support - Chamber of Delegates
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Another piece of legislation that is moving through Parliament is legislation establishing a permanent grant agency for public art. Currently this is handled on an ad-hoc basis by the Department of Cultural Affairs, the legislation would establish a new agency under that Department with a permanent budget to finance public art both in the Core and Peripheral systems.
The Public Art Expansion Act of 3004 would budget funds for artists to beautify public spaces in multiple media, be it architecture, painting, sculpture, or any other form of durable public art. The Public Art Bureau would administer the program, making grants to artists following an application process format and matching said artists with communities desiring works of public art.
For a seemingly trivial bit of legislation this has generated quite a bit of conversation, both for and against. Supporters argue that art enriches communities and brings people together by allowing them to express their identities to the wider public. That the process being put together here will allow local communities access to artists they otherwise would not be able to bring in. They point to the benefits seen by the major art installations financed directly by the Crown in times past via the Department of Cultural Affairs as a model for the public benefits of the program.
Critics point out the costs involved and argue that it is better by far to allow art to primarily remain within the private sphere. They argue that the works financed by the Department of Cultural Affairs tend to be overly propagandistic and jingoistic, pushing the government's party line at the expense of real artistic merit. They further argue that this will dilute the prestige of public art by making it so common as to no longer have any particular meaning or importance, thus taking it from points of beauty and interest to Yet Another Boring Statue.
[] | Support the Public Art Expansion Act of 3004 |
- Establish the Public Art Bureau with an initial budget of $10,000,000 a year
- Modified by civil service efficiency modifiers for a lower net number
- Each turn will allow one reroll of either an Approval Change or Political Event roll
- At higher ratings will allow additional rerolls
- Any botches of either of these rolls will require a confirmation roll, on any failure of the confirmation roll the botch will stand, on a success will be treated as normal failure
- +1 Support, Chamber of Delegates
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[] | Oppose the Public Art Expansion Act of 3004 |
- -1 Support, Chamber of Delegates
- -1 Politics
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