Turn 120 - Bitch’s Brew
Your eldest daughter is absolutely radiant in her wedding dress, bringing a tear to your eye. Your little girl is all grown up, and you know your husband is just as emotional as you are over this. She’d tried to argue for getting married in her dress uniform, even offered to wear full mess dress, but you had rather ruthlessly insisted on her wearing the same gown you’d worn for your wedding. Sure, you could easily afford a totally new one which would have likely set off a feeding frenzy among the local dressmakers, but your great grandmother had worn this dress, your grandmother had worn this dress, your mother had worn this dress, and you’d worn this dress. You think it more than appropriate for your eldest daughter to wear this dress.
All of your kids are present as well as a full slate of bridesmaids, including all of the female members of your daughter’s company which you find rather touching. The ceremony itself is taking place in the central cathedral of Griffsport, followed by a reception for the great and the good in the Palace while on the palace grounds a massive party was organized for anybody who couldn’t score an invite to the reception itself.
You’d actually rather be at the party, to be honest, the reception promises to be
boring and formal.
The ceremony goes off without a hitch, despite you having to blink quite a bit to keep the tears out of your eyes during it. You honestly can’t remember much of the ceremony, nor the sermon, but you are sure it’s a good one given that you know the priest quite well and he has a history of really good homilies. Moments of your daughter’s life just keep flashing before you as you watch your little girl become a wife.
On the other hand… future grandbabies for you to get all sugared up and then return to your loving daughter!
The wedding reception is as mind-numbingly formal as you’d expected, complete with a seemingly endless receiving line, multiple rounds of oh so formal toasts from people whom you are certain spent the last twenty years polishing their remarks, and dreary protocol and formality. You are more or less on autopilot, your long experience with such affairs standing you in excellent stead as you are able to nod, smile, and look both interested and appreciative as appropriate while mouthing the proper platitudes.
Later you get reports that the big general party outside had been a quite boisterous affair, especially in comparison to the rather staid reception. Despite some worries, the dedicated staff at the Department of Periphery Studies was able to successfully distract the tenured faculty therein from the festivities, which made things far more sane for everybody else.
There still hasn’t been any significant response from the Black Steel, although scout flotillas have been chased off from several systems as the Black Steel seems to be escalating their recon efforts. Analysts lack sufficient data to accurately predict where the Black Steel might strike next.
The fighting in the Rouges Noir systems continues to slowly wind down. RN 1 and 4 continue to hold out, but Bourbon forces are increasingly shouldering a greater and greater share of the burden of burning out those forces. The number of deployed units has dropped significantly.
Parliament is rather subdued after the bollocking they’ve taken over the last few years. The new crop of Delegates in the Chamber are far more supportive than those they’ve replaced, and the Eldest has his paw firmly on the collective throats in the Senate.
They have, however, managed to pass a major piece of legislation, with the Eldest’s full support. The Colonial Governance Act of 3050 increases the budget allocation for Imperial support of colonial governance, clarifies a number of gray areas within the laws related to colonial governmental organization, implements much needed improvements in lines of communication between local, system, region, and Imperial law enforcement bodies, clarifies a number of ambiguous jurisdictional conflicts among the same, and in general manages to gather together in one bill all of the minor, yet needed, reforms that Parliament is needed to pass.
The largest part of it is the budget allocation increase, which strikes you as rather reasonable, especially considering the increasing distance between the most distant colonies and the Griffon system. While HPG communication reduces the time lag, it doesn’t eliminate it, so additional layers of sector governance have become more important. Currently the sectors draw their budgets from those of their constituent worlds, however sectors with a large number of new colonies, like the Steel March and the Scarlet March, are consistently suffering from budget shortfalls compared to their wealthier neighbors due to the comparatively low tax revenues of those systems. Compounding the issue, these two marches are also the largest ones, further increasing their expenses. Increasing the budget allocation would help ease this situation, and is highly popular in both marches, while not being all that unpopular elsewhere.
In addition, it is highly probable that a new march or even two will soon need to be formed, in order to prevent any of the existing marches from becoming too unwieldy. The current proposal involves splitting off the northernmost seven systems of the Empire to form the Diamond March, however there are concerns that those systems are so new that none are Core worlds, and thus the Diamond March would suffer from low economic growth. On the flip side, the prospective residents of such a March are quite enthusiastic about it, and the increased subsidies from the CGA would help offset some of those issues.
[] | Action | Argument | Effect |
[] | Approve the Colonial Governance Act of 3050 | These are changes that have been long overdue. We expect system and sector governments to stand on their own, yes, but especially in the newest sectors this is inordinately difficult and results in great disparities between the wealth of the inner marches and the poverty of the outer ones.
The budget changes are the least of it, however. The clarification of certain legal gray areas related to a variety of minor areas will be exceptionally helpful. These are areas that don’t rise to the level of Imperial regulation, and thus are not affected by the regular rationalizations and clean ups. Rather they are the result of slightly different legal precedents and regulations at the March level bumping up against each other and against Imperial regulations. This legislation resolves this situation by establishing clear guidelines to guide future decisions in this area.
The changes to law enforcement is also highly welcome in that it formalizes what has long been an informal norm that was understood among all the various agencies. By putting it in writing, we ensure that such best practices remain even in the face of possible attempts to subvert them. Thankfully this has not yet happened, but it is better to act now to ensure it never does. |
- Increase System Government level from 2 to 3
- If a new March is formed without any Core worlds, +1 Econ Rating to all systems in said March
- +1 Econ Event
- -1 Politics
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[] | Veto the Colonial Governance Act of 3050 | The colonies can stand up on their own two damn feet, they don’t need any further help from the Empire. All of these ‘adjustments’ and such are useless, just dictate to them how it will be and that is that, there is absolutely no need to do anything else.
As for the new Marches, sink or swim, if they can’t hack it on the same terms as everybody else, screw ‘em. We already waste far too much money on useless feeders who just drain resources, why should we waste a single cent more? If they don’t like it, screw ‘em.
The Core Worlds are what drives our economy, not the new holes full of dirt and poverty. If they can’t pick themselves up like the Core already did, then they deserve to suffer. |
- -1 Approval Change
- +1 Politics
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