The situation in the Nox system is ongoing, with investigators still hard at work piecing together everything that happened. There is still no real evidence of deliberate malfeasance, but plenty of evidence of a somewhat casual disregard for the objections of IT professionals in regards to changing tabulation systems and testing. Even that seems to be more of an issue of overconfidence, in that ‘it always worked in the past’ mixed with ‘what could possibly go wrong’. Dumb, in some ways, but hardly corrupt or criminal.
All parties involved have agreed to hold new elections, primarily out of an abundance of caution and a desire to ensure that the people view election results as legitimate. The IGMP is closely monitoring the situation and things appear to be going much smoother.
A Black Steel monitoring satellite has been discovered in the Waypoint 7 system. The satellite self-destructed when a Home Fleet
Legend approached. This has triggered surveys in other uninhabited systems and several more monitoring satellites have been discovered. All likewise self-destructed upon approach.
Unfortunately examining the wreckage of the various satellites doesn’t reveal anything all that useful, the actual scanning systems are broadly comparable to your own as far as your experts can tell and these satellites appear to not have any sort of AI or drone control system, being simple dumb systems with proximity based self-destructs.
You receive reports from the Kilburroughan geneticists and medical professionals who were assisting the victims of the pirate’s botched cloning setup, and you are pretty sure you’ve never seen the air turn quite as blue from the sheer level of vitriolic fury, all expressed without a single use of profanity. Impressive in many ways. They report that they are confident that they can repair the damage and allow the victims to live normal lives, which is a relief, but they note that they will have to make use of ‘extreme interventions’ to manage this.
On the plus side, captured data from the base gives you some insights into pirate operations in the fringe, giving your anti-piracy patrols greater effectiveness in handling the threat. This advantage won’t last long, as the pirates are already changing patterns in response to your actions, but it will help.
And now it’s time for the budget meeting.
Amaunet is not present for a change, being off spending time with her daughter’s newborn cub. Thankfully the service chiefs are behaving themselves even without the giant cat to keep them in line.
General Zara starts off. “Your Majesty, the recent anti-pirate actions highlight the importance of maintaining our ground forces. As such, we intend to continue their expansion. Industry has been a great help in this regard, as they have been willing to work hard to achieve production targets.”
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Procurement
- 15 Garrison Divisions
- 15 Militia Divisions
- 25 Infantry Divisions
- 5 Light Combat Team Divisions
General Perkins is absent as well as he is attending a conference with his senior commanders in the Glorreich system. His deputy is ably handling the briefing. “Your Majesty, with the growing production capacity we are again coming up against the need to expand our training budget. In the near future we will be requesting that the Navy provide additional training carriers to assist in fully qualifying new pilots, but that is at least two years out.”
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- New ASF Factories
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- Kurortas
- Raj
- Pustina
- Platzregensburg
- Pryyemnyy
- Awha
- Bāṛi
- Bellaterra
- Procurement
- 50 CAP Wings
- 100 Fighter Wings
- 100 Carrier Wings
- 40 Training Wings
Admiral Savić is holding down the entire fort for the Navy, as Admiral Fisher and Admiral di Palo are both at the same conference as General Perkins. “Your Majesty, with the ongoing growth of the Army we have reviewed our assault transport capacity and while it is currently adequate it doesn’t account for near-future growth. Thanks to the recent lull in Black Steel activity since the last major engagement we are ahead of schedule on replacing the
Mikasa-class with the new
Kearsarge-class, thus we have the yard capacity this year to address this future need. Otherwise, both procurement and production expansion is projected to continue as before, improving our position vis-a-vis the Black Steel.”
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Orbital Shipyards
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Pusztaság
- Apleista
- Przyjemny
- Awha
- Kaiyo
- Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
- Refit & Repair Yards
- Upgrade All Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- New Escort Yards
- Nowy Szczecin
- Baddorando
- Sturmland
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Skala
- Stahlfurt
- Griff's Leap
- Kurortas
- Olej
- Pinball
- Pryyemnyy
- Nashornland
- The Hub
- Nuova Puglia
- Nuovo Abruzzo
- Stenen Tuin
- Nyū Shikoku
- Nuova Tripoli
- Catachan
- Neuthüringen
- Nowe Mazowsze
- Nox
- Platzregensburg
- Porto Milano
- Landprettig
- New Algiers
- New Clew Bay
- Nubifragio
- Bellaterra
- Highland
- New Arcadia
- New Portland
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- Nueva Chiapas
- Nowega Lublina
- Salamander
- Small Warship Yards
- New Small Warship Yards
- Griffon
- Calliope
- Edelsteine
- Nowy Slask
- Awha
- Kaiyo
- Iskra
- Bohren
- Feurstern
- Novolar
- Grand View
- Kainga
- New Capricorn
- Pustina
- Steingarten
- Raj
- Chuma
- Medium Warship Yards
- New Medium Warship Yards
- New Pollux
- New Phoenix
- Nya Kopenhamn
- Nowa Warszawa
- Okusawa
- Large Warship Yards
- New Large Warship Yards
- Bari
- Shin Tōkyō
- New Libertalia
- Pieklo
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 400 Artemis-class Planetary Defense Flotillas
- 213 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
- 213 Colt-class Defense Blisters
- Large Dropships
- 341 Kearsarge-class Parasite Battleships
- 60 Mashu-class Parasite Logistics Transports
- 30 Normandy-class Parasite Assault Transports
- Jumpships
- 24 Rawalpindi-class Armed Merchant Cruisers
- Escorts
- 200 Battle-class Destroyers
- 50 Tarantul-class Missile Raiders
- 50 Asheville-class Raiders
- 50 Legend-class Frigates
- 50 White Plains-class Escort Carriers
- 50 Consultant-class Fast Logistics Ships
- Small Warships
- 50 Belfast-class Light Cruisers
- 50 Phoenix-class Light Cruisers
- 50 Atlanta-class Light Cruisers
- 3 Centaur-class Light Carriers
- Medium Warships
- 20 Prinz Eugen II-class Heavy Cruisers
- 20 Hawke-class Heavy Cruisers
- 10 Akagi-class Medium Carriers
- Large Warships
- 16 Kaiserin-class Battleships
- 16 Lion-class Battlecruisers
- Fortress Command
- Jump Point Defense
- Waypoint 10
- Pusztaság
- Apleista
- Przyjemny
- {i]Arx[/i] Defense Stations
- Fortress-class Heavy Recharge Stations
- Black Tower
- Waypoint 10
- Pusztaság
- Apleista
- Przyjemny
- Pinball
- Spartoi-class Defense Clusters
- Sensor Satellite Shell
- Laser Turret Clusters
With the military portion of the budget meeting over, Elizabeth Lee takes over.
“Your Majesty, we have three potential colony sites which, even if they aren’t the greatest bits of real estate, are still valuable enough to be worth settling.”
- Establish Colonies
- Pusztaság
- Apleista
- Przyjemny
“In addition we have a full suite of economic programs, including once again the request for us to invest in the construction of major cultural venues across the Empire.”
- Economic Program
- Economic Focus
- Massive Investment
- Economic Investment
- Platzregensburg
- Arvum
- Neubayern
- Nuovo Abruzzo
- Neuhessen
- Major Economic Investment
- Grand View
- Pustina
- Novolar
- Awha
- Pieklo
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Cần Thơ mới
- Salamander
- Highland
- Nueva Chiapas
- Baddorando
- Major Cultural Venues
“Finally, last but most certainly not least, we have a surfeit of bored DoME teams available who are already causing minor bits of trouble with their… ideas. I’ve had to veto multiple proposals to turn Griffon’s moon into a gigantic hollow battlestation as the expense would be greater than the entire Imperial GDP for the next century.”
- Department of Mega Engineering
- Optimization
- Terraforming
- Hot Mess
- Baddorando
- Nueva Chiapas
- Nowy Szczecin
- Salamander
- New Portland
- Highland
Tiberius is off handling the civil service expansion, so is not available for the meeting. Your Foreign Minister, meanwhile, has sent you a number of recommendations.
First of all, she recommends the funding of another Charity Concert, this time explicitly for the victims of the pirates. While normally having two such concerts back-to-back is ill-advised, she notes that the combination of last year's concert with the Olympics makes this far more viable.
Further she is requesting a budget increase for trade attaches in the Fringe, citing the excellent results that they have had so far in promoting trade with the Empire.
And then the moment you’d been dreading, as the most boring person in the universe takes the podium and begins to drone on and on and on and on and on and on and on…
“Your Majesty we have two teams prepared to begin work this year thanks to the delays in one of the research projects which is still wrapping up as we speak therefore we are having to carefully evaluate the feasibility and viability of multiple proposals in order to efficiently advance our technological limits as we have done in the past we therefore have eliminated a number of potential programs on the basis of insufficient return on investment or of excessive cost in the current economic climate with one of the proposals nearly equalling the total available budget for the entire Empire which is clearly an unacceptable proposition to make therefore we are limiting ourselves to programs that best fit the parameters that our analysts have set to achieve the greatest balance between effectiveness cost and results we therefore are recommending to make use of our current collaboration with Kilburrough to advance our understanding of genetic engineering to the next level which should result in further advances in medical care and prevention we are also recommending investing in economic forecasting models in order to further accelerate the economic growth of the Empire and thus allow for the investment of resources into the more ambitious research priorities.”
At this point you pretty much tune him out for the next three hours and forty five minutes, which includes a two hundred slide Powerpoint presentation with absolutely nothing interesting at all on any of the slides. If you could only weaponize how amazingly boring he is.