Both Strike Fleet and Expeditionary Fleet immediately begin aggressive scouting operations against the Black Steel. There have already been multiple reports of major skirmishes with light Black Steel units which are quite rapidly growing in intensity. Casualties so far are relatively minor, although several light units have been lost. You aren’t facing anything heavier than Black Steel destroyers and corvettes, but at the same time they so far haven’t found anything all that major, just a few mining stations which have been destroyed.
So far you’ve lost a single
Algerie-class heavy cruiser, along with several light cruisers and destroyers as well as a number of parasites. One of your oldest remaining
De Grasse-class light cruisers was lost in an apparent misjump accident.
Your forces aren’t taking the time or effort to make proper surveys, they are simply looking for Black Steel installations and hitting them as quickly as possible. So far you have been quite fortunate that your forces are able to jump out before any Black Steel reinforcements arrive, although the margins at times have been rather narrow.
The Olympics continue to go quite well, with a large number of ‘familiar’ events taking place which are generally adding to the Team Griffon medal count. There is a surprising amount of high quality competition in motorsports from several of the minor powers, preventing the Bourbons, NRI and NRR from medalling in any of those events. You’ve still swept the top of the podium, but it is clear that your motorsports teams are going to have to up their game to maintain their place at the zenith.
You do appear to be on track to win around 25 or so gold medals this year, which is a pretty good haul considering the total number of events and the level of competition.
You receive several reports from your anti-piracy patrols detailing strikes against pirate strongholds as well as more scattered reports of the same
Aegis-class cruiser that identifies itself as from the Federated Commonwealth, although the latter reports are third hand at best. You also receive reports of an unusual warship painted all white, that somewhat resembles a slimmer version of the ancient
Sylvester-class transports, that has been providing minor humanitarian aid in the most remote reaches of the cluster.
Regardless, it is time for your annual budget meeting.
Amaunet is in her usual position, looking as smug as a grifftiger can look without being the Eldest. “Padrone, I’ll leave all the reports and requests to the service chiefs, but I must commend the Aerospace Force for getting their admin section stood up and operational in a relatively short amount of time. General?”
The stocky and fiery Italian takes the podium. “Your Majesty, we’re ending the SLEP process and resuming ordinary procurement. As it stands, the Army is in solid defensive shape, but would be utterly unable to handle any sort of offensive or counter-offensive operation. Since we’re getting nibbles from the Inner Sphere, this is a situation that cannot stand.”
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Procurement
- 6 Garrison Divisions
- 6 Militia Divisions
- 27 Infantry Divisions
- 4 Armored Divisions
- 7 Light Armored Divisions
- 2 Pathfinder Divisions
- 4 Regimental Combat Team Divisions
General Perkins then takes over. “We’ll be focusing a bit more on training assets this year, Your Majesty. Otherwise the Aerospace Force will be continuing to focus on recovering losses and hopefully getting ahead of the curve as quickly as possible.”
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- New ASF Factories
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- Kurortas
- Raj
- Pustina
- Platzregensburg
- Pryyemnyy
- Awha
- Bāṛi
- Bellaterra
- Procurement
- 50 CAP Wing
- 60 Training Wing
- 100 Carrier Wing
- 30 Fighter Wing
While Admiral Fisher is still attending these meetings, alongside the rest of his senior staff, Admiral Savić is the one handling the meat of the briefing.
“Your Majesty,” the still young looking woman begins. “Your Navy is in excellent shape across the board. In the near future we will be proposing some expansions to Training Command, but for now it is more than adequate for our current needs. We have surveyed the oldest
Oasis II stations, and the ten oldest ones are in need of replacement in the very near future, as they have become functionally obsolete without significant refitting that is not at all cost-efficient. We are continuing work on replacements for the
White Tower and
Silver Tower but have determined that the
Black Tower is in no need of replacement at this time. We hope to have the detail design work on the new
Arx defense station completed by next year.”
She looks over her notes, then brings up the display and starts going through the complicated naval procurement requests with you, slide by slide, in her characteristically professional manner.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Orbital Shipyards
- Construct New Orbital Shipyards
- Highland
- New Arcadia
- Gateway
- Nashornland
- Nuovo Paradiso
- Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
- Refit & Repair Yards
- Construct New Refit & Repair Yard
- Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- Build New Escort Yards
- Nowy Szczecin
- Baddorando
- Sturmland
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Skala
- Stahlfurt
- Griff's Leap
- Kurortas
- Olej
- Pinball
- Pryyemnyy
- Nashornland
- Steingarten
- The Hub
- Nuova Puglia
- Chuma
- 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
- Small Warship Yards
- Construct New Small Warship Yards
- Calliope
- Edelsteine
- Nowy Slask
- Chuma
- Awha
- Kaiyo
- Iskra
- Bohren
- Feurstern
- Novolar
- Grand View
- Kainga
- New Capricorn
- New Libertalia
- Pustina
- Medium Warship Yards
- Construct New Medium Warship Yards
- New Pollux
- New Phoenix
- Pieklo
- Nya Kopenhamn
- Nowa Warszawa
- Large Warship Yards
- Construct New Large Warship Yards
- Bari
- Shin Tōkyō
- Okusawa
- Raj
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 400 Artemis-class System Defense Boat Flotillas
- 189 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
- 189 Colt-class Defense Blisters
- Large Dropships
- 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- 30 Mushu-class Parasite Transports
- 311 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- Jumpships
- 1 Windjammer-class Jumpship
- Escorts
- 200 Battle-class Destroyers
- 20 White Plains-class Escort Carriers
- 10 Skjold-class Missile Corvettes
- 10 Constellation-class Corvettes
- 50 Tarantul-class Missile Raiders
- 50 Asheville-class Raiders
- 30 Legend-class Frigates
- Small Warships
- 50 Belfast-class Light Cruisers
- 30 De Grasse-class Light Cruisers
- 30 Worcester-class Light Cruisers
- 20 Giuseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 6 Hosho-class Light Carriers
- Medium Warships
- 20 Prinz Eugen II-class Heavy Cruisers
- 10 Algerie-class Heavy Cruisers
- 15 Nevada-class Heavy Cruisers
- Large Warships
- 14 Kaiserin-class Battleships
- 14 Lion-class Battlecruiser
- Fortress Command
- Fortress-class Heavy Recharge Stations
- Black Tower
- New Castor
- New Pollux
- New Port Royal
- Kainga
- Chuma
- Spartoi-clusters
- Sensor Satellite Shell
Elizabeth Lee is up next. “Your Majesty, we’ve got bored DoME teams, we’ve got excited economics teams, and we’ve got survey crews itching to get to work.” She smiles cheerfully. “So let’s begin, yes?”
“To start with, DoME. We’ll be recommending three terraforming projects as well as providing additional logistics support for the military by creating a pair of logistics hubs.”
- Department of Mega Engineering
- Terraforming
- Nuova Tripoli
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nyū Shikoku
- Make <System> a Logistics Hub
- As a reminder, this reduces maintenance costs for military units and boost local growth rates while system is Peripheral
- Nashornland
- New Portland
“Our economic teams are also pretty excited, as we’ve a number of new projects we’d like to begin.”
- Economic Focus, Investment, Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Economic Focus
- Major Investment
- Investment
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- New Portland
- Sturmland
- Highland
- Nowy Szczecin
- Nowego Lublina
“Last, but certainly not least, we have basic system information for the quartet of systems directly between us and the cluster of minor powers to our northeast. It would likely be wise to secure control of these systems as a gateway to trade and relations with our neighbors.”
- Survey
- GX-C38
- A blue supergiant with no terrestrial planets, there are some gas giants in the system but it is unknown just how economically feasible it may be to mine them.
- GX-C39
- A somewhat bright red dwarf star is the main feature of this system, improving recharge rates here over other stars of its class. It is known that there are rocky planets in the system, but no survey work has been done here.
- GX-C40
- A somewhat variable main-sequence orange star with a number of massive super-jupiter gas giants and dense asteroid belts. Some of the moons may be habitable.
- GX-B40
- A yellow main-sequence star a bit smaller than that of Griffon. There are planets here, but the system is very poorly surveyed due to most traffic bypassing it completely.
Your Foreign Minister is off on Nova Roma representing the Empire at the Olympics, but she has sent you a memo recommending that you hold a Japanese Cultural Festival this year, since the German one was so successful last year.
None of your other advisors are present this year, as all are either assisting your foreign minister off in the NRI or are working hard overseeing R&D projects. Their assistants all report that they have no outstanding budget requests this year.