Turn 40 - I Am Fun Again
The situation on Pollux continues to escalate, however the planetary government has moved forces into the area and is keeping the various factions well separated. The continental and regional governments have been forced to resign by the planetary government and the continent is currently under direct rule while efforts are made to resolve the situation.
Ultimately it appears to be a classic disconnect between an urban population with an idealized view of ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’ and ‘farming’ versus the actual reality of farming and agriculture. Even though the port cities on Pollux are nearly completely dependent on agricultural trade, the ‘dirty’ parts of it are out of sight, out of mind, and the urban dwellers have come to consider themselves more important than the farmers and ranchers in the rural areas upon whose labors the urban folks livelihoods actually depend.
The elimination of electoral districts in favor of at-large representation, combined with the population imbalance between the relatively small number of rurals required to operate the massive farms and ranches and the much larger number of urban dwellers required to operate the trading and mercantile end of the industry has resulted in the rural producers having absolutely no say in governance, even in their own direct localities.
The planetary government is reestablishing voting districts on Pollux and reforming the various regulatory agencies. However it’s a somewhat messy process as entrenched interests seek to hold on to their positions. This is not helped by the growing militancy of the rural population who have their backs way up and seem to have almost no reserve of trust left for any ‘outside’ politician.
About a month into the crisis the planetary government decides to finally cut the Gordian knot. All of the current bureaucrats are dismissed from their posts in order to fully purge the obstructionists. Meanwhile heavily armed patrols from the garrison sweep through the rural area in a strong show of force to keep the rural militants heads down. Elections are held under direct military oversight which results in a much more balanced slate of continental representatives and governance.
Urban interests still hold a solid majority of the continental assembly, but rurals are no longer completely frozen out. The planetary government has also stripped the continental assembly of oversight, for now at least, of agricultural and land-use issues and is handling that through their own agencies.
The planetary government does request Imperial assistance to ease this transition and finance the reforms that they are pushing through. They are also requesting Imperial ‘boots on the ground’ to help keep the peace by allowing units to be rotated through.
| [] | Agree | -1% Tax Rate this year
+1 Politics
+1% GDP growth Griffin’s Roost |
| [] | Disagree | -1% GDP growth Griffin’s Roost
-1 Approval |
The diplomatic mission to the Optimates has been sent off with the newly repaired Free Folk jumpship. You will not be hearing anything back from them for a few months.
About a week or so before the regular budget cycle starts you have a meeting with General Potter and Jeremy to discuss military procurement reforms and optimization.
A comprehensive review of the industrial processes involved in ASF and Battlemech production has revealed that there is no real requirement, assuming proper planning and prior design work, for any facility involved in either ASF or Battlemech production to be ‘locked in’ to any given design, unless the subassemblies are radically different. As most of your current designs share substantial design ‘language’ amongst themselves, with many subcomponents functionally identical, with a bit of work and arm-twisting it has proven possible to reconfigure the state-owned military industrial factories into a more efficient state.
From now on, a facility designated as ‘Level 1’ is capable of producing either a single flight or a single lance, depending on if it is ASF or mech focused, of any respective design. However a Level 1 Mech facility is only able to handle light or medium mechs. A Level 2 designated factory can produce either a full squadron or company set, with the mech factory still being limited to medium mechs at most. A Level 3 ASF factory can produce a full wing of ASFs, while a Level 3 Mech factory can produce a full battalion set of light and medium mechs. A Level 4 Mech facility can produce a full battalion set of up to Heavy mechs, and the Level 5 facility would be able to produce the theoretical Assault mech in full battalion sets.
In addition a massive streamlining of unit compositions is underway, with corresponding costs being handled through a mix of the disposal of obsolete assets and the elimination of redundant administrative and support expenses. Jeremy dryly points out that the military had been procuring spare parts for the completely obsolete and functionally useless
Sparrow conventional fighter for decades now after the last of the actual birds had been grounded with cracked wing spars. The ancient
Phalanx light tank is also still limping along in service even though the vehicles are functionally obsolete, with a spare parts pile that is currently worth more than the vehicles themselves. The
Lion tank is a fearsome close-range combatant, but its battery of 5cm lasers are too short ranged to be fully effective in the current combat doctrine.
Therefore, the revamp would shift the
Lions to provide the heavy backstop for urban garrison units alongside the
Verdun and a new APC under development for the purpose. The
Phalanx would be retired to military museums, although work would begin on a replacement light tank. The spare parts stockpile of the now retired
Legionnaire light tank would be liquidated, along with the stockpiles of the even older
Hoplite light tank.
In the end, it is hoped that this will significantly improve the state of the AFGE and set a firm foundation for future growth.
As the meeting breaks up, however, Jeremy drops a minor bombshell. It seems that the twins racing team has been working with Tank-X, and the old Chasseur hovertank! (the exclamation point is important) is about to get an upgrade.
So you mosey on over to the testing grounds, shamelessly taking advantage of being Empress, to take a look. The new Chasseur II is in the process of testing when you get there.
A military hovercraft that can almost match times set by the top Hovercraft Racing League teams? While having slightly more armor than the old version and a longer ranged extended range 5cm laser? All tied to an even more sophisticated targeting and tracking system which takes advantage of advances in cockpit design pioneered in Battlemechs in order to allow the single crewman to operate a turreted laser at those speeds?
While you are certainly not an adrenaline junky (You’ve never gotten a single traffic ticket!), you do ask to take the prototype around the test course at a nice, sedate, and perfectly sensible 378 kilometers per hour. Any claims that whoops and hollers were heard from the cockpit during this run are lies and fabrications and probably totally Willis’ fault.
| [] | Name | Unit Cost | Upgrade Cost | Materials | HP | A/D | Specials |
| [] | Chasseur II | 67.08 | 559.44 | None | 12 | 4 | Swift, Fragile |
| [] | Nahh, speed is boring | | | | | | |
After that bit of excitement, it’s budget time!
I said… it’s Budget Time!
C’mon, try and summon some enthusiasm for BUDGET TIME!
General Potter and his three main subordinates start things off. Jeremy is sitting with you this time so he isn’t participating in presenting anything this year.
General Jackson goes first with the ground forces update. “Your Majesty, we’ll have the first wave of reorganizations completed by the end of the year. For new procurement, we are somewhat hampered by the relative small size of our Mech production facilities thanks to the high priority given to ASFs. I would remind Your Majesty that while ASFs are useful, they are not the end-all and be-all of military power and cannot take and hold ground. Ultimately, if we are to be successful in truly dealing with the Snakes we’ll need strong ground forces, and our ground forces have been somewhat back-burnered.”
She checks her notes. “That being said, by combining the outputs of all of our current factories we can produce a single battalion set of Mechs. I would recommend doing so and procuring a Light Mech Battalion. In combination with our existing mechs, we should be able to form this into a full Light Horse Regiment in 1st Armored. This would be our first fully up to establishment Mech regiment. I would also strongly urge the expansion of as many of our factory lines as we can to at least Level 3 standard. In addition, we strongly urge the expansion of Endo-Steel production facilities in orbit. Going forward Endo-Steel will be a major bottleneck for production of our current heaviest designs, which rely on that material.”
“In regards to conventional forces, we recommend the procurement of a Standard Armored Regiment to start filling out the 2nd Armored Divisions 3rd Brigade, along with a Rapid Reaction Regiment for 2nd RRF. As both units are based on Nowy Gdansk this will boost our defenses there against any Snake aggression.”
General Reyes is looking a bit irritated at her ground forces counterpart as she takes the podium. “Your Majesty, it’s never possible to have too strong of an ASF shield. Breaking the enemy before they reach the ground is preferable to the losses which would be suffered in ground combat.” Jackson glares at Reyes for that. “Indeed, I would almost be tempted to argue for the elimination of most Mech formations in favor of expanding ASF capability.”
OK, the barbs are out, evidently there’s some of that intraservice rivalry. Before you can intervene Jeremy simply clears his throat, and Reyes colors a bit but gets back on topic, clearly reminded that the Empress’s son and heir is a Mechwarrior.
“On top of procuring ASFs for the various dropship platforms commissioning this year, we recommend procuring a full Planetary Defense Wing for Nowy Gdansk.” she concludes a bit lamely. “We would need 2 Assault Carrier Squadrons, 1 Light Carrier Squadron, and a single flight of
Eagles for the new
Enterprise class dropship. We would need 3 more flights of
Eagles for the 2
Velociraptors and the single
Devastation. We have sufficient production capacity for all of this, provided we do not divert too many DHS to ground forces.”
Admiral Benjamin then takes the podium. “I’m glad I’m wearing my service uniform, us spacer’s have to have everything fireproof.” he jokes, earning him glares from both General Jackson and General Reyes, which the incorrigible Admiral just ignores. “Your Majesty, we have HMS Devastation, HMS Hardy, HMS Grom, HMS Błyskawica, HMS Hector, HMS Achilles, HMS Hasty, HMS Glorious, HMS Charger, HMS Bruiser, HMS Boxer, and HMS Ardent commissioning this year, one of the largest crops of Dropships yet. In addition, USS Columbia will be coming into service and so long as we procure a recon team for her she’ll be available next year for scouting missions.”
He grins. “We’ll only have 2 yard slips open this year, in the
Warrior yard, so we recommend procuring a pair of those vessels. The next flight of
Defiant class dropships will show some serious cost-savings as we’re now up to full-rate production, both of hulls and spares. So while they may not be the most powerful units we have, the Patrol Gunboat-Lights are certainly the most cost-efficient now. In terms of future expansion, we recommend building up a second Large Dropship line as the
Devastation class is by far our most lethal dropship design currently and we would very much like many many more of them.”
General Potter then takes over. “Apart from some certain… issues… which I will be addressing with the involved parties.” he gives his ground forces and aerospace commanders pointed looks. “I fully endorse the priorities listed above.”
Bridget ‘The Perky One’ Doyle is next up, fully living up to her name as she is practically bouncing in her seat. And you have it on good authority that she has not had any coffee. “Your Majesty! This year we’ll be finishing a whole bunch of DoME projects so soon we can do some more, which is so exciting and we can also do some focused development on the Griffin II Orbitals and lots of surveying since we’ve got 2 free ships to survey away and I really recommend doing that because who knows what we’ll find out there and we can make the grumpy gusses in the military happier by expanding factories and orbital foundries and such so they’ll spend less time sniping at each other and more time coming up with new things that I can recommend we build and manage building for you which would be far more fun.” all of the military types glower balefully at Bridget for that crack, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I’ve got my staff working on some proposals for boosting agriculture on Nowy Gdansk using domes and such but that’ll be ready later and we can talk then because that way we’re less dependent on one single point source for food and stuff and did you know that even though the total lack of water makes it, like, useless right now for farming the nitrate concentrations on Griffin IV are incredible and would make that soil amazing if we can terraform the place right?”
Isoroku comes up next “With our diplomatic delegation to the Optimates off and away, we are in a bit of a holding pattern, Your Majesty. However our Cultural Affairs people would like to propose a benefit concert this year, featuring classical orchestras playing iconic works of old Earth.”
Jake is very much the same as ever, laid back and relaxed. “Your Majesty, we expect to finish up the DoME expansion this year, and we would like to recommend expanding Bridget’s bailiwick so” he grins impishly “she can build more stuff.” which causes the perky Interior Minister to laugh loudly and proclaim “DO IT!”
Mary is as focused and professional as always. With her charts.
- New Projects
- Land-Air Mechs
- This is theory work only
- It is expected that these will make superior scouts and special-operations designs for securing landing zones and other high-risk missions that would benefit from extreme mobility
- Improved Agriculture Level 4
- Includes things like Vertical Farms, aquaculture advancements, advanced hydroponics, and other means of growing food in the absence of suitable land
- Thermal Dissipation (advanced) Lvl 2
- Additional research into thermal transfer, dissipation, and cooling dynamics focusing on materials, mediums, and deep understanding of the underlying physics and chemistry in extreme thermal regimes
- KF Drive Theory Tier 2
- We know the very basics, we need to learn more about the underlying fundamentals. Right now we are in the ‘this works because it works’ stage of things, we can do better.
- Standard Core Theory
- Translating our basic understanding of KF Drive Theory should allow us to unlock the mathematics and underlying engineering required for a standard jump core
- Standard Core Design
- There are many challenges inherent with jump core design, in order to build our own we will need to develop the tools required to properly design them in the first place.
- Standard Core Construction
- Theory and design will only take us so far, we need to figure out how to build the tooling and machinery required to actually produce jump cores
- Recommended Research
- Military
- Power Armor - Light (Advanced)
- Our researchers believe it may be possible to leverage the improved materials into building a heavier suit of power armor capable of supporting heavier weaponry.
- Land-Air Mech
- This is a more long-term project, but it appears to be promising
- Non-Military
- Standard Core Theory
- Standard Core Design
- Standard Core Construction
- We recommend the full suite as having our own Jumpship capability would be a serious game-changer.
Harry is busy at the Black Site, but sends you a memo that preparations are well advanced for transferring the prisoners to more permanent accommodations. Processing has been complicated by several hardliners needing to be kept isolated.
Janet is looking extremely tired, as she’s been liaising with the Griffin’s Roost planetary government over the situation on Pollux. “Your Majesty, I don’t have anything specific for you budget wise, but my staff is working on several legal proposals to handle any future flare-ups of Pollux Man.”
