Turn 47 - Ardenner Ground is Burning
Home Fleet arrives at the Nadir jump point several days after the Dracs have departed, while the Inner System Patrol concentrates and reaches the Zenith several hours before that. Capital Fleet takes over the Inner System Patrols route shuttling between Griffin’s Roost and Nowy Gdansk.
And then you wait. And wait. Nothing happens. Space Guard vessels are able to assist the badly damaged remains of the Nadir System Patrol, along with the few surviving pilots and crew from the destroyed
Star Fort to Griffin’s Roost for repairs and recovery. The final bill for repairs comes to $94,000.
But there are no further incursions.
SARAH picks up what might have been a Jump Signature extremely far beyond the jump limit, but several hours of observation show nothing there. HMS Lightning herself makes a high speed burn to the location and finds nothing of interest. If something
had been there, it had been detected leaving, but
SARAH notes that at the range involved it was far more likely to have been nothing but a transient astrophysical phenomena creating a false positive. Considering you’d just been attacked, however, you feel it was a good idea to at least check.
Thanh had remained in Griffsport, as the
Langley battlegroup wasn’t actually stood up yet. As such she winds up being the one to bring to your office a set of proposals from the Naval planners about potential reorganizations of the fleet in light of the recent battle.
You have several options, actually. First is to continue with how it is organized now, the 4
Defiants commissioning this year would all be assigned to the Nadir Patrol to make up the losses and growth would continue in the same vein it had been.
Second is a relatively minor reshuffling of some forces about. HMS Langley and HMS Lexington would be shifted to Capital Fleet, the two new
Tyrannosaurus-class ships HMS Doon and HMS Kale would be assigned to Zenith and Nadir patrol respectively to beef them up, otherwise everything else would continue as before. Home Fleet would remain the heavy hitter, Capital Fleet would have the slower vessels but would retain a very strong ASF force and solid punch, while the two tripwire patrols would be beefed up.
Third is a far more radical restructuring. HMS Langley and Lexington would be shifted to the Capital Fleet as before, along with HMS Doon and HMS Kale to the jump point patrols. However a new Strike Fleet would be formed, with the
Lightning class dropships as the core, future
Troodon production would be divided between Home Fleet and the Inner System Patrol, and new tenders for a fast carrier and a fast escort to boost the anti-missile and anti-fighter defenses would be let out to support the new Strike Fleet.
| [] | Business as usual |
| [] | Minor reshuffle |
| [] | Major restructure |
Shortly after that you have the hardest duty of all for a Monarch, the funerals of those who died in Your service. Sadly almost all of them are empty casket funerals, there being no actual body to recover, and in many ways that makes it even harder for everybody involved.
Over fourteen hundred of your naval personnel, dead. A hundred wounded, the vast majority of the dead had been in escape pods that had been used for target practice by the Dracs.
And they have the sheer gall to call you barbarians.
You make certain to attend every single funeral and personally meet with the bereaved relatives of those who died. It’s a horrible duty, and the realization that if it had been any larger in scale you simply wouldn’t have enough hours in a year to do so in the future is… humbling.
You like to think that it helped them, in their grief, to know that their monarch, the woman who’d ordered them into that position, grieves with them.
The rage among the population is a palpable force, thrumming in the air. The ‘word on the street’ is that the only good Drac is a dead one, and you’ve already taken steps to provide extra security for the various Shinto and Buddhist shrines on the planet to avoid any mob activity.
Thankfully that doesn’t happen, especially after the head priest of the main Hachiman shrine in Griffsport is interviewed on HD bitterly condemning the Dracs as apostates against true Bushido, that they are bandits, not warriors. The sheer venomous rage of his denunciation seems to have defused any collateral blame against the Asian community, much to your relief.
And then something does happen. A single
Scout jumpship appears at the Nadir point, carrying no dropships, although it does deploy a single tiny Dropshuttle. It is transmitting the IFF of the New Rasalhaguians. Thankfully the Home Fleet forces hold their fire, as they transmit a request for diplomatic talks in the hope of normalizing relations, with a very apologetic statement that they’d been delayed by a jump sail deployment failure or they’d have brought warning of the Drac assault.
Sarah confirms evidence of field-expedient repairs to the reefing assembly for the jump sail, so it appears very plausible that they had indeed attempted to warn you.
| [] | Receive the emissary |
| [] | Reject talks |
On a lighter note, after several quiescent years, the Department of Periphery Studies is up to shenanigans again, and it provides a welcome break to the depressing aura of rage.
Begun, the great Trebuchet Launched Pumpkin Wars have. Thankfully the staff is able to limit them to firing at targets floating out at sea, but still, the massive trebuchets are quite amazing. The fact that different groups of… tenured professors… of the Department are dressing up in hilarious outfits as part of this entire thing is even more amusing.
What makes it very stress-relieving for you is that you get a neatly handwritten (in crayon) proposal from the Department of Periphery Studies School Of Pumpkin Chunkin on the proper use and deployment of pumpkin chunkin’ trebuchets in planetary defense and their application towards terraforming, anti-ship attack, and package delivery.
This comes to your desk right after the Roman ambassador brings you a notice that the Romans are adding men’s and women’s wrestling to the Olympics, and inviting you to add a single event of your own. You’d been at a loss… but….
| [] | Pumpkin Chunkin’ it is |
| [] | Write-In something else (make it fun!) |
Meanwhile, Parliament is in an uproar, the recent attack has them in a tizzy.
Amongst the various administrivia motions and authorizations that come from them, there are several proposals, mostly from the Imperial Senate, and considering that all of them have the Eldest’s paw print of approval on them…
First is a pretty straightforward increase of benefits to the survivors of those lost in combat operations against the enemy. Currently survivor benefits include full pay at the lost’s highest pay grade for 10 years, followed by 100% pension benefits for life. The proposal in question is to increase the time span for full pay benefits to 25 years with pensions calculated as if the deceased had continued ordinary pay-ins to the pension fund as well as received ‘average’ promotions over this time. The reasoning given is that it has been seen that the military has become a full-time career for many people, with military personnel in all branches devoting their entire working life to the military. There is very little opposition to this, mostly from fiscal hawks who are worried about the effects on the budget.
| [] | Do it |
- +5 to Procurement target numbers (easier recruitment)
- +5 Politics
- +100,000 Upkeep
|
| [] | Don’t | |
Second is a proposal backed by a number of senators from Nowy Gdansk. There is a large region on the Southern continent that has been designated for industrial use, they propose that a large dropship production facility be built there with Imperial funding. The actual work would be overseen by the Nowy Gdansk planetary government.
| [] | Approve |
- Next 5 years, 2,000,000 a year in costs
- At the end of 5 years
- Receive 5 Rating 4 Large Dropship Yards
- Receive 10 Rating 4 Dropship Yards
|
| [] | Disapprove | No effect |
Finally is one that is somewhat controversial, but again does have the Lick Of Approval from the Eldest. In light of the situation with the Dracs, you’ve been at a semi-war footing for decades now. The Senate proposes to go to a full war footing. This would have deleterious effects on your economy and possibly on non-military R&D, but would significantly facilitate military growth and expansion. There would also be serious social changes as a result of this, and the Eldest admits that he is ill-equipped to judge that aspect of things.
| [] | Support |
- Reduce positive GDP growth on all planets by 50%
- If GDP growth goes negative, increase loss by 50%
- +5% Tax Rate each year
- +10% Interest Rate each year
- Non-military R&D projects take +2 years
- Military R&D projects take -1 (minimum 1) year
- +10 all military procurement targets
- Population becomes increasingly militarized
- Unknown social effects
- Unlocks event chains
|
| [] | Veto |
- -5 Approval
- -5 Approval Change
|
