Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Turn 75 - I Shall Remain, Shining In Sin

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
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Turn 75 - I Shall Remain, Shining In Sin

You have some initial estimates from the Interior Ministry about clean-up costs for Sukiashi, even as the radioactive dust continues to settle. They still have not been able to contact any of the deep shelters due to the radioactivity. Simply put, they are buried too deep for radio communication, and the landline connections for comms are currently in such an irradiated state that they are non-functional. All indications are that none of the deep shelters were compromised in the attack, a testament to their design. Thermal scans show that all of them appear to be fully operational, even if the entrances are collapsed as designed. If you didn’t know precisely where to look you’d have no idea that they were even there, which again is precisely as designed.

Good design, not good for your nerves right now, but good design regardless. You make a point of publicly praising the companies involved in designing and building the deep shelters. You are slightly disturbed at just how pleased that makes everybody involved, but you dismiss it as happiness that royalty is happy with them.

And hope like hell that the NRI treating you as a god doesn’t spread… nahhh, Griffonese are far too sensible for that nonsense.

Thanh is awake and is already bitching about how long it is taking to replace her legs. Even confined to a wheelchair she’s insisted on going back on duty and is leading the naval review. You’ve already managed to yell her down from resigning, as she feels that she failed to anticipate just how dangerous extreme range massed capital fire would be and thus prioritized the wrong design concepts for the new warships you’ve been building, namely balanced designs identical in concept to upscaled parasite battleships. You rather bluntly inform her that you were the one who approved everything, you are the Emperor, therefore the burden is on your shoulders, and she’s not allowed to feel guilty for those things, since that’s your job. Which leads to her yelling at you for a few hours. Which is cathartic for both of you, to be honest.

Parliament is in session, but have already informed you that they will support anything you require to deal with this emergency. You rather appreciate it.

DoME has a team on site on Sukiashi, they estimate that they can handle the initial clean-up work, clearing out the worst of the radioactive materials and disposing of them safely, in about two years and at a total cost of $3 billion. Private charitable gifts have funded about a third of that already thanks to Empire-wide subscription campaigns, ranging from rather cute lemonade stands being run on Calliope IV to car washes on Nowa Warszawa and bake sales here in the Griffon system. They can begin work immediately, and to be honest, you are very tempted here, because the sooner they get the worst of the radiation cleaned up the sooner you’ll know the status of your wife and daughters.
[]Initiate Clean-Up
  • Immediately start the DoME project - Initial Recovery Work on Sukiashi
    • Costs $1,000,000,000 a year
    • Upon completion
      • +20% GDP - TTP
      • +10% POP - TTP
      • +5 Econ - TTP
      • +10 Health - TTP
      • +1 Infrastructure - TTP
  • Unlocks certain events
[]Wait for now
  • No effect

A Colonial Infantry Division has been dispatched to Okusawa for garrison duties. The regular rotation of medevac Caravels has resumed. A major push by your forces has resulted in the capture of a major industrial area, although interestingly enough the ASF factories that have been captured were already smashed before you even landed, apparently from inside judging from the explosion patterns. Interrogation of locals reveals that the Dragon declared the entire aerospace industry to be treasonous and that the ISF had rounded up aerospace workers and their families, herded them into the factories, then detonated massive bombs within to ‘punish traitors’. This followed the mass executions of anybody even loosely associated with the DCA, which had similarly been declared traitors to the Dragon.

There aren’t very many surviving locals to interrogate, as they appear to have been very thoroughly brainwashed with the belief that failure to die in the service of the Dragon would result in them being slain by the ever victorious Dragon. Considering that one of the ‘tactics’ being used involves the use of school children armed with crude spears charging at your troops… with shaped charges with contact fuses on the ends of the spears and remote detonated suicide bombs on their backs. The parents and older children are usually right behind them, wielding vibro-katanas and also equipped with satchel charges and suicide vests, while behind them come the actual Drac infantry, using the civilian human waves as bullet sponges.

It’s brutally effective, in a psychological sense, even as it is completely ineffectual in any real tactical or strategic sense. You have a feeling that anybody who serves in this battle is going to require years of PTSD therapy. Indeed, you’ve already authorized increasing funding to the mental health sections of the Medical Corps and Veterans Medical Administration.

The first shipments have arrived from Kilburrough, an almost suspiciously quick turnaround but checks from your own geneticists show that the fetuses in question are precisely as described by the contracts, with no hidden sequences that your experts can find. Prospective parents are already being matched and the banks of Iron Wombs are in operation, in 9 months the first infants will be born from the program. Currently it appears that you will have no problem finding families for all of them, which is good, since you have every intention of ensuring that the babies born of this program are treated no differently than anybody else in the Empire.

To the Kilburroughans this is ‘good business sense’ since it ‘aligns with the terms of service and user agreement’, to you it is a simple matter of morality, no Griffon will ever be considered a slave.

You get a few details of what happened in Kilburrough, evidently several Black Steel ships of undetermined class attacked, were swatted out of space by the defense stations, but horror of horrors, said with as much sarcasm as possible you note, the paint got scratched on one of the stations and the Executive Council had to interrupt their enjoyment of Opening Day of the baseball season because of the alert. Your heart bleeds for them.

For some reason the Kilburroughan ambassador doesn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm and is very gratified that you understand the intolerable severity of the offense caused. Why, if they had waited for two hours for the games to be over then it would have been fine. How rude!

You manage not to facepalm until after the Kilburroughan flounces out of your office. This required enormous willpower and self-control.
 

Tel Janin Aman

Well-known member
Comrade
The kilburrough are a silly bunch, and the attacks blow but at least the dracs are almost done. Maybe we should ask that officer that came to us where he thinks the DCA might have gone. They could provide a nice boost in numbers and we don't want them going pirate out there.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
And hope like hell that the NRI treating you as a god doesn’t spread… nahhh, Griffonese are far too sensible for that nonsense.

Whether or not Jeremy actually lives to regret that thought, his future ghost is definitely haunting the fuck out of him for it.

You’ve already managed to yell her down from resigning, as she feels that she failed to anticipate just how dangerous extreme range massed capital fire would be and thus prioritized the wrong design concepts for the new warships you’ve been building, namely balanced designs identical in concept to upscaled parasite battleships.

That's definitely the guilt talking -- our light WarShips were optimized as light WarShips, not as 'pocket Battleships'.


[X] Initiate Clean-Up

You get a few details of what happened in Kilburrough, evidently several Black Steel ships of undetermined class attacked, were swatted out of space by the defense stations, but horror of horrors, said with as much sarcasm as possible you note, the paint got scratched on one of the stations and the Executive Council had to interrupt their enjoyment of Opening Day of the baseball season because of the alert. Your heart bleeds for them.

For some reason the Kilburroughan ambassador doesn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm and is very gratified that you understand the intolerable severity of the offense caused. Why, if they had waited for two hours for the games to be over then it would have been fine. How rude!

You manage not to facepalm until after the Kilburroughan flounces out of your office. This required enormous willpower and self-control.

As absurd as it is, it makes sense from a psychological standpoint. The elite-cadre Kilburroughans have lived so long, in such luxury, and with so little threat to their actual lives that *boredom and malaise* are the only "real problems" they ever face. Grossly disproportionate reaction to even a minor disruption of something they've latched onto as a cultural institution against that boredom is a deeply sincere response from them.
 

Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
[X] Initiate Cleanup

Might sound callous, but I am glad it was only one planet that got hit, and it was the tourist planet. Imagine if that fleet visited a core world.
 

Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
they might still, The enemy still has 70% of its entire fleet left per GM so its probably not over yet.
Did we at least kill the Amaris Cyborgs commanding the lost ships? At least those guys are pretty irreplaceable, wouldn’t be surprised if they had teleport belts or some other cop out like that.
 

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