The funeral for Admiral Fisher is a quiet and somber affair. In many ways, he was the soul of the Imperial Navy, having left his mark in all areas of naval affairs and shaping naval doctrine for decades. Admiral di Palo has huge shoes to fill, for all that Admiral Fisher was a small man.
After the funeral she does meet with you to go over a few details. BuShips had actually finished work early on the new BattleSat designs, at least the PPC, Missile and Point Defense ones. The naval gauss one was still utterly unsatisfactory due to the recoil shaking it apart. The design teams had been extremely motivated by the deaths of their admiral, after all, as they hadn’t expected to finish work for several months.
All three of the new drones share a common five thousand ton chassis with the only difference being the loadouts. The Naval PPC drone has a single Heavy Naval PPC along with batteries of 8cm pulse lasers. The Missile drone has a trio of Killer Whale launchers loaded with nuclear anti-ship missiles, again with batteries of 8cm pulse lasers for close-in defense. The Point Defense drone, despite its name, is intended to target enemy ASF drones, not missiles, and has enormous batteries of long range missiles backed up by equally massive batteries of 8cm extended range lasers.
She reports that the raiding activities of the Expeditionary and Strike fleets are continuing for now, pending a shift to the galactic ‘north’ that the Admiralty is recommending to take advantage of the hopefully weakened state of the Black Steel by hitting more substantial production facilities. Since both formations are still at full strength, Admiral di Palo believes that it is an acceptable risk to keep them in action rather than fully turtling up. The main issue is shifting your logistics train to support such action, but the Admiral believes that they’ll be ready to commence operations in that sector in the coming months.
The public mood is a sort of somber triumph, mixed with the sober understanding that this is not an easy war you are fighting. The Black Steel are, in many ways, a superior opponent to you, their ability to effectively ignore losses and their sheer adaptability make them especially dangerous.
You get the report on the losses suffered by your allies in the battle. The NRI lost over a hundred of their corvettes alongside Grand Fleet, while a further fifty were destroyed alongside Home Fleet in the initial actions. The NRR lost a hundred ASF wings as well.
You make a point of mentioning their losses in your various public appearances to show that your allies are standing foursquare with you in this conflict, and also ensure that appropriate gratitude is conveyed to your allies both publicly and privately.
You make the decision to continue the anti-piracy patrols, the ships used for that are all obsolete at this point anyways and wouldn’t add much to rebuilding Grand Fleet and are doing a great deal of good for the Empire doing precisely what they are doing right now.
You go into the budget meeting with a bit less enthusiasm than usual, knowing there will be at least one missing face. Amaunet kicks things off like she usually does. “Padrone, I won’t lie and say that we are in good shape this year, because we aren’t, but we are well positioned to recover from the blow struck against us and strike back even harder.”
General Zara then takes over. “Your Majesty, while the timing is less than happy, the Army is finally at a point where we need to expand our production capacity in order to fully support further growth.”
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- Build Mech Factory Complex
- Griffon
- Calliope IV
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- New Libertalia
- New Capricorn
- Edelsteine
- Nox
- Steingarten
- Iskra
- Construct Conventional Military Factory
- Nya Köpenhamn
- Nowy Wrocław
- New Phoenix
- New Pollux
- New Port Royal
- Neuhessen
- Glorreich
- Olej
- Przyjemny
- Skała
- Expand Military Industrial Infrastructure
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Neuthüringen
- Procurement
- 18 Garrison Divisions
- 18 Militia Divisions
- 25 Infantry Divisions
- 5 Regimental Combat Team Divisions
General Perkins is up next. “Your Majesty, the Aerospace Force took heavy losses on top of the 400 completely destroyed wings. Rebuilding our strength will take some time, but thankfully our production numbers are finally reaching a point where doing so is a matter of years, not decades.”
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- Construct New ASF Factory
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- Kurortas
- Raj
- Pustina
- Platzregensburg
- Pryyemnyy
- Awha
- Bāṛi
- Bellaterra
- Procurement
- 100 Fighter Wing
- 100 Carrier Wing
- 50 CAP Wing
- 60 Garrison Wing
Admiral Savić looks less like the formidable young woman you are accustomed to seeing and more like a carved statue, her eyes glittering with carefully banked rage. “Your Majesty, the fleet is, on the whole, still fully committed to the defeat of the Black Steel and, despite our losses, we are confident that we can continue full intensity combat operations against them. This battle hurt us, deeply, but we will prevail.” Her voice burns with conviction, drawing approving nods from around the room.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Orbital Shipyards
- Expand All Orbital Shipyards
- Refit & Repair Yards
- Construct New Refit & Repair Yard
- Expand All Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- Nowy Szczecin
- Baddorando
- Sturmland
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Skała
- Stahlfurt
- Griff's Leap
- Pusztaság
- Olej
- Przyjemny (Reminder, get 2 for the cost of 1)
- 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
- Nowego Lublina
- Salamander
- Small Warship Yards
- Griffon
- Calliope IV
- Edelsteine
- Nowa Warszawa
- Awha
- Kaiyo
- Iskra
- Bohren
- Feuerstern
- Novolar
- Grand View
- Okusawa
- New Capricorn
- Pustina
- Steingarten
- Raj
- Chuma
- Kurortas
- Piekło
- Medium Warship Yards
- New Pollux
- New Phoenix
- Nya Köpenhamn
- Nowy Śląsk
- Kainga
- Large Warship Yards
- Bāṛi
- Shin Tōkyō
- New Libertalia
- Pinball
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 400 Artemis-class System Defense Flotillas
- 229 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
- 229 Colt-class Defense Blisters
- Large Dropships
- 387 Kearsarge-class Parasite Battleships
- 60 Mashū-class Parasite Logistics Transports
- Jumpships
- 24 Rawalpindi-class Armed Merchant Ship
- Escorts
- 200 Battle-class Destroyers
- 50 Tarantul-class Missile Raider
- 50 Asheville-class Raider
- 130 Legend-class Frigates
- 60 White Plains-class Escort Carriers
- 1 Excelsior-class Survey Ship
- Small Warships
- 50 Belfast-class Light Cruisers
- 50 Phoenix-class Light Cruisers
- 50 Atlanta-class Light Cruisers
- 18 Centaur-class Light Carriers
- Medium Warships
- 25 Prinz Eugen II-class Heavy Cruisers
- 25 Hawke-class Heavy Cruisers
- Large Warships
- 16 Kaiserin-class Battleships
- 16 Tiger-class Battlecruisers
- Fortress Command
- Drone Clusters
- 30 Laser BattleSats
- 30 Naval PPC BattleSats
- 30 Missile BattleSats
- 30 Point Defense BattleSats
- Build Jump Point Defenses
- Waypoint 11
- Eisabfall
- Bergheim
- Nowa Rzeka
- Arx Defense Stations
- Fortress Heavy Recharge Stations
- Black Tower
- Waypoint 11
- Eisabfall
- Bergheim
- Nowa Rzeka
- Waypoint 1
- Spartoi Defense Clusters
There is silence for a moment as the Admiral takes her seat, then you shake yourself, you’d half been expecting to hear Admiral Fisher interjecting like he sometimes did at this point. Instead you wait while Elizabeth Lee takes the podium.
“Your Majesty, we are going to take an unimaginable risk this year and leave a pair of DoME teams idle, simply because we’re going to need them
next year to begin work on the new capital shipyards we are expecting to be able to start production of then.” It’s good to see that she’s still able to keep that old canard going, even now.
- Department of Mega Engineering
- Terraforming
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Hot Mess
- Baddorando
- Sturmland
- Nowego Lublina
- Optimization
“We intend to establish a trio of new colonies this year.” She continues.
- Colonization
- Nowa Rzeka
- Bergheim
- Eisabfall
She takes a breath and continues. “And even in the midst of this crisis, Your Majesty, the economy still needs attention to fuel future growth.”
- Economic Focus, Investment & Infrastructure
- Economic Focus
- Massive Investment
- Economic Investment
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- New Narnia
- Arvum
- Neubayern
- Hot Mess
- Major Economic Investment
- Nowa Warszawa
- Kainga
- Chuma
- Kurortas
- Novolar
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Imobiliar
- Highland
- Gateway
- Cần Thơ mới
- Nuova Basilicata
“There is one additional project that we are recommending this year, Your Majesty, the upgrading of our existing Germanium Refining facilities in order to ensure that we are able to produce sufficient jump cores for our warship production needs.”
Your Foreign Minister is on Nova Roma meeting with the consuls there. She has left you memos recommending funding a memorial monument for the fallen at the latest battle of Arvum, as well as urging you to still invest in sports camps for the upcoming Olympics as, after all, life does go on.
Tiberius is present at the meeting. You’d taken away his haiku generating books, but you probably didn’t need to as he looks serious for a change. “Your Majesty, I am actually going to strongly recommend against any expansion of the Civil Service this year, going against many years of tradition. Right now the Civil Service is about the right size, for the moment, and any larger risks creeping inefficiencies we can ill afford.”
Then the most boring person in the world takes the podium and proves that he is in fact just that socially clueless as to immediately begin droning on in that dreadful monotone about more details about ongoing projects than you ever wanted to hear. You really are not interested in his highlighting improved efficiencies due to more efficient bathroom placement, for God’s sake.
There are over a thousand slides in his boring Powerpoint presentation. One thousand, two hundred and thirty three to be precise, not including the fifty three slides of his references and endnotes, nor the seven hundred and twenty four page book he seemed to feel was the minimum level of critical data for you to make a decision.
You don’t even know what some of these words mean, and it is everything you can do to not fall asleep about a quarter way through the most boring presentation in the history of boring presentations.
You manage to glean out of this that there is a new military research project that all three branches are supporting to investigate more advanced missiles for your ASFs, BattleMechs, and Conventional Vehicles, not to mention for Fortress Command and Home Fleet.
