Turn 39 - We All Fall Down
You hadn’t heard much from the Department of Periphery Studies ever since the expansion of their staff.
Well, the best you can say is that this time they’re being purely amusing and not interrupting anything important.
There are long lines of brown-robed ‘professors’ from the Department marching slowly through the main park of Griffsport while banging what you’ve been assured are empty cardboard boxes painted to look like ancient tomes of wisdom on their foreheads while chanting in terrible Latin completely nonsensical phrases. And then the tenured faculty are wearing bright red robes and jumping out of the line to accost random people with large cushions while declaring that they are the Spanish Inquisition.
Evidently the soft cushions are supposed to be a terrible threat, and if that doesn’t work they’ll inflict the comfy chair on people.
You wonder who showed them Monty Python, and resolve to first congratulate them on their comedic prowess and taste before turning them over to Jane for appropriate punishment. Unless, of course, it was Jane, in which case you are quite certain that there will be a period of undercover work as a kindergarten teacher in Jane’s future.
The existing planetary coastguards are folded into the new Star Guard Service as a natural extension of their work. The new service is already working on procuring appropriate equipment to do its job properly and appears to be in good hands.
The planetary government of Nowy Gdansk has opened the planet to general immigration, which has resulted in a small surge of population moving from Griffin’s Roost to the arctic planet.
Jeremy is still hard at work engaged in war-planning and administrative work at the AFGE HQ. His latest project is to combine the jump capability of the proposed special ops power armor suits with cheaper non-stealth armor. One of the things that is quickly discovered is that the original basic power armor has a glaring flaw compared to the new suits, which is part of why they are so cheap in comparison to the new suits. Specifically they are completely unsealed and almost incapable of being made sealed, with substantial gaps in the shell due to the nature of their articulation. A sufficiently skilled sniper would be able to take advantage of those gaps. The newer suits solve that issue but at a substantially increased cost in production time and materials.
QM Note - this is due to a math error on my part, you are paying about 1/10 what you should be for basic power armor suits.
The new suits combine the machine gun armament of the original suits with a small set of jump jets and an LRM launcher, giving the suits a nice bit of long range punch.
Unfortunately, upgrading from the old suits to the new ones that correct the flaws in the original design will be prohibitively expensive. However the manufacturers have offered to make the switch for existing units gratis in exchange for being able to shut down the original lines completely and focus solely on the new units for the future. That is honestly a far better deal than you’d expected, especially considering how much more capable the refined suits are. Checking into it, you find that the companies in question would receive a nice tax break for it, but it wouldn’t affect your budgeting and the benefits to the government would far exceed the costs of the breaks.
So you approve it. The only changes will be in maintenance costs going forward, and that the basic power armor suits will be replaced with the improved versions and will no longer be available.
With the new suits, Jeremy is working on tactics for combining mechs and power armored infantry into single units. It’s not yet complete, and there appear to be significant challenges involved due to the fact that carrying shifting masses on the exterior of the mech presents challenges to stability.
Thanh is extremely grumpy about being out of the cockpit of her beloved fighters, but is doing rather well in her staff position. You did put your foot down and kept the twins from sending holos of Thanh being grumpy to Nollak as promotional material for their AA systems.
Jeremy is again joining you for the best time of the year. BUDGET TIME!
Please, stop snickering at attempts at making this actually exciting. It’s demoralizing.
Jeremy has actually been tasked with preparing the military brief portion of the budget meetings, allowing General Jackson and General Reyes to sit back and criticize. Admiral Benjamin is still handling his own portion of it.
Jeremy starts off with a bit of a grin. “I’m reliably informed that I will get points off for every time I refer to you as Mom instead of Your Majesty, therefore.” his expression is perfectly innocent while General Potter does a horrible job of smothering a snicker. “I think it is safe to dispense with honorifics for the purposes of this briefing.”
“To start with, for ground forces we are in relatively solid shape, pending the completion of the factory complex on Nowy Gdansk. We have three specific procurement recommendations, one for active forces and two for the training cadre. In addition we have several general procurement recommendations. First, for the active forces, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Armored is at half-strength for armored forces, we recommend procuring a standard armored regiment to bring the unit to full strength in that regard. For mech forces for 2nd Armored we still recommend holding off until we can equip them with our proposed standard mech regiments.”
He switches to a new slide on the presentation. The fact that the background is basically a mother’s day card causes more difficulties for the senior officers present to keep straight faces. “For the Aerie Cadre, they are requesting more
Cadet mechs, as well as a battalion strength set of the new Evolved Power Armor to facilitate power armor training for the cadets. This would be 27 platoons worth of the suits.”
Another slide, this time with a background of a family vacation to Capricorn with the entire family posing in front of Sekhmet. “We also recommend continuing full rate procurement of
Orb Weaver mechs. Finally, we recommend strengthening the garrison of Nowy Gdansk by procuring additional
Winged Hussar and
Verdun battalions along with a battalion of Evolved Power Armor.”
A fresh slide, this time with a background pic of Thanh receiving her wings at her graduation ceremony. “For our ASF forces, we are mainly concerned with boosting our production capabilities. Highest priority would go to the Goshawk 2G, thanks to the lack of strategic materials we intend for these birds to form the core of any defensive formations. In addition, we recommend building up production capability for all other types, with a minor focus on the new
Griffon assault fighter.”
He brings up a chart. “We have multiple carrier dropships commissioning this year, many of which are in need of air wings. We can transfer birds from existing squadrons if needed. We will have 3
Velociraptors, 1
Microraptor, 2
Warriors, and an
Enterprise, all requiring air wings.”
The chart is broken down by type, with recommendations.
Dropship Class | ASF Type | Number |
Velociraptor | Roc | 3 |
Microraptor | Gyrfalcon | 3 |
Warrior | Eagle | 6 |
Enterprise | Goshawk 2G | 1 |
“This will take up nearly all of the available production lines for the various types if implemented.” Jeremy points out. “Hence why we strongly recommend making factory expansion for all ASF types a very high priority.”
He takes a seat, smirking just slightly.
Admiral Benjamin then takes the podium. “That young whippersnapper stole some of my thunder, Your Majesty. May I recommend sending him to his room without supper?” There is general laughter in the room at that. “Seriously. We will have the
Defiant class vessels HMDS Lynx and HMDS Decoy, the
Velociraptor-class vessels HMDS Havock, HMDS Hornet, and HMDS Ferret, the
Microraptor-class vessel HMDS Eagle, the
Warrior-class vessels HMDS Defense and HMDS Resistance, and the
Lightning-class vessels HMDS Lightning and HMDS Tempest all commissioning this year. In addition USS Discovery is commissioning and once she has her exploration team will be available for survey work. We recommend laying down HMDS Devastation, the first of the proposed
Devastation-class, as well as continue full construction of all other types. For the new large aerodynes, we recommend laying down a
Tyrannosaurus class initially.”
He brings up a chart of his own. “In addition, we are proposing the following system of designations to better organize our forces.”
Designation | Abbreviation | Examples |
Patrol Gunboat - Light | PGL | Defiant |
Patrol Gunboat - Fast | PGF | Lightning |
Patrol Gunboat - Aviation | PGV | Velociraptor, Utahraptor |
Patrol Gunboat - Heavy | PGH | Warrior, Tyrannosaurus |
Escort Carrier | CVE | Microraptor, Megaraptor |
Patrol Gunboat - Assault | PGA | Devastation |
“In addition to their name, each unit would have a designation, for example, HMDS Defiant would be PGL-1. This is mainly useful for organizational charts.”
General Potter has managed to assume a suitably serious expression on his face. “Your Majesty, and Colonel Griffith, please note that this is how you are supposed to do this.” the room loses it, starting with you. “I would like to reiterate the point about needing to rapidly boost our production capacities. Not just of our aerospace fighters, but of our mech designs as well. Better to have the capacity and not require it, than desperately require it and not have it.”
All in all, the military briefing has been far more enjoyable than usual.
Bridget bounces in for the civilian side of things just barely in time, slides into her seat, and starts talking almost before she stops moving.
“Your Majesty! I heard the soldiers want to build lots of stuff and we’re ready to build lots of stuff too and next year we’ll have all sorts of DoME projects available and this is incredibly exciting because that’s a ton of growth potential all around I would recommend primarily focusing on production line factories this year rather than strategic materials factories but expanding a few of them might be a good idea too.”
One… breath… for… all… of… that. You need coffee, stat.
Isoroku is as serene as ever. “Your Majesty, I have spoken with the Free Folk and they would be willing to transport a delegation from our Ministry to the Optimates to open diplomatic relations. In addition, our Ministry of Cultural Affairs would like to propose a monumental statue commemorating forty years on the throne, to be unveiled on the first of January.”
You are certain he is smirking at that. Absolutely certain, even if there’s no expression at all on his face.
Jake is chuckling. “Your Majesty, we in the Politics sphere have a few areas where we can help out, primarily in facilitating the expansion of Bridget’s ministry so she can, as she loves to say, build more stuff.” Bridget is laughing at that. “Or even expand the DoME so she can build more crazy stuff.”
Mary shows up with her inevitable charts and presentations. “Your Majesty, we have a few new areas of inquiry, and many idle labs to tackle them. Let’s get started, yes?”
- New Research Areas
- MASC
- Advanced myomer control circuits which would permit a significant increase in speed for a relatively modest increase in mass and volume, however there is a risk of overloading the actuators.
- Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 1
- Recent developments will allow us to focus on far more intricate and esoteric applications of existing technology, this may open up many new research areas in the future.
- High-Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 1
- With the latest advancements in automation our scientists would like to put the word ‘mad’ back into ‘mad science’ while keeping Health & Safety off their backs. This may open up new opportunities in weapon development and refinement.
- Military Research
- Subcapital Missile - Piranha
- All indications show that this will be a devastating weapons system despite its inability to be retrofitted to existing designs.
- Harjel
- This will give minor but important enhancements to our power armor units, while unlocking future research
- Omnivehicle
- Probably not immediately useful, but has potential down the road
- Non Military Research
- Improved Agriculture Lvl 3
- Griffin’s Roost is coming closer and closer to population limits, improving food yields would delay this further into the future.
- Iron Womb
- There is significant demand for this from infertile couples, as well as the inhabitants of our orbital habitats due to concerns with radiation resulting in reduced fertility
- Life-Extension Therapy Lvl 2
- Self-explanatory, really.
Harry is busy overseeing the interrogations, however he sends a short memo highlighting the potential to infiltrate agents of our own into the diplomatic mission to the Optimates in order to potentially discover things they might not want to willingly tell us.
Janet is also very busy wrapping up the work of the commission charged with auditing all existing laws and regulations. So she only drops by briefly to drop off some of the Black Bean Of Life before getting back to work.