Turn 51 - Dark and Dusty
You receive an odd mix of good and bad news. The bad news? All of the
Enterprise-class dropships have been grounded, inspections have revealed excessive metal fatigue in critical parts, a result of the dropships having been built with an insufficiently robust internal structure as well as ‘first dropship’ mistakes in stress calculations. It has only been the great professionalism of the crews that have prevented any catastrophes so far.
The five vessels are quickly stripped of classified equipment and all find homes in museums eager to have pieces of history.
The good news is that the Royal Griffon Dropship Werks had been working on a private venture exploration dropship, intending to use the completed vessel as a sample to excite interest for the project. The company, sensing an opportunity for wonderful PR, instead turns over the completed vessel to the Imperial Griffon Navy. The Navy, in turn, staffs the new ship with the crews of the 5 retired vessels, allowing it to be put in immediate service. She is thus immediately commissioned as the new USS Enterprise, causing some wags to dub the class the Enterprise-A class, which, well, turns out to be what they decided to name them anyways.
Your palm has a loving encounter with your face, and you remind the Exploration Fleet that your requirement that they all wear red shirts remains.
If they want to keep the Star Trek references going, so can you.
The surveillance of the oligarchs and the law firm that is in this cessit up to their perfectly tailored armpits continues. The two that you already have more than sufficient evidence against are still the only ones currently active, although the investigators are seeing signs that the other four main targets are still in communication, they just haven’t done anything incriminating enough yet to build a solid case.
It grates, but you are building up resources. Armed with the profile of the stash houses that have already been detected the Special Branch now has full surveillance on over a dozen additional locations that fit the criteria. They have also identified about a half dozen properties where it appears there has been ‘activity’ in the past and are keeping them under surveillance as well. Every single lawyer, paralegal, secretary, researcher, and even janitor who works for the law firm in question is under unremitting surveillance with the Special Branch drawing in auxiliary assets from Intelligence and
SARAH.
The media, meanwhile, under the oligarchs control, is continuing to throw smoke everywhere they can. You do catch communications from them which rather undercuts the network's pious protestations of being ‘neutral journalists’ who simply follow the story. There will be a number of very juicy defamation suits after all of this is over.
Work on the upgrades for your ground forces are continuing, although it won’t be until next year that they are fully completed.
And surprisingly, considering how you usually feel, you find yourself actually looking forward to budget time for a change, as it gets your mind off of the foulness festering in Griffsport.
General Stewart is up first. “Your Majesty, we have a number of very important decisions coming up in the next few years, as we are finally poised to begin actual offensive operations against our enemies. General Griffith?” she turns to Jeremy and yields the floor to your son.
“We are currently fully invested in the upgrade process for our ground forces, but that has not stopped us from doing extensive simulator work. We have identified a number of minor issues with the current upgrades, at least from a doctrinal standpoint. However it was pointed out that, well, we’d already dropped the ball on at least one of them from the start.” Jeremy looks a bit chagrined.
“Specifically for our Armored Cavalry units. Originally we had intended them to be used for securing beachheads for our dropships during assault operations, however in the latest set of upgrades the
Uhlan II is losing their jump jets, making them less flexible in this specific mission, while the rest of the upgrade massively boosts the mechs lethality and flexibility in every other scenario. Likewise the
Rittmeister never had jump jets, meaning that the mission was compromised from the start.”
“To solve this without holding back the current upgrade program we propose the procurement of a specialized jump-capable combined Command/Missile mech to be paired with our existing
Wolf Spider and
Orb Weaver mechs. We are also investigating a potential upgrade of the
Soldatin design, removing the third enhanced PPC as well as five heat sinks, mounting a pair of 5 tube improved LRM launchers on the ‘shoulders’ and an Anti-Missile System in the center torso, along with a quintet of jump jets. Preliminary work shows that an increase in armor will also be possible. Once we have more information on these designs we will update you.” he checks his notes.
“In addition, we have set aside a portion of the military reservation on Griffon IV for a Dedicated Upgrade and Refurbishment Facility, which in the future should streamline unit upgrades as technology advances. It won’t do much for the expense of upgrades, but it will keep the factories free for production.”
He steps back, as She Who Speaks In PowerPoint steps to the podium and… fires up her beloved powerpoint.
“Your Majesty, with the dropship procurement this year we will be needing the following aerospace assets.”
- 4 Assault Carrier Wings
- 2 Assault Carrier Squadrons
- 2 Flights - Griffon II
- 1 Regimental Support Squadron
Good god in heaven, somebody showed Miss Powerpoint how to add animations to her slides.
“We continue to foresee requirements to increase production capacity for ASFs and strategic materials, as such, we recommend the expansion of factories 46, 47, and 48, as well as of Ferro Aluminium and Double Heat Sink production.”
In that short presentation she went through 10 slides. With animations. Lord help us all.
Admiral Benjamin has his beloved flip chart. “Your Majesty, only got 2 slips free this year, and both of ‘em are looking prime for the new transports, 1
Newport and 1
Newport-C. And if you could continue to prioritize them large droppers, we’d appreciate it muchly.” he then grins boyishly. “Oh, and if you can pull another miracle out of hammerspace, we’d love more
Potemkins this century!”
You can’t help it, and the good admiral barely manages to dodge a wadded up piece of paper.
General Stewart doesn’t bother to stand back up. “Needless to say, I endorse the lot of that. I would add that once we start offensive ops we’re going to need yet more space for planning and such, so another HQ expansion program is on the menu.”
Bridget is very Bridget, although now that she’s married and has kids she is far more bearable. She’s still banned from coffee though.
“Your Majesty! We have some new things we can do over at DoME in regards to Griffon IV, now that the terraforming has progressed as far as it has. Namely, we can start planting forests! This will be a critical milestone, as it will start the process of releasing free oxygen and consuming carbon dioxide and nitrogen. We currently have 3 different types to choose from, although once the oceans are sculpted we’ll have a 4th. The eggheads were going on and on about required humidity and rain levels and were on the fifteenth slide of their powerpoint when I insisted they summarize in a way that won’t melt brains smaller than Mary’s. So the easy easy easy way, we currently got 1 unit of water available on the planet, because of the comet we crashed into it. To get more we need to sculpt out them oceans and lakes, oceans will get us effectively 2 units due to evaporation and such, lakes 1. If we want tropical forests, you know, Tarzan style jungle, we need rivers to be all ready, because those take lots and lots of water. So right now we can plant temperate forests or subarctic forests. Once the oceans are done we’d be able to plant kelp forests and encourage coral formation, but we’re a way off from that. So what the eggheads over at DoME want to do is plant either a temperate or subarctic forest, your choice. Otherwise we’re all set to build factories and forges and whatever else you need!”
You glance over to Mary, who’s shaking her head with a fond smile on her face, then nod to the ebullient Interior Minister.
Isoroku is looking as zen as ever. “Your Majesty. After the success of the Olympics and the positive impact we’ve made on the NRI due to how handily we handled those pirates, it may be possible to begin actual discussions about a formal military alliance against our mutual foes. With your permission I can begin that process. Meanwhile, here at home, may I recommend endowing a proper Imperial War Museum? I’ve been through the Royal Families collections and there is plenty there for a good solid basis.”
Jake is not looking zen, and he’s not looking happy either. He’s got kids the same age as some of the victims of the oligarchs, and has a missing distant cousin that he now suspects vanished into their maw. “Your Majesty, the behavior of the press has been abominable and unforgivable. I know we have freedom of the press, but this is going too far. I would like your permission to establish a proper Imperial Broadcasting Corporation to counter the current situation with something fully under our control and oversight.”
Mary is her usual self, with her custom presentation program already up and running as she stands behind the lectern. “Your Majesty, the basic survey of
SLS Morristown shows that she is sound and can be eventually repaired, but we will need to do a far more comprehensive and thorough survey first. In addition, we have a number of new areas of research.”
- Life Extension Therapy - Lvl 4
- Increases probably maximum lifespan even further
- Medium Battle Armor - Basic
- Significantly increases the weight capacity for our power armor troopers
- Hyper-Pulse Generators - Theory Lvl 2
- Our scientists believe we are very close to moving from pure theory to starting engineering work
- Improved Anti-Aging Treatments Lvl 1
- Also called ‘Prolong’, slows aging overall
- Improved Elder Quality of Life Lvl 1
- More advanced treatments for arthritis, joint and bone problems, and other side-effects of advanced age
She then brings up the next slide, showing recommendations.
- Military R&D
- Full Survey - SLS Morristown
- Improved PPC
- Non-Military R&D
- Advanced Electronics (advanced) Tier 2
- High-Energy Physics (advanced) Tier 2
- Advanced Communications (advanced) Tier 2
Harry is again not present for the meeting, having sent his deputy once more. In this case it is due to him handling some internal Intelligence issues, specifically the discovery of a data leak that appears to be for the purpose of industrial espionage over various maintenance contracts. Nothing sensitive was compromised, as counter-espionage methods more than sufficed to sniff out and plug the leak.
Janet meets your gaze, and you can tell she is just as furious as you are. “Your Majesty, we at Justice need two things. An expansion of the Special Branch, and authorization to go through the criminal bench with a fine toothed comb to make sure we have no corrupt judges. For… obvious reasons.”