Turn 82 - The Social Pages
You receive an HPG report from New Castor. A Black Steel
Essex and a pair of
Vincent Mk 32 jumped in at a pirate point. Unfortunately you didn’t have a warship squadron in system, however the defense units handled the incursion on their own. Six
Canopus class parasite battleships and two dozen
Bainbridges, plus the ASF forces from the planetary garrison, swarm the Black Steel warships. Sixteen
Bainbridges are lost, as are many fighters, but while all six of the
Canopus class vessels were ‘mission killed’ none were actually destroyed, and all three of the Black Steel warships were destroyed. There was some minor damage to the colony, but nothing that the locals couldn’t handle themselves thanks to your policy of hardening critical infrastructure.
The new HPG station on Kainga is having a bit of an issue with interference, for some reason all transmissions from the new station have excessive noise in them. Technicians have ruled out any hardware faults with the HPG equipment itself, noting that not only did all of the gear pass full certification back on Griffon when produced but that they pass all diagnostic tests now. Something is causing interference with the formation of the KF ‘punch’ that HPG systems use for FTL transmission. Not enough to disrupt it, but enough to cause a bit of interference. Theorists are rather excited, because this is new and novel behavior that hasn’t been documented before.
You receive a message from the NRI, they are in the process of surveying the asteroid belts in the M33 system and intend to stake a claim there to the germanium deposits. They have dubbed the system Oculus Venetus, or ‘The Blue Eye’, which seems fitting. To your relief nowhere in the message are any references to that ridiculous cult of yours.
You get some reports from the NRR as well, they have completed construction of a jumpship yard that will be building commercial-grade
Caravel jumpships under contract with several of your commercial yards. The agreement had been approved by the relevant regulatory bodies. Since there is still some demand for the smaller jumpship, even as most of the commercial yards have shifted to
Brig and even
Galleon production, this will be a boon to the NRR’s economy, which you can hardly begrudge them.
And it is budget time. Oh joy.
General Jenkins is his usual self. “Alright boss, this is gonna be weird, because us ground pounding types aren’t going to be begging for more factories this year. Because we’re at a perfect inflection point where we can nearly build entire new division sets at a time. What we will be pointing out is that as we grow our supply lines are growing with us and we will need to take steps to handle that. I’ll leave the specifics later since the solution involves lots of slide rules and big heavy machinery and I’m terrible at math.”
He turns the podium over to General Bradley. “Your Majesty, initial analysis shows that the new medium mech units are performing as expected and will make a highly useful adjunct to our Brigade Combat Team model. As such we intend to focus our procurement on them, while also building up a new Assault Division.” She brings up a chart showing the requested procurements.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Production
- Make Nowy Śląskk a logistics hub
- Construct Major Army Base on New Pollux
- Procurement
- Heavy/Assault Mechs
- 6 Assault Regiments
- 2 Standard Mech Regiments
- Are within 1 regiment production of being able to produce a full Assault Division in a year
- Light/Medium Mechs
- 9 Medium Mech Regiments
- 9 Medium Scout Regiments
- Conventional Forces
- 9 Air Cavalry Regiments
- 16 Light Armored Regiments
- 8 Light Mechanized Regiments
General Romanov is up next. “Your Majesty, we have a number of new stations coming online this year which will require air wings, plus we would like to bolster our defensive formations, especially in the light of the continuing threat of Black Steel attacks. Our production capacity is in a solid place at the moment, thankfully.”
She pauses. “In addition, we have received a large number of solicitations in response to our request for proposals for a new garrison fighter. We requested an interceptor type fighter, with minimal use of strategic resources, while maintaining a solid punch. We have received a very diverse array of responses.”
“First up, we have Project Agarita, from our favorite pyramidal design bureau. This is the most expensive of the proposed designs, but is a very capable platform and is just within the cost ceiling of the RFP. Project Agarita has a solid combination of missiles, lasers, and an anti-missile system. The main drawback is a complete lack of rearward firepower, which is common to most of these designs.”
“Project DEFENDER shows a great deal of promise, although there will be significant challenges with heat management with this design due to the use of an enhanced PPC. It also lacks rear firepower.”
“Project FIRESTORM is similar to DEFENDER, but is 10 tens heavier, has a pair of 5cm extended range lasers in the tail, and makes use of a class 5 rotary autocannon. Again heat management is a significant problem for this design, although not as badly as DEFENDER. It is a very capable platform, however.”
“Next is Project ONI which is both the heaviest and the cheapest of the proposed designs, although it is also the least capable combatant of the proposals. A class five LB series autocannon is the primary armament, with a pair of 3cm pulse lasers as backup. ONI lacks rear-firing weapons and has a very small and cramped cockpit”
“Project Smilax is an alternate for Project Agarita from the Pyramid crew. It maintains the missile and AMS systems from Agarita, but is slightly smaller and has a bit less armor. It is cheaper than Agarita for nearly the same capability but shares the weakness of no tail stinger.”
“Project STORMHOG comes from Majeure Electrique and is centered around a class 5 rotary autocannon, backed by a quartet of 5cm extended range lasers. Unlike most of the other responses to the RFP, Project STORMHOG carries two of the lasers in a rear-facing mounting, providing a critical capability for our pilots.”
“Finally, Project STRIX from the Imperial Griffon Aerospace Werk is similar to Project STORMHOG, but a bit slower. Also centered around a class 5 rotary autocannon, STRIX adds in a pair of anti-missile systems mounted fore and aft, and instead of the pair of 5cm extended range lasers in the tail has a single 3cm extended range laser. The STRIX is the second cheapest of the proposals as well.”
[] | Name | Cost | HP | A/D | Specials | Bonus Votes |
[] | Agarita | 3,818.88 | 25 | 15 |
- Armored 1
- Swift
- Missile 1
- AMS 1
|
- Speed +3 votes
- Misc -2 votes
- Net +1 votes
|
[] | Defender | 2,705.68 | 25 | 15 | |
- Misc -4 votes
- Net -4 votes
|
[] | Firestorm | 3,667.29 | 27 | 17 | |
- Misc -2 votes
- Net -2 votes
|
[] | Oni | 2,646.29 | 20 | 10 | |
- Misc -2 votes
- Net -2 votes
|
[] | Smilax | 3,324.08 | 24 | 14 |
- Armored 1
- Swift
- Missile 1
- AMS 1
|
- Speed +3 votes
- Misc -2 votes
- Net +1 votes
|
[] | Stormhog | 3,513.85 | 25 | 15 | |
- Speed +1 votes
- Net +1 votes
|
[] | Strix | 3,270.38 | 25 | 15 | | |
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Production
- Procurement
- 16 Fighter Wings
- 20 Missile Interceptor Wings
Thanh is up next, grinning a bit wickedly. “Guess what, big brother, unlike the others I do want more more more and more. More slips, more ships, and barring any disasters starting next year I’ll be wanting even more. The
Canopus has proven itself, so we’re going to want a whole bunch of them, plus a wide array of other toys and a new fleet base.” She lazily gestures towards the screen where the display updates to show things.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Major Fleet Base on New Pollux
- 3 new Light Shipyards in the Core systems
- Upgrade all existing Refit & Repair Yards
- Procurement
- Regular Dropships
- 30 Long Beach Parasite Missile Destroyers
- 30 Bainbridge Parasite Destroyers
- Large Dropships
- 26 Canopus Parasite Battleships
- 3 Puller Command Transports
- 6 Vandegrift RCT Transports
- Jumpships
- Escorts
- 10 Samuel B Roberts Destroyers
- Light Warships
- 2 Miranda Exploration Frigates
- 2 Atlanta Light Cruisers
- 4 Cleveland Light Cruisers
- 2 Wichita Heavy Cruisers
Once Thanh is finished and the screen is cleared, Elizabeth Lee takes over. “Your Majesty, we have five DoME teams ready and waiting for work, and a number of high priority projects for them. Starting from the top, the massive damage inflicted on the Kainga system is a threat to the long term viability of the system, thankfully it is the sort of damage that our DoME teams have significant experience with handling effectively. We strongly recommend dispatching one of our available teams to Kainga to deal with the damage and restore the ecosystem and infrastructure as expeditiously as possible. Second, as you heard from General Jenkins, Bradley, and Admiral Griffith, as we grow the distances over which we are required to support our forces also grows. It has been determined that for maximum efficiency we should strive to keep this distance as short as possible. Since the thrust of our future expansion is to the galactic north, we are recommending building a significant fleet and army base on New Pollux. That system is two jumps further ‘north’ than Griffon, and will thus allow for reduced supply lines in that direction. We will need a pair of DoME teams for the overall project, but we can build the required basing facilities to facilitate further expansion in that direction without overstressing our supply lines. Third, as General Bradley indirectly pointed out, we can allocate one of our DoME teams to rapidly and efficiently set up a large number of Military Logistics Facilities on Nowy Śląsk, giving us a nice boost to our logistics capacity and the local system a lovely boost to their economy. Last, but certainly not least, we can make use of some of the unused military industrial capacity here in the Griffon system to expand our R&D support. While not nearly as efficient as simply expanding our labs, by incentivizing private R&D into military research projects we can overall improve our research efficiency, albeit at a financial cost.”
She looks over her notes. “We have a pair of exploration frigates available, Your Majesty, we recommend sending one to the system near New Port Royal in GX-K32 and the other to GX-I27. In terms of developmental focus and investment. For the peripheral systems we recommend focusing on Nowy Wroclaw and investing in Nowy Śląsk, for the core we recommend focusing our efforts on Calliope IV. In addition, we recommend building as many new commercial space stations as we can, we have room for more in New Port Royal, Kainga, and New Pollux after all. Finally we strongly recommend building additional HPG stations on New Pollux, New Castor, and Okusawa, that we urgently expand our Colonial Office to prevent any issues with our growth, and invest in the continued expansion of the civil service so that we have the people needed to maximize the efficient use of our resources.”
Your Foreign Minister is on Nova Roma at the moment, and joins you via an HPG link. “Your Majesty, your Foreign Office has no significant budget requests this year, everything is looking in good shape on our end.”
Lien is up next. “Your Majesty, your political team likewise has no new expenditures beyond agreeing with Minister Lee that we need to expand the civil service, we have a great deal of revenue, but a shortage of personnel is making it difficult to efficiently make use of the available funds.”
Grace is up next. “We have a single R&D team available, Your Majesty, and quite a few priorities for them. Depending on priorities we would recommend either plucking some low-hanging fruit with the advanced machine guns or flamers research, or figuring out one of the smaller hyper-assault gauss systems. Another possibility that could pay off handsomely is research in assault battle armor. A final option would be to start work on more capable anti-aging treatments.”
General Messerschmidt isn’t playing any games this year at least. “Your Majesty, all is quiet on the intelligence front, the NRI isn’t being accommodating by giving us anything to tease you with this year, and we have no real projects on the front, back, or side burners. Plenty of people on New Port Royal have been volunteering what they know about the pirates that used to plague us, but so far we’ve not managed to get anything all that useful out of them since they don’t seem to actually know anything about where the stronger bands that disappeared went.”
Martina is up next. “Your Majesty, we really don’t have all that much for you this year either, we hope to finally graduate the enlarged class from the IGMP academy this year, but other than that there are no issues to report or budget items to request.”