You receive additional intelligence updates concerning this ‘Federated Commonwealth’. Agents have been interviewing the small traders that serve the tiny little polities that seem to dot the galactic north and northeast and have begun piecing together a contradictory picture. Highly aggressive, brutal, and utterly intolerant according to some, mostly the larger of the little polities that are closest to you.
Your agents get reports of this Federated Commonwealth routinely responding with mass nuclear strikes to even the most minor of slights, in one case the tale is told of them nuking a trade station when they were given a less prestigious docking location. Or in other cases reacting with nuclear weapons if somebody decides not to buy a cargo they are selling, cargoes that usually consist of inferior goods.
But other traders have different stories, and those are the ones who roam all the way to the inner Periphery, not quite the Inner Sphere, but closer than most. They claim that the Federated Commonwealth has a reputation for fair dealing and restraint, with high quality products at fair prices, and fairly good-natured reactions to being out bargained. They report running into Federated Commonwealth anti-piracy patrols that were both restrained and courteous in their interactions, and none of them report the rampant use of high-yield nuclear weapons in the course of temper tantrums.
Your agents are building up a disturbing picture, the further away from the Inner Sphere the stories originate, the more brutal and aggressive the Federated Commonwealth is portrayed. There is ample evidence building up of ships painted with that insignia and identifying themselves as such engaging in mass nuclear attacks; your agents have been able to obtain video evidence and direct witness testimony.
One theory that is being propounded is that the Federated Commonwealth is showing their true face the further away from ‘home’ they are, where there are fewer repercussions for being brutal imperialist monsters. That would certainly fit the opinion most of the Periphery has about the Great Houses in general, after all. The further away from home, the less likely they were to care about keeping up a false image of civility.
Others posit that this is a false flag operation, similar to Bakkustabu in some ways. Somebody else was trying to paint the Federated Commonwealth as unstable murderous monsters out here in the deep periphery in hopes of tainting them and, perhaps, gaining allies for their own cause. It would take a certain ruthlessness and disregard for human life, but plenty of powers have those qualities.
If it is a false flag there is no shortage of suspects. Some analysts working on the issue think it could be a Kuritan operation, others a Capellan one, and some are pointing the finger at the Free Worlds League on the grounds that the weapon used was developed by them. Some enthusiasts think it may be the Taurians, pointing out that the historical files indicate that they were rather ‘nuke happy’. The problem is that you have extremely spotty and grossly out of date data on the Inner Sphere.
Right now, you are barely brushing against the edge of the extreme outer Periphery, information about the inner Periphery, let alone the Inner Sphere, relies on peripatetic traders who follow decades long trade routes between minor statelets throughout the deep periphery. The latest data you can reliably trace to the Inner Sphere dates back to the early 3020s and makes no mention of the existence of a ‘Federated Commonwealth’. That comes from a trader who last ‘touched’ in the Magistracy of Canopus in 3021. There are indirect rumors that are more recent, but those come about via extended ‘telephone’ games of ‘I heard from X who heard from Y who heard from Z who heard from A who heard from B’.
It’s rather maddening.
The worst part was that due to the sheer distance involved finding answers would be an incredibly long and involved process. The fastest method of travel to the Inner Sphere would take upwards of a decade one way thanks to the complete lack of recharge stations on the way. Assuming that nobody disturbed the HPG satellites left behind such an expedition, you’d not get news until at least 11 to 12 years down the road assuming the answer was right up front and easy to get. Creating such an expeditionary force would materially weaken efforts against the Black Steel, drawing out that conflict and potentially leading to increased losses on that front.
This, of course, was a best case scenario. More likely somebody would mess with the HPG satellites, resulting in a minimum 22 to 24 year turn around on data returning from such an expedition, or the need for a far larger one capable of actually controlling the systems with the HPG systems in them. Which would again massively distract from dealing with the Black Steel.
There are no easy answers here.
One bright spot is that the Neuhessen system is recovering well from the catastrophe. Disaster response teams are in place, the Space Guard is working miracles, and humanitarian aid is pouring into the system from across the Empire. There have been no sightings, no additional attacks, nothing even that looks suspicious. You have a bad feeling in your gut, though, that this merely means that the people behind the attack are far more skilled at such skullduggery than any opponents you’ve faced recently.
To compound matters, a small Black Steel scouting flotilla struck at the Arvum system, although there was no significant damage to the fleet or strategic facilities, a number of civilian ships were destroyed en passant by the raiders. Home Fleet was able to chase them off with no hull losses, destroying several of the enemy corvettes in the process, but it is still a sobering reminder that the Black Steel are certainly still a threat.
To top all of that off, the cherry on top of the shit sundae, so to speak, the Bourbons are making grumbly growly noises about how you are surrounding them and ‘denying them their rightful destiny’. So far this is just among the most annoying elements of the nobility, and the Bourbon monarch has privately assured you that not only will the Bourbon state do nothing concrete about the complaints but he is personally going to do what he can to sideline and silence the worst of the agitators. Thanks to the nature of their occupation of former Rouges Noir space, the Crown has managed to fully nationalize the space fleets of the lesser nobles, and the King has absolutely no intention of giving any of them back anytime soon lest they use them to get up to mischief.
He has also come up with a plan that you privately think is so clever that you should pin a tail on it and call it a fox. Specifically, he’ll order the fleets of the worst of his nobles to undertake a ‘daring raid’ to ‘prove’ their martial prowess and manly vigor and upstage those ‘uppity commoners’, that is, you. He’s even come up with a suitable target, a system that your analysts are fairly certain contains at least a minor Black Steel base in proximity to Arvum. As far as he’s concerned, this is a win-win situation. Either the fleets in question will be annihilated, allowing him to sigh mournfully and lament the lack of martial prowess and manly vigor on the part of his loyal vassals, or will actually accomplish something, in which case the Black Steel will be weakened and he’ll get the credit for a victorious display of martial prowess and manly vigor since he, technically, is in charge of the fleets in question, and being technically correct is the best kind of correct.
Considering the slapdash nature of the Bourbon fleets, you still can’t get over how they use honest-to-God
flamers on some of their designs, you are fairly confident that it will be the former case. And while the King doesn’t mention it, and you are far too tactful to bring it up, the annihilation of these squadrons would clear out a great deal of dead wood and enable the Bourbon naval construction plan to move forward with less issue.
Still, if he’s to do this he’ll need some material support from you.
[] | Action | Argument | Result |
[] | Support the ‘Devils Dressed In Blue’ | If our ultimate goal is to conquer the Bourbons, this will strip away a good chunk of their fleet. On the other hand, it will allow them to rebuild stronger since we have intelligence that they’ve started building proper compact-core warships. On the gripping hand, this has the potential to at least weaken the Black Steel a little, perhaps merely by them laughing themselves to death. |
- Improves relations with the Bourbon crown
|
[] | Nope, not gonna risk it | Realpolitik is one thing, deliberately sacrificing thousands of lives on a futile gambit is something else. They may not be your citizens, but they are human beings and it would be immoral to simply feed them into a meat grinder for future political advantage |
- Improves relations with the Bourbon nobles
|