Yeah, this isn't happening. Here's the partially written turn. Un-finished stuff and notes to myself are in
italicsTurn 7: 2410-2419Previous Turn:
2400-2409Player Turns:
Draconis Combine: Budget $117B.Federated Suns: Budget $103B.Capellan Confederation: Budget $98B.Free Worlds League: Budget $107B. (
Design and Doctrine,
Budget)
Lyran Commonwealth: Budget $112B.Marian Hegemony: Budget $24B. (
Turn,
Design Errata)
Taurian Concordat: Budget $23B.NPC Turns:
Terran Hegemony: Budget $775B.United Hindu Collective: Budget $26B.Rim Worlds Republic: Budget $38B.Armies and TechnologyThis was discussed at length in a previous comment.TH gains PPCs, Improved Ferro-Aluminum, and Naval Gauss.
DC gains Blazer and Mechs.
FS gains AC/10.
FWL gains AC/10, Castles Brian, and Naval Gauss.
UHC gets AC/10.
Armies are now defined and tracked independently. No new builds yet this turn - that will begin on turn 8.
2410: The negotiations over the Ares treaty were lengthy and acrimonious, with many pious sentiments repeated, but little agreement on what it would mean in practice. The use of weapons of mass destruction against civilian targets was agreed to in principle almost immediately, but discussions over what exactly constituted a civilian target took far longer. Likewise, discussions of "no first use" vs "no use" vs "no use on civil targets", and a hundred variants thereof, occupied months of time for the negotiators.
In the end, the treaty didn't live up to Aleisha Liao's dreams, but it would serve. The old Geneva conventions on treatment of wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, and the protection of civilians in war zones, were formally incorporated into interstellar law almost unchanged. Assorted updates were made to deal with new technological considerations and the nature of interstellar warfare, but few were of any significance.
After the official treaty had been negotiated, the Terran negotiator announced that in addition to the bilateral, binding treaty, the Terran Hegemony would make a unilateral declaration that any use of weapons of mass destruction would be deemed to be a war crime by the Hegemony, and that the Hegemony would take action against any perpetrators. That much had been suggested in the negotiations(and in fact, was counted on to be a backstop to the slightly anemic text of the treaty), so that was no surprise. The surprise came a moment later, when the Lyran representative took to the podium and made the same declaration, word-for-word, of the Lyran commitment to do the same. While the Lyrans had taken the hardest line on WMD usage in the negotiations, that had not been foreshadowed, and even a couple of the experienced diplomats looked momentarily shocked. The Lyran government refused to clarify whether this was a publicity stunt, an effort to shame the other nations into doing something similar, or if it had another purpose entirely, but in any case the declaration was not repeated by any other power.
While the initial negotiations had merely involved the six major powers, the treaty was intended to allow expansion, and the outer regions participated to some extent. The Rim Words Republic had delegates at the conference area, despite not being officially invited to take part in the process, and signed the treaty on the same day as the major powers. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the United Hindu Collective refused to sign, fearing that it would legitimize offensive warfare and remove the stigma from attacking other humans. The Taurian Concordat was especially passionate on the topic of how prisoners were treated, and while they denounced the hypocrisy of powers that started unprovoked wars trying to reduce the impact of warfare, they felt a limited treaty of this nature would be beneficial to all. The Marian Hegemony also signed on quickly, as did the puppet government of Rasalhague.
2411: Lopsided battle(TH vs CC) - if fight happens, TH 3 crew, 2 command, 6 luck, CC 9 crew, 10 command, 7 luck (TH 9 aggro, CC 2 aggro)2412:In July 2412, Robert Kurita was on a tour of the first BattleMech factory, watching the first of the mass-produced new war machines come off the line. Unfortunately, the factory had been constructed at high speed and with tremendous secrecy between different branches of the design team due to the bleeding-edge technology of the Mech design. In the confusion, it seems that insufficient tolerances were built into the design, and the shaking caused by the giant 90-ton war machine walking off the line caused major issues. As Kurita walked through the open doorway ahead of the Mech, the gigantic door snapped loose, and fell directly on Kurita, who was crushed instantly.
A few engineers were known to express skepticism about this sequence of events, suggesting that the forces involved could not plausibly break a brand-new door motor. However, ties were quickly made between them and some low-credibility conspiracy theories, and the fact that
they generally pinned the blame on Robert's own sister, proved that these were not people to be taken seriously.
Robert's younger brother Parker took over, and was known to lament the size of the shoes he needed to fill. However, he sought out to fill them as he imagined Robert would have done in his place, and spent months trying to interview everyone who was close to Robert to see if he could assemble as much knowledge of his older brother's methods as he could manage.
2413:Langdon Echohawk had not been a young man when he launched his coup, and the twenty years since had taken a toll on his body. Even with an average life expectancy on Terra of nearly a century, age 88 was still old. Old enough to be concerning for many, especially when Echohawk had no children of his own to form a traditional dynastic line of succession. His mind was still as sharp as ever, though, and he knew this was an issue he would need to face.
Echohawk's solution was a new constitution, explicitly designed for an era of dynasts. Drawing on historical as varied as the careful balancing of powers in the United States, the failure of Bismarck's constitutional design to survive his own fall from power, the adoptive succession of the Roman emperors, and the chaotic battles of the Second Soviet Civil War, he designed a new system not entirely like any other in existence to pass along his powers to capable heirs for as long as possible.
The basic secession principle would be of chosen heirs for each leader, but an era of nuclear and even relativistic attacks requires significant fallback plans. The focus of the fallback system was a group of 21 Ministers of State. Each Minister would be a direct appointee of the Director-General, save that a Director-General in their first year could appoint no new Ministers without the approval of two-thirds of the existing Ministers(to ensure that they can be removed if they prove unsuitable). A new heir must be approved by at least one-third of the Ministers, and two-thirds of Ministers can impose a new heir over a Captain-General's objections, or impeach a Captain-General outright. No more than three Ministers may ever be in the same ten-mile radius, and no more than 15 may ever be in the same solar system. Other checks and balances added up to a mildly complex system, but one where people of good judgement were likely to be able to preserve that trait over time.
Echohawk's initial Ministers of State included two generals, three admirals, seven planetary governors, two CEOs, two of his chief advisors, his wife, his youngest brother, the Chief Justice, a famed political science professor, and(to the surprise of many) a mildly successful and generally well-regarded author of historical fiction that Echohawk had never expressed any public praise for. Named as Heir was Josefine Vernon, a retired THN Commodore who had entered the Terran Congress in 2405, impressed many by her passionate speeches, declined to run again due to her party's failure to pass a bill funding veteran's hospitals as promised, then started a defence contracting company with reasonable success. Not all were pleased with this choice - Vernon was 68 years old, and her fiery ways had earned her enemies - but the Ministers of State approved her by a 20-1 vote. Interestingly, it was Echohawk's wife Larissa who cast the solitary Nay vote, explaining that it was the job of Ministers to act as a check on the succession, not merely a rubber stamp, and that it was important to set the proper precedents for the sake of history.
2414:After taking some time to refit their fleet to an updated design, the Free Worlds League was out to protect themselves from being victims of Lyran aggression yet again. Admiral Ernest Starek, operational commander of the FWLN fleet, noted that most previous attacks had been wildly successful in the initial phases, but that they tended to peter out as the fleets began to clash - the ground forces lost their orbital bombardment support, the logistics got bogged down, and the need to consolidate gains reduced advances to a crawl. Lyran naval discussions, both publicly and those reported by Marik intelligence agents, were focusing heavily on concentration of force, and
To deal with this, he came up with an unusual plan of attack. Instead of taking planets to court a fleet battle, in hopes of driving his enemy away and allowing the advance to continue, he decided to prolong the opening phases for as long as possible in order to capture territory. The first wave was launched in the far west, to liberate Promised Land and several other nearby worlds. Four worlds were targeted in the first wave of attacks, with ten regiments earmarked for the symbolically important planet of Promised Land and five for the other nearby worlds. Each of these forces had exactly one Heracles in support - the location of the other 13 battlecruisers, plus the three Phalanx-class commerce raiders, was not immediately apparent.
The region was somewhat remote from Lyran reinforcements - Tharkad was 15 jumps away from Promised Land, and even the primary forward base at New Kyoto was 8 jumps away. Griffith, Timbiqui, and Epsilon fell fairly quickly. The Free Worlds League had received reports that the planetary garrison at Promised Land had been strongly reinforced, as it was an obvious target of attack, and expected a more serious fight there. In this, they were initially disappointed - the capital fell quickly, with only a few battalions providing any resistance, and the commanding general began to suspect that the reports were in error.
In fact, the defending forces were nearly as strong as his own - a full combined-arms division was stationed on Promised Land, in addition to the typical garrison, and it had merely been waiting for its moment to strike. That moment came when the attackers fanned out to capture secondary towns in the planet's temperate zones - one of the regiments was proceeding without cover from the Heracles II-class
FWLN Orpheus, and with only a fighter battalion providing cover. With this report in hand, the whole fighter strength of the defending forces - a full brigade, over 300 fighters - came out of hiding to ambush the Mariks. The attack was not a perfect ambush, and the Mariks got a few minutes' warning, but the slaughter was still brutal. Despite the light missile loads the Lyrans carried to preserve their agility, half the FWL fighters died to Barracuda missiles without firing a shot, and the Lyran fighters killed three DropShips outright with their initial missile barrage, and opened wounds in seven others. The swarming fighters rapidly dispatched the remaining fighters, and three DropShips fell from the sky before the rest offered to surrender.
However, the surrender was short-lived. The Marik fighter forces were a third again as numerous as the Lyrans, and they sortied quickly to catch the defenders before they could flee. With an attack inbound, the Lyrans could not pause to secure their captives, and they "escaped" by simply flying back to base in the ensuing dogfight. The Lyrans were outraged at this breach of their surrender terms, while the Free Worlders felt that the duty of a prisoner was to escape, and that the Lyrans were hardly in any position to judge how surrenders were supposed to work. The fighting took a marked turn for the brutal after this, with guerrilla tactics being used readily in regions that had mostly Lyran settlers, aggressive bombardment of anything even suspected to be a fighter base, and several reports of prisoners being mistreated on both sides. Promised Land eventually fell to the invaders, with major combat operations ceasing after a bit less than a month, but the Lyran areas continued to cause difficulty for years afterwards.
LC-FWL combat
FWL does "bite and hold" tactics, heavily using pirate points for communication between dispersed forces - fleet all has giant fuel bays, so non-sail recharge is quite reasonable. Poor crew skill, though, so a mis-jump? Or just bad in fighting?
LC uses high-speed engagements, slashing fighter attacks, and disengages from fights well. Bad luck, though - one high-speed attack features the enemy ship jumping out right as fighters fly by, so the energy bleed from the jump kills a bunch of fighters for absolutely no damage
LC: 9 crew, 9 command, 1 luck (150% on gunships and fighters = 10/10/4, 100% otherwise)
FWL: 3 crew 10 command, 9 luck (100%)
2415: Aleisha Liao and her husband Arden Baxter were expecting their first child in late 2415, but a routine medical check-up early in her pregnancy revealed that she had an aggressive form of cancer, and found herself with only a few months to live. Heroic efforts were made to preserve the life of her unborn heir, including a deathbed C-section, but young Caroline was simply too premature to survive, and died less than a day later. Aleisha's nephew Stephen was the next heir in line, but he was only 15 years old. As such, Stephen was named Chancellor, but his powers were vested in a regency council led by Arden Baxter. Baxter promised to continue with his late wife's dream of peace, and committed to working on more complete Ares protocols which might allow for widespread disarmament in the future.
Twins Edmund and Edward Davion had been tightening their grip on the Federated Suns for years, spurred on by the memory of their manipulative mother, worry about popularity of other Davions, and the fears of Edmund's aggressive and paranoid husband Jason. The most likely successor, their cousin Simon, had acquitted himself well in the Ares Convention negotiations, and seemed free of the vices that had plagued the Davion family in recent decades. After a posting as Ambassador to the Terran Hegemony, Simon was recalled to New Avalon for re-assignment. With rumours having reached him that his life was in danger from his cousins, many urged Simon not to return, but Simon took a different approach.
Working with a friendly naval commodore who was sending ships back to Delevan for refit, Simon took a somewhat roundabout path through the inner systems on the way home, speaking to large audiences in every system he passed through and trying to drum up public support(and private offers of assistance). By the time he and the escorting Crucis-class battleship reached New Avalon, he was a celebrated figure in the public's eye, far too prominent to be squelched quietly by Edmund's security forces. An assassination attempt took place as he exited his DropShip, but he survived the attack with minimal injuries due to a sharp-eyed assistant, and made his way to a scheduled meeting of the High Council, with his brothers in attendance. After he took his seat next to his cousins, he reached under his chair, grabbed the hidden pistol, and shot Edmund and Edward dead in the High Council chambers, then dropped his weapon and demanded a trial for his crimes.
Both the Presidential Guard and the High Council were shocked by these actions, and he only narrowly escaped being killed on the spot. However, his supporters had laid the groundwork well, and they eventually declared that he had only done what was necessary. However, the thought of placing a regicide in charge of the realm, even so, was too hard a sell to make it through the Council. The lack of other viable heirs led to a rather awkward negotiation, which was eventually settled by placing the position of President into commission, to be shared between five Princes, one for each region of the realm. Simon would be the "First Prince", but other than the power to set the agenda of formal meetings and oversee the process of naming Princes and heirs, he would have no official powers that the other Princes did not share.
A bunch of changes to canon here. In canon, Arden Baxter was a vengeful fool who fast-talked his way into power and tried to sabotage the realm, but that seemed overly harsh. In canon, Edmund Davion's homosexuality was a secret and shame, which seemed plausible in 80s writings but kind of unlikely today, so I juggled that a bunch. 2416: FS-DC running battle - long campaign, lasts more than one advance (FS 3 crew, 7 command, 5 luck, DC 1 crew, 8 command, 7 luck)
2417: (continued from 2416)Kiviar ops plan:
So, about the btech campaign
thinking the navy's plan to deal with the combine would probably be a 3 stage operation
phase 1 would be a disinformation/espionage phase, where attempts are made to convince the combine that a massive strike on New Samarkand is being planned.
this would use both media leaks, and counter-counter espionage in the combine
ie agents with false information being intentionally compromised
but also the high-space fleet would be assembled in, lets say, Robinson combining the crucis, terran, and draconis fleets. so basically 3/4 of the navy in one place
and the capellan fleet is pulled back for the best coverage of the capellan and crucis march
actually maybe fairfax would be a better staging point
either way, some major-ish spinwards world
phase 2 would be the ground assault on the galedon military district
while the commonwealth assaults the Rashalague worlds
if their government goes with the plan obviously
and honestly if their government doesn't go with it, i doubt the suns would be successful, but, space prussia does crazy shit so maybe they would do it alone
anyway, the high-space fleet jumps out at the start of phase 2 together, but targeting tifferent areas, the combine march fleet goes to support the invasion forces, and the terran/crucis fleets to uninabited systems in the draconis march to wait for phase 3
hopefully the combine is fooled by the counterintelligence and believes that we're going for new samarkand.
and once it is evident if the combine decides to sortie its fleet against the assault in Galedon or turtle up in its important worlds the reserve fleet will act, either jumping to support a naval counter-action against the draconis fleet or embarking on a long-range raid to support the lyran fleet in rashalague and benjamin
if the combine counter-attacks in Galedon, the army will fall back and draw them, hopefully in to the jaws of the rest of the high-space fleet
if they don't and they sit tight protecting their yard there, that is a win, and the high-space fleet not assigned to that theater will hit luthien with the commonwealth and burn its orbital-industry to the ground and then turn around and help secure Galedon
if they bypass the fleet altogether and assault the Draconis march, the capellan fleet will move to reinforce
if the capellans try to take advantage of it, they'll obviously stay in place
if someone jumps in to layover, new syrtis or delevarn, defense stations will be authorized to nuke the shit out of them, because we're the federated suns and therefore the good guys, and we can use nukes if we want
which is, actually how the suns basically worked
anyway
that is the navy's plan with contingencies
the government probably wont' like it
but so long as the commonwealth is on board, I think it will be doable
if the cappelans assault before this goes off, it is called and we beat the shit out of them
if the lc doesn't get on board we just probably beat the shit out of capella anyway
if the terrans invade
we just die
2418: UHC internal event2419:Popular Science of Terra, December 2419 Edition
"The 2410s: The Decade of Science!"
The 2410s have been an impressive decade for science and technology, especially in applied engineering. Here are a few of the new inventions we're most impressed by.
Advanced Energy WeaponsThe theft of detailed plans for advanced laser technologies from an Alshain Weapons research team, and subsequent leak to the whole Inner Sphere by a group of Rasalhague separatists, led to an explosion in applied energy weaponry. Aside from merely copying the existing designs, Krupp Armament Works here on Terra took the principles of compact energy weaponry and combined it with the existing PPC designs it produced for Potemkin-class transports, to produce a new and innovative micro-PPC design, which is expected to provide the effective striking power of a large missile battery at similar ranges, without the need for bulky ammunition.
The new leadership of Alshain Weapons has worked hard to wipe out the stain of their previous security breach by offering an interesting new extra-large laser design. Using two laser cores, the "Binary Laser Cannon" still has a few beam interference issues to resolve, but Alshain's CEO promises that they'll be resolved within a few years.
P5 Computer ChipsDefying yet another era of naysayers, Moore's Law continues its inexplicable record of accuracy, with petapetapetapetapeta-core(P5) computer chips. Featuring an astonishing 10^75 transistors on a single computer chip, these chips may soon provide the computer power necessary to make rudimentary artificial intelligence a reality.
Strongest Armour EverArmouring compounds are sometimes hard to compare, as the available weapons to attack them diverge more every year. However, the ferro-aluminum compound recently announced by Ceres Metals seems to offer an impressive mixture of protection. The alloy is extremely strong against high-speed impact, the layered construction of the design is effective at spreading out shockwaves from explosive impacts, and the bright sheen of the alloy has proven to dissipate energy impacts better than any previous design as well. However, the most impressive part of the design is that these features together allow the armour an unprecedented degree of protection against nuclear attack for any practical mobile armouring. While no plausible ship will be able to withstand a direct impact by a typical nuclear warhead, the test in orbit around Io(where a megaton-range warhead was detonated less than a hundred metres from a plate of armour no heavier than that mounted on an
Aegis-class cruiser, which survived with only minimal warping - see our March 2419 issue for details) proves that the terrifying weapons used around Ford may soon be something that our proud sailors might be able to survive.
Big, Beautiful Bullets Energy weapons have advanced substantially in the last ten years, but ballistic weaponry wasn't far behind. Improved gun-forging was a focus of research in many outlying realms, with no less than three nations announcing guns twice the size of their previous production models. Even more impressive was the new railgun designs created by Di Tron Heavy Industries. With neither the long flight time of a traditional naval gun shell, nor the beam collimation issues of lasers and PPCs, these "Gauss Cannon"-brand railguns have shown vastly superior performance when fighting against maneuvering enemies at long ranges.
Self-Cleaning Shower Breakfast GelIt's rare to see so many useful properties performed by a single substance, but when it all comes together, the result can be expected to take the world by storm. SC Johnson & Johnson & Johnson has managed it with their new product that acts as soap, shower cleaner, and nutritious breakfast all in one. Just dump it on, and everything becomes the way it should be. It's even available caffeinated for people in slightly more of a hurry.
MechsThe newly created "mechs" developed on New Samarkand are an impressive combination of new technologies. Myomer muscle strands, better known for prosthetic use, have been expanded to unprecedented size and used to drive artificial limbs much larger than Echohawk's right leg. A fusion engine like an aerospace fighter's, weapons and armour similar to that of a tank, and improved mobility in difficult terrain are all expected to be big advantages for the first Mech-equipped units to see combat. Some are skeptical, with General Gavin(ret.) remarking that "it seems like a poor gimmick on the part of the Snakes, investing a fusion plant in something more likely to fall over than fight". However, the potential to this technology cannot be overlooked, even if it may turn into a dead end.
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