Unless the hull has a hole in it, but I agree, some recent mothball ships could be usefulHuh. Pirates. Might want to start on that soon.
Does the navy have a mothballed yard? Seems like it would be a quick and cheap way to get us a patrol boat, a fixer upper for sure, but any hull is better than no hull.
Hang out with your favorite people, which includes Cornelia, by breaking our word sworn to Cornelia to help her little sister when we are called upon? Which she literally just did?
I mean Lelouch's diplomacy is 8, so he's somewhat incompetent in this whole "relations" thing.That is a great point and one which I completely overlooked. Though I am going to completely disregard both because I am interested in seeing the consequences of Teenage Lelouche being an idiot but also because I'm pretty certain my plan will not win.
I have read the arguments. And I remain of the opinion that no matter what we gain by associating with the Diplomacy specked frontrunner for the throne, in the long run he will gain far more. Better a slower start now than turning a late-game enemy into a juggernaut.
I think it'll be ridiculously hard to out diplo-manuevour Schneizel to gain the throne, yes it'll be even harder if we're perceived as in his camp but it's already so difficult the marginal increase isn't that important. If we want the throne our path is over his corpse, not by peeling away supporters.
I feel obligated to say we don't have to be the one to kill him, but I do agree that our only way we can beat him to the throne is for him to be outright out of the running for the throne. Maybe sterilizing him would work too, but that has a good chance of our only chance to get the throne still being through his corpse.
I wonder what kind of pirates we're dealing with.
If it's just a bunch of bogans marauding about in some halfway motorized skiff armed with rusty secondhand kalashnikovs, our requirements will be different from if they're a foreign sponsored crew armed with rocket grenades operating from a refitted boat.
Although much less... eventful than your adventures in aeronautics, and Jeanne ensures this is the case, your naval training is very informative.
The largest portion of your education is spent familiarizing yourself with the different classes of ships and exactly how they work in concert with each other.
At the moment, you'll likely be limited to recruiting and manning lesser classes, though these are more agile and arguably better for hunting pirates.
Regrettably, you likely won't need any aircraft carriers, battleships, or anything larger than a few cruisers unless the pirates near Australia really are far better equipped than you'd been lead to believe. Even if that should be the case, it's likely that you can 'borrow' a flotilla of larger vessels from a friendly command if the need becomes really pressing.