The Lords of Ruin -- Battletech/Killzone

[X] Pursue the black market: Significant quantities of essential supplies are disappearing off of trains from Helghan's few fertile regions and are appearing on the black market. Hunting down the criminals responsible will ease the food-security situation, but risks angering many. [Not possible if turning a blind eye]
[X] Decontaminate the Pyrrhus City ruins: Evacuated of civilians and nuked by the most fanatical followers of Scolar Visari, the ruins of Helghan's capital are a stark reminder of the costs of war. Splattered with pockets of irradiated Petrusite and other deadly materials, Pyrrhus must be detoxified before it can be rebuilt. [LOCKED IN]
[X] Research Invader Technology: With the inadequacy of your forces against the pirates well known amongst those in the government, it's become imperative to catalogue and research the equipment you captured after the Battle of Parvus.
[X] Send out Explorers: With the irradiated petrusite storms having finally cleared, you can now send out exploration craft to map the surrounding systems.
Number of voters: 12

Gino, john fox, Hazardine, demonthese2211, Faceless Goon, hcvquizibo, Captain Hunt, Just Some Guy, CrazedGamma1721, Night_stalker, asaxander740, butchock

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OOC: I was actually a dickhead and forgot my own intentions RE: Locked actions. My apologies to @Gino, I should have said that they didn't need to include the Pyrrhus city option not that they needed to drop an action. As such, the explore action has been added back into the vote.


[X] Pursue the black market.

Continuing the processes begun last year, the Helghan Republic's anti-corruption task force unravels dozens of black market operations in the span of several months in addition to several more worrying syndicates amongst police officers. Focussing their efforts on corruption within existing administrative structures, the new task force not only further improves food distribution across Helghan by reducing the number of lost shipments to near zero, but --to the joy of many-- also cleans out corrupt police officers from several of Helghan's larger cities. As a result, the Helghan people more than regain the trust in the government they lost earlier.

Unfortunately, if any were hoping that the food security situation could be resolved simply through persecuting black markets then they'll be left sorely disappointed as you seem to have reached the limit in that regard. According to your experts, if Helghan wishes to reduce the risk of famine and further, it needs to invest in improving the yields per worker of its farms. If, on the other hand, it wishes to totally escape from the spectre of famine, it needs to secure some kind of external supply --though how exactly you're supposed to, is left as an exercise for those in power.

Effect:

• Corruption Reduced significantly
• Stability +10%
• Risk of famine reduced
• Gained 4% popularity

[X] Decontaminate the Pyrrhus City ruins.

A mobile factory --the first to enter the inner suburbs surrounding Pyrrhus, in fact-- hits a pocket of Irradiated Petrusite and is lost along with half its crew. Given that the mobile factories are operating under strict orders not to approach Irradiated Petrusite without a decontamination crew present, the resulting inquest snowballs into a year-long affair that tangles up operations and prevents any work from being done. In the end, it's discovered that the Petrusite had spread throughout Pyrrhus's sewer system and reacted to the factory's electrics… explosively.

Appropriate countermeasures have been put into place to ensure that this will not happen again.

Effect:

• No Progress

[X] Research Invader Technology.

Give the lethality of the equipment owned by pirates --who themselves admit that it isn't on par with what's available in the so-called 'Inner Sphere'-- the cataloguing and reverse engineering of captured technology becomes priority number one in the Helghan Military-Industrial Complex. Unfortunately for all involved, however, it seems that the roughly 700-year gap between your time and this universe' is a difficult one for your scientists to cross. Moreover, the fact that the United Colonial Nations intentionally restricted what knowledge and technology were permitted to leave the Sol System hasn't helped with understanding the equipment you've recovered.

Given that, according to the pirates, the same thing occurred in this universe with a long-passed polity known as the Star League --it seems that fate has a sense of humour.

In any case, your best and brightest spend a year merely attaining a surface level knowledge of what the captured items can do and the properties of the materials they're made of. However, even that offers the Helghan MIC some interesting information regarding how to counter this universe's incredible technological advantages.

For example, though the humanoid warmachines --dubbed Battlemechs by the pirates-- carry an array of frighteningly powerful weapons, they are outraged by many of your own weapons systems. Additionally, while their armour is somehow both incredibly tough and ablative, Petrusite weapons in general --and Irradiated Petrusite in particular-- can chew through it far more easily than your more conventional weapons can.

Effect:

• You know what the equipment is and what it does, but little else.
• Additional research options unlocked

[X] Send out Explorers.

All that your explorers find within eighteen light-years of the recently named New Helghan system are some iceballs, placid gas giants, and assorted asteroids and comets. Given the fact that you have some astrogation data of the area from the pirates own records, this isn't surprising, but it's nice to confirm that the data is correct.

On the plus side, you were able to construct some way stations to serve as decent jumping off points for future expeditions. While keeping the automated depots of Petrusite and perishables supplied is annoying, chains of the little stations will let your ships leapfrog from one system to another with haste --though you'll need to do another wave of exploration before you can think about contacting the nearest powers.

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Events and Rumors:

In light of the unexpected attack by pirates, Hephaestus ltd. (the company that was formerly known as the Visari Corporation) has announced yet another breakthrough in Petrusite weaponry they're deeming the PnV06 Voltage. Working around the clock to develop an anti-vehicle weapon using the base form of Petrusite, designers at Hephaestus have come up with a shoulder-carried heavy weapon that fired blasts of highly-charged Petrusite in three-round bursts. Akin to an unguided rocket launcher, the weapon cannot reliably engage targets outside of 300-400 meters; however, anything within that range is easy prey for the ravening blasts of electricity.

Helghan Expressionism continues to make waves across the planet. Despite --or perhaps because of-- the recent attack, the anti-war nature of the school only grows stronger; though it appears to shift towards opposition to formalised conflict rather than generic anti-military sentiments.

Effect:

• -1% War Support

The unofficial fascist party, Maelstra United, attempted to secretly organize a rally commemorating the birth of Scolar Visari. On the date in question, five hundred fascists showed up to march through the streets of Maelstra's capital, intimidate passersby, and generally be fascist thugs. Unfortunately for them, unions in the region got word of the rally early enough to organize a counterprotest involving something like thirty times their number. Thoroughly intimidated, the fascists weren't even able to begin their planned march before having to flee from the opposition.

In completely unrelated news, several dozen men between the ages of 16-48 were admitted to hospitals in the Maelstra region after being beaten to varying degrees. That said men were all known members of Maelstra United is an interesting coincidence.

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STATS UPDATED

Actions:
You have 3 out of 4 Action Points to spend. 1 of your 4 Action Points has automatically been assigned to decontaminating Pyrrhus City.


General:
[] Impose Rationing: Rationing food lowers the risk of starvation due to interruptions to the food supply but will impact our support amongst the people.

[X] Decontaminate the Pyrrhus City ruins: Evacuated of civilians and nuked by the most fanatical followers of Scolar Visari, the ruins of Helghan's capital are a stark reminder of the costs of war. Splattered with pockets of irradiated Petrusite and other deadly materials, Pyrrhus must be detoxified before it can be rebuilt. [LOCKED IN]


Military:
[] Construct an Arc Cruiser Squadron: Task your surviving planet-based shipyards with constructing a squadron of three Arc Cruisers.

[] Construct a Cruiser Squadron: Task your surviving planet-based shipyards with constructing a squadron of three Helghast Cruisers. [Can be taken multiple times in a turn]

[] Construct a MAWLR: Task your heavy industry with constructing a MAWLR. [Can be taken multiple times in a turn]

[] Raise an Army: Task your military with forming an additional army. [Can be taken multiple times per turn so long as there is recruitable population remaining]

[] Upgrade an army: Produce enough PnV06 Voltage's to supply one soldier in every squad in one army.

[] Upgrade an army: Produce enough VC5 Arc Rifles to supply one soldier in every squad in one army. [Can be taken multiple times in a turn]

[] Upgrade an army: Produce enough StA-X3 W.A.S.Ps to supply one soldier in every squad in one army.

[] Upgrade an army: Produce enough support drones to supply one per squad in one army. [Can be taken multiple times in a turn]



Research:
[] Research Invader Energy Weapons: A weapon system you have literally zero experience with, the invader's energy weapons are lethally effective if somewhat let down by the poor targeting systems backing them up.

[] Research Invader Ballistic and Missile Weapons: Harder hits and bigger booms; that seems to be the motto of the invader's ballistic and missile weapons.

[] Research Invader Fusion Generators: Light, smaller, and more efficient than the fusion generators you were allowed to purchase, cracking the science behind the invader's fusion reactors would allow you to free up Petrusite for use elsewhere and get you started on developing fusion drives for your cruisers.

[] Research Invader Armour: Light, tough, and capable of dissipating attacks with ease through ablation, the invader's armour is at least several decades beyond your own.

[] Fund Medical Research

[] Fund Physics Research

[] Fund Automation Research

[] Fund Petrusite Research.

[] Fund Irradiated Petrusite Research.

[] Send out Explorers: With the irradiated petrusite storms having finally cleared, you can now send out exploration craft to map the surrounding systems.

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Note: There will be a 1-hour moratorium on voting as I'd like to see some discussion in the thread. It's nice when people start planning and talking.