Champions of the Republic
Possibly the most important thing to occur this month is on the naval front. EXCOM does some more scouting, making sure the stars are clean, PATCOM secures that the trade routes coming in and going out of your worlds are not threatened by any type of pillager, and CONCOM shuttles around the exploration teams on their missions, as always. However, DEFCOM has something rather worrying happen to them. Fortunately, at this time you keep your armada spread out across your worlds, so when the Scorti come for Melody's End you have a Stargazer and Glory ready to engage along with the defense fleet the world has operational. A trio of Destroyers with a pair of scouting Frigates each, they attempt to harass your mining operations in the outer system after slipping past patrols. Due to the heavy fleet present, they don't move to engage your planet, but they do destroy every single mining ship and platform present while leading your ships on a chase around the system with superior engines, before managing to destroy their Gunslinger. The Pride tumbles aimlessly as a broken husk while bathed in the baleful light of the alien's fold drives. This has somewhat impacted your industrial productivity, but more importantly is an act of war against Phoenix. Post battle analysis shows that this was just an extraordinarily lucky break for the aliens, with in-system patrol and mining patterns of the time favoring them heavily, but your population and military both are chomping at the bit to see them eliminated as a threat. At the very least PATCOM is going to shift their patrol patterns to better cover your colonies, but you should probably see something done about the bugs. Either talk to them or bombard their home-world into submission, either or at this point.
Notably, Melody recognizes their tactics. According to her this is not really a raid proper, she believes it to be more of a recon in force. She believes that the way the battle went indicates that the foe probably wanted to test your tactics and technology more than actually cause harm. She conducted very similar operations in the past.
Your exploration teams focus on finding artifacts that line up with the ones they recovered last month, and from the recovered wrecks your research team has come to an epiphany of sorts. The alternate artificial gravity system is somewhat less efficient and would likely have a minor negative effect on crews and performance due to inferior inertial dampening capabilities, but it doesn't need to be a large generator. You know have the capacity to research anti-gravity systems for use on a non-ship scale, which could be a help to your forces. You must admit, for all your early apprehensions this has been a very profitable Sector when it comes to technology. You've drained this place truly dry, having gotten something rather useful out of it after you were pretty sure that it held no more secrets. Still, this looks to potentially be the last of the real benefits you could get from the dozens of ruin-laden planets present here. You've done quite a lot of exploring here.
Joint Final Research Project Available:
Anti-Gravity Generators
-Small and capable enough to fit on even infantry armor, these Anti-Grav units can boost engine performance while also allowing the potential for hovering, and with the removal of fuel requirements separate from the reactor also allows for more constant use without resupply.
The army continues training and preparing for the next phase of the Spire assault, working closely with the Marines to create an optimal breaching strategy. The next floor is smaller, has less walls and there are areas where there is an open ceiling, making your strategy and tactics a bit different this next go around. More of a focus on mobility and vehicular combat both. From there, you'll have to march to the top and close the portal that almost certainly sits there like a festering wound on reality. Simulation is also done to create a proper Doctrine for the Champion robots. Current optimal projection is to have them with the Marines and elite Behemoths that make up the vanguard of your heavy force, behind a line of disposable Fortes that will blunt the first enemy offensive.
Your factories make equipment to help further develop the Melody's End and Gremlin colonies, but run into a snag when news of the alien raiding force comes in. Significant retooling is required as vast quantities of space equipment is needed to replace losses suffered, and this reduces productivity. Still, it does mean that the End is more or less on its feet again, and Gremlin has received a small but appreciated package of new equipment to increase their productivity.
The military production facilities get the pick of minerals, what with another Spire floor assault potentially coming up, and continue operating continuously. This time there is a heavy focus on Behemoths and Marines, those two units being the most suited to operating inside the Spire. Only two new Marine Regiments are recruited due to the difficult nature of expanding the corp. The line between them and regular infantry is rather thin, as the main difference is that of skill and training. Still, by careful selection of troops you now have double the elite breaching regiments you had before. Two new Storm regiments have been raised to cover the transfer, and the soldiers present within are properly trained. Five new Behemoth battalions are brought together, with thirteen of them now available containing well over three thousand of the walking tanks. Four new Forte Drone Regiments roll off the assembly lines like their brethren, and you acquire a tank, artillery and AA company each. A nice little increase in available forces.
Now armed with the proper go-ahead to construct a Battleship, your yards move to finish their work with extreme prejudice. At a blistering pace armor plates and weapon components are installed over the many kilometers of warship present in your orbit, nanomachines not even fully throwing out a completed component before preliminary work is being done on the next. A grand project, every second of work meticulously calculated for maximum efficiency by a cohort of AIs, is over before you know it. It comes as a minor surprise to you when a report crosses your desk requesting testing permission, which is granted. The rapid fire trio of guns that make up its primary armament prove their power by vaporizing a few asteroids, and the ship is considered an integrated part of the fleet. The Revealing Light stands ready as the flagship of your fleet.
The remaining time, in combination with your other orbital manufacturing is to expand the space mining facilities of Phoenix. Another fortuitous decision in light of the attack, it is a little hamstrung by the lack of materials. Still, enough new resource collection equipment is created that the project is considered a success, and your material income should be back to normal next month.
The factories of Harbinger are most damaged by the loss of the Melody's End mining infrastructure, but enough work has been done in salvaging destroyed buildings on the planet and setting up new mining ships and facilities dedicated to the planet that a good amount of work is still done, although a lot of factories spend the month mostly idle. To protect the world, new military units are created. A few regiments of Forte drones suffice to guard the insides of the planetary facilities, and heavier defense is given by a new set of partly Dominion grade anti-personnel, anti-vehicle and artillery turrets dotted all over the facilities, located in ideal areas. This is a notable boost to the planetary defenses present at the facility.
The orbital facilities instead work on expanding your merchant marine and state-owned civil transport fleet. Promising entrepreneurs are granted their own vessel under the very clear assumption that they will spend a good portion of their time hauling government goods, and several more automated vessels ply the stars directly for you, with not a single soul on board bar the occasional AI hitching a lonely ride on one of these freighters.
The precision naval weaponry project is discontinued after another month of minimal progress. This time a working set of weapons were designed and created, but at severe costs. After some debate in the Ministry of Research, it is agreed that trying to get some decent results easily applied to the fleet right now may be a lost cause, and a longer term project to study the recovered USC weaponry in greater depth is commenced. A disappointing turn of events to be sure, but at least it wasn't anything too important. Plus, you can't really be angry considering the other research project.
The Champion program exceeds your expectations, and even those of all but the most optimistic researchers working on the project. And you weren't exactly going in with low hopes. The machines are almost perfectly designed engines of battle, equipped with everything they could possibly need to engage any Dark Force creature that may come their way. So difficult to produce that your Industrial Overseers aren't sure whether to laugh or cry, but protected with the finest armor you can produce, equipped with predictive engines of the type more commonly found on starships, have incredibly redundant systems, are networked into perfect battle coordination, capable of reacting and moving at frightening speeds, armed with fold-out arm cannons and a variety of bladed weapons with special properties. For one, they have advance tech in the handles or shafts that allow them to damage congealed Dark Force. This technology is slightly different from your ordinary anti-Force equipment, as it can projected outwards, and in combination with the weaponry of other drones can create a sort of protective barrier specifically against Force creatures. Not something that can last for long, but something to give them a further edge. And of course they are all heavily stylized and have intricate patterns of various types cut into the metal, because if you're making something that's more expensive than any armored vehicle in your possession you may as well make it look good.
Other than the shield, nothing is truly special about the Champions other than their craftsmanship. But that alone is enough to make them the most formidable individual close quarters fighters the Republic's arsenal has ever seen. Production has already begun, and you'll have your machines before a next month Spire assault.
You expand diplomatic efforts with the Alphenori, continuing to work with them for the potential benefit of both. You soon agree to establish mutual embassies, and before long you have acquired a plot of land with a simple bunker on the surface of their home planet, staffed with your diplomats. As well as expanding trade relations, your people discover something of interest in the form of the remaining inhabitants of the world. While you knew they existed, you did not know a lot about them, and you have received some fairly revealing messages. As somewhat expected there is a case of notable ecological damage, and living on the surface is mostly relegated to sealed domes and underground caverns. It's generally a choice to move there, although there are some individuals who were born planet-side after the majority of people moved into space. With nominal independence from any of the Habitat Coalitions and even the System Government, these people are researchers. These domes and underground facilities are places of science as well as places to live, and they perform experiments that are too complex or difficult to perform in high orbit, making them a large part of tech advancement in the Pheonix-335 system. Most notably for you, they have achieved significant levels of augmentation. In exchange for some choice bits of terraforming technology that the Aplhenori lack, you gain access to these secrets.
Joint Final research Project Available:
Human Augmentation
-Not a totally lost art, but augmentation is rather rare these days. Prostheses of all kinds are common and cheap enough, many of these being superior to normal human body parts, but deliberate augmentation isn't really done in the Republic due to a lack of need, certain bits of tech and institutional experience. This may now change.
Finally, you look into getting military and technology news from the Federation and Union. Not much, but you do tap info feeds coming out of high level research and low level military command facilities. Only a few months ahead of the public information curve with a few exceptions, this does mean you get an early look at what both factions are doing. Although they both maintain a militarized border, tensions have dropped since the Union was formed thanks to various efforts. The Federation is working on getting Jump Drives fitted to every ship in their fleet, and are apparently working on their own augmentation program based on the cache of Dominion super-soldiers they had recovered and subsequently retired in the past couple of years. It will probably be far better then your own attempts at such, but you don't need incredibly superhuman capabilities in your unarmored infantry anyway.
Now then, all you have to do is pay a visit to the insects, with guns or otherwise, and maybe look into doing the next phase of the Spire relatively soon...
Turn 34 Planning
Fleet Actions:
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Exploration Actions:
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Army Actions:
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Construction Actions:
[] (Ground Industry Slot One)
[] (Ground Industry Slot Two)
[] (Shipyard Slot One)
[] (Shipyard Slot Two)
[] (Harbinger Ground Slot)
[] (Harbinger Shipyard Slot)
General Actions:
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Research Actions:
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Diplomacy Action:
[] (General)
[] (Networking: Alphenori Available)
