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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

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Interlude - The Prime Minister
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    • Prime Minister's Office, Taris

    The newly-elected Prime Minister sighed and brought a hand to his face to contain his mounting headache from all the paperwork he had to deal with from his first week in office alone.

    The man had never been a politician or even considered himself a political figure within the myriad refugees that now called the planet of Taris home. What he had been was someone who wanted to keep his men alive-and the definition of "his men" had just kept on expanding as things had gotten worse. First it was just his crew, then it was everyone who had boarded his ship in the hopes of escaping the war, then it had been everyone from his homeworld who had managed to make it to Taris.

    ...There were far fewer of his people there than he had hoped.

    When the elections for Prime Minister had rolled around after unprecedented changes to immigration and voting laws he had more or less been volunteered to be the representative for his group of refugees (though he didn't reject the nomination when it came around). Despite their small size in comparison they had quickly spread the good word about him, encouraging others to vote for him even with the odds of victory against him. While she had never officially entered the election, his de facto opponent was Ciaran herself, the woman who was responsible for the planet's rebirth and the chance for the people there to start over. Anyone else would have balked at running against her, and victory seemed like it would be nigh-impossible.

    Still, against all odds...he won the election. A one-time freighter captain, now the leader of an entire world.

    The galaxy was a strange place like that, wasn't it?

    While there was some hostility in the moments after the election, the masses of Taris had grudgingly accepted his victory allowing him to get at least some peace and quiet afterwards...and the chance to not have to always wear the obnoxious hat that came with the office.

    Sighing to himself, the Prime Minister quietly reached into a pocket and pulled out a battered holoprojector. Turning it on, he listlessly gazed at the image of himself alongside his deceased wife and daughter, reminiscing about the happier times they had before the dammed war had come to their planet.

    Suddenly the sound of a tone signaling the arrival of a visitor, breaking him out of his reverie. Grumbling under his breath, he pocketed the projector, sighed, put the (excessive) hat back on, and simply said "Enter."

    The door opened, and lo and behold it was none other than Ciaran herself. Internally the Prime Minister cursed; he was almost certain that this confrontation would have happened sooner or later, but he had hoped that given her apathy to the election it would have been much later.

    "And to what do I owe the honor of your visit today, Lady Ciaran?" the Prime Minister said, managing to keep his voice neutral.

    "I simply wanted to congratulate your appointment and introduce myself to you in person. You already know who I am, but you would be...?"

    He wasn't born yesterday and knew damned well that she knew his name well before she got here. Still, he gave a stern nod. "I think the proper form of address now is Tarisian Prime Minister Suberoa Zinnerman. Now then..." His eyes narrowed. "Why are you really here?"

    Ciaran chuckled to herself. "What, do you think I have ulterior motives for coming here?"

    "You were expected to win the election despite the fact that you didn't participate in it and at the same time you've been heavily investing into the planet in recent months." Zinnerman leaned forward. "Now I'm no businessman, but I know that with all the credits running through the planet you have a lot riding on its stability," Zinnerman coldly said, his intense gaze never wavering.

    For her part, Ciaran simply raised an eyebrow in response. "You're much sharper than I would have expected from a freighter captain."

    "Call it intuition," Zinnerman flatly responded, "but you still haven't answered my question."

    "Very well then," Ciaran said, her smile suddenly vanishing. "I came here because I wanted to know why you ran for office and what you plan on doing with it."

    The newly-elected Prime Minister pinched his brow in response to that. "Is that all?"

    Ciaran nodded.

    "...Fine then. First, I didn't run so much as I was volunteered by my fellow refugees."

    "The JanFathal group, correct? I've heard about how bad the devastation has been there."

    Zinnerman gave a grim nod in response. "Second, what I want is..."

    He was silent for a brief moment, closing his eyes in thought before reopening them again.

    "What I want is for my people to be safe and for the galaxy to leave us well enough alone. Hopefully with that we can have the chance to enjoy our new lives here. We've seen enough of war for a lifetime."

    Ciaran's expression hadn't changed. "Are you sure you aren't just speaking for yourself?"

    It took every ounce of Zinnerman's willpower not to instinctively reach for the holoprojector in his pocket, instead clenching a fist. "Even if I was," he growled out, "that doesn't change the fact that my people and every refugee that has arrived on this planet feel the same." Glaring down the Miraluka he spoke again. "And on that note let me make something very clear," he said in an icily calm tone. "While I do respect what you've done for people like me, I am not going to just stand idly by and let you always have your way while I'm in office. If you want to make this planet safer for my people or anything like that then I won't argue with it. But if you try to bring the war to this planet I will do everything I can to stop you no matter what."

    His speech had made its point to Ciaran...who was regarding him with curiosity more than anything else afterwards. "...I see. Thank you for your time then, Prime Minister. This has proven to be an enlightening meeting."

    With that, she quickly turned and left, allowing Zinnerman to sink back into his chair and breathe out.

    I'm going to hate this job, aren't I?

    ---------

    Why did I have to be proven right?

    A few days later, Zinnerman was in a call with Satine Kyrze over the matter of having Taris significantly increase its production of military equipment for CNS militias and patrol fleets. She had heard about the initiative that Zinnerman had proposed and within a few hours of its announcement she was speaking to him via holoprojector.

    Sighing, the exasperated Prime Minister spoke. "Again, having military-grade equipment more available to members of the Council will not only make our space more secure but encourage threatened planets to join us."

    "While I do understand the need for security, think about the message that sends to the rest of the galaxy. Building up military assets to the extent that you have proposed will only convince the rest of the galaxy that we are becoming more militant, especially right now of all times. We've worked so hard to tell people that we aren't becoming a new Mandalorian Empire after Jango's return, and as successful as we've been at that this initiative would certainly make it seem like we were lying about that."

    "Miss Kyrze, I'd like to point out that given the chance both the Republic and Separatists would try and spread the war to our space, if only so they'd have more planets to fight over. Creating deterrents definitely isn't the ideal solution but it is the smartest one right now."

    Satine frowned, but did not respond for a moment. "...There has to be a better way then. Surely we can provide that sense of security without making it seem as though we are starting a major military buildup."

    After a moment of silence between the two, Zinnerman sighed again and folded his arms before speaking. "I can make sure that the equipment is only made for member worlds that need proper defenses. In the grand scheme of things we'd still produce a lot of materiel but not quite as much as we would have without that caveat. That's the best I can do."

    Satine was silent for a moment before nodding grimly. "I understand, Prime Minister. Thank you for your time then."

    The holoprojector shut down, letting Zinnerman lean back in his chair (after taking off the hat again, finally).

    "This is going to a long term in office, isn't it?"

    AN: Right then, I really wanted to have an interesting character take the role of Tarisian Prime Minister, so I brought in one Suberoa Zinnerman. The man was born around 55 BBY-ish on JanFathal, and led a relatively normal life as a freighter captain until the Clone Wars-you're not buying that for a second are you?

    Okay, so for those of you not familiar with him to begin with I "borrowed" him from Gundam Unicorn when I realized that his personality makes him an excellent foil to both Ciaran and Satine alike, not to mention that it was super easy for me to jostle around his backstory a bit to fit the Star Wars verse. Well mostly those things, but I'll freely admit that I also wanted the chance to write him for myself, selfish bastard that I am.

    ...Look, if Teron could bring in the Silencer and Wesker I am perfectly within my rights to bring in characters from other franchises when I need to! I think. That's how it works, right?

    Anyway, enjoy~
     
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    • UbeOne said:
    ???
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    I've mentioned it before, I think. In short, 'down grade' the units you are making in certain areas so as to allow any of your planets to make their own Planetary Defense Forces and have them designed to underperform when compared to a typical vehicle of that type. A Saber tank, for example, is really fast, can strafe, etc. Instead, have your light tanks be a wheeled design. Slower, can only go forwards and back, and is therefore far better suited to defense roles rather than being spearheads or scouts for an invasion force.

    Now, that's not to say not have Galactic standard military formations for the regular army/military. But when you want to increase the ability of your member worlds to defend themselves without looking like a war monger/interventionist...
     
    UbeOne said:
    Sandbagging in terms of military forces?
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    IIRC, sandbagging is used to refer to someone not playing/competing to the best of their abilities. So... Actually, that wouldn't be too wrong.

    As well, encourage each planet to produce their own variants/designs rather than importing. The less cohesive the PDFs end up looking, the less they look like an army to an outside observer.
     
    Ho~ I think we've discovered a potential husbando for Ciaran. Now to see whether he stands up to the test.

    I give it 2 turns top till he gets killed off.

    DaLintyGuy said:
    IIRC, sandbagging is used to refer to someone not playing/competing to the best of their abilities. So... Actually, that wouldn't be too wrong.

    As well, encourage each planet to produce their own variants/designs rather than importing. The less cohesive the PDFs end up looking, the less they look like an army to an outside observer.
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    Wouldn't that mean in the end that we can choose the best of the variants for our own use? So basically a mass field test.
     
    DaLintyGuy said:
    IIRC, sandbagging is used to refer to someone not playing/competing to the best of their abilities. So... Actually, that wouldn't be too wrong.

    As well, encourage each planet to produce their own variants/designs rather than importing. The less cohesive the PDFs end up looking, the less they look like an army to an outside observer.
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    Or focus on economic, industrial and infrastructure improvements, which can then be easily adapted for military purposes if needed.
     
    So Taris now building military gear for the CNS? Not sure what's going on?

    Also why would he not like Ciaran? With so many credits in the planets buisness/infrastructure community you'd think he would be asking for a loan or buisness advice.
     
    Entropy Engineer said:
    Wouldn't that mean in the end that we can choose the best of the variants for our own use? So basically a mass field test.
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    A wheeled or tracked vehicle is not going to outperform a hover vehicle. That said, if there is a niche that needs to be filled NOW rather than 'in fourteen months when a new vehicle design will have been put into production' the applicable formations can be activated simply.

    UbeOne said:
    Or focus on economic, industrial and infrastructure improvements, which can then be easily adapted for military purposes if needed.
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    So, basically how the Luftwaffe was created under the noses of France and Britain? Because just production isn't enough, you have to train your operators on those platforms.
    Otherwise yes, those sorts of things. Although the CNS want's a deterrent, so it'd have to be visible...
     
    UbeOne said:
    Training would be included too so that they are prepared.

    Both simulated and actual training equipment.
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    The thing is, if you are concerned about actually being attacked you need the equipment already made. If you are trying to keep your development on the low down (for the purpose of it not actually looking like a provocative move) it needs to be somewhat hidden, which means not having significant numbers of vehicles floating around, which means limited hands on experience during actual operations.

    There's a bit of a divide here, I think, between some things you could mean so I'd like to get clarification. The first possibility is an actual military build up, with tanks and such produced from openly acknowledged factories. Simple, but potentially politically inexpedient.
    The second is to keep the fact that a military-industrial complex is being built secret so as to not look threatening, but that means if an invasion does occur it will take time for the equipment to be built, signed off on, and shipped out for final training during deployment.
    Technically a third too, where the factories are kept on the hair trigger of turning over to military production but don't, which actually gets the negatives of both options so far as I can see.
     
    Build enough to maintain a credible defense, but include secret reserves just in case?
     
    Aside from the potential "Galactic standard vs militia/second rate gear" debate... Yeah, that might work. It could be difficult to pull off, and if it was discovered it'd look like the CNS was planning a possible campaign (in self defense or not not being a major concern by the citizens of the outside galaxy), but creating a large pool of trained personnel wouldn't be a major tip off in and of itself.
     
    umm... maybe have a small cadre of professional forces, rotate forces through training then let them go back to civilian life to make a reserve and plan out a system to conscript people for massive upscaling.

    Have your professional forces and some reserve units have nice kit to act as a deterrent, then have second tier kit in large numbers for the rest and planned to be used for conscript forces.
     
    DB_Explorer said:
    umm... maybe have a small cadre of professional forces, rotate forces through training then let them go back to civilian life to make a reserve and plan out a system to conscript people for massive upscaling.
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    So three groups: professional/career soldiers, a much larger group of troops with an enlistment period of say two years, and a framework to flesh out an army's more... Unskilled professions, IE basic infantrymen, predominantly. Sounds like a plan.

    DB_Explorer said:
    Have your professional forces and some reserve units have nice kit to act as a deterrent, then have second tier kit in large numbers for the rest and planned to be used for conscript forces.
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    Agreed. Production can be faster than expected due to being more mechanical in nature rather than the highly complex production of milspec repulsor coils, and planets will already have their own formations that can be levied by the central government in times of war.
     
    There's not much objectionable in building defensive installations on planets that need it. There's a nonzero chance that Palps will say enough is enough and have Dooku invade the CNS at some point as well. The CNS needs to be ready to make the point that it's not worth it.

    Easy things you can do that show defense not offense: Somewhat stationary surface based artillery. Ion cannons. Walls. Planetary Shielding. Not instituting a draft. And yeah, slip in some weaponry upgrades and fleet production too. Don't need to get complicated with it. If you spend a good deal of focus on stuff that can't be used to invade other planets, you've got it covered.
     
    The thing with defenses is they won't actually defeat an invasion. On the one hand they'll buy time for reserves to be sent in to actually defeat the attackers, but having mobile forces on planet to actually do things is very important. For one, preventing walls/obstacles from simply being eliminated by combat engineers within... Six hours, say.
     
    I would just build a self-defense force that wouldn't have the ability to stage offensive warfare, but be a bitch to break through. While also noting that several under-defended planets were devastated by the war because someone decided to be an asshole and take over the planet.

    Although if we want to really build up Taris's military secretly, we can always use a few techniques the Germans used during the Treaty of Versailles to build up their military forces right under the noses of the Allies.

    We could build military assets in secret by giving them code names for something not war-related like "farming or trade equipment" to throw off suspicion. Set up short service obligations so the military would look small on paper, but build up massive researves that could be called to war very quickly. Training exercises for "civil organizations" that would teach discipline and most tactics necessary for soldiers with the minor exception of military arms (and that stuff can be trained in a few weeks if the rest of the training is completed before then.). Even set up military staff at a "Human Resource Office" (Similar to how the General Staff managed to stay in power despite its abolishment) and this technically wouldn't be a lie as they do improve living standards (for good living standards and economy is necessary for developing an army in the first place).

    Some of this stuff would be very difficult to prove and be pretty low key. It could even serve as an effective "trap" for whoever might attack Taris. Underestimating an opponent has broken many armies in the past.
     
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