Year 15 Results: 494 GS
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X]Plan Piggybank
-[X]Martial 1: Brace For Impact: 20,000: DC16 - Minister 11 = DC5
-[X]Martial 2: Kepler Verge Offensive: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
-[X]Diplomacy 1: Colony Recruitment: 25,750: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
-[X]Stewardship 1: Freedom of Movement: 30,000: DC 51 - Minister 11 = DC40
-[X]Intrigue 1: Sending A Signal: Free, Automatic: Minister 12
-[X]Personal 1 Personal Attention Brace For Impact [Martial 24]
-[X]Personal 2 Personal Attention Kepler Verge Offensive [Martial 24]
-[X]Personal 3 Personal Attention Freedom of Movement [Stewardship 18]
-[X]Martial 1: Brace For Impact: 20,000: DC16 - Minister 11 = DC5
-[X]Martial 2: Kepler Verge Offensive: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
-[X]Diplomacy 1: Colony Recruitment: 25,750: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
-[X]Stewardship 1: Freedom of Movement: 30,000: DC 51 - Minister 11 = DC40
-[X]Intrigue 1: Sending A Signal: Free, Automatic: Minister 12
-[X]Personal 1 Personal Attention Brace For Impact [Martial 24]
-[X]Personal 2 Personal Attention Kepler Verge Offensive [Martial 24]
-[X]Personal 3 Personal Attention Freedom of Movement [Stewardship 18]
Year 15 Results: 494 GS
Martial: Brace For Impact
Rolled: 44+11(Minister)+24(Personal)=79. Needed: 16. Greater Success.
The front continues to hold. Ships roll out of your new factories, recruits are drawn up out of the academies, mines are laid on the vanishingly few approach corridors that you know for a fact hostile ships need to take, fleets run through readiness exercises, Beshkar makes sure to hold as many ships ready to run back to Hercules as he can, and nothing bloody happens.
The year is utterly without incident -- without even the hint of Rachni ships. Something is up.
Forces prepared. No Rachni activity. -20,000 credits.
* * *
Martial: Kepler Verge Offensive
Rolled: 2+11(Minister)+24(Personal)=37. Needed: 21. Success.
You stare at the latest report and grit your teeth. "Beshkar."
Your Admiral glances over. "Ma'am?"
You shove the datapad over and let your forehead slump into your hands. "Fix this."
He looks at it. "...oh. Oh, dear."
The offensive has not been going well.
The rachni forces at the relay to Kepler Verge, you swept aside easily enough. In heartbeats, as space combat is measured, the Newton system was secured and the last, faltering grasp the Rachni had on the Verge was shattered. Your estimates of their strength were correct; they had barely anything here. The Rachni must be strained, if their garrisons are this thin. The only survivors fled in the face of the fury of your assault, opting to hide further in the cluster.
And that is when things began to go wrong. For whatever reason, your captains and rear admirals took one look at their search and destroy orders and completely broke down. Patrols snarled up with each other, supplies wound up going to the wrong units and leaving others dry, huge portions of the fleet sat passively back in Newton misunderstanding their orders, supplies were fucked up, those ships that did manage to get out there did horrid, slapdash jobs ninety percent of the time, and supplies were kriffed up across the board.
You have been babysitting the offensive for months, micromanaging to a ludicrously irresponsible extent. This should not have needed your help. The Rachni have not been surviving in the furthest reaches of the sector because they've fought with unusual gallantry; it's entirely down to your own people utterly collapsing on you.
Still, frustrating and stressful as it is, as many officers as you've screamed into pale-faced competence again over the course of the year...
...it at least worked.
Naval dominance in Kepler Verge secured. +1 Rachni comm buoy, added to usable stash. -40,000 credits. +20,000 yearly income from captured stations.
* * *
Diplomacy: Reform the Colonial Congress
Three years in the making, and the elections finally go through. You smile from the pulpit at the center of the newly-constructed Assembly, making sure to keep your face towards the cameras.
To the public, the past three years have been a dream. In reality, there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. Even beyond your work to determine the assembly's makeup, even beyond determining what power it should have, the sheer practicalities of the matter have snarled you time and again. You needed to build the Assembly itself -- well, that needed to wait until you knew what form of government you'd take. A place for a Council, after all, would at this point be a fancy office or two. You needed to set up the elections -- no small task, particularly given the new infrastructure your chosen form of government demanded.
But at last, three busy years later, you are finished.
Smiling out at the crowd, you spread your arms and say, "Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly, I hereby call to order this, the first Virmirean Assembly!"
Virmirean Colonial Congress reformed as the Virmirean Assembly, a legislative branch of the government subordinate to the Prime Minister's office. From now on, you will get occasional options to approve or veto legislation from the Assembly. They'll be passing bills more or less constantly, of course, but only the most significant will come to your (the players') attention. One such awaits at the bottom of this post. -30,000 yearly income from new governmental infrastructure.
* * *
Diplomacy: Colony Recruitment
Rolled: 31+11(Minister)=42. Needed: 31. Success.
IT BEGINS.
And ends. In rather short order, actually. You had yourself braced for another massive slog of a project before you remembered that this one is just a one-year deal. Regardless, it's a busy year for Marae. Her Ministry sorts through over a billion applications, whittling them down a broad, ruthless strokes -- first nobody middle-aged or later, second no volus (they get to immigrate, later, once the fiddly bits are done), third nobody who is not trained in one or more of these fields-
You can cut down the list a lot, just by sorting for your ideal candidates. And the Ministry of Relations does.
Interestingly, they find themselves working with the FDO more and more as time goes on, the MoF-based office offering up their experience in candidate selection to smooth the process along. It makes you think, actually; Director Virani is already petitioning for responsibility for research stations, but it occurs that her office has all of the colonial experience at the moment. And, practically speaking, the MoR is having to lean on the FDO anyway to get this done right.
Food for thought.
Candidate list finalized and commitments extracted. Your first wave is prepared, along with your backups in case of emergency cancellations or a second wave. -25,750 credits.
* * *
Stewardship: Home World Development
It's well-timed, what with the increased expenses of the Assembly, when Lissa informs you that the increase in tax income due to your stimulus package has come through. Virmire is more heavily developed than ever before, and you get a piece out of all of that production.
You even get non-hostile looks from some of those corporate shits, now and then.
Production, extraction, and refinery industries boom as your investments finally pay off, easing the sting of some of your recent expenses. +35,000 yearly income.
* * *
Stewardship: Freedom of Movement
Rolled: 25+10(Minister)+18(Personal)=53. Needed: 51. Slim Success.
Then again, corporate shits are really good at sucking it up to the person with the money, and that doesn't necessarily mean anything. That said, they appear to be behaving themselves, even with your decision to lift the civilian movement controls.
It's an immensely popular move. A wartime economy is extremely stressful, and even though the majority of your constituency doesn't really have anywhere in particular that they can go, the fact that they can, if they so wish, now go an visit mining station #37 for a visit to family is a huge boost to their morale.
The only downside...you're...not exactly seeing the return you expected.
Population continues to be absolutely fucking thrilled with the general fact of your existence. Mining colonies within Sentry Omega (Attican Beta and the Kepler Verge still being military occupation zones) will produce more in the future. Unfortunately, this move has not proven to be as profitable as hoped. +15,000 yearly income.
* * *
FDO Report
This year, contrary to your expectations, Director Virani did not build a mining colony and bank the rest of her budget. Instead, while she did colonize SO 30 as the system of Tarramir, she spent the rest on touching up the emptied Prothean depot in Kerchak, saving you a fair amount on building one yourself once you really start developing SO 28. You see the logic, even if the ever-increasing crimp in the budget still makes you nervous.
Still, though, her report to you has a distinctly celebratory tone; Tarramir is one of the furthest coreward systems in the SO 28 microcluster, and with the establishment of the mining stations there, you've officially broken into the microcluster! It'll be a long time before you really start drawing out the wealth in that region, but it's still a step forward.
And then she has the nerve to bitch at you for putting the pressure on her to shore up your income in the face of your expenses. And then she reiterates her request for additional funding. You have to laugh at that. You're starting to like this woman.
And hey, you think you managed to pull the economy out of its death spiral this year well enough.
+22,000 yearly income, Prothean depot in Kerchak refurbished.
* * *
Intrigue: Taste of Your Own Medicine
Day Sneaky Shit: Shurna reported to me about the intel efforts in Lystheni space today. Apparently we managed to crack a cipher they use for military communications, and we found out some interesting stuff.
Namely, the Lystheni have built a navy.
I'm not surprised -- with the state of the galaxy, going disarmed is idiocy -- but I am mad. Our navy's been fighting and bleeding for every scrap of ground it can get, and the Lystheni have been sitting back, hoarding their own ships. We're just listening in on comms, but that's instructive enough. They have at least one cruiser, but there's definitely a small ships focus going on. Not surprising. Lystheni space is small as hell. Small ships are more economical. Overall, it's not like this navy poses an actual threat to us...if all our ships weren't committed away from Sentry Omega. As it stands, secret navies make me nervous, to say nothing about how furious I am about them sitting on this stuff while we bleed for them.
Gonna need to do something, that's clear enough. No idea what, though.
SIGINT network in Lystheni space deepened. Lystheni military ciphers cracked, for the moment. Rough estimate of Lystheni ship strength compared to yours: pathetic, but extant. Efficiency of anti-Lystheni Intrigue actions improved.
* * *
Intrigue: Sending a Signal
With hefty preparation and little ceremony, you order Shurna's team to check the comm buoys one last time and crack into the Lystheni network. Checks for compatibility are a go, meaning you don't have to spend time downloading updates. You aren't instantly detected and booted, either.
You nod in satisfaction, and issue your orders.
Comm buoys activated. Options available for use.
* * *
Learning: Explorer Corps
This year the fledgling Corps spent its time establishing its chain of command and issuing build orders for more Explorer-class corvettes, while simultaneously using its founding members as a yardstick for the ideal candidate as they bring in new recruits. As many people as you have on Virmire, finding warm bodies isn't a strain, but with the newly-expanded remit of the Corps, it is difficult finding individuals who are qualified to serve in the capacity that the Corps demands. Often, the Corps finds itself turning to the navy for recruits, rather than training them up new. It's becoming increasingly clear that the EC will not merely be a scouting and survey organization, but rather will become an elite branch of your navy. You anticipate them forwarding you requests for increased funding in short order.
One more year to go.
Credit Reserves: 357,000 credits.
Yearly Income: 318,000 credits.
The Virmirean Assembly has voted by a 74% majority to authorize the drafting of an official declaration of independence from Citadel Council rule.
[ ][TIMING] Pass. Virmire First.
[ ][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
It's time to fire up the comm buoys. With three now to hand, you don't technically have to give up any one of the three primary uses you've identified, but doubling (or, indeed, tripling) down on the recon pulse or the distress call will let you get more out of it thanks to being able to fire up new buoys as the Rachni lock out the old ones.
[ ][BUOYS] General Distress Call: Before you do anything else, you need to inform the rest of the galaxy that you're still here and fighting, and that you're ready to be a part of the united front if you can reestablish contact. It won't be a long conversation, but it will tell them that you're still in there. Devote more than one buoy to increase the amount of time you have on the line. Make contact with everybody with a connecting comm buoy to Rachni space and send out the distress call -- Virmire is still in the fight, and needs support. Specifically requested by Marae.
[ ][BUOYS] Update the Maps: You can't count on a brief call to give you all the information you'll need to direct your breakout efforts. Ping the Rachni comms network for a detailed update on what exactly their held space is presently. Updates galaxy map to accurately reflect the present state of Rachni-held relays.
[ ][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse: If you're ready for a strike, this could be a great way to find out where that strike should land. Even if you don't hold onto whatever you take, the chance to burn a Rachni fleet and devastate a relay system's logistical infrastructure is not to be passed over. Gain accurate counts of the Rachni ships in neighboring clusters, and possibly beyond, if you devote more than one. Expires near-instantly. Specifically requested by K'Sharr.
TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM. THESE VOTES ARE NOW CLOSED.
And we're back.
New stuff! Public opinion: the public is fickle. When calculating changes to your approval rating from a year, I will apply them chronologically, not cumulatively. If you begin at 100%, have six 5% increases all throughout the year, and then drop 10% at year's end, you close the year at 90%. The Assembly vote is occurring as of year's end.
Public opinion also scales in a way that makes it harder to increase the higher you get, but that's not new so much as it was previously tacit.Hope you enjoy the update, folks! We have a lot going on this year, and some interesting things behind the curtain which you may or may not unveil. Have fun~! :lol Status Screen update is forthcoming.
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