- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Maybe, but I think we'd have been best served surrounding ourselves with very competent subordinates who are completely beholden to us politically, and taking credit for their successes.
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You Are: A sector admiral of a strained imperium.
- Thread starter Packrat
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
It would be the opposite of this quest. It is hard to say. If we went Imperial Scion+military we would have been a mediocre military officer surrounded with loyal and very competent subordinates.
You would not be stuck paying maintenance for those three years as it was made, you probably cannot buy one on credit though. Typically the only people buying capital ships are duke or count tier nobles and the Imperial Navy.
Also that is pretty much right about the Imperial Scion, you would have started off with the Veteran crew battlecruiser instead of having to steal one and all of the officers would have been about on par with Strauss' 'old guard', with high Loyalty. Not to mention higher loyalty in general, lots of political capital and wealth, fewer to no road blocks thrown in by superiors, etc. But with say a Strategy focus you would have been Strategy 14/Tactics 9. Tactics 12/Strategy 10 for a Tactics focus. You would have been a kind of okay but nothing special officer.
Meaning we pay for it and won't have to worry about having enough money to support because we"ll have 36 strategic turns. But it means spending 110 or more Wealth now for something we won't get for 3 years.
@Packrat
I'd like to compliment the QM on a well written quest.
It has a very Hornblower feel to it so far, if Hornblower was serving in the TOS-era Klingon Navy.
Probably not going to be an active voter, but I will be lurking. And occasionally commenting.
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The shipyards must have been a windfall of intelligence, being a capital-ship production complex.
Even if Reinhard didn't remember, Sones should have.
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That said, I'd like to address the issue of the late Viscountess.
She was 25, which makes her too young to have fought in the Imperial-NASP war. She's too young to be commanding a naval ship really, but nepotism*shrug* Regardless, this makes for an officer who grew up in the heart of noble politics, but with very little actual experience of interstellar realities. And apparently little willingness to learn.
For comparison, Reinhard is *checks history post* at least 40, having graduated high school at 16, spent two years in ratings training, then been forwarded to officer training(? duration) and a six month course of medical augmentation and recovery before being commissioned as a midshipman at an age where he was at least 4 years older then the oldest of his noble peers.
He also spent at least two years on staff duty pre-war as a Lt Commander, and three years post-war on the Righteous.
Add at least five years to go from midshipman to Lt Commander, and at least another five to go from Lt Commander to Commodore.
So at least forty. Possibly more.
There was no way that genocide would not have led to genocidal reprisal, whether official or unofficial.
This is a world where there are no planetary shields. Where pirates can put together FTL drive ships. Where genetic engineering is advanced enough to allow the rebuilding of adult humans.
A war that starts with genociding civilian planetary populations is begging for your opposition to FTL nickel-iron asteroids into opposite orbit with your major worlds. Or drop a genengineered plague. And then the galaxy is ashes.
Even supervillains can't rule a wasteland.
These are the kind of realities that senior officers, and smart junior ones, must keep in mind when choosing to employ weapons on planets.
Furthermore, the Viscount's talk of contacts with factions of Earth ring false to my ear.
If there were actual influential factions of the Earth Sphere gestalt that wanted fewer states or were in favor of the Imperium, they would have taken a hand during the late festivities, when the NASP were literally getting showered with advanced FTL drive designs by their Earth Sphere patron, and there would be no NASP left.
It would have taken very little effort to tip the scales, when the Imperium started from a superior position.
This leaves three options in my eyes:
-She was lying to Reinhard in the belief that a commoner wouldn't know any better. Not like she's wrong; his Diplomacy and Subterfuge aren't great.
-Any such contacts were the equivalent of hooking up with the Earth Sphere's Scientologists, while the NASP were being backed by the Catholic Church.
-She was being lied to, by people looking to maneuver the Empire into an unsustainable situation before pulling the rug out from under them.
It's even possible this wasn't an official House-sponsored iplot, but rather an Arslan youngidiot gun deciding to take initiative and jump the gun on the plans of her elders. Certainly a formal approach would not have happened in the middle of a battle, and would have used someone less senior than a ducal heir for initial approach.
Anyway. Done for my amusement.
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And it's not just the Viscountess that's either deluded or insane. The fuck is wrong with the citizens of Chang Mu?
They surrendered. Their defenders surrendered. They could look up and see fusion warheads bloom in planetary orbit during the battle.
There's a squadron in orbit over their planet armed with railguns and fusion weapons, demanding tribute, and they are attempting to boobytrap the tribute shipments?
At best, they'd manage to kill the ship taking aboard the tribute, leaving it's sisters to exact retribution.
By the Rules of War that I recall, the Imperials would even be right to.
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As for Ranca's propensity for killing people?
Reinhard is commoner-born. He didn't grow up with the games of status and honor that nobility play with no real consequence for them, but consequences for others, even if he's come to accept that's how things happen. If nothing else, he has two prosthetic fingers to remind him of precisely how petty and vindictive nobility can be with their honor games.
I suspect that he would have little sympathy for noble scions who go picking honor duels as a way to bully or manipulate other people when they run into a Ranca and end up dead. Basically, I suspect Sandra Ranca Arril's attitude towards duels is a lot more like the PCs personal opinions than some of us are assuming.
If it weren't for the waste and political headaches......
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And speaking of the nobility, the current form of the Empire is not sustainable.
A situation where a captain feels comfortable challenging a commodore's orders in combat, even if he was of lower birth?
The Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars would have fitted the Viscountess for a noose, social rank or not.
With a possible peer on the border, sponsored by elements of the local hyperpower? Reform or die.
Just the imbalances are readymade fracture points for NASP intelligence to exploit.
Doesn't mean democracy, mind. But it does mean cutting down on a lot of the mustache-twirling nonsense and outright contra-survival foolishness.
Disputing legitimate orders by demanding a duel? Sponsoring privateers to prey on Imperial shipping as a political tactic? Avoiding taxation? Giving 25-year olds squadron command of heavy cruisers based on birth?
I'd like to compliment the QM on a well written quest.
It has a very Hornblower feel to it so far, if Hornblower was serving in the TOS-era Klingon Navy.
Probably not going to be an active voter, but I will be lurking. And occasionally commenting.
============================================================================================================================
The shipyards must have been a windfall of intelligence, being a capital-ship production complex.
Even if Reinhard didn't remember, Sones should have.
============================================================================================================================
That said, I'd like to address the issue of the late Viscountess.
She was 25, which makes her too young to have fought in the Imperial-NASP war. She's too young to be commanding a naval ship really, but nepotism*shrug* Regardless, this makes for an officer who grew up in the heart of noble politics, but with very little actual experience of interstellar realities. And apparently little willingness to learn.
For comparison, Reinhard is *checks history post* at least 40, having graduated high school at 16, spent two years in ratings training, then been forwarded to officer training(? duration) and a six month course of medical augmentation and recovery before being commissioned as a midshipman at an age where he was at least 4 years older then the oldest of his noble peers.
He also spent at least two years on staff duty pre-war as a Lt Commander, and three years post-war on the Righteous.
Add at least five years to go from midshipman to Lt Commander, and at least another five to go from Lt Commander to Commodore.
So at least forty. Possibly more.
There was no way that genocide would not have led to genocidal reprisal, whether official or unofficial.
This is a world where there are no planetary shields. Where pirates can put together FTL drive ships. Where genetic engineering is advanced enough to allow the rebuilding of adult humans.
A war that starts with genociding civilian planetary populations is begging for your opposition to FTL nickel-iron asteroids into opposite orbit with your major worlds. Or drop a genengineered plague. And then the galaxy is ashes.
Even supervillains can't rule a wasteland.
These are the kind of realities that senior officers, and smart junior ones, must keep in mind when choosing to employ weapons on planets.
Furthermore, the Viscount's talk of contacts with factions of Earth ring false to my ear.
If there were actual influential factions of the Earth Sphere gestalt that wanted fewer states or were in favor of the Imperium, they would have taken a hand during the late festivities, when the NASP were literally getting showered with advanced FTL drive designs by their Earth Sphere patron, and there would be no NASP left.
It would have taken very little effort to tip the scales, when the Imperium started from a superior position.
This leaves three options in my eyes:
-She was lying to Reinhard in the belief that a commoner wouldn't know any better. Not like she's wrong; his Diplomacy and Subterfuge aren't great.
-Any such contacts were the equivalent of hooking up with the Earth Sphere's Scientologists, while the NASP were being backed by the Catholic Church.
-She was being lied to, by people looking to maneuver the Empire into an unsustainable situation before pulling the rug out from under them.
It's even possible this wasn't an official House-sponsored iplot, but rather an Arslan young
Anyway. Done for my amusement.
We'll use Earth as an example target, since we don't know what the other planets here are like.
Earth travels at roughly 30km/s.
We know that military drives in this universe can do at least 12-gravities acceleration, assuming they lack inertial compensators or some other technobabble to allow them travel faster. Assume you're using a civilian drive, that can only reach half of that.
Pick a 100 metre nickel-iron asteroid, density ~7g/cm3(density of iron).
Stuff some fuel and an FTL drive inside it. Accelerate at 60m/s (~6 gs) for 500 seconds, giving a final velocity of 30km/s.
Now FTL jump into the opposite vector from Earth, giving a meeting velocity of 60km/s.
Resultant yield 1.5 gigatons. Now instead of one, use ten of them. Or twenty. Iron is cheap.
And the worst part is that this is theoretically within the capability of a serious-face pirate community, let alone a merchant shipyard.
Nobody wants a war to the knife in this universe. Bad things happen.
Asteroid Impact Crater Calculator - calculates the effects of the impact of an object hitting the earth
Earth travels at roughly 30km/s.
We know that military drives in this universe can do at least 12-gravities acceleration, assuming they lack inertial compensators or some other technobabble to allow them travel faster. Assume you're using a civilian drive, that can only reach half of that.
Pick a 100 metre nickel-iron asteroid, density ~7g/cm3(density of iron).
Stuff some fuel and an FTL drive inside it. Accelerate at 60m/s (~6 gs) for 500 seconds, giving a final velocity of 30km/s.
Now FTL jump into the opposite vector from Earth, giving a meeting velocity of 60km/s.
Resultant yield 1.5 gigatons. Now instead of one, use ten of them. Or twenty. Iron is cheap.
And the worst part is that this is theoretically within the capability of a serious-face pirate community, let alone a merchant shipyard.
Nobody wants a war to the knife in this universe. Bad things happen.
Asteroid Impact Crater Calculator - calculates the effects of the impact of an object hitting the earth
And it's not just the Viscountess that's either deluded or insane. The fuck is wrong with the citizens of Chang Mu?
They surrendered. Their defenders surrendered. They could look up and see fusion warheads bloom in planetary orbit during the battle.
There's a squadron in orbit over their planet armed with railguns and fusion weapons, demanding tribute, and they are attempting to boobytrap the tribute shipments?
At best, they'd manage to kill the ship taking aboard the tribute, leaving it's sisters to exact retribution.
By the Rules of War that I recall, the Imperials would even be right to.
============================================================================================================================
As for Ranca's propensity for killing people?
Reinhard is commoner-born. He didn't grow up with the games of status and honor that nobility play with no real consequence for them, but consequences for others, even if he's come to accept that's how things happen. If nothing else, he has two prosthetic fingers to remind him of precisely how petty and vindictive nobility can be with their honor games.
I suspect that he would have little sympathy for noble scions who go picking honor duels as a way to bully or manipulate other people when they run into a Ranca and end up dead. Basically, I suspect Sandra Ranca Arril's attitude towards duels is a lot more like the PCs personal opinions than some of us are assuming.
If it weren't for the waste and political headaches......
============================================================================================================================
And speaking of the nobility, the current form of the Empire is not sustainable.
A situation where a captain feels comfortable challenging a commodore's orders in combat, even if he was of lower birth?
The Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars would have fitted the Viscountess for a noose, social rank or not.
With a possible peer on the border, sponsored by elements of the local hyperpower? Reform or die.
Just the imbalances are readymade fracture points for NASP intelligence to exploit.
Doesn't mean democracy, mind. But it does mean cutting down on a lot of the mustache-twirling nonsense and outright contra-survival foolishness.
Disputing legitimate orders by demanding a duel? Sponsoring privateers to prey on Imperial shipping as a political tactic? Avoiding taxation? Giving 25-year olds squadron command of heavy cruisers based on birth?
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- Location
- England
In fairness, she was an independent force merely working with us. We couldn't technically order her around since she wasn't in our command structure. And also in fairness, she was a very competent 25 year old.
But yes, it highlights the problems. The fact that this random young Ducal heir was able to buy out a squadron of brand new Heavy Cruisers, like a quarter of all those advanced models in existence, out from under the Imperial Navy's nose shows exactly why the Imperial House is forced to keep its battleships close to home, since it shows how such an absurd amount amount of power the Ducal Houses have.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
We also can't guarantee that we'll make another big haul like this, and I'd certainly not plan on it for a few turns. I feel like we need to focus on sustainability and also the fact that we're going to need to throw a bunch of Wealth at rebuilding our sector fleet.
Something I'm wondering, is how much of the prize money goes to the crews. I imagine it's a pretty pitiful amount, but still, with this amount of Wealth involved, that's going to give a nice bonus even to the lowest crewer. And they'll remember who led them to victory wealth.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
The main thing here is that we'd need to order it in the next year or so to actually get it then, just due to how long it'll take to get a slipway.
Yes. We're close to supporting a battle cruiser anyway. Before we're done we"ll have a private battlecruiser and the means to support it. Commissioning a custom ship isn't something we can afford.
To comment on the asteroid bombardment issue, that would not really help much compared to just using conventional weapons on a planet, even if FTL drives worked on objects that large.
A light cruiser already carries hundreds of torpedoes with yields in the tens of megatons range as an example and even light planetary defenses can put gigatons of firepower onto an easy target like an asteroid. Wiping out most settlements is easy though, you could do a grand tour with a dozen cruisers and depopulate an average world every week until you ran out of ammunition. Including travel times.
Edit: Starships survive in combat mostly due to their shields and heavy defensive fire. Almost every hit from a torpedo for example involves a detonation inside the shields, meaning that effectively the explosion is tens of kilometers from the hull even after scoring a 'direct hit'. Railguns are used because they are much harder to intercept even if they are less accurate, but tend to poke holes in the (very durable) hulls whilst the entire crew are wearing powered spacesuits.
A direct hull detonation with a fusion torpedo tends to kill a light ship or cripple a larger one though.
A light cruiser already carries hundreds of torpedoes with yields in the tens of megatons range as an example and even light planetary defenses can put gigatons of firepower onto an easy target like an asteroid. Wiping out most settlements is easy though, you could do a grand tour with a dozen cruisers and depopulate an average world every week until you ran out of ammunition. Including travel times.
Edit: Starships survive in combat mostly due to their shields and heavy defensive fire. Almost every hit from a torpedo for example involves a detonation inside the shields, meaning that effectively the explosion is tens of kilometers from the hull even after scoring a 'direct hit'. Railguns are used because they are much harder to intercept even if they are less accurate, but tend to poke holes in the (very durable) hulls whilst the entire crew are wearing powered spacesuits.
A direct hull detonation with a fusion torpedo tends to kill a light ship or cripple a larger one though.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
At least one of our Captains is about to buy a Share with this latest haul. That's kinda a huge deal. So yes, it's going to have an effect. I expect to get a shower of PC and Loyalty bonuses after we get back to Illam, with more to follow when the strategic turn rolls to an end.
- Location
- Somewhere in the stacks
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If it's like the Royal Navy, it is, per prize, 2/8 to each captain, 1/8 to the admiral commanding, 1/8th to be split between a ship's seniors officers, 1/8th to be split between junior and warrant officers, 1/8th between petty officers and other non-commissioned types, and 1/8th between the rest of the crew.
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- Location
- madison
or someone within the earth sphere lied to her. "yes, your horrid little empire has our tacit support, now go write a check you can't cash we'll be right behind you."
Hey, nobody said she wasn't talented.
But the fact that she blithely proposed killing seven billion citizens of a near-peer power suggested an aggressive ignorance of consequences or the belief that a Commodore who made it all the way from serfhood is enough of a chump that she could stick us with any blame arising.
Neither of which says anything for her experience or judgement in treating with people she doesn't outright control.
The sociopathy is a given, of course.
Which was another consideration; if you are giving command of WMDs to sociopaths, there is something seriously wrong in your navy.
EDIT
That's option C.
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If she was telling the truth, which I have no reason to doubt, either the faction that supported NASP prevented greater intervention or the faction that is supportive of the Imperium rose to prominence after NASP lost the war.
- Location
- England
This is the split.
There are two very scary options here. Either she came up with the plan herself, or she was acting on her father's orders and the nobility is even worse off. I'm not sure which I like less.
Satar
Xetares, Third Redeemer; World Drinker
- Location
- Sesh
Nah, if they're anything like Stellaris players they were like yeeeeeeesssss, doooooo iiiiiit~
Cause why not? When you have that much power it's all fun and games.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
The moderate, relatively center-left reforms Reinhard can make as Emperor are:
1. Reforming banking and debt inheritance laws to eliminate debt serfdom.
2. Do something to weaken the power of ducal houses, centralize power within the Imperium
3. Redestribute the wealth somehow because of how excessive, decadent and wasteful the lifestyle expenditures would have to be for anything beyond what we have now. That money can go towards uplifting the average citizen and creating a stronger Navy.
Relatively center left because it ends with Reinhard making progressive reforms. Eliminating debt serfdom is a very radical change within the Imperium. The entire system exists to make trillions live in relative poverty for the benefit of the thousands pf nobles who already have good enough genetic engineering to make them compete with the most elite of the trillions strong commoner and serf class. It is a backwards, unjust and inefficient system that isn't sustainable with peer powers.
trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
Regarding prize money and ship crews I actually just did some very rough calculations. After the Fafnir jumped out, you had one under crewed battlecruiser, thee heavy cruisers and a light (strike cruiser) in sight when you captured three battleships and two light cruisers.
In total you had about seventeen to twenty thousand crew on your ships.
About 90 Wealth was shared between them.
In modern day terms I think every crewman gets the equivalent of at least five million dollars in prize money. Just from that, let alone your planet looting beforehand.
In total you had about seventeen to twenty thousand crew on your ships.
About 90 Wealth was shared between them.
In modern day terms I think every crewman gets the equivalent of at least five million dollars in prize money. Just from that, let alone your planet looting beforehand.
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