Re: Pfhor Crisis
Posted: 2011-08-04 12:20am
[Plants mod hat firmly upon cranium]
Here we go, ladies and gentlemen...
These are the "bad consequences" of Pollux spending 12.5% of his nation's GDP on military expansion during a year when he was de facto absent from the game.
Imperial Palace
Pfhor Prime
August 3400
"Your Majesty, we abase ourselves!" The pair of High Imperial Councillors had seldom feared for their lives so terribly.
"As well you should. Foundrymaster, why did you fail so gravely in your certification of these factories? Their products are inferior in all ways- premature shell detonations, armor plate that shatters at the first touch of inclement weather, astigmatic rangefinders. Your contracts with this Nar consortium- how could you have been so foolish, and why did it take an Inquisition investigation into the thousands of casualties suffered by our Marines in training accidents to reveal their slipshod, inferior production methods? This is a scandal!"
"If there is anything I can do, Your Majesty..."
"Yes. There is." The Emperor nodded firmly. He gestured slightly with his hand, bedecked in some of the most magnificent jeweled metalwork in the history of the Pfhor race.
The first shock bolt from an Imperial Guardsman's hold-out blaster took the High Imperial Foundrymaster over the kidney-equivalents. The councillor collapsed in a screaming heap, wailing and howling as though a white-hot iron bar had been driven into his bowels.
The Guardsman closed in, firing carefully aimed pistol shots. Soon the councillor's suffering was too great even for screams, as the agony-inducing shock bolts abused the Foundrymaster's nerve plexi and vital organs. The emperor murmured quietly.
"How often we forget that the difference between 'stun' and 'kill' is only a matter of degree... Chancellor!" The other minister, shivering and clutching at himself in anticipation of the first of the long string of shock-bolts it would take to make an end of him, suddenly leaped into a posture of courtly respect.
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
"Come with me to the sixth audience chamber."
It was Nar consortiums and factories which had failed the Empire in the effort to forge new weapons of power, failed to better equip the Imperial Marines. Fully half the production runs of these weapons had to be scrapped as intolerably low-quality, and the factories retooled under new management, before the rearmament campaign could proceed. This was due to the most shameless folly, the shoddiest quality control, that the Empire's high-tech manufacturing sector had seen in years. So eager were the greedy Nar to acquire the production contracts and underbid their Pfhor economic rivals that they completely ignored the difficulties of producing such high-quality weapons in the millions needed to outfit the Marine legions.
And so it was that the Emperor decreed the penalty to be inflicted upon the slinking, scheming, inferior race of Nar.
Like a command from heaven, the great monarch commanded that in punishment, the Nar corporatists and merchant princes responsible would be punished not only by their own excruciating deaths at the hands of the inquisition, but by the extermination of their family lines to the eighth degree. All blood relatives of the guilty parties with even one half of one percent cosanguinity were to be summarily executed for this treachery against the state.
Naturally, this threw the tightly interlinked leadership of the Nar subject-species into disarray. There was... some resistance.
Light Battleship Windstorm
Battle Group II, Narsky
August 3400
The Nar captain got wind of the impending massacre through a back-channel message from a desperate functionary in the Naval Transport organization, one who had been ordered to arrange the movement of a wealth of Imperial troops to Narsky. He could guess what was coming... and he was the third cousin of a high-ranking industrialist on the homeworld. Fortunately, he had his plans laid in.
"Captain, sir!" The naval ratings in the main computer room braced to attention.
He'd earned this rank, one of the most trusted and senior positions held by a member of his species. He'd had to work five times as hard as a Pfhor officer... and he'd made his Pfhor subordinates respect him. On some level, he regretted betraying that trust as he produced a sidearm and put a bullet through the head of the armed guard by the bulkhead. The duty officer spun around, clawing for his own pistol with a thick, stubby, three-fingered hand. Not fast enough, not nearly fast enough, to out-draw a being with gun in hand.
"Everyone out! OUT!"
The Pfhor naval ratings, not knowing what was happening and startled back to reflex by the shootings, scrambled to obey their gun-waving captain. He saw the last of them out of the room... then planted the welding charges on the entryway and began uploading the programs that would allow him to fight the ship independently from this location. The highly illegal codes, which shouldn't even exist... and even so, worked only because of backdoors installed into the battleship by the Pfhor overlords' own inquisition.
If they wanted to take him down for the crime of being vaguely related to some factory manager, he'd take a lot of them with him.
Imperial Palace
Pfhor Prime
September 3400
The Emperor tapped his fingers. "A shame about the battleship- the Navy should never have trusted him..."
"In mitigation, Your Majesty, the planetary defense guns and fleet flagship brought a quick end to the mutiny. Windstorm was destroyed before it could do much damage to the fleet, and the shipyards expect to have everything else back in operation within ninety days."
"Commend them. The riots on Narsky?"
"Under control, now that the second wave of ground troops are in. Casualties... estimated at five million or so Nar, just under two hundred thousand of our troops, nothing that can't be made good. Most of the planet was never touched- we only had to use orbital fire against one urban cluster and a few remote wilderness areas."
"Good. But I'm not pleased about the industrial dislocation. That must be set to rights."
"As you will, Your Majesty, although..."
"Speak."
"Even now that we're replacing the executed managers and leadership... it will be some time before the factories of Narsky and the surrounding systems are back to working order."
"Understood. It was to be expected, and I blame no one so long as the work of reorganization proceeds smoothly. I'd rather have loyal beings working at two thirds capacity than traitors doing their utmost."
"Words of wisdom, Your Majesty."
Results for Pfhor economy in 3400:
Half the expected upgrade of the Pfhor Marine units to x2 kit multiplier has to be canceled, as the weapons (and factories to produce them) turn out to be grossly substandard. Only 100 million Marines are boosted to the x2 kit multiplier value.
Punitive executions among the responsible industrialists provoked a number of small scale mutinies. The Pfhor lose one 310-point light battleship from Battle Group II, the one stationed at Narsky.
Ground troop losses in suppressing the revolt were negligible compared to the scale of the Pfhor military, and need not be taken into account.
In addition, the executions badly disrupted the economy of the Principality of Narsky, where they took place. The GDP of the sector is temporarily reduced from 6000$ to 5000$, lowering the overall Pfhor GDP to 65000$ for the year 3401 and having a corresponding impact on the 3401 military budget.
Overall, Pollux would be well advised to consult with the mods in future before randomly allowing himself military production well in excess of the guideline numbers.
Here we go, ladies and gentlemen...
These are the "bad consequences" of Pollux spending 12.5% of his nation's GDP on military expansion during a year when he was de facto absent from the game.
Imperial Palace
Pfhor Prime
August 3400
"Your Majesty, we abase ourselves!" The pair of High Imperial Councillors had seldom feared for their lives so terribly.
"As well you should. Foundrymaster, why did you fail so gravely in your certification of these factories? Their products are inferior in all ways- premature shell detonations, armor plate that shatters at the first touch of inclement weather, astigmatic rangefinders. Your contracts with this Nar consortium- how could you have been so foolish, and why did it take an Inquisition investigation into the thousands of casualties suffered by our Marines in training accidents to reveal their slipshod, inferior production methods? This is a scandal!"
"If there is anything I can do, Your Majesty..."
"Yes. There is." The Emperor nodded firmly. He gestured slightly with his hand, bedecked in some of the most magnificent jeweled metalwork in the history of the Pfhor race.
The first shock bolt from an Imperial Guardsman's hold-out blaster took the High Imperial Foundrymaster over the kidney-equivalents. The councillor collapsed in a screaming heap, wailing and howling as though a white-hot iron bar had been driven into his bowels.
The Guardsman closed in, firing carefully aimed pistol shots. Soon the councillor's suffering was too great even for screams, as the agony-inducing shock bolts abused the Foundrymaster's nerve plexi and vital organs. The emperor murmured quietly.
"How often we forget that the difference between 'stun' and 'kill' is only a matter of degree... Chancellor!" The other minister, shivering and clutching at himself in anticipation of the first of the long string of shock-bolts it would take to make an end of him, suddenly leaped into a posture of courtly respect.
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
"Come with me to the sixth audience chamber."
It was Nar consortiums and factories which had failed the Empire in the effort to forge new weapons of power, failed to better equip the Imperial Marines. Fully half the production runs of these weapons had to be scrapped as intolerably low-quality, and the factories retooled under new management, before the rearmament campaign could proceed. This was due to the most shameless folly, the shoddiest quality control, that the Empire's high-tech manufacturing sector had seen in years. So eager were the greedy Nar to acquire the production contracts and underbid their Pfhor economic rivals that they completely ignored the difficulties of producing such high-quality weapons in the millions needed to outfit the Marine legions.
And so it was that the Emperor decreed the penalty to be inflicted upon the slinking, scheming, inferior race of Nar.
Like a command from heaven, the great monarch commanded that in punishment, the Nar corporatists and merchant princes responsible would be punished not only by their own excruciating deaths at the hands of the inquisition, but by the extermination of their family lines to the eighth degree. All blood relatives of the guilty parties with even one half of one percent cosanguinity were to be summarily executed for this treachery against the state.
Naturally, this threw the tightly interlinked leadership of the Nar subject-species into disarray. There was... some resistance.
Light Battleship Windstorm
Battle Group II, Narsky
August 3400
The Nar captain got wind of the impending massacre through a back-channel message from a desperate functionary in the Naval Transport organization, one who had been ordered to arrange the movement of a wealth of Imperial troops to Narsky. He could guess what was coming... and he was the third cousin of a high-ranking industrialist on the homeworld. Fortunately, he had his plans laid in.
"Captain, sir!" The naval ratings in the main computer room braced to attention.
He'd earned this rank, one of the most trusted and senior positions held by a member of his species. He'd had to work five times as hard as a Pfhor officer... and he'd made his Pfhor subordinates respect him. On some level, he regretted betraying that trust as he produced a sidearm and put a bullet through the head of the armed guard by the bulkhead. The duty officer spun around, clawing for his own pistol with a thick, stubby, three-fingered hand. Not fast enough, not nearly fast enough, to out-draw a being with gun in hand.
"Everyone out! OUT!"
The Pfhor naval ratings, not knowing what was happening and startled back to reflex by the shootings, scrambled to obey their gun-waving captain. He saw the last of them out of the room... then planted the welding charges on the entryway and began uploading the programs that would allow him to fight the ship independently from this location. The highly illegal codes, which shouldn't even exist... and even so, worked only because of backdoors installed into the battleship by the Pfhor overlords' own inquisition.
If they wanted to take him down for the crime of being vaguely related to some factory manager, he'd take a lot of them with him.
Imperial Palace
Pfhor Prime
September 3400
The Emperor tapped his fingers. "A shame about the battleship- the Navy should never have trusted him..."
"In mitigation, Your Majesty, the planetary defense guns and fleet flagship brought a quick end to the mutiny. Windstorm was destroyed before it could do much damage to the fleet, and the shipyards expect to have everything else back in operation within ninety days."
"Commend them. The riots on Narsky?"
"Under control, now that the second wave of ground troops are in. Casualties... estimated at five million or so Nar, just under two hundred thousand of our troops, nothing that can't be made good. Most of the planet was never touched- we only had to use orbital fire against one urban cluster and a few remote wilderness areas."
"Good. But I'm not pleased about the industrial dislocation. That must be set to rights."
"As you will, Your Majesty, although..."
"Speak."
"Even now that we're replacing the executed managers and leadership... it will be some time before the factories of Narsky and the surrounding systems are back to working order."
"Understood. It was to be expected, and I blame no one so long as the work of reorganization proceeds smoothly. I'd rather have loyal beings working at two thirds capacity than traitors doing their utmost."
"Words of wisdom, Your Majesty."
Results for Pfhor economy in 3400:
Half the expected upgrade of the Pfhor Marine units to x2 kit multiplier has to be canceled, as the weapons (and factories to produce them) turn out to be grossly substandard. Only 100 million Marines are boosted to the x2 kit multiplier value.
Punitive executions among the responsible industrialists provoked a number of small scale mutinies. The Pfhor lose one 310-point light battleship from Battle Group II, the one stationed at Narsky.
Ground troop losses in suppressing the revolt were negligible compared to the scale of the Pfhor military, and need not be taken into account.
In addition, the executions badly disrupted the economy of the Principality of Narsky, where they took place. The GDP of the sector is temporarily reduced from 6000$ to 5000$, lowering the overall Pfhor GDP to 65000$ for the year 3401 and having a corresponding impact on the 3401 military budget.
Overall, Pollux would be well advised to consult with the mods in future before randomly allowing himself military production well in excess of the guideline numbers.