Turn 53 - Autumn 2187/3037
Confederated Forces:
[] Project Cerulean Goddess:active
Time: 2 turns, Chance of success: 70%
Roll 1 of 2, Roll 1d100: 57 - Success
Roll 2 of 2, Roll 1d100: 14+15 = 29 - Failure
Combined: 43 - Success
Number of warships in production Roll (1d6+4): 7
As the OCP was still young and its institutions, there were still a few teething problems, and one of them happened to be funding, which was a mess. While plans were made to purchase seven WarShips, one Belisarius, four Petan and two Haing, the funding problems did present a problem.
However, the production program did go ahead, the funding eventually going to get through, once the teething problems of the Confederated Forces were fully funded.
Result: Production of 7 WarShips over the next 4 turns, Reduction of time needed to develop new WarShips by 1 turn
[] Operation Doolittle: - 9 votes active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 65%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 39+15 = 54 - Success (All military actions)
The Powers that be of the WCDC and now the OCP had wished to strike back at Comstar for their attack on Circinus for a while not, but knew that they had to make sure it happened in a more stable political climate, after the formation of the OCP and finally the consolidation of the Confederated Forces. That did not mean that the planners in the Rocky Mountain Arcology were idle.
Plans were drawn up to launch a Dolittle Raid out towards the Inner Sphere, either to visit the local Luyten 68-28 or Ross 248, two systems well-known from their equivalents in the Three Systems neighborhood. A heavy Raiding force would launch towards either of these systems, maybe even both of them, and launch an attack on the mothballed WarShips there and either disable them, destroy them, or even steal them.
Already, six Walsingham class spacecraft had been sent out to both systems to scout them out and recover data on the systems, while Task Force Dolittle was prepared to launch by the end of Autumn. Task Force Dolittle was made up of the Belisarius, as well as Enthat, the former USS Endeavour and the former PLAN Nanchang, a Petan and Haing respectively, as well as two Lerbtur class Mobile FOBs, and 78 Advanced Combat Craft, made up of 40 Sleipnir, 15 Im-umi, and 22 Drashy and Ishtar each.
The Drashy and Ishtar were large enough that they could be equipped with additional quantum computing systems and could then force a docking with a mothballed WarShip, before their Heim-Feynman Event Generators were synchronized for the larger mass of the WarShip in question for long enough to enter The Everchanging Black for a jump into interstellar space, while Espatier Forces would board take the Warship in question.
If everything went well in the first selected system, plans were made to strike the other system as well, depriving Comstar its entire WarShip fleet, while destroying any additional JumpShips and DropShips of military origin.
active for 3 more turns
WCDC Survey Office:
[] Operation Prometheus: active
Time: 6 turns, Chance of success: 45%
Roll 1 of 6, Roll 1d100: 1 - Crit Failure
Roll 2 of 6, Roll 1d100: 58 - Success
Roll 3 of 6, Roll 1d100: 60 - Success
Roll 4 of 6, Roll 1d100: 57 - Success
Roll 5 of 6, Roll 1d100: 74 - Success
Contact with the Belters of Terra was surprisingly open, and when asked, they did confess the crew of the Don't Mind Me was different from most of the people they met had to deal with from outside their culture(s). Their adherence to, by now a millennium old, cultures of their original home nations was regarded as 'backwards' by many visitors from the outside, considering that they were a largely free, capitalistic society adhering to basic sophont rights that had more in common with the OCP than any of the Inner Sphere nations.
During closer contact, the crew of the Don't Mind Me could gather a lot of information about the Belters, and some of the more adventurous members noted they wished to accompany the JumpShip on the way back to the OCP, considering that the OCP had so much in common with their own society.
Even so, more and more data was gathered on Terra and its environs, where some Belters were willing to outright sell information to the crew of the Don't Mind Me.
active for 1 more turn
[] Operation Ma Bell II: active
Time: 2 turns, Chance of success: 55%
Roll 1 of 2, Roll 1d100: 75 - Success
Roll 2 of 2, Roll 1d100: 64 - Success
Combined: 69 - Success
Breakup Chance Increased by Roll 1d10: 2
Operation Ma Bell continued and was phased out into its own independent operation, which was likely to continue until Comstar was either falling apart from internal strife or from external pressure of the Inner Sphere Nations.
While there were a few additional fixed bases equipped with modified ERS-HPGs, two Walsingham class JumpShips and a few older long range SpaceCraft were equipped with mobile versions of the ERS-HPG to extend the area from which messages could be inserted into the Comstar HPG network. Indeed, 'Guy Fawkes' increased 'his' activity, inserting more holo messages, Comstar news casts generated by AIs to spread false information, while having the correct signatures, as well as simple junk messages sorely designed to clog up Comstar traffic.
As such, internal pressure slowly rose within Comstar.
Result: Operation Ma Bell turns into a permanent background operation, taking no turns, Increased Internal strife for Comstar, Chance for breakup increased by 5%
Deep Space Signal Intelligence Network
[] Network Extension: ctive
Time: 2 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 2, Roll 1d100: 89 - Success
Roll 2 of 2, Roll 1d100: 94 - Success
Combined: 91 - Success
Finally, it was possible to locate the Niops System, a dying star orbited by several habited planets. Surprisingly, Niops was home to a technologically advanced nation of three worlds, even though the government appeared to be authoritarian. Long range signal intelligence showed they apparently had turned scientific advancement into a sort of religion, the 'Master Purpose', which in turn had led to them making a few curious advancements.
Together with the discovery of New St. Andrews, the network was extended further, linking a considerable number of systems outside of the known star nations in the anti-spinward periphery.
Network extension into New St. Andrews and Niops
OCP Diplomatic Corps:
[] Invite Others III: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 35%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 6+40 = 46 - Failure (Diplomatic Relations)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 94+40 = 134 - Crit Success
Roll 3 of 4, Roll 1d100: 40+40 = 80 - Success
Roll 4 of 4, Roll 1d100: 13+40 = 53 - Failure
Combined: 78 - Success
After long deliberations, the Council of Tribes finally reached the decision that membership in the OCP would be the best option for Pandemonium in the current situation, given that the OCP had largely unwittingly pulled the eye of some polities in the Inner Sphere, and the ire of one currently important part. Here, the Council of Tribes did bring their grievances into the front, noting for the most part the Inner Sphere had alone left them alone and that only now the OCP was endangering them.
And out of a bunch of potentially dangerous futures, the OCP was the least bad. They had already helped Pandemonium out with their technological development and was possibly helping them with further terraforming their world. However, these new technologies and the terraforming were, in the view of some tribes, a danger to their way of life, which did lead to one or two local armed uprisings of smaller tribes against larger ones that had to be put down.
Still, the Council of Tribes did sign the Articles of Confederation by the end of Autumn.
Reward: Pandemonium joins the WCDC as a member
[] Charm Offensive IV: - 5 votes
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 58 - Success
Following the remodeling of the Diplomatic Corps, it was decided to begin another charm offensive and good will tour of the ambassadors, mostly to show the neighbors, that while the OCP was a new, if loosely bound, nation state, they were still bound to the same treaties and ideals as the WCDC.
active for 3 more turns
OCP Trade Organization:
[] Light Warship: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 63+10+10+10+10 = 103 - Artificial Crit (Stronger Economy, Economic Ties, Military-Industrial Complex, Interstellar Communication Network)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 19+10+10+10+10 = 59 - Success
Roll 3 of 4, Roll 1d100: 41+10+10+10+10 = 81 - Success
Within several of the dock yards, the first prototypes of the entries for the Light WarShip project began to take shape and it was expected they would be presented to the Confederated Forces and the OCPTO by mid Winter.
Other designs did however only exist as CAD files and in some obscure cases actual paper blue prints. Of these, none were expected to be selected, as the military was more interested in actually testing existing hardware, rather than simulating virtual hardware.
active for 1 more turn
[] Industrial Export: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 50+10 = 60 - Success (External Trade)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 29+10 = 39 - Failure
Initially the work on setting up trade agreements with the ANZAC Union had appeared good, but by mid Autumn the local companies of both Woomera or Ohakune began to massively protest against the import of industrial goods from the OCP. They stated that those goods would push the native companies into bankruptcy, massively worsen the situation on the planetary job markets and be to the detriment of the ANZAC Union.
Ambassador McGrady did note in a memo to the Diplomatic Corps that he considered it ironic that the OCP was accused of what the WCDC had expected the Inner Sphere to do to them, stating that he believed it might be a good idea for OCP companies to attempt to launch joint ventures with the local companies to alleviate their fears.
active for 2 more turns
OCP Office for Science and Development:
[] Plasma Containment Research: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 45%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 31+10+10 = 51 - Failure (Research Center Sol, Interstellar Communication Network)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 28+10+10 = 48 - Failure
Roll 3 of 4, Roll 1d100: 17+10+10 = 37 - Failure
Roll 4 of 4, Roll 1d100: 12+10+10 = 32 - Failure
Combined: 42 - Failure
The Plasma Containment Research slowly came to a close as the institutions and teams working on the problem finally admitted they simply didn't know any more solutions to the problems presented by the alien plasma technology. Still, there had at least been a minor positive aspect from the project, as the extensive modeling had been able to produce a 2 percent increase in the efficiency of existing fusion reactors, though that was largely a simple firmware upgrade for the magnetic confinement systems.
Result: Failure of Plasma Containment Research, Cooldown of 4 turns
[] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 45%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 99+10+10 = 119 - Crit Success (Research Center Sol, Interstellar Communication Network)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 71+10+10 = 91 - Success
The Hyperwave Mesh Networking Group meanwhile began with the work on designing and implementing the new networking protocols for the local hyperwave mesh network, largely using the mesh networking protocols and technologies of Smart Dust and re-implementing them for the larger and more complex Hyperwave Transceiver on a low layer. On higher layers of the new mesh network, the Group decided they would implement the Ansible Packet Protocol, making it much easier for the Mesh network to plug into the Ansible Network, linking local with interstellar communication. Even outside of this, the implementation made sense, as the Hyperwave Network would certainly appeared similar to the network topography of the Ansible Network of planetary internets.
active for 2 more turns
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OCP Internal Events:
Finally the protests in the United Principalties of Jerat came to a stop, having lost more and more supporters, as other things became more important. Only a hard core of protesters remained, but even they eventually gave up by the end of Autumn. As a result the approval ratings of the local government of the United Principalties rose again, after having tanked during the protests.
On Neu Berlin, even more large scale deposits of Germanium were discovered, leading to a new 'gold rush' to the planet, as additional mining companies set up shop, preparing to extract even more Germanium.
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Deep Space Signal Intelligence Network Report:
Marian Hegemony:
The Marian Hegemony appears to pull a number of jumpships from internal trade routes towards their rimward border, apparently preparing for some sort of military operation.
Lothian League:
Illyrian Palatinate:
In a rare moment of cooperation between our two closer neighbors, both the Lothian League and Illyrian Palatinate sign a Defensice Pact to defend against the potential aggression of the Marian Hegemony. After signing this agreement, both ask the OCP for a similar agreement, to draw in OCP forces for their defense against the Marian Hegemony.
Inner Sphere:
Lyran Commonwealth:
While it takes a while, the No Pirate Life For Me is able to send out the entirety of the Helm Datacore back to the OCP. To ensure that the data is transmitted correctly, the entirety of the data core is sent four times, each with various hashes, from MD8 to SHA-9. With a little time, it is possible to begin decrypting the Datacore.
During a few initial tests, it is discovered the entirety of the file system of the data core has been damaged, as well as several potentially important sectors of the core, causing the experts to expect that only 50 to 90 percent of the files can be recovered.
Federated Suns:
On New Avalon, the agents are able to infiltrate the NAIS with Smart Dust and several insect shaped micro drones and discover several interesting projects.
For one, the NIAS is working on decoding their own copy of the Helm Datacore, but additionally they appear to work on projects to create white room copies of OCP technology. These Projects range from simple plastic FDM 3D printers and even laser sintering printers, over helical railguns and compact multi-core CPUs, to a version of MIL-STD-102343 and better laser weaponry. Two projects of these projects exist in what appear as pre-production stages.
One is the Sapper Powerassisted Battle Armor, an almost direct copy of the US Armies M-24 Murphy Powerassisted Battle Armor. As such, the armor was highly resistant against most conventional assault rifles and even grenades and is expected to be deployed in an anti-mech role in urban environments, as well as by special forces.
The other project was the development of a new Battlemech that looked suspiciously like the Fusilier, named 'Bushwacker' by the NAIS staff. While many systems were Inner Sphere standard technology, the design team obviously had made of use information gathered either at Tharkad or Circinus to develop their own fusion reactor-superconducting battery combination, which was more compact than a purely fusion powered design for the same power output.
Based on this information, both the Sapper and the Bushwacker would begin production within the next six months.
Draconis Combine:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Free Worlds League:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Dutchy of Andurien:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Comstar:
Chance of Comstar Shism: 24%, Roll 1d100: 34 - No Shism
There is another assassination attempt on Primus Waterly, though this time, she is lightly injured, loosing one eye to the wannabe assassin. This appears to fully send her into a full on paranoid craze, used by Focht and the remaining moderates of the First Circuit to attempt and more gracefully remove Waterly from the position as Primus. This however leads to a more overt use of ROM agents to suppress those moderates and Focht is removed as Preceptor ROM and put under house arrest.
The suppression of dissidents within Comstar continues and there are a few reported instances of HPG crews killing their ROM minder and taking their HPG fully off the network.
Expansion and Suggestions:
The DSSI Network slowly continues to expand into the Inner Sphere.
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Random Event - Nothing happens
