Union of Independant Worlds IC Roleplaying Thread

[Cannonshop]

Kowloon system, high orbit, 5th Planet (uninhabited)...

"...surprised nobody colonized it, it should suffice though-active magnetosphere, active core, temperature's low and it's a mostly-methane atmo, but aside from those problems, it should work pretty well to model the effects."  Dr. Sissons looked at the rest of the team.  

"Planet WAS inhabited for a while." Admiral Pham countered, "the Republic Shipyard had a mining station down on the surface back before the Amaris war, there's been a few attempts at grubstakes over the centuries, but nobody's found a way to make it pay-the minerals available are cheaper to chase with singleships in the belt, and you can scoop the better carbon compounds without risking quakes, high winds, weather or blow-outs with a dome or burrow..." she folded her hands and floated in the cabin aircirc current, "which gives us some nice, sheilded structures down there for the instruments-we'll know if standard mil-spec EMP hardening works against the test-units...what's our cover for this again?"

"Scientific research into weather patterns." Commander Nguoc, the Intel officer for the test replied, "also testing mining equipment."

"Alright, deploy the 'rods' first-we need to see if the underground testing was accurate."  Sophie Cham's 'avatar' translated from her terminal.

Surface, Planet 5...

The demi-precentor had been surprised when the offer was made-a chance to resettle on a world, practically unsupervised, rather than having to 'ride the stake' after the conviction.  The site itself was relatively bare of useful...anything, and the various 'voluntarily relocated' internees had been dropped from the armored belly of a shuttle, with their supplies landing near to the building.

there were no guards here, there WERE, however, a number of machine shops, and the structures were definitely military-grade, possibly even upgraded.

It was a prison, of course-but the locks were on the inside of the doors, and the life-support was in good shape, even to the point of the green house having fresh vegetables and fruit-this obviously brought in before the convicts.

He knew-without a doubt, that there had to be a catch-he'd seen for himself the stakes being prepared-one for each of them....

a head-count last week showed most of the surviving senior crew, officers, and NCO ranks, including some minor ascended, had been delivery-dropped here after reciept of 'Ducal suspension of sentence'-not enough to found an actual COLONY, and a distinct lack of lower-enlisted to do the scutwork...

but the airlocks worked, and the computers worked, and there were even vehicles and, most important, communications equipment here.  The power-plant was in good shape and had been serviced, and the building had supplementary EM shielding on it-obviously a mistake made by their captors, since it would render inoperable most, if not all, current monitoring systems the Natives might have tried to use to keep track of their prisoners.

Food, shelter, comforts...and technology.

WHAT were they thinking?

[Cannonshop]

The first test was on the side of the planet away from the 'live testing' area stocked with enemy personnel.

Some of hte theories worked-the 'rods' were a bit of a disappointment-the lensing followed-roughly-the basic theoretical model devised by Dr. Edward Teller in the 1970's, but the yeild-translation, and the frequency output, was somewhat disappointing, even using the doping techniques.

"Clearly, we're going to have to actually use real nuclear weapons." Sophie commented, "the doped conventional warheads just aren't cutting it-not enough of the right output even using exotics, and that means we're going ot have build actual 'Teller Supers',  standard fission bombs just don't have the right amount of mass-to-energy conversion."

[Cannonshop]

Quillan's Bar, 2243 Reduction Pl. NE, Grantsville, Arluna, 2230 Hours local time...

Here's a joke; A Clanner from a certain large, avian-themed Clan walks into a local watering hole 15Km from the Falcon Diplomatic and Communications centre in the capital city of Grantsville on the UIW capital world of Arluna.

He's not a Merchant, so this Clanner isn't carrying cash-he's got his Clan-issue Work Cred card, and he's a recent arrival.  The place was full, ya gotta understand-they had a live band there and this band was popular with the locals, big-name popular, dig it?

The Band stops in the middle of the set, and people get up off their seats, drop their Bonds and Baht for the drinks they didn't finish, and head for the door, while the lights behind the bar go out and the barman pulls down the security barrier.  The look on our hypothetical Clan 'mechwarrior's face when everyone just...cleared out and the 'closed' sign activated was...priceless.  

Now, here's the joke: how do you clear a busy, rowdy, and popular place in under five minutes in the middle of a Saturday Night during a payday week?

Answer: Just get a Jade Falcon Warrior on a leave-chit to walk in the door.

They stopped coming down to the District after that, after all, when you can't even get a bar-fight, and nobody's going to take your Cred, you might as well just head back to the Clanner sector of town...

Oh, why? ah...yeah... see, most of the bar-business is either active duty off of Camp Puller and the Navy base, or reservists, or friends of reservists, or girlfriends, or boyfriends, dig it?  None of them are going to drink, dance, or hang out with people who threaten civilians to pick a duel-it was almost that bad before the 'trial', when it was just talk about how the budgies cut-and-ran at Kowloon without a fight.  Stomping assault 'mechs in downtown and threatening to light up civilians because the word got out..?  Yeah.  I hear their Merchies can close grocery stores by showing up in the parking lot.

[Fatebringer]

Dinh Diep Valley, 3091

A pleasant looking female courier in a very thin light blue suit braved the cold almost effortlessly to deliver a message. "Please advise the Archduchess that the Khan wishes to have a meeting with her before he departs. The invasion against this variation of the Lyran Alliance has begun. The Lyrans made their move to reaquire the Lyran Thumb and were refused Zellbrigen, athough by all accounts, the fights were by our terms, Civil. He leaves for Sudeten within the Week."

[Cannonshop]

Dinh Diep Valley, 3091

A pleasant looking female courier in a very thin light blue suit braved the cold almost effortlessly to deliver a message. "Please advise the Archduchess that the Khan wishes to have a meeting with her before he departs. The invasion against this variation of the Lyran Alliance has begun. The Lyrans made their move to reaquire the Lyran Thumb and were refused Zellbrigen, athough by all accounts, the fights were by our terms, Civil. He leaves for Sudeten within the Week."

"If your Khan has the time, Her Grace would be pleased to meet with him To-morrow, at the New Saigon reconstruction site-the anchors have been restored, and the guide-line is being locked in for the restored Tower."

[Fatebringer]

New Saigon Reconstruction Site

Security was tight on both sides. Members of the Raven delegation used their codices to identify themselves on top of the regular security. As per Clan culture, not even the Khan attempted to circumvent the security. However this time, there was another person to the delegation.

Keigan put his hand on the stranger's shoulder. "Archduchess, I would like to introduce you to Världherre Henrik Lindgren. He will be the Riksdag's representative for the future negotiations along with Star Colonel's Chand and Lutze. Much of the fleet will depart when I do as of course they will be needed in the upcoming war. Initially, we had hoped that the Lyrans would eventually stop their agression and negotiate with the Clans, but that has not happened and we can ill afford to wait any longer to respond. The Terrans have not been back and I would guess that soon the League Fleet will do like we are and address their own concerns. I do not know what kind of position this will leave the Kowloonese in, but I feel that no matter how busy the Lyrans are, the tight mailed fist will find a way to test your resolve."

[Cannonshop]

 In the distance, platform klaxons were sounding, and a bright string reached down from the sky, sheathed in re-entry plasma and blazing as it descended.   The Archduchess of the UIW looked like hell-eyes slightly bloodshot from too many long hours, her skin creased with too much anger, grief, and disappointments.  The Clan system selects for those that thrive on power, and Inner Sphere nobility also selects for it in slightly different ways-in this meeting room just off the project control room, the difference was stark-and to an outside observer, obvious.  At forty-three, Debbie Mac looked sixty, and while Khan Magnus stood tall and vigorous, her posture was one of a person bearing a considerable, invisible, yet crushing weight.  The 'mere slip of a girl' who'd built a nation from the wreckage of a succession of disasters by sheer force of will and personality, bore the marks of that task in premature aging in an era where a regular visit to a Gerontologist could have kept her looking thirty well into her seventies.

"Ah'm pleased t'meet you, Vahldherre Lindgren." her accent was back, that infamous 'hillfolk drawl' that, twenty years ago, made her something of a scandal on the floor of the Estates General and offended the sensibilities of most of the Lyran "old money" Nobility before independence.  Twenty years of speech therapies and oratory practice had not purged it completely, and Deb had finally just given up trying-the hours were too short to sacrifice on vanities.  She extended a hand to the visiting Riksdag man and it was callused and scarred in places only a gunman or a farmer would be callused.  There was nothing 'dainty' or refined in that gesture, her grip was almost masculine in its controlled force.  She looked to the Star Colonels, "Gentl'men." she inclined her head, and shook their hands as well.  She turned to the Khan, "Ah'm sorrah thet ah was not aval'ble Eahlieah, There has been considerable work t'do."

Outside, on the monitors, the parties in the room could see real-time as the anchor link-up was completed, and a massive pulse shook the island as the discharge to ground occurred.

Panels re-lit, and showed green.

The Tower was back-not yet operational, but the core of the structure was now in place.

"Khan Magnus, what is the end-game?" Debbie asked suddenly.  "Yo folks took on our side when nobody else would touch us, and y' goin' to Sudeten, but what happens in your world when you have won-when y' hae defeated the Falcons, an' the Lyrans, what does victory look like to you?"

[Fatebringer]

The Khan was quite relaxed as he nursed his thermos of hot coffee. "A Clan society is an ordered society. The warriors were created to protect the weak, literally. We are born for it. So when we see those that cannot accept order, we do what we were bred for. The Terrans are the oldest example of fighting the order. The warriors that rejected the vision of the founder came back there to sow the seeds of distrust and prepare the inner sphere for our impending arrival. I honestly think the reason they did not make a move sooner, is because they did not know that a schism in the clans like the Crusader-Warden split would cause our early return. Had this not happened, I feel strongly that they would have waited until the entire Inner Sphere was in ruins, claimed it all, then rebuilt with their secret lore before the Clans returned some seven hundred more years from now.

But as you can see, the Clans have an identity crisis. The doubt I see all around us in the Founders vision, the same vision that barely kept us from the type of wars with each other we are facing now. The second that the Terrans were no longer a threat it was back to the old fueds. Without the Wolves around, the Falcons pounced on the Star Adders. The Hellions tried to step in and they were targeted with an intense hatred that is reserved for the severely dishonorable. Things have never been as bleak as the day we heard the Falcon Khans reject the way of the Clans and turn mercenary for a House Lord.

At first, we had suspected that the Lyrans would be under the rule of the Falcons. That a new Clan led Lyran Allaince, or whatever they would call it, would bring the vision of the founder on a massive scale to the people of the Inner Sphere... but what has happened is quite the opposite.

I took this khanship, not to be the leader of the Clan, but to ensure a competent voice could organize the Ravens to the New Dominion's lifestyle. I suspect I will not be Khan for much longer, but my time and deeds will be remembered. If you want to know the future of the Clan, I whole-heartedly feel that you should be talking to my saKhan. Where I lead and people obey, she leads and people follow. With our people it's like that when a truly inspiring Kerensky comes to power. Had I the genes of the McKennas I suspect things would be different. Lynn, now there was a leader with vision. From day one she set her long term goals and drove us to greatness.

If you only knew how many times our great Clan had come to being absorbed... the renewed invasion changed everything. Lynn's vision allowed for us to capitalize on the others dependance on our ships for travel, we fought the mighty Terran Navy for the good of all the Clans, but we claimed the lion's share of the Isorla at the end of every battle further increasing our armada. Once we joined with the Rasalhague Dominion to form the New Dominion. We completed a magical triagle of people looking for an identity. The Rassies, the local spirit, the Bears, keepers of the land, and the Ravens, sentinals of the sky. We each filled a void that the other possessed and our agreement to stand together fulfilled a new dream.

Lynn once told me that had the Clans not stopped and turned on each other that she would have sacraficed our Clan if need be to batter down the orbital defenses on Terra to clear the way for the other Clans and reclaim the birthplace of humanity. But if somehow we managed to survive it and claim the mantle of the ilClan, that the first thing she would have done is to grand a universal pardon to everyone. Each Clan would be assigned a place in the Inner Sphere to ensure the acceptence of the the new Star League.

I will tell you, the plan I came up with was to push the Lyrans, harrass them, take their worlds. To weaken them and force them into a position where they would have to negotiate for peace. Once achieved, we would trade resources for the worlds we took and we would be neighbors again. A much less grande plan then my predecessor, however as I watched their actions I was disgusted by the lack of respect for our ways and I was not the only one. Winning thru attrition is not the way of the Clans and demanding the blood heritage of the unworthy just so to rob their enemies of their commanders. I was seriously torn at who to support, both the Adders and the Lyrans have shown a level of greed and avarice that goes well past gluttony into the obscene, but at least when the Adders did it, they did it with honor.

Once the Lyrans made it clear that once they dealt with the Adders and Hellions that they would turn on us, we knew what we had to do. That is why I go to Sudeten. The wealth of the Lyran Nation is plentiful with the Falcons bringing in new techonological advancements in weapons and communications, but they still rely on key worlds to keep their war machine going. We will not do as the old House Lords did. We swore to forsake the use of nuclear weapons. We will march on their worlds and turn their production into our gain the way nearly every successful general in the history of mankind has done. I feel that at this point Victory will only come if we can replace the current Leadership with one of ours much the way Lynn had planned for the entire Inner Sphere.

I feel should we succeed, then we will not be truly Clan anymore. To tell you the truth I wonder how much of what is the New Dominion now could be considered 'Clan.' We are stiving to be above what any one Clan is. We have made true alliances, the kind of manuever that pushed the clans to challenge each other and inspire greatness. I can tell you now that there were very few futures that the best Nova Cat seer could have envisioned without a Falcon and Wolf Clan. Now, we are nearly at that point. We will keep focusing on what we can control and investigate what we cannot for a new path. I guess that is the truest meaning of what it means to be Clan because at our deepest core, to be Clan is to be survivors. There are many stories in the rememberance about what it was like during the Exodus. Perhaps if I am no longer Khan and the silence in the homeworlds continue that I may try to be a Loremaster one day. We must always respect the past and use it to shape the future. Do you not agree?"

[Cannonshop]

Deb looked thoughtful.  "When I was seventeen, my father was a middle-class farmer and tax protester-his activities got me barred from consideration by every military academy in the Coventry province."  she paused, "By the time I was eighteen Ah had re-built a planetary government, negotiated with Two Clans and three foreign governments, Ah formed a government out of rag-tag disaster victims, in the poorest end of the former Lyran Commonwealth-It got me a seat advisin' Peter, the late Archon, Ah ended up in this position b'cause...well, because someone killed him-if not for that, we would like as not be on opposing sides now."

She sighed, "Ah should thank ye for doing me yet another favour-keeping the Lyrans too busy to want us back." she said, "When I worked for Pete, the Commonwealth was an enormous bundle of self-sabotaging interests, employing career officers whose job, near enough, was to look good in a uniform while doing very little, with Laws on the books that stripped their member worlds of the ability to defend themselves from mundane threats to feed a House Military incapable of meeting severe threats-incapable, because it was a system of keeping up appearances, rather than a system of national defense.  The thing that struck me then, was how the folks inside Mount Asgard always had grand plans with nebulous ends-nebulous, Khan, because they never quite could define what endstate they were actually after-leaving strategies half-completed and moves that should have been brilliant strokes as fatal weaknesses."

she pointed outside again, "our endstate, the definition of victory, as much as anything else, is to be strong enough to remain independent.  It is, given the area, a tough but achievable goal in the long-term.  Nicholas Kerensky noted that peace is, in the long-term, an impossible dream, but that violence can, under certain conditions, be controlled enough that it does not impinge overmuch on the lives of everyday people-for the most part.  In the isolation of the Clan Homeworlds, this meant ritualizing combat and conflict with a caste system and duelling practices...among a wider universe, experience shows that his theories become problematic-the Smoke Jaguars were unable to effectively hold what they took without resorting to atrocities, the Wolves were unable to remain unified, the Falcons have abandoned most of the values they claim to hold dear-did you know they threatened a civilian populace to get a duel...over what amounts to hurtful words-and I let Joshua go play with 'em, because the alternative was a fight that even if we WON, would have crippled the entire nation?"  She reached down, and sipped tea from a coffee cup, then continued, "I made a critical mistake in sixty-eight, I agreed to let them in, gave 'em the keys to the grid, trusted Brian's word-I was a child then."  she placed the cup back on its saucer, "I am a tetch older now...less dazzled by romantic notions or sweet words...and trust me, Brian spoke the sweetest line a girl could heah...so, Ah ask ye again, are y' planning to take the Lyrans to the mat, an' the Falcons with 'em, are ye planning t' jes 'punish' them an' gain a few border worlds, or are ye somewhere in-between?  I have scouts moving on The Enemy, th' Toastahs, th' 'not named', Ah need to know if ah can kick the football on 'em an' know that it ain't goin' a be a vain gesture lahk Somerset, Ah need to know thet the Lyrans ah gon' be too busy dealin' with you, to try an' take advantage when Ah have a couple Marine Divisions an' a big chunk of our fleet burning in on our mutual foe.  I intend to break the Enemy at Jardine-or at least show 'em we can hurt 'em real bad, but thet's a LONG haul from the Union, an' it ain' goin t'be a light touch, neithah-ah have t'balance risk, an' if th' risk is to put the Nation in danger for a futile gesture...Ah will not allow that.  AH am no cousin t' Alessandro Steinah, t' risk mah people's freedom on a guess, not when they ah surrounded inside and out by predators who want t' take a bite out of 'em."

She leaned back, "Soonah or latah, Th' Lyrans will want this territ'ry back, Latah works bettah for us then soonah does-as ovahloahds, they ah distinctly thud rate, but even a thud rate commandah kin win, if'n he has ovahwhe'ming nume'acle superioahty-they outman us a thousan' to one, an' they have, as y'pointed out, a 'pet Clan' t'give 'em a technological, if not quality, advantage, an' that pet clan has garrison inside my borders, an' theah people run ah HPG's."

[Cannonshop]

Some weeks after the Meeting in New Saigon...

"IF Ah sign this, th' Dominion'll have a shit-fit, Eddie."  Archduchess MacAulliffe said.

"Considering that Sophie's deployed with the Physics Package already, if they hear about it second hand, That's going to be worse." Eddie Vanh looked uncomfortable in a suit-and-tie combination.

"Th' Task Force is under blackout?" she asked.

"Total blackout." Eddie said, "Routes were charted, but the info's been purged, even if they crack Navy Department security, they're not going to learn-from us, anyway, where the Task Force is going, nor the route they're using to get there-hell, in the runup, all the initial course info was hand-delivered, so I don't think the Falcons know, even if they were tapping our official comms, more than what their guys on the ground could see, and the TF personnel either were kept in the dark prior to departure, or actively worked on planning the operation-it's as good a security as you can get, minus having someone inside the enemy's organization actively  feeding them false intel."

"And?" she pressed.

"And I don't know, Your Grace.  Part of the Plan is that I don't know more than I have to-that is, that the info was kept dispersed and compartmentalized, and that the only person with ALL the info, is Kelli Fitz-and she left with the Task Force to oversee intel and counterintel operations en-route, in the process making it so that nobody's vulnerable to kidnapping or being turned who actually can flip useful information to the enemy..." Eddie said with a shrug.

"Pol?" Debbie turned to the leader of the UIW's Force Recon branch, Colonel Pol Nguyen, who also shrugged.  "I designed some of the failsafes specifically so that if, god help me, I got pinched, they'd only know we sent in a Force Recon unit, with Elite non-conventional operatives, as part of the mission-Major Trung had operational planning, but if they get him, it's 'cause they GOT the Task Force."

"Timeframe?" Deb asked.

"a few months." Pol said, "I know they've drawn additional transport ships-Admiral?"

Admiral Giao Pham nodded, "Indeed.  Sufficient fuel for six months to a year running dark-that is, Smuggler's runs in the Outies.  Ammunition and spares for protracted operations at high intensity, food and consumables for up to eighteen months in the Deep Black where a charge-sail won't work, and enough comms gear that if they reach the "Go" point, they can, in fact, call home using Black Boxes in a relay string.  Distance says they probably won't need all that, but if someone taps the Datanets, they'll see the additional stores as being for a sustained mission-possibly as far as NIOPS or even the former CapCon-the emphasis on fuel and food might tell someone sweeping data that we're running another variant on War Plan Black-which fits with the ships and personnel being deployed, along with the additional shippage.  If I were reading the logistics sheets on it, I'd think we were backtracing the Toasters' route through the Free Worlds, which is where I'd put the ambush if I knew it, and knew the rough timetable to target."

"Let's hope the Blakies aren't as smart as you are." Deb said, "Our boys are out there without support until they call in..."

"What about Duchess Ngo?" Pham asked, to Eddie Vanh's nod.

"Rear Admiral Ngo is to continue preparing the Vin Drin Lap and her task-force for seek-and-destroy operations." Deb said, "Off our Coreward border-I want that task force making all kinds of noise about gearing up to chase down the rest of that Blakist task-force if, and when, it pops up again...and I want that public, Eddie, use the contact list Kelli left you to make sure that while I'm denying it to the press, they're reading it as clumsy disinformation meant to reassure the neighbours that we're not about to start lashing out at everyone around us for letting the Toasters through."

"Ties to the existing cover stories regarding the actual Task force, then?" Eddie Vanh asked.

"Yes." Debra said, "If the Falcons, Adders, and Free Worlders think we're probing out in the deep back-beyond for enemy sign, and that we've put an obsessive with that infamous Kowloonese Grudge in charge of it, the Toasters are likely to believe that's where we're looking for them too-it fits with the Logistics records Pham's got on the Navy's net, and it's a reasonably plausible assumption."