VBAM 2e: The Fall of the Margravate

[BroAdso]

Seven months ago, the last vestiges of legitimate authority on the worlds of Creek, Archer, and Falmouth collapsed. The riots lasted for weeks, and the planetary governments on the outlying worlds of the Tri-Planets Margravate Authority - usually called the TPA, the Authority, or the Mark - started replacing captains on the central government's ships.

Within weeks, a few worlds - the outlying but prosperous colonies of New Luskana, Erasmus, and Impashi - had formally declared their allegiance to the galactic powers they had always been flirting with. Weeks after that, it was clear the Mark's remains would be a new jockeying ground. The three powers have never before had a testing ground in common, much less one as rich in promise as the former worlds of the Margravate Authority.

But questions remain. Who or what caused the Mark's collapse? Can the legitimate authorities of the Margravate reassert themselves and fight for their independence? What rich treasures await in the worlds of the Mark for the galaxy's outlying powers? Can the three outlying powers avert an outright war while still claiming the Mark for themselves?

See the first turn below!

[mwaschak]

Fun read. Thank you!

[Takhisis]

I will be following this with interest

[japridemor]

Good read. We need more fiction and campaign write-ups. Thanks for posting.

[wminsing]

Awesome! The 'Hylian Confederation' sounds like the easiest to get into as a protagonist power, but they all sound cool. Can't wait to see how this develops!

-Will

[BroAdso]

So, that's one vote for the Hylian Confederation.

Any other votes before we get started and I post a turn from one of these fine folks perspectives?

Some ships while we wait to give you an even better feel for each of the three factions.

SampleShipsFallofMargaravate.pdf

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[Tyrel Lohr]

I like the asymmetrical design of those Hylian ships! Pretty cool! But at the same time that Myasrissan superdreadnought looks nice and offers some pretty different campaign choices given just how expensive they are.

I'll throw my vote in for the Hylians!

[BroAdso]

Your job is to advise Commodore Hoggel on what he should do each month, you few and loyal VBAM forum posters. Your advice will determine our movement, diplomatic, build, and update orders. All battles during the month will be illustrated with ships (like the ones in my above post) and commanded by the "field captains" (aka me).

My goal will be to post a new month each 5-10 days. I'll be playing for the other two Empires in the meantime (the Rivan Union and the Myarissan Satrapy).

The following rules are in effect:
4.1 : Wartime Economies
4.7 : Biosphere
4.16 : Crash Production
4.20 : Ordnance Packages
4.24 : Jump Lane Improvement
4.25 : Random Events
4.29 : Annual Morale Shifts

Remember in your advice to keep in mind the primary and secondary missions of the Confederation at the moment:

Primary Missions:
Trade: The huge corporations which have arisen among the member planets demand new markets and new sources of products, so to keep them happy, score VP by placing trade fleets from in as many systems as possible.

Keep The Peace: The last thing the Commodore or the Member Worlds want is to get sucked into a resource-grubbing interstellar war. Score VP if a turn passes without the Tension meter ticking up.

Minor Missions
Negotiate: The Falmouth system seems ever closer to religious war. The Confederation has ordered Commodore Hoggel to send a diplomatic corps to avert a civil war which could destabilize the whole region by turn 3005.7.

Union Trouble: The locals on Orestes haven’t taken the buyout of their mines by the Tyrane Corporation well. Hoggel must decide whether to deploy strikebreaker ground troops or devote 5 EP to compensate the unions.

This gives us a map of what Commodore Hoggel knows about the layout of the Margravate:

MargravateSystemsTurn3005.1.pdf

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These are your initial forces, their disposition, and the current financial situation of the Confederation authorities in the region. (Typo: the income for Orestes should be 3, final turn income should be 10).

HylianConfederacyTurn3005.1.pdf

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Here's some narrative to give you a feel for the man you are advising:

Confederation Turn 3005.1, Narrative Update 1: Meeting Commodore Hoggel

Commodore Willem de Hoggel’s heavyset frame thudded into the blue, frayed faux-leather of the chair in his office, which bulged visibly along the small rips which revealed its insulated stuffing. This day could not get much worse. This damned space station – supposedly the gift of this superiors – was impossibly cluttered, hadn’t made its three-month tow trip through hyperspace with any fully operational systems, and somehow smelled just a little bit like curry virtually everywhere. Commodore Hoggel hated curry.

The rest of his tiny expeditionary fleet was just arriving, in little better shape than the station, but the most important of his various guests had finally jumped in a few hours ago. As he flipped through his incoming memos from commanders, his white eyebrows furrowed ever deeper. Union troublemakers, corporate fatcats, an anxious Assembly afraid of shadows…the Confederacy he knew and loved. Nonethess, his VIP was waiting. Hoggel keyed his wrist unit.

“Adjutant Reala, you can come in. And Ambassador Kuma, yes.”

The door whirred on half-strained hydraulics as the tall, thin man he trusted with everything and an equally tall, imposing woman with dark-black skin and bright blue eyes both entered.

“Good morning, Ambassador. It’s nice to meet you in person, and I wish I could be a little more dignified about it,” said Hoggel, gesturing at the boxes and stripped wires which still cluttered his someday-to-be stateroom.

“I understand, Commodore. We’re on the edge of nowhere here – a real vote of confidence from the Confederation High Command to put you out here, I think, frankly. I understand our first priority out here is to gauge the attitude of the independent Margravate worlds?”

Hoggel wasn’t sure if the Ambassador’s careful words were her diplomatic skills showing, a backhanded compliment, or just patter. He made a quick note on his PAD – ask Reala about the Ambassador’s attitude. Either way, he got on with it, saying, “Yes, Ambassador, and according to the independent traders we’ve met so far, the Helespont system one jump out is a good place to start. We need you and your negotiators to get our broader efforts in the sector off on the right foot there – I’ve requisitioned two gunships from corporate authority to escort your envoy ship, just in case things are worse off than indicated. Now, tell me what you know about the….”

The rest of the week was a blur. The three member worlds out here had their own damned demands, and so did the half-dozen quick-thinking conglomerates on the ground exploiting the new trade laws that came with Confederation membership. The worst of these problems were full-on worker’s riots on Orestes – which required someone to calm things down before Hoggel could even think about a solution.

On top of all this were eternal resource problems - His contribution quotas were too low to pay his men, much less rebuild this station, and the rumors that the Myarissans were also putting out feelers in the sector were filtering down.

His meeting with his old protégé Kuo was really the only highlight of the week’s bad news – his beautiful Tiger class ship and its crew seemed eager and willing to get out there and learn more about Margravate space than traders and old star charts could tell them. Kuo was a good man, and the ship and crew were enough to make Hoggel want to tear off his rank markers and get back out in the vacuum.

But those old days weren’t for him – instead, the next morning, Adjutant Reala was herding him into yet another room full of conglomerate representatives squabbling with the farmers on New Luskana.

[Tyrel Lohr]

"As a plain, simple trade commissioner in the Confederation's employ, I think it would be poor form if I didn't advocate for establishing trade relations with several of these neutral worlds. Placing Trade Fleets in Ford and Hellespont would provide a much-needed permanent Hylian presence out here on the Margravate frontier."

[BroAdso]

Adjutant Reala's response:

"I'll bring that to the attention of the Commodore, Trade Commissioner. Unfortunately, we don't know how the governments of those systems will react to Confederation flagged vessels right now - before we invest the resources in inviting more corporate traders to the frontier, we need to be sure they'll be safe. But the Commodore will ultimately decide...." The tall, thin man pauses.. Then speaks a little more quietly. "and I agree with you, getting more functional commerce out here is better in the long run. And I'm sure you have some friends in the Incs who will cut you in on it...who out here doesn't huh?""

Expect the first turn tonight or tomorrow morning, so get in your orders and advice to the Commodore if you have it!

Side note on how neutral worlds respond to player vessels:

Neutral worlds have a base 35% chance to attack any player ship which enters the system. The following modifiers are applied:

Based on Diplomatic Status with the Player
+15% if Non-Intercourse
+10% if in Mutual Defense with another Power.
-20% If Non-Aggression
-40% if Trade
-60% if Mutual Defense

Based on Comparative Forces
First, total up the AF, AS, and DV of all ships and flights in the player's fleet moving into the system. Then, total up the AS, AF, and DV of all non-defense and non-planet-based ships and flights in the Neutral System's forces. Apply the following modifiers to their chance to attack based on the results.

-35% if player's totaled values are double or more the Neutral System's totaled values.
-15% if the player's totaled values are greater than the Neural System's totaled values.
+15% if the Neutral System's totaled values are greater than the player's totaled values.
+25% if the Neutral System's totaled values are double or more the player's total values.

Based on Special Player Actions
+20% if the player committed a Commerce Raid this turn or last turn.
+10% if the player attacked a Neutral ship or world in the last five turns.
-30% if the player's force contains a ship with the Diplomatic trait.
-15% for each point of Intel the player has bought in the Neutral system.

[mwaschak]

As your adviser for labor for this sector I must encourage you to settle with the unions on Orestes immediately. We can afford this kind of trouble and this sector is well known for its instability. Maybe if we had the resources to spare, but I do not believe we do.

In the interest of keeping our troops used for our real goals I believe we should pay off the unions for 5 EP and move on. It is expensive now, but it will grease the wheels on a world we need to cooperate with us. I will try to stick to my role as just your labor adviser, but I believe our goals of low animosity with our neighbor and trade will go hand in hand. This will allow us to focus on building more escort vessels and protecting our borders and ensure trade flows safely.

[Tyrel Lohr]

Of course the labor adviser is wanting you to pay off the unions! This kind of colonial graft is appalling, especially when those funds would be better spent outfitting merchant freighters to spread our influence throughout this sector. Tsk, tsk.

[BroAdso]

Here are the actual updates for turn 3005.1:

These are the orders the Commandant agreed to and their results:

ConfederacyOrdersPhase3005-1 to 3005-2.pdf

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This is the one battle that resulted this year which the Hylian Confederacy observed or participated in (with illustrations!) - there are a couple minor typos here, like the Helespontene ships staring with CNS instead of HNS, but I'm perfecting this format in Publisher, so the next battle report will be even better, cleaner, flashier!

BattleReportStandoffAtHellespont.pdf

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The striker's demands are now 5 EP, and will increase each turn we let the strike continue.

My narrative updates will be in the following post in a few hours. Even before the narratives of the events and the Commodore's reactions, though, give some advice to poor Commodore Hoggel! It should be clear he took his trade commissioner more seriously than his labor advisor this time (or perhaps he had his ear bent by his friends in the Incs), since those Roughneck landers under construction in New Luskana are all too likely to be used to drop marines on the striking miners in Orestes.

[mwaschak]

Of course the labor adviser is wanting you to pay off the unions! This kind of colonial graft is appalling, especially when those funds would be better spent outfitting merchant freighters to spread our influence throughout this sector. Tsk, tsk.

To ship what exactly, Mr Commissioner? Without the goods of our labor force we would have empty trade ships, and I shudder to think about a local economy here that depends on imports instead of our stalwart industry.

OOC: Nice update! I will continue to post my biased labor centered opinion here.

[BroAdso]

Fiction takes time to write, so the fictional accompaniment to the Standoff at Hellespont is on its way. Not much happened on 3005.2, as the Fleet-Captain Kuo, in command of the Commandant's Fleet, returns to New Luskana.

You'll note that the 3005.2 spending is only two EP, which means next turn we'll have 12 EP to work with.

Also note that the Diplomatic Cutter CNS Greeting went to Luskana all on its own, so we can try to send it to Faulkner to negotiate an even better treaty when their negotiating window opens up, or we can try to dart it over to Falmouth and see if we can fulfill our negotiations mission.

HylianConfederacyTurn3005-2Final.pdf

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There is also an interesting - and disturbing - intelligence report your superiors back home intercepted and sent your way. Apparently the Sineca colony in this region is being wracked by ground warfare, and civilians taking video of the combat have enabled the Confederation's intelligence to put together a reasonable picture of the engagement between former Margravate forces and their attackers.

InvasionofSinecaIntelligenceFootage.pdf

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