"Capella station had become a hive of activity, it had been upgraded, expanded and designated the Cartel's primary shipyard. Ships were being built, crewed and launched into space at break-neck speed, soldiers loitered when not in training or briefings and there was a genuine air of anxious anticipation. The Cartels goal was as ambitious as it was risky, a very literal hostile take-over of the Uriy Suns empire with the objective being to turn it into an extension of the Cartel. Intelligence operations from their criminal connections had confirmed one thing, the Cartel had a technological edge over them now if not the numbers just yet."
Stardate: 15-10-2265
We left off in the last part retrofitting the first fleet to get all that shiny new tech crammed into them as well as beginning to train our assault armies so we can occupy the Uriy Suns planets when we go to war. I am not entirely sure how many armies we'll need to ensure we don't take too many losses, for now I'll just ensure we end up with a nice round ten, then maybe do more after some initial scouting. Meanwhile the physics division doesn't disappoint and gets the auxiliary fire control computers researched, they will get put into the Heuntzalman-class destroyers in the next round of retrofits.
Out of the options available next, I go for 'Global Energy Management' so we get the energy credit boosting edict plus an energy credit boosting building if we find ourselves strapped for cash later (always good to have options.) That is followed by the society research division finishing examining those texts which gives us an interesting edict to use, an extra plus one to our leader capacity pool and a boost to society research, may as well fire that up now! So they then finished researching Hydroponic farms that little bit faster, lets see what's next for them whilst I wait for my alloys to build back up.
There are some interesting options including an executive retreat and a further upgrade to the main planetary admin building. However given we are about to go to war I decide to unlock the fortress just in case the Uriy Suns get any funny ideas into their weird mushroom brains about invading any of my planets (yes I know I only have two.) I bring up the first fleets configuration to 25 Cunning-class corvettes and 10 Heuntzelman-class destroyers, as soon as we have built them we are going to war with the Unified Uriy Suns. However a lack of alloys continues to bottle-neck progress toward that goal, however there isn't much I can do about it yet as Vulpinus is still filling up it's worker slots. Meanwhile our physics division tries to maintain their streak of tech unlocks by finishing the global energy management tech, so let's see what's next.
After some fox-eared pondering I opt to go for improving our orbital research stations, every little extra science we can squeeze out is going to be better in the long run. Then something I had almost forgotten about, the planet we were terraforming is now completed, so it's time to colonise a shiny new world, this is going to be a massive boost in the long run.
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| The soon to be colonised world of Nova Druzhnik, the first ever planet terraformed by the Fox Cartel. |
It shall be named Nova Druzhnik, after a hero of legend still venerated to this day among the Cartel. However celebrations and war preparations are cut-short when a pirate fleet (not endorsed by the Cartel) starts attacking trade routes in our space, time to remind them of their place. The first fleet is deployed to counter the pirate battle-group near the Bonos system. It does cut short the usual 'well done' speech for the engineering divison as they get thrown out of the Oligarch's office to research ion thrusters after improving our mining yields.
The outpost in the Sterope system attempts to fight off the pirate fleet but the outpost simply isn't well armed enough to deal with with the fast moving pirate ships and quickly succumbs to their attack, they then move on to pillaging and destroying the mining bases in the system as well. This is another reason the lack of alloys is a problem, I don't have the resources to build defence platforms everywhere. New long-term goal will be to ensure every system in Cartel space has at least some defence platforms.
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| The outpost in Sterope fights valiantly against the pirates. |
Whilst the entire first fleet takes over a year to move across Cartel territory to deal with the pirates I focus my attention still on the coming war with the Unified Uriy Suns. Another six assault armies are trained and added to the transport fleet, I'd rather not have to spend too long in orbit with my fleet softening the enemy up. So some extra assault armies gives me some lee-way on casualties. Then just to throw yet another spanner in the works for my invasion plans the Dyss Marauders shake us down, I pay them off for now. We'll deal with them later and use what's left of their ships to make children's toys.
The physics division cheers up the Oligarch no end though by finishing their research project yet again to improve our orbital research stations so let's see what we have next. For the sake of one day giving those marauders what for, let's get them researching better shields. Not to be out-done, the social division also finishes it's research on the upgraded fortress for our planets, let's see what they can do for us next.
With another colony soon to be established and the food situation still not entirely stabilised (due to there being so many open farmer jobs on Vulpinus) I opt to improve our food output from farming. As the first fleet nears it's destination news from the rest of the galaxy shows we aren't the only ones who were planning on a war as the Skanuri Bloc engage in space fisticuffs with the Prossnakan Star Hunters, well, better them than us right?
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| The first fleet engages the pirates in the Sterope system, quickly avenging the crew of the outpost. |
The first fleet enters the Sterope system and engages the pirates putting the new ship designs to the test. The pirates stand no chance at all against the cutting edge ships and weapons all ten ships are summarily obliterated without so much as a scratch to the paintwork of any first fleet vessel. Their space station fares no better as the first fleet cleans up. As a reward a retrofit awaits them from the engineering division in the form of the newly researched ion thrusters as they do one final sweep before returning to Capella station.
It seems a supply ship one of our science ships stumbled across some months ago belonged to the Uriy Suns who promptly ask for us to reimburse them for their lost cargo. The oligarch simply gives a shrug asking which supply ship before simply closing the channel. I don't think they realise I am planning to invade them yet. Meanwhile I set the engineering division to start looking into the potential for strike-craft and carriers whilst giving the Hades colony a nice shiny new corporate culture site to remind them just how amazing the Cartel is.
And with that I will bring this part to a close, with war preparations well underway things look to be getting a lot more interesting once we make our move on the Unified Uriy Suns, they won't even know what hit them.
As always thank you for taking the time to read this, all the feedback, comments and support are always greatly appreciated and awesome, so don't be afraid to tell me what you think! Keep your eyes peeled for the next part, coming soon.
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