GblaRCS Chpt 36

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 36 -==
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"So there I was, reading through the flowery prose that litters Farnstroms's notes on his idea for a new type of fusion engine when I came to the part that said: 'Until, from the midst of this darkness, a sudden light broke in upon me, a light so brilliant and wonderous, and yet so simple. Change the poles from plus to minus and from minus to plus. I alone succeeded in discovery the secret of containing superheated plasma with an energy field. Nay, even more so, I myself became capable of generating limitless energy in a lighter and more compact design' and then I closed the notebook as I suddenly realized... It could work!"Doctor Nathan Jones MEng PhD (co-inventor of the Energy-Damped-Light-Fusion-Engine) - 2855AC
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===Trade and Bets===
Association Council Building – Niops Association (Niops VII) – 2838
"The Uluru jumped out an hour ago with the next shipment of PPCs to Westover, Sir" Admiral Jacob Bremman reported. "Captain Blüd seemed enthusiastic to see what the reaction will be when she sets down there in a Fortress rather than a Mule, or for that matter if they'll deign to ask why she's also hauling along a Titan to protect her JumpShip."
"Hopefully the reaction will be not to try and strong-arm the periphery riff-raff again" High Associator Giles Olson replied, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms in front of him. "If they don't take the hint next time send a destroyer escort."
"Unlikely to be necessary." Bremman responded confidently. "Even having to use most of the vehicle bays as cargo space for crates of PPCs, a company of mixed heavy and assault 'mechs and three platoons of infantry should dissuade another attempt to shanghai one of our vessels, especially given just how much firepower the dropship itself brings to the party."
Olson nodded. "Blüd knows that I expect everyone to adhere to the strict rules of engagement I set down?" he checked. "They have to use force first and our response needs to be proportionate."
"Yes Sir" Bremman confirmed. "We're assuming that the authorities in the Free Worlds League don't actually want to stir up more trouble, and that it was simply some clueless muppet trying to make a name for himself who tried to requisition our JumpShip."
"Given that they're still begging for any more ER PPCs and double-heat-sinks we can send, offering to rubber-stamp any more purchases of military hardware we make after the Interdiction is lifted if we can, I'd have to agree." Olson replied.
"Reports from the front are sketchy of course, but it does seem that the ploy to try and trick Sian into thinking Atreus had discovered a cache of Royal Marauders that Kerensky left behind worked, or at least it worked well enough to get them to pause their offensive temporarily." Bremman replied. "The Tremolino came back from Thraxa where it was being talked about in the news media, even the ComStar News Bureau was covering the story so it's safe to say it's getting Inner Sphere wide coverage. General Hallis is probably feeling pleased with himself for coming up with the ruse."
"He doesn't think it'll work for very long" Olson replied. "It was just the shock effect of a company of the things suddenly appearing on the field and shooting up a bunch of Capellan troops that caused Sian to overreact he believes."
"The 3rd Liao Guards we think." Bremman recalled reading the briefing himself, grateful that he had done so despite it being more of interest to senior army officers, rather than the naval ones, who liked to keep an eye on Inner Sphere military developments. It wasn't actually his turn as one of the Joint Chiefs to brief the High Associator, General Romanov should have been there that day instead, but she was still on a dropship heading back from the recharge station and had asked him to go in her stead. "The TO&E of Capellan units usually leans lighter than the norm as regards numbers of heavies and assaults, so a few supposed Royal Marauders with ER PPCs and the heat sinks to use them would have hit them hard, as long as the man or woman at the controls made sure not to close the range down and throw away their advantage anyway. Wouldn't have worked nearly as well against a Lyran unit, those people bring enough metal to the field to soak up the punishment."
"I know that ER PPCs were always rarer in the House militaries than in the SLDF, but are they really scarce enough to represent that much of an advantage?" Olson queried.
Bremman shrugged. "Most of the factories that made them didn't survive Amaris and the First Succession War. So they're not seen that often on the battlefield anymore we believe, if still available if you've got money to burn." he replied. "A bunch of mechs mounting them all turning up at once hasn't been a thing for a while. Give it a couple more decades of the Great Houses bludgeoning each other, and we might be the only people still making any of them at all" he theorised. "Probably true of the Gauss Rifle too, which is the real long-range heavy-hitter, but the sheer size of those things restricted how many machines ever mounted one even before the nukes started flying. Battlefield ranges are going to shrink down over the next few years mark my words, that'll only increase our qualitative tactical advantage, which is fortunate because it'll take decades before we'll be able to appreciatively move forward in quantitative terms."
"You're probably already aware, but General Romanov is starting to think that in the interim it might be an idea to hire more mercenaries for garrison duty, at least on the worlds where we can't establish a worthwhile planetary militia" Olson told him. "There's bound to be a few more decent quality PMCs out there who are battered enough from being repeatedly thrown at one Successor State or another to be seeking safer employment for a while, even if we're not paying the same rates as the Great Houses."
"It's probably necessary if we're going to keep expanding our territory at the current rate, I'm not sure we can count on being lucky enough to find decent ones going as cheap as the Troublemakers though." Bremman replied doubtfully. "Romanov seemed impressed enough by the Tyson and his people after she headed up to the recharge station to meet them personally. They set out on a JumpShip heading to Galileo just before Blüd headed off in the other direction, once they're established most of our own garrison will be relocated leaving only a liaison officer and a token SLDF presence" he said before frowning. "We had our medical staff on the Olympus station check out the Troublemakers and their dependents, physically they're well enough, fortunately their Intruder dropship has decent medical facilities and a surgical unit that could deal with a lot of issues, but a fair few of their troops show definite signs of PTSD which could have been part of Tyson's motivation to get them as far away from the front lines as possible."
Olson thought about that. "The PTSD is understandable given that some of them might have been fighting non-stop for decades I suppose" he reasoned. "We should have our liaison keep an eye on them to see if it's effecting their work badly enough for us to want to intervene, even if that intervention is just us finding them a shrink" he decided. "As for Romanov going to see them personally that seems appropriate, well it does just as long as it wasn't just an excuse to avoid this meeting" Olson replied, smiling. "I'd hate to think she thought of them as merely a necessary evil. The annoying baggage of civilian oversight and control of the military."
"Perhaps more of an inconvenience than an evil." Bremman suggested, all of the Joint Chiefs usually bemoaned time being taken from their day to meet politicians so often, though briefing the High Associator wasn't nearly as bad as some of the conferences with the Minister of Trade and Industry, the diplomatic corps or even worse the council's Military Oversight Committee were. "They use up more of our time than you might think, we all try to make sure we're as up-to-date as possible on reading our own intel briefings so we don't look incompetent when you ask a defense-related question we can't answer."
Olson laughed. "You know I don't actually expect you to be omniscient" he replied.
"You don't? I'll let military R&D know that they can reduce funding to Project Crystal Ball, it's really been eating into our budget." Bremman joked. "On a more serious matter, I don't know if you've already heard through other channels but it's now looking like the Blackjack factory on Alphard will be finished before you leave office. I know you wanted an excuse to visit Alphard while you were still High Associator, so if you fancied a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the place officially you could go with that."
Olson raised his eyebrows. "I thought there was some holdups on that?" he asked, surprised.
"Turns out that making an Improved AC/5 autocannon look like a standard AC/2 while not being excessively expensive to make wasn't as difficult as they thought it was going to be, and they should have them into production a few months ahead of schedule" Bremman explained. "It might be a little touch-and-go getting the new plant on Alphard for producing Ferro-Fibrous armor finished on time, but if needs be we can make it in our existing facility on Niops V as a stopgap."
"Won't that mean scaling back Hussar production?" Olson queried. "Is General Romanov okay with that?"
Bremman shook his head. "If we run the Niops V armor forges to capacity we can churn out something like four times the tonnage of plate we need for Hussar production." he replied. "The overcapacity allows for production of spare armor plates for various machines to be stockpiled in case of battle damage, as well as an ongoing series of upgrades to our existing mechs. "Quite a few of the SLDF and NAM machines in service still use standard armor that we can upgrade to Ferro-Fibrous, so we'll be gradually doing that over the next few years. It won't increase their survivability as much as the new weaponry did their firepower but it'll still bolster our qualitative edge over the Great Houses."
"Very well. I suppose since the endo-steel skeletons for the Blackjack will have to made in Niops until we build an orbital factory in Alphard anyway, importing the armor for them as well isn't such a big deal" Olson reasoned. "Although we could delay building the shipyard again to get that factory built earlier" he suggested, keeping a straight face as long as he could while watching for Bremman's reaction.
"High Associator I must object!" Bremman responded in horror, jumping to his feet.
"Your face!" Olson said, bursting out in laughter.
Bremman sat back down. "That wasn't funnym, Sir" he complained, realizing that Olson was just yanking his chain.
"Oh, it really was, Admiral, it really was." Olson disagreed, grinning.
"We'll have to agree to diffe.r" Bremman stated flatly.
"Since we're already talking about the Blackjack factory on Alphard, I received an interesting piece of unsolicited advice from a certain individual that works in the fast-food industry a few days ago while picking up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home from work." Olson told him.
"Gloria presumably." Bremman surmised while being mildly amused by the notion of any of the rulers of the Successor States, or even just the duke or baron of a more populous world, doing something like that themselves. In some ways being the High Associator of Niops was more akin to being the mayor of a city than it was the head of state of an interstellar power, albeit city mayors didn't usually have capital warships and a large stockpile of nuclear weapons at their command.
"Right. My wife went to see a movie with her sister and I'm far too inept in the kitchen to risk trying to make my own dinner." he explained his visit to the diner in question. It wasn't like he hadn't ever tried to cook, it just always seemed to go wrong, something he attributed to it being more of an art than a science. "She suggested that only people with both parents and at least three of four grandparents born on one of the Hegemony worlds should be allowed to work in, or have access to, any of our factories working in the defence industry. Senior positions to require both parents and all four grandparents to be Hegemony born, with a similar setup in the various planetary militias."
"I can see that being a pain-in-the-ass for both ROM and SAFE who are probably the most likely to be spying on us. No getting to nose around our defence plants and military bases by just applying for a job or a spot in the militia." Bremman considered the idea.
"She also thinks we should take fingerprints, a photograph and a DNA sample from everyone that visits one of our worlds because it'll give spooky types on clandestine assignments palpitations and wouldn't take very long to do." Olson told him. "Retinal scans as well if the hardware can be made available."
Bremman sighed. "Presumably everyone gets an ID card with their photo on it and their fingerprints, genetic markers and retinal scan encoded on the thing too in Gloria's utopian vision of making life awkward for malevolent interlopers" he asked rhetorically.
"Good guess. I think she was about to suggest everyone getting a barcode tattooed on their forehead but my chicken order was ready so I managed to beat a hasty retreat" Olson replied. "It's still far, far from my weirdest encounter with a member of the public this week though. During my lunchbreak on Tuesday I went out to buy myself a new set of shoes, the new imports from Comstock are just so well made and so cheap I couldn't resist, and I ran into that lunatic Farnstrom" he recalled with a grimace. "He managed to corner me before I could beat a hasty retreat and he started to rant about how nobody was taking his new idea of how to make a completely new type of fusion engine seriously."
"You know he is a genius," Bremman noted. "I mean he's clearly crazier as a sack of Arcturan Razorcats, but our people working on the next-generation of directed-energy weapons have told me that if you ignore the fact he's got more issues than Stellar Geographic he's actually been very helpful at solving problems they send him to look over."
"He said he could turn the Steiner Stadium on Solaris VII into a fusion engine, or at least that's what I managed to make out from what he was saying while I was desperately trying to make my escape" Olson told him drily, wishing not for the first time that his security detail wasn't just one guy under orders to be restrained with the public.
Bremman blinked. "Okay that does sound pretty unhinged." he conceded.
"I gave him my usual response, put a proposal in writing and I'll have someone take a look at it." Olson said, sighing.
"You better actually have someone do that just to be rid of him for a while you know." Bremman advised. "It's been a decade now and he's still hassling me for a naval laser to play with."
"He's persistent all right, even his staunchest critics have never accused the man of being a quitter." Olson concurred. "Oh, I missed out the part where he said he'd need a couple of hundred million dollars and a bunch of lab assistants for some proof-of-concept experiments for the engine" he added, rolling his eyes. "I mean we've got the money in the reserves, the germanium mine on Alphard is the gift that keeps on giving and our asteroid mining turns up plenty of precious metals, but I'm pretty sure it would be akin to just piling up several tons worth of Newtons, pouring biodiesel all over them and striking a match."
"There's a lot of places that regard a lot of the experiments done purely out of scientific curiosity in much the same way you know." Bremman pointed out.
"Luddites and scientific philistines all," Olson responded haughtily. "Science for science's sake forever and always!" he declared, holding one hand aloft, index finger raised.
Bremman fought back a smirk. "Isn't that what Alpheus McEvedy was all about?" he asked, getting in a little revenge for Olson's earlier chain-yanking.
High Associator Giles Olson narrowed his eyes. "That's different. He was certifiably insane" he retorted. "Have you read the passages from his diaries we allowed the press to publish?"
"Yes, Sir, although according to General Hallis the part about creating a modified Terror Bird as a riding animal isn't quite as nuts as it sounds" Bremman replied. "Apparently there's a planet in the Outworlds Alliance where they ride an animal not too dissimilar in size and shape to a Terror Bird called the Tariq. The local militias use them for mounted infantry units, they're supposedly very effective in the light scouting role because they can handle terrain a lot of other things can't."
"Seriously?" Olson asked dubiously.
"The Free Worlds League uses Branth-mounted infantry on Lopez, is a man riding a big carnivorous bird really that much weirder than one riding what's effectively a dragon?" Bremman asked rhetorically. "Talking of big birds, and press articles, is he council really considering importing a few breeding pairs of Giant Moas from McEvedy's Folly?"
"It's been discussed. They'll be okay with our climate and a meat animal we can raise locally will mean we won't be so reliant on imports. they're supposed to taste pretty good according to the people that went there" Olson confirmed. "As the forests we've started to plant expand we could release the Moas into them for some additional biodiversity" he added, planting the tree species from Buffalo Meadows had worked out better than expected, with them adjusting quite well to their new environment, and the biology department at the university was now pushing to import additional species from Thraxa that might do even better, Thraxa being more similar to Niops VII than Buffalo Meadows was in terms of temperature and the sunlight it received.
"Just as long as people don't get a hankering for roast Thunderbird, because I'd rather not have any of those running free here" Bremman opined. The second mission to 'The Folly' as some were starting to call it now had returned with hundreds of hours of footage of the things going about their business, including them preying upon the poor recreated Mammoths and Aurochs they liked to eat by preference.
"No Thunderbirds, but someone in NAM that read about the Hook Wolf wonders if they could be domesticated" Olson replied. "A Dire Wolf sized pseudo-canid with huge talons would make for one hell of a guard dog they think so they wrote it up as a suggestion. They're supposed to be pretty smart, smarter than you'd think."
"The Hook Wolves or NAM people" Bremman asked humorous. "Sorry, knee-jerk inter-service rivalry" he apologised for the attempted joke.
Olson ignored him. "Apparently Alpheus McEvedy used Terran corvids like the raven as a model for their intelligence, they might actually be considerably more intelligent than actual dogs. The people we rescued from there certainly believe so, they didn't fall for traps like other predators like the Toucan-Tiger did, they were smarter and more perceptive."
Bremman thought about that for a while and wasn't sure he liked it one bit. "Just as long as nobody sees fit to splice in some extra DNA to give them opposable thumbs too" he replied, thinking that this all sounded far too much like the basis of a schlocky monster movie for comfort. Then he wondered how well 'Night of the Hook Wolves' would do at the Box Office and whether or not he should find a scriptwriter. "If they're that smart are we sure that the Hook Wolves weren't one of McEvedy's experiments that used human DNA because I'm pretty sure that would violate an awful lot of old Terran Hegemony laws?" he asked.
"Oh, we'd make sure the things are fully sequenced to make sure they weren't before even considering the idea of domesticating them or breeding more" Olson reassured him. "When it comes to genetic engineering I always lean towards measured caution, it's gotten me labelled a luddite myself more than once by the more fundamentalist crowd at the university."
"Only seconds ago you were saying 'Science for science's sake forever and always', Sir" Bremman reminded him.
"Yeah, but I've always detected a hint of witchcraft about genetic-engineering not science" Olson replied and, not entirely in jest. "I mean, as a nuclear chemist by training I'm alright with alchemy, I've turned base metal into gold myself with a particle accelerator, but splicing together different DNA strands to create some kind of chimera strikes me as different."
"Perhaps we should verify that the 'Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble' which resulted in the Frobisher people didn't involve eye of newt." Bremman joked.
"Their eyes are way too big for that." Olson replied, laughing. "Also, it's actually Double, double toil and trouble in MacBeth" he corrected him.
"Really?" Bremman responded, pretty sure it wasn't.
Olson nodded. "Yes really. Bet you ten bucks I'm right." he said confidently.
"You're on."
"Great, you'll be paying for my next bucket of fried chicken." Olson said happily, his utter confidence causing Bremman to start to doubt his memory.
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===Worrying Trends of ComStar===
"Returning to the subject of our shipping particle projector cannon to the Mariks, if that's going to continue once the Interdiction is listed we're really going to want to open another production line." Bremman advised. "It didn't take too much effort to get our existing production line for Improved PPCs to churn out standard ones instead, most of the difference between them is simply using more advanced materials and a few higher-grade components in the Improved version, but a factory on Alphard for standard PPCs would free up our high-tech PPC manufacturing facility for actual high-tech production work, not monkey-models for export."
Olson looked thoughtful. "To be honest I'm wary of supplying PPCs to the Free Worlds League in the long term" he said. "If we did that it might damage our relations with the other Great Houses, make us look less even handed and more like a supporter, or even a puppet, of the Mariks" he suggested. "The profit margin might not be nearly as good but the Department of Trade and Industry is pushing for us to only export non-military technology to the Successor States, advanced medical equipment like the Eligus Diagnoser is increasingly a rarity out there, and even things like good quality Scanalyzers aren't as ubiquitous as they used to be."
"If we wanted to make money from sales of non-military technology we should just charge for the Jamerson-Ulikov's we'll have in mass production soon" Bremman opined. "Yes, I know it's a hearts-and-minds thing to sell them at cost, and offer the blueprints to anyone that wants them, but there's dying desert planets across the Inner Sphere that would offer up their first born for the things."
"The goodwill and higher profile is worth more than the money, we have the latter it's the former we're still short on, Admiral" Olson noted. "The Terran Hegemony chose to make the J-U a restricted black-box technology, something that annoyed a lot of people, offering the design freely could be a priceless PR victory. One that we could also use to show up ComStar because they could have chosen to do the same and didn't, letting whole planets dry up into dust" he said before smiling. "Seeing as how we were already planning to put the things into mass production for our own use making more for export just lowers unit costs. Alphard sure as hell would benefit from a greater availability of fresh water."
"Kepler too if we ever get around to planting a flag there," Bremman replied. "Deserts that make the Sahara on Terra look like the sand bunker on a golf course."
"Until I get definite confirmation from the geological survey teams that there's the large deposits of oil and reservoirs of natural gas they think might be there Kepler is way down the list of systems we want to claim" Olson told him. "To be frank even if it is confirmed, how the hell we'd find the spare capacity to build and staff the drilling rigs, refineries and chemical plants that we'd need to exploit them within the next decade years I've got no idea. The only reason we've been able to find people to volunteer to work the mines on Galileo is because we've put them on a bonus scheme."
"I'm guessing it's not that they get to keep every third diamond they dig up?" Bremman asked with a chuckle.
"Nah, they get shares in the mining company and a plot of land to build their own home there" Olson explained. "Lots of interest from people already working the mines on Alphard to relocate to Galileo, so much that we might have to turn most of them down unless we can get the workers from the Illyrian Palatinate we're hoping for."
Bremman nodded. "How are negotiations going with that anyway?"
"Some of the merchant families are still worried that if they facilitate some of their mining workforce emigrating to Alphard to work for us, that they won't want to come back so we're not sure how many guest workers we're going to be able to get" Olson told him. "Offering them a financial loan at well below market rates so they can purchase military equipment from the Magistracy is helping to sway some opinions though."
"Whoever came up with that idea deserves a promotion if you ask me" Bremman opined.
"That would be you" Olson pointed out.
"Fleet Admiral Jacob Bremman has a nice ring to it don't you think?"
"Wouldn't that make you senior to General Romanov?"
"I just really want to make sure that my shipyard doesn't get delayed again just because the army comes up with a fancy new widget they want to get into production ASAP" Bremman told him.
"Like what? Farnstrom's new type of fusion engine?" Olson asked wryly.
"I'm more worried about this 'Project Hittile' proposal that just crossed my desk at the moment" Bremman replied seriously. "The Star League R&D people already did a lot of the preliminary work on that and it does seem like something that can be gotten to work, assuming they can figure out the electronics used in the Starfire 2500 missiles anyway" he said. "How in the hell they made electronics that good so compact is a mystery that's been baffling our people since we found all those headhunters in the first place."
"It was the Star League, they threw money at it" Olson replied. "A lot more than we've got, germanium mines or no."
"True but copying it shouldn't be nearly as difficult as inventing it was surely?" Bremman asked rhetorically. "Our new lighter model of Streak missile launcher is basically just a copy of the one the Star Adders came up with not long before the Secession, reverse-engineering isn't usually nearly such a pain-in-the-ass as it's been with the Starfires, and even once we've managed that we still need to get it to work with the follow-the-leader system."
From what Olson knew of such things that was true so he nodded his agreement. "Did you get hold of the new Streak tech in one of those trials you people did?" he asked out of curiosity.
"Nah, during the withdrawal from Strana Mechty we were exchanging fire with just about everyone, and our people had the presence of mind to steal anything interesting they ran across." Bremman explained. "Thanks to General Hallis and the orbital fire support he was laying down our people's fighting retreat to the dropships was orderly enough that they could bring along some souvenirs as well as themselves."
"You've got to hand it to the man, whether it's bamboozling Capellans with fake Royal Marauders, or hijacking a battleship being used as an orbital tomb and turning its guns on the planet below, he definitely thinks outside the box" Olson observed.
"Sarah made a good choice when she picked him to replace poor Dwight as saKhan." Bremman agreed. "Of course, she was the one that set up the clan in such a way that the open-minded, not the mentally rigid, rose up the ranks to begin with which is why Franklin was next in line in the first place" he continued. "I doubt I'd have made it all the way to Star Admiral rank in most other clans myself. She expected me to argue with her on naval matters and usually deferred to my expertise, rather than just do what I was told like a good little drone."
"I've got to ask, as someone that knew Sarah McEvedy is the Jennifer girl as much like her in personality as she looks?" Olson queried. He had seen images of the former Khan of the Wolverines and had met her sort-of clone many times and now in her early twenties they looked practically identical.
"I'd say yes, but as I never knew Sarah as a kid, you'd probably be better off asking Roger Callahan for his perspective as they grew up together." Bremman replied. "Before I forget to ask, General Hallis wanted me to check if you're still interested in observing a live-fire exercise, because he's planning on running a big one next month?"
"On Reykjanes Island presumably, not Niops V?" Olson asked. Because of the very different environmental conditions there the SLDF had recently established another training ground on the warmest of the three habitable worlds in the system. Reykjanes was a spectacular backdrop, what with the volcanoes, but the troops needed to be familiar with other environments according to the senior staff. In the longer term Romanov wanted more training facilities in the dry box canyons of Alphard and the forests of Stafford as well, but that was something Olson's successor as High Associator would have to agree because not only were there always financial costs involved any large tracts of land given to the military were obviously unavailable for other purposes.
"Yes, on Reykjanes" Bremman confirmed. "No need for a dropship trip to get there, just a VTOL ride."
"Sounds good to me," Olson replied. "I'd like to observe the gunslinger training program in action while I'm there too if that's possible. It sounds entertaining."
"I don't think it's as fun for those going through it, they're under a lot of pressure to perform and improve their skills, but I'm sure Franklin would be happy to oblige your request to watch the mech-jocks being scored for speed and accuracy as they run around blasting holographic projections" Bremman responded before smiling. "Back in the Clan Homeworlds that sort of thing was done with real mechs not holograms, having to fix all the unnecessary damage probably made the technician caste hate the warrior caste's guts."
"I doubt the accountants were happy about it either" Olson assumed.
"If we'd had a book-keeping caste they'd have stayed quiet for fear of getting shot, much the same way as anyone with an understanding of economics kept their mouth shut when Nicky K laid out his vision of clan society." Bremman told him. "Do you want to go through the latest budget requests now? I promise there's nothing in there about blowing up perfectly good machines just because some bozo thinks it makes for more realistic training."
"Not the part of these meetings I enjoy, but does it?" Olson queried. "Make for more realistic training I mean?"
"Perhaps a little, the holograms don't come apart like a real mech hit by an AC/20 would for example, but to be honest the goal was ritual not realism" Bremman replied. "Clanner society is a lot like ComStar is increasingly becoming, it's a secular religion with its own holt writ and arcane practices."
Olson frowned. "Not that secular, ComStar I mean, they've actually anointed the late Conrad Toyama as a saint and from what we're hearing I'm pretty sure their new Primus thinks he's the damn pope" he replied, rolling his eyes. "I mean, Toyama had his people chanting instruction manuals, but I'm not sure if he believed in it all himself or if it was just an act. Karpov we're not too sure of, at least judging by some of what he's been saying, couching their disagreement with the Free Worlds League in some very flowery religious prose. I'm waiting for him to say that not accepting the Communications Protocol of 2787 is blasphemy against the words of the Blessed Blake."
"I'll start to worry when he launches a crusade against the heretics with their own HPGs and we hear ComStar mechwarriors bellowing 'Blakus Vult' as they go into battle" Bremman joked.
==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : Cargo is not typically transported in a Fortress class military dropship, but if you want to make sure nobody is going to try and steal your ship on arrival sending one that is very heavily armed is a way to do it.Major Tyson made a positive enough impression to sway a few opinions regarding the hiring of more mercenaries while the demographics of Niops catches up with their offworld commitments (although being a former SLDF unit helps perceptions). Galileo (Pompey) being rich in diamonds and fire opals, and Kepler (Horatius) having large deposits of oil and natural gas comes from Handbook: Major Periphery States. The Hegemony worlds were extremely blessed in mineral weath.Certain corvids like the crow and raven are very intelligent and might be the smartest animals apart from primates. A direwolf-like flightless avian like the 'Hook Wolf' having corvid-like intelligence seems like something Alpheus McEvedy might come up with (it's frankly less nuts than the human-animal hybrids he was canonically experimenting with). If Farnstrom was less of a mad angry scientist people might listen to him more. He's come up with the idea for the Light Fusion Engine (here to be called the Energy-Damped-Light-Fusion-Engine) a couple of hundred years before it appeared in canon. The LFE came about because Wolf's Dragoons couldn't get hold of the special materials needed for Clan Extra Light Fusion Engines any more and needed a substitute. The LFE isn't as good as a Clan XLFE but it's capable of taking hits without exploding that a Star League XLFE cannot making it a good compromise design. The Light Fusion Engine utilises technology that was actually developed to stop spectators watching the Solaris Games at the Steiner stadium from getting hit by stray PPC fire so Farnstrom's description of how his idea works isn't actually as crazy as it sounds.Fans of the movie Young Frankenstein may recognize part of the quote at the start of the chapter!
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Chapter 36