Legacy War/Session 2

* Aeldrum has a new Serene Doge
* Pin Jump fell surprisingly quickly, because there were backdoors in the big guns
* Four ATC warships coming behind us
	+ ATC is not supposed to have “big capital ships” aka warships, so there’s been secret weapons building
	+ Likely cutting off our supply lines
* Multiple attempts for Cato’s troop to break through to Harwel, but failed
* Industrial minister of Aeldrum made emergency production lines for fighter jets
* Casualties are against us, but also, we really should not lose Cato’s men (400k)
* Spooked the Aeldmen with the orcs maneuver (who have now promised the Orcish Directorate 1/4 of the Pin Jump)
* Things have slowed down, especially mobilization of Thalranese & orcs
* Annexing the pin jump made the Nipponese mad; they declared war against Aeldrum
* Neutralized the Orcs
* Brass Cities + ATC–industrial base for more troops to come around from behind and hit us
* Pin Jump is now a super important location–links Aeldrum’s manpower with their materiel
	+ Pin Jump will probably fall if the Brass Cities do, but Nipponese will probably get stopped at Brass Cities
* Only way into Naga Space (where ATC kinda reigns) is thru the Pin Jump
* Octavo investigating disrupting gates (close down the ones we control–may either block travel, best case, or just make navigation harder)
* New boss at Aeldrum: Doge Bareth–part of same conservative faction as the old boss
	+ Old boss: Doge Leopold, killed by occult bullet–soul burned itself out; Church of Idolmar, god of healing, couldn’t do anything
		- Shortly before he died, Homer of Lidenia convened parliament to announce that his political officer had organized the assassination of far-left person (who died after this), which precipitated the whole political system getting really messy. Also: Amalia Josune Spiros was concerned that someone would reveal that she wasn’t a full-blooded elf (he says). His governor (his fixer) was a half-elf (also now dead; a martyr against racism against non-full-elves), as is Doge Ulysses of Galthad
	+ Tiello Augustine, Doge of Estonne, denounced deceipt of Doge of Galthad. Modern establishment wing alienating doge of Galthad, who is now going a little nuts. Isn’t allowing Serene Doge into his spire.
	+ Other party passed a law (industrial secrets) that no one can unionize or report on factory conditions–classified as treason
	+ Aeldrum Militia (violent labor movement) don’t like Homer of Lidenia–open to negotiating with us (they think their leaders are as bad as us)
	+ Spread talk of conscription?? Conscription would be “the matchstick that sets it all on fire” for Aeldrum
	+ 7 spires, of which we care about Aeldrum, Galthad, Estone. Serene Doge of Aeldrum is the head of state
* Aristocracy, gentry, religious think the war is great, all for different reasons. Some in the lower classes support it, but many resist
* Aeldrum: best to be an elf; ok to be human; bad to be anything else

Goals:

* Slow down Aeldrum attack of Harwel
* Convince Nipponese to attack Brumaire, and plant someone to mess it all up
* Destroy / mess up gates

Nipponese ideal outcome:

* We exhaust ourselves fighting
	+ They appreciate the fact that we exist to oppose Aeldrum
	+ There was enough of an alliance against us that they were concerned we’d die, hence jumping in
	+ Declared war on Aeldrum; currently fighting in Celestial Space (taking over outer worlds)
	+ Want us to make Aeldrum look untrustworthy, but don’t want us to be the sole superpower

Aeldrum is arming the Margravate of Tarim:

* Nipponese will probably win, but it’ll cost them
	+ Nipponese are biggest kids on the block in Celestial Space, but they also have big neighbors, who just don’t have the same tech / organization
	+ They’re doing “the Manchuria thing” to expand into Margravate (hybrid culture of merchants & explorers, who are allied with Aeldrum)
* If we can take Harwel, we starve the Pin Jump (so Aeldrum has to spend troops on us)

Nipponese are going to invade both Brumaire and Bishant, as long as we say they have the right to Celestial Space (we aren’t gonna try to get in there)

Doge of Galthad makes a big statement saying that Aeldrum is arming the civilian population in Harwel with the intent to later conscript them–spreads rumors pretty well and there’s some unrest, protests. Sylettis’s people help here.

* Aeldrum start pre-emptively evacuating Harwel; Aeldrum Militia blows up a lot of defenses for us
* (Small) war between constabulary and civilians!!!!! Some of each killed by the other–martial law, mistrust by the locals
	+ Cato concludes that Orcs don’t want to fight through him (they don’t want to fight big battles)–so just blocks them off. Uses lighter, smaller craft to land (just crash land–they don’t need to leave)

Nipponese accidentally alert the Shantine, who annex Geneva, blocking Nipponese

* But, Shantine are not attacking at Korinth
* Nipponese also failed at the Pin Jump

Rough estimate of battle casualties:

* Cato steps back (after 30k dead, 45k wounded) and Claudius Felix’s guys take the lead
	+ Felix loses 13k dead, 21k wounded just on the Pin Jump–sacrificed a lot!
	+ Heavily opposed on landing, so hold back
* Bush & Titus’s troops take the lead (Bush loses 10k men, 8k wounded); Titus loses 10k, with 18k wounded
* Total 63k dead, 90-some k wounded–just up to the landing
	+ Burn 17k bank troops on landing the next turn; 12.6k wounded
* Total cost: Felix loses 31k men, 42k wounded
* Titus loses 25k,
* Cato loses another ... many
* Aeldrum loses 119k soldiers total, and 91k wounded. 39k dead/64k wounded civilians, 80k dead parliamentary Aeldmen, 20k constabulary, 16k dragoons, 14M refugees displaced (we have 2.8M in our territory); we strangled the Pin Jump; Shantine getting pursued by the Nipponese on all sides
* Fialta lose 146k, 169k wounded, and we have almost half the planet.
* Total dead on all sides: 300k so far

Bank of Valdos destroys an ATC warship and some other orcs–get an arc to send some ships to do raids (Felix gets silly in the Pin Jump)

Final takeaway:

* Cato’s guys manage to land etc on Harwel
* Bank of Valdos + prince Felix’s troops take over
* the Nipponese have lots of unusual knowledge of space routes, because of worshipping vestiges of elder gods
* Aeldmen got the Nipponese in an awkward position where Nipponese are attacking Bishant, but their own gate worlds are really vulnerable
* Bigger problem: Nipponese are in a worse position than the Shantine–aren’t yet at Bishant, nor do they have a blockade going, whereas they are being successfully blockaded
* Harwel: “modest gains at enormous cost”