RECORDS/ANNALS – H.I.D.F. COUNCIL AND ADVISORY BOARD
Q12/18 – D:4-56-81
ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combine on hallowed ground to decide the course of action in this most terrible war that we must fight for our freedom.
PREMIER LUÇA: Hear hear.
ALL PRESENT: Hear hear!
MERITOR DORTMUND (whispered): Hallowed ground? We’re on a pliffing space station?
VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Oh, anything can be hallowed ground now. Trust me, we could have this meeting in a septic tank and it would still be considered law.
(both snicker)
PREMIER LUÇA: Now. I think it has become evident to all that the battle we fight on Stiersen Cvil and the Burond Lagoon is the battle for all of Haven, and, most likely, the battle for the entire Torosus System. Our home is one of only two consistently habitable worlds in the entire system –
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: But it won’t be for much longer if the good Marshall over there keeps burning down our forests and killing every flish in our oceans! I was led to believe that this ‘naval assault’ business would be a relatively fast affair…
MARSHALL YORICK: Premier, if I may?
PREMIER LUÇA: Go ahead, Marshall.
MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you. Meritor, have you ever seen a naval assault?
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: No…
MARSHALL YORICK: Well, you might want to come down to the surface someday soon and see one. It’s an unforgettable sight. Massive ships fire cannons as wide as you’re tall into enemy emplacements kilometers away. The shells they fire leave impact craters as wide as this room and can displace several metric tons of earth when they explode. Regrettably, this can result in the occasional tree burning down, and yes, enemy counter-fire does tend to kill a marine reptile or two, but trust me, the end result is why we’re doing it. Freedom, namely, and independence.
PREMIER LUÇA: But what of these… amphibious assaults? The hovercraft you sent in to assault the RAMI Directorate base across the lagoon?
MARSHALL YORICK: The result of this council’s call for immediate action to be taken against the Directorate as well as Murasaki. We took note of the Murasaks’ extensive use of hovercraft to defend their base, as well as harry our naval emplacements in the northwest lagoon, so we began the construction of four battalions of hover-assault vehicles. Unfortunately, they turned out to be too lightly armored for a frontal assault on what proved to be a very heavily guarded Directorate installation.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: And these hovercraft proved unsuccessful?
MARSHALL YORICK: Yes they did, Venator. They’re Murasaki designs, sold to all the rimworld militaries. I confess to relative inexperience regarding their deployment, but I doubt they will suffice.
MERITOR DORTMUND: And what would suffice?
MARSHALL YORICK: I’ve… considered several options.
MERITOR DORTMUND: Such as?
MARSHALL YORICK: Well… to be honest, there is only one real option.
VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Here it comes. The ‘N-word.’
PREMIER LUÇA: What?
MARSHALL YORICK: Nuclear weapons.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: You cannot be serious.
MARSHALL YORICK: I’m afraid I am. A nuclear bombardment from one of our Retaliator-type silos would weaken the Directorate defenses substantially, and enable a lightning assault from our forward base in the Growzin Forest.
PREMIER LUÇA: Utilizing more hovercraft?
MARSHALL YORICK: …yes. Unfortunately, we currently lack the production capacity and deployment options necessary to launch a full-scale Kbot or vehicle attack, but as I said, the primary weakness of the hovercraft is their lack of heavy armor. If we focussed our nuclear bombardment on the Directorate base’s defensive installations – Sentinel-type lasers and Defender-type plasma cannons, all of which we could accurately place by use of aerial scouting – I am confident the hovercraft will make short and swift work of any defensive forces the Directorate will muster.
MERITOR DORTMUND: This is insane. We’re talking about nuking our own pliffing planet here. Isn’t there a massive fleet of warships prowling the lagoon for just this purpose?
MARSHALL YORICK: Well, technically, no; they were constructed so we could maintain sea power inside the lagoon, but your point is well seen. General Werner, General Appleton, Admiral Regenschirm and I discussed this option, and indeed Admiral Regenschirm has been conducting hit-and-run sorties against the Directorate base with his fleet ever since the Winnock radar station located it, but…
PREMIER LUÇA: But?
MARSHALL YORICK: …but the raids were met with unanticipated resistance. Three of our Enforcer-class cruisers were taken out by an unknown configuration of shore emplacements, and Admiral Regenschirm was forced back into the outer lagoon. He’s currently under orders to utilize only Ranger- and Millennium-class ships; anything with a smaller range than that puts ships and men in danger.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what is the problem with this?
MARSHALL YORICK: Reconnaissance, or lack thereof. We have yet to have a clear look at the Directorate’s emplacements, and at the moment, Regenschirm is basically just firing blind. Usually, we would use our submarines as spotters for the long-range bombardments, but the Directorate run too tight a ship for that. We have swept the entire coastline of the Güreckt highlands, but have found no defensive batteries or emplacements within scanning range of the subs.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: None?
MARSHALL YORICK: None. Their engineers have evidently been drilled to avoid placing their defensive guns directly on the shoreline. We are not dealing with amateurs, here, nor are we dealing with professionals, like Murasaki. We are dealing with people who do nothing but train and soldier all their life to defend ideals that are their only truth in life from the day they are born. To them, there is only strength in unity.
MERITOR DORTMUND: You sound as if you would like to be one of them.
MARSHALL YORICK: Perhaps, but if this were possible, we would not be fighting this war, Meritor.
PREMIER LUÇA: Explain.
MARSHALL YORICK: We may share certain ideals with the Directorate, independence from the CoRe, unregulated space travel and exploration, et cetera, but as long as we crave an individual voice, they will not permit us our liberty. So great is their love of unity and so strong is their passion for the destruction of the CoRe that they could not bear the idea of a military force in the galaxy that they do not directly control. Even if we would fight the same enemy for the same reasons and on the same battlefields, they would still fight us.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: That would put an alliance out of the question, then.
MARSHALL YORICK: In my opinion? Quite.
PREMIER LUÇA: Thank you for your candor, Marshall. If you wish, you can remain while we deliberate, although you must remain silent, as you know.
MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you, Premier, but if it’s all the same to you, I believe I shall requisition one of the station Valkyries to transport me back to Haven. I will leave a message drone with a bounceback receptor by Hatch 18, so that you can communicate your conclusions to me post-haste.
PREMIER LUÇA: Very well.
MERITOR DORTMUND: Quite the philosopher, isn’t he?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Indeed. I feel like I’ve just had the Art Of War physically hurled at me by a strikeball player.
PREMIER LUÇA: Nevertheless, we must regard his knowledge of the tactical situation on Haven as scripture. We will consider the political ramifications of our victory when we have achieved it.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Scripture, my foot! Nuclear weapons? Is he out of his mind?
PREMIER LUÇA: Calm yourself, Meritor. He will not take any drastic action without Council approval. Now, if both Meritors and the Venator are in agreement, we will ask the good Marshall to continue his naval bombardment until the Directorate retreat or surrender, and if they won’t, then maybe we shall authorize a single, tactical precision nuclear strike, to be followed by a conventional assault, possibly with fully amphibious units.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: It could take months to build up the kind of firepower needed for a ‘conventional’ assault.
PREMIER LUÇA: Then we will wait months, during which Admiral Regenschirm, if that really is his name, will pound the Directorate base with his ship, and hopefully force them to give up.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what about the Murasaks?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Christ, Karl, have you seen the satellite photos? (sound of cigarette being lit) Their base is in ruins. We may have killed a lot of our own people doing it, but trust me, they’re pretty much toast.
MERITOR DORTMUND: My God. That it’s come to this.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: I guess that’ll teach us to think we can share a solar system with an interstellar corporation and militarized left-wing radicals.
PREMIER LUÇA: But we are in agreement? Nukes as a last resort, naval and amphibious assaults until then?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Aye.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Aye.
MERITOR DORTUMND: …aye.
PREMIER LUÇA: Very well. If you’ll close the session please, Elder.
ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combined on hallowed ground, and made difficult decisions regarding the future of our people. Let their words be heard, reflected on and obeyed.
S13 – CLASSIFIED. RECORDING SEALED AND ARCHIVED.
Q12/18 – D:4-56-81
ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combine on hallowed ground to decide the course of action in this most terrible war that we must fight for our freedom.
PREMIER LUÇA: Hear hear.
ALL PRESENT: Hear hear!
MERITOR DORTMUND (whispered): Hallowed ground? We’re on a pliffing space station?
VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Oh, anything can be hallowed ground now. Trust me, we could have this meeting in a septic tank and it would still be considered law.
(both snicker)
PREMIER LUÇA: Now. I think it has become evident to all that the battle we fight on Stiersen Cvil and the Burond Lagoon is the battle for all of Haven, and, most likely, the battle for the entire Torosus System. Our home is one of only two consistently habitable worlds in the entire system –
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: But it won’t be for much longer if the good Marshall over there keeps burning down our forests and killing every flish in our oceans! I was led to believe that this ‘naval assault’ business would be a relatively fast affair…
MARSHALL YORICK: Premier, if I may?
PREMIER LUÇA: Go ahead, Marshall.
MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you. Meritor, have you ever seen a naval assault?
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: No…
MARSHALL YORICK: Well, you might want to come down to the surface someday soon and see one. It’s an unforgettable sight. Massive ships fire cannons as wide as you’re tall into enemy emplacements kilometers away. The shells they fire leave impact craters as wide as this room and can displace several metric tons of earth when they explode. Regrettably, this can result in the occasional tree burning down, and yes, enemy counter-fire does tend to kill a marine reptile or two, but trust me, the end result is why we’re doing it. Freedom, namely, and independence.
PREMIER LUÇA: But what of these… amphibious assaults? The hovercraft you sent in to assault the RAMI Directorate base across the lagoon?
MARSHALL YORICK: The result of this council’s call for immediate action to be taken against the Directorate as well as Murasaki. We took note of the Murasaks’ extensive use of hovercraft to defend their base, as well as harry our naval emplacements in the northwest lagoon, so we began the construction of four battalions of hover-assault vehicles. Unfortunately, they turned out to be too lightly armored for a frontal assault on what proved to be a very heavily guarded Directorate installation.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: And these hovercraft proved unsuccessful?
MARSHALL YORICK: Yes they did, Venator. They’re Murasaki designs, sold to all the rimworld militaries. I confess to relative inexperience regarding their deployment, but I doubt they will suffice.
MERITOR DORTMUND: And what would suffice?
MARSHALL YORICK: I’ve… considered several options.
MERITOR DORTMUND: Such as?
MARSHALL YORICK: Well… to be honest, there is only one real option.
VENATOR ALASTAIR (whispered): Here it comes. The ‘N-word.’
PREMIER LUÇA: What?
MARSHALL YORICK: Nuclear weapons.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: You cannot be serious.
MARSHALL YORICK: I’m afraid I am. A nuclear bombardment from one of our Retaliator-type silos would weaken the Directorate defenses substantially, and enable a lightning assault from our forward base in the Growzin Forest.
PREMIER LUÇA: Utilizing more hovercraft?
MARSHALL YORICK: …yes. Unfortunately, we currently lack the production capacity and deployment options necessary to launch a full-scale Kbot or vehicle attack, but as I said, the primary weakness of the hovercraft is their lack of heavy armor. If we focussed our nuclear bombardment on the Directorate base’s defensive installations – Sentinel-type lasers and Defender-type plasma cannons, all of which we could accurately place by use of aerial scouting – I am confident the hovercraft will make short and swift work of any defensive forces the Directorate will muster.
MERITOR DORTMUND: This is insane. We’re talking about nuking our own pliffing planet here. Isn’t there a massive fleet of warships prowling the lagoon for just this purpose?
MARSHALL YORICK: Well, technically, no; they were constructed so we could maintain sea power inside the lagoon, but your point is well seen. General Werner, General Appleton, Admiral Regenschirm and I discussed this option, and indeed Admiral Regenschirm has been conducting hit-and-run sorties against the Directorate base with his fleet ever since the Winnock radar station located it, but…
PREMIER LUÇA: But?
MARSHALL YORICK: …but the raids were met with unanticipated resistance. Three of our Enforcer-class cruisers were taken out by an unknown configuration of shore emplacements, and Admiral Regenschirm was forced back into the outer lagoon. He’s currently under orders to utilize only Ranger- and Millennium-class ships; anything with a smaller range than that puts ships and men in danger.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what is the problem with this?
MARSHALL YORICK: Reconnaissance, or lack thereof. We have yet to have a clear look at the Directorate’s emplacements, and at the moment, Regenschirm is basically just firing blind. Usually, we would use our submarines as spotters for the long-range bombardments, but the Directorate run too tight a ship for that. We have swept the entire coastline of the Güreckt highlands, but have found no defensive batteries or emplacements within scanning range of the subs.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: None?
MARSHALL YORICK: None. Their engineers have evidently been drilled to avoid placing their defensive guns directly on the shoreline. We are not dealing with amateurs, here, nor are we dealing with professionals, like Murasaki. We are dealing with people who do nothing but train and soldier all their life to defend ideals that are their only truth in life from the day they are born. To them, there is only strength in unity.
MERITOR DORTMUND: You sound as if you would like to be one of them.
MARSHALL YORICK: Perhaps, but if this were possible, we would not be fighting this war, Meritor.
PREMIER LUÇA: Explain.
MARSHALL YORICK: We may share certain ideals with the Directorate, independence from the CoRe, unregulated space travel and exploration, et cetera, but as long as we crave an individual voice, they will not permit us our liberty. So great is their love of unity and so strong is their passion for the destruction of the CoRe that they could not bear the idea of a military force in the galaxy that they do not directly control. Even if we would fight the same enemy for the same reasons and on the same battlefields, they would still fight us.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: That would put an alliance out of the question, then.
MARSHALL YORICK: In my opinion? Quite.
PREMIER LUÇA: Thank you for your candor, Marshall. If you wish, you can remain while we deliberate, although you must remain silent, as you know.
MARSHALL YORICK: Thank you, Premier, but if it’s all the same to you, I believe I shall requisition one of the station Valkyries to transport me back to Haven. I will leave a message drone with a bounceback receptor by Hatch 18, so that you can communicate your conclusions to me post-haste.
PREMIER LUÇA: Very well.
MERITOR DORTMUND: Quite the philosopher, isn’t he?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Indeed. I feel like I’ve just had the Art Of War physically hurled at me by a strikeball player.
PREMIER LUÇA: Nevertheless, we must regard his knowledge of the tactical situation on Haven as scripture. We will consider the political ramifications of our victory when we have achieved it.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Scripture, my foot! Nuclear weapons? Is he out of his mind?
PREMIER LUÇA: Calm yourself, Meritor. He will not take any drastic action without Council approval. Now, if both Meritors and the Venator are in agreement, we will ask the good Marshall to continue his naval bombardment until the Directorate retreat or surrender, and if they won’t, then maybe we shall authorize a single, tactical precision nuclear strike, to be followed by a conventional assault, possibly with fully amphibious units.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: It could take months to build up the kind of firepower needed for a ‘conventional’ assault.
PREMIER LUÇA: Then we will wait months, during which Admiral Regenschirm, if that really is his name, will pound the Directorate base with his ship, and hopefully force them to give up.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: And what about the Murasaks?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Christ, Karl, have you seen the satellite photos? (sound of cigarette being lit) Their base is in ruins. We may have killed a lot of our own people doing it, but trust me, they’re pretty much toast.
MERITOR DORTMUND: My God. That it’s come to this.
VENATOR ALASTAIR: I guess that’ll teach us to think we can share a solar system with an interstellar corporation and militarized left-wing radicals.
PREMIER LUÇA: But we are in agreement? Nukes as a last resort, naval and amphibious assaults until then?
VENATOR ALASTAIR: Aye.
MERITOR WURSTENHOLME: Aye.
MERITOR DORTUMND: …aye.
PREMIER LUÇA: Very well. If you’ll close the session please, Elder.
ELDER JACOBI: And so it is written, on this, the fifty-sixth day of the fourth lunar cycle of the one-hundred-and-eighty-first year of settlement, that the council combined on hallowed ground, and made difficult decisions regarding the future of our people. Let their words be heard, reflected on and obeyed.
S13 – CLASSIFIED. RECORDING SEALED AND ARCHIVED.
