Capítulo 60: Chapter 30
Thirty-Twenty-Two dawned with news from the Rasalhague Front of the ongoing Succession War. A massive Lyran Push had begun to attampt to hammer the Combine while they were weakened, involving three Lyran Corps, bolstered by troops from various Ducal Forces. Lyran Twenty Corps on Gunzburg broke through the Combine Lines around the Planetary Capital of Ingermanstdadt and forced the Combine Forces off the planet, retreating Northeast to Voralburg. In the North, Duke Watson's Forces on New Caledonia were joined by the Lyran Thirty Corp and several other Ducal Forces, pushing to Norn and the Edge and forcing the Combine to redirect several regiments to Kirchbach to protect the prefectural Capital. That proved a mistake when the Lyran Fifteenth Corps struck South from Ridderkerk to take Basiliano. Battles on Voralburg, Basiliano, and elsewhere erupted as the Lyrans attempted one final push to break the DCMS in the area.
Within the next two years, the Three-Pronged assault had rolled back the front from the Edge down to Kufstein and from Kufstein down to Voralburg, pocketing Kirchbach, which still held out under Combine Control. It wasn't looking good for the Combine, but was looking very good for us. We sold special munitions, Ferro-Fibrous Armor Plating, Sabre Twos, Scorpion Twos, and LRM Carrier Twos to the Lyrans almost as fast as we could make them to help them keep up the pace of their assault. That led to the treasury flooding with C-Bills, which only added to the money gained from loans to help further industrialize and improve the infrastructure of the Grand Duchy. That money built not only factories, mines, industrial farms, and power stations, but also hospitals, weather control machines, housing developments, water purifiers, and schools. All neccesary to take on board the many immigrants we recieved from the Rasalhague Front.
The tide of immigration was rather large, as it would be with such a major offensive and came from dozens of worlds along the Rasalhague Front. Kufstein, Basiliano, Voralburg, Gunzburg, Norn, and half a dozen others all sent refugees fleeing to a location that was at peace, where the culture wasn't too dissimilar from the one they had grown up with and was free of the Combine's propagandistic meddling to boot. We averaged around one-million-five-hundred-thousand immigrants a year between the start of thirty-twenty-two and thirty-twenty-four. They arrived on a flood of ramshackle ships ranging from modern passenger liner jumpships to decrepit Tramp Freighters that had looked to have scarcely received maintenance since the fall of the Star League. However as the pace of advance slowed and it became clear that digesting the Kirchbach Pocket would be the Lyran Focus for thirty-twenty-four those numbers tapered off significantly.
All told, we would gain around three-million new citizens by the start of thirty-twenty-four, and gain another two-hundred-fifty-thousand in the first two months of Thirty-Twenty-Four. We were only able to keep up with the demand thanks to our program of plowing money gained from arms sales back into development of our worlds. Five-milion-two-hundred-fifty-thousand people across fourteen worlds may seem small compared to many places, but it was quite good for a Periphery Power. The Oberon Confederation only had around two-hundred-fifty-thousand more people in it than that, though that looked to be about to change thanks to Hendrik Grimm's renewed assault against Helamar Valasek. He'd managed to take Porthos from Helamar Valasek and the fighting was currently on Helamar Valasek's Capital World of Santander's World as the Oberon Guards and Santander's Killers fought for control of the planet. If Hendrik Grimm could take Santander's World, he would have another six-hundred-thousand people to add to his domain, in addition to the six-hundred-thousand from Porthos.
That would put the Oberon Confederation up to eighteen worlds with six-million-seven-hundred-thousand people. That might be more planets and people than we had in the Grand Duchy, but their economy wasn't as robust. Minister Kokkonen assured me that by the halfway point of thirty-twenty-four, the Grand Duchy's GDP was at just over nineteen-billion C-Bills a year and still growing. By the start of thirty-twenty-five, our GDP was projected to be at just over twenty-two-billion-eight-hundred-ten-million C-Bills a year. Comparatively, the Oberon Confederation's GDP Figures, or at least the ones they showed ComStar's Financial Services Division, had them at just Sixteen-Billion C-Bills a year, a somewhat anemic showing compared to us.
Speaking of ComStar's Financial Services Division, we managed to repay our loans with fifteen months of taking them out thanks to profits from sales of War Materials to the Lyrans, something that absolutely stunned Precentor Shinomura when we did so. She went into her office in the HPG Complex on Apollo to verify and when she returned, offered us a second loan of three billion C-Bills, apparently doubling down on her efforts to buy out our industry with investments. I took half of that after conferring with Minister Kokkonen and seeing how much we would be able to pay back over the next fifteen months. Once again, the Precentor acquiesced. Honestly, at this point it was apparently just good business sense to agree on her end. After all, even if ComStar didn't manage to gain control over our economy using this ploy, they were still making money hand over fist by dealing with us.
On conferring with Minister Simowitz, it appeared that Primus Tiepolo seems to have done this as a way to shift gears. He'd had a bug in the Precentor's Office for around a month by the time that the new loan terms had been finalized, thanks to buying the loyalty of the Cleaning Service that ComStar had contracted to work janitorial duties at the Apollo HPG Complex, a task that was too menial for an order that viewed itself as the last bastion of technological civilization in the universe. Apparently, the Primus had been under fire from the Conservative Faction, including Precentor ROM Vesar Kristofur, who was angling for the position of Primus once Tiepolo was forced out of the seat. Primus Tiepolo couldn't afford any more enemies at this juncture so had decided to order Precentor Shinomura to work with us financially instead of against us as a method of showing off the fruits of his strategies to the wider Order. How long that would last was anyone's guess, though. Certainly if Kristofur succeeded in toppling Tiepolo, the potential for ROM shenanigans being sent our way got much more likely.
In the meantime, we pushed our understanding of Star League-Era Technology even further. Chiefly, our capabilities came in two forms, the first being that Minister Macszek's people finally managed, after multiple years of study, to solve the beam coherence issues holding back our reproduction of Star League ER Laser technology. According to Minister Macszek, it had to do with the structure of the lenses used in the laser, apparently the lenses needed to be made with a specific crystalline matrix in order to solve the issue. With that finished and figured out, Pulse Laser Technology only took a year to crack, as the crystalline matrix for ER Lasers solved half of the problem for the technicians. The other half of the problem was in beam compression technology, but a workaround was swiftly found for the technology using other Star League tech that we could already reproduce. Unfortunately, the lense solution couldn't carry over to PPC technogy, so those teams would have to figure out how to reproduce ER PPCs on their own.
In other news, the medical technology that we had sold the Archon's Palace on Tharkad had come through to help change the Timeline. During one of her regular checkups, a Star League-Era Tech Medical Scanner found an anomalous mass in Katrina Steiner's Colon. A biopsy revealed it to be a Carcinoid Tumor, the slowest-acting form of cancer there is. With this sort of cancer, you could go undiagnosed for up to a decade or more before symptoms set in, though once they did, the Cancer would be fatal within the next few years if left untreated. Catching it this early normally required exploratory surgery, however with the Star League Tech Medical Scanner I had sold them, they were able to catch the Cancer and begin advanced, Star League-Era, Medical Treatments. By the end of thirty-twenty-four, the Archon was in total remission. I even got a lovely thank you card from the desk of Katrina Steiner herself.
It made me feel good, as preventing the Archon's Death was one of the main changes I had been hoping to make compared to the timeline I had glimpses of in my dreams. It was good news, but not the only good news to come out of the Lyran Commonwealth in thirty-twenty-four. No, that came in December, as on the fourth of December, Thirty-Twenty-four, Kirchbach had finally fallen to the Lyran Onslaught. The following day, a request for a truce and peace negotiations came from the Coordinator's Office on Luthien. The So-Called Krampusnacht Ceasefire was put in place on the evening of December Fifth, Thirty-Twenty-Four and was followed a couple weeks later by the Christmas Truce between the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation, after the battle of Masterson saw the Free Worlds League make their last gains in the Third Succession War, taking the Duchy of Bithinia from the Capellans. That in turn was followed by the Truce of Tybalt between the Federated Suns and the Capellan Confederation and the New Year's Truce between the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns following the battle of Shaul Khala on the second of January, Thirty-Twenty-Five
Primus Tiepolo agreed to host a peace conference on Terra to end the Third Succession War, with ComStar as mediator. The Terra Conference was scheduled for February Twelfth thirty-twenty-five and would hopefully provide an end to the Third Succession War. If successful, it was highly likely that Primus Tiepolo's position within ComStar would be secure enough from Precentor ROM Kristofur's challenge for some time to come, which was likely why he made the offer to mediate, to begin with. After all, according to my Dreams, ComStar should be all for the Successor States ripping each other to pieces beyond all capacity for reason. A successful peace conference on Terra, mediated by Tiepolo himself, would only serve to show that Primus Tiepolo's way of doing things could get things done better than the Conservative Faction's Zealotry.
It also probably helped that the Draconis Combine was turning into a major loser in the Conflict, having lost significant chunks of Kirchbach, Radsdadt, and Matsuida Prefectures, including the prefectural Capital of Kirchbach Prefecture. Having a major loss for the Draconis Combine like that only served ComStar's purposes if no one successor state got the majority of the annexed Territory. I was betting that a new Rasalhague Principality was going to be floated by Tiepolo at the Conference to avoid giving the Lyrans too much territory. Of course, that wasn't really any of my concern, as no Periphery Powers had been invited to the conference to observe and I had other things to deal with anyway.
Our military forces had kept training, fitting out, and expanding. The Grand Ducal Guards were now up to sixteen regiments, including the Jomsborg Hussars Regiment currently fitting out and training on SLDF Royal Gear on Iron Land. We also had four Grand Ducal Flotillas of JumpShips, Aerospace Fighters, and DropShips, plus the Fleet Reserve. All those troops and all that metal were in preparation for this year. Major, now Colonel, McCormack had assured me that her Regiment would be ready for deployment by July. General Jorgensen assured me that all of our forces will have worked up to acceptable levels by then as well. This was excellent, because this was the last year left before the deadline for fulfilling our treaty agreements with the Lyrans was up.
I planned to take Star's End before the end of the year. While the diplomats from the successor states bickered with each other over border issues and reparations on Terra during the Terra Peace Conference, I called together my Council to conference not for peace, but for war with the Belt Pirates of Stars End. As we gathered together in the Grand Ducal Council Chamber, I couldn't help but chuckle at the symmetry there. Hopefully, this would prove yet another brief campaign.
If not, at least it would hopefully not run out the clock on my treaty obligations. . .
XXXX
AN: Laptop is still dead so apologies for any spelling or grammar errors in this one. Hopefully you can all read this ok.
This is a major timeskip and I've summed up a lot of stuff. There have been some pretty major changes to the setting as a result of events. For one thing, the Combine got it's shit kicked in on two fronts, though their losses to the Lyrans were worse than those to the FedSuns here. For another, the lack of a Marik Civil War and a decade of peace with the Lyrans actually made things turn out better in the long run for the Mariks, managing to capture the Duchy of Bithinia from the Capellans. Of course, the biggest change is that Katrina Steiner's Cancer was detected early and taken care of thanks to Star League-League-Era Medical Tech purchased from Jozef.
The Lyrans' better position and Katrina Steiner's better health has meant that no FedCom Accords have been signed as of March Thirty-Twenty-Five. There was simply no need to betroth twelve-year-old Melissa Steiner to Thirty-Nine-year-old Hanse Davion. That means I don't have to write about Melissa marrying a guy over three times her age. FASA can be creeps sometimes.
At any rate, the next chapter will be a meeting of the Grand Ducal Council to discuss the assault on Star's End, then we'll get a few Interludes involving the Successor States, ComStar, and Hendrik Grimm before actually going back into War with the attack on the Belt Pirates.
Stay tuned. . .
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