With the conquests of Morgraine's Valkyriate, Sigurd, and Butte Hold over with, my realm had grown to thirteen worlds. It was time to switch over from expansion mode to consolidation mode. As such, I began to apportion governorships and noble titles to ease the transition. First, Commodore Clarke would be promoted to Baroness and handed control of Battaraigi. Colonel Frankowski would be promoted to Baron and given Botany Bay, while Colonel Lindqvist was also promoted to Baron and given Last Chance. Cryfder and its baronial title were given to the newly promoted Baroness O'Neill, while Sigurd and its baronial title were handed to Baroness Kovar. I took Butte Hold as a Personal Holding to add to New Ålborg, Zertarum, and Iron Land. Some of my ministers were upset that they'd only received minor Baronet Titles with rule over moons and the like, but there weren't enough planets to go around yet.
Once that was all finished, we began a program of replacing losses and rebuilding infrastructure damaged by war. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of battles had taken place outside of major population centers, and Ministers O'Neill, Kokkonen, and Kovar estimated we would be finished with that before the year was out. At the same time, however, the increasing fighting on the Rasalhague Front had led to a wave of immigration from the Inner Sphere. Apparently, as our wars were winding down, the Succession War was heating up once again. In the first three months of thirty-twenty-one, we received one-hundred-thirty-thousand immigrants from places like Mortiz, Skokie, Kandis, Memminger, Thannhausen, and Weingarten. We spread out the wave of immigrants, each of our worlds taking ten thousand of them in, but more were likely to come in future months as fighting continued.
Thankfully, we had plenty of room to spare, and Minister O'Neill had us focus on building housing for future immigrants and expanding public services over prioritizing economic concerns for those first three months. We would be glad that we did because, by the time the next wave of immigrants hit in April of Thirty-Twenty-One, we had enough of a buffer of housing to absorb them and then some. From April until July, around one-hundred-ninety-five-thousand immigrants arrived, and not just from places that had been attacked either, as large numbers of people from Skokie, Mortiz, and the like were joined by exiles from Predlitz, Vipaava, St. John, Kufstein, Raadstadt, and New Bergen. It seemed as if the Dracs had cracked down hard on dissent in Rasalhague recently, the effort coinciding with the most recent attempts to take Skokie and Moritz to cut off Tamar.
Regardless, settling a further fifteen thousand people on each of our worlds was doable thanks to Minister O'Neill's efforts at expanding housing and public services like water, electricity, and sanitation. Fortunately, the pace of immigration slowed considerably by August as another stalemate ensued on the Rasalhague Front between the Lyrans and Dracs. September saw only a trickle of twenty-six-thousand immigrants, mostly from smaller, supplemental, crackdowns in places like Satalice, Krenice, Halesowen, and Skandia, places that were too far in the rear of the fighting to have more than the normal amount of unrest. We took in two thousand of them on each of our worlds and that was that for immigration for this year, as new immigrants failed to materialize in the last three months of the year.
Of course, having the housing and services being our focus for the first part of the year meant that the second part of the year was all economics. Minister Kovar had identified several key areas where we could dig new mines, especially on worlds like Sigurd, Botany Bay, Last Chance, Battaraigi, and Cryfder, most had useful industrial metals, but Battaraigi had a decent-sized amount of Germanium. Unfortunately, the call was made for a more balanced economy for each world, which meant that we would only be able to focus on exploiting some of the deposits in favor of agricultural and manufacturing sectors as well as mining. What this essentially meant was that Sigurd, Botany Bay, Last Chance, and Battaraigi would only have two or three new mineral deposits tapped this year, but all would gain a couple of factories and food production to compensate.
Meanwhile, on Butte Hold, work began to switch over the many, many factories my father had built from building less capable things to building Star League Technology Products. The Battlemech Factories switched to production of our new Riflemen Variant and our Upgraded Griffins, Rampages, Dragoons, or spare parts, special munitions, and armor plates for the aforementioned Battlemechs. Small Arms Factories switched to producing copies of the Mauser Nine-Sixty Laser Rifles while personal equipment factories switched to Star League Grade Body Armor, Jump Packs, Sneaksuits, and so forth. On planets all over New Ålborg production of old, low-tech, models ceased and production of new, high-tech models began.
Minister Macszek helped with the production as well, her Research and Development Department had designed several upgrade packages for the various combat vehicles and fighters being produced on various worlds, aside from the Various Rim Worlds Republic Army Equipment. These included upgrade packages for Scorpion Light Tanks, LRM Carriers, Spad Aerospace Fighters, Corsair Aerospace Fighters, and Sabre Aerospace Fighters.
First, the Scorpion Two Light Tank replaced the internal combustion engine with an advanced full cell, replaced the Standard Armor with Ferro-Fibrous Armor, and swapped the Autocannon for an Ultra-Autocannon with CASE-Stored Ammunition. The overall effect was that the Scorpion Two Light Tank was both harder to kill and harder-hitting than the Original Scorpion at the cost of some of the operational endurance. Similar to the Upgraded Scorpion Tank, the LRM Carrier Two, adds Artemis-Four Fire Control, Ferro-Fibrous Armor, CASE Ammunition Storage, and swapping out the Internal Combustion Engine for a Fuel Cell. The result was a hardier, more accurate, longer-ranged, weapons platform with a slight reduction in operational endurance and ammunition storage.
Meanwhile, the Sabre Twos had double heat sinks, Ferro-Aluminium Armor, XL Engines, and replaced the nose-mounted medium laser with a large laser, not only making it faster and sturdier but also giving it a heavier punch. The Corsair Two likewise had Double Heat Sinks, Ferro-Aluminium Armor, and XL Engines, but also replaced its four small lasers with another two medium lasers, giving it a heavier punch while also making it faster and sturdier. Finally, the Spad Two added double heat sinks, Ferro-Aluminium Armor, and XL Engines, but not only carried six medium lasers but also a Guardian ECM Unit in the fuselage.
Between the switched-over production, and the new population, we were more than able to refill the ranks of, and re-equip with new equipment, the Baronial Guards of New Ålborg. Over the course of the Year, the Baronial Guards expanded from Five Regiments at the Start of Morgraine's War, to seven afterward, then to nine regiments after Ryan's War to fourteen regiments by the start of thirty-twenty-two. This was only made possible because of my father's industrial groundwork, our rapid expansion, and the caches of technology I had found so far. Without any one of those pillars, I would be hard-pressed to field such an impressive collection of regiments. Regardless, as each regiment was stood up and kitted out, the first order of business was to drill them hard. Some of the new recruits complained, but they would be glad of the harsh training once peacetime had ended.
Aside from that, our naval forces were somewhat less focused on. Outside of building three more Corvettes at our Secret Automated WarShip Drydock at the Iron Land Cache, repairing damaged dropships of the Fleet Reserve, and replacing lost Aerospace Fighters, the Navy didn't have much in the way of expansion this year. Of course, it could afford to be sacrificed, since the only opponent who currently had the Naval Capacity to challenge me was the Clans and they weren't coming for another couple of decades yet. I suppose ComStar might have the Naval Capacity, but their fleet had been in mothballs for centuries, and bringing it back online would take a lot of time, funding, and effort.
On the trade front, the Lyrans could not get enough of our specialized munitions and ferro-fibrous armor plating, though we'd already known that would be the case. However, a surprisingly good seller was the Spad Two and other upgraded combat vehicles, though I only sold completed vehicles to Duke Michael Watson, since he was the only Inner Sphere Noble I trusted not to turn around and use them against me at the moment. He outfitted an entire combined arms regiment using Scimitar Twos, LRM Carrier Twos, Ferro-Fibrous Armor Plates, and Specialized Munitions for the Regiment's Hunchback Medium Mechs, and enough Spad Twos for an entire Wing of Aerospace Fighters. His order resulted in the outfitting of our Fourteenth Guards Regiment being delayed until the first months of the New Year, but he paid us a crapload of C-Bills for all that stuff, a little over three-hundred-million C-Bills, in fact.
Then there were big sellers and our not-so-big sellers, notably, arms, textiles, raw materials, spare parts, and agricultural products for big sellers and consumer goods, luxuries, chemicals, and computer parts for our not-so-big sellers. All told, between all-out various trade deals, production, and the like, the GDP of the Grand Duchy of New Ålborg for this year was around ten billion C-Bills.
With my realm starting to look like more than a backwater collection of worlds, and with several Barons under my Aegis, it was time for an upgrade of my Noble Title. Conferring with my Barons, Commanders, and Council as to what title I should take took a few days. All agreed that I couldn't be a Baron and also hold the fealty of various other Barons and Baronesses, but no one could agree on what title I should take exactly. King was right out since I was still ultimately a big fish in a small pond, but Count seemed a bit too small and not independent enough. Some people, namely General Jorgensen, lobbied for me to take the title of Prince, but that was countered with accusations of Davionophilia. Eventually, it was Minister Kowalski who stepped up.
"Why not take the title of Grand Duke? It's a sovereign title and has little association with any of the successor states?" Offered Minister Kowalski.
"Grand Duke? It does have a certain ring to it." I mused.
"It's not as regal as Prince, but then I suppose that's not what you're going for." Huffed General Jorgensen.
"Very well, then from henceforth, we will be a Grand Duchy and I your Grand Duke." I nodded. And that settled that.
However, as the stalemate over Skokie and Moritz dragged on, Archon Steiner cast about for anything to break the stalemate and Duke Michael was the one who answered. His purchased equipment from our factories that had outfitted one of his reserve Ducal Guards Regiments had arrived earlier in the year and he'd had the Fifth Apollo Guards equipped and trained on the new equipment as best he could. In Duke Michael Watson's estimation, they were ready to fight. He then sent that regiment, alongside two mercenary regiments and the Thirty-Second Lyran Regulars, crashing toward New Caledonia.
The Second An Ting Legion had been taken off guard by the unexpected assault and had two of its battalions shattered in the opening week of December thirty-twenty-one. That forced the Dracs to rapidly redeploy units from further south to stem the potential breakthrough, this included the Ninth Sword of Light Regiment, which had needed to be withdrawn from the Skokie Campaign to do so. In a climactic three-day battle, the DCMS Reinforcements landed and counterattacked the Thirty-Second Lyran Regulars, Mercenaries, and the Fifth Apollo Guards near the City of New Berwick in an attempt to break the Lyran Counterattack.
They had twice as many regiments as the Lyrans did. The Drac Commander, Tai-Sho Yoshimatsu was confident they could throw the Lyrans back with little problems. Over the course of the battle, he would be proven wrong, largely thanks to the Lyrans achieving air superiority over New Berwick thanks to the Spad Twos that Duke Michael had purchased from us. By the seventeenth of December, the Second An Ting Legion had been destroyed as a cohesive fighting unit, the Ninth Rasalhague Regulars had been cut down to half its effective fighting strength, the Ninth Sword of Light had taken a third of their number as casualties, and the Sixth Galedon Regulars had been so thoroughly mauled that they couldn't be reconstituted, instead being folded into the depleted Thirteith Galedon Rangers to replace the Thirtieth's casualties. Three Other Combine Regiments still remained more or less intact on New Caledonia, but the offensive had already succeeded in its goal.
The Combine effort to encircle Tamar had been robbed of the regiments it needed to press home its attack successfully to contain the sudden Lyran breakthrough at New Caledonia. Lyran forces on Skokie and Moritz not only managed to hammer the weakened Combine assault, kicking them back to Weingarten but also managed to hammer into the Combine Salient with an attack by the Ducal Guards of Kobe in an attempt to mimic the success of Duke Michael Watson on New Caledonia. With the help of the Lyran Twentieth Corps, they managed to pinch off the Combine Salient and trap four Combine Regiments on Weingarten, where they were slowly squeezed into smaller and smaller sections of the Planet.
By New Year's Day, Thirty-twenty-two, the Combine had been chased back over their border in the South as the Lyran Twenty Corps moved to land on Gunzburg. At the same time, Duke Michael Formally agreed to a cease-fire and evacuation of Combine forces on New Caledonia. By the second day of Thirty-Twenty-Two, I received several polite inquiries from Duchess Haynes of Kobe, Duke Horvath of Csesztreg, Duke Benedict of Icar, and even from as far afield as Duchess Albern of Loric off near the border with the Free Worlds League about making a few purchases from my factories. On the third day of Thirty-Twenty-Two, I received an invitation from the newly installed Precentor Shinomura of Apollo to come to the Apollo HPG Facility to discuss potential investments that might be made.
ComStar was finally making their move it seemed, and not in a way I had anticipated from them. . .
XXXX
AN: All right, so a lot of time-skippy stuff in this Chapter. I've condensed a lot of meetings and admin down into essentially a montage of development so we can get to the next bit of intrigue stuff without having to go through multiple chapters of boring setup. Hopefully, you guys are ok with that. Essentially, Jozef has been developing his worlds, absorbing immigrants, and essentially trying to build tall after building wide. He's up to over one and a half million people, with a GDP of ten billion C-Bills, thirteen worlds, and fourteen regiments of troops.
For the upgraded Scorpions, Spads, Sabres, LRM Carriers, and Corsairs, I actually pulled up Megamek to see if the builds would validate. All of them did, and the Spad is especially nasty, because not only is it fast, maneuverable, hard-hitting, and durable, but the Guardian ECM Suite that got shoved in there also makes it a lot easier to close with an enemy fighter without getting shot down, where it can rip into it with six medium lasers and utterly demolish it. It's essentially a really nasty gut-puncher of an ASF designed to avoid incoming fire so it can get in close and hit you with enough laser fire to make you think you crashed into the sun.
As to other stuff going on right now, the Lyrans and Dracs are really going at it on the Rasalhague Front. Fortunately for the Dracs, the Davions are currently otherwise occupied fending off a Major Capellan offensive aimed at pinching off the New Aragon Salient by taking the world of Demeter, so they aren't going to be also jumping in against the Dracs. Meanwhile, the FWL has made peace with most of the combatants already as Janos Marik tries to tackle the internal problems of the state. That might prove to be an insurmountable task for him.
At any rate, the next chapter will be the meeting with the new Precentor of Apollo as she tries to sell Jozef on the benefits of having ComStar investments.
Stay tuned. . .