11.441.M39

With how fast the frigates were expected to be ready. The increased survivability they offer. Coupled with the age my oldest offspring were reaching (oldest are 22-23). I reluctantly put off going on another adventure for a while.

They’ve been trained by tiger grandparents since the start. Those that showed high aptitude in fleet tactics and command as well as survived their ritual of becoming (when they turn 18) have joined me at Accatran.

Meeting them and spending time with them for the first time ever really, was more awkward for me than them. They were all quite understanding of our positions and what is expected of us for our dynasty to succeed while doing our duty to the Imperium.

Go go child indoctrination I guess. As long as they’re happy with their own reality what more can I ask for?

I spend this time by running them through ever increasingly difficult fleet simulations. Even implementing my own sort of rip off of the kobayashi maru exercise. It’s not quite so drastic. I still allow fleeing as a win condition. Living to fight another day with your forces intact is a type of victory.

One of them questioned me saying something to the effect of “isn’t it dishonorable to flee in the face of the enemy?” Do xenos have honor? Do heretics have honor? Do traitors have honor?

Then what dishonor can there be by fleeing to fight another day? The only thing it does is leave the door open for future opportunities to earn honor. By returning to kill them and take all their shinies.

We’re rogue traders! Not the Emperor’s Angels of Death. Our job is to bring profit for the Imperium. Not to boldly run off and die losing dynasty assets.

After they’d thoroughly ran, reran and ran again the simulations to the point of their brains bleeding out their orifices. I pulled up my old simulations from storage and let them review them.

Can’t give them my answers until they find their own. Straight copying me isn’t good enough. They need to learn why speed and range wins. I did of course slowly guide them with suggestions to continually improve and develop in the direction that I wanted.

One of the latest sims I had them run was our culling of the orks in the Magi-System. With exactly the same forces I had, their task was to clear the system without taking damage.

Little shit, the son that I had the discussion about honor immediately ran and warped to a known safe system. Sure you lived. Now get back in there and kill them all.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The stand out was my daughter Felicia. She even beat my real life clear time by 5 weeks.

She had a few spots where her safety margins were a bit tighter than mine but still acceptable. The only real question I had for her is if she would have made the same calls if it weren’t a sim.

She admits that she likely would have opted for a little more safety. No I’m not salty because a 22 year old girl beat my clear time. Even with her modified answers she still beat my time by 2 weeks. If anything I’m proud. She’s likely going to get a battlecruiser.

They’d been trained and conditioned enough by this point that none of them lost a ship. It was really a matter of if they got surprised by something sneaky or how long it took. The time limit is if you run out of supplies or not. The clipper can only carry so much.

I had them run it a few times until their clear times were acceptable. Being cautious is good. There is still a thing as being too cautious. Kiting is about finding the right balance without losing your situational awareness. It’s good practice.

I rewarded Felicia with the data from my real life run. She was shocked when she saw that it wasn’t a sim but the data from all 4 vessels of a live battle.

Her assignment was to review it as if she were my commanding officer and give me an after action performance review. She would lose points if she went easy on me.

Father has been hard at work making deals. Managing the trade empire. Working with me to bring about our ‘ideal’ fleet doctrine.

With the advent of the new Starr-Class Heavy Frigate. It negates a lot of the work and planning we’d put into the clipper and frigate combination. Not that I’m complaining. It does mean that ideally we should be trading in our ‘escort’ vessels for this design.

It would greatly simplify logistics, reduce manpower (they require ~½ that of a frigate) and unify training across all escort crews. As father never lets me forget it would also be great for the reputation of our dynasty. Even if it’s ‘just a frigate’ having a vessel named after you is great PR.

Father has also been getting a bit frustrated when trying to work out what to do with our light cruisers and cruisers.

We’ve had countless sessions of sitting down and getting into the nitty gritty details of ship performance. Minimum desired specifications and setting the ships to meet or exceed it.

The problem is he’ll start getting into it and agree from a technical perspective. Then he’ll call me into his stateroom amasec in hand and look like he’s half tempted to toss me out an airlock.

Said I knew all along it would be like this and asked me “king for a day what would I do?”.

Yea, I know. It sucks. To get them up to where we want they’re prohibitively expensive. So expensive in tonnage and quality fittings that you can’t help but question if you’d rather have a bigger ship.

King for a day. I wouldn’t trade any of them right now. We still need them to meet our route commitments. I’d bring them in as they’re able and give them a speed makeover. Maybe change their weapons if they aren’t already long range. Call it there.

When some more of these new ships are ready and a few more of my kids have been signed off on. Let me take them hunting. There are plenty more ork systems out there that could use a good harvesting.

Once we have enough new hulls we can start phasing things out and do a proper reorganization.

All we need are a couple more good cullings and build cycles and our dynasty will be able to wage its own ork trading expedition.. Apologies I mean crusade.

HAHA! The Starr Ork Trading Expedition. They trade us hulks but what are you trading them? Why, a “gud fight” of course. It’s the only thing they ever want. 😈

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