Fwurg

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"Dear members of the cabinet,

I called for this meeting to share the new information that we have. Unfortunately the Slave Rebellion military fleets have been confirmed. So far 3 military fleets have been confirmed in 12 -3 (Remunzia) and 1 military fleet heading towards the Adii Nasla system in 10 -4."

Ardios shares the official report with the other cabinet members. >> Intelligence Report

"The only reasonable conclusion that I can make in this situation is that we are at war. Therefor I will mobilize the Union military. I plan to move 4 Union fleets to Combat ready and maneuvre the other 4 fleets to strategic defensive positions. To pay for this I will open up the war fund.

I also plan to subsidize one military fleet per faction that is willing to join in the effort to defend the Union. For these fleets the ministry of defence will pay the upkeep part for the combat readiness. The base upkeep of the fleets will still be the responsibility of the factions themselves.

I propose for the ministry of foreign affairs to handle any official communication with the slave rebellion. In this case an official declaration of war could be called for.

The Union military will move towards the Slave Rebellion fleets and change readiness to combat-ready next turn if necessary."

[Atheos]

"The only way to interpret the movements of the Slave Rebellion is a declaration of war.

I shall abstain from making any impositions of a strategical nature, and only wish to point out a possible attack on their very long supply lines perhaps by a targeted military operation.

With the permission of the Chancellor I would contact the slave rebellion to accept their declaration of war and inform them that their demands shall not be met."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"I concur, with the presence of, and the occupation of the Remunzian system we can do nothing but conclude that the Union is at war with the Slave Rebellion.

I shall address the senate on this grave matter forthwith."


"Minister Eldrilith, I have obtained an environmental report that is of the utmost interest to the current situation. I suggest that your ministry distributes this report and a condensed analysis of it's contents to every allied military vessel in the Union."

The chancellor shares with the cabinet a Remunzian Environmental report opening on a list of the Slave Rebellion fleets, listing each ship with a detailed profile of its energy usage, marking where in the ship energy usage was highest, detailing structural flaws which might pose a danger of creating space debris or worse causing leakage of environmentally damaging materials if hit by micro-meteors and registering the details of ship shielding to prevent such occurrences. It also listed power and resource requirements, number of people on board, oxygen, food and water usage, hyperspace signatures (and the impact on the hyperspace environment) and lists of the amounts of dangerous materials on board such as explosive materials and blaster gasses.

"I have obtained this report directly from senator Salixa, and I am confident that this is not misinformation. The manner in which the detailed analysis has been performed and the reason it has been performed ensure that the Slave Rebellion is unaware of its existence. Needless to say, this report is not necessarily exhaustive of all forces the Slave Rebellion has deployed.

I shall announce your planned subsidy immediately when I address the senate on the state of war.

Additionally, while I am under no illusion that strategical decisions are under the purview of the chancellery, I suggest a holistic approach to the strategy used in this conflict. Especially now that we have considerable knowledge of at least a large part of the Slave Rebellion forces. I'll explain."


"Minister Atheos, you have my permission to contact the Slave Rebellion. But before you do, I wish to propose several messages that we need to send out to make sure that we have the best possible negotiation position."


"Right now, there are four superpower that we need to consider as immediately involved in this conflict: the Union, the Slave Rebbelion, the Hutt Families and the Free Confederacy.

The Union and the Slave Rebellion need no further explanation as we are in direct, armed conflict with the Slave Rebellion. However, we should not forget that the actions of the Slave Rebellion are not necessarily dictated by a single governing body.

The Hutt Families are intimately involved with this conflict, as they stand to gain much from a weakened Slave Rebellion. Even though I personally find their methods of slavery morally objectionable, such personal issues need to be set aside for matters of state. They are obviously aware of the current movements of the Slave Rebellion fleets. But we have a significant amount of intelligence that would help them out.

The Free Confederacy is involved because the route that the Slave Rebellion fleets must have taken is through at least one sector of Free Confederacy space. So they are either negligent in their military scanning, or they are actively allowing the Slave Rebellion to pass through their territories. Since they have acted in a politically and military competent manner in the past, I assume that the latter is the case."

The chancellor waited while some refreshments were brought in.

((OOC: I'm having dinner right now, I'll post the actual plan after dinner ^_^))

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"Well the Remunzians are very thorough when it comes to analyzing the environmental impact. The Ministry of Defence will make good use of this information.

Although we could use this situation to manipulate the Hutt families we should be very careful what information we feed them.

I agree that talks with the Free Confederacy are necessary, we do need to find out what their position is on this matter. Sooner, rather than later.

The Union military fleets have received orders to mobilize. We are not going to wait and see what they want to do to us, we have to act now."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"Agreed, the Hutt Families are a slippery bunch."

"Based on the involvement of these powers, I propose to shake the confidence of the Slave Rebellion and their leadership through establishing that we are confident that we have the upper hand.


We broadcast a message to all the Slave Rebellion forces here directly, and we send the same message to the Slave Rebellion superpower through diplomatic channels. We inform them that we accept their declaration of war as delivered by their forces through unannounced occupation of the Union territories in sector 12 -3, and we inform them that we reject their terms.

Furthermore, we sent a selected sample of two vessels from the report we have with the message, informing them that we have extensive intelligence on their whole invasion force.

We then present our terms: they stand down before the end of 288, and leave Union territory forthwith. If they do, we will let them leave them without giving chase or destruction of their fleets. If they do not comply, we will use the full force of the Union military to engage and destroy their forces inside or near Union territory, and we will send all pertinent intelligence to the Hutt Families.


The reason we send the message to both the invasion forces and the Slave Rebellion through diplomatic channels is that there is no guarantee that these fleets are acting on orders. It might very well be that they saw an opportunity and acted upon it without conferring about the balance of power. By broadcasting the message to all vessels in the invasion force, every captain will doubt their peers' ability and readiness to do battle.

We can safely send a small sample of the report to them, since they do not have the time to reconfigure or repair the weaknesses the report exposes. They have already committed to the invasion, and will either have to divert their efforts to compensate for known weaknesses, or they have to accept that this is a suicide mission for many of their people."


"I think it is best to also send a message to the Free Confederacy. To inform them of the fact that we are at war with the Slave Rebellion, and that we will be sending fleets through 13 -2. Furthermore, we should state that the Slave Rebellion fleets must have moved through their territory to reach the Union, that we understand that it is possible that these fleets moved through their space undetected, and that we hereby inform them that it might be necessary for us to move our fleets through their territory."

"They will most likely balk at the idea of us moving our fleets into their territories. At that point we can inform them that since the Slave Rebellion moved through their territories there are only the following options: either a) it is not a problem for them to have foreign powers move their fleets through their territories, b) they have allied themselves with the Slave Rebellion with which we are at war, and as such are also at war with us, or c) they have allowed the Slave Rebellion to move through their territory in error and will deploy their fleets to prevent the Slave Rebellion from doing so again. We inform them that they can choose the interpretation they like best."



"Minister Eldrilith, if we move our fleets into position immediately, the messages can be reacted upon before we engage their forces. How long do the Union fleets need before they can engage?"

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"If we wish to attack with the full force of the Union military we will need at least 4 . Since our fleets are currently inactive. Unfortunately the Union has no defensive fleets on the pay roll... Maybe this is something we should change in the future to improve our decisiveness.

Since we might want to act now we could start with the Union member fleets that ar currently active. I propose to send several of the military fleets that are currently combat-ready or defensive to 10 -4 to salvage the situation. Two Veolians Fleets, a Praetorian Fleet and a ACA fleet should do the trick."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"I suggest increasing military subsidy from the war fund to cover the expenses of all member fleets that have are activate during wartime. This incentivises other Union members to not sit by, even though though they are already obligated to render support."

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"It seems we currently have the budget for such actions. For now I will subsidize every Union member military fleet that is defensive or combat ready and is committed to assisting in the Defence of the Union under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"Minister Kachiso, as Minister of Commerce the Bozzy Spine falls under your purview. Now that the Slave Rebellion is occupying the Remunzian homeworld they will probably be able to acquire the necessary encryption and command keys to gain access to the Bozzy Spine.

Can your ministry change out the encryption and cycle any command keys to prevent them from gaining usage of the Bozzy Spine?"

[Lord-Senator Kachiso Doshima]

"I will make the necessary arrangements to change the encryption and the command keys.

Minister Eldrilith, might I suggest creating a command post here on Unity so the fleets from different members can coordinate better?"

The Astrian minister took a deep breath as if to steel himself for something.

"Chancellor, I believe an official statement should be made to the citizens of the Union. People know something is going on, but they don't know what. To maintain order and ensure the stability of the economy, disclosure of the fact we are at war with the Slave Rebelion will go a long way.

The last thing we need right now is riots, hoarding of wealth and supplies and xenophobic out lashes."

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"An excellent suggestion minister. In fact we already have the required security and communication connections in the Ministry of Defence main building. They will be expecting a liasson from your faction and will help with setting up secure connections with the UDF Fleets.

I would advise to wait with official statements for now. We must ensure that other super factions don't get the news through the media..."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"I agree that an official statement should be made. But we should do so after the necessary formalities have been handled under the state secrets act. Let the Slave Rebellion think that the Union is the slow bureaucratic superpower that they expect us to be, and the more surprised they will be when we act without hestitation the moment our fleets are active.

I promise that I will make an official announcement the moment the declaration of war is made official through a vote. Until that time, member governments will have to make do with the situation. If their population is rioting over one week's wait, there is nothing we could do to help them regardless..."

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"Given that there is very little further to discuss, I thank you all for your presence. Let's get to work."

With that, the chancellor went back to her offices.

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

Ardios Eldrilith called the cabinet together again since there was new intelligence to share. This time the cabinet was invited in the Ministry of Defence main building.

Ardios waited for the others. He had the intelligence ready and waiting on the monitor.

"Welcome everybody. New intelligence has arrived. The Union defence forces are currently planning their next move. I invited you all to share the information. Our military liaisons are currently looking at the same intelligence."

Ardios shares the latest intelligence. >> Report

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"Thank you minister.

The forces of the Veolian Commonwealth have been given the order to engage the fleet blockading the Adii Nasla settlement. Based on our current intelligence we expect a victory, albeit a slow one. Depending on further intelligence we might have one of our fleets disengage to support other operations.

Unfortunately we have lost contact with the Adii Nasla settlement as holonet communications went dark a day after the blockade started. We do not know the cause of this sudden lack of communication. Once we know more I will relay the pertinent information to the ministry of defence."

[Senator Ardios Eldrilith]

"The Praetorian Primary Fleet has arrived in 10 -5. Praetorian High Command is asking for your advice, shall we continue to move to 10 -4 or patrol? Since you know your territory best and its your system being invaded we ask you.

Furthermore I can tell you that the Union military is still preparing for their counter assault. The UDF-CORE-14 is planning their move to 10 -4. Unfortunately they need some more time."

[Atheos]

"On a topic separate from Minister Ardios Eldriliths advice request,

The Free Confederacy allows us access to their territory and hyperspace lanes or bozzy spine, so long as we do not enter with union forces the home systems. For this we must make another further explicit request.

Combining this with the declaration of war of the Free Confederacy on the Slave Rebellion, I believe we have sufficiently denied the Slave Rebellion asylum in Free Confederacy territory. If they now harbor retreating enemy forces on their homeworlds this will be seen to be very duplicitous, and I do not reckon they will take such action.

Thus far the update on the situation with the Free Confederacy."

Atheos shares his communication with the Free Confederacy.

[Chancellor Dewa Lanadi]

"Thank you for the fast work, ministers.

Minister Eldrilith, we currently already have a fleet patrolling our home sector. In the event of an unadviced invasion, this fleet will be more than capable of delaying the enemy until reinforcements arrive. I suggest you help out in the defence of the Adii Nasla System until the outcome is guaranteed."

"Minister Atheos, given that the Slave Rebellion has did not stand down nor withdraw, how long before the Hutt Families receive the intelligence package?"