Reflections
07 Feb 2016Jim Beaumont
It has been a busy and unusual week. Merc reported his faction, Energy Industries had expanded out as he expected in the last few days. What wasn’t expected was the destination the fleet went to. It turned out to be some remote outpost in a little system with one rocky body and that was it. And only one political faction present. So we are a little perplexed as to why. Maybe some hidden energy sources in that one little rock no one knows of.Which got me to thinking. What if all my assumptions of the Com WP and its expansion plans are completely out. Admittedly I’m not in the know and if they have plans for elsewhere then my grand ideas are stuffed at the minute. I have no influence in their decisions. And what is to say that the WP won’t go with the same idea as EI did. Go for the one with least competition. And this got me back behind the Nav comp in the Infante. I decided to do some homework, to have a look around the nearby systems, and look at the numbers of factions in those systems. With having been to a good number of those within 30Ly, I thought I should just about have all the info at hand. It turned out that there was 25 systems within a 30Ly ‘bubble’ and only 2 systems had less than 4 factions present. Both had 2. 1 of which was where the EI had just expanded in to. I got hold of Merc to tell him the news.
‘Looks like, assuming that the WP have the same crazy ideas Merc, that they will be joining your lot. God I hope they don’t. I need to get on the inside somehow. Shape their ideas. But they are a pretty closed shop. Typical communists you have to say.’
‘Well how soon could they expand again then? Maybe that’s the easy option. Let them go here first, then expand again. Can the economy handle it twice so soon?’
‘No idea. Damm it. Didn’t need this spanner in the plan’ I chuckled.
‘Of mice and men was it Jim!’ retorted Merc.
Yeah thanks for that Merc. But I didn’t say it. Not sure I needed to either.
So what about the other 2 systems they are running. I did the same, noted down the likely candidates to move into. Now that was a better option. The system where the WP had recently won the election was a step closer to Duta and the Minister of Duplicity (my choice, not official) but there was 2 systems again with only 2 factions. This is going to take longer than expected. The good news, once there, then there is only 5 systems to expand to, and the third expansion would be to Duta.
This could all be wasted should they choose some other random place of course. My head is in turmoil now. I left one place after getting too involved, and being duped, and now I’m hating it because I’m on the outside not knowing enough. I needed a break. And Oppo was about to deliver one to me just in time.
He was away down in the bubble doing some Imperial courier runs. They pay well he tells us, but he heard of a call to arms from the Alliance over at LHS 2936. Apparently they have put out a request for Osmium, but it has dragged every pirate in from about 300Ly. Oppo was already enroute, and wanted Merc and I to join him in the rocks protecting the miners. Shooting up some pirates with the boys will be a welcome distraction for a few days and so I told Oppo I was on the way in the Almeida.
Not long before I left, the docking bay was a flurry of activity. The move to expand is awash with pace now.