A New Generation
Alsinan Defense League Ship Development Journal
While the current Alsinan fleet was certainly capable, it was definitely showing its age, having been primarily constructed many, many years ago. With the newest advancements in armor and droids, the painful weaknesses of the Alsinan ships had been made apparent, with the corruption inherent to the Alsinan government taking its toll as the megacorps were happily slurping up the profits in building the last generation of ships. Only a fool, however, would believe that the Alsinans could defend against a foreign power on equal footing. This had caused an inordinate amount of stress and bickering within the Parliament, who kept arguing back and forth on the best way to modernize or replace the fleet. It had been months, if not years, of congressional stalemate until the idea of utilizing the new developments in droids and armor to both modernize and replace the fleet began to surface
All at once, when this idea was put on the parliamentary floor, shouting and uproar began. What, with the Cunicule-Class still under construction, and several Alsina-Class preparing to go into dock for modernization, we’re going to leave these symbols of national prestige unfinished, or worse, scrapped on the very docks they’re being built on?! What about the many classes of Alsinan frigates, the Y-Class having only recently been brought to full operational readiness? The only thing anyone seemed to agree on was that the Stalwart-Class were worthless in a modern fleet engagement, as were the N-Class who were only hardly surviving.
This period of vigorous debate, only truly seen following the wars which united Cunicule under one nation, was slowly resolved over months and months, offering concessions to Inzano Refining and Fusion of Cunicule, who would receive the lion’s share of the scrap material and profits from this new fleet replacement act. Alsinan Alloys, though, was not excluded from this deal, as they are the primary distributor of the new alloy composite which these new ships will use, so keeping them happy with concessions is a necessity, though not one that the government will openly admit.
The new ships of the “Great Fleet Replacement Act,” as it was now being called, focused on improving the ship’s defenses, as that had been the one true Achilles Heel of the Alsinan fleets since time immemorial. Of course, in a bid to keep their current, lucrative contracts, the “Big 3” megacorps pushed behind the scenes with bribery and further lobbying than they had already done, Alsinan Alloys, who treated their workers with a special kind of uncaring cruelty, even amongst the megacorps, suffered an unexpected stumbling block: the workers in a shipyard above the planet’s surface.
In a large spacedock which is currently building a Cunicule-Class Supercarrier by the name of the “Intunecat,” the contingent of workers conducted a strike across four separate docks, halting construction of the “Intunecat.” In order to break the strike, Alsinan Alloys, who through a shell company operated these docs, were forced to make a choice. Do they gun down their own workers, most of whom were skilled and not easily replaced, or do they concede, granting at the maximum an 8-hour work day? The Board of Directors within Alsinan Alloys bickered back and forth, trying to come up with some profit incentive to go to one or the other. While, yes, gunning down the workers would allow for the brutal hours and awful working conditions to occur, it would also mean halting the construction of one of the nation’s great feats; its supercarrier, an object which inspired much national pride even in the most cynical and jaded members of Alsinan society, which could then lead to revolts and shutting down even more of the nation, which could then lead to a domino effect which could potentially tear down the entire regime. Or, they could concede, which would, yes, mean the company can extract less profit from the workers, but it would keep the ship being constructed on schedule, and the ire of the Alsinan people kept at bay. But, conceding could lead to the other shells of Alsinan Alloys to be struck against as well, which could completely collapse the corporate empire. Ultimately, the board of directors hired a hitman squad to “remove” the strike’s leader without drawing suspicion to the company itself by having a “coincidental” kidnapping and murder occur. Of course, the hitman squad was much too professional for it to be a serial killer or crazed psychopath, but, in all official records, it was a freak occurrence.
Not to be broken that easily, a new leader took up the reins and slowly told the strike to stand down, the company’s plan working better than anyone could imagine. With the breaking of this strike taking the majority of Alsinan Alloy’s attention, the Act was passed under their nose, granting the ADGN the ability to set out requirements INDEPENDENT of the company’s influence. With this newfound freedom, the previous company rule of the past having completely bottlenecked the development of ships is gone, which lets the Alsinans build a fleet FOR their strategic needs.
Of course, the strike-breaking procedures, commonly reported in the news, incorrectly, as the “Intunecat Riots,” had sparked much controversy on the planet’s surface as much worthless “resistance” activity happened by people who had good intentions but not the resolve to actually strike and revolt. Nothing truly changed past some surface-level critique of the government.
The Alsinan Defense League will have its new ships in due time.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_H7cs3IUcbwd5EcaDyMDKOEi6iBnokAw_czPapHGfTw/edit