Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval ended her three-cycle-long turmoil in the style she started it — smoothly and without obvious interference. She retained the single system that was still in turmoil, but the turmoil as a whole has seen her shed five systems, all unprofitable, gaining her a total of 78 Command Capital (CC) extra per cycle. She currently has no expansion in progress, and will be planning her next moves with her new trimmer more efficient empire.
Meanwhile, Dictator Yuri Grom’s freewheeling power has been forced back into turmoil, narrowly avoiding a very expensive expansion into Edmund Mahon’s space that would have hurt both powers significantly. The turmoil is slight, with only the profitable system of Adad threatening to revolt. At the same time, two new expansions to Xi Ophiuchi and BD+08 1303 are in progress. Combined they would cost Grom 96 CC, while contesting 72 CC with Hudson and small amounts with Mahon, Li Yong-Rui and Winters. If Grom remains in turmoil these expansions will automatically fail, though because of their high cost they may fail even if Grom regains control over Adad.
CEO Li Yong-Rui’s Sirius forces have an expansion underway into Dafnharian, but it is unlikely this is desired, as the system is strategically uninteresting and massively unprofitable and will cost him 73 CC per cycle. Unfortunately the triggers are almost 2:1 in favour of expansion, and at the time of writing has a lead of 14,000 merits earned by pilots either confused or actively involved in sabotage. Cmdr Saadia of SiriusGov told us “Unfortunately we appear to have a bit of corporate espionage on our hands. Rest assured we will find those responsible and they will be escorted off the premises and out the nearest airlock. Any assistance to oppose this unprofitable action will be rewarded with lucrative future contracts.“
Senator Zemina Torval failed yet again in her weaponised expansion to LHS 184 thanks to a huge last-minute “snipe” by the opposition, and it failed by a mere 10,000 merits. The system would have contested 55 CC from President Zachary Hudson. Renewed preparation attempts to the system have already begun this cycle.
Elsewhere, Shadow President Felicia Winters continues to ping-pong expansions between the systems of Baal (contesting Emperor Lavigny-Duval) and Diegakul (contesting Princess Arissa Duval). With Winters putting in little offensive effort each cycle, and triggers strongly against her, it is assumed these are anti-sabotage expansions rather than serious efforts against the Empire.
The activity in Upaniklis around the generation ship Golconda caused three powers to make moderate attempts to prepare the system for expansion, probably through the misguided efforts of confused pilots. An expansion there would have been extremely unprofitable for all of the powers, and the preparation attempts were successfully avoided.
Sagittarius Eye Breaking News team