Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Keeping the Space Lanes Safe

By now Ringo's management has been acting largely as a stewardship that doesn't engage in aggressive business moves, especially given the products in use on several theaters. Plus, these days, she was better-known as a general that even the Sith Empire treads lightly around, than she was as a shipwright. As far as Ringo is concerned, she was just a ceremonial chairwoman, with limited operational power (specifically related to the authority to close deals with special clients and, to a lesser extent, development of new equipment), while the actual day-to-day activities being run by Marcia. Yet, just because certain lines sold well, especially the Skors, which have been one of the big artillery mainstays of light-sided factions still active, didn't mean that there was limited room for growth, and the industry is far from depressed. Nevertheless, since no decision has been made regarding the Fel Empire dossier, she could still, to the extent it was feasible, try to get a new client. Plus it didn't matter to her if she was to meet with that new client on Ringo Vinda or at a location of the client's choosing. Just that she composed a holo-message to a prospective new client:

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ATTN: [member="Primarch Iedolas"]

I would like to discuss the Protectorate's procurement needs; I want to ensure the Protectorate's satisfaction to the extent it is feasible given the current catalog. Please let me know what works for you.

Jessica Med-Beq
Chairwoman, Ringovinda StarYards

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His people were descended of wood folks. They once lived in the woods, with no technology, hunting for food and learning magic from the gods in the forests. And now, here he was, leading his people in a age of immense advance, where not only they could cure most, if not all, diseases, but they had to rely in machines with great intelligence to help them in their daily tasks. And not only that, but in the communications as well, for now they could project themselves for others to watch.

“Stand by, Iedolas Aldercapt Solidor, First of His Name, Duke of House Solidor, King of Kaikielius, Chairman in the Bank of the Core and elected Primarch of the Interstellar Protectorate!”, the voice of his herald announce, as it was customary for most nobles of such old blood to still do it so. The elzeri were, still, a people of many traditions from their days of roaming all over the galaxy. As his image showed up his whole body perfectly, Iedolas smiled and nodded for the person that received him.

"Greetings", he announced, his body being projected by the holocrab that held his image. Clear and proud. Funny for him was the fact that the machines in this new age of technology were quite the emotional pieces, with personalities and even feelings. “Your transmission was much welcome to us in Kaikielius. As said by my envoys, i would like to discuss terms of a great deal. I do must apologize for not being able to atend in person, pressing matter have made me stay.”

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
The King of Kaikielius, [member="Primarch Iedolas"], couldn't exactly be blamed for being unable to arrange for an in-person meeting (regardless of whether it was on Kaikielius or elsewhere, really). She knew that protocol typically dictated, in such regimes, rather onerous stuff. At least Jessica knew that she would rather not spend any more time on any one client than absolutely necessary, and protocol often dictated a number of time-consuming stuff, albeit highly variable in their time-consuming characteristics. So now that Iedolas has, in fact, opened a channel to Jessica, she is fully prepared to take notes for the company's records. Yet, any discussion of naval procurement would begin with the identification of needs. But it would by no means end there. Just that she would not expect anything beyond 2km as per current regulations, since it was a deal for naval vessels, and even then she would expect the bulk of the units to come from cruisers and smaller. Now, she could tell that the First Order was more about an array of smaller ships, with their main capitals aft, while the Sith Empire had no centralized doctrine.

"I trust you have an idea of what the Protectorate's naval needs are: we have a wide catalog for a wide variety of needs. However, do you have an idea of what you're expected to fight? Or other naval needs you might have?"
 
His face didn’t moved that much, he was impressed with the company. They had many ships and vehicles that seemed useful, and really impressive for him not to have a very close look at them. Ships and guns, powerful things that could change everything, to stir the whole galaxy and reshape the power scales that ruled over others. But even so, in his office while he was being befried about the ships he was interested in purchasing, Iedolas would try something else first, as he was still being becoming aware of her products.

“Before we do that, it is also my duty as chairman in the board of the Bank of the Core to ask if, i believe it’s also yours, Pizza Hutt?”, he smiled about that, as a noble he knew very little about junk food, but was also placed as a question in the topics to raise in this conference. “The BoC is highly interested in funding an additional twenty units to be distributed around our building locations in the Kaikieli System. If you also are the one i can speak about this, my lady. I’m currently learning about every detail on the products we are interested, thought would save your ladyship some time if i talked about this before we go to that.”

To have those units next to the company, or even inside the company in its caffeteria, would be wonderful for business. That would attract potential clients, and others inside the company just to eat one of those cheap and delicious things called pizza.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"Although I'm sure Pizza Hutt can, in fact, come to an accord with the Bank of the Core when it comes to opening new locations, I'm afraid I have no power to seal such a deal. The new management of Pizza Hutt is led by a Gungan by the name of Ugohr Poof"

In her mind, [member="Primarch Iedolas"] may as well be just be buying time so that the defense advisors could, in fact, sift through the catalog. That catalog was one of the most extensive in the light-sided world, much like Sasori's would be. There has to be a few items in the catalog that interests the Protectorate, even though I acknowledge some specialty ships, vehicles or even weapons aren't for everyone that can afford it, she thought. The starkest example is mortars: Ringo may be the leading mortar supplier in today's galaxy, just that indirect fire is one of the more under-appreciated weapons used in ground battles. As is suppressive fire, for which most units would rather stick to repeater blasters, and not to use stuff such as charrics, sonic weapons, slugs or even Umbaran electromagnetic plasma, even though the aforementionned varieties cannot be deflected by lightsabers. Now, as far as she knew Ugohr Poof, he would definitely be amenable to opening twenty locations on Kaikielius, and of course desiring local staffing, which in a fast-food context should be pretty straightforward.

"Just let me know if those defense needs go beyond the naval"
 
The Primarch nodded at her words about Pizza Hutt, after all, he should have imagined that. He was just buying his time as the computers ran simulations with her ships and vehicles to see which ones served better for their purposes, after all, they want it a navy, but most of her products were meant for cargo and trade. Things the Nine Houses would love to invest as they were expanding to other regions of the galaxy with new trade routes.

“Quite impressive products you made in your company.”, he said, probably almost repeating himself, while the holocrab showed another series of holographic images in her office as Iedolas read out loud the names of the products. “I most certainly am interested in those Tofolk-class rescue corvette, probably six, also those Zamboni-class sanitation ship. Can they work their way next to a asteroid belt without much trouble?”, they had a large asteroid belt all over his planet, one that they used to mine resources, but even so, debris was something common in other parts of their system.

“Also those Ultima-class bulk freighter seem quite interesting. Especially for us, that have business in dangerous areas of the galaxy.”, other images of products to buy showed up, such as Egroeg-class adjustable drydock and the Sacul-class adjustable drydock, also the Deathball proton bomb and Stalgasin crowd control bomb. “Those are wonderful products indeed. Great additions they shall make in our service."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"The Tofolk and the Zamboni were, in fact, designed from the very beginning to be used in asteroid fields. As for the Ultima, it allows modularity in the hold bulkheads so that it can, in fact, be used to load many different types of bulk freight in the same ship, and also containers, too"

So the Protectorate was going to build their naval warships in-house? I can't exactly blame them: as far as I can tell, their defense needs may well be unusual, although ordnance is typically a thing that just about anyone with bombers would ask for, she thought, while hearing him mention the Egroeg and Sacul. Just that [member="Primarch Iedolas"] was seemingly more comfortable with outsourcing merchant marine shipbuilding than military. But good on him not to overlook the merchant marine, since in all other factions she knew of, the merchant marine was at best left to the private sector's devices, with highly variable results. She had the impression to be back to the pre-ROS era, where civilian offerings were more important from a corporate standpoint; Castameer marked a transitional point to Ringo. Just that, unlike the Tofolks and Zambonis, where quantities were specified, Iedolas didn't specify how many of each, the smaller Egroegs being suspected to be needed in larger quantities than the larger Saculs, especially if they could somehow manage to get cruisers and even destroyers built that had a cross-section of less than 300m in the smallest two dimensions.

"As far as the Egroegs and Saculs are concerned, how many of them do you feel would fit your needs?"
 
His face changed to show he was thinking about it. Ten of those Ultima would be wonderful if used for trade and stuff, especially when they were starting new trade routes with ORC planets and SJO worlds, but he was thinking about those drydocks, after all, what kind of ship those could build? He knew much of politics, philosophy, history and the Force, but knew nothing about technology and had no patience to learn about it.

“Ten of those Ultima, but please, do tell me, what kind of ships those drydocks can built?”, he had no shame about asking such things. He was a ruler and a head of the board in a Bank, not a engineer or a pilot that knew anything about such matters. “And do pardon my ignorance.”

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"The First Order may be something to think about as far as the southern end of trade routes to ORC space is concerned"

Hmm... as far as I know the Ultima, a set of trade routes taking merchandise, and perhaps passengers as well, from the Core to ORC space would have many stops across the Rimma Trade Route or the Hydian Way, but of the Metharian Nebula beware in the case of the Hydian Way, she thought, while being remembered of the deal she signed with UTC when the Metharian Nebula was blockaded. Meanwhile, she could forgive [member="Primarch Iedolas"] for not understanding how adjustable drydocks worked. And what made adjustable drydocks the main orbital mainstay over several planets on which Ringo had operations: Hakassi, Dulvoyinn, Gyndine, Pergitor, Bimmisaari, Glyss and, of course, Ringo Vinda. The ribs adjusted to the shape of what's being built inside, especially useful if the drydock needed to be moved around through hyperspace for some reason. For this reason, the smallest two dimensions were design constraints that were important to Ringo when a new class of ships was designed: they didn't want to drain drydock resources any more than necessary.

"As for the Egroegs and Saculs, since they are orbital drydocks, the only real constraints on what these could build is, in fact, the smallest two dimensions. That way, it doesn't matter what the largest dimension is, so long as the smallest two dimensions do not exceed 300m and 1000m respectively"
 
When she mentioned the First Order, his face remained the same. With that smile in his lips, calm and solemn, as he always tried to be that way with everyone around him, always keep a good face for people, his father used to say, hide who you are and let no one see that for that is what makes a Solidor. Iedolas had serious doubts about that, Ashelia was too blunt, Lunafreya was too fiery and Vayne was too thirsty, so if that made a Solidor, his legacy would be a poor one if it was based on his offspring.

“I’m aware of the threat the First Order is for all of us.”

Was all he had to say about it. The deal in Denon was not what he had expected, but what could he expect? He was a supporter of the Silver Jedi, so a merchant pact was the best he could make of that deal, he would not oppose his trade allies in the ORC planets and would refuse to fight against the Silver Jedi as well. For the New Republic, he couldn't care less, since the damn thing had to be voted among the damn senators and without saying how much he despised the damn thing from the start, it was just another chance for the corruption to spread again among the planets with the republican flag in no time. Democracies like that were faded to perish, just like the many empires in the galaxy.

“I understand. Probably two of each shall do. Especially with our new agreement for Achillea to join the Protectorate coming up soon.”, he said reflecting the use those drydocks would have in building fast and 'small' ships to patrol the area and deal with piracy. They could use them as well for building the merchant vessels that would spread around the galaxy.


[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"One last thing: what portion is to be paid upfront and what portion would be subject to 5% financing? It's still a major capital purchase"

Now, Jessica was pretty confident that the choice between corporate, 5% APR financing and paying upfront would depend on the Protectorate's treasury to issue [member="Primarch Iedolas"]' ability to borrow money. In her mind, if Kaikelius could issue bonds or borrow at a lower rate than 5%, or even have the cash on hand, the government she was dealing with would be paying up front, otherwise financing would be key. Just that they were aware of the First Order's threat especially now that they were as close to the Core as Atrisia, even though their main base was in the Mid and Outer Rims. They were definitely going to build their fleet in-house; however, two of these drydocks each would go a long way. Plus... ten Ultimas? That will definitely keep the larger civilian production lines busy, she thought, while remaining mindful that these 2km freighters would be built in a Sacul since its second-largest dimension was still 943m. Payment details would be the final detail to resolve before she could actually complete the paperwork for these items for the Protectorate to use and deliver.
 
“Your choice.”, he said in a calm tone of voice, or at least he hoped she was sounding calm by the holocrab. He hated technology for those small mysteries. “Money is not a problem. Send the bill to the Royal Treasury.”, it was true. Ruling the Bank of the Core made sure of that, also he had the treasury department and the other Sanctum members with their fortunes. The Bank finally opened a new branch in Taris, not long after taking over those business in Arkanian, apparently the Arkanians were great with everything regards to new technologies, but were horrible when dealing with money. Buying the current small banks was but a small investment for them.

They also had the money flowing from the deal with the Family, something that made the Sanctum quite happy about it. Trade routes were open again, to ORC territory, to the Silver Jedi, the First Order and the Core planets that were still friendly enough. Selling weapons to rebels was quite lucrative.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"It would be less of a headache to the Royal Treasury to pay the whole thing upfront. Stand by for the receipt of the paperwork, the contract and the invoice"

That was almost too easy to be true. Just because the legal department had the contact information of the Bank of the Core's legal department and accounts payable department went a long way, and [member="Primarch Iedolas"] was the main beneficiary of Ringo doing the bulk of the legwork in this deal. Now, as soon as Iedolas' signature, or his legal representative thereof, put the signature on the contract, drydocks would be reserved and allocated for the construction of what was included in the contract, with the drydock division on Bimmisaari being hard at work to build additional drydocks and the bulk freighters being built over Hakassi. Plus it was going to be quite different from most faction-driven deals; maybe they can get the whole order done in a matter of months, and everybody can be happily flying cargo around the galaxy. Or building ships. Now that the paperwork arrived to them through a secured data channel, she could rest easy from this point onwar, and go around other business, both Jedi and secular. And yet, while cash outflows in the long run would be less than if financing or leasing was used, it would be a bigger dent to them upfront.

"Thank you for your business"
 

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