[Starhawk]

The Debate Continues

The Emperor paced the halls of the nobility on Sparta as he listened to Lord Admiral Montimer, commander of his majesty's forces in the Adin sector.

"Majesty, My Lords and Ladies the commanders of both the 2nd and 10th fleets have both informed me that multiple enemy ships have been hunted down and destroyed by their warships, and on two seperate occasions enemy warships attempted to make the jump into one of the Adin sector systems only to be intercepted and destroyed by one of the blockade fleets on duty and....." a shout stopped Mortimer in mid sentence as one of the de Vince sector senators stood up.

"Then WHY should we break the blockade? Hmmm Lords Ladies why should the empire risk valuable warships and their crews to invade the Manticore star Kingdom when it appears to me that the Empire can hold off any pathetic assaults they've launched against us? Senator Powler was a fat man with an ill temper and a big mouth but unfortunately he was also very popular with the people of his sector because he was one of the few senators that refused to instate press gangs on the worlds in his system.

"This blockade costs the Empire Billions of credits every year, it is foolishness to keep it in place, the Navy has proven it's ability to destroy any fleet that is coming through the warp points, and keeping these fleets at their bases would be far cheaper then having them near the warp points!" Senator M'lady Daladia, the senator from the Acuben system was one of Powlers strongest supporters in the Senate normally but when it came to the blockade they were bitter opponents.

The Emperor continued sat down on his thrown in the middle of the senate chamber and listened for the "polite" ammount of time while the two senators argued with Admiral Mortimer bitterly before he finally stood up and his master at arms tapped his staff of office against the floor to gain the Senate's silence.
The Senate was divided into two parts the Civilian Lords and Ladies who ran anywhere from one system to an entire sector (up to three systems) depending on their feudal title and the Military Lord Admirals and Generals who commanded the armed forces of the Empire, to a limited extent this allowed a semi-democracy wherein the nobility was allowed to vote on actions within the Empire. Though they could vote on a topic the Emperor could in theory veto any such votes should he decide, however it was often safer not to.

This situation however was out of control within the Senate, the Military portion and at least some of the Civilian senators wished to take the war to the Manticore while others wanted either to uphold the blockade or return the navy to it's bases in those sectors and risk intercepting enemy battle fleets in open space, what those fools did not seem to realize however was that the navy was not all powerful and that meeting a Manticore fleet in open space could lead to defeat and exessive losses that may very well lead to an assault by the still untrustworthy Norak Empire.

The safest bet was to launch an offensive against the Manticore Empire and risk a warfleet to gain ground instead of risking ships on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to come to their doorstep and so the Emperor decided to use his power in this case of emergency and side with the military lords and ladies, especially since he knew that they had been mobilizing a battlefleet in secret, without informing the Civilian senators.

"My Lords and Ladies of the Senate, as Emperor I am afraid I must agree with Lord Admiral's Mortimer and Drake, the Empire must not allow the Manticore to stay on the offensive or give them the time they would require to build a warfleet with which to invade our space, and so I must insist that we deploy the navy, several battlefleets will be required and although for the short term this will weaken our sector defenses and increase the risk of piracy we must decide which is more important, the short term stability and peace within the empire which will come to a crushing end when the Manticore go on the offensive, or the long term peace and stability of the empire which can only be wrought with the defeat of the Manticore star Kingdom!" The Emperor heard many of the Admirals, Generals and Senators who supported the offensive begin cheering and clapping, and soon they were joined by many who had initially considered themselves neutral or opposed to the invasion of the Manticore. The debate was not fully over however and for over an hour those senators opposed to the whole operation "politely" disagreed with their Emperor until eventually after many rousing speaches from various supporters and after the Emperor called in a troop of his personal Commando body guards to keep the order in the senate those opposed to the offensive were voted down and within a month a battlefleet would leave the Empire and invade the Manticore Kingdom possibly risking the entire future of the Empire on a single gambit, only time would tell for now the debates began on who should be appointed commander of this invasion fleet.