The Galaxy Awaits ... Choose Your Path!(Aurora)

[Brian Swartz]

2045

Earth

Director-Governor Duling began his second term by ordering a couple more mass drivers built to be ready when more comets came in range, and by sending all three freighters to Wolf-Harrington immediately to establish a new mining outpost there. With two weeks, four mines were operational and a governor had been appointed – Francesco Alborn.

Jan. 18th – Tod & MacGregor has retooled for the Fletcher II-x class, and the Venus begins it’s refit. It’s a four-month process to make the necessary changes, mostly just adding the massive fuel storage.

January – Two civilian colony ships, making it three with nowhere to go, launch on Earth. At least the private sector has confidence that we’re going places ... sometime.

March – With almost 10 operational mines, the Wolf-Harrington shipments are discontinued. Earth is down to single digits in the automated mine stockpile, and considerable investments in Crommelin and Stephan-Oterma are desired when they approach as we won’t have a shot at them again for a while. That means we can’t spend all our mines elsewhere in the meantime.

May 18th – The Venus finishes it’s refitting, and hilariously an auto-warning is dispatched to Fleet HQ that the ship has just over 4% of it’s fuel remaining. Refueling requires half a year’s production from the refineries, but they’ve built up a considerable reserve and this is no problem.

A major announcement by Director Herbert Duling is of considerably more import. In a globally televised address, he outlines a plan to colonize Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Arguing that this is a venture of vital importance, he stresses the sorium riches of Saturn itself and the strategic value(regardless of what happens with jump theory) of having a refueling and recuperation base outsystem as a bridge to developments in the Kuiper Belt region. Titan is the most advanced potentially habitable location, and as such is best candidate for such an endeavour. Duling also stresses the need for such a moderate-range colonization effort(Saturn is over a billion km away on closest approach) and the experience needed from it before any dreams of a future attempt tocolonize other systems could possibly be entertained in the future. He also calls on the civilian shipping firms to stand ready to aid in shipping the first wave of colonists -- they’ll need to do more than ‘aid’ in it, since the Spruance class was never produced –. The Venus is loaded with infrastructure and sent to make preparations for an initial settlement, departing late on the 19th. It’s nearly a month journey one way. Some whispers are heard that this is a hasty response to pressure from corporations, but the possibility of jobs on Titan drowns out that concern with the unemployment rate still north of 12%.

Meanwhile, the Hercules takes it’s turn getting the update to the II-x variant.

June 18th – The first 10 infrastructure are off-loaded onto Titan. This in itself means nothing – there’s 24 still sitting on Venus doing nothing. SPACE officially designates it as a colonist destination and appoints as governor Sonny Dean, formerly in charge of Comas Sola. As it is uncertain what, if anything, the civilians will do, the Spruance class is updated with the latest advances. Designated the Spruance-B, the new design is just under 20k tons, requires 110 crew, and is just a hair slower than the Fletcher II’s at 501 km/s. The main difference is that is has four engines instead of the original two, and more fuel for longer range and higher speed.

The P&A Group Shipyard is just large enough to accomodate the design, but retooling alone will take over a year(and about 350 neutronium). Still, it is considered worth the effort.

July 14th – Jensrud Trading launches a large freighter ...

July – A new politician has emerged who will be one to watch: Alberto Eighmy has a wider variety of skills than anyone currently at SPACE, and is already being tapped by many as a future SPACE director.

Sep. 18th – The Hercules has been refitted, and it promptly refuels and heads to Titan(via Venus first to scoop up the useless infrastructure there).

October – Earth’s population reaches 800 million.

December – Voliva sends a small colony ship to Titan ... the first human colonists are onboard. The Spruance-B project will go forward as a learning exercise if nothing else, but history is in the making! The estimated speed is 600-650 km/s, a little faster than our design. These guys know
what they are doing, that’s for certain.

Meanwhile, a new research lab is finished. Dr. Everette Snuggs begins to use it for work on a tiny fuel storage tank, another option for fine-tuning espescially on smaller ships. He’ll need more help on this down the line. We’re now up to six ongoing research teams in 11 laboratory complexes.

December 24th – It was quite the Christmas Eve, as the Lief Ericson reports high-accessibility duranium on Sedna(the final dwarf planet to be surveyed, over 11b km distant) of 373kt! Additionally, expansion of the Wartsila top-secret military shipyard is complete to 3000 tons, and it awaits word from the Jump Theory team early next year on any new developments.

Research & Development

Jan. 18th – Dr. Edward Groat’s research team has completed the Duranium Armor project. Dr. Santo Makar gets to work on a new effort to progress basic engine technology in the direction of lower-power, higher-efficiency possibilities.

Commissioned Officers

February – This year’s involuntary terminations of service include LtC Erik Flamebeard, LtC Roger Wilco, and LtC Jay Cin II.

April – LtC Hannah Shepard has seen a marginal increase in her survey skill to 11%. Shortly afterward, the team returns to Earth and is disbanded. It’s mission is complete – all the inner-system bodies have been surveyed, without a drop being found for their efforts.

May – ‘Pioneer’ Deacon Palmer improves his Admin. rating to 6. Given the paucity of available research labs(though more are constantly being built), this is irrelevant.

October – Brandon Seymer, an unused scientist, was killed in an accident. This is SPACE’s first untimely death in some years.

November – A naval officer is the second in two months to die in strange circumstances, and conspiracy theorists abound ...

SUMMARY

At year’s end, we are less than a week away from the Voliva colony ship arriving at Titan ... less than two weeks away from a report by the Jump Theory research team. Exciting things are(hopefully) about to happen.

Crommelin is now inside Saturn orbit, with 17 mines now waiting on earth for them to get a bit closer with 14 more still in the production queue. The development of Wolf-Harrington improved the mining situation somewhat.

[Coffee Warlord]

Bah!

Luckily, the naval academy has Rob Nielsen Jr in the hopper!

[sterlingice]

How long does it take to get to Titan?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Depends on the ship, but it's just under a month, about four weeks for our freighters.

[Tellistto]

Yay for not being canned this time! With a ship command, my dude might stick around to see a warship of some kind! Let's go research teams!

Tell

[Brian Swartz]

2046

Colonizing Titan

Jan. 3rd – The first colonists arrive at Titan, which has enough infrastructure to support 70,000 now. 50,000 are unloaded from the Voliva colony ship within a couple days, and it’s official – humanity is no longer bound to earth alone! It’s taken 21 years for SPACE to establish a human colony, and so Titan enters the history books.

January – Jensrud and Voliva have already dispatched trade freighters to Titan, leaping into action to gain economically from the new colony. Interestingly, both of these are a bit slower than our freighters.

Research & Development

Jan. 10th – Exactly one week after the events at Titan, Dr. Ignacio Bravo’s team unveils the most important scientific pronouncement since TN technology nearly two decades ago, and among the most significant ever.

Key points from the report on Jump Point Theory:

** Jump points have been proven to potentially exist and the possibility of transiting them is very real.
** All jump points have been demonstrated to be 1:1 connections. That is, travel is possible in both directions and only to a specific destination. A jump point cannot be used to travel to multiple different locations, but rather the wormhole can be formed only to a specific point in space-time.
** Every star has a number of potential locations where jump points may, or may not, have formed. The only way to tell for certain is by close-range gravitational surveys, requiring a ship with a new kind of sensor suite.
** In the case of Sol, there are 30 such locations arranged in three ‘rings’ or concentric circles. The inner ring has six and is located between Saturn and Uranus orbit, approxmately 2b km away. The second is about 3.5b km between Uranus and Neptune and has a dozen, with the remaining dozen in a third ring in the Kuiper Belt region some 6b km or so away.
** Considerable but doable amounts of energy would be required to transit, requiring multiple research projects into a classified device colloquially known as a ‘jump engine’. ** Before a jump engine would be of any use, navigational data will need to be obtained by the gravitational sensors.
** An ‘installation’, for lack of a better word, can be built at any jump point called a ‘jump gate’, allowing transit without the use of a jump drive.

Bravo’s team sets to work on gravitational sensors, an instrument suite required to detect if a jump point actually exists at a potential location. Armed with the information from the previous study, this will actually be a much quicker project and is expected to complete in a year and a half. Work on jump engines will need to follow this, but getting a vessel ready to survey the potential jump point locations is clearly the first priority.

Aug. 12th – Dr. Cedrick Wormack’s team completes research into Very Large Fuel Storage module. These hold a million litres each, and are useful only on extremely large vessels. One lab was reassigned to Everette Snuggs’ work on the other end of the scale, Tiny fuel storage tanks. The second is freed up for the next new project, Pebble Bed Reactors. This is a gateway project that may eventually lead to the a new generation of more powerful engines beyond our current standard, nuclear thermal propulsion. Dr. Rosemary Urenda gets her first project lead for this endeavor.

Commissioned Officers

Jan. 16th – Tell Perj Jr. increases Fleet Movement Initiative to 173.

April – Tell Perj Jr. increases Fleet Movement Initiative again, to 182.

Early May – A bit of a shakeup in the army as Brig. Gen. Willis Hindley is forced to retire for medical reasons. Col. Leland Mesecher takes over his command on an interim basis.

July –Rob Nielsen Jr. is commissioned.
Fleet Movement Initiative: 137
Bonuses: Training 100, Logistics 10%
Personality Traits: Methodical, poor family, will not delegate.

A very high skill in crew training makes it likely he will have a bright future.

Late September – Captain Louis Meola has died of natural causes. He was Survey Officer at Fleet HQ for over a decade, and was 47 years old. At present, there is not an available Captain to replace him. Claudio Offutt is transferred from the presently virtually-useless
post at Operations to serve as his successor.

October – Tell Perj Jr. increases Fleet Movement Initiative to 219, a marked increase this time around.

Late November – India Rakes, governor of Comas Sola, hilariously announced a breakthrough in improving industrial production. You’re on a mining rock, governor ... I think you’re working on the wrong thing.

Earth

Early March – Gallicite is the fourth mineral to be exhausted on earth. With almost 25kt in the stockpile, limited usage, and about 170 tons coming in from the comets each year, this is a non-issue. Sorium will be the next to be depleted, sometime in the next three years.

June – Prospects on Titan lead to a surge in population growth on earth, as public confidence in the future of humanity grows stronger with each passing shipment. (I.e., Herbert Duling now has a 10% pop. growth bonus). Meanwhile, the first mine arrives on Titan, and 50,000 of the 70,000 unemployed there now have something to do.

July – It has become clear that more freighters are needed to keep up with the demand of more colonists being constantly shipped to Titan. With duranium supplies relatively steady at a solid 6kt, it is deemed a worthwhile use and the FT Southampton, third of the Fletcher II-x class, begins construction at the Tod & MacGregor. There begins to be some concern now at Fleet HQ about the sustainability of our fuel reserves, but with Machholz and Comas Sola bringing in almost 400t of sorium per year and over 10kt on earth, it’s not an immediate issue.

Sep. 16th – The Spruance-B colony ship begins construction, which will take nearly two years at the P&A Group Shipyard. It is rapidly becoming obvious that this is more of a ‘proving we can do it’ thing than something actually needed, as the civilian lines are shipping more to Titan than we can.

Sol Survey Efforts

March – The GEV Amerigo Vespucci completes the last survey for now, scanning the comet Ikeya-Zang some 14+b km out because they were ‘in the neighborhood’ at one of the more distant asteroids. Ikeya-Zang contains three minerals, the most significant is maximum-accessible corundium in the amount of over 81kt! This single-handedly more than doubles known deposits, and ensures that as the available sources elsewhere dwindle, there will be a place to go for expansion. It’s likely to be somewhere around a decade or more until Ikeya-Zang is close enough for convenient investment, but it is still quite welcome news.

It will be decades until the other three extremely distant comets is close enough to bother scanning. The top two ground survey teams are still expected to take some time to finish surveying the distant asteroids.

Mining

November – A civilian mining complex has been established on Sedna. I tell you, these corporations are ambitious! We now have the option to either buy what they produce, or tax the shipping of it. We choose to buy, as this is the richest duranium find in the system and we’re going to take as much of it as we can get our hands on. This will cost us 250k credits per year, and net us an extra 90t duranium. As we are running an annual surplus of over 13m, this is not at all a problem.

Summary

Titan now has approximately 270,000 citizens at year’s end, and more mines than they can operate. With corporate shipping booming there and elsewhere(i.e., Sedna), there is the first glimmer of hope for the unemployed on Earth, now numbering over 102 million. The growth is slowing, but it’s still rising at 12.46%. Ground survey efforts continue, with 57 of 64 completed.

Mining Report

Earth(220S/31A) – 6.48 kt annual yield, 19.4 efficiency
Machholz(0S/27.6A) – 2.17 kt, 63 eff.
Comas Sola(0S/10.2A) – 827 t, 65 eff.
Wolf-Harrington(0S/9.8A) – 689 t, 67 eff.
Venus(0S/6A) – 172 t, 24 eff.
Sedna(1 CMC) – 90t, 9 eff.
Reinmuth(0S/1.8A) – 88 t, 47 eff.
Schaumasse(0S/1.8A) – 72 t, 36 eff.
Titan(5S/0A) – 16 t, 6 eff.

Duranium – 5.7 kt stockpiled, 2.089 kt annual yield
Neutronium – 2.85 kt, 480 t yield
Corundium – 604 t, 460 t yield
Sorium – 10.13 kt, 426 t yield

Earth’s fuel reserves are at 27.5 million litres and still growing a bit. Long-term sorium is a concern and the refineries consume 790t a year, so it’s definitely in our interest to keep growing the amount of that we produce. As for the others, we could use twice as much duranium as we are currently producing, and 70% of what we are getting still comes from the dwindling deposits on earth. Neutronium is actually pretty decent for what we need, and we are still ‘catching up’ to the corundium reserves with only about six months supply for converting mines left now.

[Brian Swartz]

With the shift from surveying to shipping as a priority, and a couple of new commanders, there is a mass reassignment of commands that will occur early in 2047.

Lt. Cmdr. Benton Gale II – 10th out of 53
Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. – 10th out of 17, still CO of the ST Marengo
Lt. Cmdr. Hannah Shepard – 3rd, unassigned since the end of her geology assignment.
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen Jr. – 11th

Brig. Gen Path Twelve – 6th out of 6
Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone – 3rd
Mag. Gen. Sterling Silvers – Still the only MG.

Sonny Dean(2) – Governor of Titan, a rather high-visibility role and a definitive place in history.
James Earl Jones V(4) – Still unassigned.

Pioneer Deacon Palmer – Work continues on improving mining production, with results expected in the fall of this year.
Joe Tycho – Nothing ...



This shows the numbered potential jump point locations, with most of the labels taken off so they can be seen reasonably well.

[Tellistto]

Just in case you weren't aware of it. It's very beneficial to send your best survey team, say over 130 total skill, to the biggest moons and planets that your survey ships whiffed on. They actually do have a shot at finding minerals that your ships missed.

As I said, though, try to do it with all of your best survey minds in one team. Better score means better chances, from what I've read.

I've also seen it happen, as well.

Tell

[Brian Swartz]

I've seen it stated on the Aurora forums that this was changed and skill only affects speed, not chance of finding minerals, a major version or two back. Either way, I don't see a difference between the Rater team(best of the three) and what the others have found so far. Do you have a source for this that I'm not aware of(i'd definitely like to change a bit if there's something going on different from what I've been told).

Also, I have a question for everyone to weigh in on. On the Aurora boards an opinion has been voiced about colonizing Mars and Luna. My perspective on this has been that there's little reason to do so -- i.e. they have no resources and so it would be a negative from a colonization point of view, there would be much higher unemployment there than on earth because there's nothing for the manufacturing sector(approx. 50% of a new colony's population, then it shrinks with time as the service sector grows) to do. The only way around this is of course to ship a bunch of factories/resources/etc. and have them build things there, which is a waste of resources and takes jobs off of Earth.

Others there have argued that the pioneer spirit, desire for a better life, do it because you can, etc. would drive people to want to expand this way. This isn't an argument from a 'game strategy' perspective, I'm playing this driven by RP.

So what do you all think? Should SPACE open the door to colonizing Mars/Luna by getting infrastructure in place and then get out of the way and let the civilians do what they want? Not go because it's a waste? Prioritize these as a major effort? Consult the bones(i.e., let the RNG decide?

What say you? I'm not going to hold up game time progress for this, but I am definitely open to 'changing course' -- there's that election thingy coming up again in a couple of years after all ...

[sterlingice]

I'm not really in favor of it at all. Yes, I appreciate the role playing aspect of the game but this game also seems unforgiving in terms of difficulty. It's a meta-fictional answer but, really, I think we sound like we're already behind the 8-ball mineral-wise with only the comets to mine. To me, it's completely stupid to waste what little we have traipsing around our solar system and making unemployment worse for no gain at all.

Is there any possible benefit to doing this? I mean, I don't know if there are other aliens in the game (tho I kindof expect there to be) and I don't think I want to as I prefer no spoilers. However, the only miniscule benefit I can see is having yet another place for humanity to hide, should we be in a fight, but it would be somewhere with no usable minerals and would literally just be a lifeboat. We've got Titan to satisfy the pioneer spirit. If other companies want to colonize and make Luna Park, by all means, but it's stupid for SPACE to do it.

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Two benefits: colonies with lower population get higher population growth(more workers, not exactly an issue right now). The second is that we make money from taxing commercial shipping(money is also a complete non-issue right now). Both of those could potentially be important in the future, particularly if we find some great worlds to colonize(if we manage to explore other systems and if there are places worth settling that we find, etc).

There's absolutely nothing we would get from it that is important to SPACE right now.

[Tellistto]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I've seen it stated on the Aurora forums that this was changed and skill only affects speed, not chance of finding minerals, a major version or two back. Either way, I don't see a difference between the Rater team(best of the three) and what the others have found so far. Do you have a source for this that I'm not aware of(i'd definitely like to change a bit if there's something going on different from what I've been told).

I only spoke of it because I've seen it happen. I've taken to sending my best team to Jupiter and Saturn moons before sending them to the inner circel, after my ships have done the surveys out there. My teams find, albeit rarely, minerals that ships didn't find.

They might not be super veins or the like, but any minerals is better than no minerals.

I don't recall exactly where I got that idea, but it was on the Aurora forums, likely in the tutorial section in one of those threads.

Tell

[Coffee Warlord]

Apparently the Nielsen family fell on hard times after Nielsen Sr was kicked out of the Navy and went rogue.

[Coffee Warlord]

In my opinion, one should establish a long term plan for (reasonably) sustainable mineral exploitation before worrying about colonizing less useful places.

Hell, it's even fitting for an RP perspective - why are we establishing colonies that can contribute nothing to our immediate expansion? When we are comfortable with our resource production, then we can allow our pioneers to fill every available corner of space with Humanity - Earth's limited resources right now should be put to use gaining more resources, not trying to establish commercial goals - particularly when we have no commerce (due to, ding, no resources!)

[Brian Swartz]

Interestingly, the debate is breaking down along board lines: FOFC is anti-colonization, Aurora is pro-colonization. What this likely means is that the next elections will involve politicians being politicians and looking for a compromise solution that everybody can live with.

Edit: and thanks for the info Tell, that makes me lean towards two teams, with the better one being sent to potentially richer locations and the weaker one to small asteroid type finds. I think the only thing we found so far was some millions of 0.1-accessible Uridium on one of the moons that I don't even plan on exploiting at this point, so not a huge thing.

[Brian Swartz]

2047

Mining

January – Earth had over 30 mines sitting ready, and with Comas Sola inside Jupiter orbit and Crommelin incoming at a little over 1b km, it was time to get a few of them moving. The goal at this point is to get Comas Sola up to 20 mines, then put at least that many on Crommelin. The Hercules kept making shipments to Titan, while the Venus switched to comet duty.

August – It’s uncertain how he’s done it, but reports from Comas Sola indicate that the recent mining investment is paying off even better than expected. Gov. Herman Fox has found some revolutionary technique to dramatically increase productivity(Mining Bonus up to 35%, by far the best among SPACE officials). At around the same time, with 20+ active mines on the comet, focus switched to first development on Crommelin, now just under a billion kilometers away. By the end of the month, the latest mass driver was active there. Alberto Eighmy received his first job as the governor at Crommelin ...

Commissioned Officers

February – The Navy has it’s first new captain in roughly a decade, as Commander Lucas Marini, long with the Lief Ericson, has been promoted. He’ll be the new Public Operations officer, with Sammie Sreaves moving over to Operations.

Benton Gale II is among this year’s dismissed officers.

Late March – A significant medical problem for Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone. At 49, this brings into question how long she will be able to continue to serve ...

July – Upon returning to earth for a couple months of shore leave after completing the most recent tour with the ST Marengo, Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. is reassigned to the ST Valencia. This is basically a demotion, as he’ll now be shuttling around the occasional VIP. He’s a bit fortunate in a way though, the lowest Commander on the totem pole to still have a command ...

October 1 – Sonny Dean’s financial leadership has improved(Wealth Creation+10%).

October – Deacon Palmer’s admin rating is irrelevantly up to 7(only Bavaro’s is higher).

Earth

February 20 – Another research lab is completed, making it an even dozen now, and becomes the fifth assigned to Dr. Bravo’s work on gravitational survey sensors.

March 25 – The FT Southampton is set for duty. It heads out for Comas Sola immediately, and the fourth Fletcher II-x(the FT Custer) is begun.

Research & Development

March 23 – Dr. Clint Wyche’s team has completed research on increased fuel efficiency, another 10% improvement has been made. With the amount of traveling the freighters are doing, a new engine with this technology is a priority for them of course, and Wyche sets to work on that.

June 30 – Gravitational Survey Sensors research is complete. As much as it is desired to get a ship going for the next ‘acid test’, surveying the potential jump point locations, it was only sensible to wait a bit with a new more fuel-efficient engine underway. Bravo agreed to allow Wyche’s team to use his considerable allotment of research space to speed up the project,
allowing it to be completed less than three weeks later on July 18th.

An interesting side effect of this was that the research community appears to have galvanized more completely behind Director-Governor Duling(Pol. Reliability up to 25%, highest we’ve seen for a politician so far). More importantly though, a fourth in the Fletcher freighter variant was designed(the II-xe) and refits scheduled to begin as soon as possible(the Custer won’t be finished until early next year). The more efficient engines allow them to carry less fuel(700k liters instead of the previous 800k for the same 2-year duration).

Even more noteworthy was of course the finalizing of the Coontz class of Gravitational Survey Vessel. Only one is planned, since that is plenty to survey the 30 jump locations and it will have no purpose once that mission is completed. It is very similar in size to the Essex, 2250 tons which is well within the 3k capacity at Wartsila. It requires a choice crew of 32 for which there will undoubtedly be fierce competition, and is among the fastest ships yet designed, just a hair slower than the Lexington-II transports at 1377 km/s.

Construction of humanity’s first ship to be classified military-grade began immediately, expected to take just under 8 months. The GSV Hopeful(somebody slap those beauracrats for this name) will be a highly sought-after post.

One of the labs was re-allocated to the Pebble Bed Reactor project, with the remaining five staying with the jump point tree of research. The next priority was working on the ‘jump engines’ themselves, which required three specific aspects of design. These are efficiency(higher efficiency means the same size engine can allow a larger ship to navigate a jump point), squadron size(number of ships that can jump simultaneously with the use of a single jump engine), and jump radius(how close squadron mates must be to the ‘jump ship’ itself). With Ignacio Bavaro again heading up the team, jump radius as the easiest of the three projects was begun.

September 23 – Pioneer Deacon Palmer has made a report on groundbreaking research that will improve the output of all mines(automated or standard) by 20% instantly! This is a huge development. He’ll next turn his attention to hopefully improving the efficiency of our refineries ...

It’s become clear that more transports are needed to shuttle all the VIPs/politicans around to the various mining colonies and for other potential purposes. The plan at this point is to use the Lexington II’s which are plenty fast and have more than enough range, and finish the mothballed third commercial yard to use for the purpose of building a few more, then scrapping the original Lexington’s. This will basically erase the small increases in the neutronium stockpile that have been achieved the past few years.

SUMMARY

The last few months of the year were pretty quiet. Titan continues to grow, now at about 610k total population. Almost 250k of those are needed to take care of the food and environmental needs. Steady but slow investment due to the distance of Crommelin continues, a little over six mines operational now. With the year’s mining advances, the supply of corundium is now sufficient to convert almost ten mines per year, a nearly acceptable rate. At the same time, Machholz(one of the better duranium sources) will exterminate it’s supply in about a decade. Hopping from moderate source to moderate source is a losing game over time, and while it’s necessary for the time being, it will become less effective and more expensive as time goes on.

[Brian Swartz]

2048

Everybody in the know at SPACE knew this year would be defined by the jump point surveys ...

Jump Point Survey Efforts

March 28th – The GSV Hopeful clears the Wartsila docks. Less than a week later Cmdr. Chong Vaugh arrives, transferring to the ship and handing over command of the FT Southampton. He’s an experienced officer, graduating the Academy in ‘42 and since has been at the helm of the freighters Victoria, Venus, and now the Southampton. This
experience and his convenient proximity to Earth at the time earn him this command over the more talented, younger Gregorio Granberg who is at this moment near Titan.

April 1st – April Fool’s day is no laughing matter as the GSV Hopeful sets course for Jump Point #6, the next one ‘ahead’ of Saturn in it’s orbit. It will then head to 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 in turn, completing the circuit of the inner ring before heading further outsystem. It was a journey of just over two billion kilometers, and would take two and a half weeks.

April 18, 7:05 AM – The Hopeful arrived on station and began scanning the jump point location. They soon reported back that the scan itself would take another week or so, according to the onboard computer.

April 26, 4:00 PM – Just moments after the turning of the hour, the Hopeful had some rather unhopeful news: there was no active singularity at Jump Point #6, and they were proceeding to #5. Although disappointing, we had been told that most of them would like not contain active possibilities. Still, until one is found, there is a sense of worry about the validity of the entire exercise.

May 21, 7:44 PM – Another report from the Hopeful ... success! A jump point has been found, and it has also been discovered that it is closer than anticipated ... inside Jupiter orbit!

Scientists are not certain why it is so far from it’s expected location, speculating only about the unpredictable nature of space-time. But the evidence cannot be denied that it exists, the scanners test gravitational anomalies dozens of different ways to verify all aspects of the space-time
distortion. The jump point is a mere 737m km away from the sun at a bearing of 216.

While the survey proceeds, Director-Governor Duling put the apparatus of SPACE in motion. Operation Uncertain Hope was a go. The next step was probably the most intimidating and certainly the most demanding from a resource point of view. It was expected that the required technology to build a functional jump engine would be ready by 2050, and everything else needed to be prepared.

Uncertain Hope was the(rather cheesy) name given to the design and deployment of a new class dubbed the Pioneer (with apologies to Dr. Palmer). The mission was astounding: to explore a jump point and whatever system lay beyond it. The specifications were considerable. Assuming it worked, the ship would emerge in a star system of which we would have only the vaguest knowledge from long-range telescopes. It would need to be prepared for anything, including an extended duration of stay to make vital recordings of whatever was found.

Geosurvey and gravsurvey suites would be essential to scan both for any further jump points in the new system and test for any resource deposits. In addition, equivalently sized thermal and electromagnetic passive sensors would need to be designed and built. Nobody knows what’s out there, and all possible information would be needed. The vessel would need fuel-efficient engines capable of reaching a reasonable speed – if not, it might find itself in a paradise but be too far away to discover it. This would also be an espescially long-term mission, with the commander given authority to explore as far as may be deemed necessary and/or fruitful. A 5-year commitment would be required from commander and crew for extended traveling, which in turn would imply substantial fuel reserves. And of course it would need a ‘jump engine’ large enough to open a wormhole for all of this vital equipment to navigate the jump. Engineers estimated such a ship would need to be multiple times larger than the current survey ships, probably at least 6000-6500 tons, and possibly as large as 10,000. Wartsila set to work immediately expanding from the current capacity of 3000, which clearly would be absurdly inadequate to the task. There could be no doubt the cost would be considerable, but was there really a choice? Multiple research projects would be required to prototype the optimal components. There was much to be done ... and hope seemed to shine a bit brighter with the pursuit of a challenging and potentially rewarding goal.

Two of three ‘regular path’ projects that were using multiple labs had one each taken from them to allow these prototype instruments to be designed. Clint Wyche(EM 5-3 Sensor Suite), Elwood Tousaint(TH 5-3 Sensor Suite) headed up the new teams. A new engine would be needed as well but that was best kept until the completion of some of the efficiency-related research that is presently ongoing. Tousaint has never headed up a project before, and is not the most skilled for the job, but as the only scientist SPACE has yet produced with a talent for Sensors & Fire Control, it is hoped he will improve through this experience.

Early September – The inner-most of the three circles of potential jump point locations has been completed: only the one has been found to contain an active jump point. The GSV Hopeful has been underway for just under five months, and moves out to begin investigating the second circle.

October 24th – Another confirmed jump point by the GSV Hopeful! This one is at a distance of 3.6b km, bearing 304. That places it squarely between Uranus and Neptune orbits, some five times further than the first one. For the time being these are known simply as Jump Point Alpha and Jump Point Bravo, respectively. An interesting, if probably coincidental, fact is that Bravo is nearly exactly the same distance from Alpha as it is from the sun itself.

Fleet Operations

January 11 – The FT Custer clears the Tod & MacGregor Yard, which immediately readies to install the new engines on the freighters. That work will begin later this year.

June 22nd – The FT Hercules returns to earth for shore leave, and is the first to undergo the refitting process to the new, more efficient II-xe model. It’s a four-month process, costing about half as much as a new ship for each. That’s a pretty penny to spend on some relatively minor upgrades, but HQ deems it worth it for using 11% less fuel.

June 28th – In a highly embarassing miscalculation, the FT Victoria under the command of Cmdr. Jon McElveen comes up about a week short of Earth, having run out of fuel. The ship is a relic at this point and is probably nearing the end of it’s useful service, but the FT Custer is less than two weeks away and inbound, and it is retasked with getting the
Victoria enough fuel to finish the journey.

July 9th – Refueling mission is complete, and the Victoria is back underway.

July 13th – The first official colony ship(the corporations have already built five of them) is finished. Dubbed the CS New Beginnings, it sets out to take it’s first 50,000 colonists to Titan, which is nearing a million now. The P&A Group Shipyard retools for the Lexington II class, and at the same time works on scrapping the Vega and Valencia. They’ve served well, but
their time is up.

August 9th – The ST Vega and ST Valencia have been scrapped on Earth.

October 20th – The FT Hercules becomes the first of the freighters to be refitted. The Venus, already a month into it’s allotted shore leave which will now be extended significantly, takes the next spot.

Earth

May -- The factories have ‘caught up’ with the corundium supply. The rate of conversion would need to be indexed to the available supply being produced, which right now is a little over a dozen per year – except that’s about how fast the 11.7 million workers assigned to the task are able to convert them anyway. The supply has caught up with production just in time

September -- Construction begins on a few more mass drivers to ensure enough are available for the next round of comet-based mining colonies.

Commissioned Officers

The ongoing commander carousel continues and Tell Perj Jr. is assigned now to the Leif Ericson, which means he basically sits in drydock waiting for one of the comets to come closer(McNaught-Russell is some 21+b km away, so it’s a guessing game whether he’d retire by the time it became useful to scan it).

March – Sonny Dean has developed a long-term medical condition ...

April – Indirectly due to deployment of the GSV Hopeful, Tell Perj Jr. gets his first freighter command, taking over at the helm of the Southampton ..

Research & Development

March 3rd – Ignacio Bavaro’s team completes research into Maximum Jump Radius(50k km). The base level for squadron size is three ships, and that’s their next project. However, Sanko Matar, the best propulsion scientist alive today, switches to take over at this point with Bavaro taking over his work on reduced-power engine technology.

May – Santo Makar research skill is up to 45%, accelerating progress on the jump engine projects. Meanwhile, the factories on earth and pumping out more than ever before thanks to Herbert Duling’s supervision(increases Factory Production to 10%).

June – A 13th research lab is completed and assigned to one of the existing projects that recently lost space(Pebble Bed Reactor).

December 1st – The next step has been unveiled by Dr. Santo Makar, who has completed research into Jump Drive – Maximum Squadron Radius. The most important jump drive technology, efficiency, is up next and will take until late summer next year.

December 5th – Our first thermal sensor, the TH 5-3 Sensor Suite, has been successfully prototyped by Dr. Clint Wyche’s team. Only after the project was completed was it discovered a clerical error had been made in the blueprints: the intended size was 250 tons, these are 150-ton sensors. Back to the drawing board for Dr. Wyche. A similar mistake had been made on the electromagnetic sensors, and work on that prototype was canceled in favor of the desired size there as well.

Colonial Developments

August 1st – Crommelin is up to 20 mines, and shipping efforts briefly switch to Comas Sola which is on close approach again, upping the prescence there to 25. That was a quick effort, completed by late August, and it was then time for the next phase of comet exploitation.

Corundium is no longer considered the most critical mineral, with duranium still depleting rapidly on earth and mine conversions sustainable at a passable rate. With that in mind, the comet Borrelly was next on the agenda at less than 700m km and incoming. Van Biesbroeck, Neujmin, and Stephan-Oterma are incoming after it, so there are plenty of targets.

Mid-August – The CS New Beginnings unloaded it’s 50,000 colonists and headed back to Earth.

September 20th – The mass driver on Borrelly has been activated, under the leadership of newly appointed Governor Carroll Westcott. SPACE has now run out of people to appoint who have any notable mining skill, and is just taking the best administrators available to put in charge of the colonies. Hopefully they’ll learn.

September 23rd – A bizarre but positive report arrives from Sedna, the second-to-last of the geological surveys to be ordered. Immediately after being dropped off, the Rater team reported a large deposit of uridum(almost 180k, fairly good accessibility at 0.7) and that there was no use spending any more time there. A rock that size(1600 km diameter, about a seventh that of earth) and they only needed hours to find that much and conclude there was nothing left to find? Bizarre, and they head off to the Ikeya-Zang comet next for the ‘final’ survey for the time being, but the civilian complex there will now be sending us uridium as well.

Figures that it’s the mineral we need least – the uridium stockpile on Earth is over 35kt, by far our most plenteous, and has very limited use(not a gram is currently requisitioned for any ongoing project). They might as well have told us they found a treasure trove of quartz or pumice, for all that good it would do. Actually, those we might have been able to sell.

Mid-October – The team originally known as the JupSat geology team, led by Dr. Brandon Grimmett, has completed it’s final survey and is headed back to Earth.

December 14th – The JupSat(Brandon Grimmett) Geology Team arrives back at Earth and is disbanded. Meanwhile, the Vega II and Valencia II transports are completed at the Tod & MacGregor, and a third pair is begun.

[Brian Swartz]

I think the annual updates are getting too long and technical/recitation of events as it were. I'm thinking of either making them shorter time frames or summarizing more, or maybe both. Any ideas would be welcomed.

[Brian Swartz]

2049 Election

Term limits strike again and Herbert Duling is ineligible to run again. There are plenty of qualified candidates though in a crowded field. India Rakes, Governor of Machholz and Venus before that, has nearly a decade of experience and has finished second to Duling in the past two elections, last time in a close one. Also returning from ‘45 is Herman Fox, experienced as a comet governor and a successful one, maximizing outputs on Comas Sola after a term at Schaumasse.

Three new candidates have also emerged. Damian Ackley is an industrial and sociological genius and has done competently at Schaumasse to increase his mining acumen, the well-rounded skills of Alberto Eighmy(governor of Crommelin) are well known to anyone, and despite his limitations, the post as leader of humanity’s first human colony at Titan makes [/b]Sonny
Dean[/b] a long-shot candidate as well.

India Rakes’ combination of skill, wit, and experience was enough to earn her the victory as expected. What was less than expected is how well Ackley did(24.4% to Rakes’ 27%) and how poorly Fox(20.8%) and Eighmy(14.9%) did compared to their expectations going in. Dean was credible for a first election with 12.9% to round out the field.

Policy Review

Every new administration will tweak this a bit, adjust that a bit, but this transition was more noteworthy than most. Public pressure and debate about freeing up colonization opportunities was growing, and starting to become a real issue – the kind of issue a successful politician needs to get out in front of. The view of the corporations had been made more than clear in their rush to Titan. Additionally, the mineral crisis has mostly abated. Corundium production is at a rate sufficient to convert over a dozen mines a year for the next 12-15 years or more, which would be enough transform almost all the existing mines on earth. And even at current levels, duranium supply is nearly equal to it’s demand. Within a few years, the MRD(Ministry of Resource Development) estimates SPACE will have the very welcome decision of how best to invest a surplus.

Incoming Director Rakes boldly declared humanity to be entering a new phase, wherein we would no longer consider ourselves citizens of earth, but members of an interplanetary republic. The most striking of the proposals was her 2% Initiative. Beginning immediately, 2% of the annual duranium yield would be dedicated to building infrastructure for colonizing habitable but unsettled worlds that were not deemed to serve a strategic human interest. SPACE would provide the initial survey and governmental basics, while providing whatever equipment needed for an starting settlement of 100,000 colonists. An additional shipment of half that number of volunteers would be provided if needed, but beyond that it would be up to each colony and corporate shipping to take over the rest, and they would grow or stagnate depending on what the market determined.

For 2049, that meant 52 infrastrucure would be dedicated to the task, more than enough to get basic supplies to the obvious two first choices, Luna and then Mars. A combination of habitability, distance, and any available mineral resources would be the criteria used to determine what would be settled first.

Coinciding with the 2% Initiative was a plan to expand the Army for the purpose of basic police protection in the colonies. Anytime a colony reaches a million civilians strong, it was deemed proper for a basic force to be sent there. Unfortunately, we lack the capability to do this at the moment, so researching a means to transport a battalion to various worlds has been deemed a research priority.

It was also noted that fuel reserves have stagnated and are beginning to decline. There is no immediate danger with approximately 26m liters available, but with new ships being contemplated and built and Earth just months away from depleting the sorium deposits, the situation is not going to get better on its own. Accordingly, development of a way to harvest to sorium in Saturn’s atmosphere, thereby making full use of the Titan colony, has also become a research priority.

It is expected that civilian administrators will continue to see increased opportunities with new colonies sure to form with this plan. Both types of military officers are also expected to be in higher demand over time, though the research career path remains crowded as progress on building new laboratory complexes continues, but at a painfully slow rate.

Key Governor’s Assignments

As is SPACE policy, the top votegetters in the election get the most prestigious/developed posts.

** Frmr. Dir. Herbert Duling – Titan
** Damian Ackley – Machholz
** Herman Fox – Comas Sola
** Alberto Eighmy – Crommelin
** Sonny Dean – Wolf-Harrington

[Brian Swartz]

Current Naval Assets

After nearly a quarter-century, Space has several active classes of vessels, with more on the way.

Coontz
Role: Gravitational Survey
Size: 2,250 tons
Crew: 32
Maximum Speed: 1377 km/s
Range: 81.7b km
Ships: GSV Hopeful

Essex II-x
Role: Geological Survey
Size: 2,200 tons
Crew: 35
Maximum Speed: 1136 km/s
Range: 71.9b km
Ships: GSV Leif Ericson, GSV Amerigo Vespucci

** Both vessels are essentially now glorified shuttles, with only three comets remaining to be surveyed and none for decades.

Fletcher
Role: Freighter
Size: 19,400 tons
Crew: 41
Max. Speed: 257 km/s
Range: 2.7b km
Ships: FT Victoria

** Obsolete, but still helpful.

Fletcher II-x
Role: Freighter
Size: 36,350 tons
Crew: 105
Max. Speed: 515 km/s
Range: 33.2b km
Ships: FT Venus, FT Southampton, FT Custer

** The Venus is currently refitting to the more efficient II-xe variant

Fletcher II-xe
Role: Freighter
Size: 36,150 tons
Crew: 100
Max. Speed: 518 km/s
Range: 32.8b km
Ships: FT Hercules

Lexington II
Role: Shuttle Transport
Size: 1,800 tons
Crew: 20
Max. Speed: 1388 km/s
Range: 43.9b km
Ships: ST Wayne, ST Marengo, ST Vega II, ST Valencia II

** The Lexington-II remains the fastest ship developed to date. Two more are currently being constructed to bring the total to six vessels soon.

Spruance-B
Role: Colony Ship
Size: 19,650 tons
Crew: 110
Max. Speed: 501 km/s
Range: 33b km
Ships: CS New Beginnings

** The New Beginnings is the most expensive ship constructed to date, costing nearly 730,000 credits and requiring just shy of 22 months to build.

Overview

In all, the SPACE Navy currently fields 13 ships weighing 198.1kt and requiring a combined 3.74m liters of fuel storage capacity. 748 crew are required at any one time to serve on these vessels.

[Brian Swartz]

Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. – 11th out of 18. At 30 years of age, it does not appear that Tell will progress much further up the command tree, but he’s certainly made a success of himself. Of late, he has one of the freighter commands with the Southampton for the last nine months.
Lt. Cmdr. Hannah Shepard – 2nd out of 53. One of the top lieutenant commanders since her survey assignment ended over three years ago, she is overdue for a promotion and initial command. At this point, it is possible it may never come.
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen Jr. – 10th

Brig. Gen. Path Twelve – 6th out of 6
Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone – 3rd
Maj. Gen. Sterling Silvers – 1st. With the 2% Initiative, he will be responsible for units not just on earth but on multiple colonies as well in the coming years.

Sonny Dean(2) – A fortunate assignment on Titan has come to the end, and Sonny is now the governor of the Wolf-Harrington comet.
James Earl Jones V(4) – Can only be glad that politicans don’t get fired for being ‘surplus to requirements’. With colonization beginning to ramp up, he has a decent chance to be given an actual assignment.

Pioneer Deacon Palmer – Researching ways to improve the output of fuel refineries.
Joe Tycho – Standing around with his thumb ... yeah, just standing around.

[Tellistto]

I do not mind your length of posts. I've not been bored by them as of yet, either. So, that's my .02.

Too bad my guy hasn't gotten any crew training skill pops. That seems to be the real ticket to higher command levels.

Tell

[sterlingice]

If you really feel like breaking it up, go for either shorter time frames or do it by "headlines" - like Jump Point Survey would be one post, Fleet Ops would be its own (mainly because of the fuel gaffe), Colonial Developments would be one, and then Earth/Comm Oficers/R&D would get one together. And pick whichever is the biggest headline- so if the jump points play into another story, make sure to lead with it.

There's not a lot of exterraneous details- I find myself trying to pick apart most things except maybe the Comm Officers- but I think each person is looking for "their character". I think you have just the right level of detail.

Also, boo on the 2% Initiative. I guess the Aurora board won instead of us micromanaging min/maxers here

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Re: the 2% Initiative, I guess you could say they won but not really, they didn't get what they wanted either(massive investment). It just seemed to me to be the kind of thing a smart politician would do, i.e. try to make everybody as happy as possible without really having to do all that much. Does earth lose much by investing a relatively small amount of fuel and 1/50th of their duranium? We'll find out but seemed a win-win to me. Not that it's going to make everybody happy.

Also, thanks for the input, it is definitely appreciated. I want to keep this worth participating in for all involved, so it's beneficial for me to bounce things off the wall everyone once in a while, so to speak.

[Brian Swartz]

Employment update: No FOFC characters were among the 17 dismissed officers in the year's employment terminations.

[Brian Swartz]

2049 ANNUAL REPORT

Overview

The launching of the 2% Initiative led to the first equipment being offloaded onto Mars and Luna in the first weekend of February, with the Southampton(Tell Perj Jr.) handling the Mars trips and the Hercules(Jay Cin III) taking care the Luna duty. James Earl Jones V was installed as the governor of Luna(now just a five-minute trip from Earth), while it was one of the original four SPACE political appointees, 45-year-old Terrence Forson, who got his first official assignment on the ‘red planet’. The civilians got the first shipment of colonists onto the moon in less than a week, while the CS New Beginnings got involved to jumpstart Mars, then the private sector took over there as well. That’s now a trip of two to four days each way, depending on where the planets are in their respective orbits.

Within a month, the convoys to Titan had virtually stopped, leading to a number of untimely deaths as infrastructure did not keep up with the growing population for a few weeks until matters balanced themselves out again. Not a serious loss in the grand scheme of things, but you can’t tell that to the victims’ families. The 2% Initiative gained a few small, but very vocal, critics due to the scandal. As it was resolved quickly and far more were quite happy with their new homes, at least initially, it was expected the matter would blow over ...

As all of this was going on, the GSV Hopeful identified a new jump point, designated Charlie. This one is slightly closer than Bravo, and on the opposite side of the sun, 3.2b km away bearing 104. There are three more locations to survey before the Hopeful moves to the outer ring.

In just over a quarter, the moon eclipsed Titan with one and a half million colonists! The rush was insane – even the most optimistic backers were surprised at how earnest the desire was to settle the barren rock. That was early July, and by the end of the month two new shipping corporations(Everton Shipping & Logistics, and three weeks later Presnar Freight) had been formed. As is SPACE policy, no subsidizing was countenanced. They will succeed or fail on their own.

As if that wasn’t enough, July also featured an unprecedented discovery by the Hopeful. In the final survey of the middle ring of jump locations, not one but two were found in close proximity! The scientific community is puzzled, as they did not think this was even possible.

Delta is the closest jump point other than Alpha, 2.68b km and a bearing of 25, inside Uranus orbit. Just outside that orbit is Epsilon, 3.1b km at a bearing of 31. The two are just 519m km away from each other, a fact that could prove to be of considerable importance in the future. The Hopeful proceeded out to the Kuiper Belt for the final ring of a dozen locations ...

From a fleet perspective, the bustle of the last few years quieted down considerably in the fall. With all four of the large freighters refit to the II-xe class, the Victoria was scrapped and shipping had caught up with production of mines on Earth. Additionally, with survey operations complete, there just wasn’t much left to do. A new mine will be sent off to Titan(when population permits) or a comet(when a new automated one is converted about once a month), but other than that it is very quiet.

Colonial Developments

Two new comets were added to remote mining operations this year. On January 9 the mass driver on Neujmin was activated(Derek Latch dispatched as governor) and on July 12(more stuff happening in a crazy-busy month) the one on Vanbiesbroeck, a near-perfect job for Delois Woznicki(see bio in the next section of this year’s report) to cut her teeth on.

Machholz depleted it’s supply of vendarite early in February, a nearly complete non-event than nobody cares about. By Thanksgiving, the Hopeful was headed back to Earth for shore leave, needing refueling and some time off before scanning the final eight locations.

Colony populations at year’s end:

Earth – 870m
Luna – 3.26m
Titan – 1.81m
Mars – 1.45m

Three-quarters of a percent of the population now lives somewhere other than Earth ...

Commissioned Officers

January 29 – I think he heard you – Tell Perj Jr. increases training skill to 75 ...

February 11 – For the first time in several years, Pioneer Deacon Palmer has made a major personal breakthrough. His C&P experitise rises from 25% to 35%. No other C&P scientist is higher than 15%.

March 1 – A new political star on the rise officially joins SPACE – Delois Woznicki. Genius-level ability in mining, espionage, and shipbuilding to go along with strong political skills(only Duling is better) and industrial production. The only thing she needs is experience. Unfortunately for her, just days before the Mars appointment had already been made.

Mid-May – Col. Ray Hoel becomes the best army officer to be produced by the Academy since top-ranking colonel Anton Engelhardt over four years ago. Hoel is expected to take command of one of the infantry battalions when the current tour is up in 2051.

June – Alberto Eighmy’s political connections have increased(20%), continuing to demonstrate that he’ll be a serious challenger in the decades to come.

In December, long-term medical problems surfaced for Lt. Cmdr. Hannah Shepard and Dr. Joe Tycho. The 31-year-old Shepard in particular has been a hard-luck case, right at the top of the Lieutenant Commander list for years since her survey assignment ended, on multiple occasions the next-in-line to receive her own command. Every time she’s been surpassed by some new hotshot recruit, sometimes weeks before an opportunity opened up.
She’s still got a couple of years left to get her break, but seems stalled and this won’t help her.

Research & Development

February saw the arrival of more good news from the Jump Theory Team. Dr. Santo Makar’s expertise is growing by leaps and bounds. His specialized skill is up to 55%, nearly now the equal of Ignacio Bavaro (60% in Energy Weapons). The difference is that Power & Propulsion is a much more useful field to us. It is not an exaggeration to say he is now our most important researcher, and will likely remain so after this phase of development is completed.

** July 24 -- Jump Drive Efficiency(4) was completed. Squadron Size is the final of the three jump engine projects, a report currently anticipated in early spring of next year.
** September 25 -- 30% Engine Power(higher-efficiency) completed(Ignacio Bavaro). Cedrick Wormack(Troop Transport Bays) takes over the space.
** October 26 – TH 5-5 Sensor Suite(thermal sensors) work finished(Clint Wyche). Sorium Harvesting Module gets the additional space.

Earth

For the second year in a row there is news on April Fool’s Day: Sorium is depleted. At current supply levels, we are now producing half of what we refine each year and will be able to sustain current refinery output for 20-25 years before seeing a dropoff. In five years’ time, uridium will(irrelevantly) be the next mineral to be depleted. In less than two decades, only vendarite and tritanium will remain on our homeworld.

Two days later, the ST Sussex and ST Starlight are finished at the P&A Group, and a final pair of Lexington-II’s begun.

April 29 – A third commercial shipyard, dubbed the Vickers-Armstrong Shipyard, is finished in orbit at Earth. New slipways will be added immediately, with the goal of taking over the role that the P&A Group currently is filling, the ability to construct multiple small vessels at once to fill accessory roles. Another commercial yard is immediately begun, as Director Rakes wants to plan ahead for the future as much as possible at this point. It will not always be obvious ahead of time when a new shipyard will be needed: this one will serve as a buffer of sorts. Also, the few remaining conventional factories that were set to be converted to refineries have that work restarted: nothing has been done in the last decade or so with other priorities, but it has been deemed time to finish it now. Earth now has six ongoing industrial projects.

Mid-July – The shipyards all benefit from the experience of Director Rakes, who has become more adept at certain personnel matters, resulting in faster operations.(5% Shipbuilding Bonus).

July 20 – The ST Hipparchus and ST Endymion are finished on Earth, completing the current set of shuttles at eight.

October -- Another research lab has been finished, and Shanon Pateson’s first project is to begin work on a Sorium Harvester module, the goal of which is to find a way to extract sorium from the atmosphere of gas giants such as Saturn. She’s just there to lay some groundwork, a more experience researcher will be taking over the project down the road.

November 20 – Refinery conversions are complete on Earth. Between the remaining 250+ conventional industry and 75 refineries, production is now over 2 million liters annually. Initial work begins on a second military-grade orbital shipyard, for the same reason that the fourth commercial yard is being built – it’s best to be prepared.

By year’s end, duranium production on Earth is under a kiloton for the first time. Over 60% of the total supply, which still gradually increased over the past year to 2.67kt, now comes from other sources.

In terms of fuel, SPACE has set a policy for production goals to be 80% of the maximum usage of the fleet, though that is less important with a huge reserve such as we have. At present the reserve has stagnated between 26-27 million litres for the last few years, though with reduced naval activity it is expected to start growing again for the next few until there is more for the ships to do. Peak operations for the current fleet year-round would consume 1.85m liters, meaning current production levels of 2.1m liters are more than enough at about 112% or so of maximum demand. A reserve of five years’ worth will be maintained, but again we are well ahead of that at 14 years worth for the moment. Right now there is clearly no urgent need, but it’s worth revisiting the fuel situation periodically to make sure we do not run out, and the long-term goal of moving refinery capacity off of Earth so as to allow the sorium there to be used for jump drives and any other purposes that may arise is still important. Nothing could potentially cripple the fleet faster than a fuel crisis, and SPACE is determined not to have one.

Sol Survey Efforts

March – The Rater team has completed it’s work on Ikeya-Zang, finding nothing. Their work is now complete.

July 25 – The last of the geology teams is disbanded on Earth, officially bringing an era to an end. It was just shy of ten years ago that the Lief Ericson was officially christened and began the surveying of the system. Though progress often seems slow, in the big picture a lot has been accomplished in a relatively very short period of time.

October 19 – Another jump point has been found, the first in the outer ring, designated Jump Point Foxtrot. That’s six now. On a bearing of 65, it is 5.1b km from the sun, or 700m km outside Neptune orbit but closer than all but the nearest Kuiper Belt objects.

Fleet Operations

February 18 – The FT Venus completes its refit, Southampton will be up next.

March 5 – The Southampton returns to earth from getting the Mars colony set up, and begins it’s turn refitting at the Tod & Macgregor. There’s nothing much for Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. to do except enjoy some R&R and ponder ... whatever for the coming months.

May 11 – The New Beginnings returns to earth and stands down, the decision having been made that there is no need to ship new colonists to Titan(which would require a lot more infrastructure being sent at SPACE expense). At almost 1.5m strong, the colony will see significant numbers added just through the natural process of life at this point.

May 18 – Fleet HQ is puzzled where the miscalculation was – a technical error on the part of the refueling crews during their last leave is expected – but it has become clear that the ST Marengo is not going to make it back to Earth on their current reserves. The Amerigo Vespucci is dispatched to make a fuel transfer immediately. It is however expected that the shuttle will be forced to drift helplessly for at least a month before they can be reached, as they are presently nearly 7b km away ...

June 21, 0800 – The Marengo runs out of fuel, and while it made excellent time, the Amerigo Vespucci is yet a little over two days away.

June 23, 1230 – The Amerigo Vespucci rendezvous is complete, and soon both vessels are on their way. An embarassing moment for the
Fleet(such as it is), but no great harm was done. There’s nothing comfortable, for certain, about running out of gas over three billion kilometers away from home.

July 3 – The Southampton(Tell Perj Jr.) is underway again, the third freighter to be refitted. The only one remaining is the Custer, whose return trip from Titan will be completed at the end of the month. For now, the Southampton will take over the duty of getting standard mines to the colony.

July 28 – FT Custer is the last to begin refitting to the II-xe variant of the Fletcher.

October – Most of the freighters and the rest of the fleet are now idle as SPACE enters a quieter time after the flurry of activity. Every couple of weeks a new mine heads to Titan aboard the Southampton or to Vanbiesbroeck on one of the other freighters, but other than that the traffic
is nearly all civilian.

November 22 – The FT Custer is the last to be refitted. The obsolete and unneeded FT Victoria is to be scrapped now.

[Brian Swartz]

2050 ANNUAL REPORT

Operation Uncertain Hope

March 9 was the most significant date this year, marking the completion of research into Jump Engine Squadron Size by Sanko Matar’s team, a significant milestone. The next step is a crucial one, specifying final capabilities for the jump engines and standard propulsion engine that the vessel will need. After poring over various options, it was determined that the upper end of the initially estimated size range was most likely, close to 10 kilotons.

Current efficiency technology requires that a military jump drive be one-quarter the size of the ship it is opening a wormhole for(civilian jump drives are also possible, but they are ten times the size and a third less efficient). There’s little point in considering a civilian drive since the sensor suites require the ship to be a classified design anyway. The MJD 50-3a will require 100 crew members to service by itself, and take considerable effort to prototype.

Also needing consideration is the fact that while there is some duranium required, the primary mineral needed to build it is sorium – almost 230 tons. This is the first industrial application of sorium to be found, and building the required ships will further drain the amount available to the refineries. The Saturn Harvesting Project just became that much more important.

Standard propulsion also needed new engines designed. The engineers estimate that there will be room for about 4kt of engines, allowing for twin 2,000-ton engines to be the most fuel efficient configuration. There was a rather lengthy discussion about how much power to shoot for, a debate that largely centered on speed vs. fuel economy. The choice was made to sacrifice some fuel for speed in this instance, given the huge distances that will need to be traveled. Making more trips to refuel would just eat up more of the reserves. The massive CNT 40-50c will be about 20% more fuel efficient than the Fletcher-class freighters, and allow for a much higher top speed which should be about 1000 km/s, possibly a little faster. This would allow for a journey across the width of a system similar in size to ours of in about four months.

Makar will head up the jump drive prototype team, with one complex reserved for the standard propulsion engine team and Dr. Ignacio Bavaro. It is expected to take about a year for these to complete, at which time the Pioneer class will be finalized. The other obstacle is expanding the Wartsila Shipyard to the required size to build it. At present, capacity is just over 6kt, so it is well on its way, but it will likely take some months, maybe even a year or two longer than the research teams. After that, retooling of the yard will be necessary before construction can begin, which is estimated to take a full two years on it’s own. There are still many uncertainties, but current estimates are that the first operational vessel is extremely unlikely to be ready before 2055, and could very well require most of the decade before it is underway. Most of the technical obstacles are in the rearview mirror though, it’s a matter of time and hard work by millions remaining before the job is completed if all goes well.

Most of the balance of the year was spent reviewing highly routine reports and in a fair degree of boredom and frustrating anticipation for Director India Rakes. A new recruit would be commissioned, another mine sent to Titan or Stephan-Oterma, the colonies continued to grow, medical issues, the occasional very minor adjustment to industrial allocations on Earth, civilian corporations produced new ships from time to time, etc., but in each case her job was only to keep the beauracratic machinery moving. The most significant development was the improvement in mining efficiency on several outposts brought about by increased skill of the civil servants. Herbert Duling, Jarrett Hugh, Carroll Westcott, Delois Woznicki, and Francesco Alborn all had noted improvements. These allowed the supply of duranium to stabilize and even(very marginally) creep higher late in the year. As for Rakes herself, she spent the time improving her political connections(20% now) to give herself a better shot at re-election. Ever the politician, as the job requires.

A few days before Christmas, on December 21, Uncertain Hope moved one step closer to completion in the year’s most significant development. Dr. Ignacio Bravo’s team completes research into the CNT-40-5c engine that will power the Pioneer class. It is also determined that the vessel will require 750k liters of fuel for its extended tours: this is a bit more than the current freighters, but a bit less than the original Fletcher II design. In about three months, the final design piece of the puzzle is expected to click into place, with all the kinks worked out of the massive jump drive.

Colonial Developments

Venus is next on the hit parade for the 2% Initiative, though it’ll take some years to get enough to set up a basic colony there, probably about five years. Mercury will be next, followed by the four habitable moons of Jupiter. Initial deliveries result in no activity, as expected. Meanwhile Luna, Mars, and Titan all grew steadily or better, with a total of over 16m now living beyond Earth by year’s end.

On June 3, a second civilian mining complex has been activated on Sedna. We gladly will continue purchasing the output, which is now over 200t duranium along with almost that much uridium.

Fleet Operations

The FT Victoria was scrapped on January 3, with the rest of the year’s news decidedly routine. A mass driver was activated on Stephan-Oterma in February, with new recruit Burt Stonerock(seriously, that’s his name. You can’t make this stuff up) escorted in as the initial governor. The next couple of years will see available mines go to the highest duranium
concentration of any comet(over 25kt). A sizable amount of sorium(almost 17kt) is also available.

Commissioned Officers

February 7 – It has been noted that James Earl Jones V has increased his ability to manage economies well(Wealth Creation 5%). As of now, this is worth an extra 4,000 credits per year to the SPACE treasury from his post on Luna.

March 14 – Sonny Dean increases Ground Unit Construction Speed to 10%. I don’t know how, or why, but it is a marginal increase in his value.

Early August – Santo Makar continues to improve, now possessing a 60% bonus to his research efforts.

Research & Development

March 6 – Dr. Elwood Tousant announces that the EM 5-5 Sensor Suite(Electromagnetic Sensors) has been successfully prototyped. Unfortunately, he managed not to learn a darn thing about the field in general during the process. The space is now the third complex to be added to the Sorium Harvester project, which is still slated to take another five years.

Jump Point Survey Operations

March 23 – The GSV Hopeful leaves Earth again on what is expected to be it’s final mission: there are eight more jump locations to scan. It would be May before they arrived, nearly a 50-day trip from Earth to the outer reaches of the system.

November 14 – For the first time in well over a year, a new jump point is found! Jump Point Gamma is 5.9b km out, bearing 258. The Hopeful has only two locations remaining to survey ...

Earth

April 1 – For a third year in a row there is April Fools’ Day news: Vickers-Armstrong has added a second slipway. The shipyard goes silent, part of a general order for no new non-essential shipyard operations to conserve duranium as the stockpile continues to be slowly depleted. The only active shipyard at the moment is Wartsila, which continues expanding it’s way to 10,000 tons capacity.

[Brian Swartz]

Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. – 10th out of 18. Reassigned to the ST Wayne, definitely a step down from the important posting on the FT Southampton.
Lt. Cmdr. Hannah Shepard – 7th out of 51. Too many better recruits have come through the last few years – it’s not looking good.
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen Jr. – 10th.

Brig. Gen Path Twelve – 6th out of 6.
Brig. Gen Dolph Stallone – 3rd out of 6.
Maj. Gen. Sterling Silvers – situation unchanged., over 20 years now as the head of the Army.

Sonny Dean(2) – A relatively minor post as Governor of Wolf-Harrington.
James Earl Jones V(4) – Not much has been heard from the Governor of Luna since he took his first assignment. With Earth’s most populous colony just shy of 9.5m souls, he’s a busy man these days.

Pioneer Deacon Palmer – Putting the finishing touches just now on a report on improving refinery output.
Joe Tycho – Doing nothing, but getting paid well for it.

Only one man has served as head of the Navy – Admiral Wilburn Castilleja. He retires after 26 years of service(mandatory at age 60), with 52-year-old Harley Artley stepping in to take his place. There are a number of experienced leaders in their upper 40s or early 50s. In about 10-15 years SPACE is going to lose a lot of it’s most accomplished personnel.

[sterlingice]

I know years are just flying by but it would be amazing to be living at a time when we're off colonizing and discovering other worlds.

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Indeed! And it's starting to get more complicated now(a 'problem' which will increase with time). It seems all is not sunshine and roses in these brave new worlds ...

2051 ANNUAL REPORT

Overview

All eyes were on the completion of the jump drive research in March, but that report wasn’t due for a month and India Rakes had to deal with a conference call she’d just finished with Luna Governor James Earl Jones V. He’s reported some serious unrest on the colony, with the citizens lamenting the ‘lack of military protection’.

Isn’t that just like a civilian? Clamor for new worlds to settle, then whine about the crime after you get there. They were told they would be on their own, were they not? One couldn’t go around acceding to the demands of every segment of society, but from what Jones has reported, this isn’t likely something that will go away.

It was quite fortuitous that the clamor didn’t get too loud before the jump drive prototype was finalized on March 10 by Santo Makar’s team. At this point, Operation Uncertain Hope entered its final phase. The Pioneer class was finalized by the engineers, and it was discovered a considerable and fairly costly miscalculation had been made. Specifically, the maintenance requirements for the jump engine had been underestimated by several factors. Adding the required supplies meant something had to go to keep the ship at the maximum size of 10kt. Some fuel went, some crew space went, and the final deployment time could be set no higher than 49 months – almost a full year less than that of the original specs.

Final operational details:

Size: 10,000 tons(right at the jump drive limit)
Crew: 240
Speed: 1000 km/s.
Fuel: 600,000 liters
Cost: 1.004 million credits, the first ship to cross this threshold(50% more costly than the Spruance-B colony ship)
Build Time: 20 months

So it hadn’t gone perfectly. Or even close to it. But there was nothing for it now, the only alternative would be to make the ship bigger, redesign an even larger jump engine, wait another year for it, etc. – that wasn’t going to happen. This was good enough. Or at least, it had better be. Wartsila Shipyard was still expanding at 8300 tons currently, so it would be some time before retooling could commence. In the weeks that followed, it was also decided(far too late) that expanding the horrifically inadequate state of Earth’s maintenance facilities had to become a priority.

The research team switched to working on a commercial jump drive, the reasoning being that it was pointless to explore if there were no way to exploit anything that might be found. Therefore a commercial ship, henceforth to be known as the North Carolina class jump ship, had to be designed and capable of escorting the freighters through the jump process. While the initial plan was to retain some cargo capability, it was eventually decided to minimize the size and cost of the vessel to what was needed for jump capability only.

In late May, the North Carolina specifications were nailed down:

Size: 19,200 tons
Speed: 520 km/s(a hair faster than the Fletcher II-xe, powered by quad CNT-25-4 engines, the most efficient available)
Fuel: 250,000 liters
Range: 34.3b km
Crew: 133
Cost: 378k
Build Time: Just under a year, 50-51 weeks give or take

The P&A Group would take the rest of the year to retool to the new ship design, but it would still be finished years ahead of any Pioneer so there was no rush. This left Rakes with another major decision: with the jump research done for the moment, what would be done with the laboratories that had been used for it? Some went to existing, underfunded projects, while two more were begun: Improved Terraforming Rate(Dr. Clint Wyche) and Fighter Production Rate(Dr. Curtis Gloster, in his first project lead assignment!).

** Note: See the R&D section of your report for a prognosis of the current research policy.

Most of the late summer and full was then spent observing closely the progress at Wartsila. On November 9, retooling to the Pioneer class finally began and the finish line seemed that much closer, with estimates now pretty locked in on the timeline. Sometime between Christmas 2052 and New Year’s(i.e., right on the eve of the election!!) the retooling should be complete, which would put the first operational vessel in the second half of 2054. For better or worse, this phase of human advancement should be completed by the middle of the decade, and SPACE will know what we’ve got(if anything).

By the end of the year, considerations for the Office of the Director were mounting. The steady but incremental increase in duranium continued, now just a hair under 3kt per annum. Long-term sources were needed, and that will mean going to the edge of the system. There are a couple of notable asteroids, Sedna obviously could do with some official mines to keep the civilians from charging us for it all, and of course the nearly half-million tons on Triton would be a great source. Or should we simply go for the less accessible but far easier to reach 14mt on Venus?

Then there was the unrest on Luna, which has now reached 77% and is showing no signs of turning around. It’s all well and good to say they got themselves into this, but not helping them out of it was not an option(and not just because Governor Jones won’t stand for it). There are over 11 million on the moon, and they have far too many friends and relatives on earth to just ignore them and allow the colony to go to pot.

Of course there was absolutely nothing that could be done immediately: the technology to get military help to the moon(or in some cases to get the military help, period) does not yet exist. A series of executive orders that essentially admit a failure of foresight on the part of SPACE dramatically redrafted research policy(again, see the R&D supplement). Any non-critical projects using more than one complex were reduced to one, with additional resources diverted to the Troop Transport Bay project. Two more research projects were also begun, Boat Bays(hangars for fighter-size craft, under Dr. Brandon Grimmett, famously the lead on the JupSat Survey Team), and Active Gravitational Sensors(without which no weapon system is worth much, if it can’t find a target in deep space) directed by Elwood Tousant.

Additionally, it is becoming clear that more and more stress is going to be put on the industrial capacity of Earth. More and more things keep popping up that MUST be done NOW(with no possible way to do them even ‘reasonably soon’). There simply isn’t anything to be done about this at the moment, because the limiting factor is still mineral resources. Having more factories without the raw resources to supply them would be worse than pointless. Stephan-Oterma is nearly to Mars orbit on its path away from the sun now, and for the next year at least it will continue to be the recipient of whatever automated mines are produced. After that though, there will be many hard decisons. Funny how these moments always seem to coincide with an election year ...

Commissioned Officers

January – Captain Ellie Camble is promoted to Rear Admiral. Shortly afterwards, Kendall Muratore is promoted to Captain to take her place. Muratore is a veteran commander at 40 years old, and has a varied history with commands on survey ships, freighters, and transports to his credit.

February – This year’s officer purge claims 13.

Early July – Tell Perj Jr. increases crew training to 100.

Mid-September – Sonny Dean increases mining bonus to 15%.

Research & Development

February 1 – Deacon Palmer’s team completes research increasing fuel production per refinery to 24,000 liters(+20%!). He’ll now take over the Sorium Harvester Module project from Dr. Shannon Pateson, who got it to about a quarter completed. This leaves two complexes empty, one goes to Dr. Brandon Grimmett for a study into Garrison Battalion(needed for the colonies), and the second is added to the Jump Drive research.

Right now the research teams are entering another phase of cleaning up relatively quick but not particularly essential projects. One never knows when a particular branch of technology, such as the two above, might be needed and so it is prudent to have a basic level of knowledge even in those areas which are not a major focus. There are a record 8 ongoing teams in the 15 laboratories. The rule of thumb being used to decide how many laboratories are being used is to ensure any project is completed in less than five years. This allows for what is deemed a reasonable balance between making progress in the ever-increasingly difficult demands of scientific advancement, and developing the minds of tomorrow in case they are more urgently needed(i.e., having a constantly improving scientific ‘bench’ of experienced project leaders).

At present levels of research difficulty, technology, and scientist skill, this means 1-3 laboratories are devoted to each project.

July 17 – Dr. Everette Snuggs’ team completes its report on Tiny Fuel Storage Module. The Fighter Production Rate team takes over the space, and Snuggs takes over for Brandon Grimmett on the Garrison Battalion project.

July 30 – Pebble Bed Reactor research complete(Sanko Matar). This does nothing by itself, but allows for the next generation of engine technology to be considered as a possibility. He’s assigned to looking for further ways to improve fuel efficiency. A research gap is expected now, with nothing further expected from the existing teams until spring or summer of 2053, nearly two years down the road.

A major shift at the end of the year occurred in research priorities as mentioned in the Overview. Specifically, this relates to military priorities. The general pattern of deciding ‘what is the best thing to research next’ has been a combination of value and cost. Nothing over 5000 RP has been researched yet, to keep it within a reasonable timeframe as discussed above. Military technology, being a non-issue up to this point, has only been researched when it is 20% or less of the cost of the least expensive ‘domestic’ or ‘economic’-focused technology. This has been done to simulate it’s low priority on SPACE’s radar screen. With the issues on Luna, this has been shifted(particularly as it relates to basic ground unit technology and the ability to transport said forces) from 20% to 50%. This means from a relative point of view, the focus is not as strongly on the domestic sector but that’s still where it is long-term. In the short-term, there’s some ‘catching up’ to do as basic military technology in many areas is still unknown. Only 8 out of 23 areas of specific designable technology(i.e. engines with all their various options) can even be designed(a basic tech in each aspect is required and some/all are missing for the others). A rather unavoidable side effect of all this is the fact that badly needed economic techs will go unresearched while cheaper and equally necessary in their own way military technologies progress, at least for a time.

Jump Point Surveys

The final survey is completed in early February, and the Hopeful begins the journey back to Earth. SPACE now has yet another ‘expensive shuttle.’

Earth

February 13 – New research lab on Earth. Dr. Shannon Pateson begins a new project on developing a jump gate construction module for ships. A jump gate could potentially allow ships to transit a jump point without the use of a jump drive, significantly easing transport between systems. Kind of putting the cart before the horse, but it was deemed the next priority.

May – Fuel reserves are climbing again, reaching 28 million for the first time.

October – Voliva launches the first ever luxury liner, a ship to essentially ferry tourists to the colonists. They now have the largest single human fleet, with 17 vessels and rising.

Fleet Operations

July – Titan also has reached its full target complement of 25 mines. It is basically on it’s own at this point. The only real naval activity left at this point is shipping an automated mine to Stephan-Oterma, now about at close approach, every month.

[Tellistto]

Go go Crew Training Skill!

Tell

[Brian Swartz]

2052 Annual Report

It was an election year filled with looking ahead to the future much more than it was about current events. While construction began in the first week on the JS Velociraptor, first in the North Carolina class, the most notable event was the summer completion of Troop Transport Bay research, and the subsequent design of the TT Portland:

Size: 4300 tons
Crew: 35
Speed: 581 km/s(1 CNT 25-4 efficiency engine)
Fuel: 60,000 liters
Range: 36.7b km
Cost: 137.5(6-7 months)

This was a perfect first job for the Vickers-Armstrong Yard, which immediately began building a pair of them. They’ll be ready early next year, well before the time that we’ll be prepared to actually transport troops. Meanwhile, work continued on various fronts, and stability on Luna continues to decline(52% at year’s end)

Colonization

It will be several years before a sufficient amount of infrastructure is up and running on Venus, but the corporate ships responded this year with the first-in colonists. Apparently the harsh environment is not going to scare them away, though it remains to be seen when(if ever) enough of a colony will be present there to make it self-sufficient.

There are now more than 43 million humans living somewhere other than arth, 4.5% plus of the total population.

Commissioned Officers

Early January – Joe Tycho has improved his research bonus to 20%. Hard work such as this is rare in an unemployed scientist, and gives him a better shot at getting into the action as it were down the road.

February – I’m completely befuddled as to why, but there were no officer terminations this year. Some certainly qualified for it ...

Mid-June – Light dawns on marble head! Elwood Tousant finally managed to wrap his mind around some Sensors & Fire Controls concepts, increasing his bonus to 10%. He’s now our foremost(i.e., only) expert in that field.

Late June – Sonny Dean’s administrative rating is up to 3.

Late July – Sonny Dean’s Factory Production Bonus is up to 20%.

Private Sector Activities

Early February -- Tolles Transport & Logistics becomes the sixth civilian shipping line. By April 1, they had their first freighter in operation.

November 10 – Another shipping line. Forbius Carrier Ltd. What else is new. However, since Voliva and Jensrud are each larger than the others combined, those are really the only two that matter right now.

Resource Development

May – With 28 operational automated mines, Stephan-Oterma is now the largest mining operation outside of Earth. A further half-dozen or so are planned.

Research & Development

** June 28 – Troop Transport Bay research completed(Dr. Cedrick Wormack). He moves on to researching general increases in the combat strength of our ground forces. Additionally, Ignacio Bavaro is assigned to 10cm Laser Focal Size, and Eva Vadnais(first project) to Turret Tracking Speed 2000 km/s. An obscene 11 projects are now under way.

** July 1 – With a new research lab now available, Harlan Welle begins looking into improving missile magazine ordnance storage efficiency. Also, somehow previously overlooked, the terraforming team has an extra lab and that was taken away to allow Karabishi Juishao to work on Magazine Ejection Systems, the chance that a magazine will eject it’s ordnance if
hit(otherwhise it explodes). A mind-boggling 13 different research projects are now underway, with only the Sorium Harvester Module and Active Gravitational Sensors still warranting more than a single laboratory. This leaves just under half the scientists still unemployed ...

Earth

November 18 – The JS Velociraptor is complete, and provisionally assigned a CO.

[Brian Swartz]

It's time for a couple of things to be explained again. First, here's another screen of the solar system, now with the orange-ish jump points labeled:



The first one you can't see very well as it's hidden by a mass of comets and asteroids. The 'Unex' just means unexplored.

Also, now that we're starting to get into space-based weaponry, a bit of an explanation of the various weapons systems is in order I think. I have next to no experience with this part of the game, so it's going to be a learning experience for me as well, but I know just enough to be dangerous(to myself ).

Any combat system requires active sensors, which we are of course researching right now. But beyond that, it's necessary to decide which systems to focus research on.

Missiles are the longest-range combat system, which also tends to make them the predominant one overall. The limitation of this is of course that once you're out of missiles ... your ship is a really expensive paperweight. There's also considerable logistics involved in keeping the ships supplied on extended deep-space excursions. A missile system requires the missiles themselves, a magazine(for storing and reloading them on the ship), the active sensors, and a missile launcher(which determines how many missiles of what size can be launched at once). At the moment, we can't design sensors or magazines at all, but we do have the basic tech to build the missiles themselves and the launchers(all of these have to specifically designed to whatever specifications we want).

There are several types of beam weapons as well, which use energy to fire but don't require reloading or carrying specific ordnance per se. These are:

** Lasers(long-range, damage decreases with range).
** Railguns(projectile-based weapon, four projectiles with higher damage but much shorter range than lasers)
** Particle Beams(damage does not drop off with range, somewhat shorter range than lasers but still significant reach)
** Meson Cannon(minimal damage(one point only), half the range of lasers, but they ignore shields and armor)
** Gauss Cannon(several shots per volley, one point of damage only)
** Plasma Carronade(high damage, point-blank range)
** Microwave(one point of damage, three vs. shields, damages electronic systems)
** Close-In-Weapons-System(CIWS) -- a specialized and complicated system that basically is a last-ditch attempt to shoot down missiles on their final approach to a ship(it cannot target anything other than missiles attacking the ship it is mounted on).

Trying to research all of these systems would be completely wasteful, it is necessary to focus on those we would intend to use. Fleet doctrines vary considerably. Long-range, missile-based fleets are very popular and certainly the dominant Aurora combat philosophy. More defensively, a beam-focused fleet can try to render missile opponents helpless by shooting down enough of their missiles to exhaust their supplies, then closing in for the kill. High-speed shuttles used as boarding craft for ground forces or carrier-based fleets with hordes of fighters(both of these tend to result in quite high attrition, but are achievable). The success of a fleet will depend on the foe it's matched up with(it's unknown if there are any and certainly what their composition might be should they be met). It would also be possible to focus mostly on static ground defences(PDCs, i.e. Planetary Defence Centers, which have all the same capability of a ship other than the whole being able to move thing).

We will want to have some kind of long-range offensive capability and some short-range(point-defense), but beyond that, specifics of a what branches of weapons research to focus on will be formulated by the winner of the upcoming election.

[Brian Swartz]

** OOC Note: I’ve been thinking for a while now about how to keep the thread updated with periodic overviews of how the key indicators are doing. I’ve come to the following plan, which is to update naval assets, populations, research, etc. in a once every four years report just prior to the election. Here’s the first one, as always feedback is a good thing if there are any particularly strong opinions. My goal is to have it in a sensible and consistent order, so that you can skip to the parts you care about and use it for easy reference should that be desired.

STATE OF SPACE, 2053

**SoS, insert dumb joke here**

I. IMPERIAL HOLDINGS

** Key: Location(population, growth rate).
CF = Construction Factories
CI = Conventional Industry
OF = Ordnance Factories
FF = Fighter Factories
REF = Refineries
RL = Research Labs
AC = Academies
MF = Maintenance Facility Size

** Note: I don’t have mines here as I think those are best included in the mining section.

IA. Populated Colonies

** Note: For the purposes of this report, ‘colony’ means ‘anyplace where people live’ and ‘outpost’ means ‘anyplace where there is SPACE-operated industrial equipment’. Obviously there is some overlap, in which case a location will appear in both lists.

Earth(895.6M, 322 CF, 253 CI, 50 OF, 10 FF, 75 REF, 16 RL, 2 AC, 2.4kt MF)
Luna(29.18M)
Mars(9.00M)
Titan(4.85M)
Venus(20k)

IB. Outposts

SM= Standard(human-operated) Mine
AM = Automated Mine
CMC = Civilian Mining Complex(equivalent to 10 AMs)

Earth(129 SM, 12.9 efficiency, 2.99 kt annual yield) – Uridum is set to deplete next, in mid-2057
Titan(25 SM, 6 eff., 234t)
Venus(6 AM, 24 eff., 208t)
Stephan-Oterma(35 AM, 40 eff., 1.68kt yield)
Machholz(27.6 AM, 56 eff, 2.04kt) – just under 8 years of duranium remains
Comas Sola(25 AM, 65 eff, 2.63kt) – vendarite will deplete in about 17 months
Crommelin(20.4 AM, 66 eff, 1.78kt) – less than 3 years of vendarite left
Borrelly(12.8 AM, 58 eff, 1.16kt) – Less than 8 years of sorium remains
Van Biesbroeck(10 AM, 55 eff, 857t)
Wolf-Harrington(9.8 AM, 67 eff, 906t) – Less than 3 years of gallicite
Neujmin(9.8 AM, 59 eff, 694t) – Just over 3 years of corbomite
Schaumasse(1.8 AM, 36 eff, 94t)
Reinmuth(1.8 AM, 47 eff, 113t) – 8+ years of duranium remaining
Sedna(2 CMC, 16 eff, 384t)

Total: Approximately 15.76kt. No single source currently produces more than 19% of this, so the resource pool has certainly been diversified.

As can be seen, we are fast approaching the point where Earth will no longer even be the largest supply of minerals in total, never mind the fact that none of the most important ones are found there. More than half the mines have already been converted to automated and transferred off-world, a process that will definitely continue.

IC. Mineral Stockpiles & Production

Four categories have been established to guide our mining efforts.

** Tier A are minerals that have a supply of 20k or more on Earth in stockpiles and are in minimal demand. This combination of high supply and low usage means they are a complete non-concern and no thought needs to be given to developing further resources. Their presence is considered merely a bonus, and not that much of one.

Uridium(40.7kt), gallicite(28.2kt), and vendarite(24.4k) are at present Tier A minerals.

** Tier B consists of minerals that either see moderate or higher use, but have supplies expected to last at least a decade, or else see minimal use but have less than 20kt in reserve. In this case, it is important to review the supply each successive SoS report, and their presence is marginally notable, but developing further supplies does not need to be a priority.

Mercassium(25.8kt) is primarily used in research labs, and at the rate of less than 1kt per year. Low-use substances corbomite(15.5kt), tritanium(17.9kt), and boronide(14.8kt) also fit here.

** Tier C are minerals that see considerable use, but where supply is presently sufficient to current needs. They bear close watching, but expanding production is merely a low-level priority at present. Careful monitoring of the current supply levels for C and above materials is mandated.

Corundium has just been moved here, as supply has moved past the rate at which earth is using it. With only 316t in the reserve and well over 800t consumed each year, it still teeters very much on the edge. Current annual yield is 979 tons.

The second Tier C mineral is sorium, holding steady between 10-11kt for several years now. With massive fuel reserves(31.5m liters and rising) it is a long-term but not short-term concern. Production is 1.42 kt per year, which sounds like a lot but is actually about 65t less than the refineries consume.

** Tier D are minerals that are ‘bottleneck’ materials: that is, a lack of them makes increased economic activity of some kind impossible. Naturally, these are the most vital economic priorities that SPACE will focus it’s policy on for the next term.

At present, it will be unsurprising that neutronium(3.83kt, 1.36kt yield) and duranium(4.48kt, 2.98 kt yield) are the Tier D materials. To really be comfortable in economic terms and support significant economic expansion, both amounts would need to be doubled if not more.

ID. Income

Taxes: 22.06M credits
Colonist Fees: 3.05M
Trade Goods Tariffs: 1.33M
Export Tariffs: 1.27M
Tourism Fees: 460k

Total: 28.17M

The tourism industry is just getting off the ground, but over a fifth of our income now comes from various taxes and fees associated with civilian shipping. Over two-thirds of our current operating expenses could be funded by this alone!

IE. Expenses

Installation Construction: 4.16M
Research: 3.10M
Shipyard Expenditures: 1.19M
Mineral Purchases: 501k
Ground Unit Maintenance: 101k
Maintenance Facilities: negligible

Total: 9.05M

We’re still printing money, but research is gradually growing as a percent of expenses(34% now) and of course there would be a lot more shipyard operations had we the mineral resources to do so. Finance continues to be a total non-concern.

II. SHIPYARDS

** For now, and until stated otherwhise, all orbital shipyards are at Earth. One of each type remains under construction. Except where noted, they are presently inactive.

IIA. Commercial Yards

Tod & MacGregor(1 slipway, 36.4kt capacity)
P&A Group(2 slipways, 20kt capacity)
Vickers-Armstrong(2 slipways, 10kt capacity)
** Building 2x TT Portland

IIB. Naval(Military) Yards

Wartsila A\B & O\Y(1 slipway, 10kt capacity)
** Building JSC Intrepid, first of the Pioneer Class

III. Industrial Activity

IIIA. Earth(at present, there is no industrial capacity beyond our homeworld)

** Research Lab(34% of factory capacity) – Ongoing, one every year and a half, roughly
** Mine Conversions, Standard to Automated(33%) – Ongoing, one every 4-5 weeks
** Maintenance Facility Expansion(18%) – An additional 7.6kt planned, March 2059
** Naval Shipyard(5%) – December 2058
** Commercial Shipyard(5%) – January 2057
** Mass Driver(5%) – 2 more by July 2054

IV. Research Projects

** The game is more specific than this, but I felt it was a useful RP element to have more general dates the further out a project is from completion.

** Garrison Battalion(Everette Snuggs) – May/June 2053
** Sorium Harvester(Deacon Palmer) – Q3/Q4 2053
** Active Gravitational Sensors(Elwood Tousant) – Q4 2053
** Boat Bay(Brandon Grimmett) – Q4 2053
** Laser Focal Size, 10cm(Ignacio Bavaro) – Q4 2053/Q1 2054
** Ground Unit Combat Strength(Cedrick Wormack) – Early 2054
** Turret Tracking Speed, 2k km/s(Eva Vadnais) – 2055
** Magazine Feed Systems, Efficiency(Harlan Welle) – 2055
** Terraforming Rate(Clint Wyche) – 2055
** Magazine Ejection Systems(Karabishi Juishaou) – 2056
** General Fuel Efficiency Techniques(Santo Makar) – 2056/2057
** Jump Gate Construction Module(Shannon Patteson) – 2057/2058
** Fighter Factor Production Rate(Curtis Gloster) – 2060-2062

We’ve got several projects on the horizon, and others much further from completion.

V. Active Naval Assets

(Number of active ships, size per ship, crew per ship, top speed, fuel per ship, designed role)

GSV Coontz(1, 2.25kt, 32 crew, 1377 km/s, 130k, gravitational survey)
GSV Essex(2, 2.2kt, 35 crew, 1136 km/s, 60k, geological survey)
FT Fletcher II-xe(4, 36.2kt, 100 crew, 518 km/s, 700k, freighter)
ST Lexington II(8, 1.8 kt, 20 crew, 1388 km/s, 30k, transport shuttle)
JS North Carolina(1, 19.2 kt, 133 crew, 520 km/s, 250k, large jump ship)
CS Spruance-B(1, 20.0 kt, 110 crew, 501 km/s, 250k, colony ship)

Totals: 17 vessels, 205kt, 905 crew, 3.79m liters of fuel

Available Crew: 65.1k

VI. Active Army Assets

** Low-Tech Armour Division(5)
** Low-Tech Infantry Division(10)

Total Active-Duty Soldiers: 15,000

VII. Civilian Shipping Corporations

** Voliva Carrier Co.(22 vessels, 3.82m credits annual income)
** Jensrud Transport & Trading(15, 1.68m)
** Everton Shipping & Logistics(4, 440k)
** Presnar Freight(4, 80k)
** Ouellet Shipping(4, 150k)
** Tolles Transport & Logistics(3, none)
** Forbius Carrier Limited(0, none) **Current wealth is 2m credits, second only to Voliva. I’d expect them to get in the game soon**

[Brian Swartz]

Addendum: I forgot a section.

VIII. SPACE Leadership Prospectus

** Naval Officers: 25 of 78 assigned(32.1%)
** Ground Forces Officers: 15 of 33(45.5%)
** Civilian Administrators: 16 of 24(66.7%)
** Scientists: 13 of 24(54.2%)

Overall: 69 of 159(43.4%)

Times are good for politicians and researchers: it's the high-water mark observed so far for both. Once military research catches up times will get tougher for the scientists, while growth in political opportunities will be scarcer in the future as well with most of the best resources in Sol now tapped. Gradual growth in the number of ship commands is expected, and with the colonies in need to boots on the ground, the best path to immediate service might be in the Army right now.

[Tellistto]

Galicite is one of the minerals used for missiles, just FYI.

Not a lot per...but if you go with missiles, you'll build a LOT of them. Hence, Galicite is quite important for that use.

Tell

[sterlingice]

The JS Velociraptor?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

Dinosaur theme.

On missiles/gallicite, that is very true but there will be time to adjust for that if it is the case.

[Brian Swartz]

2053 ELECTION

**Note: I changed the way I generate the results to be slightly less predictable for this round. One still has to be a top candidate to win, however.

There were 16 technically qualified to challenge incumbent India Rakes. The issues on Luna had seriously strained her credibility and political capital. The 2% Initiative, initially a political masterstroke, was now blamed as an overreach. She is still a significant political force, but her allies have thinned and some sense blood in the water(in practical terms, this meant a 20% reduction in her voting bloc). None are more poised to take advantadge of this than Herbert Duling of course, eligible to return from Titan and the unquestionable favorite.

Duling had used his time well, and his list of achievements, accomplishments, and connections was incredible. The field was the same five that made up the ‘49 ballot, but this time he had what would likely be a decisive edge. Rakes, and Herman Fox(Governor of Comas Sola) were overmatched challengers, with Sonny Dean(Wolf-Harrington) barely on the radar screen. However, Duling was not the only one who had been busy. His top foe was expected to be the Governor of Crommelin, Alberto Eighmy, though he was not considered to have all that much of a chance either.

There were points in the campaign when Director Rakes did better than expected, but her liabilities proved too much to overcome. Herbert Duling returns to Earth for a third term as director, taking 26.4% of the five-way race. Alberto Eighmy(22.1%) edged out Rakes(21.0%) for second place, with Fox taking fourth(17.2%) and Dean(13.3%) showing a disappointing and distant fifth, even for such a long-shot candidate. All of them will be governing true colonies with five settled bodies now available.

Earth – Herbert Duling
Luna – Alberto Eighmy
Mars – India Rakes
Titan – Herman Fox
Venus – Sonny Dean

The lower-level administrators were assigned new posts in most cases, based on their skills(esp. mining of course)

Policy Review

** After reviewing the SoS report, and the supplements describing options for further resource development, it was clearly time for a shift in mine deployment priorities. Stephan-Oterma was at 35 automated mines, the largest locale off of Earth, and at that rate it would deplete neutronium in 25 years, duranium and sorium in less than 60. There are very limited options left for mining both neutronium and duranium, in fact only two(Borrelly and Neujmin) in the entire system with potential for significant expansion without draining their reserves excessively quickly. The heyday of comet strip-mining will be coming to a close soon, which means more effort will need to be put into locations with only one essential mineral. This, in turn, implies more mines will be needed for the same output. Even at current levels of production, mines will not be sufficient to even maintain current levels for long. Perhaps Operation Uncertain Hope will provide a solution to this eventually. Perhaps it will provide nothing, and we cannot assume the former is more likely than the latter as there is no way of knowing.

The most glaring priority was clearly just increasing the raw number of mines deployed, as critical now as ever. By executive order, Duling reclassifies corundium back to a Tier D priority and classifies increasing the supply to a level that will support a 50% industrial commitment possible. There’s no practical reason to go beyond that as other priorities need to be able to go forward even at a reduced rate, and with the state of duranium there’s no point in entertaining the possibility of more factories being built in the forseeable future.

The new direction came to be known as the Maximum CD Plan – maximize corundium, then maximize duranium. A little over 1.2kt of corundium would be needed annually, an increase of about 225t from what is currently available. An in-depth review of known deposits and deployed mines was not encouraging. The single most effective thing to do would be massive investment in the comet Ikeya-Zang, which contains well over half the known reserves(not including Venus at 0.1 accessibility of course) at over 81kt. At 13.9b km distant though, this is not possible: It’s a journey of nearly two years round-trip for our freighters. Decades would literally be required.

A number of existing mining outposts have supplies that will last at present in the 12-20 year range, so investing more in those would be shortsighted as it would just accelerate the issue. However, for the time being, the desired level could be reached be reallocation of mines to the comet Schaumasse, which has 19kt at maximum accesibility and less than 2 operational mines, and doubling the amount on Wolf-Harrington(from just under 10 to 20). Schaumasse has duranium and Wolf-Harrington neutronium, so some of what is lost in transferring mines there will be recouped.

That’s Phase One, which will be implemented immediately. Phase Two calls for the development of a series of stopgap sources. While overall mining production will be lost in the shift to ‘single-source’ locations, that is deemed necessary and therefore acceptable. The target production has been upped to a quarter higher than what is strictly needed(1.5kt) for the purpose of providing a buffer against shortages when deposits are depleted in specific locations.

Comet Faye(7.66 kt at 1.0, neutronium at 10.4kt, sorium 9.67kt, 650m km)
Asteroid Prokne(7.3kt at 1.0, 485m km)

To date ignored because of the lack of duranium(in the case of Faye) and the lack of anything else at all(Prokne), these would extend production another decade. Another three-plus years can be gained with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which also has 5kt of sorium and is incoming 2.2b km away. That’s it for Phase Two though.

Phase Three requires the development of Swift-Tuttle(6.5b km and rising, another 3-years supply plus almost 20kt duranium) and then Ikeya-Zang itself. It is hoped(but not expected) that more advanced engines will be available for that, otherwhise it will be highly painful in terms of travel times.

Duranium will be easier to deal with once corundium is increased. Mines that can’t be transported in a timely fashion can simply be dumped on Venus for half accessibility, and there are good reserves in the outer system on the order of millions of tons. It’s just a question of how long it takes to develop them.

In order to support these activities, an exception is made to the general moratorium on new ship construction. Two more freighters will be built, with the potential for another pair if it is deemed warranted.

As can readily be seen, the mineral situation is highly fluid and complex, and becoming more so.

** As much of a political football as the 2% Initiative has become, it is something akin to Pandora’s Box – one cannot simply abandon Luna or the other colonies. Hanging onto them meant pursuing a military path to some degree, as chaos threatens on the moon and the others wouldn’t be long to follow.

** Luna would continue to be a primary short-term focus, with battalions to be shipped there as soon as the technology becomes available. Current estimates expect that to be before a full-scale revolt, but not by all that much, in early 2054. As a showy but actually inconsequential move, as
least as far as Luna is concerned, he announced an expansion to training facilities on Earth to begin immediately. Practically speaking of course, this will take several years to complete with other competing industrial priorities, but just the fact that it was being invested in created support in some quarters, while accusations of phony, disingenuous leadership in others ...

** Lauding the merits of the 2% Initiative while deploring the poor execution of it, Duling announced that it would continue – stressing the jobs created in the shipping business and downplaying colonial conditions. It is probably not coincidental that this argument only works with the 95% plus of the population that still lives on Earth. Colonials are still second-class citizens, but if their numbers continue to grow ...

** A narrower focus for research efforts was announced as well. Taking primary importance would be matters of policing the colonies via improvements in ground combat technology. Along with this, investment in space-based weapons would not be set in stone yet, as there wasn’t anything that could really be built until another round or two of research. The scientists were directed to consider more energy-based weaponry than ballistic however, for the simple reason that the mineral shortfalls didn’t need any help. SPACE policy for the moment is that space-based weapons systems decisions will be based on the most cost-effective(in terms of building and maintaining), as all that’s necessary right now is to have a basic policing capability. Should anything resembling a major fleet action be required, we’ll need answers to questions we haven’t thought of yet.

** Earth’s industrial priorities remain mostly in place. There hadn’t been any intention of moving them at all, but upon further reflection Duling decided it would be better to continue maxing out the corundium supply, up to maximum of 50% of capacity and reduce the research and general-purpose pools if necessary. Right now there was no reason to set it higher than 40%, which was just about at the level of supply.

** Operation Uncertain Hope has been put on the back burner in terms of the public consciousness, but only because right now it’s simply a waiting game. Wartsila has begun production of the JSC Intrepid, which will not see the light of day until late summer 2054 at the earliest. It is still a highly anticipated event, but the malcontents on Luna have made it seem less important.

[Brian Swartz]

Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. – 9th out of 17. Set to be transferred from the ST Wayne to the GEV Amerigo Vespucci, a marginally better post.
Lt. Cmdr. Hannah Shepard – 7th out of 53. The end appears near for one of the oldest entry-rank officers(34).
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen Jr. – 11th, expected to be dismissed this year.

Brig. Gen Path Twelve – 6th out of 6. Path, presently 58 years old, is facing mandatory retirement after this tour.
Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone – 3rd out of 6
Maj. Gen. Sterling Silvers – Situation unchanged, SPACE’s only MG.

Sonny Dean(3) – A promotion from Wolf-Harrington to Venus is now in the works for the man who has finished 5th in the last two directorial elections.
James Earl Jones V(4) – He caught a break with being named governor of Luna, then proceeded to not do enough with it while the colony gradually disintegrated due to runaway growth. He’s en route to Schaumasse, which is another stroke of luck – it stands to see significant investment due to the Maximum CD Plan, making it a more important post than it immediately appears.

Pioneer Deacon Palmer – Heading up the largest current project, Sorium Harvester Module. A distinguished career for Palmer needs only a strong finish.
Joe Tycho – Among the best scientists to not yet receive his chance to lead a research team.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Brig. Gen Path Twelve – 6th out of 6. Path, presently 58 years old, is facing mandatory retirement after this tour.

Interesting. Real life path appears to be just as successful as Aurora path, though I have way longer before retirement.

Sigh.

[Coffee Warlord]

Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen Jr. – 11th, expected to be dismissed this year.

BOOO!

Well, when he goes, Rob Nielsen III is ready and waiting for the Fleet.

[Brian Swartz]

Snicker @ path12. Perspective man -- you've been in the top 8(at worst) army officers virtually your entire career, which has now lasted about 30 years. That's roughly top quarter for most of that time span, dozen of officers haven't gotten canned while having done nothing ... all of this while fighting health issues.

Nothing to sneeze at, friend.

[Brian Swartz]

2053 ANNUAL REPORT

All four freighters were immediately sent to Venus to load up the six mines that were there and transfer them to Schaumasse as the initial action of the Maximum CD Plan. Three of them carried infrastructure as the 2% Initiative investment for the year, and all of the shuttles were fanned out over Sol as the bustle of reassigning administrators and beauracrats dominated activity as it always does immediately after an election.

For the first time, the most significant development of the year had absolutely nothing to with anything SPACE did, any policies enacted by the returning director, or any such thing. Beginning in February, for reasons that are still unknown and may forever remain so, a major depression hit the private shipping corporations. Populations on all colonies consistently slightly outstripped infrastructure(ironically not including Venus until late in the year, but everywhere else). Director Duling could only reiterate SPACE’s position that the colonists were on their own – he couldn’t have made up the slack even had he wanted to, it would have required several times more freighters than are at his disposal.

Shipping just plain fell of a cliff – almost overnight, it dropped to less than a fifth of previous levels which had been sustained for years since the early stages of the Titan colonization. Soon there were for all intents and purposes only two active firms(Jensrud and Voliva) and the majority of their shipments were miscellaneous trade goods – spices, plastics, recreational drugs, and the like. Virtually all of the civilian-produced infrastructure, and there wasn’t much, went to Luna.

Unquestionably, the ‘gold rush’ of colonization is over, at least for now. Nobody knows for sure why, and the 2% Initiative has been called into serious question in many quarters, while others argue it is all the more essential now to support new markets for earth’s colonists and products. Many of these proponents suggest prioritizing the Jovian moons as their proximity to each other could lead to a new boom in shipping activity. No official word has yet come from SPACE on this.

Meanwhile, an adjustment to the Maximum CD Plan was soon made. One factor that was not sufficiently foreseen was how much production would drop off on Earth as Duling took the helm again: his factory production skills are only 10%, with mining, wealth, logistics, and ground unit construction being his primary strengths. Rakes was better in industrial(20% to 10) and shipbuilding(5% to 0), so output on Earth declined. A side effect of this was a lowered goal in terms of corundium as the factories would produce a couple fewer mines per year. Maxing them out at the 50% dedicated space would now require 1.19 kt, so the goal for the first phase was to up the production rate to 1.43kt or thereabouts, a bit lower than the previous estimate. By early summer, over 1.2kt had been reached and the process of sucking mines off of high-efficiency comets ceased as corundium supplies on earth began to creep upwards again. By year’s end, it was nearly 1.3kt, and both neutronium and duranium(over 3kt by year’s end for the first time ever) were increasing on earth as well, the first time that all three have been on the rise(though notably this comes partly due to limited shipyard activity). The mineral picture hasn’t looked better in over a decade, largely thanks to the activities on Sedna.

The year’s big research news came in two parts. The first was the completion of the Garrison Battalion project by Dr. Everett Snuggs and his team. For the first time, ground combat technology has leapt into the TN age, over a quarter-century after its discovery. Garrison Battalions have no attack capability, but utilize new techniques, equipment, and weaponry to achieve incredible increases in combat effectiveness. Simulations to date detail that despite being only including 5,000 men each, one-tenth the size of the active divisions, each battalion would be equal to four Low-Tech Infantry and better than three Low-Tech Armour divisions on the battlefield in defensive roles. The cost is also equal to a full infantry division(but well worth it, of course).

Training began immediately for the first battalion, which will be immediately field-tested on Luna. It was expected to be ready early in 2054, but finished ahead of schedule. Earth’s #2 in command, Brigadier General Abel Rosinski, arrived on Luna via the first of the Portland Troop Transports with the 16th Garrison Battalion in early December. Unrest there was approaching critical levels with stability less than 30%, but by year’s end that was up to 37% and climbing. More battalions would be continued with the goal of having a few on Earth and one on each occupied colony as soon as they could be trained up. It’s the first expansion of army capabilities in SPACE’s nearly three decades of history, most welcome and according to many observers long overdue.

Secondly, and probably even more significant, was the September 18 unveiling of the Sorium Harvester Module report. The second-most impressive achievement of Deacon Palmer’s distinguished career(after TN technology of course) it brought with it a new round of ship design. The Oliver H Perry class, hereafter known simply as the FH Perry class, was initialized with the goal of extracting enough sorium from Saturn’s atmosphere to render planet-based refinery operations obsolete and preserve other sorium sources for industrial uses such as jump drives.

Obviously the Perry would not need to refuel as it would be providing its own and then some, and with Titan close by it could have shore leave there. This meant it would be the first vessel to be deployed with someplace other than earth as it’s base, another step into the galaxy for humanity. That also meant that speed is a virtual non-issue: it shouldn’t need to go anywhere, once on station.

Specs were finalized as follows:

Speed: 254 km/s(the slowest ship in the fleet by far) – twin CNT-25-4 efficiency engines
Size: 18.95kt
Fuel Capacity: 350,000 liters
Harvesters: 6, estimated at about 275k liters harvested per 2-year tour
Range: 48.5b km, a mere academic curiosity in this case
Crew: 98
Cost: 405.5(just over a year)

8 of these could completely replace current fuel production. The plan is for six to be built immediately, which would allow conventionally mined sorium to be used for other purposes such as jump drives. However, ‘immediately’ is a bit of a relative term in this case of course. It would be a six-month process for retooling the P&A Group Yard to build the first, putting the first ship into service at approximately late winter/early spring of 2055. Before the decade is out though, planetside refineries are expected to be a part of history. Naval officers received the news with much excitement, as it meant a considerable increase in the number of available commands, and duties for the shuttle transports as well which will be required to ferry commanders to Saturn from time to time.

Earth

January 14 – The two Portland class troop transports are completed. For now, no more are planned to be built.

May – Earth crosses the 900-million threshold in population.

Early October – The FT Ute, fifth in the Fletcher class, is completed. A sixth, the Yellowstone, is now under construction. The freighters are mostly quiet for now, but it won’t be long until development of the outer system begins, and they will be needed then. Lt. Cmdr. Ali Mandujuano, notable for her ability to brown-nose at extremely high levels(as in, better than any current politician, which is saying a lot) and little else, is the Ute’s first CO.

Commissioned Officers

Late February – This year’s purge claims 20 officers, 14 of them navy. Hannah Shepard, and Rob Nielsen Jr. are among the victims.

Mid-March – James Earl Jones V has(irrelevantly) increased his shipbuilding skills to 35%.

Early May – Rob Nielsen III is commissioned.
Fleet Movement Initiative: 146
Bonuses: 50 crew training, 15% Terraforming.
Personality Traits: Good judge of character.
Outlook: He has a basic training skill but other than that is mostly useless, so it will depend on how much he can make of that. The odds are definitely stacked against him, I’d say he’s the least talented of the Nielsen trio.

May -- Pioneer Deacon Palmer made a substantial leap in his skill to 45%. This is enough to accelerate the completion of the Sorium Harvester Module a few months, now due in early fall.

Late August – Herman Fox increases factory production to 30%, a true achievement considering he doesn’t currently, nor has he ever in his career, oversee a single one.

Early September – Alberto Eighmy’s political reliability increases again as he is already thinking about the ‘57 elections. Dolph Stallone raises hers to 15%, a moot point one would think near the end of her career.

September – Shortly after his first appointment, Dr. Joe Tycho improves his administration skills to allow him to oversee 15 labs(3 admin.). This is good, but irrelevant given the space restrictions.

Late September – A new scientist joins the fray, Julio Kuchler, who has a 20% skill in Sensors & Fire Control, a field of moderate and increasing importance as of late. This makes him instantly our top expert in the field, and he takes over Billie Allington’s work on Beam Fire Control Range.

Research & Development

** May 25 – Following the completion of Garrison Battalion, a new projects was begun on Beam Weapon Fire Controls(new addition Billie Allington)

** September 18 – Three research labs are freed up by the completion of the Sorium Harvester Module project. Particle Beam Range(Wayne Sabagh), Small Cryogenic Transport(Everett Snuggs), and Meson Focal Size(Joe Tycho in his first assignment) claim the available space. There are now a dizzying 15 active research projects, as the feverish rush to ‘catch up’ on weapons tech continues.

** November 18 – Two research projects are completed concurrently: Boat Bays(Brandon Grimmett) and Active Grav Sensors(Elwood Tousant). Edward Groat(Alpha Shields, our first investigation into kinetic shields), Deacon Palmer(10cm Microwave), and Grimmett(15 cm Carronade) begin new research into basic weapon systems. The weapons technology holes are starting to get filled in. Sometime around the end of the decade it is expected that there will be enough information to consider prototyping the top candidates for initial weapons systems.

** December 18 – Ignacio Bavaro’s team completes research into 10cm focal size lasers. Meson focusing technology is his next project.

Maximum CD

July saw the establishment of the first asteroid mining colony on Prokne. By the end of the month, new administrator Jedidiah Thone was on site along with an operational mass driver and the first automated mine. The sole purpose of this outpost was to add to the corundium supply.

Late September – Within the span of a single week, Sedna is expanded from 2 to 4 civilian mining complexes, making the distant dwarf planet a primary contributor of duranium at nearly half a kiloton per year.

[Brian Swartz]

SPECIAL REPORT: LOOKING FORWARD
** Operation Uncertain Hope **

The JSC Intrepid is two-thirds completed, and has long since past the point where the bustle of activity at Wartsila can be concealed from the public. Mid-summer, just half a year away, is the estimated date of completion. Already there are some issues arising.

A highly classified memo has circulated to top SPACE officials, co-signed by Director Herbert Duling and acting Chief of the Navy Admiral Harley Artley. It details that with the improving mining outlook an additional two Pioneer-class vessels have been authorized pending a successful test jump by the Intrepid, and emphasizing the vitality of their role. They will venture into unknown territory without the ability to communicate what happens when(if) they arrive. A series of standard operating procedures have been established for Pioneer commanding officers to follow when and if jump point transits are successfully conducted:

** The top mission priority is to gather basic information on whatever lies beyond all seven Sol jump points as soon as is practicable. This is Phase One of exploring the immediate galactic neighborhood.
** Jump ships will transit back as soon as basic readings can be verified, for the purpose of sending a transmission to Fleet HQ detailing what is found, and then proceed back into the new system if warranted.
** Any system with a habitable body or bodies(defined as a habitability of colony cost 5.0 or better) will have those bodies surveyed, as well as any targets of opportunity on the way from the jump point to these locations that don’t require significant diversions to reach. If a system does not contain any habitable bodies, it will be ignored at least until the completion of Phase One which will give SPACE a rudimentary picture of what these systems(if any and reachable) contain in terms of colonial prospects.
** Any eventualities(defined broadly, as nobody knows what to expect and therefore are expecting the unexpectable) significantly outside the experience of humanity in Sol must be reported to Fleet HQ immediately for further deliberation by high command. In the event this is not possible, ship commanders have full discretion as a matter of necessity.
** No jump point surveys will be undertaken in these systems until the completion of this initial phase.

** OOC Note: From a game point of view, nothing that has not been reported to SPACE HQ will be reported in the thread. The exception to this will be if a signup character is commander of one of these vessels, in which case they will receive updates via private message including any decisions that might need to be made if there’s something I deem a close call. There is very much a fog of war here, I’ve always had a fascination with the Pony Express and the dangers faced by the riders in merely delivering a message prior to the invention of the telegraph in the 1830s. etc. It’s been said that there is nothing quite so much like God on earth as a general on a battlefield: well, the commanders of the Pioneer science vessels have a far greater responsibility and authority than that, in a sense. Theirs is very much the role of the enterprising explorer – to boldly go where no one has gone before. In the hands of them and their crew literally lies the fate of humanity, they can answer to no-one because there is no way, other than going back through the jump point, to transmit a message – and many imaginable situations will not allow for that eventuality.

Naval Politics

All of this leads to another issue, about who will command the Intrepid and future ships in the class. SPACE naval tradition has, to date, informally ‘held’ that the most crucial/advanced ships being led by the top officers of Commander rank – hence why the JS Velociraptor, lone example of the North Carolina class, is led by Cmdr. Gregorio Granberg, who would presently be first in line to take the Intrepid by that method. Some are arguing that due to the importance of the mission, a Captain should be assigned. Typically Captains have thus far been reserved as staff officers, but that’s more a matter of necessity so far to see that Fleet HQ is fully staffed. The debate over whether this is a time to break with informal tradition or whether such times require more urgently holding to tradition has, as of yet, been undecided.

[Brian Swartz]

2054 Annual Report

On March 6, retooling for the Perry class was completed, and construction of the first pair of fuel harvesters begun at the P&A Group Shipyard. Incidentally, this is the first significant industrial use of boronide we have yet discovered. The first ships are due out in late winter/early spring of next year.

This was merely an afterthought with the completion of the Intrepid expected in just under three months. But within a week, the Navy and SPACE itself had been rocked by some shocking news. The expected commander of the historic first voyage, Commander Gregorio Granberg, was dead after what appeared to be an accident. Given his position, foul play was highly expected, and a highly public investigation immediately ensued. Accident remained the official, and highly suspected, explanation as no conclusive evidence was found to indicate otherwhise – but those below him in the pecking order were under heightened suspicion.

Granberg’s death left two men essentially neck-and-neck for the command of the Intrepid – Jay Cin III and Dan Spengler. There was hardly a sheet of paper between them, with Spengler the more talented officer and Cin the more experienced. He moves into Granberg’s spot aboard the JS Velociraptor for the moment.

By May, Jay Cin III was the clear choice. His conduct, both publicly and privately, had been above reproach during the investigation, clearly swaying his superiors in the Navy’s high command(**political reliability increased to 20%**). It is amazing how everything is falling for him this year – almost like it was arranged. It is indeed fortuitious tha he has not made Captain like some would have expected by now, and gotten stuck in a staff officer role as a result.

On July 1, the Intrepid was launched, culminating a long process that began in March of 2042, over 13 years ago, when Duling first authorized jump theory research. At the same time, instability on Luna was also eliminated. Nobody cared – this would be a moment long remembered in the history of humanity, regardless of how it went.

Jay Cin III was in command as anticipated. His good showing the past few months and experience over the fresher, more talented Spengler proved decisive. Being considerably skilled(25%) in survey operations didn’t hurt his case any either. It seems he is a perfect fit for the job – one of the most important jobs in the history of mankind.

Everybody knew the next step, with high command both in the navy and in the SPACE office of the director hanging on every update from mission control. The Intrepid set course immediately for its obvious destination – Jump Point Alpha. It was nearly 850 million km, a distance they would cover in just under ten days. The ten longest, tensest, and most exciting days anyone could remember. The extranet exploded with pirated images of the ship, most attention focusing on the obvious redundancies in its communications gear seen by protrusions from the hull in numerous locations, and the unmistakable bulge from the massive jump drive's size.

Passing just by Venus on the first day of it’s journey, what limited bservations the colony there could make were studied in minutest detail. After that, all that could be gleaned were from the official reports. Mars orbit was cleared late on the 4th, with close(at a safe distance) approach to the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt taking place just before midnight on the 6th.

At 1600 hours on July 10, Commander Jay Cin III reported to command that all systems were green, and final drills had been completed without a hitch. It was time for final approach and calibrations. He and the 240 men and women, the finest in the Navy, would all be dead in three hours if navigation was not precisely correct. If it was, and the scientists were right – their place in history could hardly be overstated.

At 1842 hours, the jump drive was fully powered up, and the order was given. There was no flash of light, no rift opening in space, disappointing many fans of various popular science fiction imaginings. All the external systems of the escort ships could detect was a barely discernible ripple, like the outline of something somehow invisible against the background of space, and a faint bluish-tinted glow. And then the Intrepid was gone. Nobody saw it move – it simply wasn’t there anymore.

Seconds seemed like eternities, and all that anyone could do was wait.

They had only to wait about ten minutes. The Intrepid reappeared, announcing a successful jump to Epsilon Eridani! Mankind was no longer bound to Sol – the galaxy was now within our reach(theoretically). What’s more, it appears it is a system worthy of further investigation. Key elements of the classified report relayed to Earth within minutes:

** The Epsilon Eridani star was a class K2-V, 2.64b km away from the jump point into that system. Three-quarters the mass of our sun, and a quarter of the brightness.
** Six planets orbit the star, only one of them a terrestrial, with three gas giants and two super jovians.
** Smaller bodies are plentiful, with 89 moons and 268 asteroids in the system. The second planet(terrestrial) and the third(a gas giant) were both extremely close to the star(300m km), about a months journey from the jump point for the Intrepid. Each has a moon with habitability of 2.0, similar to Mars/Luna. Both would be investigated.
** The physical effects of the jump on personnel were intense but brief: basically vertigo combined with nausea. It was not pleasant, but within a couple minutes of emerging into ‘normal space’ it dissipated. Long-term effects will need to be studied, but its doubtful such things will deter SPACE from exploring opportunities of this magnitude.

And then the Intrepid was gone again, for how long nobody knew for certain.
There was only the long wait ...

Research & Development

** February 18 – Cedrick Wormack’s team completes research into Ground Unit Combat Strength, having discovered new techniques and training regimens to increase combat effectiveness by 20% across the board. This is expected to be the only research news of the year. Dr. Wormack gets back to work immediately, considering further advances in the same field.

Maximum CD Plan

Late February – With comet Faye approaching, a mass driver heads its direction and a new colony is founded there for further diversification. Faye is the final available inner-system source for corundium. Provisional governor Russell Salvucci, a graduate of the Earth Academy last November, is by far the best choice and in position by the end of the first week of March. He has a minor skill in mining, which will aid production a bit. Faye of course has neutronium and sorium as well as corundium, so it’s not a one-trick pony, so to speak.

In May, with the delivery of a fourth mine to Faye, the ‘C’ part of the Maximum CD plan is completed. A mass driver is dispatched to Triton, the Neptunian moon which is the next target for increasing duranium supply. With this action, official investment in mass outer-system mining is under way.

October 27 – Provisional governor Riley Awad arrives on Triton. SPACE is starting to drag the bottom of the river for outpost administrators now.

By year’s end, there are four operational mines on Triton. A modest, but important start.

Commissioned Officers

There was no officer purge this year.

Late March – Tell Perj Jr. increases training bonus to 125, and Dr. Joe Tycho increases research bonus to 25%.

Mid-June – For some reason it was also the summer of Derek Latch(governor at the minor outpost on Reinmuth), who was constantly reporting some breakthrough or another.

Earth

Early May – A new research lab is finished on Earth. 17 laboratories, and a 17th project commences. Mike Manaya’s first task is Microwave Focusing.

Late May – The 17th Garrison Battalion is completed. Brigadier General Angela Bankson is dispatched to Titan with them.

July 20 – The FT Yellowstone is completed on earth, expanding the number of freighters to six. It will be assigned to close-Earth duty, shifting mines around as needed and moving any extra that are converted beyond what the other five freighters can haul to Triton over to Venus.

November 27 – 18th Garrison Battalion is completed on Earth, shipped off to Mars with CO Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone

[Brian Swartz]

Cmdr. Tell Perj Jr. – 9th of 14, about to have a second tour on the FT Southampton after being reduced to shuttle duty the last few years.
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Nielsen III – 40th

Brig. Gen. Dolph Stallone – 3rd out of 5, keeping the peace on Mars with the 18th Garrison Battalion. It appears this will be her final posting.
Mag. Gen. Sterling Silvers – Still leading human ground forces overall and on earth.

Sonny Dean(3) – Governor of Venus
James Earl Jones V(4) – Governor of the comet Schaumasse

Pioneer Deacon Palmer(CP 45) – Currently working on Microwave Focal Size
Joe Tycho(EW 25) – Researching Meson Focal Size, finally out of obscurity

[Brian Swartz]

The plot thickens a bit ...

2055 Annual Report

The year began with a significant shakeup in the Navy, with Admiral Harley Artley being forced into retirement. At 56 years old he still has four years left, but the younger admiral Ellie Camble is far his superior and everyone knows it. She becomes the first female navy chief. Artley was the navy’s chief for the last four years. Also retiring are Captain Sammie Sreaves(a 24-year veteran of Fleet HQ as a staff officer, 55 years old), Commander Ken McKay(55, 12 years of geology survey service and four more as CO of the Lexington II-class shuttle transport Endymion, a low-ranking Commander for almost his entire service), Commander Chung Jegede(served with McKay on the Rater geology team, then on the FT Custer and ST Marengo, age 59), and Commander Greg Garza(58, JupSat i.e. Grimmett geology team for 11 years, various ship postings in the five years since, mostly shuttles). The old guard, actually more like the original guard, is beginning to pass into the sunset. A new generation of officers must take their place.

One Christopher Blair benefits significantly, as he was the final LtC named to replace the newly-vacated commands ... In the army, Brigadier General Path Twelve was the only retiree. The oldest civilian administrators are 51, 14 years away from retirement age of 65. Elite scientists retire at 70, with the oldest presently at 51 as well(several, including Deacon Palmer). So SPACE still has some time before en masse retirements kick in.

The admiralty waited a few days to dispense assignments for next tour, as some promotions needed to sort themselves out. Ellie Camble was Communications Officer for the last 18 and a half years since her promotion to Captain, and at 47 still has some life left in her career for certain. She is now the lone admiral, with only five captains, two short of a full staff. The Navy unquestionably needs fresh blood.

In early March, a ‘late’ round of dismissals relieved a dozen officers of their duties, eight naval and four from the army. And then on the 16th, the Intrepid reappeared in Sol space from the Epsilon Eridani jump point. The report was promising, with 94% fuel left, no maintenance issues to report despite being out of contact for several months, and still over three years left on the mission clock. Onward to Jump Point Delta a months journey away, while command digested their report ...

The short version was that a number of considerable deposits have been found, most of them not of the minerals we need or highly inaccessible. However, there is a corundium deposit of a half-million tons, and another of neutronium of a full million, both worth exploiting. No duranium yet though the survey there is far from complete. All in all, quite good news!

In the late morning of April 24, the Intrepid proceeded through Jump Point Delta and then back again. What they found there was far more significant – it held the potential to change the course of human history. The new system was Lalande 21185, which held 219 asteroids, 4 dwarfs, and a terrestrial planet far too large for human colonization, all orbiting a M2-V class star 33 times dimmer than our sun. Also orbiting at close range(just inside the inner asteroid field) was an astounding discovery:

Long-term scanners showed the wrecks of three vessels, two in the 9kt range and one almost 18kt. From a range of 2b km it is impossible to tell what destroyed them or how long ago, but one thing is for certain: we are not alone. This was compelling evidence of advanced life.

This information was classified at the highest imaginable level, and orders given immediately that anyone caught so much as thinking about it without permission would leave the ship immediately via the airlock. Back on Earth, it was obvious something was up by the incredible activity at SPACE, but for now at least security has been maintained. In the end, Director Duling made the decision to pretty much keep on pace with current policies until more systems were explored. Getting a basic handle on weapons research was even more important now, but there wasn’t anything that could be done to speed that up at the moment. There was no way of telling the age of the destroyed vessels. Millions of km from the nearest body and nowhere near the lone planet, it was highly unlikely they broke up in an atmosphere anywhere, esp. given their relatively intact shape(of the wreckage, that is). With one ship, a massive malfunction might be a possibility, but three? Almost certainly they were destroyed, intentionally. The implications of this were ... unpleasant.

The Intrepid headed to Jump Point Epsilon, just a short hop away. There was nothing to recommend Lalande 21185 from an economic standpoint. Cmdr. Cin was commended for jumping back immediately to Sol and not putting his ship, mission, or crew at risk with the tempting possibility of investigating the wrecks.

On the final day of April, JP Epsilon was revealed to link to Van Maanen’s Star. The system has two dozen asteroids and a couple of dwarf planets, the key find being a super-jovian with nearly two dozen moons. Only two of the moons are habitable, and those marginally, a full 2b km from the jump point as well. Again, not worth the effort, and the Intrepid moved on.

The next two jump locations would be Bravo and Charlie: Bravo was a hair closer and became the next to be visited. Before that, on the early morning of June 1, the first two harvesters arrived as Saturn and began successful sorium extraction operations. After a successful test over the course of a few hours, they offloaded most of their fuel at nearby Titan and began an extended tour at the ringed planet. Titan now stands fully ready, with 600k liters from the two vessels and more to come, to be a fully-functional refueling base.

On the 16th, the Intrepid transited Jump Point Bravo, hoping this would be more fruitful than the last pair of jumps. They found Luytens 726-8, emerging about 2b km away as seems to be normative. The first five comets found outside Sol are there, which could be a very good thing if they are as fruitful. No asteroids and only one dwarf planet, but a pair of terrestrial planets, a gas giant, and a super-jovian proved more interesting. The second planet has only a trace atmosphere but is reasonably habitable(2.0) with a very reasonable(in galactic terms) surface temperature of -18.7 celcius. The first planet is as hospitable as Mercury(not at all), and a couple of moons orbiting the jovian are as habitable as Titan or Io/Ganymede, but it’s that second planet that makes this a system worth a second look. Soon it was time for another blackout, as SPACE had been informed and the Intrepid would be gone for another surveying tour.

This time they were only gone about two months, emerging in August with the news that none of the comets had been within range to make investigating them a valuable use of mission time. Worse, the second planet was barren, so unless a further expedition showed more resources, it was not a useful candidate system. As they were already partway there from Earth, the Intrepid headed next to Jump Point Gamma in the outer system.

Barnard’s Star was revealed in the first week of October. Partially counterbalancing the distance of the jump point in Sol was the fact that on the other side, it was only 1.33b km from the primary star. This might even have mattered if it wasn’t a complete and utter pile of crap. 17 asteroids were found, along with a gas giant orbited by 17 moons, two of which were in the over-6 habitability range as the best potential sites. Adios, Barnard’s Star – we hardly knew ye.

The next trip would be considerable. Jump Point Charlie was back across the system, some 9b km from the jump to Barnard’s Star. It would take the rest of the year plus to cover the distance. In completely unrelated news, it is worth noting that total human population rose to more than a billion souls in mid-November, the first time that’s happened since the war which shall not be
mentioned.

At year’s end, Triton is at 12 automated mines, Venus is up to 10, and Sedna expanded again to 5 civilian complexes there now. More freighters are needed, or faster, but both require more fuel, so really a lot of things are waiting on getting enough Perry-class harvesters out to Saturn which will be some more years in the making. Given the size of our reserves though, the order is given to build more Fletchers anyway and not wait. If the reserve declines, so be it – 32m liters is a lot. A big lot. The Hyperion, second in the Pioneer class, will come off the line within days.

Earth has over 800t corundium, over 5kt duranium and nearly 6kt neutronium. The line will pretty much held at current expenditures, but we finally have a surplus – and a growing one. That is becoming relatively less of a matter of discussion in the current environment though. Most of the debate at SPACE is still what to about Lalande 21185 and the prospect of advanced life – a debate that has no forseeable end in sight.

Research & Development

** February 19 – Turret Tracking Speed 2000 km/s completed(Eva Vadnais). Railgun(10cm) is her next objective.

** Mid-May – Clint Wyche’s team completes research into improved terraforming rates. He gets to work on Shield Regeneration Rate, another necessary basic technology required for mounting shields on ships.

** June 7 – Ignacio Bavaro’s team(Meson Focusing) has presented their report. Railgun Launch Velocity is his next project.

** August 16 – Harlan Welle’s team completes Magazine Feed System Efficiency. They move on to Gauss Cannon Launch Velocity.

** November 14 – Karabishi Juishao’s team completes Magazine Ejection System improvement research(80% success rate). Next up is Gauss Cannon Rate of Fire. This is a significant moment as the Ministry of Research & Development indicates this is the final basic combat tech that needs to be researched before an analysis can properly begin. So we are now one research cycle(3-5 years) away from doing that.

** December 25 – Everette Snuggs’ team unveils on Christmas Day plans for Small Cryogenic Transport modules, basically in case of emergencies. He then takes over for Deacon Palmer on Microwave tech so that Palmer can turn his C&P expertise to the matter of improving systems at the research complexes themselves for the purpose of improving efficiency and productivity of our scientific teams – something that is of vital importance.

Earth

March 23 – The first two Perry-class Fuel Harvesters gave the Navy plenty of other activity to look after. Another pair of young lieutenant commanders stave off potential elimination as they are the first to head to Saturn as field testers while two more ships begin construction. They are expected on station before the middle of June.

Late May – 19th Garrison Battalion is complete. Venus is the only populated colony without one, and additional battalions will be assigned to Earth. Brig. Gen. Conrad Brocklehurst heads to Venus as the CO.

Commissioned Officers

Late July – James Earl Jones V has increased his shipbuilding administration bonus to 10%.

Mid - September – Sonny Dean ups Ground Unit Construction speed to 20%.

Early December – Herbert Duling’s political skills continue to improve(30% reliability).

Epsilon Eridani – Ship Commanders Log
JSC Intrepid – Commander Jay Cin III

July 11, 2054 – Set course for asteroid #160, which is only about a 10% deviation from ourcourse towards Epsilon Eridani-A.
July 23 – Asteroid #160 reveals nothing. We set course next for a clump of asteroids ‘behind’ the fourth planet in the same solar orbit. There are 26 of them in quite close proximity, almost exactly 10% of the total asteroids in this system, and a lagrange point in the vicinity as well.
Aug 10 – We’ve reached the asteroid clump and scanning begins.
Sep 4 – The asteroid clump is completely scanned, with nothing having been found. We continue in-system to the third planet’s orbit, just a few days journey, to scan the asteroid clump ‘ahead’ of it.
Sep 16 – Having once again found nothing, we head for the third planet itself. The gas giant is the size of Jupiter and has 14 moons, two of which are habitable and one of which is our secondary target in this system.
Sep 20 – EE3 scanning has commenced, and is expected to take somewhere on the order of a month.
Oct 20 – The third planet reveals no resource deposits of any kind, and the moons around it are next to be hit.
Oct 30 – The first moon(habitable, but at a cost of 5.05) reveals the first deposits of TN minerals outside of Sol! Neutronium(2.52mt at 0.1), Tritanium(508kt at 0.6), Sorium(135kt at 0.1), and Uridium(4.67mt at 0.8). As neither tritanium or uridium are needed, despite the size of the finds this is not a promising target.
Nov 2 – The third moon also has deposits: uridium(215kt at 0.8) and corundium(577kt at 1.0!). That corundium find is highly important of course – efficiently developed, it would end corundium supply issues for generations, perhaps centuries. Epsilon Eridani III is a three-billion-kilometer trips(give or take) for a freighter group from Earth, making it close to five months round-trip. With corundium supplies stable and rising, despite its significance, this find was not deemed important enough to break off and report to Sol high command.
Nov 5 – The process of scanning the tenth moon of III, the best reason to come to this planet, was begun and would take even longer than the planet itself. It is more than two and a half times larger than Earth.
Dec 10 – The tenth moon is a treasure trove of highly unaccessible minerals, unforunately:
Neutronium(48.3mt at 0.1)
Mercassium(26.1mt at 0.1)
Sorium(72.9mt at 0.1)
Corundium(1.74mt at 0.1)
Gallicite(30.7mt at 0.6)
Duranium(109mt at 0.1)
Sadly, the only reason to develop this moon would be in the event of a need for more gallicite.
Four more moons to survey.
Dec. 12 – Having found nothing more, we head to planet II, a terrestrial planet better than nine times more massive than earth. The crushing gravity makes colonizing it impossible. It has two moons, the second of which is the most habitable body in this system.
Dec. 17 – Scanning of Epsilon Eridani-A II begins, and we’ll be here a while. Over a month and a half, given the sheer size of this thing.
Feb. 6 -- Good news: EE II contains every TN mineral, only planet found other than earth that can say that!. Bad news: all are at 0.1 accessibility. At least 24mt of all but tritanium(57 kt). Not that it matters. If they were more accessible, there’d be no need to consider other sources of minerals. Ever.
Feb. 8 – Primary target scanning begins(second of two moons of EE II).
Feb. 15 – Scanning of the moons is complete and we begin the journey back to Sol jump point to present our initial report.
Neutronium: 1.02 mt at 0.9
Mercassium: 2.30 kt at 0.6
Vendarite: 331 kt at 0.6

[sterlingice]

Life! I'll be curious to see how you roleplay this to the public. Also, is it possible to have a game where there are no other civilizations? Where humans are the only ones out there?

Also, with Epsilon Eridani II- is there a way to increase accessibility of minerals? Or are they forever stuck at 0.1? Is there some technology that could make them more accessible?

SI

[Brian Swartz]

No way that I know of to increase it, stuck there forever.

It is possible to play a game as only humans, it depends on how you set things when you set up the game. The default(which we are using) is to have at least one other race and the chance for more to be created(so there's 1-?? of them out there).