Author Topic: History of the Knights Templar - Part IV  (Read 2093 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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History of the Knights Templar - Part IV
« on: February 24, 2008, 06:47:02 PM »
An archaeological team delivered to the recently discovered ruins in Temple Balsall quickly realised that any possible secrets the ruins may have held had long since been looted and there was little point in continuing the search. However, they did find approximately thirty abandoned mines and installations so a cybernetic team was sent to Temple Balsall III to attempt recovery.

With several habitable or near-habitable worlds being discovered over the previous year, Grand Master Barbin decided to commission a smaller version of the Hospitaller class colony ship in February 1405. The Malta class colony ship had only sixty percent of the capacity of its larger cousin and was slightly more expensive on a per colonist basis. However, the Hospitaller was only being built in the two slipways of the Acre shipyard and the other yards capable of handling its 9450 ton size were in demand for other large ships. The 6000 ton Malta design could be handled by one or more of the smaller shipyards.

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Malta class Colony Ship    6000 tons     320 Crew     1056.6 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Colonists 60000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 10    Replacement Parts 3    

Daumont Ion Engine (8)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.70    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 102.9 billion km   (297 days at full power)

The Order of St Elmo completed a gravitational survey of Veracruz, adjacent to Rurka in the Temple Cowton chain, and found the system had a record nine jump points, including one less than six million kilometers from the relatively low mass M6-V red star. One of the jump points connected to the known Temple Manor system, reducing the distance from Sol to Veracruz from five jumps to just two and from seventeen billion kilometers to less than seven. This brought a rapidly expanding part of Order territory much closer to Earth.

Over the course of 1405, thirty-eight construction factories and six Engineer units were transported to the hostile environment colony on Sainte-Vaubourg-A II. Between them they built a ground-based terraforming installation in January 1406 to restart the terraforming process abandoned by terraforming ships in May 1403. Construction of a second terraforming installation began immediately. At the same time, six Paris class terraformers were at work in orbit of Santa Maria III and three additional ships were under construction in the Aleppo shipyard on Earth.

During the early months of 1406, new hostile environment colonies were setup on Tintagel III and Temple Dinsley III, both in systems adjacent to Sol. Although Tintagel III had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, the oxygen was at 0.5 atm, more than double that of Earth and far too high for human physiology. Terraforming to bring the oxygen down to an acceptable level and raise the temperature from -15C would be a long process, perhaps spanning decades. However, the Sol jump point within the Tintagel system was less than 400 million kilometers from the G3-V primary and Tintagel III orbited at 169m kilometers, making it a good location for ground-based sensors that could serve as an early warning station for Sol. In addition, the planet held over eighty million tons of Duranium at 0.8 accessibility so it could serve as a long term Duranium mining facility. Temple Dinsley III was in a similar situation with the planet orbiting at 45m kilometers and the Sol jump point at 451m kilometers. Terraforming would be a little easier as the oxygen level was at 0.01 atm, making it easier to add oxygen to Temple Dinsley III than remove it from Tintagel III. The scorching average temperature of 63C was more of a problem and much of the surface was barren desert with the occasional small, bubbling sea. In both cases the long term plan was to build terraforming installations on the surface rather than rely on the small fleet of terraforming ships.

In July 1406, scattered alien ruins were found in the Royston system, three transits from Sol via Temple Dinsley and Sepulchre. Once news reached Earth, a ship was dispatched with an archaeological team.

In December 1406, Templar scientists developed an asteroid mining module, allowing ships to mine ore from orbit and deposit it on the surface ready for collection. The first class to take advantage of this new technology was the Montgisard class Asteroid Miner, designed to operate in systems with many asteroids with high accessibility but low quantity minerals; a situation that would prove logistically challenging for traditional automated mining complexes. Retooling for the new class began in the Ascalon Yard, which had previously built Shield-B class escort destroyers.

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Montgisard class Asteroid Miner    9300 tons     797 Crew     1536.2 BP      TCS 186  TH 360  EM 0
1935 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Replacement Parts 20    
Asteroid Miner: 5 module(s) producing 80 tons per annum

Daumont Ion Engine (6)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.70    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 80,000 Litres    Range 53.1 billion km   (317 days at full power)

On January 30th 1407, the first jump gate to be constructed by the Order was built at the Sol ? Sainte-Vaubourg jump point. While it would take a further six months to build the jump gate at the Sainte-Vaubourg side and open up travel for non-jump capable ships, it was still an historic moment in the long annals of the Order. Two weeks later, another significant event took place when the most extensive alien ruins discovered to date were found in the frontier system of Avalleur, seven transits from Sol. Unfortunately, none of the previously discovered ruins had yielded any new technology and all archaeological explorations had been abandoned, although a number of factories and mines had been recovered.

On March 30th, the Order of St Elmo completed a gravitational survey of the otherwise unremarkable Saint-Omer system and discovered it had eleven jump points. Two led to systems with worlds that would relatively easy to terraform while a third connected to the known frontier system of Rothley Temple, five jumps from Sol. By this point, known space comprised ninety-three systems, thirty-six of which had been surveyed and nine of which had populations, including Earth, the Thetis homeworld and Templar colonies in Aragon, Sainte-Vaubourg, Rosslyn, Tintagel, Temple Dinsley, Temple Balsall and Jerusalem.

By May 1407, the new shipyard built on the Thetis homeworld had a single slipway with a capacity of 6000 tons. This was tooled to build the newly designed Morning Star class freighter, which could be used to move automated mines within the Thetis system, or even begin transferring Thetis industry to Earth or other Templar worlds. Given the single slipway and the ten month build time of the Morning Star, the latter would be a lengthy process. Work was immediately begun on a second slipway, with an estimated completion date of November 1409. Due to the remote location of the Thetis homeworld, twenty-seven billion kilometers from the Acquebouille jump point, only one visit had been made by Templar-built freighters since the Thetis surrender in October 1402. Although the Thetis home system was originally known as Temple Ewell, by mid-1407 it was almost universally referred to simply as the Thetis system, even by those in the Order who still believed the Thetis should be exterminated.

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Morning Star class Freighter    5250 tons     260 Crew     487 BP      TCS 105  TH 420  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Cargo 25000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 5    Replacement Parts 3    

Daumont Ion Engine (7)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.70    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 110,000 Litres    Range 129.3 billion km   (374 days at full power)

N1 Navigation Sensor (1)     GPS 240     Range 2.4m km    Resolution 15
      Secondary Mode:     GPS 48     Range 480k km    Resolution 12
Janvier-6 Thermal Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

During 1407, the Order?s greatest minds made yet more breakthroughs in defensive technology with the discovery of Epsilon Shields and Shield Regeneration Rate 3, allowing them to design and the develop the Epsilon R300/21 Shield Generator (see below), which had a twenty percent greater strength than its predecessor while retaining the same 300 second recharge time. There were no immediate plans to update any of the existing warships with the new technology, although any new designs would include the Epsilon R300/21.

Epsilon R300/21 Shield Generator
Shield Strength: 3
Recharge Rate: 3    Recharge Time: 300 seconds
Cost: 12    Crew: 3     Daily Fuel Cost while Active: 21
Materials Required: 3x Duranium  4.5x Corbomite  4.5x Boronide
Development Cost for Project: 1200RP

In July, terraforming of Santa Maria III was completed, creating an ideal habitable world three jumps from Earth and just one jump from the Thetis system. 700,000 settlers arrived on schedule to create the eighth Templar colony. Santa Maria III was smaller than Earth with lower gravity and was cold even after the terraforming. However, the harsh mountain ranges, dense forested valleys and clear blue skies appealed to those with a sense of adventure and a desire to build a new world

On July 27th 1407, the Baldwin class construction ship Edessa completed the Sainte-Vaubourg ? Sol jump gate, creating the first two-way link through which non-jump-capable ships could travel without assistance. This opened up the colony on Sainte-Vaubourg II, allowing colony ships and cargo ships to visit whenever it was convenient, rather than having to wait for an escort.

Towards the end of 1407, Neutronium was becoming increasingly scarce. New mining colonies were established in the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt and the moons of Saturn to keep up with the demand for shipyard upgrades, ground units, maintenance facilities and the latest armour types. Unfortunately, demand far exceeded supply and soon almost all Neutronium-related construction had to cease to until sufficient automated mines could be added to the new colonies. On March 10th 1408, the shipyard on the Thetis Homeworld produced its first ship, a Morning Star class Freighter. The freighter began transporting automated mines to the small mining colony on the second moon of Thetis-B IV and collecting the mineral stockpiles which had lain undisturbed for several years.

After three failed archaeological expeditions to Thetis, Royston and Temple Balsall, many Templar scientists were openly beginning to doubt any useful information would ever be gained from the ruins of past civilizations. Their pessimism proved unfounded when the archaeological dig on Avalleur III finally bore fruit in April 1408. Technical data found in the extensive ruins improved the Order?s turret tracking speed technology to 4000 km/s.

With the growing size of the Order, including ten populated colonies and five mining colonies by Spring 1408, additional command and control was required. A Sector Command Headquarters was established on Earth, covering Sol and all adjacent systems. Grand Master Barbin appointed himself as Sol Sector commander, handing over the governorship of Earth to Baron Pierre Philippe, who had recently returned from several years in charge of the Thetis Homeworld to plead within the Council for the full entry of the Thetis to the Order. By this time, Christianity was the dominant religion among the Thetis and there was no visible sign of resistance or resentment. Despite a bitter debate, the motion was passed, primarily due to the growing strength of the Missionary Faction, their alliance with the Grand Master?s Reformation Faction and Baron Pierre Philippe?s new status as Earth?s planetary governor. An ally of the Baron?s, Knight Grand Commander Andry La Vicontesse, took over governorship of the Thetis to guide them to full status within the Order and lift all remaining restrictions. The assimilation of the Thetis was boosted considerably in May with the completion of jump gates along the Sol ? Acquebouille ? Thetis chain, bringing Earth and the Thetis Homeworld into direct, real-time communication for the first time. Holovid documentaries and news reports brought the Thetis into every home, making them peculiar neighbours rather than potential alien invaders.

At the end of June 1408, the Order of St Dominic completed a gravitational survey of the Orleans systems, three transits from Sol via San Bevignate and Temple Balsall, and discovered seven new jump points. The first to be explored led to a extraordinary discovery. Seleucus, the Antioch-B class survey ship that also made the first transit in history, found herself in the midst of an interstellar dust cloud, at the heart of which was a large protostar over four million kilometers in diameter. Her science officer calculated the protostar would eventually shrink to less than a third of its current size and ignite into a G9-V main sequence star. At its current stage of development the protostar generated heat by the conversion of gravitational energy to thermal kinetic energy, rather than through nuclear fusion, so as it coalesced its luminosity would increase. More importantly, the interstellar dust cloud surrounding the protostar would greatly restrict movement, sensor performance and combat capability. The density of the cloud would restrict ships to a speed of 2000 km/s, although ships with more formidable armour would be able to move more quickly. Shields and missiles would be rendered useless while sensor strengths and fire control effectiveness would be cut by eighty percent. Although this was first protostar to be encountered, the Order?s scientists believed it would not be the last and protostars might be found in different stages of development, with greater or lesser dust densities. The new discovery become known as Rousseau?s Protostar, after Sir Phillipe Rousseau, commander of the Seleucus.

Although none of the other jump points led to any new systems of any significance, two of them did connect to the existing systems of Temple Mills and Lubeck, adding to an already complex web of internal connections within known space. The explorations also took the number of systems in known space to one hundred and three, forty-four of which were surveyed.

On January 1st 1409, the colonies of the Order of the Knights Templar were as follows:

Earth   1184m
Thetis Homeworld   407m
Aragon-B III   17m
Sainte-Vaubourg II   11m
Santa Maria III   3.7m
Rosslyn II   1.7m
Temple Dinsley III   0.9m
Temple Balsall III   0.87m
Jerusalem III   0.84m
Tintagel III   0.8m
Enceladus (Sol)   240 AM
Palamon (Sol)   66 AM
Aragon-B II, Moon 3   36 AM
Thetis-B IV, Moon 2   22 AM
Asteroid #59 (Sol)   16 AM
Avalleur III   10 AM

By this point in history, two research facilities had been transported to Aragon-B III, which was intended as the long-term central research colony for the Order. Sir Andry de Saint Yon, an expert in construction and production technologies, was serving as system governor. Five more research facilities were located on the Thetis Homeworld, and were likely to remain there because of the remoteness of the planet, while forty-five were located on Earth, which would continue in its role as the centre of learning for many years.

In May 1409, the geological survey ship Montbard was searching for Trans-Baconion minerals among the planets of the Konigsberg quaternary system. The second planet of the B component was a huge ocean world, twice the diameter of Earth with high gravity and a dense oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Even with its temperature of 15C, it was completely unsuitable for human habitation. It had obviously been suitable for some species in the past though as Montbard?s sensors detected what was obviously an artificial construction in shallow water. Closer examination revealed though although the installation was damaged, it was still in far better shape than any of the ruins found in the past. Konigsberg was four transits from Earth via Tintagel, Hrad Vsetin and Saint-Omer, although the distance between jump points meant the actual distance was close to twenty-five billion kilometers.

The commander of the Montbard was Squire Henry Helyas, who made first contact with the Thetis Imperium. After his protests against Squire Aubin?s actions during the destruction of a Thetis survey squadron in 1402, his ship Clairvaux was sent on a solo survey mission which lasted several years. In an attempt to save his crew from the fallout of his stalled career, he requested a transfer and was assigned to the Montbard in April 1408. Realising this discovery might finally wipe away the unofficial black mark on his record, he abandoned the survey mission and headed for Tintagel, which was connected to Sol via a jump gate.

The third planet of the Jerusalem system was home to a small Templar colony of 900,000. As the colony was the most distant inhabited world from Earth, it had not been visited since the original colony expedition in December 1404. There were no defences and no significant construction, except for the towns and villages of the settlers. It was with considerable concern therefore when the colony received a transmission from space in a completely unfamiliar language. With no tracking stations on Jerusalem III, there was no way to even detect the ship sending the message. The colony quickly put together a team of its best linguists and began to try and decipher the alien language. A response was broadcast into space to at least demonstrate the colony?s willingness to communicate, even if the unknown aliens could not understand the message.

Within three days, the frantic translation effort bore fruit and full communication was established with the unseen alien ship. The aliens referred to themselves simply as The Fallen and seemed willing to begin a peaceful dialogue. However, once visual communication was established, the colonists were stunned to discover the aliens were pale-skinned, winged humanoids with luminous blue eyes. Their appearance almost exactly matched the ancient Christian writings describing Angels. Given the aliens? name for their race, many of the colonists quickly reached the conclusion that the aliens were the Fallen Angels from their own mythology, survivors of the War in Heaven and the minions of Lucifer. Ferocious debates raged on the planet between members of the various factions, some wanting to break off all contact, others wanting to fight unseen orbiting ships with no more than hand-weapons and a third group advocating continued contact to elicit all possible information.

As there were few members of the True Believers faction on Jerusalem III, pragmatism won in the end and contact was maintained. The aliens appeared reluctant to reveal too much, even to the small, non-threatening colony, but seemed very keen to learn the location of the Templar homeworld. From what little could be gleaned, it appeared the ship in orbit was a geological survey ship and had discovered the colony by accident when arrived in orbit searching for minerals. The Fallen?s homeworld was apparently several jumps away in an unspecified direction.

Back on Earth, Templar scientists had been carrying out research into the creation of combat-capable spacecraft much smaller than the Lance-B Fast Attack Craft. With the development of several new system, they were able to design the Sepulchre class fighter. What made the Sepulchre possible was the new Fighter Ion Engine, only one fifth the size of a regular engine yet retaining 60% of its power. This incredible performance was gained at the expense of two major drawbacks. Firstly, fuel use was approximately one hundred times greater than a regular engine, making fighters fairly short-ranged, and secondly the engine was far more likely to explode if damaged. To complement the new engine, the scientists of the Order also developed a new box launcher, referred to as a Launch Rail, which could launch a single missile and was only fifteen percent the size of a regular ship-based launcher. Unfortunately the launcher could only be reloaded in a hangar bay but it still gave the fighter a one-off punch out of proportion to its size. The Sepulchre could launch three size-4 missiles, probably Battleaxes due to its limited fire control, and then return to its carrier for reloading. For the same cost as a Solomon-B class missile cruiser it would be possible to build fifty Sepulchres, launching a combined total of one hundred and fifty missiles. While they could not match the long range deployment and sensor capabilities of the cruiser and carried only half its total of three hundred missiles, their one-off punch would be considerable, especially when used for planetary defence. However, creating the basing facilties for so many fighters would incur a considerable cost so they were not quite as cost-effective as they might first appear.

Code: [Select]
Sepulchre class Fighter    205 tons     12 Crew     31.1 BP      TCS 4.1  TH 36  EM 0
8780 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 1.8
Magazine 12    

Fighter Ion Engine (1)    Power 36    Efficiency 100.00    Signature 36    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 2.1 billion km   (2 days at full power)

Size 4 Launch Rail (3)    Missile Size 4    Mothership Reload Time 30 minutes
M200 Missile Fire Control  (1)    Range: 200k km
Battleaxe ASM (3)  Speed: 18,000 km/s   Endurance: 16 secs    Range: 288k km   Warhead: 4    Size: 4


********************************

Unfortunately I am going to have to end this campaign at this point, just as it was getting interesting :(. However I have added several significant new pieces of functionality to Aurora for v2.6, including fighters and the new Precursors so I really need to test them in a new campaign before I can release the new version.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline rmcrowe

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« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2008, 04:21:28 PM »
So set up the new camapaign to test stuff, and let this one run in the background, on the older software, until it is no longer interesting to you.

robert
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by rmcrowe »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2008, 04:25:08 AM »
Quote from: "rmcrowe"
So set up the new camapaign to test stuff, and let this one run in the background, on the older software, until it is no longer interesting to you.

That's not a bad idea. I don't usually retain older versions of the software but it may be worth it. Although starting new campaigns are always fun, especially now I have settled on a startup idea, so I'll probably get heavily into that now :)

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Steve Walmsley »