Beyond Earth
Episode 1: Start of something Great
January 1st 2100With the turn of the century the United Earth Federation[UFE] had secured its position and secured mankinds longevity in the solar system. With a burgoning Colony on Luna and on Mars the UFE had the resources it needed to keep expanidng into the outer solar system and maybe even some day into other solar systems. The red planet stood as a testament to human ingenuity, a burgoning colony with just over a 100 million souls an ever expanding economy and industrial power base that might one day rival even that of Earths. Luna was also constantly on the net news streams talks about its growing research sector and the vital resources it provides to the earths economy.
The UFE fleet had grown to encompess over 20 ships since its inception 20 years ago, based around exploration and supplying the colonies on mars and Luna with infrastructure and mines in hopes that one day they would supply Earth and keep its industry going. With Mars and Luna survayed, the UFEs attention turned to Venus, Mercury and the Asteroid belt that cut off the inner system from the Jovians. The theory of intersteller travel was quickly becoming more and more well understood and the theorised existance of weak points in time and space it was more than just a pipe dream. Whilst the UFE was concentrating on exploring the rest of the solar system for TN Materials to exploit they did sanction four gravitational survay vessels built years previous to begin searching the solar system for these long theorised weak points in space.
On Earth the science community had to main priorities speeding up the terrofrmation of Mars and making the new TN based Economy more efficient to make the most of the limited Earth based Materials. on the 3rd of January Research began on increasing the Terraforming rate of the Mars based Terraformers, Increasing the construction rate to ensure that the production of TN based facilities was more efficient to keep up with demand from the colonies, research also started into the theory behind expanding the Civillian economy, with mankind spreading out into the solar system the old method of economics was rapidly becoming dated and cumbersome and a new approach was needed, several theories where put for ward in the end Cathrine Sanders theory was chosen as it promised to increase the civillian economy by 20% which would ensure the colonies needs where met for the next couple of centuries.
On Luna Charlie Reynolds began working on several Orbital Habitat designs for the UFE, it was theorised any potential TN materials found in the outer system would would be far to expensive to expensive or simply unable to place a ground based colony on the planet. So structures able to house civillians in orbit of the planet would be needed to ensure any long term plans to colonise the outer system could be met.
On earth production continued to churn out infrastructure for the colonies aswell as terraformers for Mars, whilst the colonies conentrated on expanding their production and mining capacity in accordance with the UFE colonial economic plan.
On the 11th of January the First space based civillian company Austin Colonial Services launched its first major space born vessels a large and huge freighter that would be used to ferry goods and infrastructure between Earth and the colonies. Sortly after the the Geological survays of Venus and Mercury where cmompleted, orbital surveys showed large quantities of duranium and neutronium at high and low accessabilities respectively on Venus whilst Mercury was found to have large quantities of Vendarite and Uridium. The harsh and unique enviroments of Venus and Mercury meant putting manned colonies on the planets would be very costly and terraforming could take thousands of years at current technology levels to bring them into line with anything marginally like earth.
Automated mines would be the only way to secure the TN Materials from these worlds getting them off planet provided another challenge, the atmosphere of venus would make any landing on the planets surface hazerdous at best whilst the heat and radiation from the Sun would fry the crew before to long. A suggestion was tabled to use mass drivers to shoot the TN Materials towards earth, whilst tricky the idea had merit and the technology to build mass drivers to shoot the materials and receive them was well understood just never applied on that sort fo scale. However with the majority of the UFE budget going on expanding its manned colonial assets the plan was shelved for the time being.
With the survey of all the inner planets now complete the UFE's attention soon fell on the Asteroid belt and Jupiter and its moons. The moons had fascinated astronomers and scientists for hundreds of years before and whilst a few attempts had been made to put probes and unmanned vehicles on the worlds this would be the first time a manned mission to be sent to the jovian and its many moons. Venus's survay found the planet was extremely rich in Duranium on its surface Easily accessable Duranium was abundent whilst Neutronium was found deep in the planets crust. Mercury held less TN Materials but still a significant ammount of Vendarite and Uridium these minerals however could only be found in the crust of the world at a depth that would take significant effort to get to.
The Ministery for Exploration posted their geolocal findings to to the interior ministry for assessment.
Venus:Duranium: 41,206,040 Acc: 0.8
Neutronium: 3,296,403 Acc: 0.1
Mercury:Venderite: 905,543 Acc: 0.4
Uridium: 688,236 Acc: 0.6
26th January the first civillin mining colony was set up on a world that wasnt Earth. Wanting to take advantage of the massive duranium deposits on Venus but with no readily avaliable equipment to spare they opened up the world to Civilian interests looking to make a profit in the rapidly growing TN Market. Using Automated equipment tweeked to survive in Venus's HArsh atmosphere the Civillian colony set up an Automated colony on the world as its first step to exploiting the riches of the world.
A day later on the 27th of the January the first jumpoint was found a theoretical weak point in time and space that that gave out unique gravomtric distortions, completely invisible to the human eye but visible through sophisticated scanning equipment the existance of Jump points had been theorised for some time but untill this point no one had been able to prove thier existance. Commander Isaac Shaw the commanding officer of the survay vessel that found the Jump point relayed back the findings immidiately, on Earth and Mars New news outlets grasped the news eagerly some predicting that a new age of space exploration was on the horizon. When asked about the discovery a government representative stated that whilst the news is ground shaking there is no way at this moment in time to exploit these weak points in space and there is no way of telling what is on the other end, to that end for the moment everything we need is in the SOL system we have yet to fully under stand our own back yard never mind the rest of the galaxy.
The Jump point was situated over 1700million Kms from the sun at 303 degreese out past Jupiter and Saturns orbits, Whilst it was possible to get ships out to that distance it was still a serious undertaking to get the outer system. Not long after Jupiter and its Jovians where survayed with the only significant find being that of over 500 thousand letres of Sorium at Accessability 0.3. Leading some to believe that the TN materials might have been the by product of the suns ignitian back in the early life of the Sol System and that the materials would only be in abundence in the Inner planetary systems of suns.
On the 7th of February a second jump point was found at 4099.4million Kms from earth at 229 Degrees, Once again the news networks grasped the information and excited the public to the possibilities of walking on distant worlds rather than living in the domes of Mars or Luna. The Calls for exploration of the Jump points intensified. The Ministery of Exploration took notice and openly announced it had begin research into technologies that could unlock these Jump Points. Although quite clearly a move to quell the Federations population the move worked well. The Ministery Commissioned a ship, a single manned vessel that would be able to pass through the threshhold of the Jump point and take readings before returning back through the same point and reporting back. Without any way of knowing what might be on the other sides it was decided that this was the least dangerous option atleast for the moment. Before this vessel could be built however the technology needed to allow the ship to pass through the Jump point needed to be researched. A Scientist Named Jennifer Pollard a specialist in the relms of Power and Propulsion and with major in Theoretical faster than light studies was put in charge of developing the FTL drive that would allow for the exploration vessel to pass through the Jump points. The theory behind moving through jump points was understood to an extent meaning it was only a matter of putting theory into practice.
The 1st of March brought the discovery of the third Jump Point in the SOL system the furthest out by far in the far flung ice belt that orbits sun, this discovery was seen as the proof that these soft spots in space are more common than many originally thought and could possibly connect every solar system in the known universe. Two days later a 4th was found in the outer ice belt solidfying the growing concept of the Connected Galaxy. Many now believed that Humans had stumbled upon points in space that connected the galaxy up like a net word with each sun acting as a Node for these points to connect to. Many started calling this network of points Node Space.
14th MaySol was deemed to have fully mapped on the gravitational spectrum, by this point all possible points where Node points could be found had been survayed. Earth had a grand total of 4 Node points, whilst the public hailed the day as a triumph of humankinds inginuity and never ending persuit of knowledge many of the Federations Military staff recognised this as a potential threat to the security of the nation. Whilst no life had been confirmed outside of the SOL system that was not to say there wasnt any. a Concept known as Fermii Paradox was making the rounds once again, first theorised in the 1960's it was theorised that even without FTL travel a single race could fully colonise the galaxy in several hundred thousand years. A tiny blip of time in the grand scheme of things, with that in mind many wondered why earth hadnt been colonised a long time ago before even when humans had evolved.
Fermii's paradox suggested that life frew in cycles in the galaxy that species would grow around the same time and attain space travel roughly around the same time. Life would grow and interact untill one species evolved with the mentality that to survive all other competition needed to be wiped out. This race would then go onto destroy all challengers to their dominance, a concept that whilst wild did answer the question as to why the human race had not come into contact with another alien species or even glimpsed an EM spectrum wave.
Someone or something would have to monitor the Jump points to provide some sort of warning should anything come through the Node points. The Node points in the jovian area of the Solar system would prove a challange but that would be nothing compaired to the challange of keeping something supplied in the outer reaches of the Kuiper belt. A ship would need to be designed that would be able to maintain itself and its crew for extended periods of time aswell as be able to defend itself should something threaten it. It would require new technologies both military and civillian to ensure that success fo a vessel such as this.
27th JuneJennifer Pollard Offically unveiled the Juniper Node Space Drive, the first ever drive of its kind able to unlock Node space and have a ship pass through it leading it to places unknown in the galaxy. the unveiling was met with alot of enthusiam by the press and the public but the government and the military warned of the potential dangers they it could bring on the human race. Despite this The Ministery of Exploration moved onto the next phase of its plan, the Small jump vessels would not be able to travel to the jump points under their own power, they could not physically fit enough fuel into the vessel to do that. So a carrier would be required to take the jump ship to the Node point before it could then undock and make its way to the other side.
On the 5th of September the Ministery of Exploration unveiled the Leaper Jump Scout, a 285 ton vessel with a three man crew, capable of travelling through Node space and exploring distant stars. 10 Jumpers where contracted to be built on Earth whilst the final componants of its carrier vessel where researched and laid down.
Leaper class Jump Scout 285 tons 3 Crew 47 BP TCS 5.7 TH 10 EM 0
1754 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 103 AFR 0% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 10 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 7
Juniper J300(1-50) Jump Drive Max Ship Size 300 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Duncan Dynamics 4.8 EP Ion Drive (2) Power 4.8 Fuel Use 8.02% Signature 4.8 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 39.4 billion km (259 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposesOn the 17th of October Scientist Dr Jonathan Naylor Completed his research into Terraforming improvements, these improvements where slated to give an over 0.2% increase in Terraforming efficiency. This new discovery has been said to reduce the time needed to terraform mars by hundreds fo years. Whilst it has been hailed as a great technological acheivement with many still fixated on Node Space and exploring new star systems, some have spoken out saying that the terraformation of mars may be a waste of materials that could be better put to use colonising other planets.
End of the Year ReportWith the dawn of 2101 Mars Earth and Luna celebrated and welcomed the new year, a few days before it was reported that the SOL system was only days away from having all of its planets survayed. The majority of the national focus would remain on the SOL system growing its colonies on Luna and Mars aswell as forming mining operations all over the SOL system both civillian and government run to take advantage of the abundence of the TN Materials. The Ministery of Exploration slated that the technology needed for the Leaper Carrier ship would be ready mid way through the coming year with the first vessel said to come out of the shipyards by the end of the year.
The Military top brass continued to worry about the lack of intel on both sides of the Node space points, working towards building the first fully fledged military space craft, it was still some time off by many believed the first ships would start patrolling SOL within the next two years. Many people from accross the Federation continued to call for the increased funding of Intersteller exploration, peace ful protests broke out in several major urban cities on Earth and Mars. The Government however not wanting to just throw away all the investment in they had pumped into Mars and its terraforming initiative did not make any plans to change policy and denied to comment if they would in the cooming years.
