Preservation Campaign - Repost

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

This thread is a repost of the Preservation Campaign as many of the original posts seem to have been cut off, perhaps as a result of the host move.

Preservation Campaign - Prelude

Ny-Ghrr waddled along the outer cloister of the Temple of Omnipotence, his ponderous bulk swaying from side to side. As usual, he was late for his weekly audience with the High Keeper and Mu-Thron was not known for his tolerance of tardiness. Why the High Keeper had forbidden teleportation within the Temple was a mystery to Ny-Ghrr but as far as he was concerned, if the Seven Gods had meant for him to walk, they would have given him stronger ambulatory appendages. By the time he finally arrived in the great hall, he was flustered and exhausted in equal measure and cowered under Mu-Thron?s stern visage.
?I see you have finally graced me with your presence Ny-Ghrr. I assume this is because you worked throughout the night on producing a most impressive report on the primitive planet on the outer edge of the Dygarh Spiral Arm?? Mu-Thron?s tertiary auditory sensors leaned forward to lend an unmistakable degree of sarcasm to his question.
?It is as you say, Exalted One?, replied Ny-Ghrr, cringing at the foot of the steps leading up to the High Keeper?s throne and hoping Mu-Thron would not ask to see the report that consisted of three sheets of parchment and constituted a hurried ten minutes work. ?I am happy to provide a verbal summary if you so desire?
?No doubt I would be bored into hibernation by the time I read your report anyway, if it is as exciting as the previous ones. Present your summary.?
?The planet has a single, laterally symmetrical, bipedal species that could be classed as fully sentient although they have very limited technology. There is evidence of cultural activity such as art, basic musical composition and some diversity of architecture.?
?Any sign of militancy or violent behaviour??
Ny-Ghrr paused for a moment, well aware that his few minutes of study could not provide conclusive proof of the non-violent behaviour that was a pre-requisite for species preservation but also conscious that reporting such a lack of knowledge would reveal his laziness to Mu-Thron. A very unpleasant prospect. Besides, he hadn?t seen anything suspicious in the few holographic images from the remote space-time viewer that he had bothered to examine closely.
?No, Exalted One, they appear to be a very peaceful race?
?Very well. They seem to meet the necessary requirements and I have no wish to spend any more time on this distraction. When will their extinction take place??
?Three days Exalted One?.
?And they do not know of their impending demise??
?Their sensory devices are most limited and they will only realise a black hole is moving through their system in the hours before their planet is torn apart by gravitational flux.?
Mu-Thron lifted his sceptre and adopted a bored expression ?Junior Keeper Ny-Ghrr, you are hereby instructed to carry out a Preservation Order on species 7392.?
Ny-Ghrr bowed. ?Thank you Exalted One. Should I include temporal preservation??
?If you wish. Now begone, I have important matters to attend to.?
Ny-Ghrr waddled away backwards, bowing until he reached the archway to the inner cloister.

Back in his office and floating in his anti-gravity field, Ny-Ghrr quickly reviewed his data on the planet in question. According to regulations, his duty was to carry out a thorough examination of species 7392 and select samples of its most highly developed cultural societies for preservation. However, he had agreed to meet Cha-Yurr, a most attractive female, before the setting of the second moon and his already limited chance of visiting her hibernation chamber would be reduced to zero if he was late again. As the preservation order was for a primitive species anyway, he instructed his office AI to run a temporal search for dominant societies throughout the history of the planet and to preserve a section of each. As there was no evidence of violence, albeit from a very limited sample, the dominant societies would surely be those that were culturally the most sophisticated. To avoid the problems usually associated with bringing together societies with different temporal coordinates, all the samples would be sent to different planets within a remote galaxy and provided with sufficient resources to maintain their society. His task complete Ny-Ghrr activated the teleporter and arrived in Cha-Yurr?s living quarters on time. A most remarkable achievement for the Junior Keeper.

However, in his hurry, Ny-Ghrr forgot to add the necessary parameters for the type of resources to be provided to the preserved societies. The AI therefore fell back on the default package of assistance for a newly preserved society. Each society would be provided with a suitable number of factories, mines and shipyards, based on their population, to allow them to exploit the trans-dimensional elements within the planetary cores. The AI interfaced with the telepathic scanner on the remote space-time viewer to investigate the mental processes of species 7392 and quickly realised their primitive science had insufficient knowledge to make full use of the default assistance package. As part of the AI?s base programming was to make things happen as smoothly as possible, as the preservation process took place, it painlessly added to every member of the preserved societies the skills required to operate their new facilities as well as the understanding of the science behind them. Once they awoke in their new home, they would be ready to expand their culture throughout a new galaxy. Where the new planets had environments that did not quite match the homeworld of species 7393, the AI modified the DNA of each society to cope with higher gravity, lower temperatures, etc. The AI did notice that this particular species had a far more violent history than any other preserved species but Ny-Ghrr had not set any restrictions so the AI proceeded as instructed.

Note: Each Race has 100,000 starting tech points for background tech and an unlimited amount of tech points for creating tech systems based on the researched background tech. Starting ships can have a total build cost equal to approximately two years worth of shipbuilding output.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Preservation Campaign

Author?s note:
Although the British Empire of the late nineteenth century used the imperial system for weights and measures and used the Fahrenheit scale for temperatures, Aurora defaults to the metric system so I will convert everything as required.

1st January 1891
It is over a year now since the Transference. Whether it was a miracle or the devil?s work, no one knows but we have come to accept our new fate and now we will spread the peace and justice of Britannia to the stars. Queen Victoria has asked me, as Royal Historian, to provide an official chronicle of these strange events. To ensure a complete record, I am being given unrestricted access to both Admiralty House and Government House and the Astronomer Royal has begun giving me a crash course in astronomy; and may I just note here for the record that is he is an intolerant teacher.

In the course of a single night in the autumn of 1889, almost half the population of the Empire was swept up from the face of the Earth and deposited on this new world with its unfamiliar sky. Natives of the British Isles, Australians, Canadians, Sikhs, Gurkhas, New Zealanders, Baluchis, Pujabis, Marathas, Rajputs, South Africans and representatives of a myriad of islands across the globe, all woke up in this extraordinary land and all seemed to possess new knowledge, allowing them to operate the plethora of wondrous machines that covered the landscape. It took weeks for the various groups to link up and a census to be taken, although the communication devices discovered in our new home, that make the recently invented telephones appear no more than tin cans tied with string, assisted greatly in re-establishing the political structure of the Empire. A few small groups expressed their wish to remain apart from the Empire, violently in some cases, but all of them have been returned to the fold, both for their long term welfare and their protection.

Although Great Britain leads the world in industrial output, the innumerable factories of our sceptered isle pale into insignificance compared to the industrial marvels of this planet. Colossal mining complexes, several of them completely automated, that draw new minerals from the very heart of this new Earth, enormous factory complexes that can build all manner of new installations and munitions, including some for which we have yet to determine a purpose, shipyards that construct ships to sail in the heavens rather than the sea, refineries that convert one of the new minerals into fuel for those space-going ships and even an array of stupendously well-equipped research facilities to enable our scientists to develop even more astounding technologies.

With the drive and invention that built a world-spanning Empire, British scientists and engineers quickly grasped the purpose of almost all of these installations, albeit helped by the new knowledge that had somehow found its way into their memories, and our political leaders organized the necessary population to operate them. Many people fell back into their old occupations such as farming, shop-keeping or banking as even this new world requires food production and service industries, although the methods involved are a world away from what they once were.

The study of the new minerals by our geologists and physicists has revealed several startling properties that defy the physical laws set down by the world-renowned British scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, They will enable space-going ships to move far more quickly and with far more manoeuvrability than our scientists could ever have conceived before the Transference. Therefore they have become collectively known as Trans-Newtonian Elements or TNEs.

The Astronomer Royal, Sir William Christie, was as excited as a young child on Christmas morning when he found the extent and capabilities of the available astronomical equipment. Together with his team, he has mapped the new night sky and begun studying the solar system in which we are located. Our sun is similar to Sol and our new planet, now officially named Victoria, orbits at a distance only slightly greater than Earth. Victoria is the second planet from the sun, is larger than Earth, although with slightly lower gravity, and has a single tiny  moon that is visible only as a small speck in the sky. The entire system, which has been named Britannia, has eight planets, including Victoria, two more rocky planets and five gas giants. The innermost planet is like our own Mercury, small and airless, while the third planet of the system is almost a twin of Victoria in terms of size and atmosphere. A man could breathe the air on Cerberus but would be frozen to death in seconds by a temperature of -100 degrees Celsius. Although the outermost Gas giant is at a little over five billion kilometers, a vast asteroid belt surrounds the rest of the system at distances ranging from twenty-six to thirty-nine billion kilometers. The various planets have a total of 123 moons between them.

Based on insights gained during the Transference and his own research, aided by the miraculous ?computers?, Sir William believes it may be possible to visit other solar systems by means of ?jump points?. According to Sir William, these are created by ?gravitational distortions of space-time?, whatever that means ? I sometimes think Sir William makes these phrases up ? and allow immediate passage from one star system to another, like gateways in the heavens.

Our four shipyard facilities have recently completed construction of five space-going vessels that are ready to leave orbit of Victoria. Two are Newton class survey ships, designed to travel the heavens in search of Sir William?s mythical gateways. A third, a Buckland class geological survey ship, named after the famous British geologist William Buckland, will visit Britannia?s other planet?s and moons to investigate the possibility that they too may possess the new minerals. The remaining vessels are freighters, standing ready to move the automated mining complexes to other worlds and to bring back the minerals they produce. Together they form the embryonic Royal Space Navy, usually referred to simply as the Royal Navy as there is little need for armed sea-going warships on Victoria.

With the shipyards now empty, construction begins on four new ships. A second Buckland, a third Newton, a third Victory class freighter and the first of the new Agincourt class, which is equipped with a ?Jump Drive? that should allow it to enter Sir William?s gateways, if they exist. The schematic for the Agincourt is presented below.

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Agincourt class Jump Cruiser    5400 tons     465 Crew     784 BP      Signature 108-420
3888 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 4/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 5000    Replacement Parts 10    

J540 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 5400 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
E7 Ion Engine (7)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 114.3 billion km   (340 days at full power)

High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1)     Strength 4     Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km     Detect Signature 100: 4m km
17th January 1891
Buckland, the geological survey ship, has reported evidence of large quantities of several of the new minerals on Cerberus. However, all are very difficult to access so it will not be economically viable to begin mining.

18th May 1891
Buckland has discovered that the gaseous form of Sorium, one of the Trans-Newtonian minerals, is contained within the atmosphere of Britannia VI, a gas giant. Based on the knowledge gained during the Transference, our scientists believe it would be possible to construct a space-going ship capable of harvesting the gas from the atmosphere and converting it to fuel. This is not an immediate priority as Victoria has perhaps 40,000 tons of Sorium in its core, enough for 40 million litres of fuel, but at some point in the future this knowledge may come in useful. The only drawback is that the estimated 140,000 tons of Sorium in Britannia VI?s atmosphere is only 0.3 on the Bell Accessibility Scale, which ranges from 0.1 to 1.0 with 1.0 being the easiest to access. Mining of an accessibility 1.0 mineral will yield ten times as much as mining an accessibility 0.1 mineral.

21st June 1891
Buckland has made another discovery, this time the third moon of Britannia IV. According to her sensor reading, over one hundred and fifty million tons of accessibility 0.1 Duranium is located deep in the planet?s core. Duranium is probably the most important TNE as it is required as part of almost all planetary installations and ship components. However, the accessibility is a significant deterrent to exploitation of this mineral deposit.

20th July 1891
The two Newton class survey ships have completed their search for ?jump points? and claim their survey information shows the location of four within the Britannia system. As I am only recently becoming accustomed to the idea of space travel, it is difficult to explain their locations. I have found a useful analogy is to imagine yourself looking down on the system from above, excluding the asteroid belt, and think of it as the face of a clock. The innermost of the three jump points is at nine o?clock and close to the centre. The other three are near the outer edge at three, four and seven o?clock. In terms of distance, the closest is 440 million kilometers from the sun while the others range between 3.2 and 4.7 billion kilometers. Until the Agincourt is completed, there is no way to test Sir William?s theory and the data of the Newtons so they are ordered to return to Earth and refuel.

6th August 1891
The third Victory class freighter is completed on Victoria. As yet, there is nowhere for her and her two sisters to go.

11th August 1891
For the past seven months our construction factories have been working on increasing their number from 160 to 170. Now that task is complete, they will now start work on raising the number to 180.

21st October 1891
Construction of the third Newton class, Copernicus, and the second Buckland class, Clarke, is completed. Three shipyards are now empty while the fourth is still working on Agincourt. Clarke heads out of orbit to join Buckland while Copernicus joins her sister ships, Newton and Galileo, in orbit.

26th November 1891
Our scientists complete research into increasing the size of missile warheads. Although we can build very basic missiles at the moment, none of them are capable of penetrating the armour on any of our space-going ships, which renders them useless. As we have thirteen missile silos already in service on Victoria and missiles are the ideal weapon for protecting Victoria from any space-borne attack, the Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, has made them our first priority for research. We can now design and build missiles capable of inflicting at least minimal damage on any hostile force. A schematic of the first missile design is shown below. Our scientists will complete development of this missile before beginning work on larger launchers.

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Congreve Missile
Missile Size: 2     Warhead: 2
Speed: 6,000 km/s    Endurance: 30 seconds   Range: 180k km
Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Cost Per Missile: 1.6
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 120%   3k km/s 40%   5k km/s 24%   10k km/s 12%
Materials Required:   0.325x Duranium  0.975x Tritanium  0.3x Gallicite
1st January 1892
The Agincourt is completed. Together with the three Newton class survey ships, she leaves orbit and sets course for the point in space where our scientists believe the closest jump point is located.

2nd January 1892
As she reaches the location and activates her jump drive, the Agincourt vanishes. Tense minutes pass before she returns to Victoria and her commander, Captain Morris, announces that her mission was a success. I am as surprised as anyone else that Sir William?s theory has been vindicated but pleased to see Britain?s first interstellar expedition has been successful. The solar system at the far side of the jump point apparently has two stars, a G2-IV primary and an F3-V companion. As those designations may mean little to the reader, I will attempt to convey some of my recently gained astronomical knowledge. Stars are rated for their luminosity, or surface temperature. This rating consists of a letter, indicating the Spectral Class, which is a general measure of luminosity, and a number, indicating a more precise measurement within that Spectral Type. The letter codes for the main types of stars from hottest to coolest are O, B, A, F, G, K and M. I have no idea why astronomers chose such a strange arrangement of letters when it would have much easier to remember A, B, C, etc but Sir William tells me the classification system has evolved over time as new knowledge was gained, including several changes as a result of knowledge gained during the Transference. It still makes little sense to me. To add to the confusion there are some additional special classes, L and T which are Lithium dwarfs and Methane Dwarfs, known collectively as Brown Dwarfs, and DA, DB, DC, DO and DQ, all of which are types of White Dwarf. To be honest I think Sir William and his cohorts like to come up with these ridiculous naming conventions just so they appear to be smarter than they really are. The different classes of stars have colours ranging from blue for the hottest through white, yellow, orange and red to the cool brown dwarves,

Within a spectral classification, stars are rated from 0 to 9 in terms of ascending temperature so a G0 star is hotter than a G5. That at least seems logical for a change. The roman numeral after the hyphen indicates the size of a star with lower numbers indicating large stars. Sol was a G2-V star and Britannia is a G1-V star, both are which are known as ?main sequence stars? as the V size is the most common. The larger types are sub-giants (IV), Giants (III), Bright Giants (II) and Supergiants (I). VI and VII are used for dwarf stars.

Assuming you are still reading and did not turn to drink during the last couple of paragraphs, that returns us to the new star system discovered by Agincourt. The two stars are apparently quite close together in astronomical terms, about as far apart as Sol and Saturn, which has led to the number of planets in the system being restricted to four, two of which have moons. The planet closest to the sub-giant star has a dense, hot atmosphere similar to Venus in the Sol system. Sir William believes this type of planet will be quite common so I will refer to them as Venusian planets in the future. The rest are airless and quite hot. It sounds as if this new system is a thoroughly unpleasant place. Queen Victoria has decreed that new star systems should be named after cities from the British Isles so the first system to be found is named London.

When Agincourt enters a jump point, her jump engines hold the gateway open long enough for two more ships to follow her, although neither can be larger than Agincourt herself. Because of this phenomenon, Agincourt can escort ships without their own jump engines through a jump points, although they cannot return without her assistance. Using this technique, she ferries the three Newton class ships into London so they can begin a new search for jump points, or as Sir William calls it, a gravitational survey. Apparently a more massive primary star results in a larger area to be surveyed so this survey will take require more effort than the one for the Victoria system, although the addition of a third ship should compensate somewhat. Meanwhile, Agincourt heads for the next jump point.

11th January 1892
Agincourt returns from a journey through a second jump point and reports the discovery of a planetless system with a G5-V primary. The new system is named Manchester and, based on my own experiences of the delights of that northern city, giving its name to a planetless system seems surprisingly apt.

12th January 1892
Our scientists complete work on the Congreve Missile and begin development of a larger missile launcher. Our ordnance factories begin work on producing the first 100 Congreve Missiles.

27th January 1892
Agincourt returns from her third exploratory mission. Her latest discovery is a system with an yellow-white F5-V primary, four rocky planets, a gas giant and a multitude of asteroids. As with Britannia, the asteroids are outside the orbits of all the planets, although in this system they are still within four billion kilometers of the star, making them far more easy to survey and potentially exploit. The third planet of the system has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere that is a little too thin for humans to breathe and the temperature is too cold anyway at -39C. Sir William believes it may be possible to terraform (I am sure he just made that word up) the planet, adding more oxygen to make the atmosphere breathable and gases that would trap heat and warm up the planet. Personally I think it would be a lot easier to just find planets similar to Victoria as ?terraforming? sounds like a lot of work. The two Buckland class geological survey ships have recently completed their survey of Britannia, finding little else of interest, and were waiting at the jump point for Agincourt to return. As there are plentiful bodies for them to survey, Agincourt escorts them into the new system, designated as Liverpool, before leaving for Britannia?s remaining unexplored jump point.

4th February 1892
Agincourt completes her tour of Britannia?s jump points. Beyond the fourth jump point is a small, dim M6-V star with five planets and a dense asteroid belt huddled close to the primary, seeking what little warmth is available. Even the outermost planet orbits at only 400m kilometers. The system is named Stevenage. With nothing else to do until the various survey ships complete their missions, Agincourt heads back to Victoria to refuel before taking up a position on the London jump point, so she can monitor the progress of the gravitational survey by occasionally jumping into the system

11th March 1892
We now have 180 construction factories. All those factories now begin work on a new Research Facility that will take over a year to build.

6th April 1892
The Fourth Space Lord, who has responsibility for keeping the Royal Navy supplied, believes that as our survey ships operate further from home, returning to refuel will become impractical. Therefore he has issued a request for a new class of ship that will operate as a tanker and will be jump capable to ensure it can carry out independent operations. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, agrees to the proposal and a new Wave Knight class tanker is laid down. The schematic is shown below.

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Wave Knight class Tanker    5350 tons     595 Crew     909 BP      Signature 107-300
2803 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 4/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10    

J540 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 5400 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
E7 Ion Engine (5)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 1153.2 billion km   (4761 days at full power)

High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1)     Strength 4     Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km     Detect Signature 100: 4m km
5th June 1892
After one of Agincourt?s periodic visits to the London system, she reports that the survey is complete and three new jump points have been located. The First Space Lord orders Agincourt to begin exploration of the three new jump points and report back to the Admiralty once all three have been investigated. The three Newton class survey ships are also ordered to gather at the London- Britannia jump point so that Agincourt can ferry them into one of the other systems adjacent to our new home system. As communication is not possible through a jump point, we will not hear from Agincourt again until she returns to Britannia.

25th August 1892
Agincourt, accompanied by the three Newton class survey ships, enters Britannia and re-establishes communication with the Admiralty so that Captain Morris may report on his mission in London. Three new systems have been discovered, named Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Glasgow is a planetless G7-V system, Edinburgh has a G8-V primary and four rocky planets while Cardiff is a trinary system, with a pair of close orbiting K6-V orange stars and a more distant lithium dwarf. Cardiff has a total of eight planets, none of which have any unusual features. I should note that Sir William is reading over my shoulder as I write and has commented that it almost sounds like I know what I am talking about. Considering he probably invents half of what he tells me, he has no room to talk. The four ships will head to Victoria to refuel before travelling to the Liverpool system to check the progress of the geological survey and begin a gravitational survey.

11th September 1892
Agincourt arrives at the Liverpool jump point and after vanishing for a few minutes reports that the geological survey is almost complete. Four planets and six asteroids have so far been discovered with mineral deposits, with the most notable being a moon of the fourth planet that has almost a million tons of Duranium at accessibility 0.7, along with a similarly accessible 80,000 tons of Tritanium. A second planet has over seven million tons of 0.7 Uridium and 500,000 tons of 0.8 Vendarite. The remaining deposits are all relatively small.

17th October 1892
Agincourt escorts the two Buckland class geological survey ships from Liverpool to Stevenage to begin a new geological survey. The Newtons remain in Liverpool to continue their gravitational survey and Agincourt will head back to Liverpool to awaits the results of that survey as soon as the Bucklands are safely in Stevenage.

8th December 1892
Development of the larger Missile Launcher is completed. Our scientists now turn their attention to increasing the speed of missiles to 10,000 km/s.

7th February 1893
Agincourt reports that the survey of Liverpool is complete and no additional jump points have been found. This means that Liverpool is a dead-end (I think most people in the home counties already knew that) and the only further use for the system will be exploitation of its mineral resources. The Newtons are en route to the Britannia jump point where Agincourt awaits their arrival. Their fuel situation is adequate so they will be escorted to Stevenage to begin their next survey.

23rd April 1893
Construction of our ninth Research Facility has been completed. Work begins on increasing our mining capacity. As the automated mining complexes can be transported to other worlds without the need for supporting population, they will be the priority, despite the fact they cost twice as much as the normal manned mines.

25th April 1893
Agincourt reports that the gravitational survey of Stevenage is complete, revealing two new jump points. She is ordered to investigate and report back.

4th May 1893
As both new jump points were relatively close to the star, Agincourt does not take long to complete her mission. The two new systems connected to Stevenage are named Belfast and Birmingham. The former has a G7-V primary, a single Venusian world and a small asteroid belt. The latter has an orange K9-V primary, six planets, two of them gas giants, and half a dozen large comets. Sir William has predicted that certain comets will contain the new minerals and their parameters have been programmed into the sensors of all our ships so that they may be identified. In this case, the comets are all at least ten billion kilometers from the system primary. Its been two years since I began this journal and am I still getting used to the concepts of programming and sensors, not to mention space travel, although it already seems difficult to remember a time when we relied mainly on steam ships and horse-drawn carriages. The younger generation in particular have taken to the new technology enthusiastically and it will not be many years before our old lives on Earth are little more than fading memories.

As the gravitational survey ships are already in Stevenage and the Belfast jump point is close to the Britannia jump point, Agincourt is ordered to escort the Newtons into that system to begin a new survey.

3rd June 1893
The Wave Knight class tanker is completed. Queen Victoria has decreed that is she is not prepared to name a ship with such a strange name so the class has been renamed the Minotaur class, with the first ship taking the class name. Minotaur?s first task is to load a million litres of fuel from Victoria, almost a third of our entire stockpile, then travel to the Stevenage and Belfast systems to refuel our ships.

26th June 1893
Minotaur transits the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point and returns a few minutes later with news that the geological survey of the system has been completed and the two Buckland class survey ships have joined their gravitational counterparts in the Belfast system. The survey revealed two rocky planets, three asteroids and a gas giant with mineral concentrations. The most notable are Stevenage III, a gas giant with twenty million tons of 0.7 Sorium, and the second moon of Stevenage-V, which has 350,000 tons of Boronide, 75,000 tons of Uridium, 315,000 tons of Corundium and 120,000 tons of Gallicite, all of which are accessibility 0.8 or higher. As the supplies of Boronide, Uridium and Corundium on Victoria are all 0.1 accessibility, the Third Space Lord, Sir Frederick Grey, who is in command of mineral production throughout the Empire, decides our automated mines should be transferred to this moon. In addition, he requests that one or more ships be built to harvest Sorium from Stevenage-III.

In response to Sir Frederick?s request, several possible designs are examined for fuel harvesters. The primary design considerations are that fuel harvesters gain efficiency with size and our maximum size jump ship is only 5400 tons. Presented below are three designs. The first shows a ship of 5400 tons, the second is a design with double the mining capacity of the first and the third has triple the mining capacity. As can be seen below, the average build cost per harvester module carried decreases as the ship size increases. If an gas giant with accessibility 1.0 Sorium could be found, the smallest ship will harvest enough fuel to keep two Newton or Buckland class survey ships or a single Agincourt class in continuous operation and boost our total fuel production by ten percent. However, Stevenage-III has only 0.7 accessibility Sorium so that yield would drop by thirty percent. The alternative is to construct a larger jump ship, which itself would consume resources. As Victoria?s existing supplies of Sorium will last for ten years at the current rate of mining, for now the decision on fuel harvester construction is delayed.

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Stevenson class Fuel Harvester    5400 tons     480 Crew     622 BP      Signature 108-60
555 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10    
Fuel Harvester: 7 modules producing 98000 litres per annum

E7 Ion Engine (1)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 570.9 billion km   (11904 days at full power)

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Stevenson II class Fuel Harvester    9600 tons     795 Crew     1018 BP      Signature 192-120
625 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10    
Fuel Harvester: 14 modules producing 196000 litres per annum

E7 Ion Engine (2)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 321.4 billion km   (5952 days at full power)

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Stevenson III class Fuel Harvester    13800 tons     1135 Crew     1413 BP      Signature 276-180
652 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 15    
Fuel Harvester: 21 modules producing 294000 litres per annum

E7 Ion Engine (3)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 223.5 billion km   (3968 days at full power)

10th August 1893
Agincourt is currently positioned at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point, providing an escort for the three Victory class freighters when the pass through the jump point on their way to and from the new mining colony on the second moon of Stevenage-V. Minotaur is holding station on the Stevenage ? Belfast jump point. She has refuelled the two Buckland class geological survey ships, as they were easily reached in Belfast?s inner system, but is waiting at the jump point for the three Newtons to avoid a long trip around the outer reaches of Belfast, which would use up a lot of unnecessary fuel. Once they complete their gravitational survey they will have to come back to the jump point anyway and can be refuelled in one place. Her position allows a communication link from Belfast to Britannia, using Agincourt as another link in the chain, which allows her to report that the geological survey of Belfast has been concluded. Seven asteroids and one planet have minerals. One asteroid has between 10,000 and 25,000 tons of five different minerals, all at accessibility 0.9 or 1.0 while Belfast-I has 175,000,000 tons of Duranium at 0.7. Two very useful discoveries, although it is a pity the three other minerals on the planet are all at 0.1 accessibility. The two recently refuelled Bucklands will head for the Stevenage ? Birmingham jump point and await Agincourt, who will rendezvous after the freighters make their latest transit.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

5th September 1893
Agincourt is back at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point after escorting the Bucklands into Birmingham and relays a message from Minotaur that the gravitational survey in Belfast is complete. One new jump point has been found. Galileo has already refuelled and the other two Newtons are converging on Minotaur to do the same. An additional message is relayed from Captain Jackson of the Newton, who reports his ship has been suffering some mechanical problems and his engineering spares are down to forty percent of normal. He requests instructions on whether he should return to Victoria for a maintenance overhaul or remain on station. Replying via Agincourt, the First Space Lord orders Minotaur to investigate the new jump point and to escort the Newtons via Stevenage to Birmingham to begin a gravitational survey. Captain Jackson is instructed to continue operations but to return immediately if his supplies fall to twenty percent of normal.

11th October 1893
Commander Trudeau of the Minotaur reports via Agincourt that he has explored the jump point in Belfast and is now escorting the three Newtons to Birmingham. The newly discovered system, Aberdeen, is a little unusual in that it has a pair of G9-IV yellow sub-giants, both of which are over four million kilometers in diameter, orbiting fifteen billion kilometers apart, with a K9-V orange star in orbit of the companion. One of the primary?s six planets has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of eighteen degrees Celsius, within one degree of Victoria. Unfortunately the atmosphere is slightly too thin to breathe but Sir William?s proposed terraforming could make this into an ideal world. The companion star has no planets, although the orange tertiary star has four rocky planets and a gas giant. Sir William advises that if we wish to colonise the planet, the first step would to build the necessary infrastructure for a population to survive, followed by the transporting of construction factories via freighter that could then be used to build terraforming installations.

13th October 1893
Research into missile engines has resulted in an increase in maximum missile speed from 6000 km/s to 10,000 km/s. Our scientists will now concentrate their efforts on increasing missile endurance.

17th October 1893
All five of our survey ships are now in Birmingham and Minotaur is holding station at the Stevenage ? Birmingham jump point. Agincourt remains at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point.

27th November 1893
The geological survey of Birmingham is complete. Two planets have significant, accessible deposits of Boronide and Corbomite respectively but as those are the only minerals present it is unlikely they will be economically viable for mining. However, Birmingham-IV, a gas giant, has over two hundred thousand tons of Sorium in its atmosphere at accessibility 1.0. This planet could provide a long term fuel source once Victoria?s supplies are exhausted so  Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty, gives the go-ahead to begin construction of fuel harvesters. Two 5400 ton Stevenson class Harvesters are laid down. A third Buckland is also under construction.

24th December 1893
The gravitational survey of Birmingham is complete. No new jump points are discovered. This has one benefit in that once our fuel harvesters are deployed, there will be no additional jump points through which a threat against them might emerge. Minotaur has remained at the Birmingham ? Stevenage jump point so she can relay messages to Victoria via Agincourt. Once all the survey ships are assembled at the jump point, she will escort them through Stevenage and Britannia to Manchester, the only unsurveyed system adjacent to our new home. Closer examination of the initial data from Manchester has shown that is it not planetless as was first thought. A gas giant and several asteroids are located so close to the star that they did not appear on the system-wide sensor displays.

30th January 1894
The three Victory class freighters have moved fifteen of our automated mines to the second moon of Stevenage-V to mine Boronide, Uridium, Corundium and Gallicite. Meanwhile, our construction factories have been producing infrastructure so that we may start colonizing Aberdeen-II, a planet that has good conditions except for its thin atmosphere. Although infrastructure is not necessary for an ideal planet, such as Victoria, on a hostile world where the environment does not fall within survivable parameters for humans, the colonists would all die without the protection of domed buildings or cities. This infrastructure must be put into place before any colonists can be sent to the planet. Each potential colony site is rated by amount of infrastructure required to protect 10,000 colonists, with a colony cost of 1.0 being equal to one point of infrastructure, 2.0 requiring two points of  infrastructure, et cetera. Aberdeen-II is colony cost 2.0 as it requires air-tight domes but no special protection against extreme temperatures or a high pressure atmosphere. Once a sufficient number of colonists have been established, construction factories will be moved to the planet to begin work on terraforming installations. As this plan requires colony ships to be constructed, a design has been drawn up for the Resolution class, the Empire?s first colony ship. The schematic is shown below.

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Resolution class Colony Ship    5350 tons     305 Crew     922 BP      Signature 107-360
3364 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Colonists 50000    Tractor 5    Replacement Parts 10    
E7 Ion Engine (6)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 115.3 billion km   (396 days at full power)The colonization plan required some reassignment of existing ships. After the last of the survey ships left Stevenage, Agincourt moved to the Manchester jump point and has recently ferried the three Newton class gravitational survey ships and the Buckland class Clarke into that system. She will now return to the Stevenage jump point and await the freighters so she can escort them through Stevenage and Belfast to Aberdeen. As Manchester has only a few bodies to survey, the second geological survey ship, Buckland, has moved to the London jump point and is awaiting the arrival of Minotaur, who will escort her through the jump point to investigate London?s four rocky planets and two moons before moving to the Manchester jump point to act as a relay for messages from the survey ships in that system.

15th March 1894
As the geological survey of London has been completed, Minotaur has escorted Buckland into Manchester to join the other survey fleets.

24th March 1894
The third Buckland class geological survey ship, Sedgwick, is constructed on Victoria. After fuelling, she heads for Manchester to join the other survey ships.

26th March 1894
The geological survey of Manchester is completed. The only two bodies with minerals are a very large asteroid with 187,000 tons of accessibility 1.0 Duranium and a gas giant with four million tons of accessibility 0.2 Sorium.

15th May 1894
Agincourt and the three Victory class cargo ships have entered the Britannia system on their return journey from their infrastructure delivery mission to Aberdeen. They report that on their way through the Stevenage system they detected a strange phenomena. What appeared to be some type of storm in space covering an area 350m kilometers in diameter was passing through the outer system. Given the strength of radiation and electromagnetic discharges within the storm, Captain Morris estimated it would have destroyed his ships if he had tried to pass through it. Fortunately it was several billion kilometers away from the Agincourt and only moving at around 400 km/s so it was not an immediate threat. However, if the storm had been covering the jump point when the fleet made transit it could have been catastrophic.

Sir William and his team analyse the data provided by Agincourt and agree with his view that the storm is dangerous to shipping. It could also be dangerous to planetary populations depending on the magnetic field of the planet. Sir William believes that planetary magnetic fields will provide some protection from the storms for both population and any ships in orbit, depending on the strength of the field versus the strength of the storm. Earth?s magnetic field would have protected it from a much stronger storm than the one in Stevenage. which probably explains why this phenomena was unknown in the past. It will also be possible to develop electromagnetic shields for our ships to protect them against such storms, again depending on the comparative strength of the storm and the shields. According to Sir William, shields would also provide some defence against weapon fire should we ever encounter hostile aliens, although most people, including myself, believe aliens to be the figment of over-active imaginations. How common these storms may be is unknown but this is the first one we have detected in the four years since the Transference.

30th May 1894
Minotaur reports that the gravitational survey of Manchester has been completed. No additional jump points have been found. The three geological survey ships have already entered Britannia while the three gravitational survey ships in the system are converging on the Britannia jump point. The survey effort will now move into the systems around London.

1st June 1894
Agincourt and the freighters have returned to Victoria. As one of the freighters has suffered significant maintenance problems and used eighty percent of its engineering spares, it is taken in to the only available shipyard for a minor overhaul. The overhaul will only require three weeks so the other two freighters will remain in orbit.

19th June 1894
Agincourt and the three freighters leave orbit to deliver additional infrastructure to Aberdeen-II.

28th June 1894
Newton begins a minor overhaul as she too is low on engineering spares.

7th July 1894
After entering Stevenage, Agincourt briefly returns to Britannia to report that the storm in Stevenage, which is now being referred to by our scientists as an Ion Storm, is smaller than before and is moving out into deep space. It will pose no threat to any Empire forces.

27th July 1894
Minotaur and all six survey ships enter the Britannia ? London jump point en route to Cardiff. The small fleet is under the command of Commodore Richards on the Copernicus and will be operating out of communication range, probably for several months. In the past, the two jump ships have often acted in concert to relay messages but they are now deployed on opposite sides of the home system and messages cannot travel through a jump point unless a ship carries them through.

30th July 1894
Our scientists complete their work on increasing missile endurance to sixty seconds. Development begins on a new missile that will replace the Congreve. The Longsword missile is designed to be launched from planetary silos. Although the warhead is still relatively small, the missile has a 600m km range and is very accurate.

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Longsword Missile
Missile Size: 4     Warhead: 2
Speed: 10,000 km/s    Endurance: 60 seconds   Range: 600k km
Manoeuvre Rating: 30
Cost Per Missile: 2.5
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 300%   3k km/s 90%   5k km/s 60%   10k km/s 30%
Materials Required:   0.5x Duranium  1.5x Tritanium  0.5x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 355RP
5th September 1894
The two Stevenson class Fuel Harvesters have been completed. As both jump-capable ships are away from Britannia at the moment, the Harvesters can only head for the Stevenage jump point to await the return of Agincourt. In any event, at their very low speed of 555 km/s, even that short journey will take three months.

22nd September 1894
An ion storm has appeared in Britannia about 600m km from the Stevenage jump point. Although a barely detectable speck at the moment, its diameter is increasing by fourteen kilometers per second and its course will take it between Victoria and the jump point.

25th September 1894
Development of the Longsword missile is complete. Our ordnance factories will begin production immediately. Our scientists now turn their attention to improving our very basic laser technology. The first step is to research visible light lasers.

10th October 1894
Agincourt and the freighter return to Victoria after their four month round trip to Aberdeen-II. There is enough infrastructure to support several colonization missions by the Resolution when she is completed so the Victory class ships will be stood down for now. Agincourt refuels and heads for the Stevenage jump point to await the arrival of the harvesters. In hindsight, more powerful engines for the fuel harvesters would have been a better option, as even though they will spend most of their active lives immobile, they will still need to be redeployed and occasionally overhauled.

6th November 1894
The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, has decided that the British Army should be reconstituted in our new home for purposes of defending Victoria and protecting new colonies such as Aberdeen. The first two divisions to be trained however will be engineers who will be able to use their skills to construct installations on either Victoria or, more likely, other worlds yet to be discovered.

5th December 1894
The ion storm has passed by the Stevenage jump point without incident and is on course that may take it near the Liverpool jump point. I can only imagine the cries of anguish among my colleagues when they learn that travel to Liverpool may not be possible. More importantly, a second storm is gathering much closer to the inner system. Victoria is Britannia?s second planet. The new storm is located just outside the orbit of Cerberus, the third planet. Fortunately, it is moving away as it increases in size.

11th December 1894
The two fuel harvesters have left the Britannia system via the Stevenage jump point and are en route to Birmingham.

15th December 1894
Our construction factories have completed their latest task; building ten more fuel refineries. This takes our annual fuel production to almost 1.2 million litres, excluding any production from the harvesters when they eventually reach their destination. Their next project is to increase their own numbers from 180 to 200, which will take over a year.

1st January 1895
I am honoured to discover that Queen Victoria herself has apparently been reading my chronicle and wishes me to include yearly summaries of our nation?s industrial and military situation. I will endeavour to fulfil her request as best I can. Included in parentheses are the statistics at the start of this chronicle, if they differ from the current level.

1895 Summary
Population: 220m (200m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 180 (160)
Mines: 160
Automated Mines: 37 (32)
Fuel Refineries: 90 (80)
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9 (8)
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 13
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 3.6m Litres. (1.6m)

1891 Fleet
2x Newton, 1x Buckland, 2x Victory.

1895 Fleet
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

24th January 1895
Agincourt has returned to the Britannia system after escorting the harvesters to Birmingham. Two of the Victory class have recently completed minor overhauls and the third still has some time before an overhaul is necessary so the cargo ships will resume their earlier mission of taking automated mines to the mining colony in Stevenage. Agincourt will remain at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point to ferry them through the jump point as required.

20th April 1895
Resolution, our first colony ship, is completed. Until a better opportunity presents itself, she will be transporting colonists to Aberdeen-II. Agincourt will provide escort as required. The Victory class freighters have completed two more trips to Stevenage and our mining colony in that system now has twenty-one automated mines. However, due to Duranium shortages on Victoria, no more mines will be moved into Stevenage for the moment. Our first batch of 100 Longsword missiles has been produced by the Empire?s ordnance factories.

22nd May 1895
Work on construction factories has been temporarily halted and construction of additional mines has begun.

24th June 1895
Several hours ago, Minotaur and our six survey ships re-entered Britannia, eleven months after they departed via the London jump point, and Commodore Richards immediately contacted the Admiralty with a priority one message.  Despite being assured in the past that I would always have full access to Admiralty House, I was excluded from several meetings that were urgently convened as a result of that message. I was forced to appeal directly to her Majesty before the status quo ante was restored. My first request on being granted full access was copy of the patrol report summary from Commodore Richards. That disconcerting document is presented below in its entirety.

Report of Commodore Richards, commander of Copernicus and senior officer on survey expedition.
After departing the Britannia system, the fleet traversed London and entered Cardiff. Gravitational and geological surveys of Cardiff were carried out, resulting in the discovery of three new jump points and several mineral deposits, none of which were of any great significance. The Newton class survey ships, including my own ship, Copernicus, were still in the outer system so I ordered Minotaur to probe the innermost jump point. She discovered a T4-VII brown dwarf primary with a mass of one ten millionth that of Britannia, which meant the gravitational survey of this new system, designated as Leyland, would only require two days to complete. As it would take several days for the survey ships to converge on the Leyland jump point, I sent Minotaur to a jump point in the outer system to carry out her second probe. The new system, Lancaster, had only three rocky planets and a meagre asteroid belt but the third planet was ideal. Gravity of 1.03G, a surface temperature of 22 degrees Celsius and a perfect oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere almost identical to Victoria?s.

Minotaur returned to the Leyland jump point and ferried the assembled survey ships into that system. Galileo, Newton and Copernicus quickly accomplished their task and located four new jump points. With the most distant of these jump points at sixty million kilometers, it didn?t take long for Minotaur to probe all four. A brief description of each system is below:

?   York. G1-V primary. Two gas giants and six rocky planets, one with a minimal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 65 degrees, and forty seven moons, plus eight comets worthy of investigation.
?   Swansea. K0-IV orange sub-giant primary with a single Venusian type planet.
?   Oxford. K9-V primary. Seven planets all within two billion kilometers and a small, rocky eighth planet at over one hundred billion kilometers
?   Newcastle. Trinary system with a G1-V primary, a close orbiting brown dwarf and a K8-V companion at twenty-seven billion kilometers. A total of thirteen planets, eighty-three moons and ninety-five asteroids, none of which are worthy of further comment.

Minotaur escorted all six survey ships back into Cardiff and the fleet headed for the remaining unexplored jump point. The outermost jump point led to Cambridge, a system with a G9-V primary and four rocky planets, one of which had a very thin oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 57 degrees. On my orders, Copernicus and the other two Newtons plus the geological survey ship Sedgwick were escorted into Cambridge by Minotaur. While the surveys were underway, Minotaur set course for Lancaster with the remaining geo survey ships, Buckland and Clarke. Their mission was to check out the system bodies in Lancaster before returning to Cambridge to pick up the rest of the fleet once our gravitational survey was complete.

The three detached ships entered Lancaster without incident and while Minotaur remained at the jump point, a little under five billion kilometers from the primary, the two survey ships proceeded in-system. As Buckland and Clarke approached the inner system, they began to move apart until they were running parallel at a range of twelve million kilometers. One hundred million kilometers short of Lancaster-III, a contact appeared just two million kilometers from Buckland. The contact was approximately 5000 tons and moving at 3000 km/s. Both ships immediately reversed course and ran for the jump point. Captain Fisher on the Buckland, the senior officer in the system, decided to try and communicate with the alien ship and reduced speed to 3000 km/s to keep the range constant. He ordered captain Redmill on the Clarke to maintain his top speed of 3600 km/s. Commander Trudeau on the Minotaur, located at the Lancaster ? Cardiff jump point, was informed of the situation.

The alien ships answered our hails but did not cease their pursuit. Although the transmissions were audio only, the aliens at least appear to have a spoken language and certain words sounded strangely familiar to some of the officers on board the Buckland. Over the next ten days, the two ships continued to move toward the jump point, two million kilometers apart. Slowly those officers on Buckland with linguistic skills, aided by their counterparts on Minotaur and Clarke, pinned down the familiar words and with the help of the library computers finally identified the alien language. Incredibly, their best guess was the language of the Vikings around the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. Captain Fisher hailed the aliens using video and audio and addressed them as best he could given the limitations of the translation software.

Within a few minutes, the aliens replied with video and turned out to be human, mainly blonde-haired and bearded.. Their uniforms also bore markings similar to Norse runes. They seemed as surprised as us to be conversing with other humans, although their surprise seemed to be turning to suspicion whereas the crew of the Buckland were fascinated with the appearance of a culture thought to be dead for eight hundred years. Although the ?Vikings? continued to be guarded in the ensuing negotiations, it did not take long to establish that they too had suffered an equivalent of the Transference over five years ago. Whatever force was responsible for the Transference, it appears that it affected at least one culture from the past history of Earth in addition to our own transfer from the present day.

Captain Fisher requested that both ships hold position to continue discussion and even proposed setting up a trade outpost on the Viking?s planet. The Viking commander, Huscarl Sigmund, demanded that the Buckland leave the system through the jump point toward which it was heading and that the system beyond, which he called Alta and we know as Cardiff, was Viking territory. That statement changed the situation entirely as it was now apparent the Vikings not only knew about jump points but had explored beyond their home system. The Vikings had changed from an intriguing historical anachronism to a potential threat to the Empire. Realising the significance of the information he had just gained, Captain Fisher immediately ordered his ship to full speed and began to pull away from the pursuing ship. He ordered Clarke and Minotaur to prepare to transit as soon as he arrived and to set a course for Cambridge to contact the rest of the fleet. I would like to note that captain Fisher should be commended for his conduct during the time of his independent command in the Lancaster system.

The Lancaster and Cambridge jump points in Cardiff are seven billion kilometers apart so it took Minotaur almost a month to reach the latter system, arriving on the 23rd of April 1895. Captain Fisher and the Buckland also entered Cambridge so that he could relay his report to me. Although the gravitational survey was almost complete, I decided to order an immediate withdrawal. The survey could be completed at a later date but we could not afford to be cut off by Viking forces reaching the Cardiff ? London jump point before we arrived. While the three gravitational survey ships were moving toward the Cambridge ? Cardiff jump point, I ordered Buckland and Sedgwick to join Clarke in Cardiff and to immediately head to the Cardiff ? London jump point to provide warning of any Viking ships in the area.

The evacuation of Cambridge was completed by the 16th of May and all seven ships in the fleet rendezvoused at the Cardiff ? London jump point on the 29th of May. So far, there was no sign of any Viking ships, although if they did not know the layout of jump points in Cardiff and therefore could not predict our movements, we easily could pass relatively close to each other without being detected. All seven ships transited into London and set course for the Britannia jump point, arriving on the morning of the 24th June 1895.

Commodore Richards, C.O. Copernicus, 24th June 1895.

Although aliens still remain a figment of the imagination, it appears we instead must confront the dark days of our own past. For centuries, Vikings raided the shores of the British Isles until decisively defeated by King Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge in 1066, only days before his death at the battle of Hastings. Sir William has also read Commodore Richards report and announced a ridiculous theory that is nevertheless keeping me awake at nights. Someone or something has transferred both the British Empire and the Vikings from Earth to planets in this distant part of the universe. Sir William believes that whoever was responsible for this phenomena may well have not stopped at two different cultures, but could have transferred many cultures from the past. Furthermore, and more disturbingly, he has proposed a theory that the British Empire be a culture from the past if the Transference took place at some point in our own future. Despite the fact it is obvious that the present is the present and I surely would know if I was living the past, I cannot help turning this over in my mind. If his nonsensical suggestion were true, what manner of humans would we meet if they were from our own future?

Despite Sir Williams fevered imaginings, Lord Hamilton has decreed that the Empire must start building a mobile military force to defend the systems around Britannia. Our weapons technology is still quite primitive, especially in the fields of lasers and particle accelerators and even our planet-based missiles have a limited range and a fairly small warhead. The priority is create some type of effective shipboard weapon before we have to face the Vikings in deep space. Our research into Visible Light Lasers should be completed soon so a decision on how to proceed will be made at that point.

25th June 1895
After refuelling, the survey fleet, including Minotaur, are dispatched to Aberdeen. This is on the far side of our territory from the Vikings and should keep the unarmed ships out of trouble.

11th July 1895
Research into Visible Light Laser technology is completed on Victoria. There has been extensive discussion on how to proceed with development of weapons to guard against any attack by the Vikings. Our weapon technology is extremely limited and presented below are the four options being considered. The first three are the most advanced versions we can build in each of the three major weapon categories plus a much larger particle accelerator that would effectively be a one-shot weapon.

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10cm C1 Visible Light Laser
Damage Output 3     Rate of Fire: 15 seconds     Range Modifier: 2
Laser Size: 3    Laser HTK: 1
Power Requirement: 3    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 3    Crew: 30
Materials Required: 0.6x Duranium  0.6x Boronide  1.8x Corundium

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Missile Launcher
Maximum Missile Size: 2     Rate of Fire: 60 seconds
Launcher Size: 4    Launcher HTK: 2
Cost Per Launcher: 10    Crew Per Launcher: 40
Materials Required: 2.5x Duranium  7.5x Tritanium

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15/1 C1 Particle Accelerator
Damage Output 6     Rate of Fire: 30 seconds     Range Modifier: 1
Energy Conversion Rate: 1    Tunnel Size Modifier: 1
Accelerator Size: 7    Accel HTK: 3
Power Requirement: 6    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 6    Crew: 70
Materials Required: 1.2x Duranium  1.2x Boronide  3.6x Neutronium

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50/1 C1 Particle Accelerator
Damage Output 64     Rate of Fire: 320 seconds     Range Modifier: 1
Energy Conversion Rate: 1    Tunnel Size Modifier: 1
Accelerator Size: 24    Accel HTK: 12
Power Requirement: 64    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 64    Crew: 240
Materials Required: 12.8x Duranium  12.8x Boronide  38.4x NeutroniumAfter listening to the opinions of his ship designers and weapon engineers, Lord Hamilton eventually decides to go for the laser. While the particle accelerators provide higher damage per installation, the damage output of the laser at close range is higher on a pro-rata basis, although the lower damage means a lower range. It can also serve as a defence against missiles should the enemy carry missile launchers on his ships.

In the meantime, a new class of scout ship will be constructed to monitor the systems between ourselves and the Vikings. The Vanguard is small, fast and long ranged but also jump capable. Unfortunately, our sensor technology is at a similar level of capability to our weapons so the Vanguard will almost have to be on top of any enemy ships before it detects them. Therefore its mission will be to remain silent and watchful in the vicinity of key jump points until our sensor technology improves. It is unarmed and must rely on speed and stealth to survive. Two Vanguards will be constructed initially.

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Vanguard class Scout    3000 tons     275 Crew     398 BP      Signature 60-240
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 4/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 5    

J300 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
E7 Ion Engine (4)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 205.7 billion km   (595 days at full power)

High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1)     Strength 4     Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km     Detect Signature 100: 4m km28th July 1895
The colony ship Resolution returns to the Victoria system to report that the establishment of our first off-world population has been successfully carried out. 50,000 citizens of the Empire are now living on Aberdeen-II.

8th September 1895
Development of the 10cm C1 Visible Light Laser has been completed. Our scientists now begin work on improving the recharge rate of the capacitors used in lasers and particle accelerators.

22nd November 1895
The colony ship Resolution returns from Aberdeen with news of the ongoing surveys in that system. The geological survey has so far found mineral deposits on two asteroid and two planets, one of which is the site of our new colony. Aberdeen-II has deposits of nine minerals, although mostly at low accessibility. The complete list is as follows:

Duranium 1,889,568  Acc: 0.3
Neutronium 331,776  Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 3,779,136  Acc: 0.7
Boronide 11,664  Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 5,184  Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 4,359,744  Acc: 1.0
Sorium 12,702,100  Acc: 0.5
Uridium 5,992,704  Acc: 0.4
Corundium 9,144,576  Acc: 0.1

The three geological survey ships are now en route to the planets orbiting the companion star, which lies fifteen billion kilometers from the primary. The gravitational survey is still in progress, although based on Resolution?s report it should be completed within a few weeks. Resolution will refuel, load colonists and begin her third trip to Aberdeen. Minotaur is escorting her between the Britannia ? Stevenage and Stevenage ? Belfast jump points while Agincourt is holding station on the Belfast ? Aberdeen jump point. In addition, the three Victory class freighters will carry a pair of automated mines and a supply of Boronide to Aberdeen so that construction of terraforming installations can begin once construction factories are delivered. Although we could concentrate on building up Victoria and avoid the cost of creating the Aberdeen colony, the recent discovery of the Vikings has prompted our leaders to ensure a viable second home is setup, just in case.

26th November 1895
A fourth Victory class freighter is laid down as the requirement for transporting installations or other material to Aberdeen will likely increase over time. Once the Vanguards are completed, construction of a second colony ship will begin.

1st January 1896
Presented below is the annual summary for 1896. 1895 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1896 summary.

1896 Summary
Population: 227m (220m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185 (180)
Mines: 163 (160)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 13
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 4.4m Litres. (3.6m)

1896 Fleet
As 1895 except for the addition of the Resolution.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution.

18th January 1896
The two Vanguard class, jump-capable scouts are completed. Both are immediately dispatched to the Cardiff system to watch for Viking activity. One will be positioned at the Cardiff ? Lancaster jump point and the other at the Cardiff ? London jump point.

16th March 1896
Minotaur returns to the Britannia system, along with Resolution and the three Victory class freighters. She brings news that the gravitational survey in Aberdeen has been completed, revealing three new jump points. At the time Resolution left Aberdeen, Agincourt had explored one jump point, discovering a system that Captain Morris named Dundee. Dundee has a very bright A5-V primary with a mass over twice that of Britannia and a luminosity of 18.4, compared to 1.0 for Sol and 0.85 for Britannia. The system has twelve planets, stretching as far out as ninety billion kilometers, and a huge double asteroid belt with almost four hundred asteroids. The fifth planet has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere but it is three times as dense as Victoria and the oxygen level is too high. In any event, with a  gravity of 1.74 G and a surface temperature of -90C, it is a very inhospitable place. All three Newtons and one geological survey ship are in Dundee while the other two Bucklands are completing the geological survey of the Aberdeen-B system.

Minotaur also reports that an ion storm passing through the inner system of Stevenage briefly passed over the second moon of Stevenage-V, upon which we have twenty-one automated mines. Although several mines were struck by electromagnetic discharges from the storm, none were damaged.

One of the three Victory class ships has run out of spares and a second is down to twenty percent. Both vessels will undergo a major overhaul when they return to Victoria. In retrospect, the Victorys should have been given more engineering capacity to deal with ongoing maintenance problems

23rd March 1896
Pioneer, one of the two Vanguard class scouts deployed to Cardiff, returns to Britannia with disturbing news. The two scouts entered Cardiff on February 7th 1896 and while Vanguard held position at the Cardiff ? London jump point, Pioneer set course for the Lancaster jump point to watch for Viking ships leaving their home system. On the 20th of February, Vanguard detected a 5000 ton ship approaching the London jump point. With no way to exit the system without giving her position away, Vanguard monitored the Viking ship as moved to the jump point, spent five minutes charging its strength-12 shields and then entered London. It would appear that the Vikings have already surveyed Cardiff and now know the location of London, which is adjacent to Britannia itself. The situation is worse than first feared, especially as we still have no warships and not even an armed ship under construction.

A few minutes after entering London, the Viking ship re-entered Cardiff and set a course that did not correspond to any of the known jump points in the system or any of the planetary bodies. Once it was out of sensor range, Vanguard contacted Pioneer and countermanded the existing orders. Pioneer abandoned her original picket mission and returned to Britannia to deliver the urgent news. The First Space Lord orders Pioneer to return to Cardiff and order Vanguard to pull back. The new picket locations for the two ships will be the London-Cardiff and London-Britannia jump points.

As our weapon technology is still not sufficiently advanced to begin building effective warships, the planetary defences will be strengthened by the construction of additional missiles and missile silos. However, some armed picket forces are necessary just in case the enemy possesses missiles that are longer-ranged than our own. Therefore a Broadsword class destroyer will be constructed to guard the Britannia ? London jump point. There was some discussion within Parliament that this ship is a waste of resources, especially given the low tracking speed of its fire control system, but it is difficult to do nothing when a potentially hostile force is closing on our system.

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Broadsword class Destroyer    4650 tons     563 Crew     498 BP      Signature 93-300
3225 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 6-300     Sensors 4/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10    

E7 Ion Engine (5)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 132.7 billion km   (476 days at full power)
Alpha R300/7 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  42 Litres per day

10cm C1 Visible Light Laser (9)    Power 3-1     Range Modifier 2    Rate of Fire 15        3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Laser Fire Control (1)    Range: 40k km   TS: 1000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (2)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 1%

High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1)     Strength 4     Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km     Detect Signature 100: 4m km
24th June 1896
Research into Capacitor Recharge Rate 2 is completed on Victoria. Our scientists begin work on increasing the speed of our missile engines to 15,000 km/s.

29th June 1896
Two Victory class freighters complete their major overhauls. While the third Victory is taken into the shipyards, the other two will take two construction factories to Aberdeen.

19th October 1896
The two freighters return to the Britannia system, along with Minotaur. After a request from Agincourt while both ships were in Belfast, Minotaur travelled to Aberdeen to refuel our survey forces. As a result, Commander Trudeau has a full report on activities in and around Aberdeen. The last report stated that only one of Aberdeen?s three new jump points has been probed, which led to Dundee. Since then Dundee has been fully surveyed. Although no jump points were located, substantial mineral deposits have been found, including over 750,000,000 tons of Duranium, albeit mainly at low levels of accessibility. Aberdeen?s other jump points led to the systems of Nottingham and Sheffield. The former is a G1-V / L1-VII binary with a single Venusian world orbiting the primary while the latter has a G3-V primary and eight planets, one of which has acceptable gravity, a breathable atmosphere and a surface temperature of -25C. Although colonists would need some infrastructure to be put in place, this is another world that could become ideal with some terraforming. In its current state it has a colony cost of 1.7. When Minotaur left the Aberdeen system, the survey ships were heading for Sheffield.

21st November 1896
The Broadsword class destroyer is completed. She immediately leaves orbit to picket the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point.

1st January 1987
Presented below is the annual summary for 1897. 1896 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.

1897 Summary
Population: 235m (227m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 163
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20 (13)
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.0m Litres. (4.4m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve

1897 Fleet
As 1896 except for the addition of the Broadsword.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution, 1x Broadsword

1st February 1897
The fourth Victory class freighter is completed.

24th March 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and the three Victory class freighters return from a mission transporting infrastructure and colonists to Aberdeen. Commander Trudeau reports that there was no sign of Agincourt or any of the survey ships so they are presumably still in the Sheffield system.

21st April 1897
Two Engineer units have been trained. These provide limited ground defence strength but are most useful for their construction ability. Each Engineer can produce as much a construction factory without the need for a supporting population.

2nd July 1897
Agincourt appears at the Britannia?Stevenage jump point without the survey ships. Her commander, Captain Morris, explains that his ship is out of spare parts and any further maintenance problems could result in damage to his ship. Therefore he has left the survey ships to carry on with their work while his ship returned for a minor overhaul. He reports that the Sheffield system has been surveyed, resulting in the discovery of mineral deposits on four worlds, although none of any significance, and the location of a second jump point. The new jump point led to Newport, a quaternary system with a F1-IV yellow-white sub-giant primary, a yellow G8-V star at 1.4 billion kilometers, an orange K3-V at 4.5 billion and another sub-giant, this time a G9-IV, at twenty-one billion. All four stars have planetary systems and two have small asteroid belts.

Newport contains several planets of interest. Orbiting the G9-IV sub-giant is a large but low-density terrestrial world covered almost entirely in water. The surface temperature is an ideal 15C and the gravity is only 0.89G. The oxygen ? Nitrogen atmosphere is almost breathable with 0.10 atm of oxygen compared to the minimum of 0.11 required for unprotected humans to survive. Another world that could be made ideal with minimal terraforming. It also has eighty-five millions tons of accessibility 0.9 Duranium and large amounts of accessible Neutronium, Corbomite and Mercassium. In orbit of the G8-V closest to the primary is another terrestrial world with acceptable gravity and a breathable atmosphere but a little chilly at -42C. However, there is a quantity of frozen sulphur dioxide on the surface, presumably from volcanic activity in the past. This may be released if the planet could be warmed up, adding to the increased temperature. Also in orbit of the same star is a very similar planet with a temperature of -70 and an atmosphere only just outside breathable parameters. Newport has significant mineral resources, including a planet with large quantities of ten different minerals with accessibilities ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. When Agincourt left, the gravitational survey was about 50% complete and the geo survey ships were heading out the system around the second sub-giant.

Because of the increasing number of worlds that could be made ideal with relatively little terraforming, a terraform module that can be built into a ship has been designed. Although this will ultimately be more costly than a ground-based terraforming installation due to its ongoing maintenance costs, it will allow more flexibility for short-term terraforming projects. The design of the first Terraforming ship is shown below.

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Genesis class Terraformer    5000 tons     420 Crew     782 BP      Signature 100-300
3000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10    
Terraformer: 1 module(s) producing 0.001 atm per annum

E7 Ion Engine (5)    Power 60    Engine Efficiency 0.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 123.4 billion km   (476 days at full power)
16th July 1897
A fifth Victory class freighter is constructed on Victoria

10th August 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and four freighters return from their latest trip to Aberdeen. The colony now has a population of 340,000 with four construction factories and two automated mines. Minotaur also delivered a full load of fuel so the colony has a fuel stockpile of almost 900,000 litres to support survey operations in the nearby systems.

1st September 1897
Agincourt completes her minor overhaul and immediately heads for Newport to rendezvous with the survey ships.

11th October 1897
Minotaur completes a minor overhaul on Victoria.

1st January 1898
Presented below is the annual summary for 1898. 1897 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.

1897 Summary
Population: 242m (235m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 170 (163)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.3m Litres. (5.0m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve