Bit of a mammoth update, this one, at least in comparison to the first two posts. I apologise in advance if it gets a bit stale in parts.
Commonwealth -
Combined Population: 676.08 million
Naval Tonnage: 9600 tons
Commercial Tonnage: 35,200 tons
Civilian Tonnage: 845,650 tons
Ground Forces: 6x INF, 6x GAR
Republic -
Combined Population: 466.49 million
Naval Tonnage: 7800 tons
Commercial Tonnage: 22,600 tons
Civilian Tonnage: 0 tons
Ground Forces: 4x INF, 5x GAR, 1x REP
Corporation -
Combined Population: 214.93 million
Naval Tonnage: 4900 tons
Commercial Tonnage: 24,400 tons
Civilian Tonnage: 299,350 tons
Ground Forces: 3x INF, 3x GAR, 1x REP
By the first of January 2054, the Ghio Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering facility was finally in a position to begin construction of the Apollo class Jump Ship the Commonwealth had contracted to them, which as the namesake of its class, would be called the CSS Apollo. The same day saw the record of Val Ferreira and his Commonwealth team increase as they developed a more fuel-efficient component for engines that would save a tenth of the fuel current designs would use. Nearly a fortnight later, his team finalised the design for a newer military-grade NT-Engine utilising the same fuel-efficiency technology they'd recently developed. In an embarrassing meeting of the Commonwealth Council, the Councillor for Defence had been forced to reveal that the CSS Holland and CSS Gambia had been launched with no missiles in their magazines, forcing the war reserve to have been opened for use. However, rather than being fed to the public as he'd expected, it was Governor Blitz who argued that a mere eighty missiles for four vessels was insufficient.
This time it was Chief Councillor Joaquin Bagg who suggested not just replacing the used missiles, but then doubling the stockpile, in an effort to prevent his hold on the Council slipping away yet again in favour of Luna's persuasive governor. A few days later, as part of the work on increasing the stockpile, Val Ferreira and his team are called upon to design a miniaturised version of the new military-grade NT-Engine for a successor to the Spitball S2A Anti-Ship Missile as part of an upgrade package. Officially, his work is explained as part of an eco-drive to use less resources and allow the Turkmenistan class to operate in meteorite defence alongside the Earth class. Few in the Republic or the Corporation believe this, and as if in answer to the news, the Nicomachean scientist Celina Escobar Ruelas completed her team's research into a beam fire control allowing one-hundred percent accuracy at sixteen-thousand kilometres.
Early on in February saw the Montague Foundation celebrate the one year anniversary of their Swift-Tuttle facility's expansion by opening yet another mining complex upon the asteroid, bringing it to five facilities. Little happened but for a month later, when the already remarkably crowded Commonwealth civilian shipping sector saw a newcomer in the form of Ladden Shipping Limited founded. Within a few weeks, the Commonwealth inaugurated the construction of their twenty-eighth research lab, news that served to bolster the work of the Republic's own Jesus Feliciano Leyva and his team to make the final push into researching improved electro-magnetic sensor sensitivity. All these events were swiftly overshadowed in the Kurogasai Corporation's eyes when the CEO of the corporation, one Hagiwara Kintoshi, who as CEO had also assumed governorship of Callisto, was forced to retire when an accident in a maglev branch saw the deaths and maiming of hundreds of people, and the loss of his legs. In late May, Ladden Shipping Limited made the most notable introduction yet in the commerce sector when they launched three freighters at once, a one-hundred and fifty-four thousand-plus ton megafreighter, a sixty-two thousand-plus ton and a thirty-one thousand five-hundred ton design respectively.
By early June, the newly-instated CEO of Kurogasai, Arai Mihoko, was keen to bolster the support of her board members in the cut-throat arena that was Kurogasai's internal management debates. Already alarmed by how the Commonwealth was clearly dominating the mercantile arena, and how it had doubled the number of mobile military assets available to it, she set upon a plan; to initiate a technological exchange between the corporation and the Nicomachean Republic, long-time believers in the Commonwealth's flawed nature. With the approval of her fellow board members, she approached President Espinosa with the proposal of exchanging the Corporation's improved research capability in exchange for the Nicomachean's improvements in enhanced beam control range and their recently developed tractor system, and the Republic and its leaders eagerly agreed. Within a week, Kurogasai's ship-artisans had designed a tug, designated the Wasp class;
Wasp class Tug 6 100 tons 68 Crew 252 BP TCS 122 TH 250 EM 0
2049 km/s Armour 1-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 26 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Tractor Beam
Kodama-Ooka 62.5 EP Commercial Thermal Engine (4) Power 62.5 Fuel Use 13.26% Signature 62.5 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 22.3 billion km (125 days at full power)
Two began construction immediately in the Usami Shipwrights yard, with the intention of being used to tow the KDU's Tatsumaki class Orbital Weapons Platforms from Callisto to the moons they were supposed to be guarding from orbit. By late June, the Commonwealth body Jin Shipping Line had launched another pair of ships, at sixty-five thousand tons and thirty-two thousand-plus tons respectively and bringing them to ten vessels. Embarrassed as they were that even Kurogasai, with a quarter of the population, still had a shipping industry larger than their own, the Republic's President Espinosa and her inner guard of the Mars' 'Old Families' decided to quietly subsidise the virtually defunct Vilalpando Shipping in the hope that future colonisation efforts of their own wouldn't leave it unable to cope.
In early July, the Kurogasai Corporation notched up a success when lead researcher Matoke Toshiyuki and his team completed their own research into all the areas required to construct their own Pinfolder, before promptly setting to work on designing their own. On the 12th of July, the Commonwealth celebrated a double achievement, opening a twenty-ninth research lab, as well as launching the brand new CSS Apollo Jump Ship. Four days after launch, the CSS Apollo, along with the survey vessels CSS Magellan and CSS Ptolemy, activated the Pinfolder and transited through JP-1, just inside Venus' orbit. After checking the plethora of starcharts the computers held and the astronomical data being gathered, the Jump Group identified their location as Barnard's Star, and the expedition commander, one Bernice Nieman, ordered the small squadron to head for the outermost body.
A week later back in the Sol System, Lloyd Costigan and his team conducted a programme of general manoeuvrability improvements for missiles, improving the agility to an efficiency of thirty-two. On the twenty-sixth of July, the Jump Group had covered a mere fifty-percent of the distance to the outermost body of Barnards Star, forcing Commander Nieman to order her own vessel, the Apollo, to turn back to the Jump Point in an effort to ensure that neither of the other powers transited the Jump Point without the Commonwealth's knowledge. In the meantime, she ordered the Magellan to proceed on a survey, charting the main planetary bodies from the outside inwards under the codename 'Delver One' as part of the established protocols of the Commonwealth Fleet, in order to mystify any potential Corporation or Republic vessels lurking in the system already. The Ptolemy, under its operational name of 'Searcher One', was despatched to explore and map the system's identified gravitmetric distortions for the same signs of potential space-time weaknesses that allowed the Pinfolder to even work. With three days, the Magellan notched up a notable success by surveying Barnards Star-A VI, identifying it as an immense source of sorium fuel, with over nineteen million tons of it to be harvested.
By mid-August, the Magellan had gone on to survey Barnards Star-A V, identifying it as a source of just under two million tons of Sorium; though a pittance compared to the amount held by VI, the crew believed it would be easy to retrieve the Sorium from the gas giant's atmosphere. A few days later on Earth, the researcher Lloyd Costigan and his team, fresh from developing a more fuel-efficient missile allowing for greater speed at a minor cost in fuel capacity, were congratulated for their efforts by the announcement of the new Turkmenistan Flight II class Frigate. This new vessel, utilising nearly all the work conducted by Doctor Costigan and his team in order to make a more fuel-efficient design, with the attendant savings in fuel expenditure that many of the Commonwealth's most notable activists called for, was intended to serve as the new standard for the Commonwealth Fleet. At the behest of the rather more hawkish councillors the design mounted missile launchers with a firerate twice that of the original Turkmenistan class, as well as the improved Spitball S2B missile recently developed by Doctor Costigan's team;
Turkmenistan Flight II class Frigate 1 100 tons 29 Crew 90.5 BP TCS 22 TH 25 EM 0
1136 km/s Armour 1-9 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 4
Maint Life 13.08 Years MSP 51 AFR 9% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 8 Max Repair 10 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 4 months Spare Berths 2
Magazine 20
Biele-Mcenery 12.5 EP Military NT-Engine (2) Power 12.5 Fuel Use 15.12% Signature 12.5 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 20 000 Litres Range 21.6 billion km (220 days at full power)
Verdon-Kaschak Engineering Company M2A Missile Launcher (2) Missile Size 2 Rate of Fire 30
Bratt Corporation Missile Fire Control FC6-R20 (1) Range 6.7m km Resolution 20
Spitball S2B Anti-Ship Missile (10) Speed: 3 100 km/s End: 41.3m Range: 7.7m km WH: 1 Size: 2 TH: 12/7/3
Meanwhile, the Magellan carried on its explorations and identified two deposits on Barnards Star-A IV, one a three-quarters of a million ton deposit of Boronide, and the other of just under a quarter-million tons of Corundium. Ten days later, its efforts were paid off with success as a survey of Barnards Star-A III is conducted and the presence of thirteen-million tons of Sorium is made known. At the same time, buoyed up by the continuing Commonwealth compulsory purchase of civilian-mined resources, the Montague Foundation exploited their newfound wealth to purchase the materials and hire workers to build and operate a sixth mining facility on their Swift-Tuttle claim.
By the ninth of September, the Magellan had managed to complete a survey of Barnards Star-A II, discovering an estimated eighteen million tons of Duranium, some twelve million tons of Sorium, and five million tons of Corundium upon the planet, but the latter two were extremely deep inside the planet's crust, with the attendant difficulties that implied for mining them. Five days later on the fourteenth, deeply encouraged by his ship's success at A II, Lieutenant Commander Clayton Blumberg moved on to survey Barnards Star-A I. The discovered minerals, consisting of several types, all ranging from four million tons to just over seventeen million tons in size, rivalled the resources found on any of the homeworlds of the various Sol-bound factions...it was with some trepidation that in his report, Lieutenant Commander Blumberg mentioned the incredibly low accessibility rates of the deposits, with only Vendarite being easily accessible.
Within hours after being broadcast to the Apollo, and thence onto Earth, his report was being reviewed by the Commonwealth Council. These worthies then went on to make the decision of recalling the Magellan in favour of the CSS Brahe, in order to better assist the CSS Ptolemy in mapping the gravitational fracture points universally known to most human scientists as survey points that lay in Barnards Star. At the same time, in accordance with, and expanding upon, the original 'Freerunner' Programme, orders were made for the Evacuation Group to travel to Luna and extract what spare infrastructure could be conveyed, before then proceeding to Earth to retrieve the next designated batch of colonists before making its way to the Barnards Star Jump Point and make its way to Barnards Star-A I. While access to the resources held by that world was relatively poor, it was believed that the advantage of more suitable living conditions for the human frame on I as compared to II, put it in the superior position. Just a week after the CSS Brahe was despatched to Barnards Star, with only four survey sites mapped out between the two Ptolemy class vessels, the crew of the CSS Ptolemy identify a viable Jump Point some three-hundred million kilometres outside of Barnards Star-A V's orbit, a success mirrored just under a fortnight later on the fourth of October, with the mapping of two more survey sites revealing the location of a third Jump Point, this time just outside the orbit of Barnards Star-A III.
Little of note happened for a month, until Kurogasai researcher Matoke Toshiyuki finalised the design for a Pinfolder-drive practically identical to that of the Commonwealth's own. Newly capable of transiting through Jump Points, the Kurogasai Corporation nonetheless turned its attention to other matters that it deemed more important. A few days later, the Commonwealth built their thirtieth research facility, ending the then-current research expansion programme that had allowed them to dominate the technological arena, while Mars saw the announcement of the successful development of a troop transport bay by Laura Mesa Concepcion and her team. The Republic's government proudly played up this achievement, noting that this meant the Nicomachean Army was to be the first with the potential to deploy its forces on other worlds. On the thirteenth of November, with the first twenty thousand colonists secured safely on Barnards Star-A I, the Commonwealth decided to rename the world in a manner more fitting for public consumption, re-designating it 'Coldhaven'. In the process, contracts were set up for the burgeoning civilian shipping sector to begin to freight infrastructure and terraforming installations to the new colony. Within two days, the Republic still echoing proud boasts of its newfound military flexibility on news-channels, the Commonwealth Fleet despatched half its combat power, the Task Force Rommel, consisting of CSS Luna, CSS Holland and CSS Gambia to picket the Sol side of the Barnards Star Jump Point. A few days before New Years Eve 2054, Kate Yukiko and her Kurogasai team burnt out the backlog of work they'd left over Christmas, researching a sensor system for the new Atlas class PDC that would allow it to identify a two-thousand ton vessel at fifteen million kilometres.
The results of the Commonwealth election, held over the preceding week, were unveiled on New Year's Day. Chief Councillor Joaquin Bagg is returned to office in an election won largely off the campaign emphasising his work in boosting the Commonwealth's recent trade industry, as well as taking a reasonably firm line in dealing with Mars. At the same time, the head of the Commonwealth Fleet, one Captain Quincy Largo, is awarded the Long Service Medal for fifteen years, or three service-terms, spent in the arms of the Fleet. Just over a week later, Anita Fantasian and her team conduct vital research for the Commonwealth, improving the strength of its planetary sensors. A few days later, the Kurogasai Corporation, in an effort to boost their relations with the Nicomachean Republic and boost their sometime-partner's economic stability, permitted Republican trade in their own economy. By late January, the Commonwealth's own Bob Checo and his team researched improvements in construction technologies and techniques as part of an effort to boost the Commonwealth's building industry. A fortnight later, the Republic constructs a new research lab of their own, bringing them to thirteen in an effort to bolster their slow research progress.
In mid-March, Jin Colony Line, the Commonwealth's biggest civilian shipping line, launched yet another thirty-two thousand-plus ton freighter. Though one of their smaller designs, this latest addition brought them to eleven ships, the most of any line operating in the Sol System. A fortnight later, the Republic's Casarez & Nieto Heavy Industries launched a project to expand their twelve-thousand ton-capacity facility to twenty-two thousand tons in order to construct the Espana class Fuel Harvester;
España class Fuel Harvester 13 700 tons 60 Crew 339 BP TCS 274 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-51 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 15 Max Repair 30 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Fuel Harvester: 5 modules producing 100000 litres per annum
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres Range N/A
Just over a week later, in an effort to compensate for the lacking numbers in their officer ranks, the Commonwealth increased the funding, instructor numbers, and number of facilities of the famous Saint-Cyr Academy to allow class sizes double the size of the previous years. Meanwhile on Io, Kate Yukiko and her team researched an electro-magnetic sensor for the Atlas class PDC, nearly completing the full range of sensors demanded for its role. By mid-April, the Corporation's top researchers had gone on to develop a ship-borne module with all the parts and machinery that would allow a vessel to construct a large, stationary device that could provide the same effect as the normal Pinfolder drive. The small size of the module however, dictated that any such construction effort would take around a year to complete. Late April saw the two Commonwealth gravitational survey ships, still busy at work in the Barnards Star system, identify a fourth jump point some six-hundred million kilometres distant from the third jump point discovered in September of 2054 and five-hundred million kilometres outside of the orbital radius of Barnards Star-A V.
On the ninth of May, a new civilian mining complex was founded by Commonwealth citizens under the label of Jovian Enterprises, this time on the Saturnian moon of Hyperion. Little happened for much of the rest of the month until the twenty-fourth of May, when President Espinosa , with the backing of her cabinet, approached the Kurogasai Corporation with an offer of trading the recently-developed Nicomachean troop transport module in exchange for a compact fuel tank design, as part of the Republic's covert approach to designing an exploration vessel of their own. Within two weeks, a Nicomachean team under the lead of Marcos Mata Valle conducted their research into an improved terraformer rate in order to prepare for a possible expansion of the living area available to Martians in the future. By early July, the Republic gained another advantage, when the famed Celina Escobar Ruelas stepped out of her main area of expertise with sensor technology to work in developing a viable laser using the visible light wavelength. By the tenth of August, the Montague Foundation decided to found a third mining colony of their own, this time one based on Halley's Comet.
Little then occurred of note, until early September and the launch of Jin Colony Line's twelfth vessel, a thirty-two thousand-plus ton freighter that saw the company operating over twice the tonnage owned by their closest competitors in the form of Fontan Marine. It took until early October for any scientific breakthrought to occur, with Elbert Greenstreet and his Commonwealth team researching improved technologies and techniques that were estimated to give any state-contracted shipyard a ten-percent reduction in funding and time spent on any operation. Precisely one month later, Laura Mesa Concepcion and her hardworking Nicomachean team researched improved combat efficiency for the Nicomachaen Army's units, something quickly spread to all of them. The Nicomachaen Republic's naval staff celebrated, when in early December, word reached them that Jesus Feliciano Leyva and his team had researched an improved fire control target tracking algorithm, allowing much greater efficiency when aiming at fast-moving targets like the Commonwealth's missiles. Back on Earth a few days later, this silent arms race was boosted yet again when Lloyd Costigan and his team devised a stronger warhead using the implosion fission process. Just before Christmas 2055, the Republic built a fourteenth research lab, rendering what efforts were on-going already a small boost.
