Author Topic: Colony Wars campaign: Introduction  (Read 2441 times)

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Colony Wars campaign: Introduction
« on: January 10, 2012, 04:04:54 AM »
The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw an explosion into space greater than anyone expected, post World War Two and Cold War posturing saw the space race between the US and Russia take off after Russia's historic first manned space flight and escalate even further by the accusations from both parties that they had deployed space based nuclear weaponry. This prompted most industrial nations to get into the party as well and by the end of the 20th century manned spaceflight was commonplace, with permanent space stations in orbit as well as on Luna and Mars.

The threat of mutually assured destruction forced an alliance of sorts in the space race, as all nations were run by more or less reasonable individuals and the corporations who influenced policy had no interest in destroying humanities home world. But in the push to space, they could engage in proxy battles looking for resources without triggering a genocidal war.

It turned out however that the Solar system had plenty of resources all around, and as access to space became ever more efficient, more and more of the population moved into space based industries, there was even room for private prospectors, who surveyed the asteroids and moon systems of the Jovian planets for valuable minerals.

By 2030 there were almost a billion people living and working off planet, many based on the huge Rama class habitats, based on the O'Neil cylinder design and named by a fan of ancient science fiction, these five million ton constructs housed a million people each in relative comfort and safety.


Code: [Select]
Rama class Orbital Habitat    5,132,800 tons     630 Crew     17318 BP      TCS 102656  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 5-2650     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 2    Max Repair 5 MSP
Habitation Capacity 1,000,000   


This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

In 2042 an independent research team announced to the system the discovery of Trans Newtonian technology and a new gold rush was on. The human governments, by this time more or less united in a desire to exploit the system, moved immediately to enact stricter controls over the scattered residents of space, attempting to more accurately and completely control any new mineral discoveries, as well as claim more profits for themselves, this did not sit well with many nationals who had been working space for two generations or more in some cases and even less well with the independent powers who were now finding their ships and claims captured, sometimes at gun point, resistance began to erupt, and the death toll mounted.

A formal alliance began to form: The rebels against the Terran loyalists, skirmishes using pre TN technology were commonplace, and both factions were rushing TN weapons development. Meanwhile the system became fully surveyed by TN survey vessels operated by both sides, these ships were far too fast to be caught by conventional weapons and operated without incident.
The final phase of the conflict was the destruction of over twenty Rama habitats around the mineral rich asteroids of El Dorado and Robert's Claim in 2049, the latter being destroyed utterly as fighting made its way into the mines on the asteroid itself and nuclear charges broke it apart. With the death of over twenty million people, certain rebel factions had had enough,  In 2051 they bombarded Terra and its tightly held colony of Mars with mass drivers, annihilating much of their industry and population. Many times more than were killed in the earlier massacres. But the death count was to climb higher, damage from the bombardments released certain biological weapons being developed on Terra from their containment, designed to spread quickly through highly populated zones, they worked entirely as designed on the heavily populated home world. By the time it was brought under control, the planet had fewer than 400 million organized individuals living upon it. Mars fared slightly better, with no biological weapons hitting it and by this time being fully terraformed. But was still down to some 100 million souls.

The year is now 2080 the environment of Terra has mostly recovered from the bombardments and the remainder of humanity on the home world and Mars are united under the Terran Empire. The rebel factions have also united, purging their ranks of the genocidal extremists and naming themselves the Terran Federation. In recent years jump points were theorized and the system surveyed for them, now yet another race is on to find resources out in the stars, perhaps this one will go slightly better.