28th February 2371 Lagrange, the Federal ship that made contact with the Commune, arrives in a system connected to jump gate network and sends her reports. The vessel spent two weeks exchanging messages with the Third Frigate Squadron and the senior officers were even invited for a tour and dinner on board the frigate leader Mikelbaka, the flagship of the small force. A significant amount of information was traded.
The initial reaction of the population is euphoria that not one, but two human civilizations survived in this one region of space, which means even more may exist somewhere out there, but the government has much to worry about.
First and foremost is the issue of the Administrator, the AI that for all instances and purposes rules the Commune. As its programming is impossible to understand by this point, due to its self-evolving nature, this makes the nation essentially unpredictable. To make matters worse it can process so much information so fast it is impossible to know what the AI knows or does not so even if its logic could be re-traced, the assumptions upon which said logic was based could not. Many fear for example, that if the Commune is much more powerful than the Federation, and it almost certainly is, the Administrator may decide it is logical to quickly take it over for security concerns and to create unified front against the aliens.
The second very important problem for Phoenix will be the multitude of alien races present. They already feared the destroyer and encountered a single alien carrier, although they did not know if any more like this exist. But now they also know of the ADS and they know of many battles both the Commune and the Hegemony have fought. This validates those who wanted a more versatile navy and thanks to the warnings the Republic will be prepared for future encounters, but it is still worrying.
Which leaves the last issue, the Hegemony. Assuming the Commune information can be trusted, this may very well be the greatest danger yet. The Destroyer hasn't been seen for centuries, ADS almost never leaves their systems and the unnamed race operating FAC carriers appears to be disorganized and unchanging, but the Hegemony is large, militarized, organized and apparently very expansionist. Fortunately while the Commune did not want to tell the Federation of their own capabilities, they did reveal the Hegemony uses carriers, which is a very important information as it means the current anti-missile defenses are inadequate. Phoenix will need anti-missiles and soon.
Despite all those worries the initial negotiations went well. The Commune is very willing to to sign a mutual defense treaty against any alien races that threaten mankind, but other than that they did not push for anything that would force the Republic to reveal how weak they are. Apparently the Commune itself is worried about similar issue, although in their case this may be more about how stretched they are due to multitude of threats they face. Phoenix is likely to accept this as it's basically nothing more than a written promise of help.
Another issue is territorial in nature.
Thee systems are known to both nations: ECN 4771, ECN 4774 and ECN 4781, although they have different names in the Commune. The first one has a total of five jump points and is an important junction. The last one is the place of the contact, a home to a small listening post and has only two jump points, one of which leads to an apparently important system in the Commune. The ECN 4774 is unremarkable system with no candidates for colonization, uninteresting mineral deposits and only two jump points. Needless to say their status may become a point of conflict between the two nations.
Comparison of historical data revealed, assuming neither nation has lied, that ECN 4771 was discovered by the Republic first, but the other two system has been discovered first by the Commune and one of them has already been developed, although admittedly on a very minor scale. The Administrator proposed a rather simple and elegant solution. ECN 4771 will be granted wholly to Phoenix, ECN 4781 will remain in the hands of the Commune, which already developed it and the middle system, the ECN 4774 will remain neutral and accessible to both parties, but with proviso that neither can erect any permanent or static installations, like orbital fortifications with the exception of unmanned listening posts. Fleet units however can be put into the system in any numbers, but at least a hundred million kilometers from jump points, so as to avoid blockades.
This suits the Republic very well. Due to the number of jump points the ECN 4771 system is absolutely essential to their future and could not be given away. Better yet, as they can put forces into ECN 4774, the former system can be fully secured. While it would be nice to get sovereignty over it and over ECN 4781, it is obvious that the latter one is considered by the Commune to be their property and they would go to war if anyone tried to claim it. In the end the Republic agrees to those terms, renaming ECN 4771 as Dover and ECN 4774 as Calais after two cities, one English and one French, that once stood at the mouth of the English Channel.
With this Lagrange is sent back to the Commune system to inform them of the Republican decisions. A construction ship will also be sent to complete the chain of gates between the two nations, although due to the distances involved this will take some time. Last but not least the survey vessel will complete its work on the ECN 4781 system, which was permitted by the Commune if the territorial agreement is reached. Apparently they want the Republic to know the route to their system of Athens in case trade agreement is reached in the future.
Unfortunately before all of this can happen Lagrange needs to head home to refuel. This will also give the government time to prepare all the responses to many other Commune messages.
5th May 2371 Lagrange returns to ECN 4781 system and the representatives of the two nations officially sign their boarder agreement and their pledge to help each other with hostile aliens. The Third Frigate Squadron will now pull back to Eden to bolster its defenses. While some propose building a colony and fortifications in the contact system, it makes little sense as the only two jump points present are very close together and very distant from the inner system, so any colony can be easily bypassed. Eden on the other hand is already developing its own ground based defenses making it a logical place for stopping any potential invasion force, although fortunately right now any conflict between the two nations seems very unlikely.
25th September 2371 The Republic government receives news of alien race in ECN 4782, four jumps from Phoenix through the Dover system. The system is rather poor in celestial bodies but nonetheless has two candidates for colonization.
Thanks to the information received from the Commune the ships are immediately identified as belonging to the ADS. Unfortunately the Republic possesses no jump ships, so gates will have to be constructed and then a gamble will have to be taken as a naval force moves in overseeing construction of a gate. However thanks to the information coming from the Hegemony through the Commune space, it appears such a strategy can work.
This of course means no action can be taken for over eighteen months as other jump gates leading to the system must be assembled first, but that is fine with the government as it gives them an excuse to wait and build up their forces without appearing weak to the public.
14th October 2371 Analyzing information coming from the Republic the Commune intelligence services became convinced that the Phoenixian economy is much more efficient, possibly by as much as eighty percent. While in itself it's mostly just a curiosity it rises huge fears about the Hegemony, which has twice the population of the Commune. If their industry is also more efficient then it represents an enormous danger to the future of the nation.
In retrospect this should come as no surprise however. Due to the threat posed by the ADS and the aliens encountered in the North-Eastern Sector the Commune R&D was oriented heavily towards the military. In particular a large amount of resources have been put into engines, as the long distances between colonies worlds made speed critical. Last but not least several ancient installations have been found, boosting research in certain areas, particularly in sensors on Eden and missile and kinetic field on Prkos. The combination of opportunity and necessity left little room for anything else. Army, logistics, terraforming, industry, energy weapons and some others ended up being very underfunded areas of research.
However as the peace with the Hegemony and the Republic is holding there is an opportunity to solve the issue. There is a large, ancient manufacturing complex on one of the planets that would improve any economic research by ninety percent. Better yet, the target planet is home to alien ruins and is almost habitable with low infrastructure requirements. It is however also located in North-Eastern Sector, which is basically off-limits due to large alien presence in one of the nearby systems but the government feels the time has come to eliminate said presence. A large portion of the Home Fleet is detached in secret, which is very unusual for the Commune as the same time the government does not want to give the Hegemony an opening. The information will be released to the public once the operation is over, be it a success or a defeat.
21st November 2371 Four gunboat flotillas supported by two frigate squadrons arrive in ES – 38 KH3, the system where the aliens were first encountered. Thanks to the incident in ES – 60 and the reports from the Hegemony, the Commune knows the aliens are hostile and does not intend to hold back.
Due to the lack of any wrecks the aliens are known more and more as Specters by the crews. While the term has first originated years ago, the government was unwilling to adopt such a sensationalist name, but in the end they have decided it mattered little. They needed to name the aliens as something and this particular name was as good as any.
As expected, there was no alien presence near the jump point. Kopernik class ships have been keeping vigil on the system ever since the Specters were first encountered and nothing tried to leave the system, at least not through the only known wormhole. What is somewhat surprising however is that the more sensitive detection systems on the destroyer leaders also find nothing. Even so the jump point is quite distant from the small inner system where all the bodies are located, so it's probably just a matter of the enemy not patrolling their territory. The eighty four Commune vessels start moving towards the star. The entire force is under the command of Vice Admiral Enrick Chitul.
23rd November 2371 Eight Specter FACs are detected approaching the human force. As the Admiral expected the aliens to throw much more at him and so few ships pose little threat, he intends to use railguns. Several minutes later a powerful shield emission is detected further in the inner system, two and a half times as powerful as that of the sixty thousand tonne carrier encountered in ES – 60 system and moving at four thousand kilometers per second.
Unfortunately the plan did not go as well as hoped. While there was one target per frigate, and each of those had three heavy railguns, those had long recharge times and their damage dropped sharply with range. Once the aliens closed in enough for the lighter guns to fire, they died quickly but before that they managed several hits on the corvette Odra, some of which were very lucky destroying her only engine and one of the magazines. Twenty one of her crew died in the resulting explosions. Worse perhaps, the entire force had to halt while the damages were being repaired.
25th November 2371 The repairs to Odra are complete and the human force once again moves towards the inner system. The huge Specter vessel is still there, flying around without apparent purpose or destination, despite having to know about the intruders.
27th November 2371 The Specter vessel tracked so far only by its own emissions is now in active sensor range of the human fleet. Its size is calculated at two hundred thousand tonnes, more than anything the Commune have ever encountered. However there are still no signs of any other ships, despite the fact that three sixty thousand tonne carriers have been encountered during the discovery of the system. The prevalent theory is that they left through an unknown jump point.
28th November 2371 The original plan presented by Force HQ was to close to energy weapon range and destroy the aliens with minimal use of ammunition. As the gunboats of the four flotillas in the system could target similarly sized vessels, the small aliens were considered to be of no consequence. However there is only a single alien rather than the four expected ones and the human ships already lost twenty one people against mere eight gunboats. In light of those facts, as the senior officer present, Vice Admiral Chitul decides on alternative tactics.
As the ships close to less than twenty million kilometers he orders his corvettes to fire a single salvo. It won't be enough to seriously damage the huge enemy, but if it is also a carrier, he wants to bait any gunboats into revealing themselves so he can destroy them at range. Once he's confident there are no more small enemies he'll use his Piranhas to destroy the primary target. He could do so first of course, but he wants to have the gunboats ready if any aliens get too close.
This plan will of course require him to use most, if not all, of his ammunition but he's not worried. As the government wanted to conserve the latest ordnance against the Hegemony and the Destroyer his ships are equipped with second generation missiles. Those should be more than sufficient to the task, large stockpiles exist in the Commune and they are two generations out of date anyway. He seriously doubts anyone will object their usage, even if it seems unjustified.
The well trained Commune crews need only seconds to implement the Admirals orders and the six corvettes of the Twelfth Frigate Squadron launch ninety six Spear II anti-missiles at their target. All hit causing the alien to launch eighty FACs, much more than expected. All twelve corvettes, each equipped with sixteen launchers, begin to fire. At the moment two salvos of anti-missiles are directed at each enemy, but more will follow against any survivors.
To Chituls surprise the barrage ended up destroying all but four of the coming FACs, a much better outcome than he expected. He knew his anti-missiles were guaranteed to hit even enemies moving at eleven thousand kilometers per second, but they also had very light warheads. Even so it was enough for the task, so he ordered four of his corvettes to fire a single salvo at all remaining enemies while he continued his approach to the alien behemoth.
As the distance falls below three hundred thousand kilometers the Admiral orders his Piranhas to open fire. He could have done so from longer range of course, but if the four flotillas he have are not enough to destroy the target, he wants to follow with anti-missiles and railguns as quickly as he can. In total fifteen hundred and thirty six Arrows II have been fired. The results were shocking. All managed to hit, apparently not giving the enemy time to use point defense, but very, very few managed to get through apparently massive armor. Railguns begun showering the behemoth in fire, but he wasn't even slowed and the massive shields begun to regenerate quickly.
The human forces closed to one hundred and fifty thousand kilometers and kept the range open, but with twenty second recharge rate on their main guns, they could not overcome the shield regeneration. Using anti-missiles was a possibility but all corvettes had their magazines less than forty percent full so it would not help much. Even so he ordered his corvettes to open fire, hoping for a lucky hit.
He didn't get one. As the last of his anti-missiles left the launch tubes, the enormous alien has been slowed by one eight, had its main sensor disabled and several secondary explosions have been detected. But its secondary active sensors were still online and the shield recharge rate was still too high. Considering what eight gunboats did to him, Chitul fully expected the enemy to be able to kill his corvettes or maybe even frigates with a single salvo. With his small railguns having effective range of only forty thousand kilometers, the alien could fire several times depending on its heading. He could not take the risk.
It mattered little. Three more gunboat flotillas were standing ready above Courland and there were over fifteen thousand more Arrows II in storage on Perun alone, not counting ammunition already loaded on gunboats or stockpiled in other locations. Nor did it count six thousand rounds of newer models. Retreating and coming back with a larger force was the best course of action, even thought he fully expected the Specter behemoth to be fully repaired by the time he was back, possibly with new gunboats as well. But it was still better to lose ordnance than lives and ships.
30th November 2371 The events in the ES – 38 system were closely monitored by the government and they confirmed what they knew, but ignored, for some time now. The Commune energy weapons are sadly subpar and out of date. Small improvements have been made, but those won't change the overall picture while also being very expensive. More needs to be done.
Eden has already made improvements to fire controls, but those matter little as current railguns are unable to use the full range offered by those and desired tracking speed can be achieved by building larger systems. Even so additional research will be done in this area.
Prkos has also conducted some research, but even less than Eden. They have developed weapons of larger caliber and they are currently developing higher launch velocities. As the Commune is quite well developed in the missile area, making any new discoveries expensive and time consuming, the colony will now fully concentrate on improving railguns and gauss cannons.
The last development needed to truly upgrade Commune close range fighting ability are new capacitors. However those will be expensive and slow to develop and it is not yet known where exactly the research will take place. Worst case scenario, as the current problem seems to be mostly range related, no new developments in this area will be made.
All of this will of course take years, possibly decades, but there is little else that can be done. For the near future the Commune will have to rely heavily on missiles. Fortunately their biggest worry, he Hegemony, seems to be also missile oriented, with mediocre energy weapons and low speed, which at least will allow the Commune to dictate the range. The situation is not good, certainly, but it is far from grim.
1st January 2372 All twelve planets in Phoenix has now been colonized by their respective national groups. With the combined population of eight hundred and twenty three million, it is the second most heavily populated system in known space, after Sanctuary, which has population of twenty seven hundred and nine million people. More amazingly perhaps there is no other system with so many bodies that could be inhabited by humans.
But what really is talked about in the media the most, is not the total population, but its growth. Mere fifty two years ago, when the exhausted and broken fleet arrived in the system, there were only twenty seven million people still alive. Now thirty times as many live in Phoenix, but that should have been expected. As the Republic considers in free medical care to be a basic human right, every single citizen received life extension treatments, making people live for centuries. During that time it's not unusual for people to become parents, raise a child, live on their own for a while and then have another child. In addition the government knew they'll have population problem, so they have been cloning people from preserved genetic samples. Some wanted to push for even more clones, but that was impossible. Aside from potential cultural consequences if too large percentage of population was raised without parents, there was simply no money for more orphanages. Even so what was available made an amazing job.
And of course during that time two other nations have been discovered. Those who remembered the dreary days shortly after landings, with sparse cities and scattered villages keep being astounded that the total known human population is now over five billion. They also remember however that this is still far cry from nearly twenty billion people who lived before the Destroyer arrived.
With this the time has come to establish the first colonies outside the Phoenix system. Next one on the list is ECN 4773, the only one connecting to the capital and as such a critically important junction. It has three candidates for terraforming, all of which already have infrastructure stockpiled and prepared on the surface and has been awarded to Norway, Sweden and Denmark. It will also be renamed Scandinavia. It is estimated that around three million people will emigrate to each of the new planets. The full list of Republican member states and their population is given below.
New Atlantis: 253 million
Germany: 120 million
Seine: 103 million
Albion: 82 million
Servii: 77 million
Ukraine: 68 million
Gniezno: 52 million
Iberia: 47 million
Bucharest: 7 million
Waddenzee: 6 million
Crete: 4 million
Madeira: 3 million
Vanern: no population yet
Oslo: no population yet
Jutland: no population yet
4th January 2372 During a routine geological survey of a new system, a small alien outpost was found on a reasonable candidate for colonization in the ES- 71 GH5 system. The outpost was centered around a large propulsion laboratory that should help any research on the planet done in that area, although not to the same extent as some other similar facilities due to the poor state it was found in. Those are very good news for the Commune as the nation puts heavy emphasis on speed, but the planet won't be settled for a long time due to other existing commitments and the distance involved.
1st March 2372 Seven gunboat flotillas, two frigate squadrons and a cruiser division enter the ES – 38 system with the sole mission of killing the alien behemoth. The cruisers were specifically included due to the powerful active and passive sensors of the Rugewit class, but even she cannot see the enemy from the entry point. Even so once the battle is over, and assuming it ends with victory for human forces, the cruiser will make it easier to scout the system for any other threats. For now the ships simply move towards the inner system.
Almost a day later the thermal signature of the alien is detected. To the surprise of the human crews it appears to be still damaged as its speed is still reduced. Even so most of its shields will be back, so a large strike will still be necessary to get through those and the remaining armor.
5th March 2372 As humans close on their target, they realize they detect no shields, despite the range being only three hundred million kilometers. The first instinct of Vice Admiral Enrick Chitul is to launch the long range Trebuchet missiles from his cruisers, but then he remembers there are only five thousand of them in the entire nation, and that including all three generations. The Arrows II on his Piranhas on the other hand are plentiful and expendable. Regrettably he'll have to close to fifty million kilometers, but hopefully the alien will fail to notice him.
Hours later the fleet is thirty three million kilometers away from its target, which still has not activated the shields. Chitul orders three flotillas to fire, launching eleven hundred and fifty two missiles. Suddenly shields appeared, but only sixty percent as strong as they were before the enemy was damaged. In the end a hundred and ten hit and while the thermal signature of the alien dropped slightly again, it still lived.
The other four flotillas opened fire, launching over fifteen hundred shipkillers. This finally prove enough to the point where over five hundred missiles had to self destruct, but the Admiral does not mind. The extremely resilient alien behemoth is finally gone, leaving no wreck. Gunboats, frigates and corvettes set course back home while the cruisers will perform additional flybys of the system to make sure no enemies remain.
12th March 2372 The Hegemony has recently built two new naval yards and the first of those has been expanded to ten thousand tonnes allowing it to build frigates. However the government is still discussing what exactly should be built in those.
The Navy has three significant blind spots. They have no long range offensive power aside from the carriers, they have no jump point assault force and they have no dedicated jump point defense ships.
The last issue is considered immaterial by the government. Any close in defense of jump points is, as far as they are concerned, a roll of dice. Either the defender will have a significant advantage, allowing him to destroy a significant chunk of enemy forces for little cost, or the reverse will be true. But whatever happens it is almost impossible to disengage during jump point assaults, leaving forces committed to whatever fate awaits them. This is considered unacceptable and the government prefers the enemy to enter their systems, fully revealing themselves and exposing themselves for a large fighter strike.
A dedicated jump assault vessel is also considered to be of limited value, for fighters may very well prove to be the best option. They are small, numerous and can jump simultaneously in any numbers if jump gates are present. Simulations show that even if jump point is heavily defended, fighters can enter the system and get out of range of energy weapons quickly, thanks to their speed and lunch their missiles before suffering catastrophic loses. This is of course dependent on a gate being present on both sides of the jump point, but that is true for both boarder systems. Ergo a dedicated assault force is not considered necessary at this time.
But the lack of long range strike ability aside from fighters is considered an issue, as the current carriers cannot traverse jump points without a jump gate. Up until now if a new system was discovered that contained ADS or Specters, a jump gate would be built, a carrier group would enter and clear the system and then another gate would be built on the other side. That however meant any committed force was unavailable for at least half a year and the risk was rather high despite there being no outright disasters so far. Worse as all the carriers are far above one hundred thousand tonnes making a jump vessel that could accommodate them is considered to be far too costly and impractical. In the end this ends up being to be top priority for the Navy.
As such one yard will be upgraded to twenty thousand tonnes and will be used to build a new class of missile armed destroyers, which will either support carrier groups or will be operating on their own. The second yard will be expanded to thirty or forty thousand tonnes, used to build jump vessels for everything short of fleet carriers and then used to build either multi-role warships or small carriers designed specifically to operate outside jump gate network. As yard expansion will take some time the details will be worked out in the future.
16th March 2372 The Republic designs a new destroyer escort, the Rome class. It has the same armor and laser armament as the Berlin class but the gauss cannons have been replaced by fifty anti-missile launchers and large magazines. In the future the Rome class will serve as a long range missile defense with the Flower class escort cruisers adding last ditch point defense to the battle groups.
Rome class Destroyer Escort 12 500 tons 418 Crew 2594 BP TCS 250 TH 900 EM 0
3600 km/s Armour 4-47 Shields 0-0 Sensors 33/42/0/0 Damage Control Rating 9 PPV 71.06
Maint Life 3.42 Years MSP 1167 AFR 138% IFR 1.9% 1YR 152 5YR 2280 Max Repair 405 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 662
Giarelli Techsystems Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 900 Fuel Use 19.21% Signature 900 Exp 9%
Fuel Capacity 600 000 Litres Range 45.0 billion km (144 days at full power)
Single Rhodes Precision Arms 120mm NU Laser Turret (3x1) Range 120 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 4-5 RM 3 ROF 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Rhodes Precision Arms 190mm Spinal NU Laser (1) Range 192 000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 9-5 RM 3 ROF 10 9 9 9 6 5 4 3 3 3 2
Meneghin Techsystems Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 192 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Lamarliere Aircraft Engine Co Tokamak Fusion Reactor (3) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Acevedo-Tovar Anti-Missile Launcher (50) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
van Kooten-de Beaufort Anti-Missile Fire Control (5) Range 23.5m km Resolution 1
Interceptor (662) Speed: 72 000 km/s End: 0.5m Range: 2.4m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 528/316/158
van Kooten-de Beaufort Missile Warning System (1) GPS 168 Range 23.5m km MCR 2.6m km Resolution 1
Engels Electronics Industries Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 33m km
Engels Electronics Industries EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 42 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 42m km
ECCM-2 (2) Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes14th May 2372 The Commune and Republican space are finally connected by jump gates, allowing free flow of information. This also allows Phoenix and Sanctuary to talk directly to each other, although the fact that all their information travels through space of a third nation means they are limiting their negotiations. All the same while the Hegemony would love to find a way into Republican space, Phoenix is fine with the way things are, as their analysis of the situation makes them easily believe Commune claims of New Earths aggressiveness.
The resulting situation is very different from what happened between the Commune and the Hegemony when they ended up connected. The latter nation is heavily censoring any information coming in and out of their space, to the point where citizens of the two powers cannot talk to each other directly. In contrast as soon as the information can travel numerous chat groups of Commune and Republican citizens spring up, eager to exchange information, opinions and news. While there is a lot of friction due to very different cultures, lifestyles and over a century of isolation it is obvious that the people begin developing lasting relationships, even if those are not often warm ones.
One item of significance pops out of this exchange, as both nations have visited the same system without realizing it. It is known as ES – 84 MH4 in the Commune and ECN 4780 in the Republic. Comparison of the records clearly show that the former discovered it five years earlier than Phoenix, which coupled with the fact that it is located four jumps from New Atlantis and is a known ADS stronghold, makes the Republic agree to cede it to the Commune. The ease and speed with which the issue has been solved is seen by many as a proof that the two powers work together very well.
Even so there is still no trade treaty in place and it is unknown whether or not there will be one in the future. While both nations could use the income, distances are significant and both fear leaking their technology to the other nation, despite the current rather warm relations between them. Even so for the time being it is a moot point as the colonies of the respective nations are too far away for effective trade.
23rd May 2372 The first million colonists land on ES – 34 GH3 I, the location of ancient alien manufacturing complex that will help research done in that area. The planet is almost habitable, with just a little too high temperature and very good water coverage of seventy one percent. The gravity is also good, ninety three percent as high as Earths and while the day-night cycle is a little long being nearly fifty hours, it's still reasonable. The only long term issue with the planet is its relatively small size as it has diameter of only ninety six hundred kilometers.
As is the case every couple of decades, there is now a number of important locations within the Commune that lack proper names and are being referred by their catalog numbers. With the first colony in the North-Eastern sector the government takes their time to finally assign names to those. The list is given below.
ES – 34 system itself is named Lem after a famous twentieth century Polish science fiction writer. The new colony itself is named Emesh, after Sumerian god of vegetation due to its lush forests covering most of the landscape.
ES – 43 FH4 IV is a colony established by the government some time ago to keep an eye on a jump point leading to New York, a Hegemony system. Due to its significance it will become an important military base. The star is renamed Pacific while the planet is dubbed Ceylon. The population exceeds six million.
ES – 42 GH4 V is a small colony established by private citizens in abandoned alien habitats. The population is a little over thirteen hundred thousand. The system is named Andes and the planet Resplandecer, which means 'glitter' in Spanish. The name comes from the sand covering most of the planet.
ES – 59 KKMLH4 A II is another privately founded colony established in abandoned alien habitats. The population is very small, around eight hundred thousand. The system is named Sahara and the planet Tadjoura.
ES – 27 FGH5 is currently unpopulated system one jump from Athens which serves as the de facto boarder with the Republic, although by treaty the next star in the chain is a neutral territory. It is currently unknown whether or not any colonies will be established there, although there has been some consideration to that for years due to mineral deposits that could be very interesting for commercial mining operations. It would also be a very good trade location, should a treaty with Phoenix be signed, but admittedly it would be a very bad location for naval base, due to the only two jump points being close together and very distant from the central star, making any forces in the inner system easy to bypass. The system is named Venice after a very successful merchant city state. ES – 57 and ES – 86 are given Republican names of Calais and Dover respectively.
ES – 10 FH2 III is a sensor outpost and planned future fleet base for whatever formation ends up being responsible for the North-Eastern sector, but is currently uninhabited. Not only that but is the first important junction in this region of space. The star is therefore named Ayutthaya after an important Asian trade city of the Silk Road, sometimes also known as “the Venice of the East”. The planet is named Gillard. In addition, ES – 02 system which has only two jump points connecting Baltic and Ayutthaya is named Suez, after an old but very important channel.
7th June 2372 For the past several years the Commune had suffered no shortages. Fuel, mineral and wealth were all plentiful allowing all industry to not only work at full capacity but also to expand. The one issue they have is low population which is why there is one sector which has no expanded – shipbuilding.
Most of the naval yards are located in the Baltic system, which cannot expand its population, currently holding steady at four hundred and fifty million people. Commercial yards are all located above Peles in the Malbork system, but the population there is barely sufficient for the current industry. Other potential planets where the shipyards could be moved to – Eden, Wieliczka and Knossos – all have the same problem although the latter one has a small facility to build gunboats. There are of course other planets, some of which have reasonable population, but they are out of the way and exposed, making the government unwilling to consider them as warship production sites.
Fortunately new planets have been colonized and some freighters became available for new tasks, so research facilities will be moved from the second largest habitat, Biskupin, to Emesh and Prkos allowing the seventy five million strong colony to become a new site of warship production. In the future something similar will be done to facilities on New Prague, turning Valhalla more and more into warship production center and less into the diversified place it now is.
As soon as yards can be expanded the government intends to increase their capacity to build major warships. They have sixteen gunboat flotillas and twelve frigate squadrons, with more on the way but they have only two cruiser divisions and two battlecruisers. With the distances between new colonies ever expanding, possibility of offensive operations against multi-stellar opponents like the Hegemony becoming more and more likely and economy strong enough to support large, diversified fleet, the government feels the time has come to rely less and less on gunboats. Those will still be very important for defensive operations of course, but when it comes to offensive ones new, larger formations will likely take precedence.
At the same time due to sheer distances and limited cargo space, the entire plan will require several years to complete and building new, larger ships to levels sufficient for large scale operations will take even longer. Even so a new, long term strategy is now available.
20th June 2372 The Hegemony designs their next generation carrier, the Dragon. Despite being forty thousand tonnes larger than the Steadfast, it carries only twenty more craft. That's because most of the mass went into better passive sensors, thicker armor and numerous CIWS stations, making it the most durable design yet.
There are of course many who question putting such heavy and expensive defenses on a ship that is supposed to stay out of harms way and is protected by an entire group of escorts. However the Battle of Boston (known as Atlantic in the Commune) has shown that intent and reality are two very different things. Due to the sheer importance of any carrier they are guaranteed to be the primary target, even to the point where the enemy is willing to ignore escorts and risk massive overkill, which is exactly what the Commune has done. Because of that the large, valuable and extremely expensive vessels have to take protection into their own hands as well, despite the fact they have numerous escorts which are being upgraded when possible. The alternative is a high risk high reward situation where a carrier can demolish entire enemy task groups for no losses if it strikes first, but dies extremely easily if the enemy gets it within range. And due to the previous experiences the government is unwilling to take such risks.
X-218 Dragon class Carrier 180 000 tons 2972 Crew 21469 BP TCS 3600 TH 10800 EM 0
3000 km/s Armour 8-283 Shields 0-0 Sensors 700/700/0/0 Damage Control Rating 133 PPV 88
Maint Life 1.27 Years MSP 9915 AFR 1948% IFR 27.1% 1YR 6455 5YR 96827 Max Repair 700 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 0
Hangar Deck Capacity 50000 tons Magazine 7200
Giesy Aero Engines Military Ion Drive (18) Power 600 Fuel Use 30% Signature 600 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 21 040 000 Litres Range 70.1 billion km (270 days at full power)
Phalanx CIWS (10x8) Range 1000 km TS: 20000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Hackmann-Schwabach Anti-Missile Launcher (40) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Eshleman-Burrell Design Bureau Box Launcher (80) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Tsai-Luo Anti-Missile Fire Control (4) Range 11.8m km Resolution 1
Blumenberg-Brockdorf Harpoon Fire Control (4) Range 166.3m km Resolution 200
Tomahawk (1600) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 50.1m Range: 72.2m km WH: 8 Size: 4 TH: 80/48/24
Patriot (480) Speed: 31 200 km/s End: 2.5m Range: 4.6m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 197/118/59
Harpoon (80) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 122.4m Range: 176.2m km WH: 7 Size: 4 TH: 80/48/24
Abdi Incorporated Battle Area Management System (1) GPS 112000 Range 1 108.7m km Resolution 200
Tsai-Luo Missile Detection System (1) GPS 84 Range 11.8m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
Fehr-Pohl Aerospace Industries Huge Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 700 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 700m km
Fehr-Pohl Aerospace Industries Huge EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 700 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 700m km
Strike Group
200x X-205 Falcon Fighter-bomber Speed: 4800 km/s Size: 5
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes16th July 2372 For the past several years the Commune has been exploring very little. They had more than enough space for their population to expand, mineral deposits were reasonable although not exceptional and the distances have been rising steadily. In addition most of their survey fleet was old and naval expansion had priority.
Recently however many new upgrades have become available, including much more efficient jump drives. The opening of the North-Eastern Sector for colonization and development also created a significant pressure to explore the new systems. The old ships are being redirected there, albeit slowly, but what the government really needed was a new ship. The result is the Sirius class survey cruiser.
The new vessel is based on the Rugewit class jump cruiser, but her large squadron drive has been replaced with more efficient version that can escort only two other ships. The armor is also a little thinner, but still significant to allow her to quickly survey nebulae. The sensors suite is somewhat diminished, as missile and gunboat detection systems have been removed, but it still will give the ship clear view of the situation over significant distances. The speed remained the same, but the range has been significantly extended. Six are planned and while they can perform both geological and gravitational survey, they will be used mostly to look for new jump points.
Sirius class Survey Cruiser 25 000 tons 534 Crew 5245.6 BP TCS 500 TH 3850 EM 0
7700 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 8-76 Shields 0-0 Sensors 180/180/4/4 Damage Control Rating 31 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.04 Years MSP 4065 AFR 161% IFR 2.2% 1YR 398 5YR 5972 Max Repair 385 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Spare Berths 0
Varias-Mircea Turbines Large Exploration Jump Drive Max Ship Size 25000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Baboescu-Dragomir Military Magnetic Fusion Drive (5) Power 770 Fuel Use 45.69% Signature 770 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 6 100 000 Litres Range 96.1 billion km (144 days at full power)
Olsson-Nordin Palisade CIWS (2x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Cahyono Putro-Saleh Long Range Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 57600 Range 819.7m km Resolution 160
Cahyono Putro-Saleh Large Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 180 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 180m km
Cahyono Putro-Saleh Large EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 180 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 180m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (2) 4 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (2) 4 Survey Points Per Hour
ECM 40
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
