16th August 2372
Encouraged by their victory in ES – 34 and holding peace with the other two human nations, the Commune decides to deal with known ADS stronghold in ES – 84 which is the largest encountered so far, at least until three of their frigates have been destroyed when they tried to enter ES – 65 system. The system would have been cleared earlier if not for the presence of enemy gunboats, the first encountered so far. They were too small to be targeted and too fast to be run down.
The force consists of four gunboat flotillas, two frigate squadrons, a cruiser division and Oceanus, the lone battlecruiser assigned to the force, commanded once again by Vice Admiral Enrick Chitul. The latter ship won't be able to retreat, due to too large size but she's designed specifically to deal with small enemy craft and a jump gate construction ship is already waiting. This will be her first trial under fire.
Not knowing whether or not there are enemies waiting right on the jump point, only the cruisers jump as they can perform a squadron level maneuver, allowing them to enter together with minimized time of vulnerability. Fortunately there are no enemies present.
As the sensors come back online the two bases are confirmed to still orbit the first planet, accompanied by three frigates and a destroyer. Another destroyer, the kind that never engages, hangs in a random point in deep space on the other side of the star. The gunboats are not currently seen of course, but since they are beyond range of passive sensors, they are currently no danger. The rest of the human forces are summoned.
Three enemies move towards the human forces. One fast moving frigate sized scout is moving away. The bases of course continue to orbit the first planet. Rather than coming out to meet them, the Commune forces wait on the jump point. An hour later the ten gunboats are detected moving towards the humans. However the three larger ships begun moving away while the scout changed course towards the jump point. Chitul just takes a disgusted look and decides to stop trying to predict the enemy motives.
Four hours later enemy missiles entered sensor range. This was unexpected due to the huge range from the nearest enemy The Admiral changes his mind and orders his ships to move towards the alien planet, while also authorizing use of anti-missiles. Their numbers are getting limited as they are used in large numbers, but those are still the older generation ones and he doesn't trust his railguns despite having eight frigates and five cruisers.
He changes his mind shortly after however. The missiles are coming in groups of fifteen and are moving at only fourteen thousand kilometers per second. As he has numerous small railguns, and thanks to his ships being fast they have reasonable tracking speed, he should be fine.
In the end not a single enemy missile hit and Chitul tried to hide his internal laugh. After the damage he sustained from eight enemy small attack craft he, and the rest of the Force, begun to really underestimate railguns, but those still had many uses. He continued his trek towards the first planet, waiting for the enemies, especially the gunboats, to enter his range.
Three hours later Oceanus begun launching at the enemy small craft, directing five Trebuchets II at each of them. Only two enemies survive this, forcing humans to fire ten more missiles, and then five more as the last alien refuses to give up. Finally the troublesome small craft are defeated, allowing humans to concentrate on larger enemies.
Before the fleet can arrive at its destination it comes under another missile attack. Once again the railguns intercept all incoming shipkillers.
As the range to the enemy bases falls below sixty million kilometers twenty four gunboats open fire on the one armed with anti-missiles. Five seconds later eight more fire on the other one. Before they can arrive however anti-missiles in offensive mode are detected. They come from two different sources, split by nearly two million kilometers at the time of detection, and move at nearly twenty seven thousand kilometers per second. Each salvo consists of only seven missiles, making it very unlikely they come from one of the bases. The likely source is an ADS frigate lurking about in the inner asteroid belt, located within the orbit of the first planet. It is also likely that the warships are the targets, as it seems impossible for the aliens to detect missiles from the range of fifty million kilometers or so.
Ten minutes later waves of fifty five anti-missiles are detected, most likely launched from the bases. As using anti-missiles to shoot other anti-missiles would be ridiculous, despite the fact that the human ones are much better, Chitul intends to use only railguns again, despite the risks. Besides this means the aliens won't have much to defend themselves and his shipkillers are closer and faster. Hopefully once he kills the bases and their fire controls the larger waves will simply self-destruct. The smaller ones will arrive without problems however.
As the bases exhausted their interceptors in the attack, they had only energy weapons left for point defense. Four hundred and twenty eight Arrows II had to self-destruct due to lack of a target, but at least the thousands of anti-missiles in offensive mode coming for the Commune vessels also vanished. That still left several hundred more of course, but as they were coming in small numbers, they were no threat.
Once that is dealt with the Commune continues their advance towards the inner system. Three clusters of ground forces have been already found among the asteroids, likely guards for listening posts and possibly ammunition stockpiles. The ADS frigate which fired anti-missiles is in range of the gunboats, but only barely and is moving directly away, so cannot be fired up right away. However it doesn't take long to bring it into range and six gunboats open fire. While almost certainly an overkill the Admiral doesn't know how long will it take for his target to reload from the asteroid bases, so he wants to have missiles to spare in case anti-missiles are used.
Even as the Arrows close on their target, a new wave of ADS shipkillers is detected, but they are mere annoyance as usual. More importantly the targeted frigate did not have time to re-arm and was easily destroyed with seventy two missiles wasted.
The second ship to enter the range of the Piranhas was a destroyer, heading back towards the asteroid bases to re-arm for another missile attack. Six gunboats fired. This time only twenty four missiles were wasted.
This left three targets. A frigate of a previously unseen class which was moving away from the human force, a scout moving quickly forth and back some two hundred and twenty million kilometers away and a destroyer of the class that always stays out of combat. While the latter could be safely chased and destroyed by frigates, it would burn time and fuel and there are still a lot of Arrows II available. He orders two of his gunboat flotillas which still have ammunition to go ahead using their small size and high speed to deal with the remaining hostiles.
The unknown ship seems to have been armed with numerous point defense stations, but not enough to make a difference.
18th August 2372
The ES – 84 system is finally cleared. Only few gunboats have any ammunition remaining, but there were no loses among the human crews. One frigate squadron will stay to keep an eye on a jump gate construction ship and Oceanus, which cannot retreat, but the rest will return to Baltic. While some single ADS ships have been found here and there and not cleared yet, they will pose no danger to warships. The only expected conflict is now beyond ES – 34, as three Specter motherships have disappeared from that system, believed to move somewhere further down the still theoretical chain and in ES - 82 beyond Kvituchi Troyandy where an ADS warship was spotted.
A geological survey ship will be dispatched as soon as possible to check for expected alien ruins and possibly an installation that would be beneficial to R&D but it will take several months at the very least. The two dozen wrecks will be left untouched for now, as they have no technology of interest and the Commune has ample mineral supplies. The three known alien outposts will be conquered, but jump gate needs to be constructed first.
2nd December 2372
The Hegemony develops magneto-plasma drives. While there is no question new warships will use engines based on this technology there is the question of upgrades. However it seems that for the time being none will be done.
The fact of the matter is that the Hegemony is far behind technologically when compared to the Commune and the offered increase in speed will not make them faster than the other human nation. In fact it won't even make them faster than the ADS. The only tactical advantage it offers are slightly better hit chances for shipboard energy weapons, and that is simply not worth the cost, especially as their current naval doctrine is to use long range fighter strikes that are for all instances and purposes invisible to the enemy due to the small size of the craft. Being able to redeploy faster is a significant improvement of course, but as there are currently only five carrier groups, both the government and the Navy feel they need to build up their numbers first.
Last but not least the only craft that would really benefit from the new engines are fighters. Those however cannot be upgraded, they would have to be replaced. The process however would be very long forcing the government to either suspend construction of new carriers, or build new motherships without parasite craft. New factories could be constructed of course, but the government feels the five hundred and fifty they have on New Earth are more than enough and the industry is busy with other tasks.
17th February 2373
One of the new Hegemony naval yards have been expanded to twenty thousand tonnes, allowing it to build destroyer sized vessels. Three new designs have been presented.
The X-219 is a pure missile combatant, not counting small number of secondary particle beams for self-defense. She can launch two hundred and seventy anti-ship missiles in a single salvo and uses new sensors and fire controls, which despite having rather poor resolution are the smallest ones yet. Thanks to this the vessel has the range necessary to operate the new Harpoon long range missiles, but can also use Tomahawks or some new kind of short range munitions for jump point defense duties. Thanks to this the ship can either function as a core of small, independent task groups, where missile range can be critical, can be part of established carrier groups launching missiles in concert with the Ra class destroyers, or picket jump points by herself.
X-219 class Destroyer 20 000 tons 280 Crew 3371.5999 BP TCS 400 TH 1600 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 14 PPV 183
Maint Life 3.16 Years MSP 1475 AFR 228% IFR 3.2% 1YR 222 5YR 3330 Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 3
Magazine 1080
Omwakwe Research Inc Naval Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 800 Fuel Use 25% Signature 800 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 36.0 billion km (104 days at full power)
Liu-Liu Ordnance Particle Beam (3) Range 200 000km TS: 5000 km/s Power 10-4 ROF 15 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Ga-Fen Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 5000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Woessner-Terwilliger Cybernetics Nuclear Reactor (3) Total Power Output 13.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Eshleman-Burrell Design Bureau Box Launcher (270) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Blumenberg-Brockdorf Harpoon Fire Control (9) Range 166.3m km Resolution 200
Harpoon B (270) Speed: 40 000 km/s End: 68.3m Range: 164m km WH: 6 Size: 4 TH: 133/80/40
Blumenberg-Brockdorf Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 16800 Range 166.3m km Resolution 200
Drechsler & Hertwig Small Thermal Sensorr (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
Drechsler & Hertwig Small EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
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 purposes
The X-220 is the result of the shocking loss of the original Defiant to Commune gunboats. To deal with them in the future, the vessel is armed with repeatable missile launchers, long range high resolution sensors and enough magazine space for nineteen salvos. Assuming five missiles are necessary to destroy a single small craft, a single X-220 can destroy a total of seventy six gunboats.
The opponents of the design point out however that said gunboats were escorted by missile defense ships. The answer of the designers is that unless the Commune gets jump on a Hegemony force again, long range fighter strikes will destroy anything larger than a corvette after which X-220 will prevent strikes by anything small enough to avoid being targeted by Falcons and mere two destroyers should be enough to destroy any gunboat force the Commune is likely to commit to a single battle. They do admit however that due to limited number of missiles that can be launched at once, the ships are unlikely to be able to deal with any kind of point defense and are useless outside of their one, specific role.
X-220 class Destroyer 20 000 tons 524 Crew 3469.6 BP TCS 400 TH 1600 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 13 PPV 86
Maint Life 2.23 Years MSP 1409 AFR 246% IFR 3.4% 1YR 382 5YR 5725 Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 1520
Omwakwe Research Inc Naval Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 800 Fuel Use 25% Signature 800 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 36.0 billion km (104 days at full power)
Liu-Liu Ordnance 190mm Spinal Near Ultraviolet Laser (1) Range 270 000km TS: 5000 km/s Power 9-4 RM 3 ROF 15 9 9 9 6 5 4 3 3 3 2
Ga-Fen Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 5000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Woessner-Terwilliger Cybernetics Nuclear Reactor (1) Total Power Output 4.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Kattimani & Pillai Limited Harpoon Repeatable Launcher (20) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 25
Gandotra-Kabboor Small Craft Targeting System (4) Range 122.2m km Resolution 12
Harpoon B (380) Speed: 40 000 km/s End: 68.3m Range: 164m km WH: 6 Size: 4 TH: 133/80/40
Gandotra-Kabboor Small Craft Detection System (1) GPS 3024 Range 122.2m km Resolution 12
Drechsler & Hertwig Small Thermal Sensorr (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
Drechsler & Hertwig Small EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
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 purposes
The X-221 is a pure energy weapon combatant and is supposed to fulfill two roles. First and foremost is to provide additional point defense and short range firepower to the carrier groups, which are currently somewhat deficient in that department due to the new Hammurabi frigates being pure anti-missile platforms. The second task is to serve as jump point pickets, although it is something the government is not interested in.
X-221 class Destroyer Escort 20 000 tons 601 Crew 3643.6 BP TCS 400 TH 1600 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 14 PPV 148.2
Maint Life 2.61 Years MSP 1594 AFR 228% IFR 3.2% 1YR 330 5YR 4951 Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Omwakwe Research Inc Naval Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 800 Fuel Use 25% Signature 800 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 36.0 billion km (104 days at full power)
Twin Liu-Liu Ordnance Point Defence Laser Turret (12x2) Range 90 000km TS: 20000 km/s Power 6-8 RM 3 ROF 5 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
Liu-Liu Ordnance Particle Beam (6) Range 200 000km TS: 5000 km/s Power 10-4 ROF 15 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Ga-Fen Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 5000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Ga-Fen Point Defence Fire Control (3) Max Range: 80 000 km TS: 20000 km/s 88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Woessner-Terwilliger Cybernetics Nuclear Reactor (27) Total Power Output 121.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Tsai-Luo Missile Detection System (1) GPS 84 Range 11.8m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
Drechsler & Hertwig Small Thermal Sensorr (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
Drechsler & Hertwig Small EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
There is a significant discussion regarding which design is the most promising. The government loves the idea of X-219 due to its versatility. X-221 is pushed heavily by the Navy which wants to have options in case their carrier groups, or worse, the nation itself runs out of ammunition. At the same time this is something the government is not worried about and the poor performance of close in defenses during the Battle of Boston makes the design appear useless to many. X-220 has many proponents due to her ability to destroy Commune gunboats before they could return fire, but her very specialized nature is seen as a significant problem.
As is pointed out however, it is very likely that independent task groups will be filled mostly by cruisers with destroyers and frigates acting as a simple support. No designs have been presented yet, of course, but if that's the case X-219 would be redundant. If however decision is made to create other types of cruisers, a shipyard can always be retooled to build missile destroyers. As such X-220 is considered to be the best option, at least until each carrier group has at least two.
23rd February 2373
The Republican Battle Group One comprising four battleships, five escort cruisers and three destroyers escorts arrives at the jump point to ECN 4782, where at least two ADS warships are located. They are being accompanied by a jump gate construction ship.
The ships enter without incident, but they do not begin to look for the enemies. Instead they will guard the construction ship until her job is done.
5th April 2373
Two ADS frigates are detected six hundred and eighty million kilometers from the jump point, but they do not try to close. According to the observations during previous visit they move at over eight thousand kilometers per second and are almost certainly scouts. Unfortunately this almost certainly means they cannot be killed, as the Republic has nothing that can sneak up on them and they are hovering over a million kilometers outside the human missile range. For now, as the main task of BG1 is to protect the construction ship, nothing will be done about the aliens.
7th July 2373
With the jump gate to the rest of the Republic complete, BG1 attempts to close on the two scouts. Unfortunately they keep their distance, matching speed to the Phoenixian ships. Checking the most likely source of the aliens is also impossible, as the planet suspected to be their base is nearly thirty billion kilometers away and even with their very long range the Republican ships don't have necessary fuel for a round trip. The one piece of good news is that according to the Commune the automated ships are very single minded, which means that if humans haven't been attacked yet, there is nothing to attack them. Overall while securing of the system is for all instances and purposes impossible under the current circumstances, the ADS there presents no danger to the Republic.
4th September 2373
The Hegemony is devouring gallicite must faster than it produces it. While civilian mining operations have sprung in Los Angeles and New York, the mineral is scarce in the surrounding systems and Sanctuary is almost mined out. The current annual production is only eight thousand tonnes. Worse, none of the candidates for settlement have any reasonable deposits. The one good mining site is too hostile for humans and even if it attracts private investment it will be years, possibly decades, before production rumps up to reasonable levels. Finding new locations is an option, but the survey ships will be upgraded, taking them out of commission for months and any new finds will be very distant ones. In short the Hegemon has no choice but to begin construction of automated mines, even thought it will slow down other tasks.
San Francisco-C II mineral deposits
Duranium 99 461 410 Acc: 0.7
Neutronium 48 525 160 Acc: 0.6
Corbomite 10 125 120 Acc: 0.1
Tritanium 44 997 260 Acc: 0.1
Boronide 16 337 760 Acc: 0.1
Gallicite 44 997 260 Acc: 1
9th May 2374
The Commune archaeologists complete their initial survey and cataloging of alien ruins in the ES – 84 system, which was the largest ADS stronghold found so far. Three hundred and thirty two installations or other items of interest have been identified, making those the most extensive ruins found so far, surpassed only by what was found in the Phoenix system. Construction brigades will be send as soon as practical.
There is also an ancient ordnance complex on the planet, but its in poor state and Prkos has a similar, but better preserved installation. As such the ES – 84 system is unlikely to be developed, at least not as an R&D site.
19th May 2374
A Commune ground based geological survey team has found numerous previously missed mineral deposits on Adriatic IV. Most importantly most of those new finds were easily accessible gallicite, which is currently in short supply. As the planet could be colonized and terraformed, possesses duranium and several other minerals and gallicite itself is easier to mine than the deposits on Knossos it has just become the prime target for development.
Adriatic IV mineral deposits
Duranium 16 309 860 Acc: 0.9
Neutronium 3 244 788 Acc: 0.6
Corbomite 5 503 316 Acc: 0.1
Boronide 4 161 197 Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 6 502 500 Acc: 0.2
Vendarite 5 188 884 Acc: 0.1
Sorium 5 188 076 Acc: 0.4
Corundium 2 236 810 Acc: 0.3
Gallicite 10 214 420 Acc: 0.9
14th July 2374
The Hegemony officially activates the Dragon Carrier Group, their most powerful, modern and fastest formation yet. Unfortunately they have to cut down on shipbuilding, especially on gallicite intensive fighters, due to the shortages of the mineral. The planned extraction site haven't been established yet due to slow production of automated complexes so it will be probably several years before production can resume. In the meantime the survey ships are once again in operation hoping to find new, better sources.
17th October 2374
With twenty one gunboat flotillas in operation and another one to be activated February next year, the Commune decides to suspend further production of Piranhas. While they performed superbly during their long career, now exceeding fifty years, there are more than enough of them and most formations haven't been upgraded yet. Not only that but Sharks will take precedence in the coming years, as despite their larger ammunition consumption and lower damage potential, they are expected to operate alone, while Piranhas need protection from corvettes and frigates.
23rd April 2374
The Commune establishes a new colony on Adriatic IV where recently large and easily accessible deposits of gallicite have been found. While the development of a new settlement is always slow, in time hundreds of mining complexes will be operating there. The planet is named Thesaurum, which means 'Treasure' in Latin.
Aside from future potential as a source of rare elements, the planet is an important milestone for the Commune as Adriatic is the first system outside of Baltic to have two inhabited worlds. There are of course other systems where numerous planets could be colonized with Phoenicia having a total of eight, including Falsterbo, but due to the sheer costs only planets that have something to offer are being developed by the government.
11th July 2375
The Commune establishes a new colony on ES – 70 FH5 III. The settlement was originally intended to be founded on ES – 71 GH5 IV where an alien propulsion laboratory was located, but another one in a far better condition was found, leading to the change. The development will of course be lengthy but at least ten, possibly twenty R&D facilities will be moved there.
The planet is named Gagarin after the first man in space while the system is named Caylay after Sir George Caylay, one of the founders of modern aerodynamics.
7th September 2375
The Commune survey cruiser Altair detects an unknown alien race living on the third planet of the ES – 92 GH4 system, located just beyond the star once inhabited by a Specter Behemoth. The active sensors revealed no orbital constructs of any kind so the vessel recorded as much EM radiation coming from the planet as it could and left. The government plans to use those recordings to try and learn the local language, but for the time being the new race will not be disturbed. Because of that the system is declared off-limits.
12th October 2375
Large and reasonably accessible deposits of gallicite have been found on Delaware, the second planet orbiting Philadelphia. As the Hegemony is currently experiencing shortage of the mineral and other reasonable deposits are also present there, it would make great location to move to the mines currently operating on Ares. Unfortunately the growth of the colony is rather slow and despite being in place for years, the current population is only thirteen hundred thousand. This forces the government to do something they loathe to do – developing a colony ship and providing heavy support. Even with this it will take years before the mining operation can grow to a reasonable level.
Delaware mineral deposits
Duranium 20 288 450 Acc: 0.8
Corbomite 148 225 Acc: 0.6
Tritanium 3 062 500 Acc: 0.8
Boronide 3 441 025 Acc: 0.6
Vendarite 5 336 100 Acc: 0.1
Sorium 10 595 030 Acc: 0.5
Uridium 4 708 900 Acc: 0.1
Corundium 1 334 025 Acc: 0.1
Gallicite 11 055 630 Acc: 0.7
X-222 Mayflower class Colony Ship 120 000 tons 650 Crew 4698.8 BP TCS 2400 TH 5120 EM 0
2133 km/s Armour 1-216 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 24 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Cryogenic Berths 300000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 20
Michieka Manufacturing Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (16) Power 320 Fuel Use 2.53% Signature 320 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 2 400 000 Litres Range 142.3 billion km (771 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
18th October 2375
The Republic has completed their transport of colonists to the Scandinavia system. The next one to be settled is ECN 4777 which has four candidates for colonization and has been the site of the first contact with the Specters. The bodies are awarded to Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary and Belarus and renamed Brussels, Bohemia, Hortobagy and Belarus respectively. The system itself is named Danube.
Unfortunately the system will have to be protected, as the adjacent one, ECN 4778 has a powerful Specter thermal signature, most likely belonging to a Behemoth. As the Republic has no jump ships, they would have to enter the system with overwhelming force, clear it of hostiles and then build a gate back. While it is possible, if the Commune news reports can be believed, two battle groups, which means eight battleships, may be insufficient for the task and there are currently only three in existence. In short, an assault on the Behemoth would require the majority of the Navy and that is simply not possible. As such one battle group will have to be stationed at Danube at all times in case one of the smaller Specter carriers tries to enter.
17th December 2375
The Commune cracks the language of the aliens found in ES – 92 GH4, allowing humans to initiate diplomatic relations if they wish. However as the society is on early industrial level and doesn't even have concept of science fiction or alien life, this won't happen for years to come.
The name of the system is changed to Aurora, which is translation from the alien language. They themselves call themselves Shadaranama which apparently means 'children of the Aurora' in one of their old, mostly forgotten languages. The planet itself is named Denari, which has no direct translation.
6th August 2376
As the Hegemony has been making huge deal of any new carriers launched, the lack of recent announcements makes the Commune intelligence community speculate heavily about the cause, with some thinking it's a trick, other believing there is some kind of problem with New Earth's economy and yet others believing it simply means something has changed, but the enemy fleet strength it still increasing. However as the Hegemon is more and more vocal about the need to provide at least some support to his numerous colonies, something that's heavily at odds with his earlier statements, most analysts begins to be more and more convinced there is some kind of resource shortage at work.
This is important to the government as they would love to take a break from construction and begin upgrading their vessels to the newest standards. This of course means a simple speed upgrade but as the distances within the Commune are ever increasing due to expansion, speed is very important to them.
In the end, while it presents some risks, the government decides to suspend further construction and begin a round of upgrades. They have twenty nine gunboat flotillas, seventeen frigate squadrons and three cruiser divisions not counting fortifications, making them feel relativity secure despite the vast area those ships need to protect.
15th April 2377
The Commune officially opens their naval base at Mjolnir, the second planet of the Baltic system. It's located on a planet with too low gravity for human colonization and consists of numerous space stations, mineral, fuel and ammunition stockpiles on the ground and a small Stanford torus like space habitat for support and crew R&R. What it does not have and most likely won't have are ground based defenses although there are six orbital weapons platforms present.
The establishment of the base has been a slow, long and hotly debated process. The first time the idea came up was during the early stages of the ADS war when the government fully realized just how difficult it was to reinforce their out-system forces due to the distance of their habitats from the central star, which is almost eight billion kilometers. However being the very heart of the Commune society and industry, Valhalla and its moons had to be heavily protected, making it impossible to just move the majority of forces elsewhere. A base on Mjolnir would cut the travel times significantly while protecting the vulnerable habitats, their people and their shipyards.
The problem which made the government put off the idea for so long was the the Destroyer was much faster than human forces and could simply bypass whatever was in the inner system and go straight for Valhalla. But while this is still considered a possible problem, its was no longer enough to stop the establishment of the Mjolnir naval base for three reasons. First and foremost the Commune has spread out much among the nearby space providing ample warning of any incoming forces, allowing them to easily establish a jump point defense against any threat moving towards Baltic. Second there is now a sizable missile base at the inner moon of Valhalla and while its limited to missile defenses it will be upgraded in the future with offensive launchers as well. Third unlike in the early years the shipbuilding is ongoing all the time with no pauses and new warships sometimes need to await being assigned to new formations and new squadrons need to train before being deployed. This means that even if the Home Fleet proper moves entirely to Mjolnir, there will still be numerous warships around Valhalla to protect it.
27th November 2377
While the Commune expansion of naval yards is very slow due to limited manpower and lift capacity, ship assembly begins to outpace gallicite production. There are several good mining sites, two of which are habitable for humans and a third one will be soon, but there aren't enough colonists there yet to place new mining complexes. Colonists from Baltic system, numbering in the millions, are available, but they are needed for new R&D sites on Emesh and Gagarin, not to mention they are also used to build up populations on other planets suffering lack of manpower like Knossos. Automated mines are an option, but those are very expensive and cut into other important industrial projects like increasing ordnance production or preparing fortifications on major colonies and naval bases.
To deal with the issue the Administrator decides to resume construction of asteroid mining ships. Originally designed to deal with the manpower problem, their construction was suspended due to lack of good destinations. While this is still true, as the number of reasonable comets or asteroids with gallicite is only about a dozen in the entire Commune space, that's still nearly three million tonnes that could be extracted without need for massive worker support and such ships will be quicker to build than ground complexes would. This is of course only a stop gap, short term solution but it should be enough until population of new mining sites can be expanded to a reasonable size.
However rather than using the old Fjord class ships a new ones has been designed. Massing thirty thousand tonnes more, their output is increased only slightly but their speed is nearly two thousand kilometers per second. While it is true those vessels will spend most of their lives in orbit, unmoving, comets often orbit at a respectable distance from their star, making the previous class simply too slow. Moving them using tugs have also been considered, but in the end it was decided to be impractical. The currently existing tugs have many other tasks already, mostly involving space stations and fuel harvesters and due to potential distances there may simply not be enough of them for the task.
For now fifty ships are planned, but the number may increase if new, promising sources of gallicite are found.
Rhine class Asteroid Miner 110 000 tons 980 Crew 3412.625 BP TCS 2200 TH 4375 EM 0
1988 km/s Armour 1-204 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 19 Max Repair 120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Asteroid Miner: 16 module(s) producing 672 tons per mineral per annum
Prasetyo-Suprapto Engines Limited Mid Range Commercial MFD (10) Power 437.5 Fuel Use 1.81% Signature 437.5 Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 2 600 000 Litres Range 235.0 billion km (1368 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
25th March 2378
All alien ruins in the Phoenix system has been recovered, completing the monumental task that lay foundation to the Republic. It could not have existed in its current form without all those installations. The greatest find, aside from technology that greatly aided the Republican industry and military, were one hundred and sever research facilities, giving Phoenix the largest R&D sector of the three know powers, although the Commune one is arguably more efficient, thanks to the numerous alien installations they are using to support their R&D.
6th April 2378
Exploring a new jump point the Commune exploration ship Tau Ceti finds itself in the Minneapolis system. While specific survey data is usually heavily classified, all nations have readily available maps of their territory which is how the system was identified. It is also known that the Hegemony surveyed the system finding a total of only two jump points leading to Honolulu and Pitsburgh. This means one of two things – they either lied or the Commune has just found a dormant jump point leading into Hegemony space, potentially giving them an enormous strategic advantage in case of war.
Because of that the Administrator, with full support of the Oversight Committee classifies the existence of the jump point, the first such event in the Commune history. Even so the ES – 104 system which connects to Minneapolis will have to be carefully watched, in case Hegemony knows about the link as well.
2nd May 2378
ES – 22 GU3 I becomes habitable for unprotected humans. This has been the longest, most difficult and most expensive terraforming project of the Commune and many doubted it can even succeed. The body will be very important source of several TN elements in the future, once it's properly colonized and developed and there are plans to create a significant ordnance manufacturing sector there.
The planet is renamed Zuiderzee after an old Netherlands dam that turned a part of the North Sea into a freshwater lake while also creating a lot of arable land. It is still remembered as one of the most famous early terraforming projects. The star itself is named Dazbog after a Slavic deity of the sun due to how close the planet orbits its parent star, making it appear to be extremely large.
The government also renames ES – 84 MH4 I to Asimov after a famous twentieth century science fiction writer, while its parent star is named Troy. The colony has been established by Commune citizens using privately operated ships in recovered alien structures. The system was once the largest ADS stronghold found placed above one of the largest alien ruins sites in known space.
