Beyond Earth - Episode 2

[Hydrofoil (OP)]

Beyond Earth
Episode 2: Rising Tempers

Year 2101

At the start of the year 2101, The Federation of Earth was starting to face some serious unrest on its colonies on Mars and Luna. Activists calling for more action on exploiting the Node points in the solar system to explore other worlds. Although the protests and marches in the colonies had remained peaceful for the moment it was obvious that tensions where rising and that the local civilian police forces would not be able to keep the peace for much longer if things where left to deteriorate.

The local polices forces neither had the training or the equipment to put down an insurrection. Up until this point the bulk of the Federations Armed forces where stationed on Earth, there had been no need to ferry troops to the colonies. Meaning there was no means of doing so, the joint chiefs quickly called for the commissioning of a Troop transport vessel that could transport a battalion strength unit between the colonies.

Before this could happen though a specialised compartment would need to be designed, with no Scientists available at this point Andrew Kirk, currently working on better methods of building planetary facilities was commissioned to carry out the work once he had finished with his current project.

11th February

A promising new commander, graduated from the Academy. Lieutenant Commander William Fry, was exceptional throughout his time in the Academy getting recognition from both his teachers and fellow students and was pegged from the beginning to be a rising star in the Federations Navy. Upon his graduation, he was snapped up for a command role as Officer Commanding Survey the Navies liaison to the Federations ministry of Exploration.

On the 16th of Februar Andrew Kirk completed his research into better Construction techniques his work provided a 20% boost on current construction technique, allowing for much faster and efficient construction of planetary facilities. As agreed he instantly set to work on designing a specialised compartment capable of carrying a battalion sized force across the vast distances of the solar system. Initial estimates stated that a workable design would be tried and tested in just over a year.

With tensions rising this made the Federal government slightly nervous but believed a ship could be built to transport forces before things got out of hand.

21st February

On the 21st of February the final Leaper Jump scout came off the production line, in total 10 leaper scouts where produced and would operate in squadrons of two, each squadron receiving its own tender vessel. Until the Tender vessels came online the Leaper scouts would remain grounded.

On the 7th of March 5 additional Terraformer installations where completed and ready to be shipped off world to Mars. The installations where so large that the 6 ageing River class freighters that had been the federations work horses for the past couple of years where required to take 3 round trips just to transport all of the 5 stations.

Since the beginning of the terraforming project on Mars, the terraforming stations had been pumping safe greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere in order to thicken it and warm up the world. Before the project began the average temperature on Mars was roughly -48 degrees delicious now the average temperature was -38 degrees, the world was warming up nicely and at a much greater rate than had previously been predicted. Within the next couple of years it was predicted that the warming of the world would melt some of the ice caps and bring water back the surface of Mars without fear of it being evaporated and escaping in its thin atmosphere.



3rd April

On the third of April it was deemed that Earth had sufficient infrastructure to begin receiving shipments of TN Materials from civilian mining colonies that had been cropping up all over the Solar system in the past year. Through the use of mass drivers it was theorised that packets of TN Materials and other commodities could be fired via mass driver and received at the other end. The Technology required precise calculations and a lot of power  and could potentially end in massive damage to a planet if the shot missed. However it was deemed that the ease at which materials could be mined and returned to Earth to be sold far out weighed the risk.

The Civillian mining colonies on Venus, Adorea and Tempel-Tuttle could begin firing stockpiled materials to earth within the next 5 days.

On the 16th of July Austin Colony Services the only Civilian shipping line on SOL at the moment launched three new freighters taking its fleet to a grand total of 9 vessels. The three new ships where a Small F3 Freighter, Large F3 Freighter and a Huge F3 Freighter.

26th July

Across Earth and the Colonies of Mars and Luna, celebrations erupted in certain circles as the Ministry of Exploration announced the design of the Tender vessel that would carry the Leaper Jump Scout vessels to the Node points in the Sol System.

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Comet class Jump Scout Tender    5 550 tons     77 Crew     676 BP      TCS 111  TH 360  EM 0
3243 km/s     Armour 1-27     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/80/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.72 Years     MSP 1076    AFR 246%    IFR 3.4%    1YR 79    5YR 1187    Max Repair 90 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Flight Crew Berths 2   
Hangar Deck Capacity 750 tons     

Rolls-Royce  180 EP Ion Drive (2)    Power 180    Fuel Use 68%    Signature 180    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2 000 000 Litres    Range 95.4 billion km   (340 days at full power)

North Orbital Systems EM Detection Sensor EM10-80 (1)     Sensitivity 80     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  80m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Comet Class Jump Scout Tender, was designed to do one specific job and that was tender to the Leaper Jump scouts and provide a refuelling point to the scout vessels. The Comet is also three times faster than the Leaper scouts making it much quicker to move around the SOL system.

The Ministry of Exploration announced three vessels would be built of this class in the beginning meaning that two squadrons of Leapers would remain on earth as reserves encase something should happen to the other Leaper Scout vessels.
The ships would take just under two years to be completed with current technologies implanted by the Flynn & Hyde Shipyards in orbit around Earth.

16th October

With the discovery of the Node points around SOL the Federations Joint Chiefs had been worried about the security of Earth and the human race, these jump points provided faster than light travel to those who could master the science behind it. With the Federation only a year or two away from actually testing out its own Node Drives it was entirely plausible that another race of aliens could have already mastered the form of travel decades of centuries before.

So they had commissioned the year before the research into technologies to create a class of ships that would be able to sit on these points in space and monitor them for any incoming traffic. The Audacious Class Monitor would be able to deploy for several years before having to resupply and rotate crew. It would also be the fastest vessel ever created by the Federation capable of travelling at over 4000Km/s

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Audacious class Monitor    11 950 tons     273 Crew     2320.4 BP      TCS 239  TH 960  EM 0
4016 km/s     Armour 4-46     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 26
Maint Life 3.6 Years     MSP 1728    AFR 190%    IFR 2.6%    1YR 206    5YR 3089    Max Repair 540 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   

Rolls-Royce  240 EP Ion Drive (4)    Power 240    Fuel Use 64%    Signature 240    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2 250 000 Litres    Range 52.9 billion km   (152 days at full power)

General Dynamics 15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (4)    Range 180 000km     TS: 4016 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Brown-Owens Ordnance Gauss Cannon R1-85 (2x2)    Range 10 000km     TS: 4016 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 85%     RM 1    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
North Orbital Systems Fire Control S08 96-12000 (1)    Max Range: 192 000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
North Orbital Systems Fire Control S02 24-12000 (1)    Max Range: 48 000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
General Dynamics Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 5%

North Orbital Systems Active Search Sensor MR144-R100 (1)     GPS 18000     Range 144.0m km    Resolution 100
North Orbital Systems Active Search Sensor MR43-R1 (1)     GPS 540     Range 43.2m km    MCR 4.7m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
A Vessel for each Node Point would be produced at the shipyards on earth. However no shipyards in orbit currently had the capacity to build such a large vessel at 11900 tonnes the ship was massive and the largest orbital shipyard at earth could only produce ships up to 11000 tonnes. It would take a year to increase its capacity to 12000 tonnes.

With time at the essence it would quickly decided that research needed to be done in areas such as shipyard operations and ship production to increase the speed of which the Federation could adapt its infrastructure and build ships. The research would begin as soon as scientists and labs became available.

1st December

On the first of December the final geological survey vessel returned from the outer ice belt of the SOL system. It had finished a two year long mission mapping the belt and with its return it was deemed that all major bodies in the SOL system had been surveyed at least from orbit.

On the 21st of December three days before Christmas the 26th and 27th Garrison Battalions where formed from various military training bases around Earth these Battalions would be deployed to Luna and Mars when an available transport became available. Their job would be to keep the peace and aid the Local police forces to enforce Federation law.