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Posted by: Sematary
« on: January 09, 2014, 04:21:46 PM »

Due to several bugs I have run into recently I am going to call an end to this until 6.4 comes out. However in the meantime I am starting an Astra Imperia AAR here.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: January 06, 2014, 01:27:39 PM »

December 2050
Ex Enterprise, WX Ursae Majoris

Lt. O’Brian had been sitting in the command chair when they entered this system and he would continue to be here for the next four hours. It was his watch and the fourth system they had traveled through. At least for the JETG, the Jump Exploration Task Group, jumping was becoming completely normal. Over on the Valiant some lieutenant, Chekov or some such vaguely Russian name was the officer on watch, which put O’Brian as the commanding officer of the task group for the moment. Looking over to the Sensor Officer, “Mr. Chu, what can you tell us about this system?”

“It appears to be WX Ursae Majoris, also known as Gliese 412, which puts us about 15.75 light years from Earth, and is the second farthest we have ever been. Giclas 9-38 is about 17 light years from Earth so the record we set three days ago still remains. WX Ursae Majoris is about two fifths the mass of the sun and about three percent of its brightness. The B component of the system is about a sixth the size of the sun and the sun is about two hundred times brighter. A has seven planets orbiting it while B has eight planets and one hundred and twenty two asteroids orbiting it.”

O’Brian nods and brings up the results of DX Cancri, the first system they searched on this mission. After reading the write up, he addresses Lt. Chu again. “DX Cancri was the same size as the B star here and it had a possible habitable planet at a distance of one tenth of an astronomical unit. How are the planets in this system when looked through that light?” The unasked question that hung over the bridge crew’s head was is there any possibility of life in this system.

“The third planet in A could be terraformed eventually. Of the 42 moons in the A component none of them are good either are any of the other planets. In the B component, B 2 is the best candidate for terraforming in the system. Also with 20 moons, 17 of them in B 7 alone, and the asteroids there is probably decent mineral wealth here. With the large amount of gas giants in the system there is probably a lot of Sorium to be collected. But beyond that I don’t think we have to worry about alien life in WX Ursae Majoris.”

O’Brian nodded and thought for a moment. “Good, make sure your report reflects everything you told me. We would hate if the Commander missed something when she comes on duty. Helm, take us out of this system.”

There was a lot to think about. So far they had gone to DX Cancri, which had a possibility of life that didn’t pan out, Giclas 9-38 which had no good terraforming targets, Luyten’s Star which had a tidally locked cold terrestrial planet that couldn’t hold life, and now there was WX Ursae Majoris which didn’t have anything. When they had started he, and a lot of the crew to be fair, had romanticized themselves as the new Lewis and Clark expedition. Sure they didn't expect to find a new species in every system but they had just finished exploring the fourth dead system in a row. Maybe it was just luck that the Bilos Conglomerate lived so close to Sol, neighbors really. Maybe most systems were empty after all. Or maybe Sol and Alpha Centauri were the only systems in the entire cosmos that held lift. That last choice sounded unlikely but how would he know any different until they had found more species? They had five more jump points to check and one of them could very well be brimming with life.


January 2051
Ex Enterprise, Wolf 359

Merry was fuming. To say she was pissed off was an understatement. She was the commander of the task group who had done the most for humanity in its entire history. She was one of two officers who held the First Contact Medal. She just spent Christmas in Bernard’s Star orbiting a dwarf planet that is the best terraforming candidate outside of Sol, sure it was tidally locked and therefore would probably never get terraforming ships but still. She spent the New Year’s in Ross 128, a system with a lot of rocks and that’s about it. Now with her check in with Naval Command she learns that thirteen officers got a promotion. THIRTEEN. And she was not one of them. Sure Yvonne Dreger, the Head of Fleet Logistics should get Captaincy, but the commander of the Brighton, a destroyer, should get a promotion when all he had done was fleet training? Its like Naval Command was punishing her. Sending her to the most far flung places they could imagine wasn’t good enough. Now she has to watch others get promoted above her.

She looked up when she heard a knock on her door. “Come.”

Fred walked in smiling weakly at her before sitting down in one of the few empty spaces in her office. “So how are you taking it?”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. Of course he had already seen the promotion report. Her smile was sharp as could be and dripping with sarcasm, “Just peachy. I love it when destroyer commanders get promoted over people who actually do anything for Earth.”

“I figured that was how you were taking it. If it makes you feel any better we are the two most senior Commanders in the Navy. So we should get Captain next round of promotions.” He wasn’t taking it too bad, or at least he wasn’t showing it. “Or maybe they are just waiting until we get back to Earth before promoting us.”

“You know this isn’t helping. But then again I am sure you know nothing will help right now. How many more systems do we have before we can end this tour?” She wouldn’t admit that his words had softened her anger quite a bit. She couldn’t let go of it, not yet.

He nodded and the air of friend was dropped and replaced by an XO talking to his Commanding Officer, “We have two jump points left. At a guess I would say they are red dwarfs of some kind. At least once of them will probably be a sixth of the mass of the sun and one two hundredth of the brightness either that or two fifths the mass and three percent of the brightness. Just a guess but I’d put money on it.”

Merry laughed at that. “Well odds would be something like three to one at best on such a safe bet. If I were you I’d bet that one of them was a quarter of the size of the sun and one percent of its brightness. But the red dwarf bet would be even money. Every star in this tour has been a red dwarf.”
Posted by: Sematary
« on: January 02, 2014, 02:12:53 AM »

November 2050
EX Enterprise, Earth Orbit

Merry just stared at her orders. Nine jump points were found in Wolf 359 and now her task group would have to explore all of them. Not only that but any that might have life in them would require her to go in system and investigate. And there was no refuels scheduled for her task group so they would be alone the entire time, unless they found new life that is.

Breathing deeply for a minute she called for a meeting of all senior officers of the task group in the board room of the Enterprise in half an hour. She also announced that every crew member of each ship should be in a place to listen to a task group wide message during the meeting.

The half hour went by far too quickly as she sat in the small room off the board room writing notes for the speech she was going to give. And far too soon she was walking out of the room and behind the podium. In front of here stood the heads of each department on both the Enterprise and the Valiant as well as the first officer of each. Looking at the faces once more her eyes settled on Commander Mastroianni for a second and a small smile from him helped steel her nerves. Flipping a switch ensured her microphone would carry her words through both ships and she was ready to begin.

“Men and women of the Jump Point Exploration Task Group, this is Commander Merry Couture. Half an hour ago I received our new orders and this will be our longest deployment yet. You may have heard that a few days ago Captain Renato Dubrey and the Gravitational Survey Task Groups finished their survey of the system Wolf 359 and just logged their report at the end of last month. Well today Naval Headquarters have decided to do with the report and have given us orders coming straight from Vice Admiral Mucher.

“There are eight unexplored jump points in Wolf 359 and our task group is to explore each of them. We have no scheduled refuels or resupplies in that time. Our orders are to go to Wolf 359 and explore each jump point and if the system holds a planet that could hold life we are to cautiously approach. I am sorry to say we will be spending the holidays away from family. Thanksgiving for sure, if we are lucky we may be home by New Year’s but in all probably it will be at least mid January before we are on our way back home. Possibly even as late as St. Patrick’s Day.”

As she paused for breath the silence was immediately filled with the senior officers starting to talk among themselves. She felt sorry for them, she knew that a lot of them had family or at least husbands and wives. And now just three weeks from Thanksgiving they were learning that they would spend the entire holiday season in deep space exploring star systems farther away from Earth than any human had ever been before.

After giving them a minute she signaled for silence before continuing, “We will start getting supplies for this deployment tomorrow, we plan on leaving docks on the nineteenth. Senior officers are to set duty rosters today giving as much shore leave as they can manage. I know a departure date of the nineteenth is five days before Thanksgiving and if I could delay us a week I would but our orders are clear that we are to leave no later than the nineteenth.”


Thanksgiving
Enterprise, Wolf 359

Merry’s table was set out rather modestly if one was to measure it by a Thanksgiving feast, but by a Captain’s meal it was a feast for sure. They had entered Wolf 359 earlier that day and were about two days out from Jump Point 2. The commanders and their first and second officers were sitting at the table enjoying the meal. “You know,” Merry began, “I have read accounts of sea ships that had to deal with waves while eating and the food would slide up and down the table the whole meal. Even submarines had to deal with any time they changed direction or their depth.”

Lt. O’Brian, the First Officer of the Enterprise gave a weak smile at her remarks. “Small comfort. I am glad that we can at least send some messages to our families. With the jump gate completed and all.”

Commander Fred Mastoianni shot him a look. “Look I know it’s hard to not be with your family on this or any other day. But you signed up for the Republic Space Navy. As a military member you should expect to be sent out at any time. Imagine being a ground solider just three years ago. On their Thanksgiving far too many of them were fighting in the Katako-Kombe Counter Offensive. Military technology may have given us many wonderful advancements but trust me, jungle rot is still a danger. Ten thousand men were developing gang green on their toes as their families were sitting down to a meal.”

O’Brian lowered his head and stared hard at his potatoes for awhile after Fred finished. Merry broke the awkward silence after a bit addressing her first officer. “O’Brian, how is the crew taking being out of Sol for Thanksgiving?”

He straightened up and regained the decorum of a first officer being addressed by his superior officer. “It’s hard on everyone. Rations have been increased for the day and the communications officer is swamped with personal messages being sent and received. That being said it’s a good thing that we are traveling through an empty system today. No one is at anything near peak condition.”

She nodded at his report and looked to Lt. Jenkins, the First Officer of the Valiant, “How about the Valiant?”

Jenkins set her napkin down and smoothed it with her hands for a second before beginning. “As far as I know the Valiant is in the same state. I haven’t had a report since we transferred over here but I have no reason to believe anything has changed.”
Posted by: ollobrains
« on: December 25, 2013, 01:20:05 PM »

great update what happens next
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 23, 2013, 05:14:54 PM »

October 2050

To Earth Command:
Top Priority Message
GSV Aristotle
Captain Renato Dubrey

Gravitational Survey of star system designation Wolf 359 was completed on 25th October 2050, at 15:35:31 EST. This was completed four days, nineteen hours, and fifty nine minutes before the jump gate at the Wolf 359-Sol jump point was completed. There were nine jump points found a list of them will be as follows. My recommendation is for immediate exploration of the jump points found and a commendation be awarded to Commander Norris Burrus for finding the majority of the jump points. Only Jump Points 8 and 9 were found by the task group I command. Each jump point has a designation based on distance from Wolf 359. These designations have changed since their first discoveries and will have their final designations only included in my report.

The first jump point in the system, designation Jump Point 1, is the Sol jump point and is 236 million kilometers from Wolf 359 on a bearing of 41 mark 0.

Jump Point 2 is found 255 million kilometers on a bearing of 96 mark 13. This was part of a group of 3 found on 18th September.

Jump Point 3 is found 307 million kilometers on a bearing of 126 mark 0. It was found on 18th September.

Jump Point 4 is found 348 million kilometers on a bearing of 212 mark 160. It was found on 10th September.

Jump Point 5 is found 512 million kilometers on a bearing of 147 mark 330. It was the third jump point found on 18th September.

Jump Point 6 is found 707 million kilometers on a bearing of 226 mark 48. It was found on 10th September, and was the second jump point found.

Jump Point 7 is found 809 million kilometers on a bearing of 189 mark 189. It was found on 27th September.

Jump Point 8 is found 1.02 billion kilometers on a bearing of 41 mark 0. This was the last jump point found and was found on 18th October.

Jump Point 9 is found 1.67 billion kilometers on a bearing of 266 mark 300. This was found on 12th October.

One final recommendation is for Wolf 359 to be reclassified from a dead system to a system of large importance due to the large amount of jump points.


November 2050

Governors’ Office, Nicosia, Syria-Thaumasia, Mars

Hans Pfalzgraf took in stock of his new office. It was almost how he had requested it. One of the windows did look out onto the Mars landscape and the other did point into town as it were. And the ceiling was black but there were not the small lights in constellations as he had requested. He supposed he would have to put them in himself at some point in the near future. The carpet was comfortable and the right shade of blue and the desk was a good aged wooden desk from his homeland in the Alps.  The chairs were comfortable and modern with a feel of older chairs. All in all it seemed to be a good office.

Sitting down he decided to start learning everything he could about Mars and the colony he was now the leader of. He was more than a little nervous because everything about him set him apart from the colonists. For starters, Europe was the least represented of the countries on Mars, most were from United North America and Latin America. Next was how he was brought to Mars. There were about 2.49 million people living here and all of them came by colony ship, except one him. He hitched a ride on the Dart as the Dart and the Eden made their last infrastructure run to Mars. And worst of all there was the fact that he was assigned here. There was no vote by the Martian people, just an announcement one day that he would be their governor. In fact Mars was not currently represented by the Republic at all. They had no senators, and no representatives. Hans was acutely aware that he could very well become a symbol of all that was wrong, politically at least, on Mars.

As he contemplated this he reassessed who was luckier between him and his friend Wilford Appel. Wilford had just been appointed the Governor of Venus, ruler of seventy two automated mines, one mass driver, and the skeleton crew that was required to run them. But Wilford would never have to worry about mass riots or anything else that may come from a colony denied due process.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 19, 2013, 02:40:10 PM »

A note to my readers, the next couple updates may be slow in coming. Partly because of the holiday season we find ourselves in, partly because I just recieved a new job, and partly because the next few updates have some really awesome stuff coming and I want to give myself enough time to give them justice.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 19, 2013, 02:12:18 PM »

September 2050
Cambridge, Europe, Earth

Neil had read through the data several times now and it was finally starting to sink in. He had done it. The solution to how electronic warfare measures could be scaled up while still being economically viable was sitting here right in front of him. All he had to do was write a paper on the data and publish it to a peer-reviewed journal, as well as sending a copy to The Hague, which would probably provide him with funding for the rest of his life with a discovery like this.

Electronic warfare was a century old by now and had been in its infancy in the Second World War, as most electronic devices were. Then as time marched on electronics became more and more useful until about sixty years ago where they transitioned into something required for day to day life. And as long as anything electronic was used in the military there was an arms race to counter the electronics and to counter the counter measures. But the weapons of the future, the present really, was in energy beams that traveled the speed of light or missiles propelled by Trans-Newtonian Physics. The main anti ship missile used by the Republic of Earth Navy traveled at 1/10th the speed of light. Old models of electronic warfare just couldn’t deal with speeds that high.

Now Neil had figured out how to make models that could deal with those speeds. He just had to secure funding and then his team could start working on prototyping the next step in counter measures.


Nicosia, Syria-Thaumasia, Mars

Levi walked into the main room of the pub and sunk into a chair at one of the several small tables. Next week would mark the forth month of living on Mars, and he knew plenty of people who were thinking about catching rides back to Earth already. The Dart and the Eden were showing up almost weekly to build more infrastructure for them, with most living space and more connected hallways to limit time spent outside. That being said he understood why people would want to leave, you either worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week in a mine or you worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week in a factory. On top of that you had to spend twenty minutes struggling into a pressure suit if you wanted to go outside or even take one of the mag lev trains to a different complex. Of course the mines and the factories were in different complexes from the living areas, so they got into suits at least twice a day.

As he was finishing his second pint the pub started filling up with people just off their shift. In short order he was joined by some of the guys he knew who were on a different shift than he. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked as he motioned for a round of drinks for the table.

One of the men, named Mark, looked at him with a gleam in his eyes, “We are thinking about quitting our jobs and want you to join us.”

Levi was quite taken aback by the suggestion “What are you talking about? Why would you quit?” He had a feeling that there was more to this but Mark hadn’t gotten to it yet, or at least he hoped.

“We want to start a private company. Right now the Mag Levs are the only transport around the planet, we are thinking about starting a transport company. The first models would be ground based, at least until the terraformers start getting around to doing something about the dust storms. We can build them but we need someone who is good with electronics to make them go, as it were.”

“That sounds reasonable but I think we should actually build one or two prototypes before we actually quit our jobs.” Levi replied thinking it was not a bad idea as long as they didn’t rush into it without thinking about what would happen. “What would we call the company?”

“I was thinking Nicosia Transport.”


October 2050
New York City, United North America

Trevor Lee was watching the stock news and contemplating his next move. Stock prices had been all over the place the last several months, especially with the colonization of Mars. The new Trans-Newtonian Companies were starting to gain importance, there were three shipping companies now. Morrical Freight was the biggest with a share price of $3.02, with Postlewaite Lines getting a bump in price to $2.01 now that there was Prestige Carrier Line. Postlewaite had a ship which made it a more viable company than Prestige so it made sense. This was the problem with the new companies though, there wasn’t really a stick to measure what their prices should be.

The price of most metals and precious minerals were plummeting in recent months. With most economies moving over to TN materials steel and other important building materials no longer had the importance they used to have and with a huge drop in demand the price had to drop as well. Not only was demand dropping but the mines on Venus and Mars were also pulling out some metals and precious minerals as well as TN materials which pushed up the supply, in some cases supply was now far exceeding demand. The biggest hits came to titanium and aircraft grade aluminum, without militaries needing those materials the companies producing them had to come up with other uses for the metals.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 16, 2013, 03:08:45 PM »

September 2050
Wolf 359

Commander Norris Burrus sipped from his cup of orange juice as he sat in his command chair. After several months shore leave his crew was at it again, searching for jump points, this time in a new system. Wolf 359 was considered a useless system right now, and how could it not be? It was just a dim star. But there were now four ships speeding through the system in pairs trying to find new jump points somewhere in this system.

At 3,950 tons the Newton class of ships was tied for the second smallest independently operating class in the Republic Earth Navy. Norris was amused that the three smallest were designed to have the longest deployments, the Newton and the Hutton were survey ships and the Enterprise class was an exploration ship. There was no floor space right now; every inch was used to store food because this deployment was going to be at least six months before there was a jump gate to go back to Sol. Some of his men even spent most of the time in the hallways moving from room to room using nothing but their arms swinging above the crates.

The interior was painted in middle to dark gray, he believed it was called Timber Gray or something like it. It was almost pleasing, and it looked fairly bright when the lights were on. This was shaping up to be a long deployment if he was already contemplating the color of the ship. With three sensor arrays it shouldn’t take too long per survey point and the other gravity task group was heading to point thirty so they should both do fifteen survey points.

And anyway this is the most important work that can be done for the Republic. One garden world has been found and it’s settled by aliens. Terraforming is proving to be a long term prospect so it was up to ships like the Fermi and the Newton to find new jump points and it was up to ships like the Enterprise and the Valiant to then find more garden worlds.

The bridge is filled with a somewhat pleasant alert. “Lieutenant Woodard, report.” The words came out of Norris’ mouth the moment he had processed the sound of the alert.

Lt. Glen Woodard, the chief sensor officer, looked up at the Commander. “We have one jump point found bearing from Wolf 359 is 212 mark 160, distance is 348 million kilometers.” As he was finishing his first report, several more lights on his display started flashing, “Wait a second. We have two, I repeat, two jump points discovered. There is a second one bearing 226 mark 48 707 million kilometers from Wolf 359.”

Norris jumped out of his chair in his surprise as he was trying to process Lt. Woodard’s report. Fighting back against the adrenaline, he forced himself to sit back down, his cup forgotten at his side. “Is the Amerigo Vespucci within contact range?”

Lt. Lloyd Petty, the chief communications officer, took this moment to reply, “Yes sir. We can hail the Vespucci but I do not believe it will do much good.”

Swinging the command chair toward the officer Norris raised his eyebrow, “And why is that Lt. Petty?”

Lloyd swallowed, he hated these moments more than anything. “Because sir, there have been no recent jumps and none are planned until the completion of the jump gate. We will not be able to communicate with Naval Command and neither would the Vespucci. For the next forty nine days and fourteen hours we will be out of contact with Command.”

Of course he was right, Norris had forgotten. As a sailor he was not used to operating completely independently of Naval Command. “Ok. Well report the findings to Captain Dubrey of the Aristotle, he is the senior officer in this system. Also log an official message with the Vespucci to be sent in case of jump or on competition of the gate, priority one.”


Orbit over Margret, Uranus, Sol

Commander Lon Gonder was opened his eyes to find his vision swimming in the dark. “Lights on slowly, setting dim three.” He croaked as he rubbed his head and realized he was on the floor of his room. Slowly he remembered that he had woken up by being lifted off his bed and hitting the bulkhead and he must have been then thrown to the floor. As this processed he suddenly realized the implications and jumped up, struggling to put on pants he started running full tilt to the bridge. Klaxons were blaring but the pounding of the blood in his ears overpowered the noise and the rushing of blood in his eyes put a red haze over everything so he didn’t notice a difference as red alert was put into effect and the red lights started flashing throughout the ship.

The hallways were filled with people running in every direction or standing outside their berths desperately looking for information but everyone pressed themselves against the wall as Lon ran past. Eight months into a quiet survey of Sol’s moons were suddenly shattered. After what seemed like an eternity he reached the last door and as it silently opened for him, he was greeted by a bridge under control, busy but under control.

“What. What happened?” He gasped out after a couple of seconds. With things clearly under control his extreme adrenaline rush was failing quickly leaving him fatigued, and he was starting to realize he was out of breath.

Lt. Jamaal Vega snapped to attention seeing him, “Commander on deck.” First Officer Vega called out. “We have encountered a problem with one of our engines sir. Engine three failed but maintenance crews are already on it. I apologize for what must have been a rude awakening.”

Lon slowly walked to the command chair and grasped it, putting his weight onto it as he caught his breath. “Thank you Lt. Vega. Carry on.” He walked around to the front of the chair and sat down.

“Thank you sir.” Jamaal replied as he went back to monitoring the situation and leading repair efforts. He made a note to himself that he would have to change the duty rosters for at least maintenance and possibly engineering after the repairs were done.

Lon flicked on the intercom for the entire ship as he canceled the red alert. He sat in the newly reestablished silence on the bridge for a couple of seconds before starting, “This is your commander. As I am sure all of you know there was a red alert that I just canceled. There is nothing to worry about. One of our engines suffered a failure and is in the process of being repaired. If you are not on duty please go back to your berths and clear the hallways. Thank you.”
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 10, 2013, 01:10:29 AM »

July 2050
Operations Center, Department of Survey, Naval Headquarters, Earth

“GSV Darwin, this is Operations Center. Do you copy?” Ensign Vicky Eaton said into the intercom. Communications had recently had a major breakthrough when jump point theory was proven correct earlier this year, and the Republic of Earth Navy was field testing a new communications method which used small jump engine like devices to transmit messages. So although the GSV Darwin had just reported finishing surveys of the last dwarf planet deep into the Oort Cloud it would only take a minute or two for them to receive the message.

Aboard the Darwin, Captain Cornelius Schneider was gazing down at the gray lifeless rock below him. Eris orbited the sun at a distance of 14.5 billion kilometers and had no minerals worthwhile on its roughly 17 million square kilometer surface. It was peaceful though, being 96.9 AU from the sun, it was reduced to one of the two brightest stars in the sky, at this distance Sirius was a top contender for brightest star. It was just him and his one hundred and ten crewmembers orbiting the ninth largest object in the solar system. “Operations Center, this is GSV Darwin, we copy.”

A wave of relief came over Ensign Eaton, she hated the long waits between messages. Though with the old system it would have been much longer, almost 13 hours, and actually it would have been longer since Eris was currently on almost the completely opposite side of the Sun from Earth right now. “With the completion of your primary duties in the Sol System, your new orders are to move to Neptune and begin surveying moons and other natural satellites. The Irving and Jagger, which makes up Geology Task Group #2 have surveyed the moons out through Saturn and are now working on Uranus’ moons. After you have finished you will start surveying the asteroids and comets of the Oort Cloud. Operations Center over and out.”


Wolf 359 Jump Point

Commander Alexander Nappo looked at the giant structure floating in space in front of his ship. Every now and then electricity sparked along it, and he imagined the crackle and the smell of ozone his brain told him there should be. Of course there was no sound since sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum and no smell of ozone because there was no oxygen to turn into O3. But then again sometimes science took away the romance of things, or at least that’s what passed through Alex’s mind. This was a nerve wracking time for him, though he imagined that in just a few years this will probably no big deal and he was one of two commanding officers who were making it no big deal. Commander Alexander Nappo was in command of what was about to become the third ship to ever jump solar systems, and at 71,300 tons the Amerigo Vespucci outweighed the Enterprise and the Valiant by almost 24 times making it the largest ship to ever jump in human history.

Jump Gates were like giant jump engines that would shoot ships through the jump point as if the ship had a jump engine of its own. The Amerigo Vespucci was one of two ships that created jump gates and each ship only had space for four gates. While the Wolf 359 Jump Gate was not the first one constructed, the Coontz had finished the Alpha Centauri gate five days ago, it would be the first one to see use. In preparation for this event Alex had read the reports of both the Enterprise and the Valient’s logs regarding jumps several times and he had made it mandatory that his crew of two hundred and sixty nine do the same at least once.

And then came the moment where Alex could not delay any longer. It was time to make the jump. “All stations report go for jump.” He ordered with all the command he could muster. On the display screen in front of him one by one each station turned green, reporting that they were ready for the jump. Not that they had very much to get ready for, only the engine crew, bridge crew, maintenance crews, and the crew of the two CIWS were at stations right now. After inputting the commands he pressed the button to begin powering up the jump gate and he saw the electricity start flowing along and through the gate with increasing frequency before arcing out and hitting his ship. Then he had the most bizarre feeling in his life as everything seemed to be pulled sideways and then like a rubber band everything was snapped back into place.

“All good. A normal jump has taken place. We are successfully in Wolf 359. Message sent using residual energy from jump to Naval Command. We are go for construction on this side.”


August 2050
Naval Command, Earth


Vice Admiral Vern Mucher was sitting at his desk with a large view of the North Sea behind him when the two commanders were ushered in. This month would be a truncated staff meeting because most of the staff were not needed. Today he would only be meeting with Commander Brian Hoston and Commander Yvonne Dreger, Head of Operations and Logistics respectively. He finished reading a report as they stood at attention for a minute before finally sitting down at the chairs in front of his desk. “Since August is almost over and in two months your departments are the only ones who have had anything of note to do, this month’s staff meeting will consist of just the three of us. Commander Hoston, begin.”

Brian cleared his throat and began, “Sir, as you know the Amerigo Vespucci became the first vessel to travel through a jump gate and after a delay of ten minutes we received word that they had successfully jumped and would be beginning on creating the jump gate on the other side. We have had one update from them and they have had no problems. This second update was possible because the Gravity Task Groups 1 and 2 were sent to Wolf 359 to begin gravitational surveys of that system. Hopefully something is found because that system is currently considered a dead system with no use. The task groups were reassigned now because there is no use of them in Sol since they have completed the gravitational survey of Sol and had sufficient shore leave and their fuel reserves are large enough that they will not reach 50% before the gate on the Wolf 359 side is completed. The only other thing to note on pertaining to Naval Operations is the Coontz is still continuing on to the Sirius jump point. It has been in transit for over a month now and is still a little over a week away.”

“Thank you Commander. Now Commander Dreger, what do you have to report?”

“The construction of the MEADS 100 anti missile missiles has finished, and we have a stockpile of 2,000 of them. We have about 750 of 2,000 RIM-100 anti ship missiles and the ordnance factories that were producing the MEADS are now producing RIMs, which has taken a year off the estimated finish date. The RIM-100s should finish in mid 2051. We imagine these stockpiles will not be enough if we start a war with another race but by that point we may be at a different generation of missiles so I have ordered that the stockpiles do not get too big at the moment.”

Vern nodded as he thought about what his two staff members said. “Good thinking Commander Dreger. Though with how slow we seem to be making the RIM-100s, I fear that a stockpile of 2,000 might be depleted faster than it could be replaced in case of war. We will see when that day comes. I can not imagine that humans and the Bilos are the only two races out there. I also can not imagine that all will be as cordial as the Bilos either. How many RIM-100s can the Lexington Task Group hold in one go?”

At that question Yvonne looks through some of the papers she has and does some quick math before answering, “I believe about 422, sir.”

“So with one resupply the Lexington Task Group will go through just over 1/5th of our stockpile. That doesn’t even include the Earth Orbital Defense. By the time the RIM-100 production is complete I want either a revised stockpile level or plans for a new generation of missiles.”
Posted by: Sematary
« on: December 09, 2013, 04:25:52 PM »

I know its been awhile since I have posted but I am getting to it now. I live in a place that is not used to snow and we have just had a weekend with more snow then there has been here in over two decades with more likely to come in the next day or two either that or the temp will jump up like it normally does and it will be nothing but rain for the next several months.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: November 28, 2013, 12:50:32 PM »

Thank you. When writing I try to imagine what the people would do or see. As for brightness, I am really photosensitive so I think about how bright things are a lot to the point where I criticize most sci fi movies and shows for the apparent lack of need of sunglasses in a time where everything is made out of white shiny smeg. But yeah I try to write details and something that could be published and people would want to pay money to read it.
Posted by: JacenHan
« on: November 28, 2013, 11:29:11 AM »

Nice update! I like how many small details you manage to bring into the story, such as Sirius' brightness, something I would never have even thought of.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: November 25, 2013, 10:29:54 PM »

Just an update to all of my readers, I am playing the game forward right now. For the last entry I had reached the point I had played at the start of the entry so I am pushing ahead. I am about halfway through fall of 2050 and will probably go forward a couple years, taking detailed notes the whole way. We are also getting to the point where not much is happening. This will bring the clock forward and we may have months that aren't included.
Posted by: Sematary
« on: November 23, 2013, 12:54:24 PM »

July 2050
Nicosia, Syria-Thaumasia, Mars

Levi Barlow stood in the crowd as the second group of colonists landed not too far outside the colony. This would bring the population up to just shy of a million people living primarily in Nicosia. Most of the rest of them were setting up a new city called Cairo. Apparently the names had something to do with some books or movies or something that were written a long time ago, Levi didn’t really know or care that much to be honest. His arm reflexively raised to shield his face as the Oregon got low enough to start kicking up dust, not that his arm would do anything that the visor on his environmental suit wouldn’t do. The thing that struck him the most about the dust, and everything on this planet for that matter, was that it was no where near red but rather a light brownish color. He felt a little sad for these people though, current policy was to cryogenically freeze people for the trip even though it was only a couple of days. The memories of what it was like to wake up from the freeze were still fresh in his memory, he could almost smell the bile still.

Levi checked his watch noting the time. He would have to leave here before the 300,000 people had fully disembarked and long before they shuffled off to the immigration office. On Earth Levi had built computers for a living, but here on Mars that was not an option, at least not yet. He was part of a team that built the electronics for the new construction factories being put up. A couple had been brought from Earth but many, many more would be needed if Mars was ever going to be a productive colony. He didn’t complain too much though, he was not one of the people actually putting together the factories or one of the poor blokes who worked in the mines. Really he was solidly part of the very small middle class that existed on Mars, and considering that most of what could be considered high class worked for the Republic directly, he was sitting pretty.


The Hague, Earth

“Maki-san, I have news about the Morrical Freight Company.”

Ichiro looked up at his manservant with heavily lidded eyes, “Yes? What is the news?”
He was hoping the news was not another rise in Morrical’s stock prices. His company, Postlewaite, had launched a freighter much larger than Morrical’s freighter but the stock prices had remained at $2 a share, and now Morrical had just launched another ship just a couple days ago. It was a fuel harvester of all things, its job was to stop at a gas giant and collect sorium and refine it before bringing it back to Earth to sell.

“The ship has laid in a course. It is heading to Neptune.”

“Really? That is an odd choice. Neptune has less sorium than Earth does and its harder to get. I would imagine they would go to Uranus where over 25 million cubic tons of sorium exists.” This was interesting. There were seven bodies known to contain sorium in the solar system and Neptune had the forth largest, though he did have to admit that the scans showed that sorium could be rather easily harvested from Neptune’s atmosphere.



Perth, Oceania, Earth

“Religion has a long history of disputes it has had with science, one of the most notable examples is Galileo, but in the 1920s the game changed. Starting with State of Tennessee vs. Scopes, religion has been increasingly against science. I would argue in all this time science has only had one real dispute with religion, this dispute started in 1984 by Thomas Pierson and Dr Jill Tarter. In 1984 these two incorporated the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute, better known as either SETI or the SETI Institute.

“Bayesian Logic, also known as Occam’s Razor or Occam’s Principle, is the foundation of scientific thought and when on the subject of life outside earth it would postulate that we are not alone. Not only can we postulate this but mathematics, astrophysics, and astrogeology all support this by proving that the Sol system is a rather average system and is one of uncountable systems in existence.

“Yet with all of this being true, religions around the world refused to accept the possibility until earlier this year when we made contact with the Bilos. In response to this there are people who are claiming that the Bilos must be the angels and such that are written in holy texts despite the lack of jump point knowledge of the Bilos. As of right now we do not know much about the history of the Bilos and most of that is still classified by the government. That being said for the Bilos to have visited Earth before they would have either had to had jump point knowledge and then lost it in some sort of dark ages, which there is no record of or even records of the after effects of such a time. Or they would have had to use generation ships, and given what I know about the speed their technology is capable of now it would take them approximately seven thousand seven hundred years to travel from Alpha Centauri to Sol, though interstellar space none the less.

“I think that using math we can say with a fair amount of certainty that it is very unlikely that the Bilos ever visited Earth. And if that is the case then we know that there is no mention in any text we have, religious or not, of how many intelligent species are out there. Therefore it should be of critical importance that we assume we are not alone and  that other, possibly greater threats, exit in the cosmos. Thank you all for attending, remember your papers are due on Friday and I will see you next week.”
Posted by: Sematary
« on: November 19, 2013, 03:06:51 AM »

May 2050
Sol Jump Point 3

Merry smiled as her ship reached the jump point. After three months of being stationed at the Alpha Centauri jump point her ship was reinstated as the head of the Jump Exploration Task Group and she was able to leave Sol again. HQ had been in full communications with the Bilios for two months now and they had reached the conclusion that the Bilios were of no immediate threat. “Valiant, this is the Enterprise, Commander Mastroianni, please report ship readiness.”

She waited a few seconds before the reply came in, “Enterprise, this is the Valiant. I am reading green all across the board. Ready to jump on your mark.”

“Thank you Fred. Mark in 15, 14…2, 1 Mark.” The rushing roar of the jump engines was starting to become something she was used to, but the feeling of sliding sideways that came at the moment of the jump was something Merry just didn’t think she would ever be used to.
As soon as they jumped the bridge was filled with a blinding white light. “What is going on? Is there some sort of problem with the view screen?” She shouted as she threw up her arms to protect her eyes.

“Um, no sir.” Came the hesitant answer of her Operations Chief. “Polarizing view screen now, it appears the main star of this system is just very bright. We were not prepared for it.”

The light on the bridge finally dimmed to an acceptable level which prompted Merry to look around. “Where are we?”

“We appear to be orbiting Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. It is a binary system, the main star, Sirius A, is 62 times as bright as the Sun, while the secondary star, Sirius B is just over 1% of the Sun’s brightness.”

“Thank you Lieutenant. Am I correct in reading that there are six planets orbiting the main star, and two orbiting the secondary? With about 60 moons between them?” Merry directed the question at her Sensor Officer who took a moment to reply.

“Yes sir. You appear to be correct. The first four planets are orbiting Sirius A in an orbit smaller than Sirius B while the farther two are well outside Sirius B’s orbit. Judging by our current knowledge of White Dwarfs like Sirius B the first four planets have only had a chance to develop in the last several million years. If there was ever any life in this system it would have had to develop on one of the moons of Sirius A V or VI but would probably have died out as Sirius B transitioned into its current state.”

“Good. There appears to be no place for any colony of any sort so we will head back and mark this system as mineral and military value only.”


June 2050
Barcelona, Europe, Earth

Greg hastily walked through the patio and onto the very well manicured lawn ignoring the bright sunlight and the overall beauty of his surroundings. He was a man on a mission. There was news he had to deliver to his boss and he had to deliver it now. After a several minute walk, just long enough for him to start subtly sweating in the heat and his black suit, he reached the hammock that his boss was laying in. “Excuse me sir, but there is news that you will want to hear.”

Bruce Mathews sat up and looked at his man through mirrored sunglasses, “Yes Greg?” The head of the Socialist party in the House of Commons was not a man who allowed petty news to bother him on vacation, though important news was to be shared immediately.

“It seems as though Morrical Freight Company has launched the first civilian ship, sir.” Greg cleared his throat and waited. Either this would be deemed important and he would be, if not rewarded, then at least left alone or this would be deemed petty and he would possibly be in the market for a new job.

“I see.” Bruce pondered this for a moment before getting up and holding his hand out for a tablet. “Continue.” He said as he started to look at the information on the screen while walking back toward the house.

“Apparently it is called a Morrical Small F5, it is a freighter that appears to be just over 34,000 tons. Cost of this ship seems to be about $660,000,000 most of it coming from the subsidy given to them by the government some months ago. Their share price has risen to $3.00 a share from $2.00 a share and will most likely continue to rise in the near future.” Greg stopped for a moment to take a deep breath so he could continue while matching his boss’ pace. “Back to the ship, it is reported to be slightly faster than the Navy’s Tanker class freighter and has almost twice the range, though given that the F5 is about half the size of the Tanker that is to be expected. It also has about half the cargo space and takes over a day to load while the Tanker class can fully load up in 20 hours.”

Bruce nodded as they entered the house and he started setting up for a meeting in the living room area of the house. “Good, how recent is this news? Also how many other senators and representatives do you think know about this?”

“By this point, given that the walk is about two and a half minutes from the house to where you were, the news broke about seven minutes ago. If they aren’t being currently informed of it they will be soon, either that or a large number of aides will be looking for new jobs come tomorrow.”

“That is exactly what I want to hear. Now we are going to have to start a meeting with all senior party members as we process this development. It is exactly what we wanted to happen and I believe it is the private sector’s response to the moving of infrastructure to Mars that the Navy began almost two months ago. Lets see, the North Carolinas will be done in about a year so that will cause an uptick in how quickly Mars can be terraformed, if I am not mistaken the current estimates with just two North Carolina class put Mars at being fully terraformed in the 2150s. The new ships should bring that down to the early 2070s.”

3rd July 2050
Live Broadcast from The Hague, Earth

“People of the Earth, rejoice on this day. This is the day that Earth stops being the only populated planet in our solar system. Earlier today six hundred thousand of your fellow humans have landed on Mars to make the red planet their home. They are starting to fill habitats constructed for them over the past few months as they wait for their new home to become habitable. Mars is our first colony away from our home, the first of many.”