Children of Sol: Multiplayer Aurora

[sublight (OP)]

In a display of breath-taking timing Geoffroypi has returned to the public eye reaffirming his leadership of Mars just a single hour before the Marian senate was poised to vote on an interim leader and arrange a special election.

While technically democratic, traditionally only a single nominee has run unopposed for leadership with blessing of Generals. While most believe that a chosen success had been carefully selected and groomed for the job, others insist that due to dissension between the growing Space Crops branch two or three nominees would have been presented in a historic first. The validity of these rumors, however, will have to wait for the public, unnerved by wilder rumors of impending civil war, flocked to the stability presented by the returning head of state and shelving all plans for a new election- for now.

To the nameless candidate I had asked about taking over Mars, sorry, but Geoffroypi was faster in returning than you were in introducing yourself. To Geoffroypi, welcome back. Please don't disappear again.

I'll Insert the latest turn info here later today after I take the SM turn.


Edit:
July - 2075 - Mineral Swap

Spurred by falling deposits and growing industrial demand, the Syndicate reached an agreement to exchange with the Venusians 5,000 tons of Mercasium for a much needed 5,000 tons of Duranium early this year. News of the trade reversed the Syndicate Consumer Stock index's downward slide as fears of economic collapse were appeased for the short term. Even so, concerns of long term sustainabilty prompted shares in the Syndicate Asteroid Venture Inc to rise to record highs as the complex owners announced expansion plans for opening a new drill head.

[Panopticon]

[ooc]Man, Sol is a busy system, how many civilian ships are out there? I know the two companies on Venus have launched something like 64 in total.[/ooc]

[Ektoras]

[ooc]Syndicate companies have around 40 ships[/ooc]

[sublight (OP)]

January 2076 - Take 3

Yes. The civilians fill the skies like roaches. Yes, I'm excited that the next aurora version will have a civilian retirement mechanism. Yes, I keep thinking their ought to be a natural predator for civilian ships. Like pirates. No, I probably won't introduce pirates.

Anyway, 2076 will not be posted until Saturday.
Apparently there is a little bug where under certain circumstances when fighting robots your own population will surrender itself to your. Halfway through the redo Mercury surrendered itself to Venus. This almost was just a funny quirk... only that every single ground unit on Mercury erased themselves from existence in the progress. The missing units could have been SMed back in with a little effort, but I suspect the commanding officers have also vanished, which can't be as easily SMed back in.

So... SM turn redo #3. 2076 coming Saturday. Hopefully.

[sublight (OP)]

January 2076 - Tall Tales

Just in, the Martian Einstein 004 swung returned to port for refueling and overhaul last night with, in a stunning display of timing, less than 1% fuel reserves remaining. With a range of over 90 billion km, we can only wounder at the sights and places the ship may have visited. Earth Lord Jo'Forifov, commander of the ship, was unavailable for comment.

Spy Report: January 2071

Code: [Select]

Planet Population SY workers SY size Fleet Size Industry Logistic Labs
Mars 705m    5.9m 100,000 338.0 kT 41.9m 2.6m 14
Earth 662m    19.1m    676,000 563.0 kT 49.3m 3.8m 14
Venus    689m    11.5m    296,000 439.0 kT 35.0m 6.7m 21

Mercury    4.2m
Titan    9.8m

Shipping Line Flag Ships Tonnage Income
Moore Colony Company Syndicate 18 735 kT 1520c
Horton Lines Syndicate 8 194 kT 550c
Jawoski Colony Group Venusian 21 672 kT 2390c
Dawdy Shipping      Venusian 22 738 kT 3180c

Short Stories of the past:

Wayfinder: about 8 years ago.

Josh Kirk, 2nd watch bridge crew (sensor station) of the Wayfinder 'Rusty' rapped his control panel suspiciously. The only thing that should have been nearby was the Lithium jump gate they were picketing, yet they were registering a class 75 thermal emission less than 10k km away. The report wavered on the rap, but didn't go away.

"Lord Ford, this is bridge. Thermal sensors have gone funky. Either someone's won the jackpot in the malfunction pool on Thermal, or we've got a gate emergence." Josh said, sending a com call to the ship captain.

The Wayfinder series had been built for speed rather than endurance, and on extended patrols something was always breaking. Rusty, one of the two oldest still operational ships in her class, had a history of breaking: but the thermal sensor was the one thing that hadn't broken at least once. Odds varied between 1:260 and 1:80 depending on how many people entered and if 1 or 2 had gone for the long shot.

"No sir, not ... probably not... an entrance. No blue shift. ... Yes sir, eyeball coming up." Disconnecting Josh grabbed an inferred hunting scope and headed up the ladder to the observation alcove. Just about every ship had a collection of inferred and radio detection equipment. Cheap and light weight, they were a nice back up for docking maneuvers and planet radio eavesdropping. Plus, no crewman ever wanted to be complexity blind and would often end up assigned to 'sensor free' ships.

A quick visual check wouldn't take long... and didn't. It was a ship, Martian. This was a little worrying since it had to have been in the Lithium system since before the picket was started, and had to be jump capable since no return gate had yet been built. As the foreign ship cleared its jump blindness and sped off Josh remembered to call the captain back. "Lord, sensors logs read for review. Visual confirmation of Martian ship... repeat the Martians are jump capable, and have been so longer than we've been on station."


Historical note: The Wayfinders had less than a 4 year maintenance life, yet it took about 10 years for sufficient maintenance facilities to be built to support them. Six years into the program the Wayfinders were rotting in orbit, and the two oldest ended up getting scrapped and rebuilt with the saved components as a cost saving measure.


Further Spy news:
Known Systems (2071)
Martians: 8
Syndicate: 6
Venusians: 6

Save posted. Personal messages coming soon.

[sublight (OP)]

July 2076 - Aliens

This may or may not apply to you. 

Some Time Ago on Mercury...

The Dragon Ectocythe, A Ranked Demon of the Venusian Ground Officer corps peered through a range finder at the engineering excavation a few kilometers ahead. His 39th Garrison Battalion was on archeology perimeter duty and were dug in with heavy weapons facing down range. They'd been in enviromental suits for days now.

"Ksss, Nearly I wish we had riot duty" he tells his nearest underling. "That wasn't boring. Nearly."
With a harsh climate and cronic overcrowding someone somewhere was always making trouble, but there was no fighting joy to glorified police work. The real excitiment was out here on the parimiter when robot gaurdians would rampage out of the depths into a glorious crossfire of the heavy stuff. They robots were even sufficiently armed and armored to fight back. But, that was rare. Mostly, perimeter required steady nearvs and watchful alertness in boring silence.

"Engineers here. No Robots. Wait.... Yes, no robots." the radio chirped. "Looks like we have terriforming station crushed by a cave-in. Recovery doesn't look good. Moving on to vault 7BD."

Anddd today probably wouldn't be exciting either. He hoped the next vault would have robots.


Save Posted. PMs coming soon.

[Panopticon]

In the spirit of cooperation The Dragon wishes the fellow Children of Sol to be aware of our intention to begin operating active sensors as a matter of course on our survey and military vessels, as well as our intention of picketing Sol JP 5. This policy will go into effect on the new year.

In unrelated news, Venus ads technology to the previous ones offered for trade:

Orbital Habitat Module
Salvage Module
Ion Drive technology, as well as the prerequisite reactor tech.
Offers will be considered in the form of installations, large quantities of minerals, or tech as usual.

[Ektoras]

I would like to remind to the Dragonians that scanning planets and colonies is considered bad etiquette by the other two Sol factions, i hope their ships avoid scanning Earth, Mars and their colonies. Also the Syndicate ships have the right to open their active scanner if Venusian ships scan them.

[ooc]I am confused with the naming of systems.For easy reading the system after Sols' JP5 is Boron[/ooc]

Picketing Sol JP 5 is important as an alien race has been spotted in the Boron system. The aliens currently are neutral, but just in case they try to enter Sol system and become a threat to our core worlds, Syndicate navy has assigned a scout ship to picket the JP5. If Venus agrees to share early warning the Syndicate scout will move forward and go to the systems after Boron, and scout them, in hope we learn more for the Aliens.

As Syndicate has no intersted in the Boron system, we will accept the name Venusians gave to it. We will also use the Venusians name for the 2 systems that can be found after Boron.

[ooc]Which are?[/ooc]

[sublight (OP)]

2077 - Year of Salvage

Earlier this year the wreck resonance beacons left from The Dual and Wayfinder Explosion one by one vanished from sensors. While no cause was immediately apparent, all eyes have turned toward the Venusian Empire since they alone have admitted to possessing salvage technology. Venusian representatives were not available for comment but the newsies have high hopes of an explanation after the winter congressional conference.

Spy Report: 2067

Code: [Select]

Fox class Gunboat    3,750 tons     367 Crew     347 BP      TCS 75  TH 75  EM 0
1000 km/s     Armour 2-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 16.56
Maint Life 3.52 Years     MSP 116    AFR 56%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 14    5YR 215    Max Repair 48 MSP

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (3)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 24.0 billion km   (277 days at full power)

Twin 10cm C2 Visible Light Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 60,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 6-4     RM 2    ROF 10        3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S16 40-8000 (1)    Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Pressurised Water Reactor PB-1 (4)     Total Power Output 8    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Gen 1 PD Sensor (1)     GPS 40     Range 2.0m km    Resolution 1
Gen 1 Main Sensor (1)     GPS 4000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The Fox was the final legacy of the original OAM administration of Mars, but no production models were ever built. As of 2067 the model had already languished unchanged on the drawing board for years. Had it been constructed, the Fox would have been the first armed vessel by the children of Sol, and remained the only armed ship for untold years.

Code: [Select]

Defender class Planetary Defence Centre    24,600 tons     906 Crew     1158 BP      TCS 492  TH 0  EM 0
Armour 10-75     Sensors 1/40     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 66.24
Troop Capacity: 5 Battalions   

Twin 10cm C2 Visible Light Laser Turret (8x2)    Range 60,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 6-4     RM 2    ROF 10        3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S16 40-8000 (4)    Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0

Gen 1 PD Sensor (2)     GPS 40     Range 2.0m km    Resolution 1
Gen 1 Main Sensor (2)     GPS 4000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100


This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 10 sections
The defender Planetary Defense Center was original conceived as a low-maintnance colony defense base for Martian Colonies. However, the design proved to be ahead of its time as Mars had not yet produced engineering battalions or the transport capacity to move them. At least one center was prefabricated, but none would be assembled for quite some time.

The 2067 Fleets of Regiestery are as follows:
Mars:
2x Einsteins
2x Geologists (aka: Alphas)
4x Liberties (aka: Betas)
1x Trade

Syndicate:
1x Colony
4x Prospectors
1x Trade
3x Vituvious
3x Wayfinders
(The Syndicates slow expansion of cargo lift capacity would cripple their early colony efforts)

Venus:
2x Balor
1x Colony
3x Hecate
2x Hecate Grav
6x Mykul

Technology Listings: 2064 (Unique: Universal Knowledge Excluded)

Code: [Select]

Venus Syndiate Mars
10cm Laser  Active Scanner 12 10cm Laser
Active Scanner 12 Cryogenic Transport 15cm Carronades
Duranium Armor EM 6  Alpha Shielding
Cryogenic Transport Jump Gates 180 Capacitor 2
Engineer Battalion Mag Ejection 70%  Duranium Armor
Ground Combat 12 Mag Feed 75% Hyper Drive 2.0
Implosion Warheads Missile Rate 2 Inferred Laser
Jump Drive 3 Nuke Therm M. Drv Jump Drive 3
Jump Squad 3 Troop Transport Jump Squad 3
Jump Radius 50k Jump Radius 50k
Mag Ejection 70%  Shield Regen 1
Mag Feed 75% Turret Speed 2,000
Thermal 6    Turret Speed 3,000
Troop Transport Visible Light Laser
And... thats enough for this report.

Save Posted PMs. Coming Soon. Mars has/will be retiring soon, so recruitment for that slot has reopened.


Edit: April 2077 - Heat Death

The Syndicate and Venusians reached an agreement to trade Ion Propulsion and the prerequisite reactor technology in return for Missile Agility 48, Implosion Warheads, Missile Reload 3, 2kTons of Neutronium 3kTons of Mercasiom, and 3kTons of Gallicite.

More news whenever July arrives.

Turn ended early for heat death. Everything from early February forward was a 1-day possible fleet intercept. Slow 1-day turns. Even with autoturns and cable TV I got bored with the idiot box before the SM turn was half over. PMs' coming shortly.

[Jikor]

Greetings fellow Races of Sol.

I am the new First Citizen Karr Jion.

As Martian politics are extremely volatile at times and these times even more volatile than most.

Under the new regime we will uphold the treaties agreed upon by our predecessors.  We would like to review the current state of extra solar claims. 

As for any militancy can we come to an accord to hold peace within sol amongst the three powers? There are many dangers outside our system for us to fear and there should be no need to bring our own homeworlds to ruin.

[Ektoras]

Greetings First Citizen Karr Jion.

Syndicate always supports peace, cooperation and free trade. We are glad to hear that you will uphold the past treaties.

Meanwhile Syndicate claims a new rock, it is Lithium-A V - Moon 4. Lithium system is the system after JP3 of Sol.

[Panopticon]

Announcement from the Dragon of Venus.

Children of Sol, in the coming years you will see 277k-ton ships launching from Venus, these are our new Talona class orbital habitats, intended to support Terraforming operations in the Galun-Kur system. As these will be the largest mobile objects ever launched, we are making this announcement to head off any worries, and to state that any interference with these vessels and their mission will not be tolerated. Response will be rapid and unrestricted in scope.

The message was followed by updates in the trading sector that the tech involved in the construction of the habitats, as well as for Terraforming, is available for trade. Many were previously mentioned but are advertised again here:
Ion drives and related reactor tech
Compressed Fuel Storage
Terraforming 0.0012 and 0.0015
In addition Fuel Production 28000 liters has been developed and is on offer.

[sublight (OP)]

July - 2077 - Changing of the Guard

"In the recent years space has grown more crowded.. and more dangerous. Our neighbors are armed, aliens fill the surrounding space. But we are not defenseless. We have a fleet of our own weapons of our own, and more importantly, we have you." James Steward, junior officer of the Navy said as part of the commencement address to the latest graduating class of crewman from the academy.

It was a bitter sweat moment. He was the senior most unassigned officer, which would have been an honor except he hadn't ever had a commission. Now, after a 7 year career without any assignments had been deemed surplose to operations. His retirement party was tomorrow. The fleet was expanding, but the war ships were reserved for officers with rank, officers with survey talent had priority for the scout fleets, and those with logistical tallent were fast tracked for the auxiliary ships. In hind sight, he probably shouldn't have specialized in terriforming.

Unless I here objections I will no longer be reporting new ships/class detected in private messages. Speaking of which, new turn posted. PMs coming soon.

January 2078

Turn done. PM's coming. Spy report and a witty comment/story will have to wait until I've have more sleep.

[sublight (OP)]

January 2078 - The Monolith Moves

"Nothing that big has any right to move." This thought was voiced by many across Earth and Mars as professors and students watched in disbelief as the largest artificial object ever dreamed moved: and moved quickly. With a thermal signature of 2850 the Venusian Talona was visible not only to the imperial deep space sensor arrays, but also to the larger privately owned astronomy instruments. It was a sight for all eyes. It's not every day that a 200+ kiloton object moves at just over 500 km/s.

Spy Report: January 2071

Code: [Select]

Planet Population SY workers SY size Fleet Size Industry Logistic Labs
Mars 746m    6.4m 152,000 341.0 kT 41.9m 2.6m 16
Earth 688m    20.9m    714,000 742.0 kT 49.3m 3.9m 14
Venus    715m    12.9m    332,000 596.0 kT 35.0m 6.7m 21

Mercury    5.6m
Titan    14.3m 1.5m 0.3m

Shipping Line Flag Ships Tonnage Income
Moore Colony Company Syndicate 20 832 kT 1690c
Horton Lines Syndicate 11 498 kT 1220c
Jawoski Colony Group Venusian 27 858 kT 2860c
Dawdy Shipping      Venusian 27 904 kT 4060c
Those Venusian shipping companies sure are raking in a lot.

[Panopticon]

[ooc]I wonder why my civs are being so active, I subsidized them a little bit but I didn't expect this level of performance.[/ooc]