Author Topic: The Second Chronicle of the Duranium Legion (Read 2561 times)

nuclearslurpee · « **on:** September 10, 2022, 12:20:43 AM »

The Second Official Chronicle of the Duranium Legion

Restored and translated for the public record by the researchers of the Interplanetary Radioactive Frozen Beverage Academy
Prospective readers be advised: while the events of the first volume of the Chronicles are alluded to with some frequency, knowledge of the first volume is NOT a prerequisite to enjoy this second volume. New readers are advised to jump right in and enjoy this work at leisure.

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A Brief History of the Duranium Legion from 4010 to 4100

With apologies to Kurt

The collapse of the first jump point network remains a mystery to this day. In the aftermath of the collapse, leading Legion astrophysicists postulated, and soon developed an inordinately complex mathematical theory to prove, that the jump points had been disconnected by some sort of “galactic gravitational shear” driven by relative motion between the many star systems making up the galaxy. Perhaps overeager to present an explanation to the confused public, the Lords Admiralty was quick to accept this postulation as gospel truth, and certainly in the time since while many have questioned this doctrine none have been able to disprove it, though the premature demise of Dr. (ex-Captain) Xeno Lycurgus, foremost proponent of an alternative hypothesis centering on the unexplained Gliese 382 anomaly, has bred no end of conspiracy theories on the subject.

In any case, the collapse as it occurred in early 4010 threw the Duranium Legion into considerable disarray. Much of the Legion Navy was immediately cut off from the high command at Duratus, most notably the combined battle fleets under Lord Admiral Criasus were abroad prosecuting the war against the Belaire-Tegyrian alliance, but several smaller detachments deployed against the Mongolican menace were lost as well. Perhaps even more important, though none among the Legion Naval high command would have acknowledged this in any case, was the loss of access to extrasolar resource bases in the Olympia, Adamantine, and Alpha Centauri systems. As the Legion was already well on its way towards exhausting the resources of Sol itself, this would certainly deal a crippling blow to the already precarious Legion economy. Naturally, the widely accepted solution to this imminent difficulty was one of punting.

The immediate impact was admittedly minor, which may have contributed to apparent efficacy of the punting strategy. Throughout the 4010s, resources remained in adequate supply, and while raw throughput dropped significantly as the mines ran dry on Duratus, demand for valuable minerals dropped proportionally due to the sudden involuntary downsizing of the Legion Navy. While the Lords of the Legion held considerable doubts that a large and power Navy was needed after the collapse, with galactic conquest being off the table to all appearances, the Lords Admiralty speaking from a completely unbiased perspective were quick to point out that the jump point network might be reassembled at any time, and that it would not be very Legion in spirit to be caught unprepared in such an eventuality. As such, naval construction proceeded, at a much-reduced rate, in keeping with the mandates set out from the Naval Conference of 4009, featuring the parallel development of the Leviathan-class heavy cruisers and the Manticore-class command cruisers. Meanwhile, naval research and development proceeded apace with the controversial work of the Priapus Energetics Laboratory on beam cannon weapons being the highlight of the period.

It was not until the mid-4020s when the most productive extraplanetary mines began to run dry that tensions began brewing between the Lords of the Legion. Faced with increasingly tight competition for decreasingly many minerals, these tensions grew increasingly violent in character, finally culminating in the Argyron-Macaria Crisis which devastated the mining site at Oumuamua and initiated the Legion Civil War in 4037. Much has been written about this war, and much space has been given over to exhaustive if not circular analysis of every minor fleet movement or ground skirmish. Suffice to say, the conclusion of the Civil War at the Twelfth Battle of Phobos (4054), in which the fleets of both participating factions were completely annihilated, is for present purposes an apt summary of the War, in which there were no winners but Hades and the Accatran Salvage Corporation.

Following the Civil War, a period of painfully slow economic recovery and reconstruction persisted for over three decades. The War had been particularly devastating for the Legion Navy, not only because of the heavy losses suffered leaving fewer than three dozen ships on the roster, most in various states of neglect and disrepair, but equally so because of the destruction of advanced technological infrastructure and institutions which rendered even maintenance of the existing high-technology fleet elements nearly untenable, and the reconstruction of those units lost in battle wholly unworkable. The post-War Seraphim class of frigates are the leading example of this new reality, forced by necessity to mount engines 20% less powerful than those of even the oldest Legion Naval vessels built prior to the Year 4000, and armed with reasonably capable but significantly less powerful partial reconstructions of the famed Arcadia 152 mm batteries. In their decimated state, the remnants of the Lords Admiralty had limited capability to rebuild their Navy, and while construction of the Seraphims proceeded at the variable, but always meager, rate of one ship every eighteen to thirty-two months, attempted construction of the redesigned Terrible-class heavy cruisers and Undertaker-class dreadnoughts ultimately ended in the scrapping of those hulls, as even with the technological regression of the designs there simply were not enough tons of duranium to go around.

Eventual stabilization of the Sol system and re-establishment of mining ventures on the few bodies which could remain somewhat profitable led to a slight uptick of wealth availability generally and a large uptick in wealth availability for unsavory types willing to pursue a life of banditry. These dual factors led to a modest improvement in Legion Naval fortunes, enabling the construction and deployment of the Victorious-class scout carriers and eventually the not entirely unimpressive Warspite-class cruisers in the mid-to-late 4080s to protect scarce Legion economic interests from the ongoing piratical threat. In spite of all other efforts, however, by the end of the 4090s all but the most trivial mining sites had been depleted, and the economy of the Duranium Legion sat upon an unstable equilibrium point, with reports from Naval Staff indicating that the rag-tag fleet of ancient and post-War vessels could be maintained for perhaps a decade, at most, unless serious cuts were made or new mineral sources discovered in very short order.

Ultimately, salvation would arrive for the Duranium Legion from an unlikely, if perhaps long-awaited all the same, source. Since the collapse of the jump point network, the Legion Navy had maintained a low-priority mission to continually re-survey the Solar system in case the jump points might one day reappear. As the XLII century dawned over Duratus, only two of the venerable Ars Magica-class survey frigates remained operational, yet it would be this intrepid pair of century-old survivors on which the last hopes and dreams of the Duranium Legion would rest…

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What’s All This, Then?

Campaign Settings
Known systems, 30% ruins chance
Limited Research Administration is ON
2.5 billion pop, spread across several colony sites in Sol
3x NPR at 25-50 LY, all spoilers active except Rakhas

Once again I begin with the intention of doing a “quick” campaign while waiting for the version I want to write on to come out. To clarify: I have long-standing plans for a multiple-player-race campaign in a style reminiscent of the old Starfire AARs by Steve, Kurt, etc. However, I do not think the 2.1 version is quite where I want it to be before investing into such a project, it is a very nice version from what I’ve seen so far but there are enough bugs and balance issues which concern me that I will give Steve a few more 2.X versions to get things a bit more stable and polished. This could mean 2.2 is it, or 2.174.52 is it, I do not know and we shall find out together.

At the same time I would feel bad to just abandon the Duranium Legion campaign, nine years may not be a long time in Aurora but the story is quite expansive nevertheless and it would be a shame to just leave the Naval Conference without any implications. However, it is a 1.12 campaign, we live in the brave new world of 2.1 now and I want to go to there. Thus I have decided to carry the setting forward by “borrowing” some plot devices from Kurt’s Phoenix and New Terran campaigns, namely the JP collapse/re-establishment as well as the drop-off in technology from past levels leading to an eclectic mix of starting ship designs. Some might accuse me of being an unoriginal hack for such blatant theft, I prefer to think that I know a good idea when I see one.

The upshot of this is a very heavily customized starting scenario featuring a Duranium Legion which has exploited Sol to nearly the maximum and has left a large footprint as a result. Luna, Mars, and Mercury are exhausted and populated, with Luna fully terraformed and Mars in the process of it. Very few moons, asteroids, or comets have any worthwhile deposits, such that Venus is the primary automining site to provide the slightest trickle of duranium for the Legion shipyards and factories. The Legion Navy consists of a mix of higher-tech pre-War ships, most of which will be familiar from the first campaign, and lower-tech post-War ships which are generally less capable but can be built with known technology. The ground forces are better off but a in similar situation otherwise. The existing formations are augmented with “Lost Tech” units such as power-armor infantry and heavy tanks, but any new formations cannot be built with these units (and will thus be somewhat smaller in size) and the Lost Tech units cannot be replaced if lost.

So, for as long as it lasts, let’s play this thing and see how it goes…

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Table of Contents

Introduction: State of the Duranium Legion in the Year 4100
Chapter I: The Jump Points Re-Open!
Chapter II: Adventures in Alpha Centauri
Chapter III: Uncharitably, A Sophomore Slump
...

Interested readers may find a more or less complete compilation of Legion Navy ship designs in the Ship Design Compendium.

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #1 on:** September 10, 2022, 12:27:03 AM »

State of the Duranium Legion in the Year 4100

As alluded to above, the economic situation of the Duranium Legion in Y4100 was not very good, frankly the only reason not to use the word “abysmal” would be a concern about understating matters. Aside from the limited reserves stockpiled on Duratus proper, only 800 tons of duranium were estimated to remain in the Solar system outside of the minimally accessible deposits on Venus, and even worse only 81 tons of gallicite could be located apart from deposits on the comet 2017 MB7 which was comfortably out of range of any Legion mining operation. Slightly less dire was the situation for uridium, the minor component for precious warship maintenance supplies, of which over 1,300 tons remained to be mined out at the Uridium Valley Mining Site on Eukrate. The fact that only 225 tons of corundium remained in the entire system was surprisingly of no concern, given the abundance of mining complexes sitting empty on Duratus.

The dire Solar resource situation facing the Legion in Y4100. While on first glance the budding Legion economist might be tempted to seek relief from the abundant mineral deposits of Hale-Bopp, 2017 MB7 or C/2017 K2, in reality these comets were so distant from Duratus that no mining venture would possibly be productive in enough time to solve the crisis. On the positive side of things, there would surely be no shortage of tritanium.

While the basic needs of Legion citizens on Duratus, Luna, Mars, and elsewhere would continue to be met without too much struggle, indeed by the standards of many past civilizations the Legion remained unimaginably prosperous, the Trans-Newtonian components of the Legion economy would surely collapse without TNEs to fuel them, and given the coupling between lack of resources and passage of time, eventually even the basic infrastructure which met the needs of the populace would succumb to disrepair.

Legion Demographics in Y4100:

Capital:
Duratus: 1.79b population, ~3/4 of Solar industry, scientific and naval center of the Legion

Major Colonies:
Luna: 185m population, 1,000 financial centers
Mars: 450m population, 500 fuel refineries, 10 ground force construction complexes, Martian Naval Academy
Mercury: 75m population, 30,000 infrastructure units; all former industry has been relocated off-world
Venus: unpopulated except for military garrison, 400 automated mines

Offworld Mining:
Ironforge Mining Site (1995 TL8): 9m population, 30 mining complexes
Firegate Mining Site (1997 CU29): 3.3m population, 16 mining complexes
New Life Mining Site (Amalthea): 2.9m population, 24 mining complexes
Dry River Mining Site (Helio): 1.4m population, 15 mining complexes
Uridium Valley Mining Site (Eukrate): 1.3m population, 14 mining complexes
Faye: OMP Obsidian Station with 20x orbital mining modules
Ikeya-Zang: OMP Mithril Station with 20x orbital mining modules

Former mining sites on the comets of Borrelly, Chernykh, Machholz, and Tempel 1 host remnant populations of approximately 50,000 souls apiece, largely drifters and retired miners seeking respite from the drudgery of modern civilization.

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The Duranium Legion Navy in the Year 4100

In general, both the military and auxiliary components of the Legion Navy at this time could be divided into two categories. The first of these categories contains the comparatively advanced “Lost Technology” vessels which had survived the Civil War and the following years of decay and remained in Legion Naval service. Many of these had been constructed prior to or during the first decade of the XLI century and the reader of the first volume in this series will be intimately familiar with them, although any reader may refer to the attached Compendium to review these specifications at their own leisure. A few ship classes, however, require a closer presentation:

The Leviathan-class heavy cruisers began construction in 4010 following the Naval Conference of 4009, and were intended to form the backbone of the revamped Legion Navy along with the Manticore-class command cruisers. Following the established doctrine of the time, these were all-railgun cruisers with a broadside of heavy 203 mm weapon batteries backed up by a dozen 102 mm point-defense batteries, encased within a full meter of composite armor plating. At least a dozen of these vessels, along with three of the command cruisers, were constructed from 4010 until about 4027 when the resource crisis forced a moratorium on capital ship construction. Most of the Leviathans along with all three Manticores were destroyed in the Civil War, and only two examples survived until 4100.

Off-Topic: Leviathan class Heavy Cruiser • show

This moratorium ended with the onset of the Civil War, with the resource-limited run of three Poseidon-class 35,000-ton dreadnoughts, all of which were armed with the monstrous Arcadia 279 mm Capital Batteries and all of which were destroyed in battle after impressively short service lives. Legion Naval analysts soon concluded that as powerful as the 279 mm batteries were in terms of raw firepower, they were simply not effective at long enough ranges to prevent the massive capital ships from being swarmed and picked apart by the smaller, more numerous Invincible and Leviathan-class cruisers they opposed in battle. To rectify this, the Lords Admiralty approved the construction of two 37,500-ton Retribution-class dreadnoughts, with railgun armaments barely better than that of a Leviathan. This was more than made up for by the presence of four massive PEL-12 neutron lances capable of skewering any smaller vessel without a second thought. Construction began in 4047, but the building process was plagued by continual resource and financial shortages, and the two dreadnoughts were only completed after the War, largely as a means to intimidate the surviving Lords of the Legion to keep in line, and as such the Retribution class never saw combat during the XLI century.

Off-Topic: Retribution class Dreadnought • show

Retribution class Dreadnought 37,500 tons 1,105 Crew 6,507.4 BP TCS 750 TH 3,750 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 12-99 Shields 0-0 HTK 210 Sensors 11/33/0/0 DCR 32 PPV 168
Maint Life 2.30 Years MSP 4,505 AFR 352% IFR 4.9% 1YR 1,157 5YR 17,357 Max Repair 625 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 500 tons
Lord Captain Control Rating 4 BRG AUX ENG FLG
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 10 Morale Check Required

Hyperion Drive Yards H-1250 Capital Engine 'Colossus' (3) Power 3750 Fuel Use 22.14% Signature 1250 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,225,000 Litres Range 26.6 billion km (61 days at full power)

Priapus Energetics Laboratory PEL-12 Neutron Lance (4) Range 240,000km TS: 5,000 km/s Power 37-4 ROF 50
Arcadia Weapons Systems 203 mm Heavy Battery Mk IV (8x4) Range 160,000km TS: 5,000 km/s Power 12-4 RM 40,000 km ROF 15
Arcadia Weapons Systems 102 mm Defense Battery Mk III (16x4) Range 30,000km TS: 5,000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Sangarius Systems Heavy Battery Director Mk IV (3) Max Range: 256,000 km TS: 5,000 km/s
Sangarius Systems Defense Battery Director Mk IV (4) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 5,000 km/s
Chryson Dynamics 12 TW Induction Drive Cell Mk VI (4) Total Power Output 48.3 Exp 5%
Chryson Dynamics 16 TW Induction Drive Cell Mk VI (3) Total Power Output 49 Exp 5%

Scamander Corporation Series XXI Capital Targeting System (1) GPS 63 Range 14.9m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
Scamander Corporation Series XI Capital RF Wave Scanner (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 45.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series XI Capital Infrared Scanner (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km

“Lost Tech” Legion Naval Vessels in Y4100:

Warships, totaling 10,500 crew and displacing 405,000 tons:
2x Retribution class Dreadnought: Relentless, Retribution
2x Leviathan class Heavy Cruiser: Lariat, Lycurgus
4x Invincible class Light Cruiser: Inexorable, Interrogator, Inviolable, Irredentist
1x Judgment Day class Light Jump Cruiser: Judgment Day
3x Defiant class Light Cruiser: Dauntless, Denouement, Devourer
1x Grand Cross class Light Jump Cruiser: Gothic
6x Charybdis class Destroyer: Charitable Donation, Chronomancer, Cobalt, Cockney, Condor, Crusader
1x Furious class Jump Destroyer: Fragmentation
1x Ars Magica class Survey Frigate: Ariadne
1x Ars Magica Mk II class Survey Frigate: Adamant
1x Hellfire class Frigate: Harrier
1x Hellfire Mk II-A class Frigate: Halberd
1x Hellfire Mk II-B class Frigate: Hunter
6x R-56 class Recon Fighter
3x AR-56 Osprey class Recon Fighter

Auxiliary Ships, totaling 9,600 crew and displacing 1,870,000 tons:
4x Phaeton class Freighter: 79,112 tons, 50,000 tons cargo capacity
2x Typhon class Colony Ship: 79,389 tons, 200,000 colonists capacity
2x Dragon class Tanker: 86,116 tons, 60 million liters fuel capacity
1x Salamander class Troop Transport: 63,996 tons, 40,000 tons troop capacity
2x Libra class Fleet Tender: 39,971 tons, jump capable, 12,500 MSP capacity
1x Andromeda class Stabilisation Ship: 71,535 tons, 180 day stabilization capability
1x Accatran class Salvager: 79,344 tons, 1000 tons/day salvage capacity
2x Ogre class Tug: 85,955 tons, 4,711 km/s unloaded velocity
3x Knossos class Fuel Harvester Platform: 111,847 tons, 40x sorium harvester modules
2x Obsidian class Orbital Mining Platform: 102,512 tons, 20x orbital mining modules
2x Achelous class Terraforming Platform: 101,284 tons, 4x terraformer modules
4x Warden class Traffic Monitor: 3,000 tons, 3,750 km/s, commercial active/EM/thermal sensor capability

Astute readers of the first volume in this series will note the absence of the Bellerophon class or its successors from the above roster. All evidence indicates that every example of this class was destroyed during the Civil War, in large part due to continued doctrinal misuse of the class which was admittedly ill-suited for the chaotic battlefield of such a nebulous internal conflict.

Post-War Legion Navy Vessels:

The Seraphim-class frigates were, strictly speaking, not a “post-War” class as they were designed towards the end of the war as the Lords Admiralty recognized the need for an affordable ship class to fill secondary roles using technology which could be rapidly built and easily maintained. This need was met by the use of cheaper, low-performance gas-core engines rather than the powerful ion drives typically preferred by the Legion Navy, a change which also necessitated a triple-engine configuration rather than the historically favored twin ion drive setup. Following the destruction of the Arcadia family of Lords and their associated weapons manufacturing assets, Lord Thomas Acheron attempted to meet the needs of the Legion Navy by replicating the Arcadia railgun designs as best as possible, but ultimately was only able to present the Lords Admiral with an inferior 122 mm weapon. This proved barely sufficient for secondary combat duties, but would later give excellent service against the rather poorly armored raiding ships which commonly harassed Legion shipping in the post-War era. In 4100, sixteen examples of the class were in service in four patrol flotillas, although due to the economic crisis and a general lack of pirate activity these rarely went out on actual patrols.

Off-Topic: Seraphim class Frigate • show

The Victorious-class scout cruiser was authorized for a limited three-ship production run at the height of Solar system bandit activity in the 4080s. The patrol-class sensor suites of the Seraphim-class frigates, while having greater range than anything else the Legion Navy was capable of building at the time and indeed better than anything aboard the surviving “Lost Tech” ships, had proven insufficient to reliably detect and intercept wily pirate flotillas. The Victorious class was introduced solely as a transport platform for the fast SC-64 Raven scouts, which could not only outrun any pirate vessel but could also range ahead of a patrol or escort group as advance scouts. Ultimately, however, the Victorious class provided no real upgrade in terms of firepower, and bandit groups rapidly adapted to the new class by deploying heavier armaments, largely by equipping plundered 152 mm batteries which badly outmatched the 122 mm batteries of the frigates.

Off-Topic: Victorious class Scout Carrier • show

Victorious class Scout Carrier 11,250 tons 240 Crew 1,274.8 BP TCS 225 TH 900 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 3-44 Shields 0-0 HTK 64 Sensors 6/6/0/0 DCR 6 PPV 18
Maint Life 2.70 Years MSP 624 AFR 169% IFR 2.3% 1YR 122 5YR 1,834 Max Repair 150 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2,400 tons
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 48 Morale Check Required

Hyperion Drive Yards H-300 Carrier Engine 'Ironheart' (3) Power 900 Fuel Use 46.19% Signature 300 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 951,000 Litres Range 32.9 billion km (95 days at full power)

Acheron Kinetics AK-105 Defense Battery Mk III (6x4) Range 30,000km TS: 4,000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Acheron Kinetics Defense Battery Director Mk II-C (2) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 4,050 km/s
Chryson Neodynamics 9 TW Type E Gaseous Capacitor Cell (2) Total Power Output 18.5 Exp 5%

Scamander Corporation Series B Onboard Targeting System (1) GPS 12 Range 4.8m km MCR 430.9k km Resolution 1
Scamander Corporation Series B RF Wave Scanner (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series B Infrared Scanner (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km

Strike Group:
8x SC-64 Raven Scout 300 tons 4 Crew 40.6 BP TCS 6 TH 30 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 3/3/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.71 Years MSP 20 AFR 60% IFR 0.8% 1YR 4 5YR 59 Max Repair 15 MSP
Subcommander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required

Hyperion Drive Yards HF-30 Fighter Engine 'Icarus' (1) Power 30 Fuel Use 146.06% Signature 30 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 13,000 Litres Range 5.3 billion km (12 days at full power)

Scamander Corporation Series B/F Long-Range Scanner (1) GPS 1800 Range 25.4m km Resolution 150
Scamander Corporation Series B/F RF Wave Scanner (1) Sensitivity 3 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 13.7m km
Scamander Corporation Series B/F Infrared Scanner (1) Sensitivity 3 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 13.7m km

The Warspite class was a fairly successful attempt by the Legion Navy to strike a decisive, final blow against the bandit plague in the Solar system. The heavy armor and long-range beam cannon armament proved too much for all but the wealthiest and best-equipped pirate fleets to stand up against. While the PEG-3/C was a clear downgrade from the older PEL-4 mounted by the infamous Hellfire class frigates, it was sufficient to outrange the 152 mm batteries mounted by the most dangerous raiding vessels, and neither PEL-4s nor PEG-3/Cs were readily available to any pirate faction (although at least one pirate lord tried and failed to abscond with a Hellfire-class frigate to overcome this imbalance). Despite the more-than-superficial similarities to the venerable Invincible-class light cruisers, the Legion Navy chose to designate the Warspite class as a full cruiser, likely for the sake of projecting a more impressive public and political image.

Off-Topic: Warspite class Cruiser • show

In addition to the new generation of warships, the Legion Navy did construct and maintain a number of smaller, less-capable auxiliary vessels, as the existing numbers of “Lost Tech” auxiliaries had quickly proven insufficient to sustain any real economic recovery. The one area of “Lost Tech” ships which the Lords Admiral found no need to augment was jump drive capability, for rather obvious reasons. As such, no new fleet tender, stabilization, or survey capabilities were introduced in the post-War era.

Post-War Legion Navy Vessels in Y4100:

Warships, totaling 8,500 crew and displacing 296,000 tons:
9x Warspite class Cruiser: War For Territory, Warrior, Warspite, Waterfall, Wendigo, Witch Hunter, Wondrous, Wrath of Poseidon, Wrecker
3x Victorious class Scout Carrier: Valiant, Victorious, Virulence
16x Seraphim class Frigate: Sangarius, Sanguine, Scrape Off, Seahammer, Section Eleven, Sectopod, Seeker, Seraphim, Sheriff, Shootout, Skirmisher, Skywalker, Slingshot, Southern Cross, Spearpoint, Swordsman
24x SC-64 Raven class Scout

Auxiliary vessels, totaling 4,600 crew and displacing 916,000 tons:
8x Sangraal class Freighter: 45,192 tons, 25,000 tons cargo capacity
4x Lunar class Cargo Shuttle: 10,172 tons, 5,000 tons cargo capacity
4x Arctura class Colony Ship: 45,333 tons, 100,000 colonists capacity
4x Canak class Tanker: 43,120 tons, 25 million liters fuel capacity
2x Piscina class Troop Transport: 35,507 tons, 20,000 tons troop capacity
2x Gororan class Salvager: 44,272 tons, 500 tons/day salvage capacity

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The Duranium Legion Ground Forces in the Year 4100

Following the Commandant-Major Crisis of 4009-4010, the Legion Ground Forces had been forced to reorganize into primary-arms brigades rather than the artillery-integrated brigade system in use prior to the Year 4000. As this left individual brigades somewhat understrength, requiring ~15,000 tons of transport capacity compared to the previous ~20,000 tons, new means were sought to restore the original combat strength of the brigades prior to the planned invasion of the Belaire home world. While these plans were unfortunately cut short by the Collapse, research and development efforts were already underway, and throughout the 4010s and early 4020s the Ground Forces were blessed by an overflow of power-armor troopers, heavy tanks, and heavy self-propelled artillery vehicles with which to augment their formations.

The Legion ground forces came out of the Civil War with remarkably little wear and tear, a consequence of the relative lack of ground combat operations carried out during the War, this in turn being a direct consequence of a relative lack of transport capacity, which had hardly recovered from nearly total losses to the Belaire front after the Collapse. As such, most of the advanced force units of the 4020s had not only survived but in many cases more had been built during the War in anticipation of significantly heavier combat than had in fact been seen. What did hit the ground forces hard was the following economic and technological collapse in the early post-War period, during which the capability to develop and manufacture advanced weapons and equipment were largely lost, or in some cases cannibalized by the Navy, which, while desperate, nevertheless held the key advantage of having numerous very large railguns parked in orbit above the ground force bases. This latter factor later motivated the relocation of the ground force construction and training facilities to the Martian colony, where they would at least not be conveniently adjacent to the primary Legion Navy fleet base at Duratus.

From the mid-4070s onward, newer weapons and equipment were developed to replace most of the older types due to chronic lack of manufacturing or maintenance capabilities for older munitions. However, by the end of the XLI century the ground forces still had not recovered the capability to produce power armor, heavy tanks, and other similarly advanced weapons, and if any of these were to be somehow lost in combat, replacements would be years, if not decades, away.

Duranium Legion Ground Forces Formations in Y4100:

The Commandant-Major Crisis of 4009-4010 ultimately forced the Lords General to reorganize the ground forces at a high level to satisfy the complaints of disgruntled non-Lords senior officers, reserving command of the battalion-level formations for the Commandants Major. Initially, this led to the creation of a somewhat superfluous “regimental” command level so as to find employment for the large number of Subcommandants who would otherwise find themselves out of a job but could not simply be promoted to brigade-level commands. Over time, however, the regimental commands were phased out as Subcommandants were promoted at a high rate, assuredly for unrelated reasons, and whatever limited attrition was suffered by the ground forces during the Civil War served as a convenient excuse to can the concept once and for all. In the post-War era, then, the basic Legion ground forces formations consisted of three primary-element battalions augmented with a battalion of advanced-tech units to provide heavy firepower support.

The Mechanized Infantry Brigades remained the most numerous formations in the Legion ground forces as well as the multi-role workhorse units in daily practice. While consisting largely of leg infantry and therefore reasonably suitable for defensive missions, Duranium Legion doctrine and culture demanded that the infantry mission be first and foremost offensive in character, and thus full mechanization of the infantry arm remained mandatory even throughout the economically challenging post-War period. The general vulnerability of the infantry to concentrated anti-personnel and high-explosive firepower was largely mitigated by the inclusion of a heavy power trooper battalion, which served in a shock assault role and could lead the charge against a heavily-defended enemy position while suffering substantially fewer losses. Of course, despite the typical eagerness of a Legion Commandant, this purported capability had rarely been tested, indeed some would argue that it had never been properly tested, prior to the XLII century.

Off-Topic: Mechanized Infantry Brigade • show

The Tank Brigades, as they had since time immemorial, remained the most prestigious arm of the Legion ground forces, a status no doubt nontrivially attributable to the superior offensive capability of heavily armored vehicles in the face of a hardened opponent. What had changed since time immemorial was the addition of a full battalion of fearsome Colossus heavy tanks, which benefited not only from being the heaviest front-line weapons on any battlefield but also from having been designed and built using advanced ceramic composite armor technology at the height of Legion scientific advancement. As the spearpoint of any armored assault, the Colossus heavy tanks had received precious little battlefield testing, but unlike their power-armored infantry counterparts the results had left little room for detractors to register any substantive complaints.

Off-Topic: Tank Brigade • show

The third arm of the Legion ground forces were of course the Mechanized Artillery Brigades, which provided crucial supporting fire for the advances of the Legion’s brave infantry squads and tank crews. The self-propelled artillery forces had been historically split between light and medium battery calibers, and as this had been a very successful arrangement the Lords General had seen no need to make any change here even up to the year 4100. Where greater firepower was required to defeat the most hardened enemy positions, a battalion of two dozen Vesuvius heavy SPGs in four batteries was attached to every artillery brigade. Unlike their frontline equivalents, the advanced-tech Vesuvius SPGs had never been tested in battle prior to 4100, and many among the ground forces artillery arm whispered in private that this was perhaps for the best, as while the Vesuvius was sure to deliver devastating firepower, many doubted that it could be worth the rather prohibitive cost of ammunition in those economically trying times.

Off-Topic: Mechanized Artillery Brigade • show

Higher command and control was provided by Corps and then Legion headquarters formations. These had perhaps undergone the most change compared to the pre-Year 4000 orders of battle, having found room for a platoon of organic combat engineering vehicles as well as an additional battalion of Vesuvius heavy SPGs. While this did imply a reduction of organic logistics assets with which to support and resupply the front-line formations, in practice this was offset by redistribution of some logistics assets to the brigade commanders, as well as the holding of additional supplies in the rear areas, organized into Logistics Brigades under the Legion command level, which could be used as reinforcements when necessary.

Off-Topic: Mechanized Headquarters Troops • show

The Logistics Brigades themselves were simply organized, consisting of three primary logistics battalions which would handle resupply and maintenance of front-line formations, along with a full battalion of combat engineering vehicles to accelerate the construction of front-line fortifications, whether for garrison duties or in the event of an extended planetary conflict.

Off-Topic: Mechanized Logistics Brigade • show

Finally, the Legion ground forces did control several auxiliary formations. The original Ground Survey and Xenoarcheology Brigades of the pre-Collapse era had been preserved throughout the years, in both lineage and in equipment as the heavy Gorilla and Styx vehicles of each formation, respectively, were each nearly one hundred years old. More recently, in the last decade of the XLI century the Lords General had authorized the construction of several Surface Defense Battalions, each consisting of six AK-155 Medium Surface Batteries and six PEG-3/C Surface Beam Cannons, weapons purchased from the Navy after much haggling when it turned out that the Navy could not afford to construct sufficient hulls to actually deploy these weapons. These battalions were deployed on Duratus and the major colonies in the Solar system, ostensibly for defense against bandit raids and any other threats which might arise, but conveniently placed so as to threaten the Legion Navy should the Lords Admiral happen to get any interesting ideas about the balance of power in the Sol system.

Legion Ground Forces Ranks in 4100:
CDT Commandant
LCD Lord Commandant
LG Lord General
LM Lord Marshal

Legion Ground Forces Order of Battle in the year 4100:

The Legion ground forces at this time consisted of 232,000 combat personnel operating 2,260,000 transport tons of weapons and equipment, in addition to roughly ten million support and auxiliary personnel based chiefly at the colony on Mars. This would be considered more than adequate for system and colony defense, but should the Legion ever find its way back to the stars a significant expansion of capabilities would once again be necessary. At this time, the offensive mission for the various Legions (notably the Assault Legions) was geared primarily towards the suppression of any rebellious movement which could herald a return to Civil War-era tensions and violence.

Imperial Guard Legion
The Imperial Guard Legion is tasked with the defense of Duratus.
I. Imperial Guard Corps: 1st, 2nd, 3rd Imperial Guard Brigades + 1st Guards Artillery Brigade
II. Imperial Guard Corps: 2nd, 3rd, 4th Imperial Guard Brigades + 2nd Guards Artillery Brigade
IV. Imperial Guard Corps: 7th, 8th, 9th Imperial Guard Brigades + 4th Guards Artillery Brigade
1st, 2nd, 4th Guards Logistics Brigades
1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th Duratus Planetary Battalions

Armored Fists Legion
III. Armored Corps: 101st, 102nd, 103rd Tank Brigades + 3rd Armored Artillery Brigade
XI. Armored Corps: 113th, 114th, 115th Tank Brigades + 11th Armored Artillery Brigade
XXX. Armored Corps: 130th, 131st, 132nd Tank Brigades + 30th Armored Artillery Brigade
3rd, 11th, 30th Armored Logistics Brigades

Alpha Assault Legion
V. Armored Corps: 104th, 105th, 106th Armored Brigades + 5th Armored Artillery Brigade
VIII. Mechanized Corps: 13th, 14th, 15th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 8th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
IX. Mechanized Corps: 16th, 17th, 18th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 9th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
5th, 8th, 9th Logistics Brigades

Omega Assault Legion
VI. Mechanized Corps: 10th, 11th, 12th Mechanized Infantry Brigades, 6th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
VII. Armored Corps: 107th, 108th, 109th Armored Brigades + 7th Armored Artillery Brigade
XVI. Mechanized Corps: 34th, 35th, 36th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 16th Mechanized Artillery Brigades
6th, 7th, 16th Logistics Brigades

Fifth Expeditionary Legion
The Fifth Expeditionary is responsible for ground defense of the major colonies and is deployed abroad. The Legion Headquarters is based on Luna.
XIII. Mechanized Corps (Luna): 25th, 26th, 27th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 13th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
XIV. Mechanized Corps (Mercury): 28th, 29th, 30th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 14th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
XV. Mechanized Corps (Venus): 31st, 32nd, 33rd Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 15th Mechanized Artillery Brigade
13th (Luna), 14th (Mercury), 15th (Venus) Logistics Brigades
Lunar Defense Battalion (Luna)
Martian Defense Battalion (Mars)
The Inner System Battalion (Mercury)

Martian Assault Legion
The Martian Assault Legion is based on Mars, and despite its name is tasked in part with the defense of the ground forces central facilities on Mars.
XVII. Armored Corps: 122nd, 123rd, 124th Tank Brigade + 17th Armored Artillery Brigade
XXI. Mechanized Corps: 46th, 47th, 48th Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 21st Mechanized Artillery Brigade
XXII. Mechanized Corps: 49th, 50th, 51st Mechanized Infantry Brigades + 22nd Mechanized Artillery Brigade
17th, 21st, 22nd Logistics Brigades

Ground Survey Brigade ‘Venus’ (Duratus)
Xenoarcheology Brigade ‘Mongolica’ (Duratus)

----

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2022, 09:51:13 AM »

1 Jan 4100

The economic straits of the Duranium Legion as the year 4100 began were so dire that only about 30% of Legion industry could be operated at any time. The two major exceptions to this rule were the commercial shipyards, rushing to construct as many auxiliary vessels as possible before mineral stocks collapsed entirely, and the Legion research laboratories, which were busily searching for some brilliant technological escape from the present crisis. Far from any dry land, or wet land for that matter, the lonely survey frigates Adamant and Ariadne traversed the Solar system, carrying out their perpetual search for re-emergent jump points. While few Legion scientists still subscribed to any theories of eventual jump point reappearance, it was not as if the Legion Navy had very much better to do with its time and fuel.

Those few clinging to hope were joyously validated on 25 May, when the Adamant added to her impressive history by discovering a brand-new jump point just beyond the orbit of Uranus.

As was tradition, this exciting news caused great confusion and consternation at the Legion Naval high command. Vociferous debate immediately arose regarding the appropriate method to probe the newly-discovered jump point. On one hand, a confluence of traditionalist Lords Admiral and those most terrified of the looming economic disaster of their time favored the most immediate approach, which would be to send the Adamant into the unknown system immediately and begin a geological mineral survey if possible. On the other hand, a counter-faction centered around the Survey Fleet Command and in particular around its mercurial leader, Lord High Admiral Laura Tyrol, argued that this was far too great a risk to subject the better half of the Legion’s survey assets to, and preferred to assemble and deploy a fleet unit to probe the jump point and determine the safety of the system which lay beyond before sending a survey ship to do the real work. As usual when it comes to the Lords Admiralty, the deciding factor was completely tangential to the problem at hand, in this case the officers of the Legion Navy were simply bored and thus eagerly sought an opportunity to do something more exciting than orbiting Duratus or patrolling empty space for non-existent bandits. Thus, an expeditionary force was dispatched on 27 May, following a mere day and a half of debate.

First Expeditionary Force
Captain Daedalus Cantrell commanding aboard CL Denouement
Cruiser Squadron 2: Dauntless, Denouement, Devourer, Gothic, 4x R-56
Frigate Squadron 1: Seraphim, Skirmisher, Skywalker, Swordsman
MNT Warden 3 (attached)
Totaling 83,000 tons displacement with 2,410 crew complement

The First Expeditionary Force arrived at the jump point at 0800 on 5 June and prepared for transit. In traditional Legion Naval fashion, Captain Daedalus Cantrell ordered the entire force to transit the jump point together, reasoning that even if some enemy might lie within the terminal system, they would almost certainly be unaware of the existence of the jump point, otherwise they would have probed through to Sol long before the present. As the captains and crews under his command found this logic unassailable, the First Expeditionary Force formed up and prepared for immediate transit.

After recovering from the effects of transit, the Expeditionary Force quickly determined that they had emerged in the well-known Wolf 359 system.

While the system primary was far too dim to realistically support human life, even if some body might be terraformed to the best of the Terraforming Department’s abilities, the discovery would nonetheless be of great interest to the Legion high command due to the presence of four gas giants in orbit of the star. A slew of smaller bodies including 89 moons, 41 asteroids, and 7 comets could prove to be far more valuable for orbital or automated mining operations than anything remaining in Sol. Finally, while the habitability of the system was very poor, this also ensured that no alien enemies would be occupying the moons or the distant terrestrial fifth planet, meaning that Legion colonists could safely move in as soon as possible.

Of course, “as soon as possible” was a load-bearing phrase in Captain Cantrell’s report to the Legion high command, upon the return of the First Expeditionary Force to Duratus some twenty-four days later. Despite the Captain’s optimistic tone, the Lords Admiral were unsure of how best to proceed, as the possibility to exploit any system would be contingent on the availability of a survey frigate to conduct the mineral survey, and with only two such frigates in operation this would critically reduce the rate at which new systems could be discovered which might have even better mineral yields. Ultimately, the Survey Fleet Command held several joint discussions with the various industrial arms of the Legion Navy, reaching the conclusion that while the Wolf 359 system was indeed promising, this promise was chiefly in respect to the likely availability of accessible gaseous sorium deposits. While the sorium reserves of Jupiter were indeed only minimally accessible, a pending fuel shortage was not nearly as threatening to the Legion as a pending duranium and gallicite shortage that would cripple the maintenance capacity of the Navy. Thus, the order to carry out a mineral survey would be held off until a more promising system could be found, ideally with one or more semi-habitable worlds from which to coordinate system-wide mining operations - or else, once all possible jump point locations in Sol had been thoroughly checked, if no more-promising system was found..

Even prior to the return of the First Expeditionary Fleet, the Adamant had discovered the existence of a second new jump point on 26 June, some sixty degrees retrograde from the first and within the orbital path of Uranus by some 300 million km. The Lords Admiralty moved unusually quickly to exploit the new find, dispatching a Second Expeditionary Force under the command of Captain Thomas Zelos to investigate.

Second Expeditionary Force
Captain Thomas Zelos commanding aboard CLJ Judgment Day
Cruiser Squadron 6: Inexorable, Interrogator, Irredentist, Judgment Day, 1x AR-56 Osprey
Frigate Squadron 2: Seeker, Shootout, Slingshot, Spearpoint
MNT Warden 2 (attached)
Totalling 93,000 tons displacement with 2,819 crew complement

The Second passed through the jump point in the early hours of 5 July. The Lords Admiralty eagerly awaited the report of Captain Zelos.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Ariadne had been thoroughly annoyed that the Adamant was getting to have all the fun, and perhaps by harnessing the energies of their collective frustration caused a jump point to appear on 1 July, between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto on the opposite side of the Solar system from the first two discoveries. While by this time the Second Expeditionary Force had not even reached their target jump point, the First was refueled and available for duty over some mild objections from crew members on leave. The First was therefore dispatched at maximum speed, arriving on 16 July and immediately forming up for transit. The force emerged in the system of Barnard’s Star, which was orbited by ten planets and more than 110 smaller bodies. Most of the planets were gas giants, as in Wolf 359, but three dwarf planets could be seen as well as a tide-locked terrestrial planet which was semi-habitable and could support perhaps 34 million colonists - certainly enough to administer a larger in-system mining operation. The receipt of Captain Cantrell’s report at the Legion high command on 31 July raised much optimism throughout the Lords Admiralty, and Ariadne was shortly diverted to begin the mineral survey in Barnard’s Star. A long-forsaken hope began to take hold within the Legion Navy.

The return and subsequent report of the Second Expeditionary Force on 8 August would strikingly delineate the urgent need for any hope which could be spared.

----

Systems Discovered

Wolf 359: First Expeditionary Force, 5 Jun 4100
Alpha Centauri: Second Expeditionary Force, 5 Jul 4100
Barnard’s Star: First Expeditionary Force, 16 Jul 4100

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #3 on:** September 17, 2022, 12:39:24 PM »

8 August 4100

When Captain Thomas Zelos arrived in Sol with the Second Expeditionary Force - most of it, anyways - he immediately transmitted a report to the Legion high command labeled as being of the utmost urgency. Within this report, the Captain detailed the discovery by his force of the lost Legion colony system of Alpha Centauri.

Prior to the collapse, the Alpha Centauri system had been one of the Legion’s three major extrasolar colony systems, along with the Olympia and Adamantine systems. In the last year before the collapse, with the mineral yields in Olympia judged to be less than optimal and the fleet base in Adamantine considered of secondary importance to the Belaire War, nearly all Legion colonists had been sent to the two colonies in Alpha Centauri, one orbiting each star in the system. It was estimated that up to 20 million civilians were lost in the Collapse - until the Second Expeditionary Force had stumbled upon the system in July of 4100. It was not the discovery itself which earned the report of Captain Zelos the status of “utmost urgency”, however, but rather what was found on probing the system resounded ominously through the halls of the Legion high command.

The Second had first probed the system primary, the second planet of which had hosted the larger of two Legion colonies in the region. Captain Zelos had hoped to come upon a thriving Legion colony which had done well for itself in the intervening 90 years, being as it was in a mineral-rich system with far fewer demands on that mineral wealth than in Sol. What he found was not even a struggling Legion colony, nor even the weathered ruins of a former colony, but a frozen, radioactive hellscape shrouded in thick layers of dust and nuclear fallout. Clearly, at some point in the past 90 years, someone - or some thing - had found the Legion colony in Alpha Centauri and had objected with extreme prejudice to its existence. In his report, the Captain soberly implied that an orbital geosurvey might be able to locate any remains of the colony, which could perhaps then be investigated by the Legion’s ground forces to seek any clues about the identity of these unknown and deadly attackers.

Having scouted out the inner system as thoroughly as possible with the ships at hand, the Second had then proceeded to the second star in the binary system. The minor colony in Alpha Centauri had been located on, once again, the second planet orbiting that star, and Captain Zelos had expected to find only more of the same on arrival. The first impression was exactly this, as the B-II planet was once again shrouded in dust and radioactive fallout, albeit not nearly as much so, befitting the smaller status of that colony. However, as the Second approached the planet, a faint radio signature was detected by the Seraphim-class frigates which turned out to match Legion communications codes from prior to the Collapse. This signal turned out to be sent from a tactical air control vehicle of the 19th Centauri Infantry Brigade, under the command of Lord Commandant Ellen Tartarus. It goes without saying that the officers and crew were overjoyed to have found Legion survivors in Alpha Centauri, a joy only exceeded by the joy of said survivors on finally being rescued by their comrades in arms.

The last major section of Captain Zelos’ report detailed the information provided by Lord Commandant Tartarus about the events in Alpha Centauri after the Collapse. According to the Lord Commandant, the invading force had arrived in the system some 60 or 70 years ago, with dates being unfortunately quite far from exact due to the circumstances. What was certain was that these invaders had not entered the system through any known jump point, as after the Collapse the locations known to formerly contain jump points were picketed by sensor probes in case the jump points were ever to reappear. The attackers had gone to the A-II colony first, quickly destroying the communications infrastructure on the surface before any hard intelligence on the attacking forces could be transmitted to the B-II colony. Therefore, nothing was known about the events on the A-II colony, as in the aftermath the survivors on the B-II planet had not possessed sufficient telescope technology to investigate the fate of their sister colony. The Lord Commandant had been saddened, but unsurprised, to hear of what the Second Expeditionary Force had discovered, a reaction shared by every other member of the Legion remnant that Captain Zelos had spoken to in his short visit to the surface.

When the aliens turned their attention to the B-II colony, the invasion had been swift and brutal, with scarce surviving records emphasizing the dark, shadowy appearance of the attackers, who had befallen the planet under cover of night and used stealth infiltration tactics to destroy the defenders in detail before any resistance could be organized. The defending ground forces, designated the 19th Mechanized at the time, had only survived by fleeing deep into the barren ice fields, along with as many civilians as could escape from the alien menace, and sheltering in deep caves as the invading ships bombarded the world. Surviving records were unclear about whether the bombardment had gone on for days, weeks, or even months, but most were in agreement that when the survivors emerged from their shelters, nothing remained of the colony site. A few sources remarked on a curious lack of dead bodies compared to the original colonist population, but this was far from a consensus observation. In any case, the survivors numbering perhaps 140,000 had banded together and scraped out what meager subsistence they could, losing nearly three-quarters of their number before sufficient infrastructure could be constructed to support the survivors. Since then, the colony had slowly regrown over the decades as the remnants hoped against hope for rescue to come from the Legion someday, reaching around 62,000 souls by the time the Second had paid a visit to their humble residence. Of course, by this point in time the colonists of the B-II planet consisted entirely of descendents from the original colonists, and as such the events described by Lord Commandant Tartarus were no longer extant in living memory but were only the subject of oral and recorded history.

In his concluding remarks, Captain Zelos noted that while the retreat actions of the 19th Mechanized and the colonists under their protection were perhaps cowardly and unbecoming, such actions had ultimately preserved a small fraction of the colonists, and in any case the bravery and hardiness of the remnant colonists was certainly as much as any citizen of the Legion could aspire to. Therefore, he recommended that the colonists be provided with resupply and reinforcement at the earliest possible moment. In particular, the Captain observed that the 19th Centauri Infantry Brigade was a brigade in name only, in reality barely over a battalion in size composing barely 6,000 tons of soldiers and equipment, and much of this equipment was unmaintained or so poorly maintained as to be of even lower effective quality than anything the Legion ground forces in Sol currently fielded (although the fact that this equipment had survived for 90 years at all was surely a testament to its effective build quality). The Captain therefore recommended that reinforcement or replacement of the colonial garrison be a topmost priority, followed by a complete survey of the system to address the Legion’s economic needs and to ascertain if possible the path taken by the mysterious alien invaders. In the meantime, he had detailed two frigates of Frigate Squadron 2, Slingshot and Shootout, to watch over the planet, while Warden 2 monitored the entry jump point and maintained a line of communications to the B-II colony.

While the strategic and tactical sense of Captain Zelos’ recommendations were perhaps not of the highest order, the Lords Admiralty did agree with his economic assessment. Unfortunately, with the Ariadne detailed to Barnard’s Star and the Adamant required to finish the gravitational survey of Sol itself, no survey ships were presently available to deploy to the Alpha Centauri system. Nothing could be done about this immediately, but the Lords Admiral immediately made moves to fast-track development and construction of a new jump-capable survey frigate class to augment the minimal Survey Fleet currently in service. More generally, the need for re-advancement of jump drive technology to support Legion expansion out of the Sol system was belatedly recognized, and a research-and-development program hastily authorized pending a detailed formal design.

In the meantime, there was little else that the Lords Admiral could do but wait for things set in motion to arrive at the destination. As such, lacking anything better to do the Legion high command soon made a formal public announcement that the Alpha Centauri B-II colony would be renamed Redoubt, in honor of the bravery and sacrifice demonstrated by its inhabitants, who were surely the highest example to follow for all upstanding citizens of the Duranium Legion.

----

The survey frigate Adamant, continuing its lonely mission amidst the chaos at the Legion high command - a pastime the elderly frigate was no stranger to, some readers may note - discovered a fourth jump point some distance beyond the orbit of Pluto on 23 August. This made four jump points in the Sol system, and while some in Survey Fleet Command held out hope that the remaining 25% of the survey might reveal even more jump points, those who had read their history and science texts knew that four jump points was the expected number in the Sol system. Even so, no one seriously considered calling off the survey before it was completed, as even in spite of the dreadful economic situation of the moment Lord High Admiral Laura Tyrol had no intention of setting a precedent that her command should ever be subject to the whims of such a banal force as economics.

As the Second was currently split between stations in Sol and Alpha Centauri, the First Expeditionary Force set out to probe a jump point for the third time. The Legion ships emerged into the binary Procyon system, a rather disappointing find with only twenty-five bodies, one of which was a gas giant and the remainder of which were not even remotely habitable. Captain Cantrell returned to Sol and sent a very disappointed report to the Legion high command, recommending that the Procyon system be considered an extremely low priority for mineral survey missions.

At this stage, while Adamant had yet to complete her gravitational survey of Sol, it seemed highly probable that the Alpha Centauri system would hold the most promise for Legion mining efforts. Pursuant to this, the ancient stabilization ship Eridanus was dispatched to the Alpha Centauri jump point, to begin stabilizing it so that auxiliary and civilian traffic might pass through without jump tender assistance. Jump tenders at this time were an extremely rare commodity, with only the two old Libra-class fleet tenders still in service and no prospect of building more ships of this or any similar design in the very near future.

----

30 October 4100

The immediate need of the Legion for geological survey capabilities had posed a rather confounding conundrum for the Lords Admiral. Simply put, the research and development work needed to design a proper survey frigate would take upwards of a year, to say nothing of the time needed to actually build such a thing in the shipyards - minerals, of course, permitting. The end result of this extended development period would be dreadfully inferior to the classical Ars Magicas, owing to the greatly-reduced state of Legion jump drive technology in the post-War era. While sacrificing speed, capability, and endurance for a small, cheap design was certainly an option, it was not an option the Lords Admiralty was eager to entertain, as the idea of wasting valuable resources on a short-term design, with flaws which would surely preclude long operating lifetimes, was simply unconscionable. This being the assessment, the Lords Admiral had resigned themselves to this long development cycle and authorized the necessary programs in due course.

Fortunately, however, to the heads in the ship design offices the conundrum thus posed was rather less confounding. The Seraphim class frigates had been designed for system patrol duties which they rarely, if ever, were called upon to perform at the present time. As such, it was little trouble for a team in the office to rack up a few well-paid overtime hours working out the problem of ripping out the Seraphim’s passive sensor suite and replacing it with a geosurvey sensor and the passive scanners from the SC-64 Raven for insurance. The result was the Seraphim model GE class of frigates, equally as capable in combat as the base class, but with adequate tanker support also able to provide emergency mineral survey capabilities in a pinch - such as the resource pinch faced by the Legion in 4100.

Off-Topic: Seraphim GE class Frigate • show

The equivalent combat capabilities were an essential selling point, as the Legion Navy could ill afford to begin scrapping its warships any sooner than absolutely necessary, and the Lords Admiral eagerly approved this stopgap solution, not least because doing so allowed them to trumpet to the Legion public that they were taking real steps to address the economic crisis of the day. The fact that conversion models could easily be re-refitted back to the original Seraphim specification if and when judged necessary was simply the cherry on top.

Three refitted frigates left the Scamander Affiliate Shipyard on 30 October equipped with the latest and greatest (c.100 years old) in Legion geological sensor capabilities. Sectopod, Seahammer, and Scrape Off of Frigate Squadron 4 set off, escorted by their squadron-mate Section Eleven which would remain unmodified to provide passive sensor coverage in the event of a change in circumstances. Joining the Second Expeditionary Force and an auxiliary detachment consisting of the tanker Canak and the fleet tender Auriga, Frigate Squadron 4 would transit into Alpha Centauri and at least attempt to conduct the geological survey in good order. Given the urgent need at hand, Frigate Squadron 3 would be the next in line for refit, albeit delayed until 4101 to detect any potentially catastrophic issues with the three existing conversion models.

Meanwhile in a rather less exciting system, the survey frigate Ariadne discovered relatively ample deposits of duranium and corundium, most prominently, under the surface of a comet in the Barnard’s Star system. While most of the Lords Admiralty had rather soured on the long-term prospects in Barnard’s Star, so enticing was the Alpha Centauri system, as a short-term solution for two key mineral needs this comet would prove as suitable as any. The pre-war freighters of Cargo Flotilla 1 were immediately put to work, escorted by the remaining Libra-class fleet tender for jump point transit support.

The orbital survey of Alpha Centauri-A II did in fact reveal the ruins of the former Legion colony, as Captain Zelos had suspected. When this news reached the Legion high command, plans were drawn up to deploy suitable xenoarcheology elements to the devastated planet to investigate the mysterious alien threat which had come and gone so long ago. However, as both of the Legion’s fleet tenders were currently occupied with other missions, it would be some time before these plans could come to fruition. For once in Legion history, economic necessities came before military desires, though many were left to wonder if “for once” would in fact also be “for all time”.

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Shipbuilding

3x Seraphim GE class Frigate: Sectopod (refit), Seahammer (refit), Scrape Off (refit)
3x Sangraal class Freighter

Systems Discovered

Procyon: First Expeditionary Force, 8 Sep 4100

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #4 on:** September 24, 2022, 07:42:56 PM »

13 February 4101

The first shipment of automines transferred from Venus arrived at the No. 2 comet in Barnard’s Star on this date, beginning the long process of establishing a reliable duranium and corundium reserve for Legion industry on Duratus. The fleet tender Scutum was ordered to hold position at the jump point to Sol to provide passive monitoring and inplace jump transit support for the convoy fleet, while the cargo shuttle Manilius was detailed to orbit over the comet and eventually collect its minerals for transport to Duratus once some amount worth ferrying back had been mined up.

Less than a week later, the stabilization ship Eridanus reported that the Sol side of the Sol-Alpha Centauri jump point was open to all traffic, although the return trip was not yet possible without fleet tender support. While complete stabilization would take over four more months, the Legion high command was not known for its enduring patience, and dispatched the troop transport Piscina to ferry the Legion’s lone xenoarcheology force, the Mongolica Brigade, to Alpha Centauri-A II to investigate the ruins of the Legion colony that had once been at that site. The members of the Mongolica Brigade had perhaps not anticipated that their posting to such an esteemed, historic formation would lead them to the surface of a radiation-smothered hellhole, but as duty called regardless any dissent was dutifully discouraged by the officers of the Brigade. While the crew of Piscina would be more or less stuck out-of-system for four months until Eridanus completed her own mission, they could at least take some comfort in remaining well above the radioactive globe they would be orbiting.

The gravitational survey of Sol was completed by Adamant on 5 March. Naturally, she was dispatched to Alpha Centauri to ensure that no deadly threats might lurk just a jump link away from the historic star system, after a brief stopover at Duratus to refuel and resupply.

Meanwhile, in the category of star systems the Lords Admiral perhaps ought to have been paying more attention to, Frigate Squadron 3 arrived, escorted by Destroyer Squadron 4, in the Wolf 359 system. Three of the squadron’s four frigates had been refitted to the GE model and would conduct a mineral survey of the system, most importantly to determine the presence of any gaseous sorium in the atmosphere of the system’s several gas giants. No more refits to the Seraphim GE model were planned, as with the deployment of Frigate Squadron 3 all sixteen of the Seraphims were deployed or on call as part of an expeditionary force.

The first critical mineral shortage experienced by the Duranium Legion came from a surprising direction on 21 April, as it turned out that the orbital shipyards had run out of corbomite to construct cargo handling systems for new freighters. Frankly, no one had been paying attention to the stockpiles of what was usually a tertiary mineral, until now perhaps half of the Lords Admiral had not even known the word “corbomite” in all honesty. Fortunately, the cargo handling complex on Duratus had largely fallen into disuse as economic activity had fallen off over time and the spaceport turned out to be more than adequate to manage all of the Legion’s surface-to-orbit transport needs, and so was readily salvageable to obtain the requisite parts with which to complete assembly of the urgently-needed freighters, with some spares besides in case of a future emergency. Curious observers waited to see whether the Legion high command considered this to be an adequate measure, or if further attention might be given to this difficulty by the Lords Admiral. Admittedly, most observers were not that curious.

Eight days later, reports arrived from the survey frigate Adamant indicating the discovery of a new jump point in the Alpha Centauri system. The Survey Fleet Command placed a high priority on any jump points in the Alpha Centauri system, as naturally exploring these was crucial to ensure the safety of the Redoubt colony as well as the ruins on the A-II planet. Fortunately, the Second Expeditionary Force was already in-system, in orbit of Redoubt, and as such was ordered to probe the jump point. While this would leave the Redoubt colonists somewhat vulnerable to any surprises, with the four-frigate survey group in-system as well the colony would not be undefended, so the risk was considered acceptable. The force emerged on 11 May into a small binary system, designated Inago, which contained five planets but no other noteworthy bodies - clearly not a system with promising mineral prospects. A short probe of the system confirmed that the few planets were uninhabited, and thus posed no threat to the colonists in Alpha Centauri. The Second was back in orbit of the Redoubt colony by 28 May, none the worse for the wear.

As was fast becoming tradition, then, the greatest threat to the Redoubt colonists was economic rather than military, much to the continued consternation of the Lords Admiralty. Specifically, the cold economic reality that the Alpha Centauri system was nearly devoid of mineral deposits, with only two bodies, one gas giant and one asteroid, possessing reasonable deposits of sorium. As the Second was returning to provide defense of the Redoubt colony, the Lords Admiral quickly issued orders for Frigate Squadron 4 to conduct the geological survey of the Inago system, but this was largely a desperation move, as nobody seriously expected to find anything of great interest economically in that system, but something had to be done to post-justify the decision to prioritize Alpha Centauri over other, less mineral-starved systems. Most critically, the decision to stabilize the Sol-Alpha Centauri jump link had now left the stabilization ship Eridanus stuck in-system until July at the earliest, which posed serious consequences for Legion logistics as the only auxiliary jump support available would be from the fleet tenders Auriga and Scutum, the former of which just so happened to also be in Alpha Centauri to support the survey effort. The question of whether heads ought to roll over this was a popular subject of discussion both inside and outside of the Legion high command offices.

It did so happen that the planets of the Inago system did possess mineral deposits of mild interest, notably the B-I planet in that system displayed numerous anomalies on the survey report suggesting a high potential for good results should a ground-based survey force be deployed to that planet. However, while some token efforts would be made to investigate these anomalies, the major focus of the Legion economists would instead turn to a different, far more promising if still far from ideal, nearby star system.

----

The Wolf 359 system had been considered a relatively promising find, as the first star system discovered by Legion explorers after the Collapse. However, the lack of any substantial body which was even close to habitable by humans in the system had relegated it to second-tier status after the shocking re-discovery of the Alpha Centauri system with its far superior selection of near-habitable worlds. With the mineral situation in Alpha Centauri having turned out to be even worse than that in Sol, truly an impressive feat of statistical outlying, the Lords Admiralty were forced to return to the second tier of systems in search of a solution to the mineral crisis. As it happened, Frigate Squadron 3 completed its survey of the system by the end of July 4101, having discovered numerous deposits of minerals, in fact the total number of high-accessibility minerals in the Wolf 359 system was greater than those in all other systems surveyed to this point combined, although the complete total was not quite so comprehensively superior owing to the minimally-accessible reserves buried deep within a few bodies of the Inago and Barnard’s Star systems.

Perhaps the most notable find was the otherwise rather unassuming Comet #7, which contained high-accessibility duranium, corundium, and gallicite in plentiful amounts all at one site, with a scattering of corbomite for that little bit of extra too-much-on-the-nose flavor. While the Legion economists would certainly in the longer term need to divide the mining efforts between several bodies to ensure a balanced mining portfolio, this single comet would provide a solution to the most urgent problems facing the Legion. Unfortunately, while the Lords Admiralty were quick to stake a claim to the comet, naming it Lupus Imperii in an inspirational onrush of optimism, it would take some time before sufficient jump transit support would be available to run automated mine convoys through to the Legion’s latest last hope. The lonely stabilization ship Eridanus was dispatched forthwith, post-haste, and with several other urgent-sounding adjectives to boot. In the meantime, the fleet tender Auriga would be tasked with providing jump support at the Sol-Wolf 359 jump point upon its return from Alpha Centauri, over the vociferous objections of a few Lords Admiral who insisted that ferrying ground survey elements to the Inago system was a far more pressing mission.

After these events, time passed relatively quietly in the Duranium Legion, this being largely a consequence of the lack of gravitational survey assets currently in service. Some within the Survey Fleet Command advocated for a second refit of the Seraphim-class frigates to mount gravitational rather than geological survey sensors, and while the gravitational survey was not considered a high priority by the Lords Admiral, admittedly the mineral stockpiles on Duratus were comparatively heavy on uridium and surely some could be spared for such an effort. The completion of the last geological survey in Legion Space, with a report received on 27 October detailing rather unimpressive deposits at Procyon-A II from the frigate Ariadne, was the last push needed to gain approval from the Lords Admiral to begin such a refit program, albeit reduced in scope from the first Seraphim GE-class program as the Survey Fleet Command did want to retain some geosurvey capabilities for future use.

Thus ended the year 4101, with the Legion looking outwards with hope and anticipation, yet many still skeptical that this would soon be proven a story of too little done too late.

----

Shipbuilding

3x Seraphim GE class Frigate: Sangarius (refit), Sanguine (refit), Sheriff (refit)
4x Sangraal class Freighter
1x Canak class Tanker
2x Piscina class Troop Transport

Research Completed

Powered Infantry Armour - ARM 1.5
Beta Shields
Mining Production 14 tons

Systems Discovered

Inago: Second Expeditionary Force, 11 May 4101

----

Duranium Legion Mission Deployments: 31 Dec 4101

It may be of some interest to the reader, given the complex logistical situation at this time in Legion history, to peruse a brief overview of present mission deployments of the Legion Navy. While logistical complexities are of course common to all major spacefaring powers in galactic history, the rather unique importance of such for the Legion in this period, whether acknowledged or not by contemporary commentators, merits a somewhat greater attention given to the subject.

Alpha Centauri
Frigate Squadron 4 (3x FF Seraphim GE, 1x FF Seraphim): System garrison and patrol based at Redoubt colony.
FS Adamant: Conducting gravitational survey for additional jump points.
MNT Warden 2: Monitoring the jump point to Sol.
Troop Transport Flotilla 2 (2x TT Piscina): Attached transport element for 14th Logistics Brigade, currently excavating the ruins of the former Legion colony on Alpha Centauri-A II, and 30th Mechanized Infantry Brigade providing defensive escort for the former. Supported by FST Birt which is detailed to transport any recovered minerals back to Duratus.

Barnard’s Star
Cargo Flotilla 03 (4x FT Sangraal): Transporting automated mines from Venus to Comet #2; 100,000 tons cargo capacity.
Cargo Flotilla 04 (4x FT Sangraal): Transporting automated mines from Venus to Comet #2; 100,000 tons cargo capacity.
FST Manilius: Mineral shuttle run from Comet #2 to Duratus.
MNT Warden 3 and TF Scutum: Monitoring and providing jump transit support at the jump point to Sol.
TT Skalathrax: Deploying 60th Mechanized Infantry Brigade to Comet #2 for local defense.

Procyon
FS Ariadne: Conducting gravitational survey.
MNT Warden 4 (in Sol): Monitoring the jump point from Sol to Procyon.

Wolf 359
Cargo Flotilla 1 (4x FT Phaeton): Transporting automated mines from Venus to Lupus Imperii; 200,000 tons cargo capacity.
Cargo Flotilla 2 (4x FT Sangraal): Transporting automated mines from Venus to Lupus Imperii; 100,000 tons cargo capacity.
FST Bianchini: Mineral shuttle run from Lupus Imperii to Duratus.
MNT Warden 1 and TF Auriga: Monitoring and providing jump transit support at the jump point to Sol.
STB Eridanus: Stabilizing the jump point to Sol.
Troop Transport Flotilla 03 (2x TT Piscina): Deploying Ground Survey Brigade and 8th Surface Defense Battalion to Moon II-21 and Lupus Imperii, respectively.
The 59th Mechanized Infantry Brigade has been deployed to Lupus Imperii for local defense.

At this time, it was also noteworthy that a small civilian shipping concern operated by the minor Kratos family was operating three small freighters and a small colony ship from a transit center at Duratus, which was occasionally contracted by the Legion for minor transport missions such as the relocation of deep space tracking stations from Solar bodies to outlying system colonies.

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #5 on:** October 08, 2022, 10:42:29 PM »

3 February 4102

Frigate Squadron 3 arrived in the Wolf 359 system on this date. Three frigates of this squadron, which had previously been refitted into the Seraphim GE-class geological survey variants, had been once again refitted, this time to the GV-class variant and equipped with gravitational survey sensors. With only two Lost Tech-survey frigates available, both on duty in other systems, and any new construction of survey vessels at least several months away, the Legion high command had authorized a second in the rapidly-elongating series of Seraphim-class refits for the express purpose of rapidly surveying Wolf 359 to ensure that no hostile alien powers might lie in wait to fall upon Legion mining colonies in the system. Exactly what the Legion Navy planned to do in the event that such a power might be stumbled upon, or for that matter why the crucial task of ensuring colonial safety was only being performed after colonization had begun, were questions presumed to have answers and thus left as exercises for hypothetical readers.

It did not take long for the latest efforts of the Survey Fleet Command to bear fruit, as the frigate Sheriff reported a new jump point signature as early as 29 March. The Second Expeditionary Force was given the call for this one, having spent much of the past year or so on guard duty in Alpha Centauri the captains of the Second were eager to get back out into unknown space and even the tally against the First, though the eagerness of the crews to do the same was perhaps not quite so effervescent. The Second undertook transit on 11 April, emerging in a brown system known to Legion astronomers of the time as Bessel. The two stars in this system possessed only four planets and no other substantial bodies between them, but as one of the planets was considered near-habitable a brief investigation was still mandated by Legion exploration doctrine. The somewhat distant orbit of the second binary component, around which three of four planets in the system orbited, required a slightly more complex maneuver than the Second had attempted to this point, as Cruiser Squadron 6 advanced part of the way towards the secondary before launching its lone AR-56 Osprey to cover the remainder of the flight trajectory. Complex maneuvering aside, the probe of the Bessel system proceeded without incident, to rather mixed emotions on the parts of at least some parties involved. The Bessel system would turn out to be the only other system connected to Wolf 359.

Nearer to the home front, news reached the Legion high command on 25 April that the stabilization ship Eridanus had finished stabilizing both sides of the Sol-Wolf 359 jump point. This notification had two key immediate implications for the ongoing mission to stabilize the Legion economy, a task for which Eridanus alone was not nearly so well-suited. First, and admittedly less important if not acknowledged as such by many within the Lords Admiralty, the fleet tender Auriga was no longer required to remain at the jump point to support auxiliary shipping traffic, and could be reassigned to support exploratory ground survey missions in the Procyon and Inago systems. Second, and if not more importantly certainly of greater long-term potential impact, with the jump point now traversable by the very largest ships or spaceborne objects maintained by the Legion Navy, these being the various harvesting, mining, and terraforming stations which remained available to the Legion in this era, the Wolf 359 system could now viably be a full-scale populated economic hub rather than an automated mining system. Naturally, this required selection of a suitable body for colonization, a task made rather complicated by the lack of suitable bodies for colonization.

As the inner four planets of the Wolf 359 system were gas giants, any Legion colony would have to be founded on a moon, and furthermore only the two planets nearest to the system primary could fall within the zone of vaguely possible habitability at some future point in time with sufficient terraforming work. Out of these, only five moons were sufficiently massive to support colonization without specialized low-gravity environmental infrastructure, and while two of these possessed reasonable mineral deposits neither of them were terribly lucrative for mining operations. Ultimately, the Legion high command narrowed down the selection to two bodies: the 19th moon of the innermost planet was the most habitable of the five candidate moons, requiring at worst just over 1.5 million tons of colonial infrastructure to support one million colonists prior to any sort of terraforming effort, and was guaranteed to reach an ideal habitable state after some amount of terraforming, however indeterminate the word “some” in this assessment might have been at this time; on the other hand, the innermost moon of the second planet was a somewhat more expensive prospect in the short term, requiring nearly 1.9 million tons of colonial infrastructure to support the same number of colonists, and the Legion Navy’s terraforming experts were frankly divided as to whether an ideal habitable world could be created from this moon even with theoretically-infinite terraforming time. However, if an ideal world were feasible to create, this moon would be the fastest place to create it, with a diameter of only 3,400 km being the smallest of all the candidate moons by a comfortable margin.

Ultimately, as the astute student of the Legion might well expect, the choice was made in favor of the riskier, but potentially far more rapid, option. Thus, following another rather less consequential tradition, the Legion colony hub of Lupine Gate was established on the innermost moon of Wolf 359 II by order of the Legion high command. Rather at odds with the expressed need for rapidity, the terraforming stations in orbit of Mars would not be immediately redeployed, as the full transformation of Mars to an ideal human world was nearly complete according to top men and women in the Terraforming Department. However, shipment of colonial infrastructure and colonists would proceed immediately, albeit with the critical condition imposed by the Legion high command that automated mining shipments not be interrupted to accomplish this task. This last requirement would impose some difficulties on the Legion’s Logistics Command, which had only three Sangraal-class freighters available which were not already allocated to mining missions, and which was reluctant to commit the entire freight reserve of the Legion to this mission. Ultimately, a minor compromise was reached, wherein two freighters would be shifted from the Barnard’s Star convoy and supplemented with two from the Logistics Command reserves, leaving a single freighter in reserve to carry out minor transport missions of high priority, as needed. Within the Lords Admiralty, the question of who owed whom a favor for this arrangement remained an open subject of unsurprisingly acrimonious debate.

In what was a rather less acrimonious decision, the Legion high command also ordered the fuel harvesters clustered around Jupiter to be relocated to the innermost gas giant of Wolf 359, which possessed over 34 million tons of high-grade sorium gas in its atmosphere, this being a massive upgrade over the barely 60,000 tons of minimal-grade sorium in the depleted Jovian atmosphere. Anticipating a near-term influx of fuel, the Industrial and Logistics Commands in a rare display agreed to order the colony fleet, which would not immediately be able to deploy settlers to Wolf 359 due to the slow movement of colonial infrastructure and terraforming platforms, to shift population from Mercury to Mars so that Mercury’s colonial infrastructure might be freed up for future use, although the excess infrastructure on Mars due to the nearly-completed terraforming mission there would provide an ample supply for present needs. Mercury had been long since mined out by this time, and as such there was no reason save for inertia to maintain the colony there, and inertia as with most laws of physics would certainly not stop the Lords Admiral from doing as they liked.

14 July was a historic day in Legion history, at least according to Lord High Admiral Laura Tyrol of Survey Fleet Command, for on this day the Legion Navy finally deployed its first all-new-construction survey frigate since the Collapse. To the casual observer, the Xanadu-class survey frigates were merely a pale imitation of the famous Ars Magica classes, possessing only half of the total survey sensor loadout of their predecessors and a mere fraction of the operating range. The more astute observer, however, would notice that despite relying on strictly inferior propulsion technology, the Xanadus had a top speed twice that of the painfully slow original Ars Magica design specification, and comfortably more than one-third greater than the up-engined Mark II variants. It was clear that the Legion high command had placed a high priority on rapid survey completion rather than fuel or cost efficiency. To supplement the weak sensor package, three variants were planned which could be ordered based on the projected needs of the Survey Fleet: a base variant with one each of the geological and gravitational sensor suites, and then GE and GV models with two of either the geological or gravitational systems.

Off-Topic: Xanadu class Survey Frigate • show

The lead ship of the class, Xanadu, was of course a GV variant, emphasizing the desire of the Legion high command to rapidly seek out suitable systems for economic exploitation and to serve as buffers against potential alien threats. As Frigate Squadron 3 had by now long since been redeployed to Barnard’s Star, Xanadu was given the assignment of surveying the Bessel system, as while the Lords Admiral were for the moment satisfied that Wolf 359 was not immediately threatened by any alien polity, in the longer term the urgency of fortifying the Bessel system would depend on just how many additional jump points might be contained therein. As construction of a second Xanadu GV variant was well underway by this time, the Lords Admiralty ordered that a GE model be constructed next, with the long-term goal being to refit the Seraphim survey variants back to their original specifications as soon as they were no longer needed as survey assets, much to Lord High Admiral Tyrol’s mild annoyance.

While the commissioning of a brand-new survey class was of course a momentous achievement, the Seraphim GV models still had contributions to make to the Legion in the meantime. Sangarius reported a new jump point just over 300 million km from Barnard’s Star on 18 August, prompting the deployment of the First Expeditionary Force to investigate. The investigation led to the discovery of Epsilon Eridani, a lone star orbited by only two comets worthy of note. As this particular mission had been a great success, in the sense that it had effectively proven that Barnard’s Star was unlikely to be threatened by any nearby carnivorous aliens, it was determined that the First should hold station near Barnard’s Star in case a second jump point were discovered in the near future. This proved unnecessary, as the gravitational survey was completed on 8 November with no further discoveries of note. The First, along with Frigate Squadron 3, was dispatched back to Duratus for overhaul until the Lords Admiralty could determine the next priority system for a gravitational survey. By this time, some in the Legion high command were arguing for a reduction of survey efforts, given that any further discoveries would not be exploitable anytime soon, and thus there was only risk to be found in the form of accidentally alerting an alien species to the existence of the Legion. Naturally, others among the Lords Admiralty were eager to tolerate this risk as the natural consequences of taking such a risk could be considered very much tolerable. The commissioning of the second Xanadu-class survey frigate, another GV model christened Xenophon, only intensified this debate, although for the moment it was decided that the new vessel should shake down by assisting Ariadne in her survey of the Procyon system, which was progressing rather glacially.

A minor scandal rocked the military reporting world on 5 December, as Commandant Damneus Zagreus took command of the 29th Mechanized Brigade, based on Mercury at this time. The Brigade’s previous commanding officer had been killed in an alleged accident while directing ground-side logistics in support of the evacuation of Mercury, but several insiders claimed to have damning evidence that the “accident” had been anything but. Ultimately, nothing would come of these allegations as the year 4102 drew to a close.

----

Shipbuilding

3x Seraphim GV class Frigate: Sangarius (refit), Sheriff (refit), Sanguine (refit)
2x Xanadu GV class Survey Frigate: Xanadu, Xenophon
1x Arctura class Colony Ship

Research Completed

Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel. AP 1.5 DAM 1 SHOTS 6
Small Jump Point Stabilisation Module
Terraforming Rate 0.0004 atm

Systems Discovered

Bessel: Second Expeditionary Force, 11 Apr 4102
Epsilon Eridani: First Expeditionary Force, 8 September 4102

Extrasolar Colony Status

Alpha Centauri
Planet A-II: Ruins excavation by 14th Logistics Brigade ongoing
Redoubt (B-II): 80,000 colonists

Barnard’s Star
Comet #2: 51 automated mines

Wolf 359
Lupine Gate (Planet II - Moon 1): 375,000 tons of infrastructure, 10,000 colonists
Lupus Imperii (Comet #7): 84 automated mines

nuclearslurpee · « **Reply #6 on:** October 17, 2022, 11:48:34 PM »

4 March 4103

While duranium remained a somewhat tight resource for the Legion, extrasolar mineral shipments had begun to drive a modest surplus of the key mineral. This, along with the massive unused stockpile of neutronium burning a hole in the collective pocket of the Legion high command, motivated the tentative order to begin construction of a new auxiliary shipyard, which could be ready in a few years to begin production of smaller auxiliary support vessels such as a new iteration of the Lost Tech Gatekeeper class of jump-capable traffic monitors. While some cooler heads objected to this rash and unconscionable throwing-away of resources, these were largely silenced by the majority of Lords eager to return to normal, for a definition of “normal” dated nearly a century in the past.

While duranium stocks would hold for the near term, rather less robust were the Legion’s gallicite reserves which were finally exhausted on 18 March. At this time, the sole supplier of gallicite for the Legion was the rapidly-expanding mining base of Lupus Imperii, which, while generally robust enough to keep the Legion barely afloat, was not the most optimal source of gallicite in particular. Fortunately, there was another comet in the Wolf 359 system which possessed ample quantities of maximally-accessible gallicite, along with reasonable deposits of iridium, which the Legion was beginning to run a bit low on, corbomite, and tritanium, which the Legion was not beginning to run a bit low on at all. Unfortunately, there were no freighters available to transport mines to this new comet which were not already occupied with more pressing economic matters. Fortunately, capping off the roller coaster of emotions which the Mining Department was riding, the Legion was possessed of two space tugs and a pair of orbital mining platforms in orbit over frankly unimportant comets, and while their deployments had been once considered a matter of importance on the grounds that any mineral not called tritanium was a useful mineral, this was no longer the case and the Legion could afford to be much picker about just which minerals they considered useful. As such, Lord Captain Glycon Catreus of the Mining Department decided to be pickier, ordering the space tug flotilla to pick up the two OMPs and redeploy them to Wolf 359 while the freighter reserve would be detached to pick up a pair of mass drivers and relocate these to Wolf 359 as well. Despite the fact that Lord Captain Catreus only had actual command over a fraction of these assets, the orders ultimately were given without significant undue delay and only minimal spatting over turf, albeit with one change: as the Logistics Command refused to relinquish their sole reserve freighter, the ancient salvager Guryan was pressed into service, largely as the Salvage Department could make no solid argument that they had anything better to use her for. It would take the rest of the calendar year to ultimately emplace this solution for the Legion’s gallicite woes.

A much-needed distraction from economic woes was provided to the Lords Admiral on 23 April, as reports from the new survey frigate Xenophon indicated the discovery of a jump point in the Procyon system. As whatever system lay beyond this jump point would be a scarce two jumps from Sol, a probe mission was mandatory to preserve national security, and the Second Expeditionary Force received the call-up for this one. Welcome distraction or not, this mission would prove to be the most challenging yet, as over 17 billion km had to be traveled between Duratus and the jump point locus. Fortunately, the fleet tender Scutum was now available as the jump point to Barnard’s Star had recently been fully stabilized, and slowly but surely would escort the well-traveled tanker Canak to support the Second’s operation. Due to the distances and logistics involved, the Second would not probe this new jump point until 11 July, emerging in the binary system known as Bedrosia to Legion astronomers. Qualitatively, this system was similar to Wolf 359, save for the rather large distance from Sol which did admittedly put a damper on the relative value of the system. That is to say, the system did not have an abundance of nearly-habitable bodies, but it was possessed of numerous moons and asteroids which might contain valuable mineral deposits. Unlike Wolf 359, however, the second planet orbiting the system primary was a super-terrestrial world which, while rather hot for human habitation, was potentially near enough to benignity for some alien life to have evolved there. Captain Thomas Zelos dispatched his lone AR-56 Osprey to investigate this planet, as well as a pair of suspicious moons in the planetary system of the secondary star, a maneuver which proceeded uneventfully, as usual. The jump point to Bedrosia would, once again, be the only outgoing transit line from the Procyon system.

State of the rediscovered galactic map in August of 4103. Astute readers will note the presence of an unexplored jump point in the Bessel system; the Legion high command at this time remained divided over whether it would be better to probe any jump points discovered further away from Sol, or to simply fortify those that might be found until such time as the Legion was properly equipped to expand beyond the nearest neighbors of Sol.

By 11 August, the reality of the mineral situation could no longer be papered over, as the Martian ground forces construction department reported a complete lack of vendarite with which to continue building the Legion’s tanks and mechanized infantry. While the Ironforge Mining Site in Sol was at maximum capacity with workers regularly pulling triple shifts to meet demanding quotas, meager shipments from Barnard’s Star were proving insufficient to keep pace with demand, and the expected modest contribution from the orbital mining platforms in Wolf 359 would not make up for the shortfall alone. In contrast to previous mineral shortages, however, the Lords Admiral were alarmingly quick to declare this particular bottoming-out as rather less than urgent, given that the Navy would continue to proceed largely unhindered by this minor trouble. Records from this time indicate that Lord Marshal Lyssa Tartarus, commander in chief of the ground forces, was not consulted on this matter, although contemporary commentators suggested that, given the consistent expansion of the ground forces even in the face of the looming shortage, she would not have found a sympathetic ear for her counter-arguments in any case. Regardless of whether or not ground forces exploration should have been a priority, the cold, hard fact of the matter was that the Legion simply had no available assets to emplace yet another mining operation for the sake of what was traditionally considered a rather secondary resource.

This purported “lack of available assets” proved of no great concern to the Duratus Logistics Command, which on 26 August detailed the freighter reserve, now expanded to four Sangraal-class haulers, to retrieve a recently-recovered installation from the ruins excavation mission in Alpha Centauri. The 14th Logistics Brigade there had recently recovered an intact research facility, which the freighter reserve was tasked with transporting back to Duratus with all due haste. Given that this mission would take several trips adding up to over a year’s worth of travel time, many within the other, less enlightened command offices of the Legion Navy questioned whether the Logistics Command had their priorities quite in the right order, reasoning that perhaps a 2% increase in research capacity might not make the greatest contribution towards resolving serious economic struggles. The Logistics Command offices, of course, held the view that it would be poor form to dedicate every scrap of effort towards resolving a problem which was sure to be resolved, eventually, with no thought for future advancements. The question of whether “eventually” would arrive before or after the Legion Navy collapsed from a lack of maintenance supplies was left unanswered.

Otherwise, things proceeded largely autonomously in Duranium Legion space. With most of the solutions to most of the problems mostly identified, there was little more for the Lords Admiral to do but wait and hope that said problems would indeed be (mostly) solved before any consequences would be felt, for the most part.

----

25 March 4104

The first of the new ruins excavation brigades was commissioned into Legion service on this date. With similar size and organization to the extant ground survey and xenoarcheology brigades, the 1st Ruins Excavation Brigade was equipped with six dozen Mammoth combat engineering vehicles, a 50% more numerous allotment than would be found in a logistics brigade such as the 14th, currently deployed on Alpha Centauri-A II. The new unit was immediately detailed for deployment at the same site, and would greatly accelerate the recovery of pre-War Legion facilities from the colony ruins there. By this time, some twenty installations had been recovered in suitable condition for return to Duratus or elsewhere, in addition to some 500,000 tons of low-gravity colonial infrastructure which had, presumably, been intended for staging to an asteroid elsewhere in the system. Disappointingly, no stores of raw minerals had yet been recovered, rather oddly given that the colony had been intended as a major economic hub for the system even prior to the Collapse, however plentiful fuel reserves had been unearthed and much of this had already been transported back to Duratus to ward off yet another potential resource crisis.

The morning of 5 June saw another classic Legion tradition once again come into common practice, this being the category of happenstance wherein a seemingly innocuous and well-meaning act of a Lord Admiral leads to vociferous controversy, superfluous debate at exorbitant volume levels, and an elevated probability of fisticuffs. In this case, the innocuous act was the retirement of Lord High Admiral Laura Tyrol, in charge of the Survey Fleet Command and widely regarded as next in line for a promotion to Lord Grand Admiral. While the vagaries of promotion and command reshuffling went rather smoothly, requiring only the space of two weeks, this had been the second retirement of a Lord High Admiral in less than five months, following the retirement of Lord High Admiral Hermes Ander from the Logistics Command - another highly active posting to boot. Regardless of the reasons given verbatim, many within the Legion high command believed in actuality that this rash of high-level retirements highlighted a long-brewing problem with the Legion Naval command hierarchy, namely that there were few opportunities for advancement due to abject stagnation of the wider Navy. The Duranium Legion of old had countered this by an aggressive policy of forced officer promotions to maintain rigid rank ratios, which forced the hierarchy to expand over time as talented young men and women rose through the ranks. Of course, in the aftermath of the Collapse this policy had been unsustainable, and some would argue that a slowness to recognize this reality had contributed to the onset of the Civil War, and in any case there was little if any will, political or otherwise, to change this particular policy back to its olden equivalent. In any case, what was clear to all involved was that the Legion Naval command hierarchy was in dire need of immediate expansion, by whatever means necessary.

Disagreement on the necessary means, then, was the instigating factor leading to the exorbitant volume and occasional fisticuffs alluded to prior. After some days of this unfortunate business, it became clear that the only resolution would be found in some form of Naval Conference to resolve the issue. As such, a brief meeting of the Lords Admiralty was scheduled for the period of 27 to 29 June, with attendance restricted to only the fifteen extant members of the Lords Admiralty. While direct records of the Naval Command Conference, as it became known in the following weeks, were largely lost to history in a presumable bureaucratic snafu, the essential contents of this were published towards the end of the year as a series of white papers and selected rebuttals, which are compiled and presented for the edification of the reader in abridged format in Appendix A. The one fact which was generally agreed upon in short order was that the burgeoning colonial venture in Wolf 359 offered the most likely area for expansion of Legion Naval command presence, though the necessity of this as the Wolf 359 system was only a single jump away from Sol was perhaps less than minimal. In any case, with this quickly decided the Lords Admiralty spent the bulk of the Conference debating the detailed command structure which could be emplaced in that system. What scarce source materials remain indicate that only three or four members of the Lords Admiralty were treated for abrasions and/or concussions during the Command Conference proceedings, as well as the BritCo Light Refreshments Corporation on-site representative for unexplained reasons.

Lord High Admiral Laura Tyrol, having served the Legion Navy for more than 37 years, ostensibly retired for such unassuming reasons as to “spend more time with family” or “pursue opportunities in the private sector”. However, despite rather visible disparities between Naval pay grades and compensation for Lords Corporate, many within the Legion Navy chose to believe that the Lord High Admiral had really left the service out of frustration with the lack of available Lord Grand Admiral billets for an eventual promotion. While some took her personal statements claiming that the Lords Grand Admiral in place at the time were clearly not as well-qualified and she could “beat the snot out of them at any place and any time” as evidence of this, others considered such statements to be well within par-for-the-course for any member of the Lords Admiralty.

By mid-August, the vendarite crisis had reached an intolerable height, dragging to a halt even the freighter construction in the Duratus orbital shipyards. As the nature of the problem was no longer confined to the ground forces, the Legion high command was forced to act, ordering that the newly-raised Cargo Flotilla 6 be dedicated to the shipment of Venusian automated mines to a vendarite-rich moon in the Wolf 359 system, marking the fourth colony site and the third automated mining site to be established in that system. With the mining facilities of the admittedly unproductive Venus colony rapidly being redistributed, Legion logistics experts projected that the various relocation missions would be completed by the end of the following calendar year. Far quicker to complete was the evacuation of the Mercury colony, which was announced as completed on 25 August - although the repurposing of its remaining physical infrastructure would take much longer.

----

26 January 4105

Not long after the new year began, the Legion Auxiliary Fleet announced the first new orbital shipyard deployment in several decades, a 10,000-ton affair built in cooperation with the Danaus family of Lords which had formerly been chiefly a minor probe-building concern, but had managed to accumulate sufficient liquid cash as to be a ready partner for recent Legion Naval economic expansion efforts. The shipyard would undergo a modest expansion before being tasked in mid-April to the construction of additional Lunar-class cargo shuttles for interstellar mineral transport. The construction spree continued with the orbital commissioning of Actinium Platform, the first new-build orbital mining platform in quite some time. With only 80% of the orbital mining capacity of the venerable Obsidian-class platforms, the new Elemental class would nevertheless make a significant and powerful expansion of Legion mining efforts in Wolf 359, to which it would be urgently deployed via space tug.

Off-Topic: Elemental class Orbital Mining Platform • show

These projects together heralded to many the return to some degree of economic normalcy in Legion space. While the Lords Admiral were far from ready to resume full production at all shipyards and factories, commercial endeavors were clearly on the upswing, including construction of more space platforms of orbital-mining and other types. Despite the worst - or perhaps best - efforts of the Lords Admiralty, and indeed despite the malicious wishes of more than a few within the larger Legion establishment, the recovery long-hoped for seemed to finally have come upon the long-suffering citizens and leaders of the Duranium Legion.

----

Shipbuilding

1x Xanadu class Survey Frigate: Xenophobia
1x Xanadu GE class Survey Frigate: Xilong
7x Sangraal class Freighter
1x Arctura class Colony Ship
1x Elemental class Orbital Mining Platform

Research Completed

Shield Regeneration Rate 1.5
Ground Formation Construction Rate - 400
Maximum Shield Generator Size - 12
Genome Sequence Research
Particle Beam Strength 4
Research Rate 240 RP
Fuel Production 56,000 Litres
Beam Fire Control Range 48,000 km

Systems Discovered

Bedrosia: Second Expeditionary Force, 11 July 4103

Author Topic: The Second Chronicle of the Duranium Legion (Read 2561 times)

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Second Chronicle of the Duranium Legion

nuclearslurpee (OP)

State of the Duranium Legion in the Year 4100

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Duranium Legion, Vol. 2 - Chapter I: The Jump Points Re-Open!

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Duranium Legion, Vol. 2 - Chapter II: Adventures in Alpha Centauri

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Duranium Legion, Vol. 2 - Chapter III: Uncharitably, A Sophomore Slump

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Duranium Legion, Vol. 2 - Chapter IV: On Safety, Security, and Giving a Damn

nuclearslurpee (OP)

The Duranium Legion, Vol. 2 - Chapter V: Because or Perhaps in Spite of