14/05/3207
All Polish warships are back above Marzanna. All internal systems have been repaired but the fleet has been reduced to four frigates, five destroyers and four destroyer escorts. To make matters worse the government is not willing to interrupt the current shipyard construction which is scheduled to finish in five years which means the armor damage won’t be fixed for that long. At the same time if the enemy can launch another attack that soon then there is likely no future for the Parana nations.
17/06/3207
The three Parana nations have been in a near constant communication since the invasion trying to establish some sort of cohesive strategy to deal with the aliens. That however is becoming progressively unlikely. Poland has technological advantage but due to Korea they are unwilling to share, making other powers resentful of them. At the same time Brazil is not only annoyed DPRK have taken their share of enemy POWs they have always been isolationist and would be focused on defending their home planet even if they received technological assistance. They are also unwilling to sign any trade access deal with Poland which would have allowed the latter to shore up their budget.
In the end there will likely be no cooperation however Poland did make one concession – they will focus on building anti-missile armed ships to help protect the other powers from missile attacks.
With that the government begun looking at their plans and goal to see what needs to change. The first change will be in terms of research. Currently there are three projects in progress. One is investigating the jump point theory, the second one is developing larger caliber railguns and the third, and largest one, is developing better life support infrastructure.
The last one is now being canceled. Poland has already made enormous strides in that area and that particular research would take decades to complete. Unfortunately speeding up of jump point development is impossible as the lead scientist, Dagna Gorzynska, doesn’t have the administrative capability to supervise more facilities. Instead better avionics are being developed in order to produce better anti-missiles.
Shipbuilding will also need to change. Currently the Republic has two naval shipyards, one constructing frigates and one constructing escort destroyers. Unfortunately as the recent battles have shown the frigates are simply too small to be of any use and the the armor of the destroyer escorts is too weak. Worse while Poland have pledged to build more anti-missile armed ships, they are still wary of Korea and they want to have a fleet that can actually fight on its own rather than being an escort force for other powers. It was obvious that a new, larger vessel will be needed. The first try was the Projekt 018 light cruiser. For all instances and purposes the designers have taken the Projekt 011 destroyer, added another engine and then begun adding anti-missile launchers, magazines and associated electronic systems. The resulting ship was twelve thousand and eight hundred tonnes, had the same resilience as the reasonably successful Projekt 011s and was a true multi-role vessel. However compared to the destroyer escorts she had only twelve anti-missile launchers rather than sixteen, carried only three quarters as many interceptors and had shorter range. In the end the military felt they had no choice but to go even bigger.
The Projekt 019 escort cruiser was the result. Like the destroyer she had twelve decimeters of armor, four railguns, two gauss cannon turrets and like the destroyer escort she had sixteen launchers. She also however had much deeper magazines being able to carry five hundred and twenty Iglas rather than three hundred and four.
The last part was a concession to the danger the aliens represented. Being able to fire thirty two salvos sounded impressive but against an enemy like Korea that capability would be wasted as DPRK was firing only one, massive salvo and there simply wasn’t enough time to put that many interceptors into space with so few launchers. But the invaders were using repeatable launchers so the ship had to be able to defend itself against them.
Still the vessel was sixteen thousand tonnes, which was a lot larger than everyone hoped. Unfortunately no one sees any way around it. In the end despite the budgetary and manpower problems the yards will be expanded.
09/12/3207
For the past six months the Polish services have been interrogating the aliens while cross examining their testimonies with data recovered from their ships. They are now fairly confident they have a good grasp on the history and motivation of their adversaries.
The enemy calls itself the Kinhalan Unity with the first word describing the species. The aliens evolved around a red dwarf star on a tidally locked planet. There was an issue however – such stars are usually active, bound to have occasional bursts of radiation and while modern technological civilization can be resistant to those, at least to some extent, that wasn’t true for emerging civilizations. As far as the Unity researchers can determine life on the planet first evolved seven billion years ago, three billion years earlier than on Earth but it needed so much more time to evolve. Worse it is unknown when the first kinhalan civilizations appeared as the stellar flares were destroying them before they could develop countermeasures. Time capsules from seventeen civilizations have been found, some produced as early as twenty nine thousand years ago some as far back as five million years. A probe orbiting another planet was found that was nine million years old. A city on the dark side of the planet, apparently developed to try and survive a flare was found that was nearly eleven million years old. Some suspect intelligence first evolved on the kinhalan homeworld fifty million years ago.
The newest civilization had its own problems. The planet was effectively mined out of anything that can produce energy up to and including uranium forcing the young nations to use solar and wind energy to try and power its industrialization which was extremely difficult and expensive, making the industrial revolution take twelve times as long as it did on Earth. The scarcity of minerals and living space, due to the planet being tidally locked, led to numerous wars culminating with six world wars, the last one of which ended up only when over a hundred weapons of mass destruction were used.
Even so kinhalans were lucky for the star had an unusually long period of calm allowing them to finally develop space travel and then TN technology. Unfortunately their home system had no jump points forcing them to send interstellar expeditions the slow way, just like humans did.
During that time the current political structure solidified. Initially the interrogators thought there was a mistake in translation, that the name of the polity was Kinhalan Union, but that was not the case. The Unity is just that, a complete and utter unity of the entire species, developed to stop the endless wars that ravaged their home planet. The system is weird from the human perspective. On the one hand its a democracy with many freedoms and in fact have privacy and free speech laws that would put many nations to shame. At the same time the government does not tolerate anything that can be classified as a conflict as soon as it becomes something more than verbal. Talking about issues is fine but something as innocent as a demonstration is not. For example several years ago teachers went to the streets to protest changes to the curriculum. All of them, over eleven thousand people, were arrested and the government had to construct temporary prisons to hold them, which many humans see as concentration camps in all but name. Not only that but with so many teachers gone the educational system had severe problems, but the government simply shrugged this off.
As for the current conflict, it is the result of kinhalans being unable to understand any system other than theirs. Years ago they were attacked by another human nation and despite the fact they won and conquered their would be invaders they see themselves as being at war with humanity in general rather than only those who attacked them.
As for that war, it apparently started because an Arabic interstellar expedition was sold faulty survey data and their planet was completely covered in water, preventing full terraformation due to the need to preserve solid land in the form of ice. Worse the ice cover made resource extraction extremely difficult bordering on impossible. With extreme difficulty the colony reached space, developed TN industry and found jump point leading to the kinhalan colony. It is unknown whether it was pure desperation or something else, like a religious zeal, was involved, but it doesn’t matter now. They asked to be allowed on the planet, were refused, they sent troops, they were stopped, the kinhalans built missile bases to protect the planet and after that they had such a crashing advantage they won the war easily. After that they explored space until they found Parana and, seeing this as a continuation of something that was already started by humans, attacked.
Overall this seems like good news, as this means the aliens aren’t genocidal which explains why they left life pods be and why they didn’t bombard Kim Jong despite the missile bases located there. This also means they will be similarly hostile to any other human colonies they found, possibly making them open other fronts which would lead to them spreading themselves too thinly.
Even so this also means a long and likely bloody war.
22/01/3208
Poland delivers a newly constructed orbital habitat to Baszta. Due to manpower issues on the home planet the government intends to turn the small moon into the primary naval base and ordnance production site and while habitats are expensive way to do it, they do not require a large chunk of the population to work life support. Besides Baszta is the site of the anti-missile bases so it makes sense to move ordnance production there.
There is an additional issue however. Polish commercial lines have launched two freighters, taxation of which could supplement the budget, but they have nowhere to go. Turow with its population of four million produces small amounts of trade goods, but not enough to fill the freighters and Brazil still refuses any trade deals. The Republic needs reasonably large colonies to stimulate the exchange and Baszta seems like the best target for that.
Turow however may also be expanded. Up until recently the small dwarf had all TN elements but the deposits were low, ranging from ten thousand to ninety thousand tonnes. However recently a ground geological survey found additional deposits of duranium and neutronium, bringing the deposits of the former to over three million tonnes and the letter to over six hundred thousand tonnes. At the same time the government is more interested in mining ships right now due to their much lower manpower requirements so the expansion of Turow is still uncertain.
24/09/3209
Poland have delivered their last habitat to Baszta, giving the cluster a total habitation capacity of eight million and begun working on expanding its industrial sector. While a seemingly surprising decision considering the need for larger military and research sector, the government wants to invest into the future, in particular in their ability to quickly establish or expand colonies. They still are balancing on knife’s edge when it comes to manpower and budget so they need more habitats or an ability to quickly colonize, develop and terraform a planet if they find one when they begin exploring jump points.
To illustrate the difference the manpower makes, the Republic is struggling to expand their two naval yards while in response to loses Brazil have just completed their fourth yard and Korea has three with the fourth one under construction. Poland simply cannot compete and the enormous workforce necessary for life support on their hostile home world is the primary reason for that.
29/02/3212
Sensor outpost on Marzanna detected a new active sensor coming form Kim Jong. It is very powerful and has very high resolution, most likely a missile detection system. It appears Koreans intend to build missile bases similar to the ones Poland has.
The primary problem with repeatable anti-missile launchers is detection. Such launchers allow warships to carry a lot more ammunition than box systems, but they need time to put those interceptors into space.
Poland had advanced technology and created large detection systems which allows their bases to fire thirty two volleys against alien missiles although their destroyers can manage only sixteen. Up until now Koreans had anti-missiles only on their cruisers and those could fire only eight volleys. The new sensor however was very powerful and likely very large with even more detection range than the Polish one. This will give Kim Jong a very good protection against enemy attacks and with their offensive bases they may end up being able to defeat the invaders by themselves. Or they may use this against the Republic.
The system is a surprise for another reason – it’s development must have been an expensive and long process. Brazil have focused on developing jump point theory and have announced the completion of the preliminary work. Poland is also trying to develop it but they are still having problems with administrative capacity. Korea, despite its boasts, must have given up on the race and while they are now likely trying to catch up they will end up behind the other powers.
The last piece of good news is that a new Republican frigate have been launched nine days ago allowing Poland to begin repairing their ships.
17/05/3212
All Polish ordnance factories are now on Baszta. Marzanna is also building a new naval yard to be delivered there. It won’t be expanded for warship production, at least not immediately, but instead will be used to build small three thousand and two hundred tonne scouts equipped with nothing but active sensors capable of detecting ships from over three hundred million kilometers away. Her primary purpose will be to picket the enemy entry point, which is currently unguarded as no nation have mobile sensors with range greater than the alien missiles and no one can afford to lose a warship at this point. The scout will finally ensure direct observation of the jump point so that no force can sneak by using low thrust.
This will also allow Poland to fully observe the inner system, including the Korean home planet something they currently do only through passive systems. This will ensure DPRK cannot spring any surprises.
07/12/3218
Nearly three weeks ago three Korean vessels left orbit. Two of them were freighters, but the third one was a new class. What was even more interesting was that the group begun moving towards the general direction of the wrecks. It was almost certain that DPRK intended to begin salvage operations, the problem was that the distribution of the wrecks have not been agreed upon. Moreover there were Polish wrecks there as well.
Worried about the situation and desperate to preserve their technological advantages the government have sent the frigate ORP Sniadrwy. In response Korea have sent their only operational cruiser to catch up to the commercial vessels and escort them. As was expected the Korean target was a Republican warship. Poland have immediately filed a protest stating that they are willing to go to war to protect their property. In response DPRK threatened to use their missile bases to blow up Polish freighters moving minerals from their mining operations, effectively starving the Republican industry of needed resources.
The government was worried about this even since the invasion when they discovered that the interplanetary missiles, previously thought to be ineffective against moving targets were, in fact, nothing more than very long ranged shipkillers with secondary role of surface bombardment. This meant Korea had capability to destroy Poland by blockading Marzanna for years but haven’t used it for some reason. Several possibilities were offered.
First the analysts were wrong about Korea and the nation wasn’t as aggressive as most people thought. While definitely possible it was a very dangerous assumption to make. Another possibility was that they simply overestimated anti-missile capabilities of Polish warships and thought that the fleet will be able to protect transports or even assault Kim Jong. The third possibility was that blockade would take too long. Brazil was neutral but that neutrality hinged on the other two nations being adversaries. If Korea could unify the entirety of the inner system not only would this show DPRKs aggressiveness it would give it resources to continue conquering. As such it is entirely possible the Federation would have intervened, assuming they had the time so Korea was always shooting for a quick, decisive battle against orbital defenses.
The last option was that Korea was in fact preparing just that but those preparations were interrupted by the invasion. They had the largest army in the system and are the only power to operate troop transports, the second of which was launched mere month before the kinhalan arrival.
Nonetheless there wasn’t much Poland could do mostly because of their economic situation. Fortunately they knew for a fact DPRK didn’t have enough missiles to arm their bases and needed time to rebuild stocks. Not only that but they always had to be wary of another attack, so they couldn’t just use all they had against Poland. Even so as time passed, the government decided they needed to be able to deal with the situation.
Over two years ago they begun development of an interplanetary missile of their own and an associated fire control. A year ago they begun building a single base capable of firing those missiles and a sensor outpost to paint target. Four months ago they were ready.
The new missile, names Osa, is multi-stage. The fuel consumption of the powerful Polish rocket engines was simply so great it was impossible to reach Kim Jong using normal design practices. Osa is large and slow, moving at eight thousand and six hundred kilometers per second but it releases five Zadlo submunitions, each capable of moving at thirty thousand kilometers per second with its only downside being the light, two mega tone warhead.
Now the Polish government informed Korea of those missiles telling them that they are willing to cut both Marzanna and Kim Jong from outside resources to see which one of them will choke first. The other side believes this to be a bluff.
There is only one missile base on Baszta capable of firing sixty Osas for a total of three hundred Zaldlos. Ten missiles are ordered to be fired at a Korean cruiser orbiting their home planet. The cruiser was mauled during the invasion and due to lack of shipyards have been kept in orbit to be repaired as soon as possible.
The missiles needed over seven hours to reach the other planet despite them being very close on their orbital paths. Osas worked as intended and the target was annihilated.
Korea was furious but Poland calmly stated that their shipyards are next. Brazil, horrified that the two nations are flat out fighting each other, immediately begun to try and mediate. The Republic had very simple demands. The twelve major alien wrecks will be divided equally between the three nations, Korea will take two of the smaller ones as they are the ones who killed them, leaving one each for the other two nations and no one will salvage wrecks of another power under any circumstances.
08/12/3218
The Korean salvage group begun working on one of the alien battlecruisers.
01/04/3219
The production of Osas required all available ordnance factories on Baszta which forced Marzanna to rebuild their own capability in that area in order to keep producing interceptors for bases and warships. That is now finally done, leaving the government free to pursue other projects.
The open conflict with Korea was very unwelcome. To make matters worse a new base have been built on Kim Jong, different from the other ones. Considering that for several years a very powerful anti-missile sensor was active on the planet it is very likely DPRK finally has some sort of defense although whether or not it’s good enough to deal with Republican ordnance remains to be seen.
Nonetheless enough launchers and interceptors will be able to deal with any attack which means Poland should build more bases, especially since those can be used against the aliens. Unfortunately they simply don’t have the minerals. There is only ten thousand tonnes of duranium stockpiled and reserves of tritanium are below five thousand tonnes. The simple truth is that while mining ships are incredibly cost and manpower efficient, Poland isn’t building them quickly enough. Three new commercial yards have been built and are expanding but those will be needed to build jump point stabilization vessels, colony ships, freighters and fuel harvesters at a bare minimum. Not only that but expansion will be expensive not just in terms of money but also in terms of resources.
To make matters worse Poland doesn’t have good alternatives. There are two mining locations utilizing habitats, Pniowek and Turow. The former is the largest moon of Marzanna, a six hundred kilometers irregular rock that produces only three elements, namely duranium, uridium and gallicite but there is only four hundred thousand tonnes remaining to be mined. Turow has a lot more but most of it comes in the form or recently discovered massive deposits of duranium.
In the end, despite the cost the government intends to invest more heavily into Turow. The colony currently has four million people living in four habitats. The government plans to expand its manufacturing again and then build at least six additional habitats for the dwarf planet followed by some fifty mines. While expensive and slow this currently seems to be the best of the available options, however bad it may be objectively.
22/12/3221
When Poland begun developing jump point theory they realized they cannot afford to disrupt the work of the other shipyards so they have built an additional one for Baszta. As soon as they were able to they designed a small survey vessel that could look for jump points but couldn’t traverse them. All the work is now complete and the Republic knows that Parana has two jump points one leading to the enemy space and another one located in the inner system where it can be protected by missile bases preventing kinhalans from exploring it, meaning it should be safe. Thanks to missile bases that mostly belong to Korea who hates Poland.
It is unknown how far the other nations are in their work but Korea should be quite far behind as they focused on developing very primitive, large and powerful sensors and fire controls for their anti-missile bases which should have been expensive. Poland however won’t be exploring that jump point for years to come, maybe even a full decade. They want the exploration ship to be large enough to transport their destroyers through to have at least some power projection capability but the yard is still expanding to the necessary size. Besides the economy has a lot more problems closer to home so exploiting anything outside parana would be difficult anyway.
11/03/3222
A Korean commercial vessel set course towards Perun, the only source of fuel for Poland. Worried and untrusting, the government sent a frigate to observe, but it turned out it was just a DPRK fuel harvester. Apparently their ground installations weren’t enough.
The frigate was ordered to stay above the gas giant to keep an eye on things and was shortly joined by a Korean destroyer. Four such ships have been constructed recently, half the size of their cruisers but likely with even less capability as they still had to carry the exact same electronic systems which cut into available space. Most likely it was a transitory design while the shipyards kept expanding.
09/09/3226
Over the past year and a half Korea have brought online four new bases. Two of them are believed to utilize anti-missiles while the other two are known to be armed with interplanetary munitions. This allows DPRK to five a salvo of four thousand and four hundred missiles. The Polish bases can intercept two and a half thousand of those and the existing destroyer escorts should be able to stop another thousand. In short the Republic is no longer safe.
The one piece of good news is that before the war Korea was building the bases as soon as new missiles were available which meant they had no stockpile and they have to consider leaving reserve for the aliens. Even so Poland has to resume their own armament.
It won’t be easy as the Republic struggled to keep up their economic expansion. Marzanna is five million workers short and resource problems haven’t been fully solved yet. Two asteroid mining ships are being build and additional mines are being sent to Turow but while stocks of duranium have risen slightly the nation is almost out of mercassium which is critical in building habitats.
The one bright spot on the horizon is Baszta. Before the war the small colony had only one million people supporting the military personnel and fifteen manufacturing complexes to assemble prefabricated bases. However over time the local government was permitted to use those factories, plus thirty five additional ones from Marzanna, to expand very slowly, building new habitats and new factories. By now the total population of the moon is nearly seventeen million and it has almost enough production capacity to build one habitat, or one missile base, each year.
The government ordered Baszta to suspend further expansion. From now on new facilities and habitats will be constructed on the home planet while the moon focuses exclusively on additional missile bases. While a rather desperate move, with manpower issues Marzanna cannot really do anything else with its industry.
28/09/3227
Poland launches their first two escort cruisers the ORP Grunwald and ORP Koronowo.
It’s been twenty years and several months since the invasion and the Parana powers have been trying to rebuild their forces. The missile bases were intact and have expanded but the fleets are still in a somewhat weak state. Poland has suffered the fewest loses and by now they have six frigates, five destroyers, six destroyer escorts and the two new escort cruisers. In tonnage terms, they are more or less where they started.
The two shipyards above Marzanna are laying dawn the next pair but there are also two yards above Baszta. One is retooling to build exploration ships that will be able to see what lays beyond the jump point and the other one was building scouts and is now expanding. Depending on available manpower it will be used to either build destroyer escorts or escort cruisers.
Other nations are further behind what they once were but are in better position to expand. Korea has eight destroyers and their yards have expanded to a point where new cruisers are being laid dawn. Brazil have laid dawn only two new destroyers, but they are focusing on their orbital defenses and have recently constructed two new shipyards.
It is unknown how the aliens are doing although the fact they haven’t come back yet means that the invasion comprised the bulk of their fleet and their shipbuilding capability likely wasn’t that great if they haven’t replaced those loses yet. This is probably why they focused on shipyards during their attack, so that they could either catch up or get ahead.
18/12/3229
The three nations are generally keeping their jump point development to themselves with the public being only vaguely aware of it. Several days ago however Brazil announced they have finished surveying the Parana system and have sent their exploration ship Candido Rondon to discover what lay beyond.
The transit was broadcast to the entire system but there wasn’t much to see. The vessel disappeared without much fanfare and re-appeared several minutes later to confirm the jump was successful and that there was a star on the other side. She than disappeared again for a more detailed survey and returned seven hours later.
The star on the other side has only the catalog number of KRC 27721. It is a white star three times as massive as Sol was and over nine times as massive as Parana. It has twelve planets and ninety five moons, but the only body with acceptable gravity for humans is one of the moons that has neither atmosphere nor water.
Brazil announced they intend to thoroughly survey the system, starting with mineral deposits. That means new jump points won’t be found for years to come. This most likely means that ultimately Brazil intends to stay on their home planet, seeking resources rather than living space.
11/03/3232
A second Brazilian ship transited the innermost jump point in Parana. She had the same size as the previous one but was faster indicating the Federation have likely developed Ion engines. To make matters worse several weeks ago Korea have launched a ship that was immediately brought back into the yards, most likely for refits so they may have developed the same technology.
The Republican scientific advantage was their greatest asset and it is slipping away. Poland have been expanding their R&D sector slowly but steadily even during the worst manpower shortages and now they have thirty one facilities dedicated to research. Even so they are about a decade away from deploying next generation engines.
25/03/3234
Poland launches ORP Kopernik, their first exploration ship. Due to enormous demands on the R&D sector the vessel ended up being full of compromises as development of custom made components was essentially out of the question and even then the Republic is the last power to be able to explore the stars.
As an example of what the ship is missing, her active sensors are the same as those on the scouts that are picketing the jump point to enemy space, but her passive systems are the same as those on the frigates, meaning they are for all instances and purposes completely worthless for a vessel that will be entering unknown systems. Worse, creation of a specialized engine was not possible and the ship had to be ninety six hundred tonnes to give Poland the ability to project power outside Parana using destroyers and frigates. The designers had to make choice between naval engines which were very fuel hungry and commercial engines which were providing too little power and were so large putting two of them was not possible. And to add to the spectacle due to engine size the designers had to actually put more components than necessary to reach the required size.
In the end the Projekt 024 exploration ship is, at best, adequate. She is capable of over fifteen hundred kilometers per second, designed to stay in space for five years and has range of four hundred and fifty billion kilometers. Her only redeeming quality are survey capabilities, as she carries multiple sensors for both geological and gravitational survey.
After a very brief ceremony she was sent to KRC 27721 together with the two small Polish gravitational survey vessels. While they had short range it will allow the Republic to try and get ahead in finding new systems. Since the nation needs both living space and resources they are keen to try and find something suitable nearby they can claim.
A second exploration vessel is laid dawn but she won’t be ready for five more years. Six are planned.
15/12/3235
Poland discovers another system with the catalog name of DTSC 272. It’s a bright F class star orbited by two dwarf planets, four large venusian worlds and a bunch of comets. The planet may have good mineral deposits but there is no living space to be found.
In addition the government decides to stabilize jump point to KRC 27721, which has only two jump points. All powers have the ships to do so but no one has done this so far as they want to use jump tenders to claim what they want before opening path for their rivals. Poland doesn’t have a jump tender yet as their shipbuilding has other priorities, but they recently designed one and begun retooling.
The primary point of the stabilization is to gain new cometary mining opportunities. However the objects in KRC 27721 will be surveyed by the next ship as right now gravitational survey takes priority.
14/04/3239
Poland have launched another pair of escort cruisers bringing their total number to six and after that the two naval yards have been transported to Baszta. The moon now have four of them, all the Republic operates and three of them are tooled to build warships with the last one building exploration vessel.
The population of the moon is thirty two million but there is enough space for seven million more. That isn’t yet enough to man all the installations but the shortages aren’t crippling and Marzanna still have its own problems, despite the move. The government also plans to move maintenance facilities and the remaining ordnance factories there, turning Baszta into the heart of the Polish navy but it will take time for the population to grow and for additional habitats to be constructed.
The Republic isn’t the only nation struggling to build more habitats. Korea is expanding their mining operations and while the Intelligence believes they aren’t suffering shortages they are also certain their current production isn’t quite enough thanks to which DPRK haven’t built any new missile bases in over a decade. At the same time with technological advantage no longer being assured Poland needs still more anti-missile installations preventing Baszta from using its own industry for growth.
04/08/3240
Poland developed magneto-plasma drive hopefully regaining their technological supremacy, at least in this area. It will take time for them to produce actual devices but there is the question of upgrades. Escort cruisers will almost certainly be refitted despite the time and the cost, and frigates will almost certainly be ignored as they are too small and too weak to be useful and while they won’t be immediately scrapped, the existing warships will likely be used primarily for picket duties for tertiary installations.
The medium sized warships are more complicated. The destroyers were barely good enough the last time and considering how much time kinhalans are spending on building up their invasion force those will likely be essentially useless. At the same time they may be used for picket duties to free up cruisers and the destroyer escorts would still be useful thanks to their anti-missiles.
In the end the government decided that those vessels will be upgraded if an opportunity presents itself. If there is ever a time where Baszta have enough spare population a new yard will be built to keep the medium sized ships in good condition.
New ordnance have also been designed and is in development. Aside from the drives, new warheads, avionic packages and better power multipliers have been researched allowing production of significantly better munitions. The Igla B for example will have nearly twice the accuracy of its predecessor while the submunitions for Osa B will have fifty percent heavier warheads.
16/09/3240
Parana has two jump points, one leading to alien space and another leading to a bright, white star that also has two jump points. The second one leads to an F class star with three outward jump points, all of which lead to uninteresting systems that may or may not have good mineral deposits but they definitely don’t have any candidates for settlement. The survey ships have recently been sent to one of the three systems to find what lies beyond and one of those ships returned with news of the system of HRCC 4421 which has four candidates for colonization, albeit poor ones that will require significant amount of work and don’t have any interesting mineral deposits.
For some time now Poland have been very slowly introducing the idea that each of the three nations should just claim one of the three systems adjacent to DTSC 272 and go their own way. The issue is that there is no guarantee that those systems actually lead somewhere and if one of them is a dead end, or part of a dead end chain, the nation that claims it will be, essentially, screwed.
The pressure to claim HRCC 4421 is significant. While all the planets in the system will require decades of hard work to terraform, Poland needs living space above all else and the distance to those planets is over eleven billion kilometers. Finding better candidates further out may be essentially pointless due to distances. Worse Korea knows full well the problems the Republic is facing and is performing only gravitational survey most likely with the intent of finding good colony sites and denying them to Poland in contrast with Brazil who is performing full geological ans gravitational study of any star they encounter.
The government decides to take a risk. The survey ship is ordered back into the system to join the other ships and find whether or not the star has any jump points and what lies beyond. Unless the system turns out to be a dead end, the chain will be claimed.
