Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 26, 2008, 07:22:04 AM »24th January 1895
Agincourt has returned to the Britannia system after escorting the harvesters to Birmingham. Two of the Victory class have recently completed minor overhauls and the third still has some time before an overhaul is necessary so the cargo ships will resume their earlier mission of taking automated mines to the mining colony in Stevenage. Agincourt will remain at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point to ferry them through the jump point as required.
20th April 1895
Resolution, our first colony ship, is completed. Until a better opportunity presents itself, she will be transporting colonists to Aberdeen-II. Agincourt will provide escort as required. The Victory class freighters have completed two more trips to Stevenage and our mining colony in that system now has twenty-one automated mines. However, due to Duranium shortages on Victoria, no more mines will be moved into Stevenage for the moment. Our first batch of 100 Longsword missiles has been produced by the Empire?s ordnance factories.
22nd May 1895
Work on construction factories has been temporarily halted and construction of additional mines has begun.
24th June 1895
Several hours ago, Minotaur and our six survey ships re-entered Britannia, eleven months after they departed via the London jump point, and Commodore Richards immediately contacted the Admiralty with a priority one message. Despite being assured in the past that I would always have full access to Admiralty House, I was excluded from several meetings that were urgently convened as a result of that message. I was forced to appeal directly to her Majesty before the status quo ante was restored. My first request on being granted full access was copy of the patrol report summary from Commodore Richards. That disconcerting document is presented below in its entirety.
Report of Commodore Richards, commander of Copernicus and senior officer on survey expedition.
After departing the Britannia system, the fleet traversed London and entered Cardiff. Gravitational and geological surveys of Cardiff were carried out, resulting in the discovery of three new jump points and several mineral deposits, none of which were of any great significance. The Newton class survey ships, including my own ship, Copernicus, were still in the outer system so I ordered Minotaur to probe the innermost jump point. She discovered a T4-VII brown dwarf primary with a mass of one ten millionth that of Britannia, which meant the gravitational survey of this new system, designated as Leyland, would only require two days to complete. As it would take several days for the survey ships to converge on the Leyland jump point, I sent Minotaur to a jump point in the outer system to carry out her second probe. The new system, Lancaster, had only three rocky planets and a meagre asteroid belt but the third planet was ideal. Gravity of 1.03G, a surface temperature of 22 degrees Celsius and a perfect oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere almost identical to Victoria?s.
Minotaur returned to the Leyland jump point and ferried the assembled survey ships into that system. Galileo, Newton and Copernicus quickly accomplished their task and located four new jump points. With the most distant of these jump points at sixty million kilometers, it didn?t take long for Minotaur to probe all four. A brief description of each system is below:
? York. G1-V primary. Two gas giants and six rocky planets, one with a minimal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 65 degrees, and forty seven moons, plus eight comets worthy of investigation.
? Swansea. K0-IV orange sub-giant primary with a single Venusian type planet.
? Oxford. K9-V primary. Seven planets all within two billion kilometers and a small, rocky eighth planet at over one hundred billion kilometers
? Newcastle. Trinary system with a G1-V primary, a close orbiting brown dwarf and a K8-V companion at twenty-seven billion kilometers. A total of thirteen planets, eighty-three moons and ninety-five asteroids, none of which are worthy of further comment.
Minotaur escorted all six survey ships back into Cardiff and the fleet headed for the remaining unexplored jump point. The outermost jump point led to Cambridge, a system with a G9-V primary and four rocky planets, one of which had a very thin oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 57 degrees. On my orders, Copernicus and the other two Newtons plus the geological survey ship Sedgwick were escorted into Cambridge by Minotaur. While the surveys were underway, Minotaur set course for Lancaster with the remaining geo survey ships, Buckland and Clarke. Their mission was to check out the system bodies in Lancaster before returning to Cambridge to pick up the rest of the fleet once our gravitational survey was complete.
The three detached ships entered Lancaster without incident and while Minotaur remained at the jump point, a little under five billion kilometers from the primary, the two survey ships proceeded in-system. As Buckland and Clarke approached the inner system, they began to move apart until they were running parallel at a range of twelve million kilometers. One hundred million kilometers short of Lancaster-III, a contact appeared just two million kilometers from Buckland. The contact was approximately 5000 tons and moving at 3000 km/s. Both ships immediately reversed course and ran for the jump point. Captain Fisher on the Buckland, the senior officer in the system, decided to try and communicate with the alien ship and reduced speed to 3000 km/s to keep the range constant. He ordered captain Redmill on the Clarke to maintain his top speed of 3600 km/s. Commander Trudeau on the Minotaur, located at the Lancaster ? Cardiff jump point, was informed of the situation.
The alien ships answered our hails but did not cease their pursuit. Although the transmissions were audio only, the aliens at least appear to have a spoken language and certain words sounded strangely familiar to some of the officers on board the Buckland. Over the next ten days, the two ships continued to move toward the jump point, two million kilometers apart. Slowly those officers on Buckland with linguistic skills, aided by their counterparts on Minotaur and Clarke, pinned down the familiar words and with the help of the library computers finally identified the alien language. Incredibly, their best guess was the language of the Vikings around the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. Captain Fisher hailed the aliens using video and audio and addressed them as best he could given the limitations of the translation software.
Within a few minutes, the aliens replied with video and turned out to be human, mainly blonde-haired and bearded.. Their uniforms also bore markings similar to Norse runes. They seemed as surprised as us to be conversing with other humans, although their surprise seemed to be turning to suspicion whereas the crew of the Buckland were fascinated with the appearance of a culture thought to be dead for eight hundred years. Although the ?Vikings? continued to be guarded in the ensuing negotiations, it did not take long to establish that they too had suffered an equivalent of the Transference over five years ago. Whatever force was responsible for the Transference, it appears that it affected at least one culture from the past history of Earth in addition to our own transfer from the present day.
Captain Fisher requested that both ships hold position to continue discussion and even proposed setting up a trade outpost on the Viking?s planet. The Viking commander, Huscarl Sigmund, demanded that the Buckland leave the system through the jump point toward which it was heading and that the system beyond, which he called Alta and we know as Cardiff, was Viking territory. That statement changed the situation entirely as it was now apparent the Vikings not only knew about jump points but had explored beyond their home system. The Vikings had changed from an intriguing historical anachronism to a potential threat to the Empire. Realising the significance of the information he had just gained, Captain Fisher immediately ordered his ship to full speed and began to pull away from the pursuing ship. He ordered Clarke and Minotaur to prepare to transit as soon as he arrived and to set a course for Cambridge to contact the rest of the fleet. I would like to note that captain Fisher should be commended for his conduct during the time of his independent command in the Lancaster system.
The Lancaster and Cambridge jump points in Cardiff are seven billion kilometers apart so it took Minotaur almost a month to reach the latter system, arriving on the 23rd of April 1895. Captain Fisher and the Buckland also entered Cambridge so that he could relay his report to me. Although the gravitational survey was almost complete, I decided to order an immediate withdrawal. The survey could be completed at a later date but we could not afford to be cut off by Viking forces reaching the Cardiff ? London jump point before we arrived. While the three gravitational survey ships were moving toward the Cambridge ? Cardiff jump point, I ordered Buckland and Sedgwick to join Clarke in Cardiff and to immediately head to the Cardiff ? London jump point to provide warning of any Viking ships in the area.
The evacuation of Cambridge was completed by the 16th of May and all seven ships in the fleet rendezvoused at the Cardiff ? London jump point on the 29th of May. So far, there was no sign of any Viking ships, although if they did not know the layout of jump points in Cardiff and therefore could not predict our movements, we easily could pass relatively close to each other without being detected. All seven ships transited into London and set course for the Britannia jump point, arriving on the morning of the 24th June 1895.
Commodore Richards, C.O. Copernicus, 24th June 1895.
Although aliens still remain a figment of the imagination, it appears we instead must confront the dark days of our own past. For centuries, Vikings raided the shores of the British Isles until decisively defeated by King Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge in 1066, only days before his death at the battle of Hastings. Sir William has also read Commodore Richards report and announced a ridiculous theory that is nevertheless keeping me awake at nights. Someone or something has transferred both the British Empire and the Vikings from Earth to planets in this distant part of the universe. Sir William believes that whoever was responsible for this phenomena may well have not stopped at two different cultures, but could have transferred many cultures from the past. Furthermore, and more disturbingly, he has proposed a theory that the British Empire be a culture from the past if the Transference took place at some point in our own future. Despite the fact it is obvious that the present is the present and I surely would know if I was living the past, I cannot help turning this over in my mind. If his nonsensical suggestion were true, what manner of humans would we meet if they were from our own future?
Despite Sir Williams fevered imaginings, Lord Hamilton has decreed that the Empire must start building a mobile military force to defend the systems around Britannia. Our weapons technology is still quite primitive, especially in the fields of lasers and particle accelerators and even our planet-based missiles have a limited range and a fairly small warhead. The priority is create some type of effective shipboard weapon before we have to face the Vikings in deep space. Our research into Visible Light Lasers should be completed soon so a decision on how to proceed will be made at that point.
25th June 1895
After refuelling, the survey fleet, including Minotaur, are dispatched to Aberdeen. This is on the far side of our territory from the Vikings and should keep the unarmed ships out of trouble.
11th July 1895
Research into Visible Light Laser technology is completed on Victoria. There has been extensive discussion on how to proceed with development of weapons to guard against any attack by the Vikings. Our weapon technology is extremely limited and presented below are the four options being considered. The first three are the most advanced versions we can build in each of the three major weapon categories plus a much larger particle accelerator that would effectively be a one-shot weapon.
In the meantime, a new class of scout ship will be constructed to monitor the systems between ourselves and the Vikings. The Vanguard is small, fast and long ranged but also jump capable. Unfortunately, our sensor technology is at a similar level of capability to our weapons so the Vanguard will almost have to be on top of any enemy ships before it detects them. Therefore its mission will be to remain silent and watchful in the vicinity of key jump points until our sensor technology improves. It is unarmed and must rely on speed and stealth to survive. Two Vanguards will be constructed initially.
The colony ship Resolution returns to the Victoria system to report that the establishment of our first off-world population has been successfully carried out. 50,000 citizens of the Empire are now living on Aberdeen-II.
8th September 1895
Development of the 10cm C1 Visible Light Laser has been completed. Our scientists now begin work on improving the recharge rate of the capacitors used in lasers and particle accelerators.
22nd November 1895
The colony ship Resolution returns from Aberdeen with news of the ongoing surveys in that system. The geological survey has so far found mineral deposits on two asteroid and two planets, one of which is the site of our new colony. Aberdeen-II has deposits of nine minerals, although mostly at low accessibility. The complete list is as follows:
Duranium 1,889,568 Acc: 0.3
Neutronium 331,776 Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 3,779,136 Acc: 0.7
Boronide 11,664 Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 5,184 Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 4,359,744 Acc: 1.0
Sorium 12,702,100 Acc: 0.5
Uridium 5,992,704 Acc: 0.4
Corundium 9,144,576 Acc: 0.1
The three geological survey ships are now en route to the planets orbiting the companion star, which lies fifteen billion kilometers from the primary. The gravitational survey is still in progress, although based on Resolution?s report it should be completed within a few weeks. Resolution will refuel, load colonists and begin her third trip to Aberdeen. Minotaur is escorting her between the Britannia ? Stevenage and Stevenage ? Belfast jump points while Agincourt is holding station on the Belfast ? Aberdeen jump point. In addition, the three Victory class freighters will carry a pair of automated mines and a supply of Boronide to Aberdeen so that construction of terraforming installations can begin once construction factories are delivered. Although we could concentrate on building up Victoria and avoid the cost of creating the Aberdeen colony, the recent discovery of the Vikings has prompted our leaders to ensure a viable second home is setup, just in case.
26th November 1895
A fourth Victory class freighter is laid down as the requirement for transporting installations or other material to Aberdeen will likely increase over time. Once the Vanguards are completed, construction of a second colony ship will begin.
1st January 1896
Presented below is the annual summary for 1896. 1895 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1896 summary.
1896 Summary
Population: 227m (220m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185 (180)
Mines: 163 (160)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 13
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 4.4m Litres. (3.6m)
1896 Fleet
As 1895 except for the addition of the Resolution.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution.
18th January 1896
The two Vanguard class, jump-capable scouts are completed. Both are immediately dispatched to the Cardiff system to watch for Viking activity. One will be positioned at the Cardiff ? Lancaster jump point and the other at the Cardiff ? London jump point.
16th March 1896
Minotaur returns to the Britannia system, along with Resolution and the three Victory class freighters. She brings news that the gravitational survey in Aberdeen has been completed, revealing three new jump points. At the time Resolution left Aberdeen, Agincourt had explored one jump point, discovering a system that Captain Morris named Dundee. Dundee has a very bright A5-V primary with a mass over twice that of Britannia and a luminosity of 18.4, compared to 1.0 for Sol and 0.85 for Britannia. The system has twelve planets, stretching as far out as ninety billion kilometers, and a huge double asteroid belt with almost four hundred asteroids. The fifth planet has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere but it is three times as dense as Victoria and the oxygen level is too high. In any event, with a gravity of 1.74 G and a surface temperature of -90C, it is a very inhospitable place. All three Newtons and one geological survey ship are in Dundee while the other two Bucklands are completing the geological survey of the Aberdeen-B system.
Minotaur also reports that an ion storm passing through the inner system of Stevenage briefly passed over the second moon of Stevenage-V, upon which we have twenty-one automated mines. Although several mines were struck by electromagnetic discharges from the storm, none were damaged.
One of the three Victory class ships has run out of spares and a second is down to twenty percent. Both vessels will undergo a major overhaul when they return to Victoria. In retrospect, the Victorys should have been given more engineering capacity to deal with ongoing maintenance problems
23rd March 1896
Pioneer, one of the two Vanguard class scouts deployed to Cardiff, returns to Britannia with disturbing news. The two scouts entered Cardiff on February 7th 1896 and while Vanguard held position at the Cardiff ? London jump point, Pioneer set course for the Lancaster jump point to watch for Viking ships leaving their home system. On the 20th of February, Vanguard detected a 5000 ton ship approaching the London jump point. With no way to exit the system without giving her position away, Vanguard monitored the Viking ship as moved to the jump point, spent five minutes charging its strength-12 shields and then entered London. It would appear that the Vikings have already surveyed Cardiff and now know the location of London, which is adjacent to Britannia itself. The situation is worse than first feared, especially as we still have no warships and not even an armed ship under construction.
A few minutes after entering London, the Viking ship re-entered Cardiff and set a course that did not correspond to any of the known jump points in the system or any of the planetary bodies. Once it was out of sensor range, Vanguard contacted Pioneer and countermanded the existing orders. Pioneer abandoned her original picket mission and returned to Britannia to deliver the urgent news. The First Space Lord orders Pioneer to return to Cardiff and order Vanguard to pull back. The new picket locations for the two ships will be the London-Cardiff and London-Britannia jump points.
As our weapon technology is still not sufficiently advanced to begin building effective warships, the planetary defences will be strengthened by the construction of additional missiles and missile silos. However, some armed picket forces are necessary just in case the enemy possesses missiles that are longer-ranged than our own. Therefore a Broadsword class destroyer will be constructed to guard the Britannia ? London jump point. There was some discussion within Parliament that this ship is a waste of resources, especially given the low tracking speed of its fire control system, but it is difficult to do nothing when a potentially hostile force is closing on our system.
24th June 1896
Research into Capacitor Recharge Rate 2 is completed on Victoria. Our scientists begin work on increasing the speed of our missile engines to 15,000 km/s.
29th June 1896
Two Victory class freighters complete their major overhauls. While the third Victory is taken into the shipyards, the other two will take two construction factories to Aberdeen.
19th October 1896
The two freighters return to the Britannia system, along with Minotaur. After a request from Agincourt while both ships were in Belfast, Minotaur travelled to Aberdeen to refuel our survey forces. As a result, Commander Trudeau has a full report on activities in and around Aberdeen. The last report stated that only one of Aberdeen?s three new jump points has been probed, which led to Dundee. Since then Dundee has been fully surveyed. Although no jump points were located, substantial mineral deposits have been found, including over 750,000,000 tons of Duranium, albeit mainly at low levels of accessibility. Aberdeen?s other jump points led to the systems of Nottingham and Sheffield. The former is a G1-V / L1-VII binary with a single Venusian world orbiting the primary while the latter has a G3-V primary and eight planets, one of which has acceptable gravity, a breathable atmosphere and a surface temperature of -25C. Although colonists would need some infrastructure to be put in place, this is another world that could become ideal with some terraforming. In its current state it has a colony cost of 1.7. When Minotaur left the Aberdeen system, the survey ships were heading for Sheffield.
21st November 1896
The Broadsword class destroyer is completed. She immediately leaves orbit to picket the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point.
1st January 1987
Presented below is the annual summary for 1897. 1896 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.
1897 Summary
Population: 235m (227m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 163
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20 (13)
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.0m Litres. (4.4m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve
1897 Fleet
As 1896 except for the addition of the Broadsword.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution, 1x Broadsword
1st February 1897
The fourth Victory class freighter is completed.
24th March 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and the three Victory class freighters return from a mission transporting infrastructure and colonists to Aberdeen. Commander Trudeau reports that there was no sign of Agincourt or any of the survey ships so they are presumably still in the Sheffield system.
21st April 1897
Two Engineer units have been trained. These provide limited ground defence strength but are most useful for their construction ability. Each Engineer can produce as much a construction factory without the need for a supporting population.
2nd July 1897
Agincourt appears at the Britannia?Stevenage jump point without the survey ships. Her commander, Captain Morris, explains that his ship is out of spare parts and any further maintenance problems could result in damage to his ship. Therefore he has left the survey ships to carry on with their work while his ship returned for a minor overhaul. He reports that the Sheffield system has been surveyed, resulting in the discovery of mineral deposits on four worlds, although none of any significance, and the location of a second jump point. The new jump point led to Newport, a quaternary system with a F1-IV yellow-white sub-giant primary, a yellow G8-V star at 1.4 billion kilometers, an orange K3-V at 4.5 billion and another sub-giant, this time a G9-IV, at twenty-one billion. All four stars have planetary systems and two have small asteroid belts.
Newport contains several planets of interest. Orbiting the G9-IV sub-giant is a large but low-density terrestrial world covered almost entirely in water. The surface temperature is an ideal 15C and the gravity is only 0.89G. The oxygen ? Nitrogen atmosphere is almost breathable with 0.10 atm of oxygen compared to the minimum of 0.11 required for unprotected humans to survive. Another world that could be made ideal with minimal terraforming. It also has eighty-five millions tons of accessibility 0.9 Duranium and large amounts of accessible Neutronium, Corbomite and Mercassium. In orbit of the G8-V closest to the primary is another terrestrial world with acceptable gravity and a breathable atmosphere but a little chilly at -42C. However, there is a quantity of frozen sulphur dioxide on the surface, presumably from volcanic activity in the past. This may be released if the planet could be warmed up, adding to the increased temperature. Also in orbit of the same star is a very similar planet with a temperature of -70 and an atmosphere only just outside breathable parameters. Newport has significant mineral resources, including a planet with large quantities of ten different minerals with accessibilities ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. When Agincourt left, the gravitational survey was about 50% complete and the geo survey ships were heading out the system around the second sub-giant.
Because of the increasing number of worlds that could be made ideal with relatively little terraforming, a terraform module that can be built into a ship has been designed. Although this will ultimately be more costly than a ground-based terraforming installation due to its ongoing maintenance costs, it will allow more flexibility for short-term terraforming projects. The design of the first Terraforming ship is shown below.
16th July 1897
A fifth Victory class freighter is constructed on Victoria
10th August 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and four freighters return from their latest trip to Aberdeen. The colony now has a population of 340,000 with four construction factories and two automated mines. Minotaur also delivered a full load of fuel so the colony has a fuel stockpile of almost 900,000 litres to support survey operations in the nearby systems.
1st September 1897
Agincourt completes her minor overhaul and immediately heads for Newport to rendezvous with the survey ships.
11th October 1897
Minotaur completes a minor overhaul on Victoria.
1st January 1898
Presented below is the annual summary for 1898. 1897 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.
1897 Summary
Population: 242m (235m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 170 (163)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.3m Litres. (5.0m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve
Agincourt has returned to the Britannia system after escorting the harvesters to Birmingham. Two of the Victory class have recently completed minor overhauls and the third still has some time before an overhaul is necessary so the cargo ships will resume their earlier mission of taking automated mines to the mining colony in Stevenage. Agincourt will remain at the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point to ferry them through the jump point as required.
20th April 1895
Resolution, our first colony ship, is completed. Until a better opportunity presents itself, she will be transporting colonists to Aberdeen-II. Agincourt will provide escort as required. The Victory class freighters have completed two more trips to Stevenage and our mining colony in that system now has twenty-one automated mines. However, due to Duranium shortages on Victoria, no more mines will be moved into Stevenage for the moment. Our first batch of 100 Longsword missiles has been produced by the Empire?s ordnance factories.
22nd May 1895
Work on construction factories has been temporarily halted and construction of additional mines has begun.
24th June 1895
Several hours ago, Minotaur and our six survey ships re-entered Britannia, eleven months after they departed via the London jump point, and Commodore Richards immediately contacted the Admiralty with a priority one message. Despite being assured in the past that I would always have full access to Admiralty House, I was excluded from several meetings that were urgently convened as a result of that message. I was forced to appeal directly to her Majesty before the status quo ante was restored. My first request on being granted full access was copy of the patrol report summary from Commodore Richards. That disconcerting document is presented below in its entirety.
Report of Commodore Richards, commander of Copernicus and senior officer on survey expedition.
After departing the Britannia system, the fleet traversed London and entered Cardiff. Gravitational and geological surveys of Cardiff were carried out, resulting in the discovery of three new jump points and several mineral deposits, none of which were of any great significance. The Newton class survey ships, including my own ship, Copernicus, were still in the outer system so I ordered Minotaur to probe the innermost jump point. She discovered a T4-VII brown dwarf primary with a mass of one ten millionth that of Britannia, which meant the gravitational survey of this new system, designated as Leyland, would only require two days to complete. As it would take several days for the survey ships to converge on the Leyland jump point, I sent Minotaur to a jump point in the outer system to carry out her second probe. The new system, Lancaster, had only three rocky planets and a meagre asteroid belt but the third planet was ideal. Gravity of 1.03G, a surface temperature of 22 degrees Celsius and a perfect oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere almost identical to Victoria?s.
Minotaur returned to the Leyland jump point and ferried the assembled survey ships into that system. Galileo, Newton and Copernicus quickly accomplished their task and located four new jump points. With the most distant of these jump points at sixty million kilometers, it didn?t take long for Minotaur to probe all four. A brief description of each system is below:
? York. G1-V primary. Two gas giants and six rocky planets, one with a minimal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 65 degrees, and forty seven moons, plus eight comets worthy of investigation.
? Swansea. K0-IV orange sub-giant primary with a single Venusian type planet.
? Oxford. K9-V primary. Seven planets all within two billion kilometers and a small, rocky eighth planet at over one hundred billion kilometers
? Newcastle. Trinary system with a G1-V primary, a close orbiting brown dwarf and a K8-V companion at twenty-seven billion kilometers. A total of thirteen planets, eighty-three moons and ninety-five asteroids, none of which are worthy of further comment.
Minotaur escorted all six survey ships back into Cardiff and the fleet headed for the remaining unexplored jump point. The outermost jump point led to Cambridge, a system with a G9-V primary and four rocky planets, one of which had a very thin oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of 57 degrees. On my orders, Copernicus and the other two Newtons plus the geological survey ship Sedgwick were escorted into Cambridge by Minotaur. While the surveys were underway, Minotaur set course for Lancaster with the remaining geo survey ships, Buckland and Clarke. Their mission was to check out the system bodies in Lancaster before returning to Cambridge to pick up the rest of the fleet once our gravitational survey was complete.
The three detached ships entered Lancaster without incident and while Minotaur remained at the jump point, a little under five billion kilometers from the primary, the two survey ships proceeded in-system. As Buckland and Clarke approached the inner system, they began to move apart until they were running parallel at a range of twelve million kilometers. One hundred million kilometers short of Lancaster-III, a contact appeared just two million kilometers from Buckland. The contact was approximately 5000 tons and moving at 3000 km/s. Both ships immediately reversed course and ran for the jump point. Captain Fisher on the Buckland, the senior officer in the system, decided to try and communicate with the alien ship and reduced speed to 3000 km/s to keep the range constant. He ordered captain Redmill on the Clarke to maintain his top speed of 3600 km/s. Commander Trudeau on the Minotaur, located at the Lancaster ? Cardiff jump point, was informed of the situation.
The alien ships answered our hails but did not cease their pursuit. Although the transmissions were audio only, the aliens at least appear to have a spoken language and certain words sounded strangely familiar to some of the officers on board the Buckland. Over the next ten days, the two ships continued to move toward the jump point, two million kilometers apart. Slowly those officers on Buckland with linguistic skills, aided by their counterparts on Minotaur and Clarke, pinned down the familiar words and with the help of the library computers finally identified the alien language. Incredibly, their best guess was the language of the Vikings around the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. Captain Fisher hailed the aliens using video and audio and addressed them as best he could given the limitations of the translation software.
Within a few minutes, the aliens replied with video and turned out to be human, mainly blonde-haired and bearded.. Their uniforms also bore markings similar to Norse runes. They seemed as surprised as us to be conversing with other humans, although their surprise seemed to be turning to suspicion whereas the crew of the Buckland were fascinated with the appearance of a culture thought to be dead for eight hundred years. Although the ?Vikings? continued to be guarded in the ensuing negotiations, it did not take long to establish that they too had suffered an equivalent of the Transference over five years ago. Whatever force was responsible for the Transference, it appears that it affected at least one culture from the past history of Earth in addition to our own transfer from the present day.
Captain Fisher requested that both ships hold position to continue discussion and even proposed setting up a trade outpost on the Viking?s planet. The Viking commander, Huscarl Sigmund, demanded that the Buckland leave the system through the jump point toward which it was heading and that the system beyond, which he called Alta and we know as Cardiff, was Viking territory. That statement changed the situation entirely as it was now apparent the Vikings not only knew about jump points but had explored beyond their home system. The Vikings had changed from an intriguing historical anachronism to a potential threat to the Empire. Realising the significance of the information he had just gained, Captain Fisher immediately ordered his ship to full speed and began to pull away from the pursuing ship. He ordered Clarke and Minotaur to prepare to transit as soon as he arrived and to set a course for Cambridge to contact the rest of the fleet. I would like to note that captain Fisher should be commended for his conduct during the time of his independent command in the Lancaster system.
The Lancaster and Cambridge jump points in Cardiff are seven billion kilometers apart so it took Minotaur almost a month to reach the latter system, arriving on the 23rd of April 1895. Captain Fisher and the Buckland also entered Cambridge so that he could relay his report to me. Although the gravitational survey was almost complete, I decided to order an immediate withdrawal. The survey could be completed at a later date but we could not afford to be cut off by Viking forces reaching the Cardiff ? London jump point before we arrived. While the three gravitational survey ships were moving toward the Cambridge ? Cardiff jump point, I ordered Buckland and Sedgwick to join Clarke in Cardiff and to immediately head to the Cardiff ? London jump point to provide warning of any Viking ships in the area.
The evacuation of Cambridge was completed by the 16th of May and all seven ships in the fleet rendezvoused at the Cardiff ? London jump point on the 29th of May. So far, there was no sign of any Viking ships, although if they did not know the layout of jump points in Cardiff and therefore could not predict our movements, we easily could pass relatively close to each other without being detected. All seven ships transited into London and set course for the Britannia jump point, arriving on the morning of the 24th June 1895.
Commodore Richards, C.O. Copernicus, 24th June 1895.
Although aliens still remain a figment of the imagination, it appears we instead must confront the dark days of our own past. For centuries, Vikings raided the shores of the British Isles until decisively defeated by King Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge in 1066, only days before his death at the battle of Hastings. Sir William has also read Commodore Richards report and announced a ridiculous theory that is nevertheless keeping me awake at nights. Someone or something has transferred both the British Empire and the Vikings from Earth to planets in this distant part of the universe. Sir William believes that whoever was responsible for this phenomena may well have not stopped at two different cultures, but could have transferred many cultures from the past. Furthermore, and more disturbingly, he has proposed a theory that the British Empire be a culture from the past if the Transference took place at some point in our own future. Despite the fact it is obvious that the present is the present and I surely would know if I was living the past, I cannot help turning this over in my mind. If his nonsensical suggestion were true, what manner of humans would we meet if they were from our own future?
Despite Sir Williams fevered imaginings, Lord Hamilton has decreed that the Empire must start building a mobile military force to defend the systems around Britannia. Our weapons technology is still quite primitive, especially in the fields of lasers and particle accelerators and even our planet-based missiles have a limited range and a fairly small warhead. The priority is create some type of effective shipboard weapon before we have to face the Vikings in deep space. Our research into Visible Light Lasers should be completed soon so a decision on how to proceed will be made at that point.
25th June 1895
After refuelling, the survey fleet, including Minotaur, are dispatched to Aberdeen. This is on the far side of our territory from the Vikings and should keep the unarmed ships out of trouble.
11th July 1895
Research into Visible Light Laser technology is completed on Victoria. There has been extensive discussion on how to proceed with development of weapons to guard against any attack by the Vikings. Our weapon technology is extremely limited and presented below are the four options being considered. The first three are the most advanced versions we can build in each of the three major weapon categories plus a much larger particle accelerator that would effectively be a one-shot weapon.
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10cm C1 Visible Light Laser
Damage Output 3 Rate of Fire: 15 seconds Range Modifier: 2
Laser Size: 3 Laser HTK: 1
Power Requirement: 3 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 3 Crew: 30
Materials Required: 0.6x Duranium 0.6x Boronide 1.8x Corundium
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Missile Launcher
Maximum Missile Size: 2 Rate of Fire: 60 seconds
Launcher Size: 4 Launcher HTK: 2
Cost Per Launcher: 10 Crew Per Launcher: 40
Materials Required: 2.5x Duranium 7.5x Tritanium
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15/1 C1 Particle Accelerator
Damage Output 6 Rate of Fire: 30 seconds Range Modifier: 1
Energy Conversion Rate: 1 Tunnel Size Modifier: 1
Accelerator Size: 7 Accel HTK: 3
Power Requirement: 6 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 6 Crew: 70
Materials Required: 1.2x Duranium 1.2x Boronide 3.6x Neutronium
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50/1 C1 Particle Accelerator
Damage Output 64 Rate of Fire: 320 seconds Range Modifier: 1
Energy Conversion Rate: 1 Tunnel Size Modifier: 1
Accelerator Size: 24 Accel HTK: 12
Power Requirement: 64 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 64 Crew: 240
Materials Required: 12.8x Duranium 12.8x Boronide 38.4x Neutronium
After listening to the opinions of his ship designers and weapon engineers, Lord Hamilton eventually decides to go for the laser. While the particle accelerators provide higher damage per installation, the damage output of the laser at close range is higher on a pro-rata basis, although the lower damage means a lower range. It can also serve as a defence against missiles should the enemy carry missile launchers on his ships. In the meantime, a new class of scout ship will be constructed to monitor the systems between ourselves and the Vikings. The Vanguard is small, fast and long ranged but also jump capable. Unfortunately, our sensor technology is at a similar level of capability to our weapons so the Vanguard will almost have to be on top of any enemy ships before it detects them. Therefore its mission will be to remain silent and watchful in the vicinity of key jump points until our sensor technology improves. It is unarmed and must rely on speed and stealth to survive. Two Vanguards will be constructed initially.
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Vanguard class Scout 3000 tons 275 Crew 398 BP Signature 60-240
4000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 4/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 5
J300 Jump Drive Max Ship Size 3000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
E7 Ion Engine (4) Power 60 Engine Efficiency 0.7 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 205.7 billion km (595 days at full power)
High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1) Strength 4 Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km Detect Signature 100: 4m km
28th July 1895The colony ship Resolution returns to the Victoria system to report that the establishment of our first off-world population has been successfully carried out. 50,000 citizens of the Empire are now living on Aberdeen-II.
8th September 1895
Development of the 10cm C1 Visible Light Laser has been completed. Our scientists now begin work on improving the recharge rate of the capacitors used in lasers and particle accelerators.
22nd November 1895
The colony ship Resolution returns from Aberdeen with news of the ongoing surveys in that system. The geological survey has so far found mineral deposits on two asteroid and two planets, one of which is the site of our new colony. Aberdeen-II has deposits of nine minerals, although mostly at low accessibility. The complete list is as follows:
Duranium 1,889,568 Acc: 0.3
Neutronium 331,776 Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 3,779,136 Acc: 0.7
Boronide 11,664 Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 5,184 Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 4,359,744 Acc: 1.0
Sorium 12,702,100 Acc: 0.5
Uridium 5,992,704 Acc: 0.4
Corundium 9,144,576 Acc: 0.1
The three geological survey ships are now en route to the planets orbiting the companion star, which lies fifteen billion kilometers from the primary. The gravitational survey is still in progress, although based on Resolution?s report it should be completed within a few weeks. Resolution will refuel, load colonists and begin her third trip to Aberdeen. Minotaur is escorting her between the Britannia ? Stevenage and Stevenage ? Belfast jump points while Agincourt is holding station on the Belfast ? Aberdeen jump point. In addition, the three Victory class freighters will carry a pair of automated mines and a supply of Boronide to Aberdeen so that construction of terraforming installations can begin once construction factories are delivered. Although we could concentrate on building up Victoria and avoid the cost of creating the Aberdeen colony, the recent discovery of the Vikings has prompted our leaders to ensure a viable second home is setup, just in case.
26th November 1895
A fourth Victory class freighter is laid down as the requirement for transporting installations or other material to Aberdeen will likely increase over time. Once the Vanguards are completed, construction of a second colony ship will begin.
1st January 1896
Presented below is the annual summary for 1896. 1895 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1896 summary.
1896 Summary
Population: 227m (220m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185 (180)
Mines: 163 (160)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 13
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 4.4m Litres. (3.6m)
1896 Fleet
As 1895 except for the addition of the Resolution.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution.
18th January 1896
The two Vanguard class, jump-capable scouts are completed. Both are immediately dispatched to the Cardiff system to watch for Viking activity. One will be positioned at the Cardiff ? Lancaster jump point and the other at the Cardiff ? London jump point.
16th March 1896
Minotaur returns to the Britannia system, along with Resolution and the three Victory class freighters. She brings news that the gravitational survey in Aberdeen has been completed, revealing three new jump points. At the time Resolution left Aberdeen, Agincourt had explored one jump point, discovering a system that Captain Morris named Dundee. Dundee has a very bright A5-V primary with a mass over twice that of Britannia and a luminosity of 18.4, compared to 1.0 for Sol and 0.85 for Britannia. The system has twelve planets, stretching as far out as ninety billion kilometers, and a huge double asteroid belt with almost four hundred asteroids. The fifth planet has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere but it is three times as dense as Victoria and the oxygen level is too high. In any event, with a gravity of 1.74 G and a surface temperature of -90C, it is a very inhospitable place. All three Newtons and one geological survey ship are in Dundee while the other two Bucklands are completing the geological survey of the Aberdeen-B system.
Minotaur also reports that an ion storm passing through the inner system of Stevenage briefly passed over the second moon of Stevenage-V, upon which we have twenty-one automated mines. Although several mines were struck by electromagnetic discharges from the storm, none were damaged.
One of the three Victory class ships has run out of spares and a second is down to twenty percent. Both vessels will undergo a major overhaul when they return to Victoria. In retrospect, the Victorys should have been given more engineering capacity to deal with ongoing maintenance problems
23rd March 1896
Pioneer, one of the two Vanguard class scouts deployed to Cardiff, returns to Britannia with disturbing news. The two scouts entered Cardiff on February 7th 1896 and while Vanguard held position at the Cardiff ? London jump point, Pioneer set course for the Lancaster jump point to watch for Viking ships leaving their home system. On the 20th of February, Vanguard detected a 5000 ton ship approaching the London jump point. With no way to exit the system without giving her position away, Vanguard monitored the Viking ship as moved to the jump point, spent five minutes charging its strength-12 shields and then entered London. It would appear that the Vikings have already surveyed Cardiff and now know the location of London, which is adjacent to Britannia itself. The situation is worse than first feared, especially as we still have no warships and not even an armed ship under construction.
A few minutes after entering London, the Viking ship re-entered Cardiff and set a course that did not correspond to any of the known jump points in the system or any of the planetary bodies. Once it was out of sensor range, Vanguard contacted Pioneer and countermanded the existing orders. Pioneer abandoned her original picket mission and returned to Britannia to deliver the urgent news. The First Space Lord orders Pioneer to return to Cardiff and order Vanguard to pull back. The new picket locations for the two ships will be the London-Cardiff and London-Britannia jump points.
As our weapon technology is still not sufficiently advanced to begin building effective warships, the planetary defences will be strengthened by the construction of additional missiles and missile silos. However, some armed picket forces are necessary just in case the enemy possesses missiles that are longer-ranged than our own. Therefore a Broadsword class destroyer will be constructed to guard the Britannia ? London jump point. There was some discussion within Parliament that this ship is a waste of resources, especially given the low tracking speed of its fire control system, but it is difficult to do nothing when a potentially hostile force is closing on our system.
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Broadsword class Destroyer 4650 tons 563 Crew 498 BP Signature 93-300
3225 km/s Armour 1 Shields 6-300 Sensors 4/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10
E7 Ion Engine (5) Power 60 Engine Efficiency 0.7 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 132.7 billion km (476 days at full power)
Alpha R300/7 Shields (6) Total Fuel Cost 42 Litres per day
10cm C1 Visible Light Laser (9) Power 3-1 Range Modifier 2 Rate of Fire 15 3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Laser Fire Control (1) Range: 40k km TS: 1000 km/s 88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (2) Total Power Output 18 Armour 0 Exp 1%
High Resolution Thermal Sensor HRT2-4 (1) Strength 4 Detect Signature 10: 0.4m km Detect Signature 100: 4m km
24th June 1896
Research into Capacitor Recharge Rate 2 is completed on Victoria. Our scientists begin work on increasing the speed of our missile engines to 15,000 km/s.
29th June 1896
Two Victory class freighters complete their major overhauls. While the third Victory is taken into the shipyards, the other two will take two construction factories to Aberdeen.
19th October 1896
The two freighters return to the Britannia system, along with Minotaur. After a request from Agincourt while both ships were in Belfast, Minotaur travelled to Aberdeen to refuel our survey forces. As a result, Commander Trudeau has a full report on activities in and around Aberdeen. The last report stated that only one of Aberdeen?s three new jump points has been probed, which led to Dundee. Since then Dundee has been fully surveyed. Although no jump points were located, substantial mineral deposits have been found, including over 750,000,000 tons of Duranium, albeit mainly at low levels of accessibility. Aberdeen?s other jump points led to the systems of Nottingham and Sheffield. The former is a G1-V / L1-VII binary with a single Venusian world orbiting the primary while the latter has a G3-V primary and eight planets, one of which has acceptable gravity, a breathable atmosphere and a surface temperature of -25C. Although colonists would need some infrastructure to be put in place, this is another world that could become ideal with some terraforming. In its current state it has a colony cost of 1.7. When Minotaur left the Aberdeen system, the survey ships were heading for Sheffield.
21st November 1896
The Broadsword class destroyer is completed. She immediately leaves orbit to picket the Britannia ? Stevenage jump point.
1st January 1987
Presented below is the annual summary for 1897. 1896 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.
1897 Summary
Population: 235m (227m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 163
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20 (13)
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.0m Litres. (4.4m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve
1897 Fleet
As 1896 except for the addition of the Broadsword.
1x Agincourt, 1x Minotaur, 3x Newton, 3x Buckland, 3x Victory, 2x Stevenson, 1x Resolution, 1x Broadsword
1st February 1897
The fourth Victory class freighter is completed.
24th March 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and the three Victory class freighters return from a mission transporting infrastructure and colonists to Aberdeen. Commander Trudeau reports that there was no sign of Agincourt or any of the survey ships so they are presumably still in the Sheffield system.
21st April 1897
Two Engineer units have been trained. These provide limited ground defence strength but are most useful for their construction ability. Each Engineer can produce as much a construction factory without the need for a supporting population.
2nd July 1897
Agincourt appears at the Britannia?Stevenage jump point without the survey ships. Her commander, Captain Morris, explains that his ship is out of spare parts and any further maintenance problems could result in damage to his ship. Therefore he has left the survey ships to carry on with their work while his ship returned for a minor overhaul. He reports that the Sheffield system has been surveyed, resulting in the discovery of mineral deposits on four worlds, although none of any significance, and the location of a second jump point. The new jump point led to Newport, a quaternary system with a F1-IV yellow-white sub-giant primary, a yellow G8-V star at 1.4 billion kilometers, an orange K3-V at 4.5 billion and another sub-giant, this time a G9-IV, at twenty-one billion. All four stars have planetary systems and two have small asteroid belts.
Newport contains several planets of interest. Orbiting the G9-IV sub-giant is a large but low-density terrestrial world covered almost entirely in water. The surface temperature is an ideal 15C and the gravity is only 0.89G. The oxygen ? Nitrogen atmosphere is almost breathable with 0.10 atm of oxygen compared to the minimum of 0.11 required for unprotected humans to survive. Another world that could be made ideal with minimal terraforming. It also has eighty-five millions tons of accessibility 0.9 Duranium and large amounts of accessible Neutronium, Corbomite and Mercassium. In orbit of the G8-V closest to the primary is another terrestrial world with acceptable gravity and a breathable atmosphere but a little chilly at -42C. However, there is a quantity of frozen sulphur dioxide on the surface, presumably from volcanic activity in the past. This may be released if the planet could be warmed up, adding to the increased temperature. Also in orbit of the same star is a very similar planet with a temperature of -70 and an atmosphere only just outside breathable parameters. Newport has significant mineral resources, including a planet with large quantities of ten different minerals with accessibilities ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. When Agincourt left, the gravitational survey was about 50% complete and the geo survey ships were heading out the system around the second sub-giant.
Because of the increasing number of worlds that could be made ideal with relatively little terraforming, a terraform module that can be built into a ship has been designed. Although this will ultimately be more costly than a ground-based terraforming installation due to its ongoing maintenance costs, it will allow more flexibility for short-term terraforming projects. The design of the first Terraforming ship is shown below.
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Genesis class Terraformer 5000 tons 420 Crew 782 BP Signature 100-300
3000 km/s Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Replacement Parts 10
Terraformer: 1 module(s) producing 0.001 atm per annum
E7 Ion Engine (5) Power 60 Engine Efficiency 0.7 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 123.4 billion km (476 days at full power)
16th July 1897
A fifth Victory class freighter is constructed on Victoria
10th August 1897
Minotaur, Resolution and four freighters return from their latest trip to Aberdeen. The colony now has a population of 340,000 with four construction factories and two automated mines. Minotaur also delivered a full load of fuel so the colony has a fuel stockpile of almost 900,000 litres to support survey operations in the nearby systems.
1st September 1897
Agincourt completes her minor overhaul and immediately heads for Newport to rendezvous with the survey ships.
11th October 1897
Minotaur completes a minor overhaul on Victoria.
1st January 1898
Presented below is the annual summary for 1898. 1897 figures are in parentheses where they differ from the 1897 summary.
1897 Summary
Population: 242m (235m).
Shipyards: 4
Construction Factories: 185
Mines: 170 (163)
Automated Mines: 37
Fuel Refineries: 90
Ordnance Factories: 40
Fighter Factories: 40
Research Labs: 9
GFTF: 2
Missile Silos: 20
Fighter Bases: 1
Deep Space Tracking Stations: 3
Fuel Stockpile: 5.3m Litres. (5.0m)
Planetary Missile Stocks: 200x Longsword, 200x Congreve