Project Outpost and the Marazuki DeviceEarly in the war, a team of XCOM operatives was deployed to a remote astrophysics research station in northern Chile on a covert extraction mission. A research team leader, Dr. Hongou Marazuki, had been secretly employed by XCOM to provide UFO tracking data collected with the cutting-edge telescope at the outpost, but alien spies had uncovered his activities and were moving in to neutralize him. The operation was a narrow success, and Dr. Marazuki was spirited away to the security of XCOM Headquarters, where he revealed to XCOM leadership that his observations confirmed beyond any doubt that the alien ships were capable of faster-than-light travel. While this astounding proclamation engendered more skeptics than believers, the good doctor’s empirical evidence brought a glimmer of hope to XCOM leadership during the dark early months of the Long War – that somehow, humanity might one day be able to take the fight to the aliens and truly turn the tables.
In the years after the war, Dr. Marazuki and a team of astrophysicists sequestered away at XCOM Headquarters managed to work out a comprehensive theory of the alien FTL travel mode, which appeared to be based on generating wormholes to connect two distant points in space. Despite building several prototype wormhole devices using salvaged UFO components, however, the research team was never able to determine the conditions for a wormhole to exist. Stymied by what he and others referred to scornfully as the “hidden variable”, Dr. Marazuki spent several years fruitlessly trying every approach his team could conceive of before retiring to a life of anonymous luxury in late 2024.
On 29 April 2038, the “hidden variable” was found hiding at the bottom of a fuel tank in the basement of XCOM Headquarters.
The discovery was made by an applied research consortium led by Dr. Mariette de Beer, a leading expert on sorium fuel refinement and efficiency. The de Beer consortium* was contracted by XCOM to investigate novel applications of sorium, and a pair of postdoctoral researchers working late one night floated the idea of powering a prototype wormhole device with refined sorium fuel, reasoning that its high power density might lead to success, or at least new and interesting data points, where conventional power sources had failed. The resourceful postdocs “borrowed” a small, nearly empty sorium tank they reasoned nobody could possibly miss (an event corroborated by supply room records from XCOM Headquarters) and jury-rigged a passable experimental apparatus. The result of the first and only test run utterly demolished several million dollars of valuable scientific equipment, twenty-four square meters of solid duracrete wall, and two (2) pairs of particularly nerdy-looking glasses.
*Popularly known as the “three beers consortium” for crazy ideas like this one.Gravitational readings taken during the incident by the hyperwave relay at XCOM Headquarters (thankfully located several levels away from said incident) told the rest of the story. The sorium-fueled prototype device had briefly created a gravitational dipole, matching exactly the predictions of Marazuki’s wormhole theory. However, the dipole had been unable to terminate at another point in space, and therefore rapidly destabilized in dramatic fashion. Drama aside, this was the first experimental demonstration that a wormhole device was, in fact, possible and therefore feasible as a means of FTL travel. On realizing this, Dr. de Beer and her colleagues quickly seized on the opportunity, pushing out half a dozen highly-cited publications detailing the implications of this discovery over the next few months.
Where’s Wormhole?It was now clear that wormholes could exist, and thus FTL travel was possible, provided that a suitable pair of terminal points could be found. The question remaining, then, was how to locate these terminal points. The solution was obvious: a new sort of sensor had to be designed and constructed which was capable of locating such things. As Dr. de Beer and her coworkers lacked any expertise in sensor theory and design, despite assertions to the contrary in a submitted grant proposal, XCOM leadership turned once more to the decorated Dr. Lillian Joffrion and her own network of collaborators to see the job done.
While the readings taken by the hyperwave relay had been more than sufficient to establish the fact of an unstable gravitic dipole, they were nowhere near detailed enough for rigorous analysis to tease out a wormhole signature with which to calibrate a sensor. Therefore, a series of experiments were carried out by Dr. Joffrion and coworkers in which expendable Marazuki device prototypes were fabricated and activated, with the progress of the resulting gravitic instabilities closely monitored by several dozen networked grav pulse sensors. Given the explosive nature of these tests, they were designated in honor of another former XCOM scientist as the Vahlen tests.
Vahlen I and II were modest successes, as both tests used similar devices and were able to detect faint indicators of a wormhole signature, but the signatures could not be resolved due to the relatively low power level of the gravitic instabilities. Vahlen III attempted to rectify this inadequacy, using a novel Marazuki device with a radial configuration rather than the linear configuration used by previous devices. The test was perhaps too successful, as the resulting gravitic instability destroyed most of the sensor network before useful readings could be obtained. Vahlen IV, conducted in a much larger test chamber, finally produced a useful signature, which was subsequently confirmed by the Vahlen V replication test. These results, along with the required sensor types and configuration necessary to detect the wormhole signature, were published on 12 January 2040 in a special issue of the online-only scientific journal
Uridium Review Letters.For XCOM, the immediate priority was to cram these new sensors into ship hulls and get them into space as soon as possible. Fortunately, XCOM already possessed ship hulls in the form of the now-idle Daedalus class survey ships, thus a fast-tracked refit effort was chosen rather than a project to develop an entirely new ship class. The refit class was designed and the first refits finished in just under eight months, with Korolev and Sun Tzu re-equipped with three of the new gravitational survey sensors each and sent out from Earth orbit on 2 August 2040. These were followed by two new-build vessels, Pathfinder and Marazuki, on 13 February 2041, as XCOM leadership preferred to retain Daedalus and Odyssey in the geological survey configuration in case of future needs.
The refit project quickly paid off when, on 11 September, Sun Tzu reported the first deep space gravimetric readings matching the theoretical prediction for a wormhole signature, less than 400 million km from the sun. This discovery provided the first empirical proof that faster-than-light wormhole travel was, indeed, a reality. Sun Tzu would discover a second such signature on 29 November, this one merely 300 million km from the sun in nearly the opposite direction from the first. Marazuki was quick to bring honor to her namesake, discovering a third wormhole signature just over 3 billion km from Sol on 6 April 2041 after less than two months in service. The fourth and final wormhole signature in the solar system was detected by Pathfinder on 10 September, located over 4 billion km from the sun, leaving the captain and crew of Korolev complaining that it wasn’t fair if everybody else got to have all the fun. The gravitational survey of Sol was completed on 31 December 2041.
The Horrid Specter of Practical ConsiderationsIn light of these paradigm-altering findings, XCOM leadership was faced with a new conundrum: how should a wormhole be explored? The technical problems were, for once, trivial, as the design and construction of a Marazuki device was well-established by this time although the engineering involved to place such a device on a spaceship would require some time to work out. The greater difficulty was the risk to human life, as despite emphatic reassurances from the physicists no one could be certain that wormhole travel would be safe for humans, and many among XCOM leadership recalled vividly the rather explosive nature of the devices used in the Vahlen tests.
The solution ultimately arrived at was rather ingenious: the de Beer consortium would be tasked with developing a Marazuki device that was compact enough to be operated remotely or by an onboard computer, such that an unmanned craft could be shuttled into place to activate the wormhole and transit without risk to human life. If the transit was successful, the craft would return to the solar system and its sensor readings analyzed to determine if wormhole travel was also feasible for human beings. As an autonomous Marazuki device had never been designed at all, let alone for spacecraft applications, this would be a considerable endeavor requiring frequent consultations between the research teams of Drs. de Beer and Joffrion to complete. The de Beer consortium was awarded a nominal four-year contract to complete this work, the unusually long contract period reflecting the difficulty of developing such a device without the ability to conduct any tests not resulting in the destruction of said device.
The result of this contract, which was impressively delivered in just under three years, was the rather esoteric M1 ‘Outpost’ Marazuki device. The device was bolted onto a small probe equipped with autonomous navigation, a basic sensor suite, and a rather ingenious automated maintenance system intended to effect any necessary repairs after a rough wormhole transit. Two of these probes, designated as the HQN-2 Redshirt wormhole probe, would be shuttled to each jump point in turn by the experimental Farscape class shuttlecraft:
Farscape class Shuttlecraft 250 tons 4 Crew 26.1 BP TCS 5 TH 16 EM 0
3200 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0-0 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.27 Years MSP 10 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 1 5YR 21 Max Repair 8 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 100 tons
Major Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 2 Morale Check Required
XN-16 Gas-Core Pulse Drive (1) Power 16.0 Fuel Use 225.00% Signature 16.00 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 26,900 Litres Range 8.6 billion km (31 days at full power)
Navigation System (1) GPS 125 Range 6.3m km Resolution 125
Strike Group
2x HQN-2 Redshirt class Wormhole Probe 50 tons 1 Crew 6.1 BP TCS 1 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 0-0 PPV 0
Maint Life 24.49 Years MSP 25 AFR 10% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 1.3 MSP
Major Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
M1 Outpost Marazuki Device Max Ship Size 50 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Navigation System (1) GPS 125 Range 6.3m km Resolution 125
Thermal Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
EM Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
The HQN-2 had a small life support module which could optionally support a single human technician for specific research operations. In practice, this capability was never used.Farscape 1 and her cargo of two HQN-2 drones was constructed on 3 August 2043. The shuttlecraft loaded the drones, one each into a side-mounted drone bay, then launched into orbit and set a course for the nearest wormhole signature location, 235 million km from Earth orbit, under the command of Major Georgiy Baranov. She would reach her designated mission start point with just under 30 minutes remaining to midnight.
The Economy Goes ForthThe geological survey of the solar system had not only been done out of scientific curiosity, but also to provide new sources of Trans-Newtonian minerals. Originally, the plan had been for XCOM to direct civilian shipping operations to deploy mining facilities at the best sites in the solar system. However, other interested parties had their own ideas, and on 14 July 2039 the Glencore company announced the opening of a new commercially operated mining complex on the asteroid Euphrosyne.
Euphrosyne Survey Report: 14 July 2039
Duranium 27,129 Acc 1
Corbomite 14,471 Acc 1
Corundium 12,972 Acc 1
Gallicite 2,118 Acc 0.9
Reluctantly, XCOM leadership agreed to a hastily drawn-up contract with Glencore to purchase the mineral yield from Euphrosyne at a not completely extortionate rate. A similar approach would be taken in the coming years with other commercial ventures spread throughout the solar system. While XCOM would have preferred to emplace assets under its own control on every mineral-rich asteroid, the leadership had to admit that saving the time and monetary costs of shipping mining facilities was a reasonable benefit, particularly as that time and money could eventually be used to deploy their own mines elsewhere instead. Unfortunately, it would take some time before this was possible, due to the substantial demands of Operation Apollo combined with the very nascent state of XCOM’s transport ship forces.
By early 2040, Operation Apollo was beginning to wind down, and one or two of the London class cargo ships became available for other tasks. Therefore, on 1 March 2040 XCOM Headquarters hosted a series of meetings assessing current and future resource needs and options within the solar systems to meet those needs. By this time, mining output on Earth had fallen below 20% of 2025 levels, with six of the eleven known Trans-Newtonian minerals completely exhausted.
Earth Survey Report: 1 March 2040
Duranium 145,322 Acc 0.59
Tritanium 65,958 Acc 0.39
Mercassium 7,590 Acc 0.14
Uridium 18,416 Acc 0.19
Corundium 39,122 Acc 0.30
The most urgent need was considered to be corbomite, the stockpile for which was almost fully committed for expansion of Earth’s financial infrastructure. Of the remaining exhausted TNEs, boronide was considered mildly concerning, as while the remaining stockpile greatly exceeded expected usage the boronide stockpile was the second-lowest on Earth with less than 80,000 tons in storage while projected usage was third only to corbomite and duranium with some 12,000 tons committed to planetwide expansion of fuel refining capacity. However, the Erebor mines on Mercury were extracting boronide at a healthy rate, so this mineral was clearly a secondary concern.
As the principal outcome of these meetings, automated mining bases were to be established on the comets of Halley’s Comet and Ikeya-Zang. Both possessed large, accessible reserves of corbomite along with multiple other useful TNEs, notably corundium which was the key mineral needed to continue expanding the mining industry. While XCOM stockpiles of corundium were quite high, with some 155,000 tons in storage and another 39,000 tons yet to be mined, in strategic terms there was no such concept as too much of a good thing.
Halleys Comet Survey Report: 1 March 2040
Duranium 38,661 Acc 1
Corbomite 32,014 Acc 0.8
Tritanium 66,061 Acc 0.6
Mercassium 57,981 Acc 0.9
Corundium 143,018 Acc 0.6
Ikeya-Zang Survey Report: 1 March 2040
Corbomite 65,913 Acc 0.9
Uridium 5,905 Acc 0.8
Corundium 72,034 Acc 0.8
The first base facilities were deployed at Halley’s Comet, designated Mining Base 1P, on 8 April, and at Ikaya-Zang, designated Mining Base 153P, on 12 May. Due to the vast distances involved compared to the relatively close neighborhood of the inner system, growth of these new colonies would be slow but steady. To accelerate the process, two cargo ships of a new class were ordered from the recently expanded Sumimoto Heavy Industries shipyard. The Berlin class was a modest upgrade of the well-regarded London class, with similar cargo capacity but a 75% increase in top speed due to mounting larger engines designed with gas-core pulsed drive technology, a more powerful variation on the gravity pulse drive design. The first ship of the class, Berlin, was launched on 23 October 2042.
Berlin class Cargo Ship 45,546 tons 231 Crew 795.6 BP TCS 911 TH 1,600 EM 0
1756 km/s Armour 1-113 Shields 0-0 HTK 68 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 10 Max Repair 50 MSP
Cargo 25,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 5
Major Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
XN-200E Commercial Gravity Pulse Drive (8) Power 1600.0 Fuel Use 7.95% Signature 200.0 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres Range 37.3 billion km (245 days at full power)
XN/SPN-3 Grav Pulse Navigation Sensor (1) GPS 600 Range 15.6m km Resolution 60
XN/SLQ-4 Passive EM Sensor (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
XN/SAY-5 Passive Infrared Sensor (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m kmAs a secondary outcome of the Mining Meetings, as they came to be called, expansion of the Erebor mining colony to a population of 25 million was authorized, with the necessary construction orders for life support infrastructure placed shortly thereafter. While some at XCOM Headquarters advocated for diverting terraforming facilities intended for Mars to Mercury, the prevailing opinion was that such facilities would limit the mining output from Mercury in the short and medium term, thus any terraforming operations would be put off until such time as the Erebor mines were sufficiently built-up to support the economy on Earth. In the meantime, terraforming installations were being deployed to Mars and being used to good effect. The first stage of terraforming operations was to inject sufficient quantities of a safe, Trans-Newtonian greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to raise the temperature by at least 10-12 degrees, which would improve the efficiency of the life-support infrastructure on the planet by about 25%.
XCOM Troopers: The Next GenerationBeginning in mid-2041, XCOM began the process of making modest, but important, upgrades to the ground forces. The existing XCOM Trooper formations, particularly those serving on Earth, were by now somewhat outdated given the rapid pace of Trans-Newtonian technological advancement, with some formations still wielding weapons built twenty-five years ago. While a full-spectrum replacement of all current weapons and equipment would be prohibitively expensive for relatively minimal gains, particularly since XCOM weapons development still lagged behind compared to other areas of research and development, the need for updated ground defenses had become increasingly apparent, particularly with the prospect of extrasolar expansion on the horizon, and recent iterative improvements in plasma weapons technology had provided sufficient impetus to spur XCOM leadership into action.
The immediate result of these developments was the deployment of the PX-508/G ground-based plasma cannon. The PX-508/G was a significant caliber upgrade from the venerable weapons in use since the Long War, and featured a two-thirds increase in both striking power and range along with a 20% improvement in rate of fire thanks to improvements in Trans-Newtonian capacitor technology. Eight battalions of these surface-to-orbit weapons were commissioned, each consisting of 18 plasma cannons arranged in three batteries of six guns apiece, with the first battalion entering service on 29 August 2041. Five battalions remained on Earth, with one assigned to each geographic command, while the latter three were deployed to the moon, Mercury, and Mars. At this point, more than a few XCOM officers started to hope that the aliens might try again in the near future.
The more exciting development, at least from the perspective of the XCOM rank and file, was the introduction of the so-called Lunar Battalions. These were trained exclusively in the low-gravity lunar environment at Tranquility Base, with the first such battalion activated on 1 September 2043 with some degree of pomp and circumstance. The Lunar Battalions followed an identical table of organization to the standard XCOM Trooper battalion, but the Lunar Troopers were trained and outfitted specially for low-gravity conflict. Individual Troopers were decked out in jetpack-equipped Mark II Seraph Armor suits, an evolution of a prototype technology under development during the last days of the Long War which was somewhat lighter than the heavier Titan Armor suits worn by most XCOM Troopers. The SHIVs and support vehicles were all hover-capable, while the MEC suits were upgraded with leg-mounted thrusters and stabilizers. Furthermore, the plasma weapons of the Lunar Battalions were the first real upgrade for XCOM Troopers since the Long War, boasting an impressive 20% damage increase in controlled testing environments. This improvement in firepower and capability came with a corresponding cost increase, as a Lunar Battalion cost 35% more than a standard battalion to train and equip.
While the across-the-board equipment upgrades were surely a boost for XCOM morale, the real reason for excitement was the intended mission of the Lunar Battalions. While the standard XCOM battalions and brigades were effectively large garrison and security formations, consisting of small, dispersed subordinate units deployed in a defensive posture, the Lunar Battalions were trained as an offensive force, intended to attack and seize alien outposts on low-gravity moons and asteroids. This doctrinal transition from merely defending humanity from alien attacks to actively prosecuting an offensive war against any alien forces who might think of humanity as an inviting target marked a seismic shift in the strategic thinking at XCOM Headquarters. As this offensive mentality began working its way through the ground forces, eyes would turn to the Orbital Defense Forces to see if they, too, would embrace this new brand of extraterrestrial combat.
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4 August 2043, 00:00:00 GMT
Farscape 1 held position ten kilometers from the suspected location of a wormhole terminus, motionless. Ahead of her, a barely visible speck against the brilliant cosmic background, lay the HQN-2 wormhole probe designated Redshirt 1. Major Georgiy Baranov looked on, drinking in the historic grandeur of the moment for just a few more moments, before turning to the sensor technician at his side. “Status, Lieutenant?”
“All systems green, Sir.”
Major Baranov swallowed the lump in his throat. “Acknowledged. Thank you, Lieutenant.” He hesitated for just a second longer, weighing the gravity of his next action, before pressing the glowing orange button that would send a remote activation signal to the probe. Within microseconds, before Major Baranov had even removed his finger from the button, the probe began to spin up its integral Marazuki device. The radiant blue glow, clearly visible even from ten kilometers away, seemed almost magical to the onlooking occupants of Farscape 1.
Two-point-seven-four seconds later, Redshirt One vanished in a blinding flash, leaving Farscape 1 all alone in the cold, vast darkness of outer space.----
Ship Construction4x Discovery B class Survey Ship: Korolev (refit), Sun Tzu (refit), Pathfinder, Marazuki
1x Farscape class Shuttlecraft
2x HQN-2 Redshirt class Wormhole Probe
1x Berlin class Cargo Ship
5x London class Cargo Ship
1x Copenhagen class Transport
1x Star Ranger class Troop Transport
Ground Unit TrainingMartian Brigade: (73rd/74th/75th/76th XCOM Battalions)
8x Plasma Cannon Battalions: North American/South American/European/African/East Asian/Lunar/Mercurian/Martian
ResearchJump Point Theory: Mariette de Beer, 29 Apr 2038
Alpha Shields: Cécile Crèvecoeur, 22 Jan 2039
Capacitor Recharge Rate 2: Arnim Rohde, 26 Feb 2039
Shield Regeneration Rate 1: Cécile Crèvecoeur, 13 Nov 2039
Gravitational Survey Sensors: Lillian Joffrion, 12 Jan 2040
Low Gravity Capability: Absalón Pelayo Monroy, 5 Apr 2040
Nuclear Gas-Core Engine: Jimena Arias Arenas, 5 Sep 2040
20cm Carronade: John Jones, 5 Sep 2040
Base Jump Drive Efficiency 4: Mariette de Beer, 8 Jul 2041
Beta Shields: Cécile Crèvecoeur, 14 Aug 2041
Research Rate 240 RP: Cécile Langlois, 5 Oct 2041
Capacitor Recharge Rate 3: Arnim Rohde, 5 Oct 2041
12cm Laser Focal Size: Hao Xiu Tian, 16 Oct 2041
Terraforming Rate 0.0004 atm: Lipeka Kiswaya, 30 Jun 2042
Boat Bay - Small: Louis Ebenhaezer, 30 Jun 2042
Maximum Engine Power Modifier x1.5: Arnim Rohde, 23 Sep 2042
Max Jump Squadron Size - 3 (Cost x 1.0): Mariette de Beer, 15 Nov 2042
Science Department: Lillian Joffrion, 15 Nov 2042
Maximum Shield Generator Size - 12: Cécile Crèvecoeur, 7 Jan 2043
Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor: Jimena Arias Arenas, 28 Jun 2043
Max Squadron Jump Radius - 50k (Cost x 1.0): Mariette de Beer, 28 Jun 2043
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OOC Notes: fun fact - at minimum tech levels, a military jump drive for a 50-ton ship requires zero crew. Now you know.
Another fun fact: the roleplay around the HQN-2 Redshirt drones led me to actually research the Small Boat Bay tech for basically the first time ever. Usually I just instant-research it after getting the normal Boat Bay tech, but in this case I had a specific need and ended up doing something unique. Aurora is fun like that!
Anyways, this update was slightly delayed due to the recent forum issues, but we are now back and in action once again. As a heads-up, however, there will be no update next weekend due to my personal travel schedule, rest assured this is a planned outage and not in any way an indicator that this AAR may sputter out before its time. it still might, of course, just this is not an indicator thereof.
Please check the following post for an appendix giving summary data up to this date in-game, for those who are interested!
