4 August 2043, 00:03:10 GMT
Three minutes and ten seconds after the disappearance of Redshirt One, space in front of Farscape 1 erupted in brilliant blue lightning. The eye-searing lightshow ended as suddenly as it began, leaving a small, gleaming speck just barely visible to the naked eyes of Major Georgiy Baranov and his crew.
The six men stared in shock for several seconds before one of the junior technicians came to his senses. Hesitantly, the technician pressed the communications button to send a message back to XCOM Headquarters on Earth, and murmured the two words XCOM engineers had been working overtime for weeks to hear.
“It worked.”----
The Interstellar Era BeginsThe first wormhole transit in human history had taken the Redshirt One probe to a binary red dwarf system, which XCOM astrographers identified as Psi Ceti. This demonstrable success of Project Outpost immediately triggered raucous celebrations and thunderous applause throughout XCOM Headquarters, for a distance greater than eight and a half light years had been crossed by the work of human hands in mere seconds. The galaxy now lay open to humanity, and thus the way to the home worlds of the vicious alien species which had ravaged Earth three decades ago. The fact that the Psi Ceti system was devoid of any non-stellar bodies larger than a baseball did little to dampen the mood that day.
Buoyed by this historic success, Farscape 1 proceeded with her mission to investigate the remaining wormhole signatures in Sol. The system of Wolf 359 was discovered on the afternoon of 6 August, another red dwarf star with no notable orbiting bodies. The V1216 Sagittarii system, discovered on 18 August, was considerably more promising with 7 planets, 40 moons, and an inner-system asteroid belt with similar density to that of the solar system. However, only the innermost, Mercury-like world had sufficient gravity for human habitation, at a bit over half the strength of Earth’s own surface gravity.
The final wormhole in Sol proved the most promising, despite its significant distance from the sun. A probe transit on 12 September revealed the red dwarf star of HH Andromedae, which was orbited by six planets including three with human-tolerable surface gravities. While the innermost planet was even more extreme in terms of surface temperature than Mercury, the second and third planets from the star were excellent prospects for colonization, with Redshirt probe readings showing the presence of water on both worlds and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere on the second planet. The 18 moons and relatively dense Kuiper belt represented decent-to-good mining prospects as well, although V1216 Sagittarii had more potential for mining operations even if that system would be more difficult for human colonization.
Astrographic representation of the HH Andromedae system as found by the Redshirt One probe on 12 September 2043. While the fact that all significant asteroids were contained in the distant Kuiper belt would be a challenge for establishing mining operations in many other systems, the belt in HH Andromedae was only around 2 billion km from the system primary and so would not be particularly difficult to reach even with the relatively primitive cargo ships in XCOM service at this time.With the exploration of the solar wormholes complete, and the Marazuki device concept proven beyond any reasonable doubt, the celebratory racket at XCOM Headquarters soon faded back to the usual businesslike tenor of day-to-day operations. While the discovery of four new star systems at the far end of the solar wormhole termini indeed heralded a new, interstellar era for humanity, numerous practical and operational problems now presented themselves, each of which would require the hard work and ingenuity of XCOM’s finest to resolve.
XCOM-Brand MoonshineThe Redshirt probes had succeeded admirably in their design goal of demonstrating that wormhole travel was indeed possible. Furthermore, excruciatingly careful analysis of the sensor data acquired by the probes over the course of eight separate wormhole transits had indicated, with 99% certainty, that human life would be able to travel through a wormhole largely unaffected. Where the Redshirt probes had not succeeded was in transiting a ship with a human crew through a wormhole to another star system, though to be fair this had not been one of the design goals. Therefore, a new set of design goals would be constructed, and a ship class designed to meet these goals not long thereafter.
In practice, the design of the new “wormhole ship” class proved more difficult than anticipated. The difficulty, ironically, did not result from the “wormhole” part of the job description, the engineering of Marazuki devices being quite well understood from experience by this time even if the technology was in its relative infancy. Rather, the major challenge was communications, namely how to maintain communication with a distant ship or squadron on the far side of a wormhole. It did not take long for XCOM scientists to devise a potential solution, theorizing that the low-intensity, unfocused gravitational pulses emitted by Trans-Newtonian active sensors, while certainly nowhere near strong enough to generate a wormhole, would be sufficient to perturb space around a wormhole terminus and pass a signal to the other end.
While in principle the Redshirt probes could fill this role, in practice these would prove impractical due to the rather large build cost per unit, excessive size requiring spacious storage and boat bay handling facilities, and a limited endurance as the strain generated by the included Marazuki device would eventually deform the probe without regular maintenance. Therefore, the solution devised by XCOM engineers was the REN-3 Watchman wormhole communications buoy:
REN-3 Watchman Buoy
Missile Size: 4.0 MSP (10 Tons)
Active Sensor Strength: 0.57 EM Sensitivity Modifier: 5
Resolution: 60 Maximum Range vs 3000 ton object (or larger): 3,728,757 km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3,952,847 km
EM Sensor Strength: 0.25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3,952,847 km
Cost Per Missile: 1.712 Development Cost: 206With a space requirement of only 10 tons to deploy, the REN-3 could be deployed by a compact dropper system with potentially dozens of buoys stored in a specialized buoy bay, enabling a single ship mounting the necessary hardware to support extended survey operations without expensive trips back to Earth after deploying only a few buoys. While the hardware requirements proved somewhat more challenging than anticipated, requiring the better part of four years to develop due in large part to particularly stringent definitions of the word “compact”, the hardware was eventually developed, giving rise to a new class of wormhole ships.
Whiskey Sierra class Wormhole Ship 3,125 tons 80 Crew 290.5 BP TCS 62 TH 125 EM 0
2000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-19 Shields 0-0 HTK 22 Sensors 15/15/0/0 DCR 3-9 PPV 1.2
Maint Life 12.73 Years MSP 674 AFR 26% IFR 0.4% 1YR 8 5YR 115 Max Repair 78.8 MSP
Magazine 49 / 0
Colonel Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Morale Check Required
M2 Andromeda Marazuki Device Max Ship Size 3150 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
XN-125E Gravity Pulse Drive (1) Power 125 Fuel Use 10.06% Signature 125 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 179,800 Litres Range 102.9 billion km (595 days at full power)
Buoy Dropper (10t) (1) Missile Size: 4 Rate of Fire 2400
XN/SJE-10 Buoy Release System (1) Range 2.5m km Resolution 1
REN-3 Watchman Buoy (12) Size: 4
XN/SPN-3 Grav Pulse Navigation Sensor (1) GPS 600 Range 15.6m km Resolution 60
XN/SAY-12 Passive Infrared Array (1) Sensitivity 15 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 30.6m km
XN/SLQ-11 Passive EM Array (1) Sensitivity 15 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 30.6m kmIt is perhaps notable that despite several years of investment, not all of the hardware problems could be worked out before the ships were urgently needed. The combined space requirements of the M2 Marazuki device and the communications buoy deployment systems proved too much for an effective 3,125-ton design, and the compromise reached was a “temporary” reduction in crew quarters while continued research and development work sought to address these challenges. Early crews of the Whiskey Sierra ships complained of exceedingly cramped conditions as the specified 3-month deployment time was rarely if ever adhered to.
The first two XCOM wormhole ships, Whiskey and her sister ship Sierra, came off the slips on 10 July 2047, after nearly four years of delays due principally to the consequences from decades of badly underfunding the ordnance handling and logistics department of the XCOM science organization. Complacency had set in over the three decades since the Long War ended, and while perhaps not consciously there had set in a certain kind of organizational rot in the weapons development offices that, since XCOM had won the war with the weapons it had, those weapons must be good enough, and so in the rush and excitement of extraterrestrial colonization and exploitation, funding and researchers had drifted towards other, more urgent priorities. It was fortunate for humanity that this lack of foresight came to the fore during a peaceful period, rather than in the middle of a galactic war such as those XCOM would face later in its history.
With the commissioning of Whiskey and Sierra, the Solar Survey Wing was reorganized, with the former Geological and Gravitational Survey Groups merged into a single Extrasolar Survey Group. Two survey forces were created from existing survey assets and recent warship construction (detailed in the following subsection). These would be deployed to the V1216 Sagittarii and HH Andromedae systems, respectively. Smaller follow-on survey forces consisting of the next two wormhole ships and the remaining gravitational survey ships would be deployed to Wolf 359 and Psi Ceti, which would not require a full-scale survey force due to the lack of planets in each system.
First Survey Force WS-01 Whiskey
SS-01 Daedalus
SS-03 Korolev
First Patrol Squadron: PS-01 Doc Stone, PS-02 Mora Fyodorova
Second Survey Force WS-02 Sierra
SS-02 Odyssey
SS-04 Sun Tzu
Second Patrol Squadron: PS-03 Flatline Fakhoury, PS-04 Voodoo Buthelezi
The First Survey Force arrived at the wormhole to V1216 Sagittarii in the evening of 31 July, with the wormhole ship Whiskey deploying the first REN-3 Watchman buoy before transiting the wormhole alone. Fifteen seconds later, the remaining ships of the squadron picked up a transmission relayed through the buoy from V1216 Sagittarii. Not only did the communications buoys work as intended, but wormhole transit was now demonstrated as safe for humans. The other ships transited and the First reformed on the wormhole terminus, then the survey ships detached and set about their tasks. The two patrol ships remained in-system, less out of any real necessity and more as a ceremonial act which doubled as excellent fleet training for the untested ships and crews. The Second Survey Force arrived in HH Andromedae on and set about its own work in much the same manner, though with considerably less pomp and circumstance.
The following pair of wormhole ships, Echo and Tango, were launched on 14 December, and along with the remaining survey ships Pathfinder and Marazuki were immediately dispatched through the remaining wormholes. Survey operations were underway in all four known extrasolar star systems by the end of 2047
Project NapoleonThe second great interstellar challenge facing XCOM was the question of power projection, as any extrasolar colonies established would certainly require spaceborne defenses to protect them from a potential alien threat. The natural and preferred solution, this being deployment of new interceptor wings abroad, turned out to be technologically infeasible at any reasonable timescale. XCOM space logistics experts quickly informed the leadership that, while work had already commenced on developing a significantly larger boat bay than that used to deliver the Redshirt probes, the project would not be complete for nearly two years, at which point the resulting hangar bay would be large enough only for the Raven class interceptors, leaving the Firestorms restricted to the solar system. Any interceptor carrier designed and built with this technology would be an intermediate class, at best, and as the Firestorm fleet was considered the pride of the orbital defense forces there was little interest in a carrier class lacking the capability to deploy them. Therefore, other options came under consideration.
A strict set of requirements were settled on: in order to achieve the required range and endurance for extrasolar patrol missions, the resulting warship class would have to be larger than a fighter, but no larger than the Discovery and Whiskey Sierra classes to remain compatible with the M2 Marazuki device. The weapons selection was limited to types with which XCOM had significant experience with in space environments, in other words only plasma cannons and missiles could be mounted. Otherwise, existing technology was to be preferred as much as possible to keep overall research and development costs minimal, although the necessity to develop a new gravity drive model was reluctantly accepted. The result was Project Napoleon, a contract to develop the first large warship class in XCOM history:
Project Napoleon class Patrol Ship 3,125 tons 82 Crew 386.2 BP TCS 62 TH 250 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 1-19 Shields 0-0 HTK 23 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 2-6 PPV 14.64
Maint Life 4.47 Years MSP 254 AFR 39% IFR 0.5% 1YR 21 5YR 308 Max Repair 125 MSP
Magazine 57.6 / 0
Colonel Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Morale Check Required
XN-250 Gas-Core Pulse Drive (1) Power 250 Fuel Use 56.92% Signature 250 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 230,900 Litres Range 23.4 billion km (67 days at full power)
PX-508 Mark II Plasma Cannon (2) Range 100,000km TS: 4,000 km/s Power 10-2 RM 10,000 km ROF 25
XN/SPY-13 Targeting System (1) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 4,050 km/s
XR-2 Gaseous Elerium Reactor (2) Total Power Output 4 Exp 5%
Missile Launch Rail (8t) (18) Missile Size: 3.2 Hangar Reload 89 minutes MF Reload 14 hours
XN/SPG-14 Missile Guidance System (2) Range 14m km Resolution 60
ASM-1 Shredder (18) Speed: 13,250 km/s End: 13.1m Range: 10.4m km WH: 3 Size: 3.2 TH: 44/26/13
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 kmShips of the class were named in honor of the most famous heroes of the Long War, with the first two ships of the class, Doc Stone and Mora Fyodorova, coming into service on 14 June 2045. The patrol ships were expected to operate in pairs for redundancy and tactical flexibility, yielding combined firepower similar, but not identical, to the union of a Firestorm squadron and a Raven squadron. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the design was the choice to mount mixed armaments. The external missile launch rails allowed a two-ship squadron to carry the same effective throw weight as nine Raven IIs, which was expected to be sufficient to destroy or at least cripple an alien attacker of similar size from beyond the range of most alien weapons. On the other hand, the PX-508 Mark II plasma cannons, originally developed as part of a dead-end Firestorm upgrade project, provided flexible firepower to mop up a crippled enemy or to pursue a smaller opponent without wasting valuable ordnance. The patrol ships were designed for long deployments at distant colonial stations, as it would likely take considerable time to establish the necessary maintenance and support facilities at a new colony, during which protection would still be required.
The original procurement order for the Doc Stone class, as it was later designated, called for eight vessels in total, enough to form 4 two-ship squadrons. While only two wormholes in Sol led to colonizable star systems, XCOM leadership was optimistic that new wormholes would be discovered in Wolf 359 and Psi Ceti which would, in turn, lead to additional colonizable systems. This original order was completed, with all eight patrol ships in service, by the end of 2047.
Preparing for the Next Giant LeapIn anticipation of imminent extrasolar colonial ventures, XCOM shipbuilding operations set about expanding heavy lift capacity during this period. Much of this new capacity did not see significant immediate use, but was held in reserve for the day when extrasolar colonization missions could be launched. In addition to the Berlin class cargo ships, several Beijing class transports were produced representing a similar upgrade to the older Copenhagen class. The first ships of the class, Beijing and her sister Pusan, were launched on 27 November 2046.
Beijing class Transport 45,626 tons 286 Crew 1,561.7 BP TCS 913 TH 1,600 EM 0
1753 km/s Armour 1-113 Shields 0-0 HTK 71 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 21 Max Repair 400 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 100,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 5
Lieutenant Colonel Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
XN-200E Commercial Gravity Pulse Drive (8) Power 1600 Fuel Use 7.95% Signature 200 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres Range 37.2 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 kmAn essential capability to establish extrasolar bases would be fuel transportation. To this end, XCOM welcomed the first Riyadh class tanker to the Solar Transport Wing on 10 December 2045. In addition to transporting fuel to distant colonies to support survey operations and patrol ship squadrons, the Riyadh class also ensured that XCOM could carry out interstellar rescue operations should any of its valuable spaceborne assets run out of fuel at an awkward time.
Riyadh class Tanker 43,474 tons 196 Crew 767.1 BP TCS 869 TH 1,600 EM 0
1840 km/s Armour 1-110 Shields 0-0 HTK 67 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 11 Max Repair 50 MSP
Major Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
XN-200E Commercial Gravity Pulse Drive (8) Power 1600 Fuel Use 7.95% Signature 200 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 25,750,000 Litres Range 1,340.1 billion km (8429 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 515 hours
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 kmThe year 2046 saw a new frontier crossed by XCOM, as humanity’s first spaceborne industry was launched by the construction of its first two River class fuel harvesters, Nile and Amazon, on 11 May. These were immediately deployed to Jupiter to begin the process of converting the copious gaseous sorium reserves in its atmosphere into refined sorium fuel. While XCOM at this time had an extensive system of fuel reserves at varying levels of readiness, extrasolar expansion was anticipated to increase demand by orders of magnitude, and the River class was thus essential for XCOM to be prepared for such a massive expansion of its operational scope.
River class Fuel Harvester 70,642 tons 390 Crew 1,338.2 BP TCS 1,413 TH 1,600 EM 0
1132 km/s Armour 1-152 Shields 0-0 HTK 166 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 11 Max Repair 50 MSP
Major Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Fuel Harvester: 20 modules producing 800,000 litres per annum
XN-200E Commercial Gravity Pulse Drive (8) Power 1600 Fuel Use 7.95% Signature 200 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,500,000 Litres Range 80 billion km (818 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 50 hours
Navigation System (1) GPS 125 Range 6.3m km Resolution 125
EM Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
Thermal Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m kmThe River class harvesters were joined in 2047 by the Mountain class orbital terraformers, with the. While not as efficient as ground-based terraforming installations, the orbital terraformers would not require surface populations to operate and therefore could serve colonies which lacked the spare population to work ground-based facilities. To wit, the first two examples of the class, Mont Blanc and Mount Rainier, were launched on 20 July and deployed to Mercury to begin creating an atmosphere that could reflect the worst of the sun’s intense heat and improve the efficiency of the existing life-support infrastructure on the planet below.
Mountain class Terraformer 68,341 tons 370 Crew 1,703.9 BP TCS 1,367 TH 1,600 EM 0
1170 km/s Armour 1-148 Shields 0-0 HTK 83 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 15 Max Repair 500 MSP
Major Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Terraformer: 2 modules producing 0.0008 atm per annum
XN-200E Commercial Gravity Pulse Drive (8) Power 1600 Fuel Use 7.95% Signature 200 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres Range 24.8 billion km (245 days at full power)
Navigation System (1) GPS 125 Range 6.3m km Resolution 125
EM Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
Thermal Scanner (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m kmBy the end of 2047, the transport shipping forces had been significantly expanded, spaceborne industrial forces had been established, and construction was set to begin on a third generation of ships powered by recently-developed gravitic ion drives that exceeded the efficiency of even the relatively new grav pulse drives then in widespread service. The prevailing spirit throughout XCOM headquarters that New Year’s Eve was that XCOM was, as well as could possibly be, prepared for anything. The coming years would put this spirit to the test.
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Ship Construction4x Whiskey Sierra class Wormhole Ship: Whiskey, Sierra, Echo, Tango
8x Doc Stone class Patrol Ship: Doc Stone, Mora Fyodorova, Flatline Fakhoury, Voodoo Buthelezi, Whiskey Burns, Sledge Shimizu, Steampunk Steele, Chilong Zhang
8x Berlin class Cargo Ship
4x Beijing class Transport
4x Riyadh class Tanker
4x River class Fuel Harvester
2x Mountain class Terraformer
Ground Unit TrainingTranquility Base Command
1st Lunar Brigade
2nd Lunar Brigade
3rd Lunar Brigade
4th Lunar Brigade
XCOM Extrasolar (EXOCOM)
20th XCOM Brigade
ResearchFuel Consumption: 0.8 Litres per Engine Power Hour: Arnim Rohde, 22 Nov 2043
Visible Light Laser: Hao Xiu Tian, 22 Nov 2043
Shield Regeneration Rate 1.5: Cécile Crèvecoeur, 10 Mar 2044
Base Jump Drive Efficiency 5: Mariette de Beer, 7 Dec 2044
Sorium Harvester: Cécile Langlois, 7 Dec 2044
Magazine Neutralization System - 70% Chance: Stefanie Oliver, 7 Dec 2044
Maximum Engine Power Modifier x1.75: Arnim Rohde, 12 May 2045
Boat Bay: Louis Ebenhaezer, 14 Jun 2045
Terraforming Module: Lipeka Kiswaya, 1 Nov 2045
Ion Drive: Jimena Arias Arenas, 8 Apr 2046
Extreme Temperature Capability: Absalón Pelayo Monroy, 20 Jun 2046
Magazine Feed System Efficiency - 75%: Stefanie Oliver, 1 Aug 2046
Turret Tracking Speed (10% Gear) 2000 km/s: Dulce Ceja Ulloa, 24 Sep 2046
Maximum Engine Power Modifier x2: Arnom Rohde, 29 Mar 2047
Construction Equipment: Charles Desmarais, 20 Jul 2047
Beam Fire Control Range 64,000 km: Lillian Joffrion, 19 Sep 2047
Levitated-Pit Implosion Warhead: Strength: 4 x MSP: Stefanie Oliver, 23 Dec 2047
Near Ultraviolet Laser: Hao Xiu Tian, 23 Dec 2047
Star SystemsPsi Ceti: HQN-2 Probe, 4 Aug 2043
Wolf 359: HQN-2 Probe, 6 Aug 2043
V1216 Sagittarii: HQN-2 Probe, 18 Aug 2043
HH Andromedae: HQN-2 Probe, 12 Sep 2043
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OOC Notes: As the author is back from vacation, another update graces this fine forum. Well, perhaps "grace" is not the word, but the update cometh all the same.
With interstellar expansion on the horizon, it does seem that things should pick up a bit in this AAR rather soonish as the awkward post-conventional, pre-shooting-aliens comes to an end. If we are very lucky perhaps the next update will have a modicum of violence to interest the segment of the readership which craves such things.
As a personal author's note, I'm not terribly glad when a section is largely new ship designs. I will see what can be done in terms of structuring such sections to be a bit more engaging.
