NC Part 17: June 2050 - August 2050

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

8th June 2050
Dracon and Akagi enter the Acheron system and set a course for the alien population on the second planet

Game Note: Political Treaties have now been added to the Aurora Rules.

13th June 2050 12:00
Approximately two hundred million kilometers from the alien planet, the two Commonwealth ships are hailed from a surface communication station. In order to show their peaceful intentions, Rear Admiral Takahashi orders his ships to hold position but keep their engines active so they do not appear to be trying to evade detection.

13th June 2050 14:00
Two alien ships are detected on an intercept course at distance of 30 million kilometers and a speed of 2467 km/s. They must therefore have left the planet at least twelve hours before the hail was sent. The information gained from passive sensors suggests they are 5350 tons each with strength-16 shields. Their armament cannot be determined unless they fire.

13th June 2050 17:00
The alien ships have been closing for three hours and are at 4.3m kilometers. Both sides have been continuing to send messages in an attempt to understand each other

[vergeraiders]

Short but action backed

Mike S.

[Michael Sandy]

Nah, that wasn't "bad guy".  That was, "Give the guy enough rope to hang himself."

When the Commonwealth starts maneuvering to take over Earth, then it _might_ be the bad guy.

As a tributary planet, the Commonwealth will undoubtably discourage others from looking covetously on it.  And since it really is a minor power it really has to be careful.

I am a bit confused as to why the Fast Colony Fleet isn't shipping more Duranium into the home system.  With 11 freighters heading towards Earth every few months, I don't see what the problem is.

[Michael Sandy]

Looking at the various system maps, if the Commonwealth considers Platea within mining exploitation distance then perhaps it will reactivate its geo survey vessels and survey those new systems to the 'North'.

In the Platea system itself, I would think that between
Plataea-A II - Moon 5
Duranium 1,264,043  Acc: 0.8
Neutronium 221  Acc: 0.5
Corbomite 497,019  Acc: 0.7
Tritanium 2,249,994  Acc: 0.7
Boronide 119,019  Acc: 0.7
Mercassium 1,742,393  Acc: 0.8
Vendarite 476,095  Acc: 0.6
Sorium 632,016  Acc: 1
Uridium 140,617  Acc: 0.9
Corundium 11,021  Acc: 0.5
Gallicite 562,496  Acc: 0.5

and

Plataea-A II - Moon 12
Duranium 1,800  Acc: 1
Corbomite 441  Acc: 1
Tritanium 2,500  Acc: 1
Boronide 8,464  Acc: 1
Mercassium 3,721  Acc: 1
Vendarite 5,929  Acc: 1
Corundium 324  Acc: 1
Gallicite 1,296  Acc: 1

It would actually be fairly close.  Moon 12 has higher concentrations of the minerals most in demand, Duranium, Mercassium and Gallicite.  It would be fairly simple for one freighter or convoy to pick up minerals from both moons, and starting some automated mines on Moon 12 and shipping the larger quantity to Moon 5 later would fix the current shortages slightly faster.

[TrueZuluwiz]

Perhaps the Islamic Alliance will believe this song and dance about their missing ship. Want to place a bet on it? If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't believe it.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Perhaps the Islamic Alliance will believe this song and dance about their missing ship. Want to place a bet on it? If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't believe it.

I don't think they will believe it either, as evidenced by the appearence of their warship at the Corinth jump gate. Whether they can do anything about it without getting squished is a different question

Steve

[Unco]

1. Not that the Commonwealth commander would have ever done this, but after the Crab ships were damaged and slowed could the missiles in flight been sent self-destruction orders?

2. Is there any reason why the Commonwealth commander didn't "disable" or ask for the surrender of the Crab ships?

3. Are Commonwealth commanders normally empowered to ask for planetary surrender as well as set the terms for this surrender in one day?

5. Can jump gates send "transmissions" into the system they link to? It seems like they do but I wanted to ask anyway.

6. Does Aurora have the concept of broad and tight transmissions? Are there any ranges on these transmissions?

7. Is it possible for the engines down ship on the Sol side of Corinth jump gate to have sent the jump gate a "tight" transmission that could not be picked up by the Islamic ship?

8. Did the Poseidon get warned about the Islamic ship's arrival in some way? It seems like they were able to get to full action stations really fast.

Thansk Steve!

Interesting writeup as always.

[vergeraiders]

>It is possible the cruiser could attack the gate itself but in that case >Comanche would send a message through the gate to summon Poseidon >and Earth would be notified immediately.

Could the Poseidon have gotten back to Sol in time to make any difference? I thought it was trapped there until a Jump Cruiser arrived.

>Scylla and Charybdis arrive at the Sol

[Michael Sandy]

Looking over the Commonwealth officer corps, I saw the interesting category: "Governors in Training".

Number 9 on that list, Kelly, had Research bonus 20%, shipyard building +10%, Factory +10%, Mining +10%, Growth +10%.

Governor of Earth needs the Research bonus and Shipyard bonus.  The current Governor has a +30% factory bonus, but the Commonwealth does not need that at this time.

So it appears that Kelly is one of the best choices for governing Earth.  About the only better choices would be one of the officers with +20% shipyard rate.

And the next mission to Plataea should bring one of the +20% mining officers to be its Governor.

[MWadwell]

18th July 2050
The Islamic ambassador to the Commonwealth delivers a message from his government demanding information about the fate of the Islamic ship that entered the Corinth jump point four days ago. According to the message, unless such information is provided, the Islamic Alliance will assume that the ship was destroyed by Commonwealth forces. It appears the Alliance takes a slightly more pro-active stance than the Terrans when one of their ships disappears. The Islamic Alliance also completes the reactivation of a 4450 ton Hufuf class destroyer and begins reactivating an Ashdod class freighter.

19th July 2050
A message is delivered to the Caliph, head of the Islamic Alliance, by the Commonwealth ambassador, stating that jump gates are being constructed on each side of the Sol

[Michael Sandy]

I wonder, did Steve remember to have the Jump Gate construction ship get back to work after having it back off from the warp point because of the Islamic Alliance ship?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

It would be interesting for the Terrans and the Alliance to sit down and compare notes, as they have both lost ships in Corinth - the Terrans to an "alien race", and the Alliance to "faulty Jump Point Gravitational Stabilizers".

If they ever do compare notes, and the Terrans tell the Alliance that there is no such things as "Jump Point Gravitational Stabilizers", I would expect that both the Terrans and the Alliance will have suspicions about who really caused their ships to be lost......

Hmm, that would make things a little tricky

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

>It is possible the cruiser could attack the gate itself but in that case >Comanche would send a message through the gate to summon Poseidon >and Earth would be notified immediately.

Could the Poseidon have gotten back to Sol in time to make any difference? I thought it was trapped there until a Jump Cruiser arrived.

>Scylla and Charybdis arrive at the Sol

[Michael Sandy]

Looking at how thorough the resource crunch is for the Terran Union and the Asian Alliance, I wonder if the Commonwealth could do well by buying their manned mines at fire sale prices.  Say 60 Duranium per manned mine.

The Asian alliance has 1842 tons of Duranium in various places and 1479 supply.

The Terran Union has 800 Duranium and 11 maintenance.  That is a pretty desperate situation.

Of the two, the Terran Union has more freighters and 47 automated mines compared to 55 for the Asian Alliance, but the Terran Union has far more explored territory close to it.

Once the Asian Alliance exhausts the asteroids in the Sol system, it is stuck.  The Terran Union can cut back its economy to the point that the Nantes mines bring in enough Duranium, but what it needs is more automated mines.

So an interesting diplomatic option would be to subsidize the Terran Union's exploration and colonization efforts.  When the Asian Alliance runs out of resources, they can look either to the Terran Union, Gitanyow or the Commonwealth for mining sites.  The Terran Union will have probably cut back even more on the warships to eke out just a bit more hope of avoiding economic contraction, and Gitanyow will be as tough as ever.  So if the Asians push on the Terran Union, where does the Terran Union have to turn?

If the Commonwealth can get the Terran Union as a 'slave' state, or whatever, they get access to the research labs, shipyards, etc...  They can basically offer the Asian Alliance leadership a colony world with few resources as a haven come Nemesis.  (Herakleia).

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Looking at how thorough the resource crunch is for the Terran Union and the Asian Alliance, I wonder if the Commonwealth could do well by buying their manned mines at fire sale prices.  Say 60 Duranium per manned mine.

The Asian alliance has 1842 tons of Duranium in various places and 1479 supply.

The Terran Union has 800 Duranium and 11 maintenance.  That is a pretty desperate situation.

Of the two, the Terran Union has more freighters and 47 automated mines compared to 55 for the Asian Alliance, but the Terran Union has far more explored territory close to it.

Once the Asian Alliance exhausts the asteroids in the Sol system, it is stuck.  The Terran Union can cut back its economy to the point that the Nantes mines bring in enough Duranium, but what it needs is more automated mines.

So an interesting diplomatic option would be to subsidize the Terran Union's exploration and colonization efforts.  When the Asian Alliance runs out of resources, they can look either to the Terran Union, Gitanyow or the Commonwealth for mining sites.  The Terran Union will have probably cut back even more on the warships to eke out just a bit more hope of avoiding economic contraction, and Gitanyow will be as tough as ever.  So if the Asians push on the Terran Union, where does the Terran Union have to turn?

If the Commonwealth can get the Terran Union as a 'slave' state, or whatever, they get access to the research labs, shipyards, etc...  They can basically offer the Asian Alliance leadership a colony world with few resources as a haven come Nemesis.  (Herakleia).

Some very good ideas there, especially the exchange of Duranium for mines. I'll try and build some of these into the campaign.

Steve