2049 ANNUAL REPORT
Overview
The launching of the 2% Initiative led to the first equipment being offloaded onto Mars and Luna in the first weekend of February, with the Southampton handling the Mars trips and the Hercules taking care the Luna duty. James Earl Jones V was installed as the governor of Luna(now just a five-minute trip from Earth), while it was one of the original four SPACE political appointees, 45-year-old Terrence Forson, who got his first official assignment on the ‘red planet’. The civilians got the first shipment of colonists onto the moon in less than a week, while the CS New Beginnings got involved to jumpstart Mars, then the private sector took over there as well. That’s now a trip of two to four days each way, depending on where the planets are in their respective orbits.
Within a month, the convoys to Titan had virtually stopped, leading to a number of untimely deaths as infrastructure did not keep up with the growing population for a few weeks until matters balanced themselves out again. Not a serious loss in the grand scheme of things, but you can’t tell that to the victims’ families. The 2% Initiative gained a few small, but very vocal, critics due to the scandal. As it was resolved quickly and far more were quite happy with their new homes, at least initially, it was expected the matter would blow over ...
As all of this was going on, the GSV Hopeful identified a new jump point, designated Charlie. This one is slightly closer than Bravo, and on the opposite side of the sun, 3.2b km away bearing 104. There are three more locations to survey before the Hopeful moves to the outer ring.
In just over a quarter, the moon eclipsed Titan with one and a half million colonists! The rush was insane – even the most optimistic backers were surprised at how earnest the desire was to settle the barren rock. That was early July, and by the end of the month two new shipping corporations(Everton Shipping & Logistics, and three weeks later Presnar Freight) had been formed. As is SPACE policy, no subsidizing was countenanced. They will succeed or fail on their own.
As if that wasn’t enough, July also featured an unprecedented discovery by the Hopeful. In the final survey of the middle ring of jump locations, not one but two were found in close proximity! The scientific community is puzzled, as they did not think this was even possible.
Delta is the closest jump point other than Alpha, 2.68b km and a bearing of 25, inside Uranus orbit. Just outside that orbit is Epsilon, 3.1b km at a bearing of 31. The two are just 519m km away from each other, a fact that could prove to be of considerable importance in the future. The Hopeful proceeded out to the Kuiper Belt for the final ring of a dozen locations ...
From a fleet perspective, the bustle of the last few years quieted down considerably in the fall. With all four of the large freighters refit to the II-xe class, the Victoria was scrapped and shipping had caught up with production of mines on Earth. Additionally, with survey operations complete, there just wasn’t much left to do. A new mine will be sent off to Titan(when population permits) or a comet(when a new automated one is converted about once a month), but other than that it is very quiet.
Colonial Developments
Two new comets were added to remote mining operations this year. On January 9 the mass driver on Neujmin was activated(Derek Latch dispatched as governor) and on July 12(more stuff happening in a crazy-busy month) the one on Vanbiesbroeck, a near-perfect job for Delois Woznicki(see bio in the next section of this year’s report) to cut her teeth on. Machholz depleted it’s supply of vendarite early in February, a nearly complete non-event than nobody cares about. By Thanksgiving, the Hopeful was headed back to Earth for shore leave, needing refueling and some time off before scanning the final eight locations.
Colony populations at year’s end:
Earth – 870m
Luna – 3.26m
Titan – 1.81m
Mars – 1.45m
Three-quarters of a percent of the population now lives somewhere other than Earth ...
Commissioned Officers
January 1 – Jay Cin III takes command of the FT Hercules.
March 1 – A new political star on the rise officially joins SPACE – Delois Woznicki. Genius-level ability in mining, espionage, and shipbuilding to go along with strong political skills(only Duling is better) and industrial production. The only thing she needs is experience. Unfortunately for her, just days before the Mars appointment had already been made.
Mid-May – Col. Ray Hoel becomes the best army officer to be produced by the Academy since top-ranking colonel Anton Engelhardt over four years ago. Hoel is expected to take command of one of the infantry battalions when the current tour is up in 2051.
June – Alberto Eighmy’s political connections have increased(20%), continuing to demonstrate that he’ll be a serious challenger in the decades to come.
Research & Development
February saw the arrival of more good news from the Jump Theory Team. Dr. Santo Makar’s expertise is growing by leaps and bounds. His specialized skill is up to 55%, nearly now the equal of Ignacio Bavaro(60% in Energy Weapons). The difference is that Power & Propulsion is a much more useful field to us. It is not an exaggeration to say he is now our most important researcher, and will likely remain so after this phase of development is completed.
** July 24 -- Jump Drive Efficiency(4) was completed. Squadron Size is the final of the three jump engine projects, a report currently anticipated in early spring of next year.
** September 25 -- 30% Engine Power(higher-efficiency) completed(Ignacio Bavaro). Cedrick Wormack(Troop Transport Bays) takes over the space.
** October 26 – TH 5-5 Sensor Suite(thermal sensors) work finished(Clint Wyche). Sorium Harvesting Module gets the additional space.
Earth
For the second year in a row there is news on April Fool’s Day: Sorium is depleted. At current supply levels, we are now producing half of what we refine each year and will be able to sustain current refinery output for 20-25 years before seeing a dropoff. In five years’ time, uridium will(irrelevantly) be the next mineral to be depleted. In less than two decades, only vendarite and tritanium will remain on our homeworld.
Two days later, the ST Sussex and ST Starlight are finished at the P&A Group, and a final pair of Lexington-II’s begun.
April 29 – A third commercial shipyard, dubbed the Vickers-Armstrong Shipyard, is finished in orbit at Earth. New slipways will be added immediately, with the goal of taking over the role that the P&A Group currently is filling, the ability to construct multiple small vessels at once to fill accessory roles. Another commercial yard is immediately begun, as Director Rakes wants to plan ahead for the future as much as possible at this point. It will not always be obvious ahead of time when a new shipyard will be needed: this one will serve as a buffer of sorts. Also, the few remaining conventional factories that were set to be converted to refineries have that work restarted: nothing has been done in the last decade or so with other priorities, but it has been deemed time to finish it now. Earth now has six ongoing industrial projects.
Mid-July – The shipyards all benefit from the experience of Director Rakes, who has become more adept at certain personnel matters, resulting in faster operations.(5% Shipbuilding Bonus).
July 20 – The ST Hipparchus and ST Endymion are finished on Earth, completing the current set of shuttles at eight.
October -- Another research lab has been finished, and Shanon Pateson’s first project is to begin work on a Sorium Harvester module, the goal of which is to find a way to extract sorium from the atmosphere of gas giants such as Saturn. She’s just there to lay some groundwork, a more experience researcher will be taking over the project down the road.
November 20 – Refinery conversions are complete on Earth. Between the remaining 250+ conventional industry and 75 refineries, production is now over 2 million liters annually. Initial work begins on a second military-grade orbital shipyard, for the same reason that the fourth commercial yard is being built – it’s best to be prepared.
By year’s end, duranium production on Earth is under a kiloton for the first time. Over 60% of the total supply, which still gradually increased over the past year to 2.67kt, now comes from other sources. In terms of fuel, SPACE has set a policy for production goals to be 80% of the maximum usage of the fleet, though that is less important with a huge reserve such as we have. At present the reserve has stagnated between 26-27 million litres for the last few years, though with reduced naval activity it is expected to start growing again for the next few until there is more for the ships to do. Peak operations for the current fleet year-round would consume 1.85m liters, meaning current production levels of 2.1m liters are more than enough at about 112% or so of maximum demand. A reserve of five years’ worth will be maintained, but again we are well ahead of that at 14 years worth for the moment. Right now there is clearly no urgent need, but it’s worth revisiting the fuel situation periodically to make sure we do not run out, and the long-term goal of moving refinery capacity off of Earth so as to allow the sorium there to be used for jump drives and any other purposes that may arise is still important.
Sol Survey Efforts
March – The Rater team has completed it’s work on Ikeya-Zang, finding nothing. Their work is now complete.
July 25 – The last of the geology teams is disbanded on Earth, officially bringing an era to an end. It was just shy of ten years ago that the Lief Ericson was officially christened and began the surveying of the system. Though progress often seems slow, in the big picture a lot has been accomplished in a relatively very short period of time.
October 19 – Another jump point has been found, the first in the outer ring, designated Jump Point Foxtrot. That’s six now. On a bearing of 65, it is 5.1b km from the sun, or 700m km outside Neptune orbit but closer than all but the nearest Kuiper Belt objects.
Fleet Operations
February 18 – The FT Venus completes its refit, Southampton will be up next.
March 5 – The Southampton returns to earth from getting the Mars colony set up, and begins it’s turn refitting at the Tod & Macgregor.
May 11 – The New Beginnings returns to earth and stands down, the decision having been made that there is no need to ship new colonists to Titan(which would require a lot more infrastructure being sent at SPACE expense). At almost 1.5m strong, the colony will see significant numbers added just through the natural process of life at this point.
May 18 – Fleet HQ is puzzled where the miscalculation was – a technical error on the part of the refueling crews during their last leave is expected – but it has become clear that the ST Marengo is not going to make it back to Earth on their current reserves. The Amerigo Vespucci is dispatched to make a fuel transfer immediately. It is however expected that the shuttle will be forced to drift helplessly for at least a month before they can be reached, as they are presently nearly 7b km away ...
June 21, 0800 – The Marengo runs out of fuel, and while it made excellent time, the Amerigo Vespucci is yet a little over two days away.
June 23, 1230 – The Amerigo Vespucci rendezvous is complete, and soon both vessels are on their way. An embarassing moment for the Fleet(such as it is), but no great harm was done. There’s nothing comfortable, for certain, about running out of gas over three billion kilometers away from home.
July 3 – The Southampton is underway again, the third freighter to be refitted. The only one remaining is the Custer, whose return trip from Titan will be completed at the end of the month. For now, the Southampton will take over the duty of getting standard mines to the colony.
July 28 – FT Custer is the last to begin refitting to the II-xe variant of the Fletcher.
October – Most of the freighters and the rest of the fleet are now idle as SPACE enters a quieter time after the flurry of activity. Every couple of weeks a new mine heads to Titan aboard the Southampton or to Vanbiesbroeck on one of the other freighters, but other than that the traffic is nearly all civilian.
November 22 – The FT Custer is the last to be refitted. The obsolete and unneeded FT Victoria is to be scrapped now.
