Terran Confederation

[Sematary (OP)]

The year is 2258, the Terran Confederation governs Earth and has done so since its creation in 2195. Several solar bodies have been settled both by the Terran Confederation and by the nations that existed before. Alpha Centauri B has the first extra-solar settlements on it, called Nova Earth and Nova Mars. The TCN Enterprise, first warp capable manned ship has been joined by three more ships of her class who have been sent out to the stars that the Russians seeded with generational ships. It is a new dawn for humanity.

This is the second Astra Imperia AAR started here and the first one in over two years. I will be writing this in a style similar to The Republic of Earth, my AAR found here rather than the transparent rule write ups found throughout this subforum. That being said I will be keeping all of the write ups if anyone wants to see them.

To give you an idea of how I am starting here is information on the Terran Confederation

Stats:
Will Power: 75
Aggression: 60
Arrogance: 85
Xenophobia: 20
Surrender Roll: 67

Traits:
Tainted Atmosphere-Oxygen
Espionage Bonus +5%
Capitalist +5%
Free Spirit
Decreased Growth -5%
Representative Nation +25% Research, Intel -30%, Combat +10%, Tax +40%

Totals: +25% Research, -25% Intel, +10% Combat, +45% Tax, -5% Growth

The names and positions of my personalities are
Admiral Gerald Schuyler
General Silke Moravec
General Jelani Albinson
Dr. Jiang Huang
Mr. Fillin Malone

There are seven settlements in the Sol System
Earth, a core planet
Luna, a small colony
Mars, a colony
Io, an outpost
Europa, a small colony
Ganymede, a small colony
Calysto, a small colony

In Alpha Centauri B there are two settlements
Nova Earth, a small colony
Nova Mars, a small colony

There are a total of three jump lanes that have been mapped by the TCN Enterprise
Sol-Alpha Centauri A is 12.9 ly and with current technology it takes 129 days to travel
Sol-Alpha Centauri B is 12.8 ly and with current technology it takes 128 days to travel
Alpha Centauri A-Alpha Centauri B is 256 lm and with current technology it takes an hour to travel

Terran Confederation Technology

Physics I, Chemistry I, Construction I, Military Science I, Electronics I, Fission I, Fission II, FTL I, Laser Tech I, Laser RoF Tech I, Laser RoF Tech II, Laser Frequency Tech I, Laser Frequency Tech II, Engine Tech I, Engine Tech II, Armor Tech I, Science Instrument Tech I, Sensor Tech I

Applied Sciences Effects:
Primitive Fission, Mine Reactors, Fission Warheads, Basic Fission
Class 1 FTL Drive
Laser Apertures 5-25cm
Class I Laser RoF, Class II Laser RoF
Far Infrared, Mid-Infrared
Basic Engine Class, Nuclear Torch Engine, Nuclear Pulse Engine
Alpha Armor
1st Generation Science Instrument
Base Sensor Class 1, Channel Class 1, Signature Class 1, Resolution Class 1
Ground Unit Attack +1

Terran Facility Classes:

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Deep Space Scanning Facility: Range 2LM, Signature: 25, 10 tons, Cost 150The DSSF is the state of the art long range scanning facility and is used to keep Earth Orbit clear of hostiles

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Bulwark Class Ground Defense Installation: Power Use 715, Cost 59,410
100 Troop size, Alpha Armor (10 EM, 5 Thermal, 30 Collapse)

Dart Class PD Lasers x40 Cost 310
10cm, FDR 8, Power 4, Cost 60, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal Cost 150
Class II RoF 1 shot per turn Cost 100

Arrow Class Lasers x30
25cm, FDR 14, 1/2DR 21, 1DR 28, Power 4, 400, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal
Class II RoF, 1 shot per turn

Pilum Class Capital Lasers x30
25cm, FDR 14, 1/2DR 21, 1DR 28, Power 10, Cost 400, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 4 EM, 12 Thermal
Class II RoF, 1 shot per turn
The Bulwark class is a core planet defense installation. It is able to engage up to 60 missiles as well as delivering heavy laser fire against ships in orbit. It far out classes any ship the TCN has in weight of broadsides.


Terran Confederation Ship Classes

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Enterprise Class FTL Scout
1,211 tons, 406 power required 376 with FTL turned off, 400 power produced, 17,275 cost
Signature 85 with passive sensor, 100 with active sensor, 136 with all weapons firing
 Crew 33, Engineering 57, Command 4, Total Crew 94
Streamlined

SPS Sensor Array, Cost 35
Range 12, Acquisition 30%, Detection Range 20 hex, Cost 10, 1 ton
10 Channels, Cost 5
Signature Class 1, Active Mode 20, Passive Mode 5, Cost 10
Resolution Class 1, Standard Res 60, Stealth Res 120, Cost 10

Alpha Armor
 10 EM, 5 Thermal, 30 Collapse, Cost 10, 10 tons

Rolls Royce BNP 103 Basic Nuclear Pulse Engines 3 thrust
162 power per 1,000 tons, cost 200, 300 tons

Raytheon Gen I FTL Drive
Class I, Jump Rating 5, Time/Jump 10 days, Power 50, Cost 500, 150 tons
5 turn Jump delay, Jump Radius 10 hexes

Gen I Science Instruments
5 points per hour, 10 power, Cost 500, 50 tons

Dart Class HPPD Laser x2 signature 4 each
10cm, FDR 8, Power 4, Cost 60, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal Cost 150
Class II RoF 1 shot per turn Cost 100

Arrow Class Automatic Lasers x2 (one on each broadside) signature 11 each
25cm, FDR 14, 1/2DR 21, 1DR 28, Power 7, 400, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal
Class II RoF, 1 shot per turn

General Electric Basic Fission Ship Power Plants x10
400 total power produced
60% Meltdown chance, 40 power produced, 19 tons, Cost 250
The Enterprise is the first generation FTL Scout and was the first FTL ship the TCN fielded. It is also currently the only ship the TCN has that is able to enter a planet's atmosphere.

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Asimov Class Monitor
1,368 tons, cost 20,780, 390 power required, 400 power produced
Crew: 72, Engineering: 45, Command: 9, Total Crew: 126
103 with passive sensors, 118 with active sensors, 184 with all weapons firing

SPS Sensor Array, Cost 35 x4
Range 12, Acquisition 30%, Detection Range 20 hex, Cost 10, 1 ton
10 Channels, Cost 5
Signature Class 1, Active Mode 20, Passive Mode 5, Cost 10
Resolution Class 1, Standard Res 60, Stealth Res 120, Cost 10

Alpha Armor
 10 EM, 5 Thermal, 30 Collapse, Cost 10, 10 tons

Rolls Royce BNP 103 Basic Nuclear Pulse Engines 3 thrust
162 power per 1,000 tons, cost 200, 300 tons

Gouache Class PD Laser x4
Totals: Cost 1,240, 20 crew, 2 engineering, 60 tons, 16 power
Cost 310, 5 crew, 1 engineering per 50 tons
10cm FDR 8, power use 4, cost 60, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal, cost 150
RoF Class II 1 per turn, cost 100

Javelot Class Standard Laser x6 (3 per broadside)
Totals: Cost 2,220, 30 crew, 2 engineering, 36 power, 90 tons
Cost 370, 5 crew, 1 engineering per 50 tons
20cm, FDR 12, 1/2DR 18, 1Dr 24, power 6, cost 120, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal, cost 150
Class II RoF, 1 per turn, cost 100

Assegai Class Capital Laser x2 (1 per broadside)
Totals: 800 cost, 10 crew, 1 engineering, 14 power, 30 tons
25 cm, FDR 14, 1/2DR 21, 1DR 28, 7 power, cost 150, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 4 EM, 12 Thermal, Cost 150
RoF Class II, 1 per turn, cost 100


General Electric Basic Fission Ship Power Plants x10
400 total power produced
60% Meltdown chance, 40 power produced, 19 tons, Cost 250
The Asimov class monitor is designed to operate in system as a garrison ship and with a lack of FTL Drive it is unable to leave the system that it was built in. It costs significantly less than the Phalanx and has 300 numbers assigned to it at the present.

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Phalanx Class FTL Cruiser
1,528 tons, 26,170 cost, 482 power required 432 w/o FTL, 480 power produced
Crew: 112, Engineering: 69, Command: 12, Total Crew: 193
Signature 111 with passive sensors, 126 with active sensors, 234 with all weapons

SPS Sensor Array, Cost 35 x4
Range 12, Acquisition 30%, Detection Range 20 hex, Cost 10, 1 ton
10 Channels, Cost 5
Signature Class 1, Active Mode 20, Passive Mode 5, Cost 10
Resolution Class 1, Standard Res 60, Stealth Res 120, Cost 10

Alpha Armor
 10 EM, 5 Thermal, 30 Collapse, Cost 10, 10 tons

Rolls Royce BNP 103 Basic Nuclear Pulse Engines 3 thrust
162 power per 1,000 tons, cost 200, 300 tons

Raytheon Gen I FTL Drive
Class I, Jump Rating 5, Time/Jump 10 days, Power 50, Cost 500, 150 tons
5 turn Jump delay, Jump Radius 10 hexes

Gouache Class PD Laser x8
Totals: Cost 2,480, 40 crew, 4 engineering, 120 tons, 32 power
Cost 310, 5 crew, 1 engineering per 50 tons
10cm FDR 8, power use 4, cost 60, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal, cost 150
RoF Class II 1 per turn, cost 100

Javelot Class Standard Laser x8 (4 per broadside)
Totals: Cost 2,960, 40 crew, 3 engineering, 48 power, 120 tons
Cost 370, 5 crew, 1 engineering per 50 tons
20cm, FDR 12, 1/2DR 18, 1Dr 24, power 6, cost 120, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal, cost 150
Class II RoF, 1 per turn, cost 100

Assegai Class Capital Laser x4 (2 per broadside)
Totals: 1,600 cost, 20 crew, 2 engineering, 28 power, 60 tons
25 cm, FDR 14, 1/2DR 21, 1DR 28, 7 power, cost 150, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 4 EM, 12 Thermal, Cost 150
RoF Class II, 1 per turn, cost 100


General Electric Basic Fission Ship Power Plants x12
480 total power produced
60% Meltdown chance, 40 power produced, 19 tons, Cost 250
The Phalanx Class Cruiser is designed to project TCN power, as well as being the only thing at present that can protect Nova Earth and Nova Mars. It has the largest broadside of any ship in the TCN and is expected to provide the backbone of the future development of the TCN.

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Denver Class Civilian Freighter
3,320 tons, cost 32,445, 522 power required, 560 power produced
Crew: 26, Engineering: 57, Command 3, Total Crew: 86
Signature 175 with passive sensor, 190 with active sensor, 206 with all weapons

SPS Sensor Array, Cost 35 x2
Range 12, Acquisition 30%, Detection Range 20 hex, Cost 10, 1 ton
10 Channels, Cost 5
Signature Class 1, Active Mode 20, Passive Mode 5, Cost 10
Resolution Class 1, Standard Res 60, Stealth Res 120, Cost 10

Alpha Armor
 10 EM, 5 Thermal, 30 Collapse, Cost 10, 10 tons

Rolls Royce BNP 103 Basic Nuclear Pulse Engines 3 thrust
162 power per 1,000 tons, cost 200, 300 tons

Raytheon Gen I FTL Drive
Class I, Jump Rating 5, Time/Jump 10 days, Power 50, Cost 500, 150 tons
5 turn Jump delay, Jump Radius 10 hexes

Gouache Class PD Laser x4
Totals: Cost 1,240, 20 crew, 2 engineering, 60 tons, 16 power
Cost 310, 5 crew, 1 engineering per 50 tons
10cm FDR 8, power use 4, cost 60, 15 tons
Mid-Infrared 2 EM, 6 Thermal, cost 150
RoF Class II 1 per turn, cost 100

General Electric Basic Fission Ship Power Plants x14
560 total power produced
60% Meltdown chance, 40 power produced, 19 tons, Cost 250

TCPS Standard Size Cargo Hold x28
Totals: 2800 tons, 1400 cost
100 tons, cost 50
The Denver Class is the workhorse of the Terran Confederation both in the private sector and with the TCN.


Terran Confederation Navy Fleet Make Up

Home Fleet:
CN-201 Odysseus, TCN Flagship, Admiral Gerald Schuyler
MN-401 Asimov, Captain Lorena Bevan
MN-402 Clarke, Captain Joseph Amoretto
MN-403 Heinlein, Captain Sandra Van Der Hout
MN-404 Adams, Captain Digby Monet

Colonial Fleet:
CN-202 Heracles, Fleet Flagship, Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Nashwa Sabah
CN-203 Achilles, Captain Milica Piccoli

Scouting Fleet:
EX-101 Enterprise, Captain Stien Robertson
EX-102 Consortium, Captain Jördis Lyon
EX-103 Endeavor, Captain François Eriksson
EX-104 Venture, Captain Caspar Fabbro

Terran Confederation Postal Service (TCPS) Fleet Make Up
4 Denver Class Civilian Freighters
   Denver
   Petersburg
   Frankfort
   Devon


Terran Confederation Army

1st "Marovic's Men" Battalion
1st "CAC" Headquarters Company
1st "North American" Infantry Company
2nd "Ladies From Hell" Infantry Company
3rd "Big Red" Infantry Company
4th "Royal Crown" Infantry Company

[ooc]Edit: It was pointed out to me that I had a few errors in a couple of places from misreading the rules. These are fixed now and reflected above.[/ooc]

[Sematary (OP)]

A couple notes to my readers. Firstly as to when the first update can be expected, it should be Soon^TM. I am just starting five turns in and have 2 star systems completed and 1 partially done. I have two more on top of that to do in the nearish future. Doing each turn is not that time consuming but creating star systems is, though with experience I am finding ways to spend the time more efficiently so that is becoming less of an issue. I haven't decided how much story each update will be but the first one will probably cover all of 2058 which means I have to get through turn 12 and complete the star system that is in progress. This is farther complicated by real life, both the rigors of starting a new job and having my long time partner going in for surgery in less than a week.

[ooc]The next is a note on Cannon vs. Non-Canon. Erik has fleshed out to varying degrees seven factions and several millennia of history. I will be using parts of that cannon while changing other parts. For example the first mission for the Consortium, the Endeavor, and the Venture will go as canon. However the Kal'Shok Dominion will exist in my world but not as warrior bears, which they are canonically. As time goes on I will trend away from cannon as different things happen to the Terran Confederation but any time I use a name that Erik has included in canon and alter what that name stands for I will make a note at the start of the first post that contains information about the change.[/ooc]

So in summation the first update should be coming soon, I am over halfway there but real life is happening, as much as I'd love to devote all my time to playing games and making stories for you guys to read. And while there is an excellent cannon that exists for this game my game will trend away from cannon and if there is at any point a conflict between my story and cannon I will point it out.

[Sematary (OP)]

[ooc]Reading through canon again after writing this I realized that I had accidently changed canon awhile ago when I was creating the NRC. The first technology trade was shields for warpdrive where I had misremembered it as shields for armor. Because of that I gave the NRC first generation FTL and have changed the first meeting a bit.[/ooc]

One of the most significant moments in human history was the return of the TCN Consortium and with it the NRCN Praskovya. It marked the moment of first contact, even though it was contact with other humans, these humans had spent two generations on a space craft and then had three more afterward. Being four to five generations separated from Earth the NRC was sufficiently alien. It was also the beginning of one of the closest alliances in known space. This was in part because the NRC government had allowed Semyon Romanov full representative power with the Terran Confederation and during the travel between Novaya Ruskaya and the Sol system he had learned of several technological differences between the two races.
-Excerpt from Michael Marcsson’s work A History of Early Human Exploration, Chapter 23, First Contact

November 4th, 2258

The Fleet Command Center was not quite finished but his office was and Admiral Gerald Schuyler was tired of the make shift work space he had on the Odysseus. His office window looked out over the Themes River on the outskirts of London. The Terran Confederation had government buildings in most former capitals and major cities and with sub-orbital jets being the most common way to travel now planet sized distances were not a problem, at least not here on Earth, the core of the Confederation. The biggest issue he had facing him at the moment was progress reports on the CN-204 and what he would christen it. A couple of months before it had been decided that the Colonial Fleet was far too small at only two ships and that another Phalanx needed to be laid down. The Phalanx class had a Greek Hero naming scheme and he figured he would christen the ship the Ajax which had the downside of putting three of the four ships in that class named for heroes that fought at the Battle of Troy as told by Homer in the Iliad.

He was shaken from his thoughts as his main comm-line whistled for his attention. He glanced at the flashing ID signature before accepting the transmission. “Yes, Ensign?” The form of Ensign Frakes snapped to attention as was usual for him but Gerald could not help but notice the lines of worry crossing the young man’s face.

“Sir, we just received a transmission from the Consortium. They have returned home and are currently outside the orbit of Saturn and are heading for the Shipyard to be transported home.” The Ensign was direct and confident in his report but the way he was phrasing things made Gerald think there was more to this report. Things were just not adding up.
“What is it, Ensign Frakes? I don’t have all day.” He snapped quite a bit harsher than he had intended to.

“S-s-sir, um, they are reporting that they are not alone. They are reporting that they have a ship called the Praskovya and its commander, a Captain Semyon Romanov, a man who would like to speak with you.”

He was taken aback by this news. Sure it had been assumed that at least one of the generation ships might have found and landed on a good planet by now but this was a bit unsettling to hear that they were already an interstellar nation capable of faster than light travel. As the gears in his head started spinning he kept an impassive face and decided to clarify what the Ensign was telling him before jumping to these conclusions. “Where is this ship from?”

“The ship is from 82 Eridani, sir, apparently from the second planet of the primary of three stars in that system. Although they call both their planet and the system Novaya Ruskaya, which I believe means New Russia.”

“Thank you, Ensign. Keep me updated on the situation. Send a transmission back to the Consortium approving the request of Captain Romanov and while they are traveling in system make sure I have a Russian translator on hand when they arrive. Dismissed.”


November 24th, 2258

Twenty days had passed since the first transmission with the Consortium but they had finally reached orbit and the crew of the Praskovya were eagerly awaiting the chance to be the first of members of their families to visit Russia in five generations. But Admiral Schuyler was more worried about a sub-orbital jet that would be carrying just one passenger, Semyon Ronamov, than he was worried about if he would allow any of the other members of the Praskovya have shore-leave.

When the moment to meet finally arrived, the first thing that crossed through Gerald’s head was how Russian Semyon looked. He was of slightly above average height with close cropped black hair and blue eyes. Gerald slightly chided himself for this, he wasn’t sure what he had expected but the fact that Semyon looked just like a dozen or more Russians who worked here in Fleet Command clearly wasn’t it.

Semyon snapped to attention and saluted Gerald when they had reached a couple of paces apart which amused the Admiral who never the less saluted smartly back. He gestured toward a near by conference room and after the pleasantries were taken care of he began. “Thank you for meeting me Captain, it was quite the surprise to learn that any of the generation ships had survived, let alone thrived as your ship seems to attest to.”

“Thank you Admiral. You do my government a great honor by your words. Our ship landed about sixty years ago on a planet well suited for life, though to be honest there wasn’t much life there. The Praskovya is the crowning achievement of my people and yet it seems that your ships outclass the Praskovya in every way. In a matter of days the Consortium had learned as much about our primary system as we had in several decades. I suspect that had the Consortium stayed in our system for a little longer it would have quickly surpassed our knowledge about our secondary system and surely our tertiary system in a matter of weeks or months. My government has given me full leeway in any and all negotiations we have during the course of this meeting.”

Gerald listened as the translator talked though he knew Russian well enough that he knew what Semyon had said. The translator was a way to allow him more time to think without seeming to. From what Captain Romanov had said he was fairly sure that the Terran Confederation could probably wipe this Commonwealth’s navy off the face of the galaxy if needed but it seemed as if hostilities were not the way they wanted this to go, possibly because they realized now how many ships the Terran Confederation could bring to bear in case of hostilities. “I also have full leeway in these talks. Though if there is something unorthodox put on the table I can quickly consult my government, something you are unable to do for clear reasons. How long will it take for you to return by the way?”

“With our current FTL drive, which seems to be fairly similar to yours, it should take us just shy of two years to return. Part of this is because the instruments on the Consortium that map the routes are just simply not good enough to trace a direct route. Not that we are complaining, without the data from the Consortium it would have taken us five and a half years to travel here even if we had known which star was Sol.”

“I see. Both ships visited what three systems during the trip?”

“Yes we did.”

“I would suggest that we officially set a boundary between our two nations that we can respect. I suggest that the system closest to your home system should become yours while the one closest to Sol becomes ours. The middle system can be shared by both nations until two years after settlement by one or both powers at which time the population of the system should vote on which nation they should join. How does that sound?”

Semyon thought about the offer for awhile before finally nodding. He knew that the Terran Confederation had several colonies including extra-solar colonies while the Commonwealth only had one planet. He also knew that by agreeing to this he was, in effect, ceding control of both systems between Sol and the one the Commonwealth would gain control of. “That is agreeable. I suggest a trade of technologies. On our ship was one of the closest disciples of Wilhelm Jacobs and he improved on Dr. Jacobs early work creating a viable shield system that is not the energy hog that the early models were. On top of trading shield systems I would suggest giving some knowledge about advanced metallurgy which helps keep the costs of our ships down. In exchange all I ask for is the secret to making your ship’s armor and the scientific instruments that the Consortium has.”

[Sematary (OP)]

The First Contact Treaty was signed on December 1st 2258 and was the first interstellar treaty that humanity engaged in. The New Russian Commonwealth gave up much in that treaty that it hadn’t needed to but their representative had grown up on stories of Earth and to see it and even more finally at peace overwhelmed Semyon Romanov. Although much was hammered out and set for a good future relationship, the thing that both sides left the treaty table knowing needed future work was the borders set up by the treaty. At the time of the First Contact Treaty Terran Confederation controlled space and New Russian Commonwealth controlled space were several systems apart and it was a two year trip each way so the boarders didn’t matter much but they knew as FTL drives became better and as each power expanded toward each other there would be problems.
-Excerpt from Andre Beckett’s work, Solar-Politics in the Mid-2200s, Chapter 3 First Contact

December 15th 2258

Gerald was sitting at his desk in the newly completed Fleet Command. He had just gotten word from the Asimov that the Praskovya had successfully entered FTL space and was beginning its long journey back. The Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Adams had escorted the Praskovya to the start of the jump lane in a clear reminder of the strength of the Terran Confederation. He tried to set up a beneficial relationship while not letting the New Russians forget who had the upper hand in this relationship. He knew that the Confederation was not as vastly superior as the Commonwealth was treating them as and he knew all too well that it could change in the future. He brushed those thoughts aside and began to think about the treaty he had signed, the First Contact Treaty as it was being called.

The first bit was standard talk about how friendly communications were formed and talk about going into the future as friendly parties in perpetuity and other flowery diplomatic bullsmeg. Then came the talk about the borders between the two nations. At the moment it was set as a line going directly through Gliese Jahreiß 1061 which lay about halfway between the two, but there was an addendum that stated ten years after the first colonization of GJ 1061 the colonists would vote on which nation they wished to join and the border would be moved toward the losing side’s home star. The next several paragraphs talked about the technology trades between the two groups. The Confederation would provide the Commonwealth with the plans necessary to build armor for their ships and in return the Commonwealth would push Confederation shield technology forward by decades after almost a century of no real improvement by Confederation scientists. Also shared was space based metal working by the Commonwealth in return for Confederation science sensors. The last sections in the treaty talked about opening up for trade between the two but given the time it would take to travel from one place to the other Gerald didn’t figure there would be much trade in the near future.

***************************************

As Admiral Schuyler was busy playing diplomat Colonel Fillin Malone was pouring over the intelligence reports his people had compiled from a month’s worth of long range scanning on the New Russian ship. It was of a class called the Velikij Knjaz’, which an aide helpfully translated as Grand Duke. At 2,616 tons it was over 1,000 tons larger than the Phalanx class FTL cruiser which put it at larger than any Confederation warship currently made. As far as the reports could tell the engines and FTL drive were on about the same level as Confederation ships. The only other thing that could be reported at that time was it had two turrets on top of the ship and two on the bottom which were all probably point defense weapons as well as two guns on each side of the ship, and none of these were lasers. He had been meticulously going through all the logs of communications between the Consortium and all contact they had with New Russians as well as having a team of analysts on it as well. So far their conclusions matched his, that these weapons were some kind of ballistic weapon that fired small solid slugs at their targets.

Using what data he had available he had run dozens of simulations of what their weapons would do to current generation Confederation ships and the results were less than pleasing. Confederation armor dealt with lasers quite well but gave no protection against kinetic weapons but the shields the New Russians had given them would give protection. On the other side of the coin the prototype shields that had already been made gave minimal protection against Confederation lasers, especially as the laser focused on a smaller spot. His report on the New Russian Commonwealth was due to be presented in a few days to the entire brass of the Terran Confederation and at the top of his report would be a recommendation to refit all current TCN ships with shields.

As head of the Terran Confederation Intelligence Agency, Colonel Malone had felt useless up until now and with the Commonwealth ship now gone all he could do was keep going over the limited data over and over again trying to tease some nugget of information out that he may have missed somehow. His biggest regret was that the Commonwealth ship hadn’t engaged in combat within range of the long range scanners on Earth during its stay. Even with extensive study of the ship in a noncombat situation he believed that he had learned almost everything there was to know about it outside of battle.

[Sematary (OP)]

The Alpha Centauri System was colonized in the early 2240s, with two settlements set up in the B component of that system. One of the settled planets was similar to some parts on Earth and had an atmosphere that comprised mainly of nitrogen with enough oxygen to be pleasant; this planet was named Nova Earth. The other planet, Nova Mars, had a thicker atmosphere that was primarily oxygen.  Of the two Nova Earth was more mineral wealthy and was always prioritized by the Confederate government over Nova Mars.
-Excerpt from A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Alpha Centauri, 2455 Edition.

March 2259

Colin Stafford was sitting on a hill near his home watching France, the larger of the two moons of Nova Earth, rise. Almost thirty million people lived on Nova Earth which made it the largest colony other than Mars by about nine million. Most people lived and worked in New London, New Washington, or New Nanjing, Colin considered himself very lucky to be a farmer and live well outside the large cities. His farm was a sprawling affair that covered several hills and valleys in one of the flatter parts of the planet. He had lived on Nova Earth for most of his life but he still remembered some summer nights from his childhood. On evenings such as this one he missed those nights, seeing fireflies light up the yard and hearing the crickets chirping underfoot. Hiroshi Himura, the colonial governor promised that eventually he would petition the Confederation government to ship creatures like that here but so far they were still working on the flora. Nova Earth had been a dead world, no life to speak of in the beginning, but through terraforming that has slowly changed. Most of the settled parts of the world are covered by plants of various kinds, and not all of them are for consumption. It was still unsettling when he took the sub-orbital to one of the cities and he could look out and see the verdant life he was used to seeing was only oases in a world otherwise covered by gray or brown.

As France fully cleared the horizon he spotted the bright light of the orbital shipyard that was in construction pass in front of the moon. A lot of people would get jobs there soon and if the talk in the near by town was accurate this part of the world was about to get a lot emptier. Most people around here were farmers, some were miners but they were from farther away. He remembered in the early days of settling there were a lot of people who tried their hands at farming for the romanticism of it rather than need. Even with the help of modern equipment most of them either failed or realized they missed the bustle of the city and moved on. A similar thing happened last year when the second wave of ten million settlers came from Earth. Most of them had moved on by now but some of them still lived near by and they were interesting people. Even with that surge of people there were still plenty of houses in town and abandoned farm houses dotting the near by country side that marked the failed farmers from the first wave of settlers. A couple of them sat in a state of half renovation due to one of the new settlers buying it cheap and starting to fix it up before giving up and moving to the city.





May 2259

Captain Adrijan Madoc was annoyed. The Ajax was completed months ahead of schedule which was good news, but before it even left its slip at the shipyard it was sent in for refitting. Apparently the brass decided to refit all Phalanx class cruisers with the new shield system those New Russians had provided. Well if anyone had asked Adrijan he would have said not to trust them. Why would they need shields in the first place? On the unlikely chance that his ship ever saw battle it would probably be lasers which was something his ship’s armor took care of. But no one had asked him so he had no one to share his insights with. So instead he just glared at his glass of rakia and slowly drank.

He was one of the few officers in the Terran Confederation Navy that had been promoted to Captain after service on a space ship, he had gotten his start as an Ensign on the Enterprise in charge of the sensor array. He was part of the crew that had explored Alpha Centauri and had charted the FTL jump lanes between Alpha Centauri and Sol. He made full lieutenant after that. Then service in the Deep Space Scanning Facility brought him up to Commander. And just a few months ago he was told he was being promoted to Captain and would command the Ajax, CN-204. Now he was forced to wait another month sitting in a bar near his home city of Dubrovnik as a Captain without a ship. It was humiliation that is what it was. An officer between postings could be forgotten about, something might happen and someone else would get put in temporary command of the Ajax and that would be the first in a career of being passed over.

What he didn't know was something was about to happen, something bigger than anything the Confederation had faced before.

[Sematary (OP)]

June 2259

Filian was in a panic. When the New Russian ship had left he thought he had had very little to go on. Now was infinitely worse. In a closed meeting the night before, the captain and senior officers of the Endeavor had made their report on Alpha Mensae. And it was not good. Not good at all. They had found the Novaya Rostov, or what was left of it, in orbit around Alpha Mensae B-II. The wreck was old, the ship was probably destroyed soon after it entered the system. But more than just the fact that it was a wreck was that it was clearly destroyed by laser fire. Laser fire implied a space faring race.

So he had to figure out roughly how powerful the lasers were that destroyed the craft and then extrapolate almost an entire century of technological development and put it in a briefing. He had a vast amount of data avalible to him, both all logs and sensor readings of the Endeavor but the crew of the Endeavor had also successfully reactivated parts of the computers of the Novaya Rostov and had gotten partial logs from heavily corrupted databases that had shut down decades ago. Then his people had to sift through all of it, firstly to paint a picture of the Alpha Mensae system and then to start reconstructing the moments leading up to the battle and the battle itself, if it could even be called a battle.
The first piece of data that was of vital importance was that within each set of holes going through the ship there was common directionality. If the hull breech went inward on the starboard side of the ship then each bulkhead breech was blown toward port until reaching the port hull where it would be blown out. This consistency was the key to proving the ship was attacked. Next the scarring of the metal of the ship pointed toward large amounts of heat and electromagnetic energy released at each shot which, as far as he knew, was consistent with laser fire. Laser fire in the millions of joules range, which was roughly equal to what the Terran Confederation Navy lasers fired right now. Had this race come to Sol when the Novaya Rostov was in Alpha Mensae… Filian shuttered at the thought.

The ship had been equipped with five shuttles. Two were cargo shuttles that could double as lifeboats if it was in system, two were science shuttles and one was a personnel transport shuttle. One of the science shuttles was missing and no sign of it could be found on the planet nor any of the moons of the planet. The shuttle didn’t have the range to go to any of the other planets in the system so it was most likely that the shuttle had surprised the attacking ship and was either destroyed outright or badly damaged and put into a decaying orbit to have long burned up. There had been in excess of 50,000 people on that ship and the thought of them being destroyed like that, completely helpless kept going through his mind. The only thing left of them was a wreck in low orbit and fragmented messages that were mostly text. Had the Endeavor never been sent out then the fate of these people and the warning they now serve might never have been discovered.


Fleet Command

Gerald was about as put out as Filian was. Only Filian had a lot of data to run through and the expertise to start adding to the picture they had so little of. He wasn’t satisfied with waiting though, something had to be done, answers needed to start coming. And that was why Captain François Eriksson and Commander Lynton Karol were currently sitting on the other side of his desk. “I know you guys just arrived back home after a very long deployment and that closed meeting last night lasted for a very long time and you undoubtedly want to see your families but I am going to have to ask that you hold off just a little while longer. Please run me through your account again. I will have more questions afterward but start with arriving in system.”

Lynton nodded and began, “I am going to start a little before jumping in system if you don’t mind, sir. The last stop we had before reaching Alpha Mensae was Luyten 97-12 and it was there that the navigation computer plotted the route to Alpha Mensae. We had a fairly good idea of when we would arrive in system and it was in the middle of one of my watches. When the FTL drive started getting ready to take us out of warp space I called Captain Eriksson to the bridge and he officially ended my watch and asked me to remain on the bridge. This took all of about ten minutes and in another ten we began dropping out of warp space and reentering normal space. The first thing I noticed when we entered normal space was how close we were to the star. We were a lot closer than planned and then it became apparent that we were dropped where we were because there was an empty orbit and then a semi-sparse asteroid belt so there was none of the normal things that would push out how far from the star we would appear. The second thing that became apparent was that Alpha Mensae is a binary system but the second star doesn’t orbit very far from the primary.

“We discovered that the primary star had a single planet around it and that is where we headed first. As we passed through the asteroid belt and started our final approach of the planet it started becoming clear that there was sentient life on the planet which raised our hopes. Not only was it sentient life but it seemed to all be contained to a single area on the planet which is what we expected. But as we got closer it became more and more clear that firstly this planet was not inhabited by an advanced society which didn’t discount the settlers of the Novaya Rostov, but secondly the planet was filled with thin green skinned humanoids, and I use the term humanoids loosely. We studied their planet for a few days before making our way to the B star of the system.

“The B component has a large asteroid cloud starting at about 13 AU and going all the way out to 26 AU, which is over half way to the A component, and its similar to the Oort Cloud. After passing through the cloud there is only empty space until you get to a gas giant that orbits 3.6 AU from the star. Then there are four rocky planets getting closer to the star. The farthest of these planets has a thin CO2 atmosphere then there is one with a very dense oxygen atmosphere but it has a very high gravity, close to twice that of Earth.

“The second planet from the star orbits at about 0.8AU and is one of the most Earth like planets out there, or at least so I assume. It is a little smaller than Earth but its got Earth normal gravity, a geology similar to Earth, temperatures that are very similar to Earth, an atmosphere that is very close to the same density and make up as Earth’s as well as weather patterns that are familiar. And about 70% of the planet’s surface is covered in liquid water. The biggest difference is the planet has 21 moons. This was the most habitable planet in the system even beating out the planet in the A component so we knew they should be here if they had reached the system. Our sensors swept the planet and the moons for days while every view screen was pointed to a different part of the sky, about four days into the search our helmsmen, Sub-Lieutenant Asil Murphy, pointed out a bright light passing into the dark part of the planet. When it had fully left the star’s light, this light winked out so we were pretty sure we had it. A sensor sweep of the area confirmed that.”

Gerald had heard the story the night before but it was still moving. He knew that the commander was only sticking to the facts but the expressions on both the captain and the commander’s faces told of the hope they had felt when they had found the Novaya Rostov and before they had investigated. “Why were the sensors unable to pick up the ship before you had visually sighted it?”

This time it was Captain Eriksson who started talking, “The sensor array can only scan ten things at once and we had half of the channels dedicated to trying to detect life or signs of inhabitation. After four days of scanning the planet’s surface we had detected several species but none of them appeared sentient and none of them were human. Four of the remaining five channels were dedicated to searching the moons while only one was tasked to scan for anything orbiting the planet. The array would have found the wreckage eventually but it would have been many more days.”

To be continued.

[Sematary (OP)]

“We found the ship in shambles, everything was long destroyed but at the same time since it was in vacuum, it was preserved perfectly. Our science officer pointed out that the ship would have saved enough power when it shut down to reopen the solar panels so we could recharge the ship and see what still worked. We found the computer was still in pretty good shape and we were able to download large sections of the logs. The automated sensor logs show that soon after their science shuttle left the ship an unknown ship appeared in system and made a direct course for the Novaya Rostov. It appears that it took the crew almost ten minutes to realize they had a ship approaching them, not that they could do anything. The battle, if that is what you want to call it, lasted less than two minutes. The alien ship ran circles around the Rostov, quite literally, blowing holes into it the entire time. After two minutes it stopped, waited nearby for a couple of hours, and then it passed by the inhabited planet and then jumped out of system again. By this point all of the logs are automated and tell of the computer slowly shutting down the ship system by system saving power for the life support that had stopped functioning with the first couple of laser blasts before finally shutting down. “



CN Ajax

“Lieutenant, prepare to fire full port broadside.”

Lt. Jenifer Newman punched in the last couple of commands on her console and then answered, “Aye, aye sir. Port guns ready to fire full broadside.”

Captain Adrijan Madoc smiled in spite of himself, he had been waiting for this moment for far too long. “Fire.”

The ship rocked to its side as four Javelot class lasers and two Assegai class capital lasers fired. The main display screen on the bridge was looking off the port side and showed in great detail the asteroid they were firing at explode from the force of the lasers. “Helm, combat roll. Lt. Newman, fire full starboard broadside the moment we have finished the roll.”

The main display showed a lot of movement as the ship rotated 180 degrees but Captain Madoc didn’t feel a thing as the artificial gravity kept down facing the same way. As soon as the display stopped moving, the ship rocked again in a satisfying way as the second broadside was fired. “Now fire all point defense lasers. Fire.”

The Ajax was in the middle of her shakedown cruise and so far the ship held up perfectly. If there was anything to complain about it was the fact that the entire crew was just out of the academy, but that was something that plagued all ships of the TCN. Even the shields held up just fine, and Adrijan was pleased to be the officer who figured out that the shields were permeable in one direction. As he fired the shields let the laser fire through without impediment while stopping all fire coming from the outside of the shields. It was a completely unexpected discovery because no one had stopped to think about the question before the answer was found.

When the cruise was finished, assuming there were no problems found, the Ajax would deploy to Alpha Centauri B to take up a posting with the Colonial Fleet. The Colonial Fleet was a bit of a joke though, the Ajax would make the third ship in the so called fleet, it was barely a squadron let alone a fleet. The shipyard orbiting Nova Earth should be finished by now so the Ajax would bring the schematics for shields and the Colonial Fleet would upgrade there rather than coming to Earth to be upgraded.


Department of Research and Development, Earth

Jiang Huang considered himself a scientist first and foremost. He could visualize math problems just solving themselves, the universe was just sitting there waiting for him to pluck each thread and unravel the mysteries. The greatest tragedy, at least as far as the young man was concerned, was he had to remind himself of that every day. He was not living as he wanted, shut away in some lab solving the mysteries of the universe, no he was stuck behind a desk. They called him director and heaped praise on him as if they should be so lucky as he, yet they were the free ones. As his staff got to be in labs and dusty rooms, he got to sit at a desk and use his great talent at math for accounting. Here he was, one of the best scientists Earth had ever produced, and how was his talent used? He did simple math, all day, every day.

Ok, to be fair that was stretching the truth a little if he was being completely honest with himself. This week hadn’t been spent doing any accounting, he had spent every moment going over the findings for an upgrade to the computer systems for TCN ships. The most intriguing part of the upgrade was its possible application. Electronic warfare was just outside their reach now. The paper looked good and the prototype showed consistently better performance than the current generation of computers so he signed off on it and sent it to the High Command.

As close as electronic warfare was now, it would have to wait. The next project he would have his staff work on was how to make missiles a viable weapon in this age of lasers and mass cannons. Missiles hadn’t been used since before the creation of the Confederation and what few nuclear weapons were left were woefully inadequate for the present. In the eighty years since the Middle Kingdom attacked the PacFed with nuclear missiles, technology had advanced so far so fast that he was sure his great grandparents who fought in that last brutal war wouldn't believe possible things that he took for granted today.

[Sematary (OP)]

November 2259

Captain Stien Robertson watched as one of the last pallets of supplies was dropped off next to the cargo airlock. A week ago he had been called in to a meeting with Captain Lyon and Captain Eriksson with Naval High Command. They had gotten new orders, his ship, the Enterprise, would be traveling to Tau Ceti just shy of eleven and a half light years away. The trip out would take them over three years, which was the longest trip any of the ships were taking. The Endeavor’s trip out would only be just over a year, for a comparison. His crew had been without assignment since they charted Alpha Centauri so it was time to get a new assignment but he knew it would be hard on them being gone for so long.

They had said their goodbyes to family and friends, updated all the paperwork incase anything happened to the Enterprise on the trip and they didn’t make it back. They had just gotten to the shipyard yesterday to start loading the ship. The newest piece of equipment added to the ship was just placed in the galley a couple hours ago. In the early 2000s the United States had created a printer capable of producing food, but with those turbulent times the technology was never put into mass production and was lost for quite awhile. Earlier this year someone had apparently found a prototype of it buried somewhere and the technology was refined and improved and now each of the three exploration ships were given prototypes of it in addition to enough food to last them the duration of their missions. If it worked as promised they would have a very large varied diet available to them, if not they would have a lot of freeze dried meals and meals out of tubes and other such things once the fresh food ran out. Needless to say, Stien was really hoping it worked for the duration.

He flipped through his informational packet on Tau Ceti, it was a type G star, solitary, and was very similar to the Sun. In the last 250 years there has been evidence of at least five planets in orbit of the star, with one or two of them possibly in the zone of habitation of the star. Back when the various nations of Earth had the time and resources to waste on frivolities, there was a program called SETI which kept putting Tau Ceti very high on their list of places aliens could live. None of it was ever proven and the Veruiak on Alpha Mensae A I are the only directly observed aliens ever discovered and they were discovered just last year. Looking up he noticed the last pallet was now sitting empty which meant it was time to do the pre-cast off inspection.

The inspection went without issue and so far the printer was working. Everything was ship shape and all hands reported ready. Sitting in the Captain’s chair he looked over his bridge crew and opened up the intercom, “Crew, we are about to embark on the longest mission any human crew has ever embarked on. The closest to our journey was the journey of Ferdinand Magellan in 1519-1522. That crew completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth with their journey being almost a year shorter than our journey out to Tau Ceti. We don’t know what to expect when we get there but know there is a high probability of at least two planets that could support life and we may discover at least one race of aliens. I trust our ship and you, the crew, to get us through anything that happens. We are one of the best crews in the Terran Confederation Navy and we will prove it with this journey.”

He flipped the intercom off and took a deep breath. “Commander Kelley, report.”

Commander Kelley, the first officer, turned and stood at attention for a second before starting his report. “All departments report ready, everything stowed and ready for departure. All systems ready, weapons are currently offline. Engines ready to take us out past the asteroid belt. FTL engines are standing by to bring us into Warp Space once we reach our departure coordinates. Navigation has plotted the course and has already done all expected corrections due to the time it will take us and possible gravitational pull by near by stars. In short, we are waiting on your command to begin.”

Stien nodded. “Good. Helmsman take us out. Engage.”


December 2259
Fleet Command, Earth

The Venture had just returned to Earth, two months later than expected. It was the last of the three Enterprise class ships that had been sent out two years ago to discover the fate of the Russian generational ships. Gerald was just glad that this was the last one, after the return of the Endeavor he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what the Venture had found.

Captain Caspar Fabbro sauntered into the debriefing room, he was a wide brimmed hat away from being a total fool. “Admiral Schuyler, Rear Admirals.” He said in way of greeting.

‘Even his accent seems foolish’ Gerald couldn’t help but think as he started.

“The Venture has returned from 61 Ursae Majoris. We bring back news of the ship Novaya Muscovy, the largest of the Russian generational ships, which left in 2086. After a long and treacherous voyage we reached the system only to be accosted within an hour of getting there. There is a government calling itself the Ursae Republic that controls the system and is apparently the descendants of the Russians. They are very isolationist and in the two months we stayed there we were never allowed even into the asteroid belt that rings the outer most part of the system. They said that the belt represents the outside of their control and if we ever pass it, they would consider that an act of war. If we feel the need to send trading ships sometime in the future they will be allowed to go to bases on the outside of the belt and unload everything they have. After two months it was clear that the trading ships would be the only concession we would get. One other thing we were able to negotiate was if they claim another system they would inform us so we did not try to settle it ourselves.”

Gerald looked at the Admirals around him to see their reactions to this report. He was glad to see a few small frowns, at least he was not the only one. This man sauntered into this room and acted like he had single handedly created the best advancement in inter-stellar diplomacy ever and this was all he had. Gerald had half a notion to demote the fool right there and then for his insolence, but to be fair he had followed his orders so Gerald couldn’t demote him.

‘Thank you, Captain Fabbro. That is all you are dismissed.” Gerald said through clenched teeth and watched as the captain left the room. He looked at the assembled staff, “What are we going to do about this republic?”

Rear Admiral McGinnis shrugged her shoulders, “I am not sure there is much we can do. The two choices we have are to either go to war with them and try to crack them open, or we can wait and see if they shed off their isolationism.”

“Agreed. Lets break for the night and reconvene in the morning to discuss this more. Even if its just to agree to officially wait and see.”

[Sematary (OP)]

When representatives of the Commonwealth of Greater Europe, the Middle Kingdom, the North American Federation, the Saharan Commonwealth, the Republic of Africa, the Republica de Bolivar, and the Pacific Federation first met in Birmingham, England Province to create the Birmingham Accords which lead to the Terran Confederation, they set up several things that lasted long into the early days of the Terran Confederation. One of the biggest things was the seven mega-nations still existed through the 2200s, as the largest political subdivisions of the Terran Confederation on Earth. There was also a council created that headed the government of the Terran Confederation in these Accords. At first this council was made up of two members from each of the nation but that did not last very long and by the time of the 2250s the top several hopefuls from each nation would do a planet wide election.

The council would meet outside Birmingham every year, every five years, and every decade to go over the length of time that had gone by and to set up guidelines for the next length of time. The five and ten year meetings in 2260 was the first time they had to deal with alien life.

-Excerpt from Samuel Wexler’s work, The Development of a Pan-Earth Government, Chapter 28, Early Confederation Structure.

January 15th 2260
Birmingham, England Provence, CGE

Gerald paced the room, it was the second week of the meeting of the Council and they were starting into the five year segment. He was supposed to have been called in a couple hours ago and yet here he was pacing the rug threadbare. He considered going over the papers he had on his tablet again, but he knew every page almost word for word. The dark wood of the walls and floor was doing nothing to help his mood either. There were plenty of small lights in the room but the only real amount of light that seemed to come in was one window that took up a decent portion of the small outside wall of the room.

Finally a young woman walked into the entry way of the room. “Admiral, they are ready for you. Please come with me.” She said softly while indicating down one of the hallways. Gerald nodded and started walking with her down the same hallway he walked down every year. The house was about four hundred years old and was reminiscent of a castle. At the end of the hallway stood a large doorway with men in tailored suits and white gloves standing on either side of the door, Gerald couldn’t help but noticing the small discreet pistols these doormen had tucked away. As Gerald and the woman approached the door, the two men opened the doors in unison and a step away from the door the woman stopped to the side of the walkway and bowed to Gerald as he walked through.

The door quietly shut behind him as he sat in the single seat at a table in the middle of the room. The councilmen sat in chairs behind a large desk set quite a bit higher than the table Gerald was in. It was all about power but Gerald thought it was stupid. He set his tablet down and connected it to the table, the large screen behind him, and the screens that were in front of each councilman. Then he waited to begin.

Finally the head of the council said “Admiral Schuyler, please tell us the current state of the Navy and how that has changed over the last five years.”

“Currently the Navy is at the largest it has ever been. We have four Enterprise class exploration ships, one of which just finished its first mission and the other three have been deployed for their second mission. The main fleet in the Sol system has one FTL cruiser and four monitors. The Colonial fleet in Alpha Centauri has three FTL cruisers and with the completion of the shipyard at Nova Earth earlier this year, they can start making monitors there and the FTL cruisers can become the core of a fleet to project our power. We are in the process of designing a missile armed ship that should be ready to prototype later this year and in the next couple of months the Department of Research and Development has promised us they will have missile technology that will be handed to a couple of corporations for designs on missiles.” Gerald knew they knew most of that, since a lot of the things he just covered had happened in the last year most of this was covered last week. But what they were going to ask next wasn’t, they were going to start setting goals for the next five years.

He watched passively as the members of the Council perused his reports, and some of them talked between themselves quietly. Then came the council wide discussion on their screens that they went through before addressing him again. The Head of the Council looked at him again and started talking, “Thank you Admiral, that was most illuminating. In your opinion, what should the goals of the Terran Confederation Navy be for the next five years?”

And there it was. Time to put on his game face, he had to sell them on his plan because if he failed that they could veto any or all of it. “I believe that since we have made contact with two populations of the Russian generational ships and have confirmed one spices of aliens with strong indications of a second we have to switch gears a bit.” That was only meant as a pause but the Head interrupted him.

“What do you suggest we switch to?”

“Firstly we should map near by systems, something that our Enterprise class are doing, and will do for the next 2-3 years before being able to return to report on just a single system each. We should settle those systems as our resources will permit. Combined with this we should aggressively expand our naval forces and get ready for the possibility of inter-stellar conflict in the near future. Research and Development should focus on bettering FTL drives, scientific instrumentation on exploration ships, and power production in that order. Currently the top speed of our FTL drives is just over 36 times the speed of light but Dr. Huang has told me that speeds of over 45 times the speed of light are not too far outside our capabilities. Just improving that would bring the trip to Alpha Centauri, the closest system to here, from 120 days to just under 100 days. And remapping that FTL corridor with better scientific instruments would drop that time even more. Right now if I give an order to ships in Alpha Centauri its four months before they get them and then another four months before I learn that they have gotten the message. Rear Admiral Nashwa Sabah currently has almost total autonomy due to the extreme delay in giving orders.”

And again, as soon as he stops speaking the council starts its talking and calculations that were sure to benefit them as much or more than anything they decided would benefit the TCN and by extension all of Humanity. Well Terran Confederation Humanity, at least. After awhile it was clear that they had reached a decision.

“At this time the Council of the Terran Confederation approves of this plan. Thank you Admiral, please see yourself out.”

[Sematary (OP)]

In 2260 there were just shy of 1 billion humans living in the Terran Confederation. Of those just shy of 800 million lived on Earth which was only a tenth of the population prior to the start of World War III. Excluding Earth the Sol system had 132.8 million people on it. Seventeen and a half of those lived on the moon, and 42.5 lived on Mars and the rest lived on the moons of Jupiter.

 Of the four moons that were settled Europa was the oldest and largest settlement of them. In 2260 it transitioned from a small colony to a medium colony as it passed 21 million people. As the Terran Confederation started relying more and more on Europa being the gateway to the Galilean moons, there was increasing pressure for them to show it somehow.
-Excerpt from Samuel Wexler’s work, Development of Colonial Identities, Chapter 2 Europa


March 2260
Europa

Jack Wexler walked out of his house pulling his fur coat tight to him. Europa’s atmosphere had been terraformed quite well but the temperature was apparently out of the terraformers capabilities. Europa was quite a cold moon, and today was no different. Jack was on his way to work, he was an operator for a mining dump. He controlled the landings and take offs of various cargo planes. A decent job on a decently rich moon. Io had more mineral wealth but Europa had the population to offset Io’s wealth differential.

Here in the colonies it was all about centralization. The mine shafts mined the minerals and then it was put in a central dump for the mine. Then the mines would load it into crawlers and bring it to landing pads where airships would bring it to regional landing pads. Then cargo planes would pick them up and bring them to the airstrip that Jack worked at. The last part was it would be shipped by rail to a small space port where small commercial ships would pick it up and bring most of the minerals to Earth. The rest of them would stay here on Europa.

As Jack walked into the building he waved to the woman behind the desk. She looked up at him, her badge slightly glinted in the light as she buzzed him through. He set his briefcase down next to his chair as he took his coat off and hung it up. “Morning Evan, any news?” He asked his coworker.

“Nothing really. At least not for here. Just normal traffic today. In other news though, they are breaking ground on the new defense installation later today.” Evan said as he turned back away from Jack and started looking at the set of controls in front of his station. It crossed Jack’s mind that if their headsets weren’t wireless then they would get quite tangled as the two of them often turned around and even switched stations throughout the day.

Jack had forgotten that the Confederation had just started construction of a defense installation on Europa. It would still be over four years before it was completed but soon it should be visible from here. Europa was flat enough that in most parts of the moon it was only the curvature that blocked line of sight. It was an honor sort of, not even Mars had an installation like this. Europa would be the home of the second one ever built. From what Jack had heard a full battery fire from one of these would vaporize any ship the Confederation had ever seen. The Confederation was making Europa the de facto capital of the Galilean moons by doing that, something that might anger the other moons but Jack figured it would go well with the Europans.

He sat down in his chair, put on his headset, and looked at his control panel. Thirty seven ships would be landing today, another twenty would be taking off to go back to the regional landing pads. While that was a high number, he had faced worse days. Today would just be a busy one.



April 2260
Nova Earth

The seasons passed with regularity on this planet. Colin was busy preparing for the winter which would be harsh but livable. He was considering joining the orbital construction crews for the winter. The shipyard was getting ready to start its first ship, an Asimov class monitor, the only ship the TCN had that was not capable of faster than light travel and therefore had to be built in the system it would stay in. He had read about this in the news just delivered from the Sol system. Apparently the navy felt the need to expand considerably and that included building a number of Asimov class ships here in the Alpha Centauri system. Eventually the Phalanx class cruisers would be reassigned when they were no longer needed.

He would miss his farm if he did do the construction though. That was the biggest downside to it. He could deal with the snow, and the storms, and his truck would be fine, the air pillow on his truck was set large enough to make sure he got over everything. Though it wasn’t set as high as some of the kids around here who would go off road over very muddy areas at top speed. If something came up too suddenly then they’d get stuck. That was another thing he’d miss. His biggest worry was some dumb kid would go pull a crazy stunt and Colin and some of the other men would have to go rescue the kid. That is not how it worked in the orbital housing. No there you had to worry about the vacuum, the air, the heat, the orbit destabilizing. Even if he was lucky enough to land one of the gigs where he took a sub-orbital up to the shipyards every day and back down again at the end of it there would still be all the worries that come with living in a city.

No he liked it just fine here in the country far from the cities, but the orbital job did pay well and until the spring he would have to subsist on what he had. He had enough food put away to feed his family even if the winter ran long but every year it was a struggle to see if he would be able to stretch his credits far enough to make it to his first harvest. He really needed to get enough together for some greenhouses. If he could keep selling through the winter that would bring in a lot of extra money. There were some greenhouses and hydroponics in the cities but other than that there was a lot of canned and packaged food that was eaten by the city dwellers. But every time he started to get some money saved up for them a winter would run long or something would break down and that savings would be decimated. This summer he would just have to take the hit and get a loan. That is what he decided. And he would go up and do that construction job, maybe he could save enough from that to help. It was considered hazardous pay so he should get a pretty penny, and if he lived on the shipyard not only would he not have a place to spend his money but he would get extra for hazardous living conditions. Maybe he could even get enough to put up a couple greenhouses without getting a loan.

[Sematary (OP)]

The Monarch Missile Cruiser was the first change in the Terran Confederation Naval doctrine since the advent of lasers. Missiles had been the main weapon of humans from the 1950s until the 2190s when lasers made missiles obsolete. Then missiles were brought back into TCN use with the new missiles. The biggest problem was sensor range was so limited using lasers was like bringing a pistol to a knife fight while the new missiles were like bringing a sniper rifle to the knife fight.
-Excerpt from unknown work on TCN tactics.

May 2260
Earth Orbital Shipyard 1

Lieutenant John Frakes sat down in the chair as he looked around expecting someone to come running up or his tablet would start buzzing. When nothing happened, it felt like he started melting into the chair. This month had been busy as hell for him, for all of Admiral Schuyler’s staff. And now this was his first chance since he went up to the shipyard to have some peace and quiet without going to sleep. It had been probably a couple of weeks since his last moment to himself.

The month started off with the submissions for the new missile cruiser that the TCN would be fielding. The design that won was designated the Monarch class, and for the Republican’s peace of mind it wasn’t made clear if Monarch referred to the butterfly or the ruler of a kingdom. The Monarch was almost twice the size of the Phalanx and would take twice as long to build, but building them would wait a year and three months. Both Earth shipyards and the shipyard at Mars had just laid down the hulls of three Phalanxes that would join at least two of the three in Alpha Centauri to form the Expeditionary Fleet. As the shipyard of Nova Earth built Asimovs they would form the Alpha Centauri Fleet with the term Colonial Fleet being removed from use at present.

The Expeditionary Fleet would be tasked with being the offensive part of the TCN fleet and would most likely include at least one or two of the first Monarch class ships. The fleet had to be ready for operations by the time the first of the Enterprises on mission came back to Sol. At the present it was very clear that the TCN had no real measure of projecting its forces past the systems they already controlled and the Expeditionary Fleet would change that.

John chuckled to himself as his mind kept thinking about work during this one brief moment to relax. He couldn’t help it, he had dedicated his life to being a staffer of the TCN Fleet Command since he broke the news of the New Russian Commonwealth to the Admiral last year. This assignment to the shipyards was proof that his dedication was not going unnoticed. He was commanding a small group of ensigns who were liaising between the shipyard and the Admiralty over the building of the ship being built at Earth Orbital Shipyard 1. If he could conduct himself well in this posting it would probably mean a promotion for him and more responsibility in running parts of the navy.

He closed his eyes for what only seemed like a second but his tablet told him it had been ten minutes as the chiming woke him up. It seemed like he was needed in the inner most ring of the Administration rings, something was up with the ship. It would take him almost half an hour to traverse all the rings to get to the center most one. The shipyard was made up of several sets of rings with each ring smaller than the one outside it, and each one inside spun slightly faster than the one farther out to keep each section at 1G, and each set of rings rotated in opposite directions because of something called angular momentum or something like that. Sure they could put artificial gravity on the station but it was seen as a waste of power. With that thought he slowly pulled himself out of the chair and started briskly walking toward the inner ring.
Department of Research and Development, Earth

Dr. Jiang Huang watched the sun set as he cut into his steak. The glass of hard apple cider at his left was about half gone. The water in front of him had gone from a deep blue to every shade of red, orange, and purple he could imagine. It was very peaceful sitting on his balcony with no one else around for the first time in too long. Currently the only way to reach him would be to either break down his door or he supposed if the Confederation wanted him bad enough they could air drop some people in. Not that he actually expected them to do that, he was entitled to some private time.

As Director of the only TCN research facility most days and weeks and months were busy for Jiang. He was reading grant proposals and papers to be published daily, as well as doing all of the millions of things an administrator does. Most of the staff at the facility worked on their own research knowing that the TCN liked to keep a lot of researchers around in case the needs of the military turned to require their knowledge. All research facilities had a publish or die approach to their researchers and the Department of Research and Development was no different. Jiang only had so much money he could spend every year on nonmilitary research.

This past month had been even worse than most though, not only was the research into electronic warfare starting strong but he also had to spent far too much time on a committee deciding which of the designs for the new missile cruiser would be the one that would be accepted by the TCN. And next month Jiang will have to head a different committee because he spotted the largest downside of the Monarch, it could only fire 5 of its tubes twice and the last tube could only fire once. That would work fine for a single battle because the Monarch was only supposed to be supporting fire, even more since it lacked any weapons other than its six missile tubes. There needed to be a collier that could carry a lot of missiles for resupply for the Monarch.

Next month and possibly for a few months after the civilian design corporations would submit designs for the new collier and Jiang would have to sort through the designs and when he had picked one Admiral Schuyler would have final say on his design and could make him pick a different one but after his contributions and after his time on the Monarch committee he was fairly sure that the Admiral would accept any design he would put forward.

[Sematary (OP)]

The Romans had names for only three days in each month. Every other day was measured by how far it was away from the closest named day. One of those days was the 15th of each month, the Ides of that month. The Ides was a day that important things were said to have happened and this idea was bolstered by a Shakespeare play about Julius Caesar. In 2260 this idea was given another bolstering with the Battle of Alpha Centauri being fought on August 15th 2260. From first contact until the end of the battle was about sixty seconds, a time that places the battle as one of the shortest humanity has ever fought, but it marked the first time the Terran Confederation had ever fired a weapon at living targets and it started a war that would not stop until far too many living targets had been killed.
-Excerpt from Franklin Moore’s work, Warfare in the Space Age, Chapter 2.

July 2260
Novaya Ruskaya, 82 Eridani

Semyon was floored as he entered orbit of his home planet after four years being away from it. Three of the moons had been settled and even the moon of another planet in the system. The Novaya Muscovy Freight Company had apparently supplied the space and charged the government decent prices. Then there was the ship being built in orbit, it would bring the fleet up to enough to ensure safety of their home planet and the settled moons. It wasn’t much to be sure but when he had left his ship had accounted for 33% of the entire fleet and now it was months away from being only 25% of the entire fleet. Off the port side of his ship the Aprosinya commanded by Commodore Arkady Pajari was starting to peel off from escorting the Praskovya from the jump lane home. They settled into low orbit as the crew prepared to disembark and report for debriefing, something Captain Romanov hoped wouldn’t take too long. His men had been away from their families for far too long. His debriefing would probably last days but he might be able to see his family during that time.

Soon the first sub-orbital had come and gone with about a fifth of the crew. The first ones home was his weapons crews, they had not been needed and had gotten their stations stowed quite awhile ago. Semyon and the six other bridge officers would be the last to leave and he would hand off command to the ship to the relief crew at that point. That crew would also form the core of the new ship under construction and this would serve as their first chance out of the simulators and actually stand on a ship.

The first several days passed in a blur or so it seemed to Semyon. The first thing that had been gone over was the First Contact Treaty, or so the Terran Confederation had called it. Every word of it was gone over with a fine toothed comb and every decision he made had been picked over with the same in-depth analysis of the diplomats and politicians. In the end Semyon was fairly sure that it was his lack of experience in diplomatic matters that saved his skin. Everyone knew the Commonwealth had gotten the raw end of the deal and the Confederation would probably be able to settle Gliese 1061 with enough settlers to force the vote their way long before the Commonwealth could. But the technical specifications were poured over and were heralded as the largest single leap of technology the New Russian Commonwealth ever had. Already it seemed that a new class was being developed and all ships would eventually be sent in for refits to employ this new armor, but not until at least after the new ship was finished.

15 August 2260
24 Light Minutes from Alpha Centauri B

Chief Warrant Officer Ryan Day was jittery to say the least. The alien craft had transitioned out of the wormhole five days ago and the Colonial Fleet had left within hours to investigate and the whole time both the colony and the fleet had been trying to hail whatever had come through ever since. With no answer and the craft clearly a warship all hands had been called to battle stations. His laser crew was about to become one of the first crews to ever fire in real combat situations. Ryan stood up and looked at his men, “Ok boys, this is it. The first battle of the Terran Confederation is about to happen and fate has decided to pick us to be among those lucky few. For any of you who might be feeling nervous right about now remember you have done what you are about to do thousands of times. Every button press, every calculation, everything, you have done it until you dreamed about it and then you have done it more. Until the moment that bulkhead,” he motioned to the hull nearby, “blows out into space, treat this exactly like the simulator. And don’t worry about what to do if the bulkhead blows out, we won’t have time to do anything.”

After his pep talk he checked every station and had last minute diagnostics run on the targeting and firing systems. Then he returned to his station and reported ready. He knew the next part would be the worst. The Heracles, the Ajax, and his ship the Achilles knew they were on an intercept course but the exact location of the intruder was a mystery. Until that mystery was solved all hands were to remain at battle stations all systems ready.

Ryan was still feeling sharp when his station displayed passive sensor confirmation of the location of the alien vessel, and soon after the active sensor turned on and confirmed. Target lock data was fed into the computers and the order popped up on the screen. “FIRE!” He roared and he heard the ever raising hum of the capacitors as they charged up and fired. He watched through his screen as his Assegai class capital laser hit the ship along with the other capital laser and only one of the four Javelot class standard lasers. The lasers hit the shield which while it held did not fully stop the three lasers, and the armor under it started giving away. At least he thought it was armor, it was hard to tell the ship seemed to be made out of this odd substance. He pushed back the stray thought as a flash of electromagnetic energy appeared just inside the hull where his laser had hit.

It was hard to tell what damage had been done after the lasers penetrated the hull but the ejection of two relatively large masses, that he figured could only be power plants, gave a clue as to what some of the damage was. His view disappeared right after the ejection as the ship did a combat roll. He switched screens in time to see the Ajax do a full broadside to compliment the Achilles’ second broadside. This time the shield collapsed almost immediately under the force of two capital laser hits and seven standard laser hits; the armor didn’t seem to fair much better for that matter. Right after the lasers hit, Ryan noticed two explosions coming from somewhere inside the ship, most likely more damaged power plants that weren’t ejected for some reason.

“Ok men, that was a good first blow. I don’t think they will be able to give much back. Lets get ready for our second time.” But that order didn’t come. Instead the three ships slowed from combat speed and started flying toward the enemy ship. This was not something Ryan knew what to do about. It flew in the face of everything he could think of.