Turn 40 - Summer 2184/3034
WCDC Defense Council:
[] Project Byzantium: active
Time: 6 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 6, Roll 1d100: 88+5+5 = 98 - Artificial Crit Success (Bonus to all military R&D, Bonus to Space Combat R&D)
Roll 2 of 6, Roll 1d100: 94+5+5 = 104 - Artificial Crit Success
Roll 3 of 6, Roll 1d100: 65+5+5 = 75 - Success
Roll 4 of 6, Roll 1d100: 96+5+5 = 106 - Crit Success
With most of the weapon systems taken care of and the final design for the Advanced Jump Drive meant for the Belisarius not yet available, the team working on the behemoth of a spacecraft began to address some issues that bothered a substantial number of people in the Defense Council, the massive need for supplies and maintenance needed for the warship. One of the methods to cope with this problem would to increase the cargo space for spare parts and any parts needed for maintenance, but doing so would only move the problems with logistics. On top of this, the Belisarius already had cargo space for about 300ktonnes of material, from munitions, over replacement parts to consumables.
Instead of increasing the size of the cargo space, the project team instead reduced that cargo space by 100ktonnes to install a compact refinery and fabricator setup that had come out of the Von Neumann Project. This system, when combined with a few compact mining drones, though conventional small craft would be sufficient, could mine a small asteroid and make use of the material to fabricate everything, from munitions, over spare parts to upgrades. With internal stores for up to 35ktonnes of raw materials and the refinery engaged, the fabricator system could replace the complete missile load out of the Belisarius within two weeks, ans supply vessels within its Task Group with parts and munitions. This would almost completely remove the Belisarius, and vessels with similar setups, from the logistics train, outside of food for the crew.
Concerning the crew size, a crew of 862, as listed in the original documents of the Belisarius, was simply perceived as too large. Robots specially designed for maintenance could replace many the technicians, outside of those needed for supervision, while automation of the important system and expert system for their control, could further reduce the size of the crew. In the end Belisarius would have a crew of 312, with space for up to 100 additional crew members, should the vessel act as a base for operational command for large military operations.
Result: Project Cerulean Hammock becomes obsolete
active for 2 more turns
[] Improved System Defense & Forward Operation Base: - 6 votes active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 45%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 100+5+5 = 110 - Crit Success (Bonus to all military R&D, Bonus to Space Combat R&D)
With the potential of the large scale warships like the Belisarius becoming apparent to the Defense Council, the need to further improve the Jump Point Defenses was evident. Around the same time, there was a perceived need to have a mobile version of a Forwards Operation Base.
For the improved system defense, the Raytan Defense Platform was believed to not be up to the possible threat of massed warship intrusions, even with upgraded weapon systems. As such, a completely new Defense Platform had to be designed, one that could be used in such a way that increased the defensibility of a system, meaning it should relatively easily be moved around inside a system. To this end, the new defense platform would need to be equipped with a Heim-Feynman Event Generator. There were talks about equipping one with a jump drive, but it was decided the high mass ratio of jump cores was prohibitive to move a jump point defense platform from, say, the Nadir to the Zenith point, on short notice. And as these platforms would not need to be mobile outside of moving from jump point to jump point (or an L1 point), only a Shrivatsa M2P2 Sail System would be needed for propulsion to keep it in place near a jump point, though the new platform would integrate several thruster 'pods' for quick maneuvers to evade incoming, non-relativistic fire.
Tentatively the platform would be equipped with weapons like those used for the rebuild of the Belisarius, but in higher numbers and with more armor spread over its hull. Tentatively, the maximum mass of the new Defense Platform was limited to 2.5Mtonnes.
For the Forwards Operation Base, the Defense Council was looking towards a modified version of the Von Neumann. The idea was to cut the industrial production capabilities by half and replace the expandable internal fabrication system with expandable docking systems for at least ten squadrons of various space craft simultaneously. Internal storage would carry most of the logistic items needed for space and ground operations, while the fabricators could easily replace used materials outside of food stuff. Four counter rotating 300 m Stanford torus style habitat rings could then be used for crew R&R.
active for 3 more turns
WCDC Survey Office:
[] Deep Cover Intelligence II: active
Time: 10 turns, Chance of Success: 60%
Roll 1 of 10, Roll 1d100: 78+10 = 85 - Success (Permanent Survey Squadrons)
Roll 2 of 10, Roll 1d100: 23+10 = 33 - Failure
Roll 3 of 10, Roll 1d100: 95+10 = 105 - Success
Roll 4 of 10, Roll 1d100: 34+10 = 44 - Success
Roll 5 of 10, Roll 1d100: 73+10 = 83 - Success
The arrival at Atreus, the capital world of the Free Worlds League, left the A Ship With A View in the middle of a capital dealing with a sort of civil war. The FWL government was looking for excuses to take over jumpships left and right and press them into service for the war, however the trading part of the mission was preventing anything like this from happening for the moment.
The counter espionage operations of the FWL were at an all time high from what could be determined, and while the agents meant to take a long look at the internal politics and the like were set up as trade delegations, they chose to tread softly for the moment. However, from what could be gleamed from the events on Atreus itself, it appeared the FWL was the most democratic nation of the Inner Sphere.
active for 5 more turns
[] Further Survey IV: active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 65%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 77+10 = 87 - Success (Permanent Survey Squadrons)
Roll 2 of 4, Roll 1d100: 22+10 = 32 - Failure
While there was an almost immediate success of the new survey mission into the 90 ly space around the Three Systems, there was very little that was discovered over the course of Summer.
active for 2 more turns
Deep Space Signal Intelligence Network
[] DSSIN Survey Squadron: - 6 votes active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 21+5 = 26 - Failure (All DSSINOO operations)
With the failure of attempting to discover New St. Andrews and Niobs, the DSSINOO began to lobby for getting their own survey squadrons to constantly survey space of interest and as a side effect map out more of the space closer towards the Inner Sphere, as apparently there were numerous systems 'lost' to the powers of the Inner Sphere during the time commonly known as the Succession Wars.
However, the Survey personnel of the Survey Office did not look kindly onto the DSSINOO moving into their turf.
active for 3 more turns
WCDC Diplomatic Corps:
[] Long Range Diplomacy - Lyran Commonwealth: active
Time: 8 turns, Chance of success: 50%
Roll 1 of 8, Roll 1d100: 33 - Failure
Roll 2 of 8, Roll 1d100: 73 - Success
Roll 3 of 8, Roll 1d100: 67 - Success
Roll 4 of 8, Roll 1d100: 96 - Success
Roll 5 of 8, Roll 1d100: 25 - Failure
Roll 6 of 8, Roll 1d100: 98 - Crit Success
Freaking Comstar Roll, 1d20: 3 - Nothing happens
Hanse Davion Fudge Factor Roll, 1d20: 20 - Hanse Davion is on Thakad, and he brought friends!
The reply from Tharkad finally gave the Unexpected Oversupply of Gravitas and the diplomatic mission the permission to jump into the capital system of the Lyran Commonwealth. Once the dropships made planetfall, the diplomats were given a proper greeting and allowed to settle down in a luxury hotel, with the mechanized part of the security detail placed in a nearby military base for the time being, together with a mercenary outfit called the Kell Hounds, which had also recently arrived.
With some initial problems dealt with by lower level staff of the Lyran Government, the lead of the diplomatic mission, Sir Ian Churchill, and the other main diplomats, were invited to a formal banquet, where they met Archon Katrina Steiner. She was however not the only head of state present, and some delay for the mission to arrive at Tharkad had been to allow First Prince Hanse Davion to arrive, together with his wife Melissa Steiner-Davion.
Following the banquet, some more medium level talks took place, before the team was invited to high level talks with the Archon and the First Prince. During these talks, the First Prince and the Archon ruthlessly grilled the diplomats about the WCDC, apparently trying to conform what Cranston Snord informed them about. Eventually the talks fell on the technology and the military of the WCDC, where the diplomats attempted to answer truthfully, noting the WCDC would defend itself and its technology against any attackers, but that they would prefer peaceful co-existence.
Another question was surprising, concerning the native Sol system, or rather the local version of Earth Terra. Both the Archon and the First Prince wished to know whether the WCDC had any designs on the world, which was truthfully denied. The First Prince also made a throwaway comment about the mercenary outfit Wolf's Dragoons and that they had suddenly appeared with advanced technology, joking that the WCDC technology appeared to be different from what was guessed the Dragoons had arrived with.
At the sidelines, the Kell Hounds, especially Colonel Morgan Kell, were interested in the Fusilier Mechs, the Karakal II tanks and their performance. Kell was later joined by Doctor Buckaroo Banzai, who was more interested in the technological side of things, both men thunderstruck to learn about the lack of technology taken for granted on Battlemechs, like gyroscopes and similar things.
Around the same time, it was possible to reconnect to the Survey agents that had been left on Tharkad by the first Deep Cover mission into the Lyran Commonwealth, who, even with the cut communication to Berlin, had been able to set up a moderate ring of agents.
active for 2 more turns
[] Long Range Diplomacy - Marian Hegemony:
Time: 8 turns, Chance of success: 50%
Roll 1 of 8, Roll 1d100: 79 - Success
Roll 2 of 8, Roll 1d100: 45 - Failure
While on the way towards Alphard, several spacecraft of the mission suffered breakdowns of various sorts, one of the main transports even loosing its HFEG, as a chance encounter with a micrometeorite causing a crack in one of the superconducting rings just as it was spinning down from a return into normal space. The resulting explosion of the ring, which was still rotating with 10000 RPM at the time, heavily damaged nearby spacecraft in its squadron.
This event led to the mission being postponed, until the damaged vessels could arrive at FOB Pine Gap, where they could be repaired. With the need to get specialized replacement parts from the Three Systems, the entire mission had to wait three months, before the vessels were repaired, though by that time, a new squadron had been acquired for the mission to replace the damaged one.
active for 6 more turns
WCDC Trade Organization:
[] Heavy Combat Space Craft: - 5 votes active
Time: 6 turns, Chance of success: 60%
Roll 1 of 6, Roll 1d100: 32+10+10+10+10 = 72 - Success (Stronger Economy, Economic Ties, Military-Industrial Complex, Interstellar Communication Network)
Work on the Belisarius certainly had resulted in a call for heavy advanced combat spacecraft of a Bombardment equivalent type of up to 100 ktonnes, which was perceived to be the upper limit of mass that could be moved with the help of a dropship collar. While conventional Bombardment craft easily massed more than the 100 ktonnes, most of that mass was water propellant, something that could be minimized in an advanced combat craft.
Much like before, it was the WCDCTO that had to deal with procurement for the Militaries of the WCDC, largely with giving the proper incentives for the design and production of new spacecraft like this. Though by this time, it was expected many of the designs would come with a prototype attached to them, as nearly thirty dock yards and design offices answered to the Request for Proposals.
active for 5 more turns
[] Mining Town: - 9 votes active
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 55%
Roll 1 of 4, Roll 1d100: 81+10+10+10 = 111 - Success (Stronger Economy, Economic Ties, Interstellar Communication Network)
As the various Joint Ventures slowly began to set up the production lines for the jumpships they intended to produce, it became apparent that there would be significant amounts of Germanium required to keep a steady production, once it had ramped up. There was already a shortage of Germanium in 61 Virginis that had a negative impact on the Belisarius project.
To counter this, the WCDCTO began to inform the various mining companies of the WCDC about incentives to set up mines to provide a steady flow of Germanium for native jump core production, with the possibility of selling some into the Inner Sphere as well.
active for 3 more turns
WCDC Office for Science and Development:
[] HFEG Jump: - 5 votes active
Time: 12 turns, Chance of success: 25%
Roll 1 of 12, Roll 1d100: 40+10+10 = 60 - Failure (Research Center Sol, Interstellar Communication Network)
While there were many projects bandied around within the scientific community of the WCDC, most of them of a practical nature, it was the big shiny project of combining the jump core and the Heim-Feynman Event Generator into a single FTL drive system capable of operating in both FTL modes that was of the most interest fo the scientists, largely due to the possibility of a Nobel Prize in the future of any team that could design such a system. And even if it did not work, the research itself might bring more insights into both theories.
But even so, there was little to no actual work done, as there was such a number of different possible theoretical models that all had to be worked through it was hard to even find something to start on.
active for 11 more turns
[] Hyperwave Reflection Research: - 6 votes active
Time: 5 turns, Chance of success: 50%
Roll 1 of 5, Roll 1d100: 59+10+10 = 79 - Success (Research Center Sol, Interstellar Communication Network)
While other scientists began to work on the HFEG Jump project, other scientists were much more interested in discovering what those weird reflections had been that were sometimes seen on the Superliminal Wave Detectors and some problems that cropped up in the propagation of Hyperwaves used in the Hyperwave communication system.
After securing a grant, they built their own Superluminal Wave Detectors and Hyperwave transceivers and began to work uncovering the secrets of the reflected hyperwaves.
active for 4 more turns
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WCDC Internal Events:
With the Not Invented Here busy constructing the Raytan Jump Point Defenses of Hannover, the Kaiser and the government decided that with the rediscovery of its sister world of Neu Berlin, they would re-settle the world, considering that a Force 9 earthquake had 'merely' destroyed the initial colony and the remaining people evacuated to Hannover. Based on the WCDC charter this would not exclue anyone else from putting their own settlement on the world, or the system itself.
So Hannover established an initial colony on Neu Berlin, using one of their natively created Planetary Settlement Kits, though they did request from the Not Invented Here to move to the Neu Berlin System upon completion of the Raytans to set up an interplanetary infrastructure.
In the 61 Virginis system, the initial jumpship production came to a slow down, as considerable amounts of the germanium on the free market were bought up by an unknown party, causing germanium prices raise by 150%.
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Deep Space Signal Intelligence Network Report:
Lothian League:
There is little of note to say.
Illyrian Palatinate:
There is little of note to say.
Circinus Federation:
There is little of note to say.
Marian Hegemony:
There is little of note to say.
Inner Sphere:
Lyran Commonwealth:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Federated Suns:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Draconis Combine:
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as can be decerned.
Free Worlds League:
Dutchy of Andurien:
In the war between these two powers, the stalemate continues.
Comstar:
So far, the Diplomatic Mission to the Lyran Commonwealth has not run into further problems involving Comstar, but we should keep our eyes open.
Expansion and Suggestions:
The DSSI Network slowly continues to expand into the Inner Sphere.
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Random Event - Nothing Continues To Happens
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No options for the next turn will be forthcoming, as there will be no voting taking place for Turns 41 and 42.
