NationStates Jolt Archive

This morning, the Principality of Bryn Shander announced plans to capture two asteroids from the belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroids, #243 Ida, and #253 Mathilde, will be equipped with nuclear engines, and then sent to as of yet unannounced destinations inside the Solar System.

-----Meanwhile on Axis-----
"I want these ships loaded and ready to deploy by noon!", exclaimed a woman who seemed to be in charge of the men loading the ships that would soon be on their way to capture Mathilde, the larger of the two asteroids that are to be captured. Shortly after these ships leave, the next group of ships will come in and have the same work done on them.

Why the asteroids were going to be claimed, few people knew, but for those that did, the reasons seemed a bit odd. Ida, the smaller of the two, was going to be sent to the Earth system, where it would be parked in orbit at L5, near the space fortress Solomon. Once there, construction of about 110 colonies would be started for the nation of Liebermonk, who's lack of a military on Earth had caused problems. Hopefully, the colonies that would eventually become the new home for Liebermonk's 840 million people will be close enough to Solomon that anyone foolish enough to attack will think again.

The larger asteroid, Mathilde, would be sent to Mars, where a few colonies will be constructed in orbit, and then the asteroid will be converted into a base. With a presence in the Mars system, new trading alliances can be formed, the overcrowding in the existing colonies will be eased, and most importantly, new diplomatic relations can be nurtured with the nations colonizing the Red Planet.

"No! Put the larger boxes in first!", piped the woman again. The docks all over Axis were a buzz with activity for the first time in a while. Normally, the only action was from a few warships leaving on or returning from patrols of the area. Within a few hours, the Pazock Class supply ships were ready, and the activity died down a bit.

With a groan and a shudder, the ships began to exit the docking bays of the asteroid fortress. As they moved away, Axis began to shrink and fade, and before long it completely disappeared from their sensors. It would be a long journey...

It had been about sixteen days since the fleets had set out. One Pazock, the Escargot, was struck by a small asteroid, but the damage was minimal as one of the Musai Class cruisers was able to take out most of the rock with it’s main guns. Aside from that one incident, there had been nothing exciting since leaving Axis.

On board the fleet’s command vessel, the Zanzibar Class cruiser Firega, the bridge was coming to life with activity. The ship’s navigational computer had reported that they were nearing Mathilde and Ida, and one of the Zaku sent to scout had just returned with word of a visual sighting. Within the hour, work on preparing the asteroids would begin.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/near_mathilde2.jpg
A picture taken by a Zaku sent to scout ahead.

“Alright, men, lets get all the mobile suits we have available ready for this operation. I want these asteroids decelerated and on their way within three months.” shouted Captain Melegaunt. From behind, an ensign stumbled onto the MS deck. “Ten minutes until rendezvous with Mathilde, Sir.” “Right. Return to the bridge and inform the fleet. We deploy the MS in six.”

The broadcast was sent, and all throughout the fleet ships prepared for the operation. It wasn’t long before the first MS teams were deployed, equipped with drilling equipment that would be used to carve tunnels into the 61km long rock. The work was slow, but when the dozen Musai and the Zanzibar opened fire with their mega particle guns, progress sped up a bit. After a few days, the main tunnels were drilled, and construction of the nuclear pulse engines began.

Work continued for two and a half months, with the Pazocks returning to Axis every week as a new fleet of transports arrived to take their places. Each time, six Musai returned to Axis, and six came to replace them. Only the Firega remained throughout the entire operation. Not fat away, the same work was being done on the asteroid Ida. Over the course of 10 weeks, only three people had died, all of them MS pilots that got too close to the barrages of fire coming from the capital ships.

Three months after the first ships left Axis, the asteroids were ready for their journeys. One final fleet of Musai and Pazocks came to each asteroid the day before the engines were activated. This time, all of the ships were cycled out. Each fleet would escort an asteroid to it’s destination, and various preparations would be done in the many months it would take the asteroids to reach it’s final destination. On Ida, not much needed to be done, as it was to be primarily used for resources. On Mathilde though, larger tunnels would have to be constructed, as well as the facilities required to make the asteroid a functional military base. Everything from docks to factories would be constructed in the asteroid so that construction of both a fleet and colonies could begin as soon as it entered orbit with Mars…

Seventeen months had passed since Mathilde left the asteroid belt. Still three weeks from Mars, the base was fully functional, although compared to a completed base, it only had 20% production capability. Having been alone aside from the others in the escorting fleet for the past twenty months, the crews were getting rather obviously restless.

Earlier that day, it was announced that a single ship was to be sent ahead to announce the fleet’s arrival and explain it’s intentions to the nations already on Mars. The catch, as there always was one, is that the ship chosen will be the ship that scores the highest in an inspection to take place later that day. As would be expected, the crews of each ship thought that their ship deserved to make the trip.

On board each ship, every crewmember not on duty or asleep was hard at work scrubbing every inch of the ship, doing laundry, changing the sheets, cleaning windows, or some other activity to help their ship‘s chances of winning the prize. On board the Musai Class cruiser Kaolla Su, a young Ensign was busy touching up the paint on her MF-02A Sparrow. She was an ace in the fighter, and could out fight many of the MS pilots on Axis. Having been born on Axis, this was the first time she had been on anything more than a patrol mission. Taking the time to carefully stencil “Kaorin Izumi” onto the hull behind the cockpit in white. Once finished, she headed to the mess hall.

An hour later, the inspection teams came through the fleet and scored each ship one by one. Not surprisingly, the Kaolla Su won, followed closely by the Firega and then the Meteo.

The next morning, the Kaolla Su departed the fleet for Mars. It would arrive in six days.

As the Kaolla Su neared Mars, her crew prepared the ship for any diplomatic parties that might come aboard. On the bridge, the navigational computers plotted Mathilde's course and moved the ship to a spot 150,000,000km from the planet's surface. In two weeks, Mathilde would arrive and park here, her orbit seven and a half times that of Deimos, one of Mars' existing moons. At 2,000,000,000,000 tons and 61km in diameter, Mathilde is larger than both Phobos and Deimos by many times. Without a doubt, most of the nations of mars would have noticed the asteroid's approach by now. As to why none of them had yet sent anything to investigate, everyone on board was clueless.

Meanwhile, the ship's four Mobile Suits and it's single fighter were being armed and refueled, just in case someone tried to attack. All five pilots were on standby on the MS deck, waiting for the call to action. Kaorin was busy chatting with the pilot of the MS-09RII Rick Dom II, Minoru Fujimoto. The pilot of the navy blue MS-14A Gelgoog, Thomas Fredricksen, was sitting in his suit's cockpit reading a magazine. Yuri and Pavel Dolohov, the brothers that piloted the two Gelgoogs that used the standard color scheme, were playing darts.

On the bridge, the crew stared at their monitors, watching for any sign of approaching ships or incoming broadcasts.

OOC: Honestly, it's because Eniqcir is absent. As the one who knows the most about the current state of Martian terraforming he would know the most about the impact of a new moon. I seem to remember that it would be good, except for Phobos and Diemos. With the tides so erratic it would have minimal impact on a tidal cycle, but beyond that it might have some impact that I just don't know about. As far as the physical effects of the asteroid goes, I think I'll just ignore those until he returns and can give us the lowdown.

IC:

Inside Martian AirSpace Command someone was having a hissy fit.

"Aaa! It's like that damn WorldMover thing! It's not on a collision course - it's headed for a stable orbit. But who in their right mind puts a giant rock into orbit around... Hey... Wait a minute..."

The operator pushed a few buttons and initiated a radio transmission on dozens of known civilian and hailing frequencies and directed this at the spacecraft parked in the asteroid's eventual orbit.

"Hey you - the unidentified ship at vector 243.2 by 143 from Mars - this is just a shot in the dark but do you have anything to do with a 61km rock that's headed into orbit? Cause if you don't you might wanna move cause there is a big rock heading for you."

"We're being hailed!" shouted the young comunications officer to Captian Fox. "They'd like to know if we have anything to do with Mathilde."

"Patch them through to me." The young officer hit a few keys and pushed a button, and the captain began to hear the message through his headset, played over from the begining. After hearing the entire message, he hit a button and responded.

"This is Captain Gary Fox of the P.N.S. Kaolla Su, a cruiser from the Principality of Bryn Shander. We do, in fact have something to do with the incoming rock. We're the advance ship from the fleet currently en route with the Asteroid Mathilde. When they arrive, Mathilde will act as a military base and resource mine for the construction of colonies that will orbit the rock. Any other questions?"

"Err... Ok. Welcome to martian orbit. Your official designation in the directory will be..."

The operator waited while the system hacked out a new designation for Bryn Shander in it's systems.

"BS? That's not very good. How about BRSH? Yeah... BRSH, then your regular ship designation. And yours would be?"

The operator muted while waiting for a response - at least they knew who was responsible for the big rock now. She switched over to her supervisor - PITA Dho'rn, an elf who had taken an immediate liking to the 'refreshing' young operator.

"That big rock? Yeah - some nation named Bryn Shander is trying to use it as an orbital base."

"Do they have a permit?"

"A permit? I don't show them crossing inside anyone's claimed orbital space. The guilders might get a little PO'ed - it will take out some ice chunks on it's initial orbit."

"Darn - I do so like a good permit filing process. I just love the look on their faces when I tell them it will be 2-3 months."

"It takes 2 minutes."

"Yes - but the look on their face is priceless."

The operator hung up and went back to the channel with the P.N.S. Kaolla Su.

"BRSH will be fine. We are the LC-0995. Anything else?"

Liebermonkians in the mainland, as well as The Colony of New Liebermonk fled to telescopes today. Ida, the asteroid that would soon become home had become perfectly visible from Earth. Kids, as well as adults, stared up in awe as they saw their new home. It would take about 6 years to build it all, but it would be a place to stay. There, they would be able to live a free and peacefull life.

Receiving no further communications from Mars or anywhere else in the Mars System, the Kaolla Su spent the next two weeks waiting. On the fourteenth day, she left orbit to beet up with the fleet again. As Mathilde and her accompanying fleet neared the final destination in Mars orbit, the thrusters fired, slowing the asteroid enough so that she would be caught by the Martian gravity. Everything went according to plans, and Mathilde entered a steady orbit, 150,000km from the planet’s surface. Mars now had a new moon.

Over the next few months, a small fleet was produced at the facilities in the asteroid base to aid in defense of the rock and the colonies that were being constructed. At 32km long and 6km wide, the colonies would hold anywhere from three to fifteen million people each. They would be built two at a time, so that they could be tethered together. Each colony in the pair would rotate the opposite direction of the other, ensuring that the pair would always face Sol, allowing the large mirror arms to capture sunlight and reflect it into the colony. For food, there would be a large ring of agricultural satellites connected to the end of the colony, each satellite rotating on it’s own to produce the gravity needed to grow crops.

For the next four years, anyone close enough could see the colonies taking shape. When they were finished, millions of people would come from Bryn Shander’s Earth colonies to fill them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/Nightbane/colony1.jpg

Meanwhile, Ida and her fleet were nearing Earth.