NationStates Jolt Archive

A limo moves gracefully along the road. Ahead a Red flashing Light comes online and the limo abruptly stops. Out of the bushes on either side emerge special forces troops They stand with guns pointed at the car. One moves towards the window, gun raised defensively. The window roles down and a hand emerges with a pass. The special forces man looks carefully at the paper. His weapon drops and he salutes to the occupants of the car.

The limo moves through the first line of defence. As they move past the wood-land facade it becomes clear it is in fact an electric fence cleverly disguised as a wood. In the distance a building looms into view. The limo moves towards the front entrance. To guards stand to attention as the door opens.

From inside the building the head of the Secret Service watches as his men emerge from the limo.

Their is a brief pause while the final checks are made. The gate guards report that the compound is still secure.

The Prime Minister steps from his personal car and surveys the building. A toughened glass exterior covers two floors and stretches five meters on either side of the steps up to the only entrance.

Sunlight glitters through the window onto the reception desk at the centre of the giant lobby.

The Prime Minister enters the building and is greeted by the Facilities chief, Jack Dalton.

'Sir may I say what an honour it is to meet you. We thought we would start in the sub levels and then finish the tour in my office on the top floor. I've arranged for our chef to have a small lunch ready for us when we finish.'

'Thank you that’s most kind. And the honour is all mine. Its not every day you meet the most intelligent man in the country.'

From the lobby Jack and the Prime Minister enter a small lift. It drops ten floors and opens into a small corridor.

'This is as far as we can go with this lift. We have to get another to the facility. To our left is a guard post, and if I hadn’t entered the correct password or the guard felt suspicious we would be dead by now. We have a service elevator at the back, which we use to transport personnel and materials down here. That elevator is also monitored by guards.’

They enter the next lift and the lift drops ten more floors.

‘We are no twenty floors beneath the ground. This is the control room level; the bottom level is another five below us. We have a train to take us around the base level. It spreads out through an abandoned mining system, although we have blocked off several large sections. This gives us a large potential for spreading out. We have currently built ten reactors, and another twenty are being built as we speak.’

The Prime Minister walks to the edge of the raised area the lift opens out onto. A large ten floor high cavern spreads out below them.

‘How big is this?’
‘It’s the size of ten football pitches, and ten floors high overall. The stacks act as pillars to support the roof. This is only half off it. The rest is behind the back wall. To our left we have built a purification plant. It will produce pure Uranium to feed the reactors.’

‘How long before the plant is operational?’ Questioned an absorbed Prime Minister.
‘Well as soon as the first lorry of Yellow Cake arrives we can purify it and start up our first reactor. Within a week it will be closed down, and checked over. Then any modifications will be made to the reactor. We will continue to test it until there are no defects. Then we will modify the other reactors and bring them all online.’

The Prime Minister was shown around the purification plant and a single reactor. Then they entered the lift to return to the Control room.

The Lift doors opened on the control room floor. Technicians walked around the room checking clip boards, flicking switch, generally checking everything was fine. In one area a Technician had dissasembled a section of wall and was working his way through several miles of wires.

The Prime Minister looked around the room.
'It seems a little unfinished.'
'Well we do have some time before the uranium mines actually hit a vein rich enough to give us raw materials, and its mainly cosmetic stuff left to do. From here we will control the entire facility. We can seal off the lift shafts, and activate emergency weapons. Now If you'd like to follow me back to the surface We will tour the ground level of the facility.

The lift doors opened at ground level. Waiting for the doors to open was Don, Jacks second in command. He handed a sheet of paper to Jack, who quickly scanned the paper.
'I have to go Mr Prime Minister. Don will finish your tour.'

Jack rushed out of the building into an already waiting helicopter.

'Where does he have to go so quickly?' asked the Prime Minister.
'He's needed to check a new vain of UIranium the miners have just discovered.'

The Prime Minister was shown around the rest of the Facility, the many labs, offices and finally around the Kitchen, mess room and dormitories. The tour ended in a large room. One entire Wall was a mess of notes pined to a pinboard. The opposite ends wall was made purly of glass, and overlooked the entrance gate.

The Chef brough in lunch, and Don and the Prime Minister ate while disscusing the eventuall outputs of the reactors.
'Of course Mr Prime Minster at the moment we absorb a lot of energy, and one of our reactors will be needed just to power the centre, but once we have two operating we will be able to power the National grid. Once all 50 reactors are built and fuly operational we will be able to close down all the other power stations in the country.'
'Thats quite amazing. If there was a melt down would radiation penetrate the ground?'
'Well we hope there wont be a melt down, there are so many safety protocols that there won't be. The main reason for the reactors being burried so low is to stop terrorist attacks. We needed somewhere with large caverns to lower our costs, and this was the best place.'
'But will it stop radiation if a reactor blew?'
'Mr Prime Minister as you well know we have no way of knowing precisely what our reactors will do. We can say what it should do, but we are working in a field which we have no experience in. A melt down in up to ten reactors shouldnt cause any problems on the surface. Any more and the ground will colapse, but even if all 50 blew the radiation would never penetrate the ground level. The area would need to be carefully monitored, but I can safely say that no one except us at the centre would ever die if their was a melt down.'
'Thanks, I have a meeting in an hour, and so I have to go. Give my thanks to jack when he gets back.'


OOC: Before anyone says that my nation is to small to have nuclear power let me just say this: One of my main industries is Uranium mining. And my country has a good economy, which means that I have the raw materials and enough money to pay for the reaserch. Also note this is a test centre, and I have not actually started any reactors yet.

The peoples republic of Fairweather Eden realeases the following statement to all nations concerned.

We have receantly discovered a rich vein of uranium, and are preapring to mine it. It is estamated that within the next week (OOC: real time) our first test nuclear reactor will be brought online. With any luck within the next month the test reactors will be providing power to 90% of the country.

The test centre is situated underground at a suficent depth that any problems will cause no ill effect on the surface. Any country which posses a good working knowledge of Nuclear reactors, and who wish to inspect our designs would be given detailed plans, to inspect. However for defence purposes the centres exact size, and position in our country cannot be disclosed.

The first lorry load of yellow cake has arrived. Purifification is scheduled to begin in three days time (again rl) after analysis in the science labs.

Air space has been closed over the centre, and roadblocks have been set up across the county. Diversions are in effect untill bi-passes have been built.

(*note across the county not country*)

Our chief scientist had this to say: We believe are observations will take three days before we will know exactly how to purify it. We hope that our machines will be up to the job, but it could be several days before analysis is complete, and many weeks work to modify the purrifiers, and reactors.

Your mine is deep enough to harm our nation. Please be cautious not to let anything happen. Hundreds of millions of our people have died to the fallout of the wars you surface dwellers evoke.

We demand an immedaite list of all tuneels beneath the surface of our country. We consider the land our terriotory, and if you refuse to leave and their is an accident we cannot be held responsible.

Our first reactor will go online tonight at 12pm GMT (RL) Analysis took longer than expected, but now all seems to be going alright. Its is with deep regret that the Chief Scientist of the project has left for another brach of the governement. However we are confident his succssor will perform just as well.

The Peoples Republic today also announced it had increased spending on its armies research budget, coincidentally the countries top Nuclear physicst was also transfered to the development brach of the army, though we have been assured that he will not be working on any kind of nuclear project.

Reporter: Fariweather Edens governement has just released the following press statement: All generators working at full capacity. Connected to power grid.