Industrial Experiment
01-03-2005, 23:01
Ruogor Turncut the Third had been but a boy when they had started building Beta Station, the Imperial Dyson Sphere. When he was five and his grandfather, a Viceroy, told him of the great wonderous undertaking the Republic was embarking on, he would never have been able to understand the scale. To him, an AU was a nothingth, a moment in time for a day and age where Spurt-Jump drives could take a ship as massive as the Goliath Dreadnoughts across countless lightyears in a matter of hours and Alpha Station could hurtle a starship virtually anywhere in the universe in a half an hour. It had never occured to him that nothing that big had ever been built -- had ever existed -- outside the supermassive red giants that could be seen as tiny dots in the night sky of many worlds.
He could remember his first trip to Alpha Station, at twelve, on board his father's second command, a Beehive class escort carrier. He had been awed at the sheer size of the thing. He never even bothered to ask how large the object was, just the fact that he had to look through a telescope to see the far side and later learning that everything he saw had occured thirty minutes ago(!) had been nearly too much for his small mind. The shipyard at the center and the worldships they had visited later were almost just as dazzlingly impressive to look at, to remember that it was his people that had built these miracles of engineering.
But now, more than a century later, he was the oldest (mobile) man in the Republic. At almost 160 years, the vast gulf of time that seperated him from any of that had not been able to succeed in accustoming him to the sights he had seen over a life-time spent in space. He had flown with fighter squadrons; even led them. He had captained ships, administered entire fleets. In fact, only a few days after his hundredth birthday, he had been officially promoted to the position of Grand Admiral, a rank only a little more than a dozen other men possessed.
However, in his 122nd year, he had been given his biggest command yet: he was made the officer in charge of Beta Project, the largest undetaking the Republic, no, the living universe as a whole, had ever attempted. Now, it was done, the great day had come. A day his people had waited for for almost a century and a half had finally come...and he would be the one to tell them so.
Right now, he stood in front of a viewport on his newly delivered command ship, the INS Republic, the only Republic class in existance and the only Imperial Navy battleship. The sheer firepower available to him was astounding, but it paled in comparison to the vast metallic sheet lain out in front of him. He knew that even his ship's greatest weapons wouldn't even be able to begin to break just the shields of Beta Station. He also knew that the amount of power backed into the various defensive weapons of Beta Station would be able to wipe his command out of existance before the order to retreat could even jump to his mind.
But he had no reason to fear such an event, this station (Could it even be rightly called a mere station?) was the greatest of his many great accomplishments, and the honor involved in that was yet greater.
After a few more minutes of staring out at the seemingly infinite wall that was before him, a small light began to blink in his peripheral vision; his personal communicator, antiquited even in his childhood, was trying to tell him something.
Activating it, he got the first word in, "This is Admiral Turncut, has the time come?"
The voice on the other end, a young one if Ruogor could trust his senses, replied quickly and concisely nonetheless, "Yes sir, all preperations have been finished and guests and media have all arrived".
"Very well, I shall be down momentarily".
Ruogor turned away from the spectacle laying outside his viewport and headed towards the door, only to be interrupted once more by his comm unit light blinking.
Once more, he activated it, repeating what he had said earlier, "This is Admiral Turncut, the time has come?"
But instead of the boyish voice from before, a decidedly more mature and raspier voice answered, "No, but we have established when it will be. One week Admiral, the Republic has one week".
The initial rebellion in Ruogor's mind was quickly suppressed by his not-so-standard issue bio-implant. All flag officers and many other ranks carried a mildly psychic creature in their frontal lobe that was capable of preventing mind-probes and other, more malicious psychic attempts, but Ruogor's had been changed somewhere during his career. Now, the psychic eminations of the creature were turned inward as much as outward, preventing certain thoughts from taking root and reporting, when it was safe, to those who had made hte modifications.
As Ruogor walked out of his office, a single tear made its way out of his eye and down his cheek, but he didn't notice it and, if he had, he wouldn't have understood it.
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In a great room, one larger than most people would feel comfortable in if it were empty, Grand Admiral Ruogor Turncut stood in front of a podium facing a crowd of thousands. Media people form all over the Republic and officials from the highest echelons were represented there, along with countless thousands of Navy personnel who had own the lottery to witness this event personally.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the great Human Imperial Republic and the rest of the Galaxy at large, one hundred and fifty years ago, in the year 4027, a speech was made to your parents and grandparents. This speech announces the intention of the Republic to build something greater than itself, to create a legacy. This idea was the basis for something that had never been done before, something that would forever place the Republic in the annals of history as the first".
"But the first to do what, you ask? This question, of course, has already been answered, but I feel it bears repeating".
"The Human Imperial Republic, one hundred and fifty years ago, embarked on a contruction job on a scale never before attempted, engineering above and beyond what was thought possible: megascale engineering. We intended to build ourselves a Dyson Sphere. For various reasons, we told ourselves, this will help the Republic. Utilitarianisticly, it would allow us nearly infinite inhabitable space and a large amount of power. Idealisticly, it would catapult us into, as far as we are aware, an exlcusive club: Type II civilizations. We will utilize the complete power of the star that it is built around. Also, we'll just have done it. It's an accomplishment abnove and beyond the possible".
"Now, with the infinite granduer that accompanies the statement, I must tell you something".
"We've done it".
With that, the formerly white wall behind Ruogor darkened completely and slowly faded into a view from a camera mounted on the outside of the sphere that was Beta Station, a view of the fleet that Ruogor commanded and would represent the tomorrow that the Republic was leaping into, as it was made up of three of the newest ships in the Navy.
http://a.1asphost.com/Plushie/Beta%20Project%20Fleet.PNG
INS BB-01 Republic, Republic class battleship
INS BC-D61 Leviathan, Leviathan class battlecruiser
INS BC-D62 Repulse, Leviathan class battlecruiser
INS DD-J79 Warbird, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J80 Groundbreaker, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J81 Weaver, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J82 Tripoli, Beehive class escort carrier
The pod that held the camera began to float away from the wall of Beta Station, up towards the fleet that hovered over it, panning down to face the dyson sphere as it went upwards. After a minute of sweeping views of the admittedly small portion that one could see, the pod finally reached a position parallel to the wall it had come from. Not looking at the display behind him, Ruogor still knew what was about to happen.
Sudden acceleration took the crowd by surprise as the pod activated its miniature spurt-jump engine, pulling away fromt he dyson sphere for a few long seconds until it ceased to fill the camera's view, instead becoming a great circle in the sky. This view stayed for a full ten seconds, wowing the crowd, and then the computer effects took over.
A red glow started in the very center of the disk, until it overlayed it entirely, a view of the red star that now resided at the central point of a giant metal cocoon, soon to be populated by trillions of Imperial citizens.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is the principium".
He could remember his first trip to Alpha Station, at twelve, on board his father's second command, a Beehive class escort carrier. He had been awed at the sheer size of the thing. He never even bothered to ask how large the object was, just the fact that he had to look through a telescope to see the far side and later learning that everything he saw had occured thirty minutes ago(!) had been nearly too much for his small mind. The shipyard at the center and the worldships they had visited later were almost just as dazzlingly impressive to look at, to remember that it was his people that had built these miracles of engineering.
But now, more than a century later, he was the oldest (mobile) man in the Republic. At almost 160 years, the vast gulf of time that seperated him from any of that had not been able to succeed in accustoming him to the sights he had seen over a life-time spent in space. He had flown with fighter squadrons; even led them. He had captained ships, administered entire fleets. In fact, only a few days after his hundredth birthday, he had been officially promoted to the position of Grand Admiral, a rank only a little more than a dozen other men possessed.
However, in his 122nd year, he had been given his biggest command yet: he was made the officer in charge of Beta Project, the largest undetaking the Republic, no, the living universe as a whole, had ever attempted. Now, it was done, the great day had come. A day his people had waited for for almost a century and a half had finally come...and he would be the one to tell them so.
Right now, he stood in front of a viewport on his newly delivered command ship, the INS Republic, the only Republic class in existance and the only Imperial Navy battleship. The sheer firepower available to him was astounding, but it paled in comparison to the vast metallic sheet lain out in front of him. He knew that even his ship's greatest weapons wouldn't even be able to begin to break just the shields of Beta Station. He also knew that the amount of power backed into the various defensive weapons of Beta Station would be able to wipe his command out of existance before the order to retreat could even jump to his mind.
But he had no reason to fear such an event, this station (Could it even be rightly called a mere station?) was the greatest of his many great accomplishments, and the honor involved in that was yet greater.
After a few more minutes of staring out at the seemingly infinite wall that was before him, a small light began to blink in his peripheral vision; his personal communicator, antiquited even in his childhood, was trying to tell him something.
Activating it, he got the first word in, "This is Admiral Turncut, has the time come?"
The voice on the other end, a young one if Ruogor could trust his senses, replied quickly and concisely nonetheless, "Yes sir, all preperations have been finished and guests and media have all arrived".
"Very well, I shall be down momentarily".
Ruogor turned away from the spectacle laying outside his viewport and headed towards the door, only to be interrupted once more by his comm unit light blinking.
Once more, he activated it, repeating what he had said earlier, "This is Admiral Turncut, the time has come?"
But instead of the boyish voice from before, a decidedly more mature and raspier voice answered, "No, but we have established when it will be. One week Admiral, the Republic has one week".
The initial rebellion in Ruogor's mind was quickly suppressed by his not-so-standard issue bio-implant. All flag officers and many other ranks carried a mildly psychic creature in their frontal lobe that was capable of preventing mind-probes and other, more malicious psychic attempts, but Ruogor's had been changed somewhere during his career. Now, the psychic eminations of the creature were turned inward as much as outward, preventing certain thoughts from taking root and reporting, when it was safe, to those who had made hte modifications.
As Ruogor walked out of his office, a single tear made its way out of his eye and down his cheek, but he didn't notice it and, if he had, he wouldn't have understood it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a great room, one larger than most people would feel comfortable in if it were empty, Grand Admiral Ruogor Turncut stood in front of a podium facing a crowd of thousands. Media people form all over the Republic and officials from the highest echelons were represented there, along with countless thousands of Navy personnel who had own the lottery to witness this event personally.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the great Human Imperial Republic and the rest of the Galaxy at large, one hundred and fifty years ago, in the year 4027, a speech was made to your parents and grandparents. This speech announces the intention of the Republic to build something greater than itself, to create a legacy. This idea was the basis for something that had never been done before, something that would forever place the Republic in the annals of history as the first".
"But the first to do what, you ask? This question, of course, has already been answered, but I feel it bears repeating".
"The Human Imperial Republic, one hundred and fifty years ago, embarked on a contruction job on a scale never before attempted, engineering above and beyond what was thought possible: megascale engineering. We intended to build ourselves a Dyson Sphere. For various reasons, we told ourselves, this will help the Republic. Utilitarianisticly, it would allow us nearly infinite inhabitable space and a large amount of power. Idealisticly, it would catapult us into, as far as we are aware, an exlcusive club: Type II civilizations. We will utilize the complete power of the star that it is built around. Also, we'll just have done it. It's an accomplishment abnove and beyond the possible".
"Now, with the infinite granduer that accompanies the statement, I must tell you something".
"We've done it".
With that, the formerly white wall behind Ruogor darkened completely and slowly faded into a view from a camera mounted on the outside of the sphere that was Beta Station, a view of the fleet that Ruogor commanded and would represent the tomorrow that the Republic was leaping into, as it was made up of three of the newest ships in the Navy.
http://a.1asphost.com/Plushie/Beta%20Project%20Fleet.PNG
INS BB-01 Republic, Republic class battleship
INS BC-D61 Leviathan, Leviathan class battlecruiser
INS BC-D62 Repulse, Leviathan class battlecruiser
INS DD-J79 Warbird, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J80 Groundbreaker, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J81 Weaver, Beehive class escort carrier
INS DD-J82 Tripoli, Beehive class escort carrier
The pod that held the camera began to float away from the wall of Beta Station, up towards the fleet that hovered over it, panning down to face the dyson sphere as it went upwards. After a minute of sweeping views of the admittedly small portion that one could see, the pod finally reached a position parallel to the wall it had come from. Not looking at the display behind him, Ruogor still knew what was about to happen.
Sudden acceleration took the crowd by surprise as the pod activated its miniature spurt-jump engine, pulling away fromt he dyson sphere for a few long seconds until it ceased to fill the camera's view, instead becoming a great circle in the sky. This view stayed for a full ten seconds, wowing the crowd, and then the computer effects took over.
A red glow started in the very center of the disk, until it overlayed it entirely, a view of the red star that now resided at the central point of a giant metal cocoon, soon to be populated by trillions of Imperial citizens.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is the principium".