NationStates Jolt Archive

13:18 Military Time, May 17, M-Year 24 (2100)

Ever since the mid twenty-first century - With the first Martian colonies founded in the mid-twentieth century, not only nations, but corporations reached out to stake their claim on Mars. As the economic powerhouses of Earth, both countries and companies, called Mars their own, terraforming efforts continued on Mars. Generations passed, and with Mars still minutes away at light speed, the Martian natives felt separated from the now ballooning populations and politics of the distant blue planet. Undergrounds formed and developed, and everywhere, the words "Free Mars" were whispered. Mars would not be oppressed. It would be free.

All of this raced through the mind of Andrew Gray as he walked down a stairwell into the Underground's central research facility, a kilometer below the tent city of Da Vinci. Charlotte, one of the head researchers and his impromptu tour guide, was saying, "We've finally completed construction of silos 1 through 8. The remaining silos 9 through 20 are still in mid stages of assembly, but they should be complete by the end of the month."

"Good, good," said Andrew almost without thinking. "Thank you for the update, Charlotte." He waved her away sunk into the synthetic leather seat of a conference chair. Andrew looked the decor of the rather drap command center and sunk into deep thought once again.

Mars was under Terran rule. Every nation had once wanted a colony here. The people wanted freedom. Andrew Gray had agreed with them. He had a become involved with the Underground as a intellectual, a philosopher, and an outspoken advocate of freedom. Somewhere along the way, he also become a leader. Now, he was the leader of the Da Vinci Underground, by common consensus.

Da Vinci was strategically located and perfectly equipped to start a war from. Named after the great renaissance inventor Leonardo Da Vinci, it had been founded as a haven for the common scientist who wanted to be free of corporate politics. It was a liberal region and supported the independence movement. Probably as an offset of the need for scientific separatism and the inherent aloofness of intellectuals, it was located a fair distance from other major population centers, located near the northern mouth of Valles Marineris.

It was perfect to start a revolution from because of one simple asset: technology. Rebellions, all of which took place on minute scales, had been harshly put down using overwhelming force, usually orbital laser and missile bombardment.

Da Vinci could level the playing field. The Underground, taking advantage of Da Vinci's stable economy and wealth of knowledge, had started starting up stealth weapons factories, missile silos, and command centers a kilometer beneath the soil.

Currently, the silos and the SAM turrets, the only Underground installations near the surface of the salty Martian soil, were concealed by camouflage and special metal alloys and fiberglass, making them totally unnoticiable to any kind of orbital scan.

The new GSMs (Ground-to-Space Missiles) could knock any satellites from the sky. There was still the matter of Phobos, Deimos, and Clark (the counter-weight for the Space Elevator), but hopefully insurgent groups there could deal with them.

Da Vinci, of course, couldn't start a revolution all on its own. It would, however, be Martian Air and Space Command when hostilities broke out. However, Andrew would need support from other Underground groups or control of the air and space would matter little. "Frank!" he hollering, calling his assistant. "Contact any other Underground leaders you can find. Tell them that we need to discuss the possibility of revolution." Andrew leaned back in his chair. Mars would be free.

Secret Communique-- Quantum encrypted.

We are willing to assist you in providing weapons and supplies to the underground. Our free space asteroid and oort cloud industries and colonies can provide drops of weapons and equipment to support your troops. As part of the regular heavy industry equipment you will find the following modified equipment. 10.000 Heavy rivet guns-- rebuilt to handle 50 rivet clips with an electromagnetic attachable barrel. These will look like part of the construction equipment manifests until assembled. 1000 Fusion torches with nanobattery supercapacitors and modifiable plasma storage tanks. These can function as plasma flamethrowers. 1000 hardshell suits-- these will show up as regular suits, however upon closer inspection--- they will be coated with a layer of carbon 60 fiber armor, an underlayer of laser reflective material and an exoskeleton power system modified to increase strength and endurance by 5x human normal. We will be sending these as a shipment from Ming Commercial House, RFS as part of a core tap project for industrial energy on mars. We can assign you as workers to teach you to use the materials.

Regards,

Malthus Cruon, Minister of Special Services.
First Commonalitarianism of Man

Secret Communique, Reply - Quantum Encrypted.

The Da Vinci Underground thanks the First Commonalitarianism of Man for its generous offer and graciously accepts. We can pay any reasonable price for your products and training specialists. In the next communique, please enclose price and drop schedule.

Sincerely,
The Da Vinci Underground

-End Communique-

Free Range Radio Transmission from Sodkaria in Martian orbit:

Tell us where your enemies are. There will be nothing left of them when we are done.

OOC: Sodkaria is a mobile nation is a freakin' huge starship. Simple terms, give a Super Star Destroyer to the Reavers.

Free Range Radio Transmission (RSA Encrypted, Source Disguised) from Da Vinci:
Sodkaria, we at Da Vinci appreciate your vote of confidence and your willingness to assist militarily in the name of freedom. However, we believe you have failed to assess the situation.

The planet, at the moment is occupied. Martian terraforming efforts have not yet thickened the atmosphere enough to allow suitless walking on the surface, and hence all peoples on Mars must live inside "tent cities". Our enemies and friends, as it were, all live inside of the same domes. Puncturing one with heavy orbital weapons will cause explosive decompression and kill everyone inside who isn't wearing a pressure suit (of which supply is limited). An orbital attack to eliminate the agents of other oppressive nations would kill millions of innocents in the process. This, obviously, is not acceptable.

However, the majority of the orbital stations and gun platforms,as well as the military installations on Phobos and Deimos, are controlled and exclusively by the enemy. Any assistance in eliminating these would be much appreciated. However, we feel the need to give cause for caution: they have alot of hardware up there, including heavy anti-capital ship weapons (Mainly heavy tactical combat lasers of up to 1.5 Gigawatt power). If you attack the heavier installations, they won't hesistate to use it. If you choose to assist the Underground militarily, the least we can do is warn you.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Da Vinci Underground

-End Communique-

We are not asking for payment initially. We are asking for a token payment to show allowance of $1,000,000 to show alliance. We are more interested in future trade. We do not like having the Terrans as next door neighbors. Large corporations eat into our resources. Having the Terrans gone from your area will allow us to expand our asteroid and planetary mining operations. They will lose profitability and may have to withdraw some of their space operations. We would prefer the right to mine Phobos and Deimos as future payment.

We are willing to start immediately. The first shipment should be going down within six hours of this communique.

How well shielded are the installations. We would consider using mass drivers as well as using the old fashioned style plan of simply attaching a large of number of small asteroids with rocket engines. This would be cheap and large scale. We would also turn some of our solar power satellites towards their installations-- the range is extreme-- they have the capacity of a 10 gigawatt pumped laser. We would also use rocket assisted mass driver mining capsules filled with explosives. The plan would be to soften up the installations then send in capital ships.

Sodkaria. A ship and a nation fused into a single aweful power. Jagged steel warp its roughly daggerlike frame, and red jets of energy shot out of the rear of the vessel as it fired up toward Phobos, the very hull dwarfing the moon.

Sodkaria opened fire first, unleashing a wash of EMP weapons upon the meager moon. A few shots of return fire came, but shields of the facility were overcome before they could break Sodkaria's and the defensive systems were eliminated.

Next came the fightercraft of both parties. Sleek vessels came from the moon to meet flying clusters of blades and cannons in combat between the two forces. With support fire from Sodkaria's turrets, the former were quickly forced to retreat and regroup with hopes of reaching Deimos.

Sodkaria's daggerlike frame had one exception: a mouthlike cavern at the head large enough to concume a typical capital ship or asteroid. In this case, however, Phobos slowly slide into Sodkaria's flaming maw, sliding through the atmospheric shield for survivors in the facility to be dealt with and the raw resources of the moon consumed.

OOC: In our next installment, should the rebels not consider our methods excessive, we will use Deimos to show what happens when a target is too big to swallow whole.

OOC: Unfortunately, no nation has taken up the roll of the occupying force, so I guess that I'll have to....
BIC:
As Phobos was consumed by the gigantic nation-ship, several hundred high-yield thermonuclear detonations rocked the former moon of mars, blowing the moon in pieces inside the hull of the Sodkaria, rocking the frame of the massive vessel. As it broke off to move towards Deimos, Andrew Gray examined the tactical board with a concerned look on his face.

"Will, are you sure those were thermonuclear detonations? I though the Sodkaria was using EMP weapons." The young researcher swiviled in his chair, turning to face his superior. "It's possible that the keep the nuclear weapons in a tempest-hardened launch bays. It would make sense. Or someone might have used an independent source and rigged it too agitate the particle source. More likely the former, however."

"And now?" Andrew leaned over Will's shoulder, examining the thousands of little blips that were closing around the single huge blip that was the Sodkaria. The three dimensional radar picture they were looking at was transmitted by piggybacking on Clarke's transmitters.

"Deimos is out of the line of sight, over the planet's horizon, but the Sodkaria is closing fast. IR emissions indicate that Deimos' 1.5 gigawatt THEL is powered and ready to fire. Orbital defense grid is has fired missles and lower power lasers. About a thousand birds are in the air and closing on the Sodkaria. About 30% are nuclear tipped. About 40 Nuclear torp bombers are scrambling from Clarke. Wait a moment. Clarke is disengaging some ships. Looks like three frigates."

Will tapped a number of keys and three large silloutes appeared. "Signatures indicate three Chiron-classed heavy frigates." He punched a code into the keyboard and a new, three dimensional picture of a streamlined, oval-shaped Chiron appeared on the screen, rotating slowly. "These are new design, fresh from some of the Terran production bases in the asteriod field. Two 250 megawatt lasers. A heavy gauss cannon, 500 metric ton rounds. Fighter bay, a full squadron. 50 mm flak turrets. 15 missle turrets. 12 particle projection cannon emplacements (PPC). They are closing fast. The Sodkaria had better watch itself out there."

Yes, though Andrew apprehensively. For all our sakes. He sunk back into a chair and drew his particle projection pistol (PPP), checking the power cell. Phobos was already gone. With luck, with luck.....

Rix watched the detonations in amazement. He had never seen such destructive power before. He had heard stories, of course, but they spoiled whatever they struck. Odds are it would have broken the nose off if the melter cannons hadn't helped to supress the blasts.

Still, there was radiation. Rix turned toward the leader of the frontal devourer. "Send it all to the core. There's nothing we can do but burn it now. It should get us into attack position ahead of schedule."

Rix turned and leapt off the gravlock walkway to the exit, his vacuum suit drawing him through the door into the pressurization chamber. After he was back in a stable enviroment, he removed his helm to reveal greasy black hair, pale skin, and more than a few piercings. There to greet him was an arachnid droid, a courier. "Orders, sir?"

"Send all our fightercraft to greet our foes. Send all of Phobos into the core, it's tainted."

"Yes, sir."

Three stealthed super emp missiles go off near the war production factories of Terra. It looks like a giant ball of lightning pumping out over 100 megatons of electromagnetic radiation. Two sonofusion power spheres pump energy into a plasma containment chamber containing ball lightning causing it to expand to huge proportions. They will explode sending out waves of EMP, then the ball will hit sending a wave electromgnetically charged lightning.

Three ships with a central cylinder surrounded by 5 --120 meter long rail guns, open fire accelerating a cylinder from each gun which breaks apart into clouds of 50- 30 lb darts accelerating at .7c at the protective platforms around the bases. The railguns are modified satellite launch guns designed to throw a 2000 lb satellite into orbit from earth to space.

5 war satellites satellites turn towards the asteroid fields pumping out 2 gigawatt pulsed lasers at the point defense satellites near the bases.

A volley of 100 asteroids with remote control engines attached to them plow towards the bases. They are aiming for ships satellites and platforms around the bases.

We are readying a second wave to take the factories. We have estimated the new variety of EMP weapons will knock out most of the electrical systems. We may be wrong.

The fightercraft broke off into two groups. One group was formed of EMP wielding bladefighters with support from grapplers, spearing straight toward Deimos. The other group, with gatlers, boarders, and net launchers, headed toward the enemy fighters.

The nets were launched well ahead, meeting the enemy just before they could reach gatler strike range. The missile pods broke up at the last minute, revealing thick weaves of bladewire strong enough to tear up a fightercraft. Even if they didn't, the launch pods would detonate upon snagging a ship.

After that, it was convential weapons range. Both sides opened fire, but the Sodkarian fighters simply had more guns to fire with. Once the forces passed one another, the enemy was all but wiped out.

What few remained had been snagged by boarding pods, small, agile vessels piloted by shock troops geared toward a single purpose: ramming and hijacking. Soon what enemy fighters remained were taken by Sodkaria, more than making up from the casualties in raw material.

By this time, EMP beams were bombarding key targets on Deimos from the bladefighters. Emergency craft were launched to meet them, but they were literally torn apart by grapplers, painted black and on low power emission to hide until the enemy was within range. Soon, the moon was defenseless.

Sodkaria was soon looming around the corner of Mars, well after the moon's defenses had been neutralized. EMP and gatling lasers soon bombarded the surface in an effort to cook out any potential nukes, so Deimos could be safely harvested.

As the Sodkaria approached the remains of the moon of Deimos, the three 400 meter Chiron classed heavy frigates approached to a range of 1000 klicks, swatting enemy fighters of the air like flies, and doing their best to shelter the nuclear torpedo bombers and their precious payloads. Although the Sodkaria had destroyed or shrugged off most of the missile and laser fire. The naive officers on Clarke and Deimos seemed to think that the nuclear bombers would do different.

Andrew Gray watched the radar screen with interest. Phobos was gone. The First Commonalitarianism of Man had also aided the revolution militarily, setting off several advanced EMP weapons. Now, three frigates, each with less than a hundred-thousandth of the displacement of the Sodkaria, dwarfed against the nation-ship's massive hull, were attacking the largest ship in the Sol system. The few nuclear warheads that did penetrate the thick screens of flak surrounding the Sodkaria would do very little damage to the titanic frame of the vessel.

The Sodkaria had already eliminated the military bases on Phobos and Deimos, and had already triggered widespread revolts all over Mars. The First Commonalitarianism of Man was supplying the Free Mars undergrounds with weapons and equipment. And unbeknownst to the few remaining soldiers in the rioting asteriod base of Clarke, 800 Da Vinci marines were about to storm their command center.

The main terran factory fell silent for a few moments. Many of the weapons platforms were most likely down, their electronics fried. Most of the ships within the blast radius would be disabled.

The massive rounds fired from the gunships into the platforms and ships further crippling and destroying many more of them. Asteroids with engines careened into downed satellites smashing them into pieces. In a short amount of time the space surrounding the area around the base looked like a giant floating junkyard. The pulsed laser satellites sought out the engines and ammunition bays of the crippled ships and base.

There was some withering return fire from from a few platforms that were not destroyed. Nuclear missiles and thel fire lanced outward into some of the incoming asteroids destroying 30 of them before they slammed into the remaining platforms.

The heat caused engines and ammunition to explode. As more asteroids came closer, some of them opened ports spewing out small fighter craft, landing craft with armored marines, and heavy space mechs.

They had to get in before the electricity came back on line. They came in fast.

A stealthed Terran nuke destroyed one of the Commonalitarianisms gunships in a massive radioactive fireball. A few of the nukes had gotten through. Most were shot down by point defense lasers, counter batteries of missiles built into the gunships, and railgun rounds.

OOC: Would it be possible to join in on this?

bump

A man was waiting in the docking bay. He had several technicians with him. Bodies lay strewn about him in deep comatic sleep. A patch on his jacket read, "Chief Life Support Engineer."

He used his communicator, "The base is mostly secure, we got the gas into the life support system and drugged the water supply. There are a few pockets of resistance, but nothing you shouldn't be able to take care of." "We sealed off the most important sections. I have the computer core memory modules with me. They won't be able to get to the power core, weapons systems, or life support."

Strategos Sharp, over the communicator, "Good work Herbert Mingus, you will get a commendation, how is the rejuve going."

Herbert Mingus, "It is great to feel like I am forty again. Still a little stiff in the joints though. When you get to by my age, this is just in a days work."

The marines rushed past him in squads aiming to take out the remaining resistance. There were still a few small pockets that had sealed themselves in sections of the base.

In a few places, some of the marines died taking continuous fire from holdouts who refused to surrender. The hydroponics section blew up using fertilizer and chemicals taking over a hundred fifty troopers in the explosion.

The men gathered the comatose bodies putting them in sealed life support tubes. They stacked them up like cordwood and loaded them into one of the asteroid ships.

The base was systematically stripped of anything useful. Also the weapons platforms were emptied of any remaining missiles. All the arms and equipment that could be taken were hauled onto the ships by heavy mechs. They new they couldn't hold this base. As soon as a ship was filled with equipment it left. There were still two functional ships in the repair yards. These were taken.

They mined the base preparing to explode it. It would be impossible to hold.
As they left, a massive fireball exploded tearing the base apart.

OOC: Yes, you can join this, just not in the current battle.
Secondly, to Commonalitarianism, I just wanted to momentarily criticize you, because the magnitude of your assualt is unrealistic and impossible for the year 2100. Also, it would be about a month's trip from the asteriod belt to Mars, and 100 asteriods moving out of orbit and towards a planet would be noticed weeks before the battle ever took place.
BIC:

As Commonalitarianism weapons and ships streaked towards platforms, many disabled by EMP weapons, some still operational. As boarding craft reached Terran weapons platforms, many self-destructed using mechanical triggers for their internal explosives or weapons stored away in tempest-hardened caches. Most of those that didn't self destruct were destroyed immediately by their operational peers, or by passing Terran vessels. Those few that remained both inactive and intact were quickly taken by Commonalitarianism marines.

Elsewhere, on Clarke, four companies of marines were raiding the Clarke command center. Andrew Gray listened to Major Felix, the man in charge of the operation. "We've taken the command center itself." stated the marine, rocket launcher slung over one shoulder. "It fell easily after we remotely disabled the automatic defenses. There were about 5000 soldiers stationed on Clarke. 3000 were sent to the surface to fight rioters there, or boarded marine frigates and are in space. We killed or captured 1000 here after we took the atmospheric controls for the C&C station. The last 1000 or so are scattered and haven't the faintest idea what to do. Most of their superiors are dead. Most have probably already died in the riots."

Gray nodded and switched to a different company CO. "We've taken the physical plant." explained the captain. "We figured that the first thing that the Terrans would want to do is take the plant and use atmospheric controls to release sleeping gas - or worse, depressurize the colony. We fought off a Terran army company about a while ago. We don't think it'll happen again. The Terrans are routed."

A third voice crackled over the line. "My company has liberated three of the five armory stations on Clarke. Each had not only weapons, but Vac Suits and Tactical Body Armor for 500 people. We gave the first two stations to the rioters, but we're keeping the last three for study. We're finished here; we'll move to the fourth one soon."

The final CO reported in. "We're in luck, sir. We were ordered to secure the cobra bays and the drydock. We hacked the security doors and caught two entire fighter squadrons on the ground, before the pilots could get to them, but thats not the best of it." The captain turned his cam so it was no longer facing himself, but the bay behind him. Gray could see immediately what he meant. "A Chiron class frigate, under minimal guard and fully armed. It had about 100 Marines on board, and an equal number of techs and engineers. It was in the shop for a problem with its Ion engine. We hacked atmospheric controls and got them to surrender. The ship's name is the Eternal Vigilance, and now she belongs to Mars."

Andrew Gray grinned and switched off the link. It was a stroke of luck. The soldiers on Clarke were already giving way, now that the crowd was as well armed as they were, and the Terrans were locked in a hopeless space battle with the Sodkaria. Speaking of which....

"Charlotte, how close are they to engage range?"
"They're entering range for a shooting solution in less than a minute. Coming around the planetary curve to face each other......"

A toned down version of the attack.

The marines transport ships are basically heavily armored hollowed out rocks with big engines, guns, and missiles. To protect them we would send out a bunch of empty asteroids with them about the same size as the marine ships with an engine and a remote controller. It would be hard to not notice the marine attack ships. They are ugly.

The marines secured the platforms. They secured the technicians and enemy combatants, then gave them a dose of a hydrogen sulfide gas with a special chemical component putting them into a hibernation state. They zipped them into life support tubes and sent them up to the ship where they would be stored until they reached the hollowed out prison asteroids. Their respiration, heart beat and metabolism would slow to 10% of normal. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002249482_hibernation22m.html

The remaining platforms were secured in preparation for a future counterattack by the consortium of Terran corporations that ran mars. They would need to be prepared.

They would have to be vigilant. An accord would need to be signed for and technology transfer planned. A number of the defensive and offensive systems on mars would need to be upgraded.

Prisoners would need to be repatriated.


OOC: Here are a few things that may change your mind-- We are using something called a Burkhard Heim Drive-- which might be theoretically buildable by about 2040-- it is faster than light and usable in system. By 2070 we sent our first extrasolar ship out. These would be used on big capital ships like gun ships. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html . Here is the development thread for the Heim drive. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=480438&page=3&highlight=commonalitarianism