NationStates Jolt Archive

I am thinking of starting a near future tech thread where the inhabitants of Earth have been forced to abandon the planet, it having succumbed to endless warfare and environmental degradation which has rendered it incapable of sustaining life.

Those that have survived and managed to flee the planet have had to establish new settlements on planets in near by systems. The tech level will be pretty basic… space flight but nothing too fast (the RP will take place within a dozen or so neighboring solar systems), nothing more than rail guns on ships, and only your average gun for a handheld weapon. If anyone has seen firefly then you’d get the basic understanding of what I’m proposing although there would be no united alliance in the beginning and it would basically be everyone fending for themselves until new ships can be made and tradable items stockpiled.

At the start of the RP, there will be few spaceships and most of those will be cargo ships, freighters or other such civilian vessels. Of the warships that were made on earth most were destroyed. The last massive battle that took place while the final collapse of the earths living environment happened (eg, massive volcanic activity, storms, etc) finished off most of the rest.

Minimal supplies were able to be taken from Earth as most of the room was needed to evacuate as many people as possible.

There are plenty of opportunities to RP whatever kind of faction you like, from a newly formed nation to a group who’ve became pirates and now prey on the dispersed survivors.

Also, there won’t be any intelligent alien civilizations around, given that we are contained to an area relatively close to the earth, but there can be any kind of alien species (giant beast or that kind of life) on any of the planets you happen to go to.

If anyone is interested then just post here (maybe with a basic idea of what your faction would be in the RP or with any ideas you might have to add). And when I say anyone interested… I mean those who are going to make serious posts not one or two liners or make a few posts and then disappear from the thread…. Speed of posting is not really an issue as long as there is consistency!!! I am so sick of good threads dying from inactivity.


There are plenty of opportunities to RP whatever kind of faction you like, from a newly formed nation to a group who’ve became pirates and now pray on the dispersed survivors.

If anyone is interested then just post here (maybe with a basic idea of what your faction would be in the RP or with any ideas you might have to add). And when I say anyone interested… I mean those who are going to make serious posts not one or two liners or make a few posts and then disappear from the thread…. Speed of posting is not really an issue as long as there is consistency!!! I am so sick of good threads dying from inactivity.

To avoid confusion...

Ship Classes

Frigate: This military class is the only one of its type. Built on mass quickly it has all the basic requirements for space battle. It is not overly fast but is heavily armored and has multiple rail gun turrets, ten being the maximum. It houses roughly 600 personal comfortably 400 of which are crew. These are very rare ships because of the war and are hard to come by so each colony/persona should at max only have one unless they give up other abilities such as farming, building, mining equipment etc. Also unless your faction is remnant military or government then this class if not really available.

Personal: These ships were built quickly and on mass for the evacuation of personal, 1000 persons per ship with minimal supplies that will last a couple of months maximum. Note it will unlikely that anyone would have any more than 10000 people total.

Freighter: Purely for the transport of heavy equipment, materials, food stuffs or livestock. These are the most common class of ship and modifications can be made to allow for some personal transport though these are normally piloted by a skeleton crew of about 50 people. Freighters can be modified to carry weaponry although these would only be a few light rail guns nothing heavy like that on the frigates and would severely reduce cargo space.

Bulk freighter: One of the largest classes of ships and very rare. These were in production before the war began, designed by governments for specific purposes or missions, and thus are normally the only ship, bar shuttles, owned by a colony as they have either been commandeered by a rouge government official or were already en rout to their target planet before the final battle started. Max 5000 personal, although the extra large cargo hold can be modified for extra people at the expense of storage space. Weaponry can be added, like the freighter.

Shuttles: Short range, planet fall and orbit operations. No interplanetary abilities. May be docked onboard a freighter or attached to a personal carrier though this would almost half fill a freighter and will reduce the speed of any ship it is docked to.

This is what i'm looking for from those who are interested.

Profile: Life among the stars.

Faction type: Miners Guild
Starting Location: En rout to Obercron - A large asteroid identified as consisting primarily of metal ores, which is in orbit around Tiranus a Blue Giant situated in the Tirana System

Ideals: To find new building material and gather all resources available.

Leader: Manfride Dugart – Chief miner formally part of NASA in the field of harnessing space resources.

Colonists: 2500 miners plus their wives and children.

Ship: Manfride currently captains a large bulk freighter, The Gouger, which has been converted to supply the basic needs for the miners although its sole purpose is to transport the large amounts of mining equipment and thus in many of the miner’s eyes the equipment is treated better than they are.

History: When War broke out Manfride was in charge of the operation, Deep Mine, which focused on sending probes out to nearby planets and asteroids in order to determine the feasibility of mining them. As the stars were too far away costs outweighed benefits and thus the program was down scaled. As the wars spread much of the red tape and Bureaucracy fell apart and Manfride found himself in the unlikely position of being able to purchase the required equipment to fulfil his dream of mining the stars.

Profile: life among the stars

Faction type: colonists
Starting Location: Mars

Ideals: to become a galactic empire

Leader: Vladimir Alexiovich Gagarin, son of first man in space, Cosmonaut

Population: 3500

Ship: a fleet of basic spaceships and a large colony on the surface of mars

History: Vladimir tried to follow his fathers footsteps and became the first man on mars. He then led a revolution within the Russian space colonies, seperated and made it to mars before them.

Bump

Check the newly edited "rules" hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone.

Also if you get into battle remember that in these kind of ships if the engine dont spin, life support dont function.

Profile: life among the stars

Faction type: colonists
Starting Location: Mars

Ideals: to become a galactic empire

Leader: Vladimir Alexiovich Gagarin, son of first man in space, Cosmonaut

Population: 3500

Ship: a fleet of basic spaceships and a large colony on the surface of mars

History: Vladimir tried to follow his fathers footsteps and became the first man on mars. He then led a revolution within the Russian space colonies, seperated and made it to mars before them.


That cool and sounds good. A few changes though, by fleet I hope you mean transport ships? There should really be one or two military ships and no fighters as such as it is too low a tech level. Second yeah a Mars colony is fine but if it were established before or during the war then it would have become a target so I’m thinking a command center, barracks and some habitation farms max.

Faction: Aschen Confederation
Faction Type: Military Remnant
Starting Location: Arriving at the military outpost on the planet Herix, in the Saden system.

Leader: Admiral Kaeso Aschen, former head of NATO Space Forces.
Ideals: The Admiral believed that the downfall of the human race would happen because so many governments existed ungoverned, and now with the planets destruction he has all the evidence he requires for those beliefs. Having gathered the surviving military forces from the wars, the now Aschen Confederation, seeks to unite or destroy the dispersing survivor groups.
No. of People: 3,800 soldiers and 4,500 colonists.

Ships: The Confederation possesses two NATO warships (frigates), though one of those is barely space worthy having suffered massive damage during the wars. In addition to this Aschen commands a pair of personnel transports and a few standard freighters.

History: Admiral Aschen was the Commanding officer of the NATO Space Forces at the height of the space age roughly a decade ago. When NATO and other world organizations collapsed before the onset of the wars, Aschen was charged with leading the loyal forces against those nations who broke away to serve their own need. After years of battle, the Admiral was lucky enough to have been on a mission when the final battle erupted over the dying world and now with that mission nearing its completion he has returned his attention to his primary goals (and to the NATO orders that now are still standing and without a superior to cancel them).

Faction: Aschen Confederation
Faction Type: Military Remnant
Starting Location: Arriving at the military outpost on the planet Herix, in the Saden system.

Leader: Admiral Kaeso Aschen, former head of NATO Space Forces.
Ideals: The Admiral believed that the downfall of the human race would happen because so many governments existed ungoverned, and now with the planets destruction he has all the evidence he requires for those beliefs. Having gathered the surviving military forces from the wars, the now Aschen Confederation, seeks to unite or destroy the dispersing survivor groups.
No. of People: 3,800 soldiers and 4,500 colonists.

Ships: The Confederation possesses two NATO warships (frigates), though one of those is barely space worthy having suffered massive damage during the wars. In addition to this Aschen commands a pair of personnel transports and a few standard freighters.

History: Admiral Aschen was the Commanding officer of the NATO Space Forces at the height of the space age roughly a decade ago. When NATO and other world organizations collapsed before the onset of the wars, Aschen was charged with leading the loyal forces against those nations who broke away to serve their own need. After years of battle, the Admiral was lucky enough to have been on a mission when the final battle erupted over the dying world and now with that mission nearing its completion he has returned his attention to his primary goals (and to the NATO orders that now are still standing and without a superior to cancel them).

Welcome on board Yallak. Wasn't sure if you would be into this.

Yeah, i've been thinking of doing a FT version of my nation but haven't yet because there is too much wanked stuff. This will do nicely to start off with.

bump

I've been getting more into hard SF lately so I think I'll give this a try. I just have a few questions before I create my faction.

Since we have rail guns, can we have missles? I'm thinking of using a small armada or small, missile armed "gunboats" instead of capital ships.

Also, is this realistic in regards to stealth? In "real" space combat your ship would be too hot to hide fom IR sensors.

Do we have artificial gravity or spin gravity? If no artificial gravity do we have inertial dampers? If we don't that limits aceleration to 5-6 Gs at most.

Finally, what are the basics of our fictional FTL drive? Doesn't have to be detailed just some background ifo so I canf rame my faction accordingly.

Here's a good site to refer to for "realistic" low-tech ship design tips:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

I've been getting more into hard SF lately so I think I'll give this a try. I just have a few questions before I create my faction.

Since we have rail guns, can we have missles? I'm thinking of using a small armada or small, missile armed "gunboats" instead of capital ships.

Also, is this realistic in regards to stealth? In "real" space combat your ship would be too hot to hide fom IR sensors.

Do we have artificial gravity or spin gravity? If no artificial gravity do we have inertial dampers? If we don't that limits aceleration to 5-6 Gs at most.

Finally, what are the basics of our fictional FTL drive? Doesn't have to be detailed just some background ifo so I canf rame my faction accordingly.

Here's a good site to refer to for "realistic" low-tech ship design tips:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

All wonderful questions so I’ll start at the top. One, missiles seem fine although ship types will have to be modified from the list on page one, that is until you start building your own and then nothing that doesn’t fit into the tech level.

Second I believe that the tech level is to low for stealth regardless so ships disappearing from sight are out however solar flares and the alike may interrupt scanners.

Yeah artificial gravity has been developed as have inertial dampeners but they are very basic so it will take weeks to go between systems.

And for your final question I have no idea what you want to know exactly do you want info on the drives or the history of how they were developed or what?

All wonderful questions so I’ll start at the top. One, missiles seem fine although ship types will have to be modified from the list on page one, that is until you start building your own and then nothing that doesn’t fit into the tech level.

Cool I should have some ship info up later today.

Second I believe that the tech level is to low for stealth regardless so ships disappearing from sight are out however solar flares and the alike may interrupt scanners.

My thinking was ships produce so much waste heat that they stand out pretty well. We can detect the shuttle's OMS jets from as far out as the asteroid belt with current tech, so you'll be able to see ships anywhere in Solar System, though time lags do to light speed will make tracking hard.

Yeah artificial gravity has been developed as have inertial dampeners but they are very basic so it will take weeks to go between systems.

Cool, rotating segments are a pain in the ass from a design aspect.

And for your final question I have no idea what you want to know exactly do you want info on the drives or the history of how they were developed or what?

Is it a Star Trek/Star Wars type drive where you experience FTL travel or is it a Battlestar Galactica type jump drive where you disappear and reappear somewhere else, though with range and frequency limitations? Also, I assume we're ignoring time dilation because otherwise years would pass in the weeks a ship is in transit between worlds.

Ooooh, been looking to RP the past of my FT nation, this be perfec

Faction: The Patriarchs
Faction type: Colonists
Starting Location: Orbit of Earth

Ideals: To secure an adequate location to continue the IVth Toopoxican Kingdom

Leader: King Lexin Du'font-Braben

Population: 2,000

Ship: Small refuelling sattelite around earth, a Frigate, Freighter, Transport and 2 Shuttles

History: After the massive world ending war the Kingdom of Toopoxia deemed it worthwile to investigate the possibility of deep space colonisation, time slowly began to run out for the Toopoxicans but eventually they were able to move all operations to one Sattelite, and a small fleet of vessels, the true elites of the intelligentia were chosen and nicknamed "The Patriarchs" These people would be the beginers of the new Toopoxican civilisation.

Faction: Terran Directorate

Starting Location: Saturn's moons and upper atmosphere

Ideals: Control and expand Helium-3 harvesting in Saurn's upper atmosphere

Leader: Commander Nathan Thorn

Population: 5,750

Ships: 4 freighters, 3 personal vessels, the frigate Stalwart(engines nonfuctional so it's effectively an orbital defense platform until repaired however weapons array is at full capacity)

History: Thorn was commander of the Stalwart in closing months of the war when a massive nuclear missle attack disabled the vessel and destroyed all but one of the He-3 harvesting platforms. Thorn managed to protect the platform against followup attacks after The Fall has retained control and restarting harvesting operations and is moving to expand operations and build a new nation around Saturn.

Cool I should have some ship info up later today.

Is it a Star Trek/Star Wars type drive where you experience FTL travel or is it a Battlestar Galactica type jump drive where you disappear and reappear somewhere else, though with range and frequency limitations? Also, I assume we're ignoring time dilation because otherwise years would pass in the weeks a ship is in transit between worlds.

Ah righto Star Trek/Star wars for sure and yeah time dilation just messes everything up so forget that. Thanks for your input hopefully it will make everything run smoother. I am planning on waiting for 6 people before I start the thread so only one more to go.

Ah righto Star Trek/Star wars for sure and yeah time dilation just messes everything up so forget that. Thanks for your input hopefully it will make everything run smoother. I am planning on waiting for 6 people before I start the thread so only one more to go.

We gotta have FTL communications of some sort because with fleets this size dispersed so far out we'd never encounter each other otherwise.

Anyway here's the specs on the Stalwart:

Type: Resolute class Heavy Frigate
Length: 375 meters
Width: 118 meters
Height: 125 meters
Armament:
8 x twin 250 mm rail guns
12 x 9 cell Hellhound missile launchers, each with 1.5 megaton yield
12 x dual 50 mm point defense autocannons
Armor: 120 cm (composition classified)
Sensors: active-radar, lidar passive-IR, optical telescopes
Propulsion:
1 x Shaw-Tanaka FTL drive, top speed 185 C (currently nonfunctional)
6 x Jackson FDE-256 fusion engines, max acceleration: 75 Gs (currently offline)
Crew: fully manned-650 actual-457 plus 38 Marines and 37 civilian contractors

I hate to be a bother but I have one more suggestion.

The lack of lasers seems kinda strange, we're close to building lasers right now and lasers work much better in a vacuum than an atmosphere. What I was thinking was that we have lasers, but only as point defense. Laser point defense would make missles largely useless, while projectile point defenses are pretty much useless. This way we avopid extremely long range, and somewhat borin, missile duels and make battles closer up. The limited power production capability of our ships means lasers can used against ships but aren't terribly effective. This leaves rail guns as the primary weapon for ship to combat thus maintaining the intial status quo.

How does that sound to everyone?

I'm gonna give this RP a bump so it doesn't die before it starts.

Hay. Sorry been busy. I am going to start up a new thread to see if I can attract more interest so stay tuned.

May I play, I use battlestar Galactica TNS technology, which is pretty much everything you stated, except they have an FTL drive. For the purpose of this game, I am willing to "get rid of" the FTL, or would the presence of a battlestar, even one as crappy as Galactica be overpowered in this. If it is, I am willing to make smaller battlestar types like the Valykrie, or a Gunstar.

If this tech is too high, perhaps I could make ships similiar to the Alliance in Serenity/Firefly.