NationStates Jolt Archive

For an RP I'm doing.

The Gurguvii Star Union

Introduction

The Gurguvii Star Union contains three inhabited systems and several billion souls. Ruled from the capital world of New Britain, the Star Union has recently come into its own as a major interstellar power. With the increasing decentralization of other local powers, the Star Union has begun a mobilization of forces to guarantee safety and security for both its own citizens, and those left untended by the massive Empire.

The Star Union is a parliamentary republic in operation, and a heredetary monarchy by tradition. The work of government is conducted by the Prime Minister and Parliament, made up of elected members from all the various provinces of the Union. Parliament was, by last count, four hundred and three members strong, and is divided into two houses. The first, the House of Lords, is a non-elected body that exercises the right to veto by a majority vote any legislation passed by the House of Commons and forms the highest judicial body in the Union. By contrast, the House of Commons, elected by popular vote, determines policy and allocates funding. A veto by the Lords may be overturned by a two-thirds majority in Commons, thereby preventing the Lords from exercising undue control over the functions of government.

Geography of the Star Union

The Star Union is comprised of three inhabited systems and two unihabited 'territories'. The first amongst these is Avalon, a main sequence star orbited by four inhabited planets, three gas giants and one planetoid. Home to the capital world of New Britain, the Avalon system is both political and economic centre of the Union.
New Britain (http://aperifle.sinosplice.com/Future%20City.jpg)
The capital world of the Union is a mild one, and citizens have taken advantage of the climate in building their cities.

Second in population and wealth is the Dreyfus system, home to two inhabited planets and many natural resources. Dreyfus is a binary system with eleven planets, eight of which are gas giants. The others are mostly small and rocky, and the inhabited planet of Pioneer is a thriving port of call for miners and traders alike. Pioneer is unique in the Dreyfus system for posessing large bodies of water as well as a terraformed biosphere capable of supporting human life.
Pioneer (http://3danimation.e-spaces.com/3d_images/hi_rez/future_city.jpg)
Due to its inhospitable landscape, the inhabitants of Pioneer have chosen to pave over the planet's surface and construct an extensive city without regard to the native biosphere.

The third inhabited system of the Union is Haven. Inhabited primarily by a religious minority (the Union is mainly Protestant or secular), Haven's inhabited planet of Sanctuary was founded roughly a hundred years ago by Catholics fleeing religious persecution within the Union. In the years since, the colonists and the homeworlds have renewed relations, and Sanctuary has joined the Union as a member world. Even so, Sanctuary remains something of a backwater due to its lack of unique mineral wealth.
Sanctuary (http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceExp/lunpol99.jpg)
Early colony structure.

Military of the Union

The Gurguvii Star Union maintains a small but highly effective star navy, tasked with protecting merchant shipping, providing escorts for sensitive cargo and defending the Union from outside attack. The Gurguvii Space Navy is made up primarily of small, fast starships designed for escort and interdiction duty, thereby making the GSN a highly mobile striking force. For fleet combat, the GSN operates Battle Squadron One, a fleet of eight heavy battleships designed to fight the warships of an enemy government in the event of interstellar war. BatRonOne has not seen combat for many years, but maintains a rigid training schedule and a high degree of discipline.

The Gurguvii Space Navy is complemented by two separate ground effect forces, the GSN Marines and the Gurguvii Army. The Marines, posted aboard warships of the GSN, are tasked with landing duty, ship defence and boarding operations, and have achieved a reputation for excellence. The Gurguvii Army is the shaft to the Marines' spear, trained for follow-on ground landings and sustained operations on a planet's surface. While the Marines will often land to capture spaceports, military facilities or other important targets, the work of actually capturing and pacifying a planet falls to the Army. Not surprisingly, there is a fair amount of friction between the two branches, and friendly competition is common.

The GSN also operates a small force of individual air/spacecraft, roughly analogous to the high altitude fighters of ages past. Although individual combat spacecraft are useless in a space environment, they retain their usefulness in combat air support and escort roles. Accordingly, the GSN's larger warships field a small complement (12-24) of fighters capable of space and atmospheric combat, as well as area suppression and bombing.

Faster than Light: The Alderson Drive

The Gurguvii Star Union's network of interstellar trading partners, and therefore its wealth, depends upon the Alderson Drive. Invented over a hundred years ago by physicist Daniel Alderson, the Drive allows ships of the Star Union to cross vast interstellar distances in the blink of an eye. With the invention of the Drive, the Star Union sent out its first interstellar explorers and traders, encountering other spacefaring nations and gaining its place in the sky.

The Alderson Drive, however, comes with a set of severe limitations. Firstly, it allows transit only between fixed points in space that lie at the edge of solar systems, and only along certain routes. Transiting from point to point in a given solar system must be done with conventional drives, and can take hours or days depending upon the stellar geography of the system itself. The second limitation imposed by the Alderson Drive is one of design. For various reasons, the Drive's two impeller nodes must be separated by as great a distance as possible for the Alderson Effect to occur. The greater the separation, the more efficient the Effect in terms of energy use. While very large ships (superheavy transports, dreadnoughts) may not require special structures for the Alderson nodes, most warships and smaller civilian vessels have specialized 'fins' to house drive nodes and thus reduce energy loss during jump.

Certain other star nations seem to have developed alternative forms of interstellar transit, although most are similar in effect to the Alderson Drive. Reports of starships capable of transiting to points other than those at the edge of the system have been rumoured, but confirmation is still pending.

Trade in the Union

As noted above, the Star Union has built its wealth and prosperity on trade with other nations and independent worlds. Union-registered cargo ships are amongst the most common in the sector, and the prevalence of Union shipping industries has caused a rise in both the monetary wealth of the nation and in its access to new technology. The Union's economy is robust and productive, making the small star nation extremely wealthy compared to others of its size. This wealth greatly contributes to the Union's ability to support a large space fleet, which is significantly more substantial than that of many comparable nations.

Additionally, the flow of money through the Union has led to the success of the financial and commercial sectors, particularly banks and trading firms. New Britain, the Union's financial capital, is home to the Union Bank and Finance Group (UBFG) a major financial corporation with customers both inside and outside the Union.

Common export goods are raw materials (including steel, cobalt and uranium) as well as manufactured goods and technology. The Union is a grain-importing nation, and has been for the last several decades since urban growth outstripped available land. Because the Union's systems are not particularly suited to farming (the Dreyfus System, for example, is mineral rich but lacking in arable terrain), it has long expected to import food from trading partners. Attempts to terraform the planet of Sanctuary to the point where it will be available for widespread farming are underway, but these efforts will not show return for another decade at least.

Warships of the Star Union
Credit to 'Barricade', Brett Rogers and D. Breidis for the drawings. Used without permission, modified without permission. I'm gonna get sued, aren't I?

Strikestars, Cruisers and Frigates

Designed for extended patrols and exploration missions, these classes are built with an eye to survivability and multimission capability. Operating as the eyes and ears of the Star Union, these warships are a familiar sight both within Gurguvii space and in outlying systems. Often the first Gurguvii vessels encountered by other star nations, these ships are crewed by the best of the fleet. In times of war, they form the quick strike element of the fleet.

Aeolus class Strikestar
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/ieolusclassstrikestarrh2.png) The Aeolus class (occasionally written 'Ieolus') is the most powerful of the strikestars operated by the Star Union. It is built for exploration missions and first contact situations, and is accordingly fitted with both an extensive sensor suite and a capable array of missiles and kinetic weapons, as well as a single axial x-ray laser. Fast and well armed, the Aeolus is also used as a raider and light fleet combatant during wartime. Its twin flight pods give the Aeolus another level of strike capability, rendering it perhaps the most capable multimission warship in the Star Union.

Medea class Strikestar
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/medeaclassstrikestarpo2.png)
The direct ancestor of the Aeolus, the Medea class fulfills essentially the same role within the Gurguvii Space Navy. Because it is not as well armed as the newer Aeolus (notably lacking the x-ray laser), its wartime missions are geared mainly towards quick strikes and raiding missions rather than fleet combat.

Tempest class Heavy Cruiser
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/tempestasclasslightcruimm8.png)
Built almost exclusively for warfare, the Tempest is not specifically intended to travel without extensive escort in the form of frigates, gunships or other small craft. However, its very large missile magazine and strong point-defence armament allow the Tempest to keep enemy warships at bay while more capable warships are summoned. Groups of Tempest cruisers will often form the advance force of the GSN, serving to keep an enemy contained while the battlestar fleet is en-route.

Xyston class Light Cruiser
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/Hornet.png)
The Xyston class is the standard light cruiser of the GSN, armed extensively with missiles and guns as well as a single x-ray laser. Designed to operate in conjunction with other ships of similar size, it usually forms the backbone of a fleet escort as well as a heavy raiding craft. Xyston cruisers will also operate alone, frequently as heavy patrol ships designed to interdict pirates or smugglers.

Napaeae class Light Cruiser
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/Cheetah_Light_Cruiser.png)
A pure escort and fast attack craft, the Napaeae cruiser is designed to outfight anything it cannot outrun and put up a stiff defensive fire when necessary. Armed primarily with kinetic weapons and shrapnel bombs, the Napaeae is at its best when forming the core of a fast moving strike force or mobile defensive squadron.

Hyperion class Frigate
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/postwarhyperionclasspatya3.png)
The Hyperion class is primarily an exploration ship, with secondary roles as a gunship, a commerce raider and a heavy courier. Armed with dual use cannons designed to fire both kinetic slugs and small missiles, the Hyperion class packs a surprising punch. Its small hangar allows the Hyperion to launch surgical strikes with its small complement of multirole fighters.

Artemis class Frigate
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/artemisclasspatrolstarzm1.png)
Fulfilling the GSN's need for a dedicated scout ship, the Artemis class mounts a state-of-the-art sensor and radar suite that gives it the longest detection range in the fleet. It is armed with two kinetic weapon turrets for defence, but is not designed for combat with armed vessels. It is extremely fast, making it an ideal commerce raider.

Escorts and Support Ships

No fleet is made up of combat ships alone. Repair ships, resupply tugs and other vessels allow the GSN to operate outside of Gurguvii space for extended periods. However, because they are not usually well armed, the support ships of the GSN require escort. These dedicated defensive craft are armed with extensive kinetic weapon suites and point defence guns, as well as missile suites designed to keep marauders at bay.

(Coming Soon)

Battlestars

In the event of armed conflict with another star nation, the Gurguvii Star Union will not be able to depend on cruisers and strikestars alone. Accordingly, nine battlestars have been built at great expense to guarantee the continued safety and sovereignty of the Star Union. Combining the guns and missiles of a battleship and the hangars of a star carrier, the battlestar design is highly flexible and capable of operating alone, in a group or as a flagship. Commanded by experienced officers and crewed by well trained men and women, the battlestars of Battlestar Group One (BSG-1) are the main offensive arm of the GSN.

Muse class battlestar
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/Terpsichore.png)
The standard battlestar of the GSN, the Muses are the largest and most complex multiple-build designs ever attempted by the shipyards orbiting Pioneer. With a fighter wing of sixty and a bomber wing of 24, each Muse is a force unto itself. Armed with nuclear missiles ranging from standard shipkillers to massive planet-destroying weapons, a single battlestar is capable of depopulating a moon or small planet. In ship-to-ship combat, the Muses are the equal of anything yet encountered by the Star Union.

GSS Calliope
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/zephyrusclasscommandstawj7.png)
Technically a subclass to the Muse, GSS Calliope is the flagship of BSG-1. It is a dedicated command ship, with slightly lesser offensive capability than its eight sisters but significantly greater defensive weaponry. The greatest differences are internal, however, and include increased sensor suites, a dedicated bridge for the commander as well as a CIC for the flag officer, and a pair of forward-firing x-ray lasers meant to ward off enemies attacking from directly forward.

Triton Testbed Battlestar
Image (http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f252/CanisD/Shipyard/Drawings/OtherGenres/Galactica/tritonclassprototypebattz2.png)
The original GSS Triton was the first battlestar ever constructed by the Gurguvii Space Navy. In combat against separatist forces and pirate cruisers alike, the Triton proved itself so successful that a further two battlestars were commissioned, incorporating lessons learned in the construction of the first. These three warships formed the original BSG-1, but were retired after nearly twenty years of service upon the commissioning of GSS Clio, the first of the Muse class. Triton was converted into a museum ship, mounting its original kinetic guns and conventional warhead missiles. Its other two sisters were scrapped, but the updated gun mounts and nuclear missile magazines were retained so as to make it possible for Triton to be converted into an active-duty battlestar in the event of war.

Fighters and other Small Craft

The keen observer will note that most large Gurguvii warships include facilities for a group of fighters or bombers, commonly referred to as an 'air group' after the carrier-borne aircraft of ancient wet-navies. Gurguvii small craft can be divided into two major groups, combat and noncombat. Combat craft are further subdivided into three types, fighters, bombers and transports. Noncombat craft are frequently either light freighters, passenger ships, or resupply vessels.

SD-21 Scimitar class Fighter
Image (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c95/Spoat/scimitar.png)
The Scimitar Space Dominance/Multirole fighter is the mainstay of Gurguvii air wings of all types. Equally capable in fighter v. fighter combat as in light strike missions, the Scimitar combines superb manoeuverability, extensive missile armament and a low radar cross section to be a very real threat to other fighters and light warships. Armed primarily for anti-fighter missions, the Scimitar carries four Anti-Fighter Missiles (2 internally, 2 wingtip) as well as a pair of small nuclear missiles for antiship operations. The Scimitar is deployed aboard all warships with flight pods, in numbers ranging from as few as four to as many as sixty depending on type of ship.

SB-4B Battleaxe class Fighter-Bomber
Image (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c95/Spoat/battleaxe.png)
Designed to replace the dedicated SB-3H Warhammer class bombers, the Battleaxe is optimized for strike, bombing and even space superiority missions. Although lacking in payload when compared to a dedicated bomber craft, the Battleaxe has proven itself to be extremely flexible. Armed with two 50 mm. cannon as well as an impressive array of missiles, torpedoes and even bombs, the Battleaxe is a capital ship killer, close support aircraft and heavy fighter all in one. Enemies expecting an easy mark will be surprised by the pair of anti-fighter missiles, as well as the Battleaxe's quick turning speed.

This post will be out of character.

I like to do an OOC post about motivations, inspirations and ideas that shape a society when I start in on something for NS. It gives me a focus, if you will, and lets my readers known something about my nation that might not come through in the actual RP. Much like the musical score to a movie, or the work of a costumer, that goes largely unnoticed but creates a seamless, 'real' world.

Okay. Just recently, I watched the entire run of Firefly on DVD, as well as the Serenity movie, and I pretty much loved every second. In my head, the workaday lives of Gurguviis will probably look a bit like those of Mal Reynolds or Simon Tam, depending upon social station. I also like the cultural fusion idea, with nods to Asian and Western cultures alike. If you've read my Seeds of Empire, you'll probably pick up on the 'Standard, English and Simplified Mandarin' thing... that's very much inspired by Whedon's universe.

So too, I've fallen well in love with the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. It's a great show both for character development and for semi-realistic-without-being-anal science fiction, which is really my cup of tea. I don't have the physics, nor the inclination, to write hard-SF, but things like 'plasma torpedoes' and 'energy force shields' always irritated me. Give me missiles, guns and the like. My nod to BSG2003 is pretty obvious, just look at my ships.

Something both of these universes have in common is a dark view of humanity. We're deeply flawed and fascinating little creatures, who go about our lives with the best of intentions and end up causing terrible harm. I don't hold to dystopianism, but I also resist the idea of 'perfect' future governments. I like Whedon's Alliance a great deal: it's a government trying to hold together the disparate worlds of humanity, doing evil when it must but always in the service of good. Firefly shows the Alliance's worst moments, when a government tries to impose its will too heavily on a people and the people fight back. But then, the very largest nations in human history have always been oppressive indeed, perhaps because that is the only way to maintain order across great distances. Think British Empire, Roman Empire, etc. Were these societies inherently evil? Not at all. I would argue that they did a great deal of good. But they eventually fell because they attempted to rule too much, I think, and found themselves unequal to the task.

I'm getting away from myself, here. My nation is very much patterned after Whedon's Alliance and even Lucas' Galactic Empire. Its leaders honestly want to serve their citizens well, but they walk a fine line between keeping order and enforcing tyranny. So that's where I am at the moment. Starenell, if you're reading this, I think we're all about ready to get going...

Gurguvii Military Technology

Weapons

Lasers
The Gurguvii military, unlike that of most star nations, has never been able to create a viable weapons-grade laser suitable for large scale use. Hamstrung by power requirements, cost and other considerations, the GSN has largely opted to pursue missile and railgun technology at the expense of heavy combat lasers.

As with all things, however, there are exceptions to this. The GSN has found that while most lasers are either impracticable or easily defeated by the mysterious energy screens of larger spacefaring nations, the X-Ray beam is both stupendously long-ranged and hugely powerful. X-ray lasers, long the holy grail of weapons designers, have been found to be useful only on the very largest of the GSN's warships. Furthermore, the type of laser beam created by an X-Ray laser (Xaser) is impossible to direct with any known mirror material, and is thus a fixed-arc weapon. Most large GSN warships mount at least one xaser directly forward to aid in head on attacks.

Railguns
Railguns, on the other hand, have proven to be extremely simple to produce and very reliable. GSN warships mount railguns in a variety of sizes, but they have two main uses. The first is CIWS/point defence, for which very small calibre (usually around 40 mm) rounds are accelerated to low c-fractional velocities towards incomng missiles. Because of the inherent inaccuracy of these systems, they rely upon massive volume of fire to be effective, and large warships require a complex ammunition feeding mechanism that transfers rounds from a number of centralised banks to the cannon themselves.

At the other end of the spectrum is the anti-ship cannon, a very large railgun system designed to riddle an enemy warship with holes. The rounds themselves are explosive, but the speed at which they accelerate means that the explosive charge's power is nearly equalled by the kinetic energy given off by the round itself. While the size of this cannon varies widely, the largest battlestars have been fitted with 250mm cannon in addition to their extensive CIWS systems.

Missiles
The bread-and-butter armament of the GSN, the missile combines high explosive potential, manoeuvrability and speed in an independently homing package. Gurguvii missiles come in a wide variety, but capital ships are armed primarily with three types. The first is the anti-fighter missile, a large missile that deploys a dozen smaller submunitions and can thin the ranks of an enemy squadron with ease. The second is a standard nuclear warhead for planetary bombardment and secondary anti-ship use. Nuclear weapons do not function particularly well in space, since atmosphere is the primary conductor of a nuclear warhead's destructive energy. In space, anything outside of a kilometre of the explosion will be relatively unharmed unless it is unshielded against gamma rays (a bad idea in space).
The last type is a pure anti-ship warhead. It is essentially a nuclear weapon strapped to an X-ray laser head. The warhead's explosion powers a cluster of omnidirectional xaser heads, resulting in several hugely powerful x ray beams. Any ship unlucky enough to be hit by more than one xaser beam will almost certainly take severe damage, if not be lost outright.

Defensive Systems
The Star Union has over the course of its explorations encountered a number of highly advanced starships hailing from other space nations, and has many times noted the common ability to generate an invisible defensive screen to ward off many kinds of attacks. While research into this area is ongoing amongst the Star Union's leading physicists, this technology remains beyond the capability of the GSN as yet.

Supplementing a warship's structural integrity, then, are a variety of passive and active defensive systems. The most basic of these is the standard ablative armour, a development of ancient Explosive-Reactive technology that is designed to direct the force of an explosion or impact away from the ship by generating a small explosion of its own. Proven to be highly effective against kinetic and light explosive rounds, ablative armour must unfortunately be replaced after every impact, and is quickly rendered useless by sustained fire.

Another extremely effective form of armour is the Whipple Shield, a sheet of light metal spaced apart from the hull itself which absorbs the kinetic impact of an incoming railgun round. Like ablative armour, the Whipple Shield is of limited usefulness, since its plates will eventually shatter after continued perforation by hypervelocity rounds. However, until such time as the Whipple Shield is overcome, the hull of the warship takes only minimal 'splash' damage from the projectile.

Of course, neither of these is especially effective against missile attacks, particularly nuclear or bomb-pumped types. In these cases, the best defence has proven to be an extremely thick outer hull composed of very dense materials such as lead or depleted uranium. While this has the unfortunate effect of drastically increasing the mass of a warship and was inconceivable aboard older chemical rockets, modern engine advances have allowed designers to coat their warships in a shell of depleted uranium and lead to protect against radiation and impact, as well as explosive damage.

TBC