Gurguvungunit
05-09-2007, 04:05
New London, Avalon System
The exports were starting to dry up. It was a frightful thought for a nation built almost entirely on trade, and Prime Minister Quentin Stathan was getting antsy. A deceptively young-looking man, Stathan was the recipient of third-generation prolong treatments that kept him looking thirty, while his actual age pushed sixty five. He looked young, vital and energetic, and sometimes it was hard to pretend that he still was. Stathan had degenerated since his forties, losing muscle definition and stamina, and he had to fight to hide his weariness at times.
Times such as now, standing in Parliament hall and fielding questions from an irate leader of the opposition, the rather distractingly beautiful Rachel Dawson from Pioneer's Docklands district.
"... and the prime minister," she said icily, "can't seem to find the missing million pounds!" Her side of the chamber erupted in cheers, ignoring the catcalls from Stathan's own Tories. "So I ask you, ladies and gentlemen," Dawson waved her arm expansively to indicate the entire chamber, "how long are we willing to be lied to before we demand a new government?" This time, the roar from the opposition was deafening, and no amount of Tory booing or wig waving would shut them up. Stathan leaned forward, pasting a grin on his face.
"The fact is," he said charmingly before being shouted down. "The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, there are no missing pounds. My government has not covered up the disappearance of funds over poor investments, and the trade numbers are starting to stabilize!" He waved a folder in the air for effect. "This is a report from the Central Bank, and it states that the recent downturn is a standard fluctuation in the market! Ms. Dawson is simply manipulating facts to suit her own ends, and this chamber is not obliged to listen to her duplicity!" There was a weak cheer from the Tory side, but not nearly enough to keep the assembled liberal parliamentarians in any kind of order. Best to conclude this session now, Stathan reasoned, rather than give Dawson her crack at the numbers. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you shall have to excuse me. I have a government to run, after all." He picked up his notes and stuffed them into his briefcase with as much aplomb as he could muster, before ushering the cabinet out of Parliament Hall.
Time to find something to distract the people with, Stathan reasoned. And meanwhile, he'd need to staunch the hemmorhage of money from the trade deficit somehow, while keeping Dawson and her bloodhounds appeased with some sort of welfare increase. Dear Lord, the complexities of governance!
Outer Systems, unexplored territory
"Radar contact! Bearing zero carom zero mark nine, azimuth plane reading sixty-five point eight." Commander Horace Walpole, commanding officer of the Strikestar GSS Aether, felt a distinct surge of adrenaline. Standing in the centre of Aether's bridge, the commander cut an intimidating figure. Young in the manner of many prolong recipients, he stood tall and thin in his Gurguvii Star Navy blues, pale eyes and sandy hair shadowed in the low light of the command deck.
Aether, a strikestar, lacked a dedicated CIC from which to analyze sensor information or formulate grand tactical manouvres. Rather than a situation table that dominated the command well, a three-sided display tree rose from the deck and disappeared into the ceiling. It was this display tree, showing radar and sensor readouts on multiple LCD screens, that Walpole turned to upon hearing his tactical officer's shrill notification.
"Run its signal against the database, I want to know whose ship that is." Walpole loosened his tie, a longstanding habit when facing dangerous situations. His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Baker, appeared at his side with customary stealth. Walpole resisted the urge to jump, instead keying the display to focus on the unknown blip. It pulsed yellow, moving nearer with each pass of the radar.
A starship of the GSN was commanded from its bridge, a large, circular room buried deep within the main hull. There were no windows or viewscreens, space was vast and optical navigation was useless. The starship's heading was determined by a set of universal starmaps, and it was navigated through input into a massive board or series of boards that controlled directional thrusters and main engines. The larger the ship, the more complex the command deck. Battlestars merited entire multi-tiered facilities called Combat Information Centres that took the place of a bridge. Command battlestars such as the GSS Calliope, largest warship in the Star Navy, had both a bridge for ship command and a CIC for fleet direction.
Aether had only a bridge, a circular, one level room with several stations and a small open area for the commanding officer and his XO. Of all of these, the tactical officer's was the most elabourate. A large glass situation plot displayed all vessels and stellar objects within a certain radius, while entire banks of sensors and communications equipment tied him in with the entire ship. From his station, Lieutenant Christian Helmsley could direct fire, identify targets and track other starships. He controlled the powerful radar and scanner arrays of the Aether, which he directed now at the unknown contact. With a few keystrokes, he compared the readings against the entire GSN ship database, and after a few moments of waiting the computer returned a response.
"Negative for matches on the database, sir." Helmsley turned to another interface, ready for his commander's inevitable orders.
"Officer of the Deck, set condition two throughout the ship." Walpole's order was standard practise when encountering an unknown ship type. Helmsley picked up his shipwide communications handset and spoke into it, his words piped instantaneously to every speaker in the strikestar's hull.
"Now hear this, now hear this. We are at condition two. I say again, condition two." A yeoman hurried over to the bridge's hatch and dogged it shut in accordance with condition two, rendering the bridge an airtight bubble within the ship. All throughout Aether, hatches of every kind were being closed and locked, the better to protect the ship in the event of a localised decompression. Scimitar fighters were armed and loaded into their launch tubes, and the landing pods were readied for combat landings. Missile stores were checked and kinetic round drums were loaded, but firing chambers remained empty of missile or round. The Aether, in short, was made ready to fight in the event of an attack.
"Midshipman Piers," Walpole said, indicating the young woman at the communications station. "Hail the unknown vessel, broadcast friendship messages in Standard, English and Simplified Mandarin."
Advanced Starship Design Bureau, Bernoulli Drive Yards, Pioneer
Battlestar Group One was not enough. That was the message passed down by the Admiralty, and it fell to Bernoulli's ASDB to design the ships of BSG-2. A set of requirements came with the message, demanding more guns for increased point-defence and close ranged combat capability, a comparable number of broadside and topside missile bays, similar hull integrity and armour strength, and a slightly reduced complement of fighters. They wanted it on a greater than ten percent smaller frame with an overall cost cut in the millions of pounds.
Doctor Helena Vance, a with greying hair and decades of engineering experience, resisted the urge to respond with a terse message informing the Admiralty that it needed a new acquisitions department on the basis of gross incompetence. Such a request was not physically possible, that much was evident after only a cursory look at the specs. The Muse class' systems were packed as tightly as technology and safety regulations allowed, and increasing anything (while reducing size) could come only at great cost to other systems.
Still and all, Bernoulli Drive was the principle large-ship contractor for the GSN. It had a reputation for excellence and creative designs, and its ships were tried and proven by a decade of service. If the admiralty wanted a new battlestar, they'd get one. Vance waved her stylus at the upright computer screen, calling up her vidcom with a preprogrammed series of loops and flicks.
"All staff, ASDB. Doctor Vance. Subject: Pocket Battlestar Design. Commence recording. Ladies and gentlemen, we've just been given a new commission from the Admiralty. Details appended. Meet in one hour, main draftroom. End recording. Send."
The exports were starting to dry up. It was a frightful thought for a nation built almost entirely on trade, and Prime Minister Quentin Stathan was getting antsy. A deceptively young-looking man, Stathan was the recipient of third-generation prolong treatments that kept him looking thirty, while his actual age pushed sixty five. He looked young, vital and energetic, and sometimes it was hard to pretend that he still was. Stathan had degenerated since his forties, losing muscle definition and stamina, and he had to fight to hide his weariness at times.
Times such as now, standing in Parliament hall and fielding questions from an irate leader of the opposition, the rather distractingly beautiful Rachel Dawson from Pioneer's Docklands district.
"... and the prime minister," she said icily, "can't seem to find the missing million pounds!" Her side of the chamber erupted in cheers, ignoring the catcalls from Stathan's own Tories. "So I ask you, ladies and gentlemen," Dawson waved her arm expansively to indicate the entire chamber, "how long are we willing to be lied to before we demand a new government?" This time, the roar from the opposition was deafening, and no amount of Tory booing or wig waving would shut them up. Stathan leaned forward, pasting a grin on his face.
"The fact is," he said charmingly before being shouted down. "The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, there are no missing pounds. My government has not covered up the disappearance of funds over poor investments, and the trade numbers are starting to stabilize!" He waved a folder in the air for effect. "This is a report from the Central Bank, and it states that the recent downturn is a standard fluctuation in the market! Ms. Dawson is simply manipulating facts to suit her own ends, and this chamber is not obliged to listen to her duplicity!" There was a weak cheer from the Tory side, but not nearly enough to keep the assembled liberal parliamentarians in any kind of order. Best to conclude this session now, Stathan reasoned, rather than give Dawson her crack at the numbers. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you shall have to excuse me. I have a government to run, after all." He picked up his notes and stuffed them into his briefcase with as much aplomb as he could muster, before ushering the cabinet out of Parliament Hall.
Time to find something to distract the people with, Stathan reasoned. And meanwhile, he'd need to staunch the hemmorhage of money from the trade deficit somehow, while keeping Dawson and her bloodhounds appeased with some sort of welfare increase. Dear Lord, the complexities of governance!
Outer Systems, unexplored territory
"Radar contact! Bearing zero carom zero mark nine, azimuth plane reading sixty-five point eight." Commander Horace Walpole, commanding officer of the Strikestar GSS Aether, felt a distinct surge of adrenaline. Standing in the centre of Aether's bridge, the commander cut an intimidating figure. Young in the manner of many prolong recipients, he stood tall and thin in his Gurguvii Star Navy blues, pale eyes and sandy hair shadowed in the low light of the command deck.
Aether, a strikestar, lacked a dedicated CIC from which to analyze sensor information or formulate grand tactical manouvres. Rather than a situation table that dominated the command well, a three-sided display tree rose from the deck and disappeared into the ceiling. It was this display tree, showing radar and sensor readouts on multiple LCD screens, that Walpole turned to upon hearing his tactical officer's shrill notification.
"Run its signal against the database, I want to know whose ship that is." Walpole loosened his tie, a longstanding habit when facing dangerous situations. His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Baker, appeared at his side with customary stealth. Walpole resisted the urge to jump, instead keying the display to focus on the unknown blip. It pulsed yellow, moving nearer with each pass of the radar.
A starship of the GSN was commanded from its bridge, a large, circular room buried deep within the main hull. There were no windows or viewscreens, space was vast and optical navigation was useless. The starship's heading was determined by a set of universal starmaps, and it was navigated through input into a massive board or series of boards that controlled directional thrusters and main engines. The larger the ship, the more complex the command deck. Battlestars merited entire multi-tiered facilities called Combat Information Centres that took the place of a bridge. Command battlestars such as the GSS Calliope, largest warship in the Star Navy, had both a bridge for ship command and a CIC for fleet direction.
Aether had only a bridge, a circular, one level room with several stations and a small open area for the commanding officer and his XO. Of all of these, the tactical officer's was the most elabourate. A large glass situation plot displayed all vessels and stellar objects within a certain radius, while entire banks of sensors and communications equipment tied him in with the entire ship. From his station, Lieutenant Christian Helmsley could direct fire, identify targets and track other starships. He controlled the powerful radar and scanner arrays of the Aether, which he directed now at the unknown contact. With a few keystrokes, he compared the readings against the entire GSN ship database, and after a few moments of waiting the computer returned a response.
"Negative for matches on the database, sir." Helmsley turned to another interface, ready for his commander's inevitable orders.
"Officer of the Deck, set condition two throughout the ship." Walpole's order was standard practise when encountering an unknown ship type. Helmsley picked up his shipwide communications handset and spoke into it, his words piped instantaneously to every speaker in the strikestar's hull.
"Now hear this, now hear this. We are at condition two. I say again, condition two." A yeoman hurried over to the bridge's hatch and dogged it shut in accordance with condition two, rendering the bridge an airtight bubble within the ship. All throughout Aether, hatches of every kind were being closed and locked, the better to protect the ship in the event of a localised decompression. Scimitar fighters were armed and loaded into their launch tubes, and the landing pods were readied for combat landings. Missile stores were checked and kinetic round drums were loaded, but firing chambers remained empty of missile or round. The Aether, in short, was made ready to fight in the event of an attack.
"Midshipman Piers," Walpole said, indicating the young woman at the communications station. "Hail the unknown vessel, broadcast friendship messages in Standard, English and Simplified Mandarin."
Advanced Starship Design Bureau, Bernoulli Drive Yards, Pioneer
Battlestar Group One was not enough. That was the message passed down by the Admiralty, and it fell to Bernoulli's ASDB to design the ships of BSG-2. A set of requirements came with the message, demanding more guns for increased point-defence and close ranged combat capability, a comparable number of broadside and topside missile bays, similar hull integrity and armour strength, and a slightly reduced complement of fighters. They wanted it on a greater than ten percent smaller frame with an overall cost cut in the millions of pounds.
Doctor Helena Vance, a with greying hair and decades of engineering experience, resisted the urge to respond with a terse message informing the Admiralty that it needed a new acquisitions department on the basis of gross incompetence. Such a request was not physically possible, that much was evident after only a cursory look at the specs. The Muse class' systems were packed as tightly as technology and safety regulations allowed, and increasing anything (while reducing size) could come only at great cost to other systems.
Still and all, Bernoulli Drive was the principle large-ship contractor for the GSN. It had a reputation for excellence and creative designs, and its ships were tried and proven by a decade of service. If the admiralty wanted a new battlestar, they'd get one. Vance waved her stylus at the upright computer screen, calling up her vidcom with a preprogrammed series of loops and flicks.
"All staff, ASDB. Doctor Vance. Subject: Pocket Battlestar Design. Commence recording. Ladies and gentlemen, we've just been given a new commission from the Admiralty. Details appended. Meet in one hour, main draftroom. End recording. Send."