1-4: Planning for the Future
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Select as many or as few of the following as preferred as part of a plan: Plan Fuck You, Pay Me
Interstellar Surveyor
With the entire breadth of the Navy catalogue at their disposal, and several components provided for us by non-governmental research and specialist manufacturers, the architects have put together a design for a remarkable little ship. Smaller than any of our current navy ships, the surveyor will nonetheless be an example of systems never before deployed on a Navy ship. Energence Heavy will build a fusion power plant larger than any previous test-bed design, with more than forty tons devoted to supplying the terawatts of power required. Bearings Machinery Firm are constructing a thruster-plate drive that is no larger than any other - in fact its a tenth the size of the one mounted on the System Defence Destroyer - but provides significantly more thrust, as well as the dampers to go with it.
The Drive Decks of the SDD, showing the massive thruster plates
However, in order for the architects achievements to be possible, numerous requests for mission equipment had to be turned down. The Citizens Council is rumoured to be spitting feathers over the lack of a diplomatic mission, despite reassurances that the ships will be commanded by some of the best officers available to the Navy. Equally, the City Militia has lodged several formal protests that their junior service is not acceding to requirements to carry a defensive platoon of marines - what will we do, they ask, when the ship is inevitably boarded by alien aggressors who are able to reverse engineer our jump drives and come marauding into Home? Surely then we will be looking to the City Militia for aid.
They are not the only ones frustrated. The SIS is apparently already looking to civilian shipbuilding concerns for assistance in constructing the first scientific research vessel capable of interstellar travel. Meanwhile, the Home Intelligence Service (HIS) has been notified of the request to bring representatives of the Daughters aboard the ship and several arrests have already been made amongst the junior staff officers of the Navy. A shame, truly - some of those officers were good at their jobs - but sympathising with a powerful political group to the point of aiding and abetting them cannot be allowed.
Nonetheless, despite these issues, we have a design. The Interstellar Surveyor will be a 700 ton, lightly armed, fast and well armoured jump ship with limited defensive weapons and a crew of just fifteen. Despite its small size it will cost us more to build than an Interplanetary Cruiser, with a total build cost of almost 360 million credits per hull. We lay down two, enough for scouting operations into our neighbours systems, and move on to the next problem. After all, they are projected to take some 96 weeks to build.
Naval Doctrine
Until the last few months, the naval doctrine governing our spending has been a simple one: build several capable warships that are able to defend our settlements and stations in the event of some unknown threat coming into the Home system, ships that are also equipped to inspect merchant ships for what little passes for illicit cargo and ensure squabbles over mining rights and settlement charters never escalate beyond words. Now, however, we have several new aspects of warfare to consider. There are also, of course, factions within the Navy to consider:
Admiral Thayer leads the Mengakar party, an old guard group of senior officers who recognise the importance of an armed Navy for the defence of Home and were the main strength behind the design and construction of the System Defence Destroyer. The Menggalists would argue for more large ships with no jump capability, focusing entirely on the defence of the system until more is understood about our neighbours.
The Citizen's Council is firmly of the opinion that we should be building for a future war - Jump Ships should be the priority, making the most of the shipyard space that isn't devoted to our scouts to prepare for any potential warfare that might follow up after first contact. They are not naval architects but surely, they would argue, we could take an SDD or an Interplanetary Cruiser, add a Jump Drive and have an effective space warship?
The Ciwanan party are a collective of junior officers and aide-de-camps to the Admiralty who are firm proponents of what they believe to be the future of warfare. They would prefer a collection of smaller, cheaper hulls, perhaps based on the Interplanetary Cruiser or the new Surveyor, or even smaller, armed for swift, brutal combat with as many missiles as possible and little given over to self-defence. These 'attack boats' would overpower any enemy through numbers and the prodigious deployment of nuclear weapons with little regard given to their survival. We can always build more, after all.
Fundamentally, the question of Doctrine falls to you, as the seniormost body in the Navy. Please create a plan from the following options:
We should operate on the assumption that war will be fought:
[ ] At home, as a defensive conflict
[ ] Abroad, with jump ships
[ ] By a combined defensive/offensive force.
[ ] Write-in.
In Designing our ships, we should consider our priority to be:
[ ] Large, survivable ships that can dominate an engagement.
[ ] Small, numerous ships that can overwhelm an opponent.
[ ] Write-in
In terms of offensive capability, we should prioritise:
[ ] Particle Accelerators (Long Range, Hard hitting)
[ ] Missiles (Manoeuvrable, Nuclear Capable)
[ ] Prototype Railguns (Short Ranged, Multi-Hit)
[ ] Prototype Torpedoes (Semi-Manoeuvrable, Multi-mission)
Is there anything else that should be considered?
[ ] Write-in
Again, please formulate your response as a plan.
