BARD PAPER: HANA8002 | Home | Traveller | BARD | HANA |
Spinward Distractions
by Liam Devlin
BARD PAPER: HANA8002 | Home | Traveller | BARD | HANA |
by Liam Devlin
The first person to advocate for their alliance with these creatures, was ironically CDR Saffron Ghulz, a former Vampire ship prisoner who escaped back with most of his crew from Promise in early 1202, then volunteered to go back and organize the resistance. He wound up bringing "Sandman" out, and back to the RC. Sandman's Human and robot allies knocked out the planetary Defense network, and assumed control over all the PAD batteries, and meson gun. They then proceeded to knock out or drive off the vampires in orbit, clearing the way for the RCN-RCES-Lancer invasion force to reach the planet. Then, with the city 95% taken six days later, restored the data system that ran the Power light & gas for the capital, as tens of thousands of the city's denizens fleeing the fighting were dehydrating and overwhelming the Expeditionary Force's ability to feed and water them. This latter miracle was accomplished using Sandman. In fact, the robot-Human relationship on Promise started for the better here. The Peacemaker strain was "passed on"/re-infected into captured repair & maintenance 'bots. As a practical matter, it was necessary to maintain the starport at its C-class status after it was taken, and save the Coalition manpower needed elsewhere. Too be fair to the hostile native populace formerly enslaved, none of the reactivated bots that remained were armed.
When word reached the RC worlds in Late November 1202 of this arrangement that the Coalition had allied with an AI-Virus against its insane fellowship, there was of course a tumultuous response. On Nike Nimbus, who had suffered a Vampire attack in early 1202, and lost 30,000 people to it, the response was vociferous and hostile. Others argued that the Peacemaker strain was an evolutionary new being, and deserved its own niche as a life form. Others said it was a freak, a mule. There were veteran RCES & RCN personnel who refused to have anything to do with them, and threatened to leave the service. Regardless, the worlds of the Promise Main held more cachet for the Re-expansionist Federalist-Hiver plan for the Diaspora Sector, and was considered a steppingstone towards the Covenant of Sufren. The real challenge was, having swept the main and subsector by December 1202 of Vampire ships, was keeping it clear of them when they returned in six months. and getting the worlds of Exeter, Eloji, Promise, Muni, Daaliisa to cooperate towards fighting back in a unified fashion. The good news was Exeter and Eloji were well equipped, and had a definite higher technology edge over the rest of the worlds at TL-8. Promise however, was TL-9, only at Star City. The jubilation at defeating this nexus of the Vampire highway soon faded, as the cost of keeping what they'd liberated became plasteel-clear. And the growing threat from the Empire of Solee in Shenk became the Push-me-Pull-you on the Coalition's forces.
Despite the best intentions, Nicosia (0138/Aubaine) was still unhappily balkanized and TL-3, after two and half years of bootstrapping, and no end in sight. Only the Federalists stubbornly kept at it, even though they played the heartstrings of "doing it for humanity" well, even they conceded off the record they'd roped themselves in by their own constituency's hopes & dreams.
The situation on Keipes (0132/Aubaine) had been resolved through an RCES sponsored coup d'etat and follow on diplomacy. The problem was, the Guild still paid call on them with its more "legal" merchant captains, if only to better spy on the Coalition's ship movements. Progress was being made here though, as the world began to bootstrap itself with RC merchant trade back towards TL-9 as an intermediate goal before returning to TL-11. The Coalition encouraged the trade, tying in fissile ore shipments from Marax in Thoezennt as a means towards clean nuclear energy for the world's industrial revolution.
On the positive side in Aubaine subsector, the advent of the SNAKE AV weapon was introduced to the salvager's trade. No more Lightning bolt shock therapy frying out components to be later replaced. Svarla, Savanjanni, Seliga, Conner, Peirsma, and Kresek were all opened in October-December, adding to the previous "Resource Worlds" of Adrian (class II salvage) and Buhle (class V salvage). The RC's AO unofficially moved forward at first, and then by vote in December, all but Nicosia & Thorell were in the Reformation Coalition's Safe.
On Arvid (0131/Aubaine), TrybecCorp with the Zaldus Corporation of Aubaine opened this high Tech salvage Class IV world with the use of the SNAKE AV weapon in November of 1202. Despite the insidious atmosphere, the salvagers nearly broke even by Christmas day, with years more work to do retrieving TL-14 & TL-12 relics out. On Savanjanni (0135/Aubaine), a class III salvage world (former pop.7), like Arvid, yielded an immediate glut of TL-14 & TL-12 relics as well as Jump-drive building machinery.
On Svarla (0137/Aubaine), a class III salvage world was paid for by Mid November 1202, bringing TL-13 & TL-11 relics to Auction. Much of the former directly went to Baldur, especially life support machinery parts, and power grids, and Hull forming machinery from the wrecked former B-class yards.
On Kresek (0236/Aubaine), the expense of setting up TL-12 life support on this class II salvage world (former pop.6) was offset by the quantity of TL-10 industrial extraction machinery recovered at the speed it was brought to Auction, thanks largely in part to the AV weapon, SNAKE. Much of what Fija & Trybec did not utilize was purchased by Oriflamme, edging its way back to TL-10 itself.
On Peirsma (0240/Aubaine), a class II salvage world of Asteroid clustered arcologys and smaller sites was claimed by JJFIS &M, LTD, a pioneer in the SNAKE AV weapon in December of 1202. Many of its employees as reservists had of late come back from the planet Promise, where they'd performed admirably wiping out Virus with this new tool. Primarily targeted were the TL-13 & TL-11 700dtn grav slips of the old A-class shipyard, and other technical machinery.
On Seliga (0640/Aubaine), a class III world, with TL-15 Imperial & TL-13 Solomani, JJFIS&M claimed it in December 1202 as well. Targeted here the 8ktn grav slips at the former A-class shipyard, jump drive & hull forming machinery for BSD & CBSD alloyed hulls.
On Conner (0840/Aubaine), a class I salvage world, JJFIS&M, LTD targeted the 300dtn grav slips, jump drive & crystal-iron hull forming machinery for Oriflamme by pre-arranged contract with Bourgund Yards. All other TL-10 equipment here was incidentals for Auction on Aubaine.
On Montezuma (2836/Khulam), the Coalition's one ally, the nation of Polaris, had withstood two minor wars thanks to orbital intervention & Lancer hired cadres for their military. These actions prompted the remaining nations into the Guild's arms for better Surveillance technology for their SAM systems. The two botched RCES raids here in 1200 & 1201 had not been conducted well, and had made this "steppingstone" onto the Khulam-Main as dangerous as an anti-personnel mine. The RC's major opponent here, the nation of Centrum, small space force had clashed with RCES Lancer missions, were handily defeated, and jumped back to the Coalition for repair & re-use (These included four Gazelle-class CE's, a Petty-class armed merchant, and a Chrysanthemum class DE) in 1201.
On Futok (3140/Khulam) and RCES decapitation raid in 1201 to rescue RCES & Free Trader personnel held hostage had ended the theocratic insane TED, "the Prophet's" reign, and ushered in a new era of representative democracy. The trouble is, though Futok had a C-class port, and had sustained Tech at TL-7 falling from prewar levels of TL-10, she contributed very little to the spinward efforts to recover the stars, aside from a handful of volunteers to RCES. On Uppsala (3139/Khulam), the Techno-ecclesiastical council decided neither the Guild nor the RC warranted their attention, dismantled their D-class starport, and closed off their world to all off worlders. They deemed their new TL-4 was preferable to their pre-war TL-6.
On Suudo (2840/Khulam), Tech had slid from pre-war levels of TL-7 to TL-6. Five TEDs ruled the small world, and its low tech made it even unwarranted to Vampire fleet sweeps. Both the Guild and the Free Traders League used it however as a crossing point from Madoc subsector into Khulam. As such it was deemed non-essential to the Coalition's expansion spinward & coreward. One clandestine RCES mission here was executed in 1202, to retrieve a former member of LoROG's predecessor organization who'd been "turned", Dawn League agent Micheal Kharkov.
On Lefiguerra (3132/Khulam), RC intervention had succeeded in uniting the world, like Nicosia, fallen to Tech levels catastrophically below prewar levels (from TL-12 to TL-3), and kicking the so-called invading TED's forces of Kide off the planet.
On Kide (3131/Khulam), the TED Arturo I had been overthrown, and his dreams of a "Diasporan Star Empire" ended with his life when killed by an orbital strike in 1202. Like Montezuma, his space forces were easily defeated, and taken from him as well.
In an ironic reverse, the low populated worlds of the subsector, Bikar (2633/Khulam) population 4,000, TL-7; Ryvo (2734/Khulam) population, 4,000, TL-7; Quarry (2933/Khulam), population 300, TL-3; Khesandu (2731/Khulam) population 2,000, TL-6; and Khirekera (2834/Khulam), population 10,000, TL-2, were open to off world contact. However, most had little or nothing to offer in trade, and less to offer the RC in its fight to retake the stars.
On Gresham (3138/Khulam), the Guild and the Coalitions' salvage teams had clashed since the Dawn League days of early 1201(resulting in two ships of the Dawn league getting hijacked here). In late October 1202, the Federalist minded TrybecCorp, of Trybec (0338/Aubaine) established a permanent colony of salvagers there, J-2 from their joint salvage operation on Svarla (0137/ Aubaine). A Class V salvage world (former Pop 9), the first two months of salvaged TL-15 & TL-13 items swept clean by the SNAKE AV weapon sold at Auction in the RC more than covered the cost of the colony's set-up. Last, on Desel (3231/Khulam), these class II salvage world's TL-13 relics were mostly useless to Kide's ill-fated DSE polity. They did have a market in the RC though, especially at Aubaine whose baseline technology was nearing TL-13 by the end of 1202. When the Coalition came to exploit the world, they discovered Lancers from Kide's new government (Pro-RC) had already done so, but were willing to share, for a percentage of profits, and first dibs on anything they wanted.