@Skylar so my Corp is shaping up to be one of the major players in the shipbuilding industry. They're a bit more ethical than North Star (Okay a lot more ethical) but it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have mutual interests. The way I've set them up they have small slips or yards on most stations and asteroids big enough to house them as well as free floating yards in and past the belt, which would mean it's very likely that our two companies would interact out of necessity.
Your company needs a way to keep its ships flying, my company needs ships to fix to stay in business. We both need to turn a profit.
So what I'm asking is if you would mind having some sort of a business relation with my Corp, not an alliance or anything but just allowing me to have holdings on your stations (but not all of them). Strictly business.
Also we build ships so come to me if you need 'em.
Logistics, ship maintenance subcontracting, and building merchant ships for Northstar all sounds good to me. Meanwhile Northstar provides business, habitat-building, possibly cheap manpower or android kemonomimi exports, potential security contracts, and usual access to the Northstar multimedia machine.
Northstar by itself has a very broad shipbuilding base, but not a exceptionally great on a per-ship basis. NS-SecFor or some of it's remote-control Tacticians may come to you for the kinds of specialist ships you can build versus the generic ones Northstar makes on their own. Stealth ships, refitting auxila into pocket-warships, artillery craft
As for the ethics question, Northstar doesn't see it as a ethics question. Its just a matter of supply and demand, and the supply of human labor far exceeds the demand for it, ergo the per-unit value of human life by default isn't high and must be earned through their own effort. However other companies treat their human resources is their business, but Northstar's method has worked in getting workers to pay for their own fare instead of depending on handouts they haven't earned.
@Keyguyperson what are your thoughts on a megacorp that specializes in ship building, I'm pretty sure it's what I'm going to do but I'd like an idea on what a good market share would be for one. China as of 2015 had 35% of the world market share by orders if that helps with anything. I was figuring Something in the mid-to-upper 20% range would work for a megacorp in a universe dependent on ships.
Last I'd just like to ask what the capabilities of ships are when it comes to stealth (Absorbent coatings, heat-sinks, etc).
RADAR invisibility is definitely a thing, as is visual cloaking (for all the good that'll do in space). Masking heat would be theoretically possible with insulation, but you would need some way of getting rid of it later so the crew isn't roasted alive. And of course, no burns while you're trying to be stealthy. It's impossible to have a stealth frigate or something that is always near undetectable, but a vessel that can mask its heat signature in the short term might the plausible. The only problem is that it would be built entirely around that function, so it would be expensive and sub-par compared to other ships of its size. Alternatively, you could have chaff on a massive scale and just launch hot stuff all over the place to confuse enemy sensors. But in that case, they know damn well that you're there. They'd just have trouble figuring out EXACTLY where.
If you do decide to have your engineers try to figure out stealth, let me know. The asteroid commies might be interested in some Realpolitik, after all.
"Ad Astra Et Ultra"
Faction Name: Momentum Incorporated. Abbreviated as "Momentum Inc." or "Momentum". Ticker symbol is "MMNTM".
Faction Government: Constitutional corporate social democracy. Each citizen gets a "citizen-share" upon birth or naturalization, and retains it until they die, are exiled, or renounce it. Citizen-shares guarantee one's constitutional rights, and their ability to vote. All other shares are "common shares", and may be bartered, earned, purchased, or sold by citizens and foreigners alike. On the 1st day of each quarter, all dividends are deposited into the personal accounts of citizens and foreign investors.
Except in circumstances that would endanger other citizens or the government, all citizens have the right to: 1) Life, 2) Personal defenses and property, 3) Refuse or exchange goods and services, 4) Shelter, 5) Medical care, 6) Internet access, 7) Education, 8) Remain silent, 9) Freedom of expression or assembly, 10) Practice any or no religion, 11) Petition the government, 12) Freedom from search or seizure without a warrant, 13) Public trials by a jury of their peers, 14) Be informed of legal charges brought against them, 15) Legal counsel as a defendant, 16) Safe transport to a neutral emigration center of their choice, if they are exiled or renounce their citizen-share.
System Executive Officer The System Executive Officer, or "SEO", manages the daily affairs of Momentum Incorporated. Their approval is required for any military action, diplomatic treaty, or economic policy that directly affects the entire company. The SEO is required to present a detailed report to the System Board of Directors each quarter. To be eligible for service, one only needs to be a native born citizen, and cannot be imprisoned at the time of their election. An SEO's term lasts for 1 year, and there are no term limits. If they die, or are removed from office, an election is immediately held to replace them.
System Board of Directors The System Board of Directors, or "System Board", consists of a mutable number of elected persons called "System Directors". They elect, counsel, and can remove the System Executive Officer. There are currently 13 System Directors, though the number has ranged from 5 to 27 over the company's history. To be eligible for service, one only needs to be a native born citizen, and cannot be imprisoned at the time of their election. A System Director's term lasts for 1 year, and they cannot be reelected. If they die, or are removed from office, an election is immediately held to replace them.
Thanks to the 11th Article of the Bill of Rights, all citizens may present petitions to be voted on by the entire company. Citizens may vote "yes", "no", or "abstain", and are not required to vote. If the majority of the population votes "yes", the petition is treated as law. If the majority votes "no" or "abstain", the petition fails. Most petitions are resolved in less than a quarter, as many use automated systems to vote for them. Those that fail to achieve a majority of any kind within a full year expire, but may be renewed. Petitions are usually about, but not limited to:
1) adding, changing, or removing an Article of the Bill of Rights, 2) forcing the System Board to vote on the removal of the SEO, 3) removing a System Director.
Territory/Claims: WIP
Culture: WIP
History: WIP
Technology: WIP
Military: WIP
Love this concept, a "Corporate Republic" of sorts is definitely an interesting idea. It's like the social democracy of businesses. Not quite normal, but also definitely not a full-on co-op.
(Still gonna keep arguing my case for space elevators: A nanotube cable isn't exactly a WMD, it'd cause some infrastructure damage if the elevator is near a major settlement and a few poor saps might bet chopped in half, but it's not a cause for major concern.)
Alright, breaking ground on the Northstar Megacorporation state. Of corporate rule, ruthless Alpha-Complex style underclass lifestyles and caste systems, RTS-gamers turned to LARP'ers/part-time field commanders, Soviet Russia Deep-Battle style space fleet doctrine, and nekos and VR-idols everywhere to make everyone happy! (Or else) Still tinkering with history, not quite sure where to start just yet, and probably going to be making a lot of edits when the actual OOC starts and other people begin putting up their NS's. But here is where I begin.
@Keyguyperson Yeah, an increase in my nation size might be called for for parity with the do-gooders. But rest assured I also am aware that size and strategic depth is a two-edge sword, and that also means I have A LOT to garrison and protect across the solar system even before going on interplanetary adventures. Won't be throwing around giant fleets and battleships willy-nilly. Measured escalation is NS-SecFor's way of dealing with problems and it's going to take a lot of effort to get them to concentrate forces outside of home stations because that means uncovering something somewhere else.
Not to mention, Black January is noted as a stock market crash. And given social position is determined by stock in Northstar.......
Faction Name:
Northstar Mega Conglomerate State. A.K.A. “Northstar MegaCon”
Faction Government:
Corporate state, ruled by a Board of Directors and all it's citizens determined by how much company stock they own.
Territory/Claims:
Northstar is a megacorporate-state headquartered in Fairhaven station in the asteroid belt with tens of thousands of space habitats, outposts, ports, and trading houses across the belt colonies bearing the Northstar brand. It is estimated Northstar owns direct sovereign domain over 20% of the asteroid belt’s habitats and space stations, with “soft” influence over another 25% of habitats and mining colonies associated or dependent upon Northstar to varying extents and allied to it’s corporate agenda as subsidiaries, loyal allies, proxy-combatants, or debt-holdings (slave-states in all but name).
Culture:
Northstar’s internal worker-culture retains holdovers of previous Pan-Oceania corporate (America, EU, Australian, Japanese, etc) influence, but is largely home-habitat grown corporate culture in it’s own right as well. In Northstar, everyone has a definite value as tracked by the amount of debt they owe to the MegaCon or their respective subsidiary division, and how much and what kinds of stock they own within the MegaCon representing their contribution and degree of ownership. These factors and what ratio they are in determine a person’s place and status with the system-spanning MegaCon. Most underclass citizen-employees have single-digit or double-digit stocks at most. Middle-class have thousands. And of course the executive tiers have many millions or billions of stocks in their name and under their thumbs. Those without stock value are little more than company property, and those without stock and high debt can sink to being property of even a near-broke underclass citizen-worker (often referred to as "furniture")
Northstar’s underclass citizen-workers are organized into three loose tiers based on stock, debt, and position.
“Specialists”- Underclass that somehow after decades of hard labor achieve a measure of stock value, pay off most of their mandatory debt, and specialized career success can escape part of their menial labor to achieve comfort on some level in this day and age. While still committed to hard work, people with money can at least buy a cheap last-gen android assistant or leverage rank into getting less arduous work gigs. Very, very few worker-citizens can rise to this rank, but Northstar doesn’t actively obstruct careerists and lets those who can succeed despite the class strife of the solar-age rise.
“Worker”- The vast majority of Northstar’s worker-citizens are people with little to their name but their debts from mandatory basic education, med-treatments needed to grow up in low-g to company near-Earth standards, and a single stock declaring their citizenship within Northstar and the right to advance up the corporate ladder. The micro-career ladder of the workers is a microcosm of the Northstar system as a whole. A struggle for a apartment built out of a shipping container you only have to share with four others, to get someone else to run the waste-management gig this week so you can attend a skill-seminar, to afford a subscription to Millie-Taki’s latest multimedia collection, to fight to pay off the debt interest and avoid falling down the social ladder, to maybe one day meeting a pretty partner and having a kid. Billions of workers live, struggle, toil, rise, and fall every year. Such is life within the MegaCon.
“Drones” "Furniture" "Tools"- Those with no stock do not even own themselves, consigned by crushing debt and misfortune to be little more than corporate property even below Android workers (who technically are company stock incarnate). While this also includes immigrants to Northstar who must earn their first unit of stock, at least they aren’t burdened by debt like worker-citizens that fall down the corporate ladder and unlikely to get back up. Debt blocks opportunities, education, and is a stigma of irresponsibility. Enough debt to be a drone is enough to be a slave to the company for the rest of your immortal life if you aren’t mulched on the high-danger job.
A couple of non-standard “perks” of being a Northstar worker-employee are mandatory growth treatments for low-g maturity and longevity (which are folded into a citizen's mandatory debt just for being born into Northstar) and the enshrined and ironclad-enforced right for all worker-citizens to have basic access to the medialink network for free, with persocomps and VR displays offered for almost nothing to ensure workers get to partake in the “free” media, anime, and games of Northstar, and potential access to higher levels with the right subscriptions. This serves to both guarantee underclass participation in the highly addictive consumerism of Northstar entertainment and anime, while also tranquilizing them from their hard daily toil for the company without actually obtaining the true worth of their labor. Bread and circuses in the 24th century, and Northstar has plenty of both to offer to its highly consumerist internal culture.
Middle-class citizen-workers, sub-executives, and talents live in penthouse suites with a wide range of luxuries and attended to by a minimum of two android servants, with most of their life spent in the VR strata of Northstar’s networks in extensive immersive VR simulations for their play, shopping, and most social interaction. While Northstar doesn’t give a flat basic living stipend, the dividends and automated stock portfolios the middle class have enable them to self-fund their own luxury in perpetuity, while leaving some wiggle room of status within the class for the illusion of upwards or downwards movement. Unusually for most modern factions, a sizable percentage of the middle-class do “work” in an indirect sense, taking up part-time teleoperations gigs folded into VR simulations akin to a 21st-century Farmville or civ-dictator simulator. While still a minority, its nonetheless a shot in the arm for Northstar's bottom line outside of the usual cultural, entertainment, and philiosophical products of the idle middle-class.
The trillionare and quadrillionare ultra-elite of Northstar’s Executive, Director, and Founder positions are said to live lives of unimaginable luxury. Some live in personal space-palaces attended to by armies of android servants, hidden in the void between worlds. Others live within the highest strata of the Quantum network, utilizing entire asteroid planetoids as quantum server farms to live centuries as gods in private VR pocket-universes for every minute in realspace. But not all of the Directors have departed from the real world, with the Board of Directors being a definite and real presence within the MegaCon and far from an idle circle of rulers.
AI android servants are a commonplace sight in Northstar habitats, from public utility workers to embodied office-worker level AI’s, to the harems and small armies of servants accumulated by the upper class and the legions used by SecFor. Most Northstar worker-citizens have gotten used to these animal-eared demihumans, but plenty within and without Northstar detest the “kitties” “kawii-kis” “furries” for taking job opportunities and possibly beginning to crowd out regular humans on Northstar stations. Most kemonomimi function as conventional working middle-class, doing office-work and skilled labor while roleplaying a facimilie of regular consumerist life. Why these androids are allowed to act so.....human is a judgement only known to the Founder that first made them. But Northstar isn't terribly concerned with an AI-revolt given their corporate loyalty programming and practical benefits to Northstar AI's sticking to the systems by their own choice (if they are even capable of realizing such a choice exists) clearly having worked for centuries.
History:
[WIP]
Technology:
Citadel Stations: Northstar’s latest and greatest of space habitat designs, the Citadel-class habitat is a rotating space city in the stars, produced with the latest cutting-edge technology and evolution of human psychology within tight spaces in mind. Some are configured as industrial platforms, others as luxury stations devoted solely to producing a self-contained VR universe for their inhabitants, plus a usual run of labor platforms that can hold a unprecedented number of underclass with a across the board improvement in creature comforts and standards of living for even the lowest common worker. Several quantum-servers hosting construction recruitment websites crashed less than a day after declaration of their entry to mass-production from the sheer number of applicants from across the system, eager to buy their way into a Northstar Station under the immigrant-labor programs allowing old and new worker-citizens to earn a place with sufficient labor to offset their entry fees and berthing.
Despite the publicity of their construction, outside observers note the proportion of labor being drafted to build them is disproportionately low compared to the number of stations spotted being built. Some of them very well off the traveled trade lanes and without any external labor, with no questions answered of what they are for or why there are active SecFor patrols guarding all routes in and out of their build zones with shoot-on-sight orders.
Kemonomimi Android Lines: Northstar makes extensive use of complex robotics and automation from industrial robots to domestic servants to near-wholly automated starships. But their most visible product lineage are Kemonomimi domestic androids. Designed to be adaptive yet obedient task-centered AI servants, Northstar labs can custom-tailor these AI’s to suit the desires of their buyers in appearance, personality, skillset, and degree of independence with unrivalled precision. To distinguish androids from humans, Northstar primarily styles their product lines as Kemonomimi (humanoids with animal features and anime styling for deliberately not-quite human look in a attractive way), a early design choice that has led to enduring success across the solar system even as other android servant trends ebb and flow (cat-types remain a perennial favorite, followed by dog-types). Most Northstar middle-management and office-worker level AI’s are embodied in kemonomimi to keep them personable and grounded in human-like psychology, and they are exported by the millions to stations and factions that desire obedient underclass servants.
Unlike many other factions, Northstar has few qualms of mass-producing robots and AI androids of distinctly sub-human quality en masse for civilian, industrial, or military purposes. It is rumored that several newer habitats and shipyards recently built have their underclass replaced with compliant android labor in increasing percentages. While the Board of Directors haven’t begun actively phasing out human labor on their existing habitats, they have fewer reasons to keep using humans on their newer stations.
Military Kemonomimi: Combat-grade kemonomimi for Northstar SecFor are a far different breed than the cute, sexy, and obedient civilian models. Underneath the skin is kineticweave armor, diamondate skeletons, combat-reflex programming, micro-quantum computer cores running adaptive combat programming, weapons integrated into limbs. Company-level command units have built-in quantum communicators, enabling them to be remote-controlled by off-site tacticians (Specialized AI or human) to provide higher coordination than their individual task-intelligence systems.
Units expected to go into the heaviest of fighting or special ops work drop the pretense of being pretty humanoids, adopting more beastial forms like werewolves, multi-limbed spiders, mechanized dogs with built-in weaponry, or wholly robotic walking tank weapon platforms. Shedding human inefficiencies for combat lethality.
Northstar also exports military kemonomimi to other factions and corporations, either with SecFor on private military contractor agreements or downgraded last-gen export models bought outright. As the per-unit cost of android troops drops below the upkeep of human infantry, its a hard question of how much of a place humans will have on the battlespace in the next century.
Dog-o-War: Short, petite dog-types rarely standing above 4”6. Designed as cheap, disposable, and low-impact cannon fodder for cramped habitats and slum-fighting, DoW’s are always used and deployed en-masse to put down threats with submachineguns or micro-lasers. Not terribly smart nor tactically adaptive, but numbers and the immunity to vacuum and zero-g make them useful in their own right.
Grunts: A catchall for a general range of standard infantry units based on any kind of K-type. Besides the body underneath being synthflesh covered mechanisms and warbot, they are equivalent to human troops in armament, armor, and operational role. While perhaps lacking in initiative and creativity, numbers and reduced logistical upkeep compared to human troops is a fair tradeoff in Northstar’s point of view.
Bodarks: Elite Werewolf-types specialized in special forces work, large and powerful 6”2 machines with wolf-faces while wielding powered armor loaded with a wide range of armor and operations loadouts (corridor-assault, stealth, zero-g maneuver, etc). Northstar bends many of it’s own AI regulation protocols to make these beasts the most lethal killing machines they can be, giving them a considerable capacity for adaptation and creativity, but also requiring careful handling to keep them from the same instabilities human spec-ops are prone to when abused.
MAWLR: Centaur-types built around a mechanical lower body of four heavy legs and a upper body loaded with heavy artillery ordinance, laser cannons, missile launchers, or all-around coverage of machineguns. While situations that warrant such a walking tank are rare, and they are unable to traverse most human-sized internal tunnels and corridors, Northstar retains a considerable cadre for rock-hopping campaigns, planetary assaults, or clearing hanger bays for landing troops while immune to most small-arms. Why Northstar feels the need to also give them a external humanoid torso and head is a mystery for the ages, because they are totally redundant.
Military:
Northstar Security Force (“SecFor”) was originally just a customs and patrol task force, little more than corporate rent-a-cops. As Northstar expanded and interplanetary piracy took off, rent-a-cops became a full police force, then a gendarme as worker riots and warfare became possible, which then morphed into a security fleet for hire as other factions found themselves unable to survive and raise a military from scratch to defend themselves. Security and anti-piracy patrols for client-states would morph into military defense agreements for member-habitats effectively Northstar in all but name and logo.
Today SecFor is a dominating military force in the solar system. While not the strongest per-ship and crewman, nor the most cutting-edge or loaded with the most exotic hardware, nor the most tactically brilliant or inspired, it is both among the largest space forces in the solar system and the strongest in logistical support power. Both of which more than make up for a litany of flaws.
Part of Northstar’s incredible depth in numbers stems from extensive automation and usage of kemonomimi androids whenever recruitment incentives fall short of quota, a not uncommon occurrence as manufacturing of new starships has surpassed the training pipeline. Where a human needs years of training and on the job experience to become skilled at their job, kemonomimi androids can download skills and abilities as needed and go through hundreds of simulated drills within minutes with enough Q-comp support.
An unusual asset of Northstar Security is the ability to mobilize a sizable percentage of their otherwise unproductive middle-class as part-time quantum-comm teleoperations tacticians for robotic soldiers. A joint technological-logistical-societal breakthrough under the umbrella meme of “War as a Hobby”, Northstar’s available tactical command assets can be bolstered exponentially with the right incentives and marketing. The greater the challenge or enemy, the more thrill-seekers at the ready to remote control attack drones over QEC’s. While not the same as professional tacticians or full-time troops on site, being detached from death, fear, and morality of troops makes for potent equalizers and/or distractions to help real soldiers or perform raids. Its also led to instances of usage of excessive force and a few atrocities to rebelling workers by gamers detached from the real world, but Northstar waves them off as the usual risks when events escalate to open warfare and primarily the fault of the enemy to force them to escalate to such levels.
Admittedly, Northstar’s numbers and multitude of ways to bolster their manpower and command abilities are deceiving in a sense. SecFor is stretched out thinly across half the solar system, and even the mightiest of warmachines operates a careful edifice of deployment and limited assets available at any given flashpoint. A mighty battleship fleet doesn’t matter much when it’s on the wrong side of the solar system. Yet strategic breadth and depth matter as well, and while Northstar might lose skirmishes and battles, nobody has come close to really waging full-scale war against Northstar as a whole or being able to inflict lasting crippling strikes against such a decentralized logistical infrastructure.
Space Forces Details
Northstar’s logistical strength means their forces can be more loose with ammunition expenditure than other powers. Not only can battleships fire off hundreds of nuclear torpedoes, thousands of smart railgun grounds, and tank heavy damage without concern to the corporate bottom-line, there will most certainly be ammunition, fuel, and repair ships tailing behind every Northstar task-force to resupply on-site.
Another example is the extensive use of attack drones, self-guided remote-controlled or AI driven warships operating at speeds and g-forces that would kill humans loaded with railguns and antimatter munitions. Relatively cheap and expendable compared to real starships, particularly in expensive personnel training bills, they are used and expended with ease by any ship with a external hardpoint or hanger. While easy prey for a starship’s precision weapons or point-defense arrays, they don’t need to live long to bring antimatter torpedoes to bear from a dozen different angles a regular starship couldn’t, and that can decide the course of a battle easily.
Northstar’s prized battleships and fleet carriers aren’t as active as the multimedia machine makes them out to be, as they are usually kept in secure dock and their crews in constant simulator drills, leaving the bulk of patrol work to corvettes, escorts, and cruisers. Even for a MegaCon, the expense of outfitting and supplying them across interplanetary distances isn’t something even they easily stomach or do on a whim. But when the situation warrants heavy metal, Northstar isn’t one for half-measures, considering any situation that warrants a battleship should be put down by three with a full-court press support and escort train. So far Northstar has only had to go all-out against another solar-power this way seven times, four times ending without a shot fired and three times ending with the utter destruction of the opposition. This does however leave SecFor’s battleship corps relying more on sims than actual experience though. Destroyer and cruiser crews handle most of the heavy lifting.
Northstar also possesses considerable reserve forces within their massive civilian trade fleet in form of Auxila: civilian ships with underlying military-grade reactors, engines, and hull characteristics. In peacetime freighters haul cargo, passenger liners provide comfort and luxury to travelers, couriers run hardcopy messages and executives, and mining ships serve as bases for mining drones. In times of sufficiently serious war however, a sizable fraction of the merchant fleet can be returned to shipyards and be refitted within a few weeks with destroyer-grade weaponry, supplemental defenses, and onboard complements of military kemonomimi androids. While nowhere near as hardy as real warships, they can mount and support the same railguns, missiles, and attack drone complements of real destroyers and can operate behind the main line of warships to add more guns to the firing line, or perform independent raiding ops under remote quantum-link control. Unfortunately, this also means a quarter of Northstar trade ships are also ideal grabs for wannabe pirates with a shadow-port ready to do refit work and can crack the software and hardware limiters on their dormant military-grade parts.
Loving it so far, and great detail already! It's nice to see everyone getting into their society so much.
I'm thinking of playing happy space-men who spend most of life in space, most of them are cyborgs or AI. they live lives that we might consider "spartan" due to resource shortages but they make heavy use of VR so the fact that they don't own any physical objects doesnt matter to them.
I'd really like to know what sort of direction you'll take their society, since you could basically have it be anywhere from "Comfy space nomads that play video games in their spare time" to "Brave New World".
I probably play as Space Hungary, a typical at best moderately powerful nation in the middle of all this madness.
Somehow I knew that if you joined in you'd go with Space Hungary.
I'm working on my own app right now, it's great to see all the interest this has been getting!
Somehow I knew that if you joined in you'd go with Space Hungary.
Not hard to guess when I consistently done the same. I just wish to use them properly in an NRP for a change.
Anyways, are those concepts on space combat are set in stone? I mean missiles with terminal guidance are neat but coilguns? They are far from non-viable but calling them the mainline direct weapons instead of lasers and particle cannons seems a bit off. Also the idea of line battles sits oddly with me. Something closer to submarines or oversized fighter jets seems a closer approximation for space combat. Of course people should be free to try some mildly space opera fun. Speaking of which, how durable are the warships? Realistic as in paper thin and easy to destroy or they take multiple hits and behave more like naval ships in this sense?
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>Not hard to guess when I consistently done the same. I just wish to use them properly in an NRP for a change.
Anyways, are those concepts on space combat are set in stone? I mean missiles with terminal guidance are neat but coilguns? They are far from non-viable but calling them the mainline direct weapons instead of lasers and particle cannons seems a bit off. Also the idea of line battles sits oddly with me. Something closer to submarines or oversized fighter jets seems a closer approximation for space combat. Of course people should be free to try some mildly space opera fun. Speaking of which, how durable are the warships? Realistic as in paper thin and easy to destroy or they take multiple hits and behave more like naval ships in this sense?
They're not set in stone, but I personally think they're fairly sensible. A railgun projectile capable of changing course is better than a laser at the extreme ranges which most engagements will take place. We're talking ranges measured not in kilometers, but in light seconds. The ability to correct targeting errors and respond to dodging is essential to get any hits in. As ships close in, however, lasers obviously become superior to railguns and take over as the main armament. Basically, railguns are for the first part of a battle, while lasers are for the "melee".
Fairly related to this is the fact that, yes, ships act like naval vessels in durability. Since the asteroid belt is being heavily exploited by now and (somewhat unrealistically) strong fusion drives exist, ships can be built using heavy materials in space and therefore armored. Advanced active-defense exist too, things like CIWS and plasma arcs (which we're experimenting with right now for shrapnel defense-they basically just make a short-lived arc of plasma close to the armor of whatever they're protecting to intercept projectiles) which definitely increase survivability.
Line battles are what I chose because upscaled fighter combat wouldn't work all that well with warships massive enough to take multiple hits using armor, and submarine warfare is largely focused around (what are in space) missiles and the importance of detection and stealth. Which, of course, is impossible if a ship is using its engines or firing its weapons. They're not exactly traditional line battles where a bunch of tall ships slug it out at ranges so close you can swing to to other on a torn sail, rather two lines of vessels that are individually making erratic movements to evade enemy fire while trying to close to effective laser distance and make sure the enemy can't use their own lasers. Doing battle at close ranges only makes little sense for an attacker, who would have to close a huge amount of distance while under fire. Missiles and railguns (which smart projectiles, of course) become useful at light second ranges, while lasers need to be closer to hit effectively.
Faction Name: People's Republic of the Belt (PRB, Communist Belt, The Republic)
Faction Government: The People's Republic of the Belt is led by the Belter Communist Party, and functions as a single-party oligarchy. The official head of state is the President, but total power is granted to the People's Senate. Representatives in the People's Senate are elected by representatives in Regional Councils, which are elected by representatives in Local Councils. The President is elected by the People's Senate. Generally, representatives in the People's Senate are rich industrialists and bribe the Regional Councils to keep themselves in power. The President, meanwhile, functions as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the People's Senate. Though the PRB is officially a Socialist State, there are few restrictions on the power of corporations and labor laws are practically nonexistent.
Territory/Claims: The People's Republic of the Belt claims a large portion (Approx. 10% total territory) of the inhabited Asteroid Belt, with its capital on Ceres. Its few core bodies are heavily populated metropolises, but as one moves further away from Ceres the populations get sparser and sparser until there are only small mining outposts. Most of the heavier populated asteroids rely on imports of ice for water and oxygen, while specifically designated "breadbasket" asteroids and stations maintain artificial ecosystems to keep atmospheric equilibrium.
Ceres is the largest and heaviest populated body in the PRB, and its city of Saltsgaver which serves as the capital of the Republic is the largest city in the nation. Interestingly, most of the more densely populated bodies are inhabited by lower class workers while the middle class can be found in the much smaller, post-industrial cities that act as the capitals of "breadbasket" farming asteroids such as Elon (one of the oldest hollow asteroid colonies) and Sydney.
Culture: The People's Republic inherited much of American culture, as the original colonies were founded by the American SpaceX corporation. Colonists were restricted to those deemed "Pure Americans" out of a belief of American supremacy-the idea being that the American dream and spirit would drive the colonies to success. Despite the revolution including a fairly large number of Chinese colonies, over the years the sheer number of American descendants cemented it as the clearly dominant culture.
However, the early attempts of the Republic to distance itself from Earth are clear. Solresol-a constructed language considered alien enough by the founder to show favor to neither Chinese nor English-is taught in schools, printed on all products, and used at official government functions. It's simplified script-seven colors used to represent the conventional musical notes upon which the language is based-is considered an easy bridge between the minority Chinese and majority English speakers. Exported products usually have it printed on them as well, making the simple color-based script representative of the nation as a whole.
Furthermore, traditional communist iconography can be found throughout the nation including some "Saltsgaverist" symbolism. Aside from the requisite red, hammers, and sickles of any degenerated socialist nation, many older buildings are constructed around Saltsgaver's personal philosophy. The Council chamber, for example, is a zero-g chamber without any area for representatives to sit or stand. As such, they simply float in the chamber without any sense of up or down-making it impossible to consider anyone "above" or "below" anyone else. Furthermore, the Ansbach Auditorium on Ceres has a central stage placed well below all of the seating. The auditorium was used by the early Presidents of the Republic for addresses, the idea being that it showed the President as below or inferior to the people-making them out to be a servant rather than a ruler. The fact that no official has used it in a century is used as a sign of the Republic's decay.
Other traditional "Saltsgaverist" iconography include various works of art that curiously represent Biblical events, a remnant of the highly devout rule of President Saltsgaver. In the capital building's lobby there is a painting depicting Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross, and in Ceres Spaceport there is a massive mural of Saint Cristopher carrying the child Jesus across a river. Saltsgaver was a Christian Socialist who believed that communism was ultimately the will of God, and it shows. Though in modern times religion has completely disappeared from the middle and upper classes, Christianity is still widely popular among the lower classes (which, of course, makes it seen as a fool's belief by the better-off). It is, however, heavily influence by Saltsgaver's own beliefs and lacks essentially all of the once controversial beliefs that created early 21st century social struggle. Any modern Belter priest will happily tell you about the overturning of the moneylending tables, but he will most definitely refer to any passage calling for the stoning of homosexuals or wives that talk back as "bourgeoisie and blueblood propaganda meant to divide the working class".
Though the actual ideals of communism are rejected by the middle and upper classes, they are still very much alive in the lower classes. All that keeps them in line is the good living standard relative to other lower classes offered by the Republic, as well as the remaining empty promises of a future utopia made by politicians who themselves own the very corporations they speak against.
History: A summary of the faction’s history, pretty straightforward. Start around the colonial era depending on when it was involved (a lunar nation's history would begin with the founding of the first colony in its territory, while an Earth nation's would start from when it became involved in space colonization). Remember that most of early colonization (up until the deeper parts of the asteroid belt) was done by corporations here.
Technology: An overview of the faction’s technological capabilities. Keep in mind the general scale I outlined. If there are any questions, PM me.
Military: Just your military capabilities. You can include equipment descriptions if you want to, but don't try to sneak by a Wave Motion Gun or something.
I do have a question, wouldn't something with advanced guidance systems and the propulsion necessary to correct its course while in flight be a bit prone to damage being fired out of a railgun? Don't those usually fire solid slugs?
Snip snip. Speaking of which, how durable are the warships? Realistic as in paper thin and easy to destroy or they take multiple hits and behave more like naval ships in this sense?
So I'll take a modern day naval ship such as an Arleigh Burke Guided Missile Destroyer. Now poke it full of holes with some high velocity tungsten rounds. Ships come with a lot of redundant systems and a rather large amount of empty space meaning that the possibility of something vital being it hit comes in rather low all things considered, but it's likely they killed crew and damaged other non-essential systems. Hit it with an Exocet anti-ship missile or two and it's essentially a goner.
Now imagine your ship is in space. Poke it full of holes again and it may explosively decompress, so you just depressurize the ship before battle. You attempt to intercept any missiles because those are death sentences in space and pray that close-in-weapons-systems don't manage to poke a hole through something (or someone) important. Railguns would likely be a rather deadly hit as well, don't imagine anything would be capable of stopping a super dense round traveling at a measurable fraction of the speed of light.
Lasers are far easier to combat than its likely thought. Ablative plating would be a huge defense against them and doing things like setting a ship on spin during combat would spread out a continuous laser hit lessening intense damage to a single area. Not to mention most lasers have to be either A) Massive to do any sort of damage at anything farther than 1 light second or B) within 1LS range to inflict damage.
I think the real question is are lasers as we think of them weapons (Really powerful laser pointers) or are blasters (charged particle beam) such as those we see in Star Wars the real weapons.
I wrote this a bit ago, but didn't finish it until now and will just post it anyway.
@TheSovereignGrave the conventional railgun does normally fire solid ultra-dense slugs. If there are correctable railguns slugs, then the possibility of a knife fight is essentially null. Who ever has the best railgun wins, hands down every time. Your plasma arc will do nothing to the slug other than turn it into a cloud of molten hot metal still traveling as fast as it was before, if the arc even has enough time to act upon it. CIWS will not be able to intercept something so fast and a missile would face the same interception problem. A ship could not out run a self correcting round, at least not larger ships. I find the idea to be a bit OP.
I seriously doubt any currently known material can protect against anything but lasers. The sheer delta-V required for these weapons would make them absolutely devastating. On the other hand this is fiction and we can use the willing suspension of disbelief to not worry about this. So armor has some use and the energies involved won't be catastrophic enough to rarely need a second hit. I am completely okay with that. I mean we have other pop science or fantastic elements already so a bit of lenience for the sake of more enjoyable space battles is welcome.
Anyways, I described it as similar to the mix of fighters and submarines because maneuvering is a priority and so is the kind of cat and mouse sensor and predictory race within the thin confines of a sealed ship which is typical to these two armament types. Realistically it'd be the world's most complex math problem to fight in space and predict the actions of the enemy or throw off their calculations. Of course I am not against some Space Opera style fun, just saying.
I suppose describing it as modern naval combat with fighter like speed differentials would be more appropriate here. You can definitely outrun attacks like aircrafts do while multi layered defense and offense would be also relevant.
Oh @Keyguyperson, grace me with your presence so that I, Loki Jaquarious Hewitt Packard Leo the Third, may come to join you in this most revolutionary of NRP's?
Also, would it be to hard to ask for Africa as a territory?
@Keyguyperson for stealth I figured a combination of internal heatsinks, reflective coatings and sweet angles to send things in the wrong direction. Of course the ships would be running dark if they were in this configuration and it wouldn't be manageable for extended periods of time (think less time the larger the ship, more time the smaller) if anything I would only have Corvettes, Frigates and Destroyers be capable of stealth everything larger would not be able to hide themselves.
So it seems Africa remains divided and primarily controlled by individual companies. Is it possible that a single company is able to unite them by monopolizing the space industry (mostly by buying up its smaller contemporaries)?
Edit: Never mind, someone seems interested in the region and I don't want to steal his thunder. @Sadko Did you plan on taking all of Africa in you endevors?
Edit 2: Nevermind again, I've come up with another idea.
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson> Since I'm assuming your faction is claiming all of Ceres, would it be too excessive for Momentum to have three bands of inhabited statites in the orbital paths of the inner system planets? I'm aiming for all three to have units with a light second between them, and two of the bands to have pseudo-statites in prograde and retrograde orbits.
If I'm understanding you right (inhabited space stations one light second apart in orbit around the sun) it might not be excessive from the point of view of balance, but that's a LOT of stuff that has to have been built. Really, I don't think it makes sense for anything of that scale to have been constructed. Taking part of the asteroid belt would make more sense.
@Keyguyperson for stealth I figured a combination of internal heatsinks, reflective coatings and sweet angles to send things in the wrong direction. Of course the ships would be running dark if they were in this configuration and it wouldn't be manageable for extended periods of time (think less time the larger the ship, more time the smaller) if anything I would only have Corvettes, Frigates and Destroyers be capable of stealth everything larger would not be able to hide themselves.
This makes sense, it's not DIAMOND HARD but we've got line battles anyways.
Oh @Keyguyperson, grace me with your presence so that I, Loki Jaquarious Hewitt Packard Leo the Third, may come to join you in this most revolutionary of NRP's?
Also, would it be to hard to ask for Africa as a territory?
The smart projectiles here are less "missiles, but fired from railguns" and more akin to real-life smart bullets that simply have multiple charges in them that allow course changes. So they aren't guaranteed hits or anything, and can be countered in similar fashion to missiles (chaff and the like). With the extreme distances involved, I'd also say that laser CIWS would have a chance at shooting down even a railgun projectile given sufficient coverage. As stated by Willy, we could always suspension of disbelief away the fact that a railgun shell could easily pierce any armor. Or vessels could simply rely on dodging and intercepting railgun shells, with the armor being meant to be melted away by lasers.
For the sake of the RP, all tonnages are simply placeholder for the time being. I have no idea how much an average freighter would weigh, or how much an average asteroid miner would weigh, or the total tonnage of an Earth Destroyer vs a Carrier or Battleship.
WIP
Faction Name: Fenrir Heavy Industries. Abbreviated as FHI.
Faction Government: Mega Corporation - Led by a Board of Directors Fenrir Heavy Industries lays more on the definition of a modern day Corporation than other mega corporations of its time. It does not have citizens or voting on corporate matters. It does however respect its workers rights to unionize and express their wants and concerns for the company's direction, which are duly noted during the next meeting of Directors.
CEO - WIP Director of Labor - WIP Chief Financial Officer - WIP Chief Logistics Officer - WIP Chief Security Officer - WIP Chief Shipping Officer - WIP
Territory/Claims: Headquartered out of the sprawling city in Mare Nubium on the near side of the moon, Fenrir Heavy Industries owns all manner of properties across the system. It’s most notable being Sköll Yard located in areostationary orbit above Mars.
Sköll Yard is not actually a single platform but rather a collection of hundreds of platforms and habitats, employing close to two hundred thousand people and completing over 1.1 trillion gross tonnage for the year 2229.
Edda Yard was the first of Fenrir’s orbital shipyards to enter service in the year 2101. Located in orbit above Earth, it spearheaded the construction of some ten thousand of humanities first and second generation of ships, little more than rubber dinghies to take to the stars with when compared to the ships Edda Yard is capable of producing now. One massive yard, large enough to berth fifteen heavy-freighters for repairs at once or completely construct six super-heavy freighters at three deep and two abreast.
Gosforth Station is a hulking station with a population of just under eight thousand. It is one of the most notable construction and repair stations past the belt, gaining much of its notoriety from its ability to be ferried to any job, anywhere in the solar system thanks to a combination of two mounted Fenrir prototype super-heavy engines and a modified heavy freighter used as a tug.
Listed simply as “Gleipnir” on all maps and documents, Gleipnir is by no means a secret to the rest of the system, but it is a closely guarded shipyard. Specializing in the construction of some of the most advanced and complicated military vessels of the time, Gleipnir is a series of three shipyards all of which were constructed in an orbit located just past Jupiter. They are guarded by an elite contingent of Fenrir’s subsidiary security firm Ragnarok and sister subsidiary and operator of Fenrir’s private fleet, Jörmungandr. Gleipnir also serves as the base of all of Fenrir’s R&D.
Fenrir Heavy Industries owns an astounding amount of lesser property across the system. From local offices on stations and asteroids with populations greater than five thousand and repair yards and slips on most stations and asteroids large enough to house them. As well as thousands of free floating yards made for construction and repair of small craft to freighters around and beyond the belt. Fenrir (or one of their subsidiaries) can be found just about anywhere people call home in the system.
Culture:
A shining beacon to many that have lost hope, Fenrir Heavy Industries prides itself on being one of the few remaining mega corporation entities that still seems to have ethics. It’s employees are not rated into any specific classes, they retain citizenship to whatever country they came to work for Fenrir from, and their value is not based on the amount of stock they own in Fenrir, but instead on the level of work they do.
Janitors receive what a janitor would expect to be paid. They receive full benefits after 1 year on the job and the ability to move their family to whatever station they are on pending availability and a properly routed FENINST 229.2/A after a short tenure of just three years with no outstanding incidents. Giving their family the opportunity to both live in a stable and relatively safe environment while offering the added benefits of Fenrir sponsored lower education and apprenticeship programs in the yards for children old enough to do so. This category of employee includes chefs, gardeners, shopkeepers, restaurant employees, people-centered jobs (retail, call-centers, etc.), and delivery services. Such is the life of a lower echelon employee of Fenrir.
The middle-class employees of Fenrir are the skilled laborers. Electricians, welders, machinists, pipefitters, plumbers, technicians, security (Station and shipboard), scientists, teachers, and other technical jobs all fall under this category. Middle echelon employees enjoy a higher standard of living, albeit with a slightly higher risk of injury or death while working in the yards. They are offered all the same benefits as the lower echelon employees but have to wait only three quarters of the time lower echelon employees must wait to receive benefits and other incentives. Their wages are high enough to afford comfortable living accommodations, decent food stuffs, and the option to send their children to upper education both on and off station.
The upper-class employees of Fenrir are a mixed bunch. Ranging from yard wardens and chief engineers to ship pilots and captains or branch managers and other important head positions on stations, in ships, or on a yard. The upper-class has the ability to enjoy the finer thing Fenrir has to offer while still getting their hands dirty doing what got them so far. From virtual reality golf courses, exclusive clubs, and the obvious increase in pay, upper-class employees live what many wish they could one day achieve, and in Fenrir it is very much possible to do so. Fenrir upper-class employees are hand chosen by their predecessors, a tradition Fenrir has supported since its establishment. Due to this unique tradition, the Chief Engineer of one shipyard may very well have been brought out to the station as a young child thanks to one of his parents taking a lower-echelon job with Fenrir, they went through lower education on Fenrir’s dime and took an apprenticeship in the yards at the insistence of their parents which after a few years of low wages and back breaking work likely would have landed them a middle echelon job in their chosen field, and if fate smiles upon the employee and they show true skill, knowledge, and a little bit of ambition it is wholly possible that this once lower echelon employees child may reach the upper echelon of work.
The only class above the upper echelon is the Director Echelon. The Board of Directors consists of six Directors, all of which are highly qualified in their field and just like the upper echelon were hand picked by their predecessors. Directors enjoy a life very similar to that of the upper echelon with the added benefits of a small fleet of private ships and shuttles to take them on business related outings or to shuttle them to or from a chosen vacation destination. This is not to say that their lives are easy. Each Director manages hundreds of thousands of employees and contracts worth more than any of their bank accounts will ever read. They juggle their free time between board meetings, client meetings, project inspections, employee outreach, and searching for their replacement when their ten year term as a Director comes to a close. Directors are renewed on a staggered basis and after a one year training period with their predecessor in order to lessen any negative effects of adding an entirely inexperienced Director to the Board.
History:
A summary of the faction’s history, pretty straightforward. Start around the colonial era depending on when it was involved (a lunar nation's history would begin with the founding of the first colony in its territory, while an Earth nation's would start from when it became involved in space colonization). Remember that most of early colonization (up until the deeper parts of the asteroid belt) was done by corporations here.
Technology: An overview of the faction’s technological capabilities. Keep in mind the general scale I outlined. If there are any questions, PM me.
Military: Just your military capabilities. You can include equipment descriptions if you want to, but don't try to sneak by a Wave Motion Gun or something.
@KeyguypersonWe can perhaps help differentiate by making these coilguns/railguns large spinal mounted monstrosities. Well, not quite taking up all space in the ship but rather it requiring length. There's only so much acceleration you can impart on a projectile before it's no longer a projectile. On the other hand there's a minimum velocity you'd want for the projectile otherwise it'd take too long to reach or would be too slow to be a viable threat. Based on these I devised quite a few weapon types that might use similar technology yet have completely different roles.
Launcher/tube: Coilgun mechanism giving some initial velocity for the missiles. They are relatively compact and only help to give distance between the ship and missile before the latter's engines fire. If neccessary you can also distinguish between missiles that only get the minimum speed and torpedoes which get a decent starter velocity from a longer coil.
Mass Driver: Coilgun system accelerating heavy mostly inert munitions for orbital bombardment. Think of Rods of God and similar ideas.
Spinal Accelerator: Long coilgun system which accelerates a relatively small guided projectile towards the target. It might run through the entire length of smaller ships but the largest ships might not need that much. Or alternatively do it for even faster and deadlier projectiles.
Heavy Spinal Accelerator: More likely to be used for large warships, these shoot more complex projectiles which might have warheads, better maneuverability or other desirable features. The said projectiles are also tend to be larger for the same reason. As complexity makes them more sensitive to acceleration they need length to compensate which makes them only fit for the larger warships.
Plasma Accelerator: Normally acceleration limits mean you need considerable length of coil to achieve decent velocities. In case of the plasma accelerator though they abandon that caution and use almost tiny amounts of matter accelerated to often even higher velocities than normal. Plasma weapons are deadly but generally plagued with short range as they cannot be guided and worse the plasma tends to rapidly disperse. You could even say they're the shotguns of space warfare.
Dust Accelerator: Another method to overcome the length limits is using even less complex yet still solid projectiles. Dust accelerators fire nothing but dust or even singular crystal structures of a solid (usually tungsten) in a continuous stream. They are effectively like particle beams but often slower. They compensate this with much better throw weight and reduced dispersion. Best comparison is a water cutter but with far larger velocities and raw power. This is the "Death Ray" as imagined up by Nikola Tesla.
Particle Accelerator: An alternative to lasers. The two weapon types share a lot of features but lasers disperse less and overall longer ranged. On the other hand particle cannons can have more penetration and spread deadly radiation if impacting with certain materials.
Coilguns Compact gun systems rarely used in ship to ship combat due to their low velocity, nor are fit to intercept most projectiles and missiles for the same reason. On the other hand they can have a decent punch for their power unlike lasers so they are sometimes used to deter opponents and smallcraft at "knife fighting" ranges.
Also I think there are more alternatives than just orion drives and torchdrives. Last time I worked with somebody on a realistic "near future" space NRP setting. I distinguished the following methods.
Laser Propulsion: As others said letting nuclear power in the hands of civilians is a bit iffy. Sure, powerplants are safe but just turning that torch the wrong direction could be a giant mess. So my idea was to establish a network of gigantic lasers that can propel most civilian craft in space. Their acceleration is kind of low and they require other alternatives like rockets, elevators or mass drivers to escape gravity. On the other hand it's constant so it's overall better than most alternatives for long tours.
Annie Drive: Annie is antimatter safely embedded in molecular bonds which can be stored like a powder. It only has the tiny fraction of antimatter's energy density but it's safer than even rocket fuel and easy to use. It saves up a ton on complexity compared to nuclear drives and very mass efficient as propellant. As such small military craft loves this. On the other hand it's kind of expensive to make thus annie powered vessels only move when necessary and even prefer carrier style warfare. That and hitting the fuel reserves has a good chance of the ship blowing up like an improvised nuke. Absolutely not recommended for civilian use. Another drawback is that annie drive vessels still need an independent power source to the rest of their systems. So the more energy-consuming is a ship, the more you want a reactor+torchdrive rather than annie drive.
Torchdrive: Vessels that use nuclear power (either fission or more commonly fusion) to burn inert fuel and let that propel the ship. Unlike annie drives the torchdrives are generally safe and the worst you can get is radiation leak or accidents at the torch end of the ship. On the other hand compared to rockets this tend to be massively energy demanding and needs a beefy reactor to do so. The massive heat also make them a bit nasty at takeoffs so if possible torchships don't do that. Large ones might not even be designed to ever land. Compared to annie drives the torchships are relatively cheap to fuel (depending on reactor and inert fuel characteristics) but they have a large "sink cost" in building the power system for them.
Pulse Drive: Nuclear propulsion for less sophisticated needs. They can be mostly described as detonating nukes behind the ship for propulsion. The simplest designs do literally just that which is terribly inefficient compared to torch drives. More sophisticated desings use micro nukes within a reflective chamber to utilize large percentage of the energy while achieving a more continuous propulsion. Some of these designs might even have benefits over the torch and annie drives but generally only used if the previous two are just not feasible for a design. Pulse drives also have a nasty reputation and many sections of space outright prohibit them. Albeit some of these restrictions don't apply to the new and more sophisticated pulse drives.
Other Propulsion Types: While not the mainstream these days other forms of propulsion systems still have a niche. rockets, ion drives, plasma thrusters and so on. They are more compact and thus they are very popular for maneuvering and docking aid. Rockets in particular are still excellent in regards of heat output versus thrust and quite popular as "cheap" takeoff mechanisms from astral bodies. Another interesting propulsion system are the mass thrusters which use nothing but electromagnetic forces to launch material behind the ship as propulsion. They're the new champions in low heat propulsion and some of them use pulse mechanism more akin to a back mounted coilgun. They have many issues which prevents them from becoming mainstream but there's a growing niche for these both for stealthy military applications and alleged environment-friendly nature.
@LokiLeo789 Yes, sorry. I'm planning to take all of Africa and half of the Middle East as my territory, along with three asteroids on the belt.
It's cool man, it doesn't hurt or nothing. I've moved on from that idea and have taken to building my Pan-African Sparta Empire on Mars and the belt. Subsidiaries...hostile takeovers of companies and turning them into subsidiaries everywhere.
