21 November 4007
As usual, while the Belaire captives were largely uninterested in talking with their Legion captors, a few prisoners did show some interest in making their futures a slight bit less distressing and shared some small amounts of information with Legion intelligence officers accordingly. Notably, a nervous sensor technician confirmed previous intelligence regarding the long-range sensors mounted by the Kiev and Sovremenny cruisers, confirming the range and resolution of those sensors and providing some basic technical specifications. Less useful from a tactical perspective, though intriguing to Legion special operations officers, was the provision of a technical summary for a class of Belaire civilian spaceliners. This information had been provided by a rather cantankerous engineering officer formerly aboard one of the Kirovs, whose words and behavior further suggested a certain dissatisfaction with the present state of the Belaire Navy. Notably, the fact that the Belaire upper class cruised through space in luxury while their navy sailors suffered such horrifying losses under incompetent command did not bear well with this particular officer. If these sentiments were in fact widespread among the Belaire rank and file, especially following their most recent crushing defeat, the resulting morale problems could be a significant aid to the Legion’s efforts.
Meanwhile, economics proved far more difficult for the Legion than warfare. On 24 November, a sudden flood of reports reached the Legion shipbuilding department indicating that nearly every shipyard was facing a critical duranium shortage, inhibiting the production of the very ships the Legion would need to prosecute the war against the Belaire. In a frantic rush of orders, various shipyard expansion projects and ship construction orders were halted, attempting to give priority to the most critical warships, while in the planetside factories on Duratus duranium-intensive projects were shifted to lower-priority slots to conserve the critical resource. Internally, Legion economic planners began to seriously consider the possibility of initiating an expensive project to convert many of Duratus’ mines to automated facilities, which could be deployed without the need to wait for colonial infrastructure and population to be established. While in the short term these efforts seemed to stabilize the situation, this was unsustainable and it was clear that the logistical strain of fighting an unexpected war had done significant damage to the Legion’s mining efforts which would take significant time to correct.
11 December saw the arrival in Kuiper 79 of reinforcements in the form of the light cruiser Devourer escorted by the destroyer Chronomancer, both having been dispatched from Duratus to relieve the damaged ships of First Fleet. To much acclaim from the crews under his command, Captain Absolus Criasus departed aboard his trusted Deadly Poison, escorted by the badly-damaged Charon, to undertake repairs at Duratus. In his absence, Captain Felix Tegyrios of Cruiser Squadron 1 would assume command of First Fleet; rumors abounded that this would become a permanent assignment for Captain Tegyrios, with Captain Criasus likely to receive a much-deserved promotion before returning to Kuiper 79.
Year 4008
New Year’s Day of 4008, while not marked as an especial day by most citizens of the Legion who had little use for such superstitious observations, was marked by the Legion high command as an excellent point in time at which to review the overall position of the Legion in the galaxy. After a brief, largely perfunctory session ending with an unanimous agreement that the Duranium Legion was indisputably in the top position of the galaxy, the Lords Admiral sat down to conduct the bulk of their review in somewhat more enlightening depth. In short, the Legion found itself in a position of military ascendancy but trending towards economic despondency, a term chosen to avoid the uncomfortable connotations of the phrase “economic depression”. Thus, the problem placed before the Lords Admiral as the Legion entered its ninth year as a galactic power would be to recover from economic troubles while maintaining enough focus and resource allocation for the military arms of the Legion.
Quickly it became apparent to the Lords Admiral, despite the fact that all of them had been educated principally in naval matters rather than economic ones - indeed this may even have been an aid to them here - that the economic struggles of the Legion would not quickly be resolved. The chief problem turned out to be one of population, simply put despite long-running convoys to several colonies there were no out-system populations large enough to support a rapid migration of mining capacity from Duratus. This meant that the Legion would be forced in the short and frankly medium terms to rely on automated capabilities, of which there were not nearly enough available. Essentially this meant that the vast number of mines on Duratus, in excess of 1,600, were rapidly becoming useless, but there would be nowhere better to relocate them for several years at the minimum.
Overview of the Duranium Legion economic situation on Duratus specifically and empire-wide. In addition to the somewhat ironic duranium crisis, given the polity affected, stockpiles of critical TNEs such as gallicite and most pressingly corundium were also showing signs of being severely impacted by the, to say the least, disappointing mining situation on Duratus. While sources of duranium would take top priority in Legion economic planning efforts, an eye would have to be kept to the near future to avoid similarly catastrophic shortages of these other critical minerals.
Ultimately, the Legion high command would announce at the conclusion of their conference a three-phase plan to stabilize the Legion economy. In the short term, hoping to both resolve the duranium crisis and to preclude a corundium crisis which would scuttle the following phases, the orbital mining platforms (OMPs) scattered throughout the Sol system would be redistributed to address the most pressing needs. The two OMPs stationed over the comet Whipple would be relocated to Machholz, providing not only an increase in duranium extraction but also that of gallicite which could be mined out somewhat more easily than from the deposits on Whipple. Meanwhile, the OMPs presently located at Oumuamua and Tempel 1 would be relocated to Chernykh, a reshuffling which could potentially impact the Legion’s neutronium stockpiles but would provide a strong source of corundium. This was deemed a necessary tradeoff to ensure continued production not only of mining infrastructure but also the important particle beam weapons considered necessary for continued operations against the Republic of Belaire.
Chernykh
Corbomite 1,522 Acc 1
Sorium 37,846 Acc 0.7
Corundium 54,865 Acc 0.9
The second phase of the plan was arguably the most ambitious, representing a major shift away from manned mining infrastructure. Aside from brief work orders to finish final assembly of nearly-completed units, wholesale production of both manned and automated mines would be immediately ceased, to be replaced respectively with planetside production of additional OMPs and with conversions of manned mining installations to automated types which would be principally deployed to Mars and Mercury. This latter element would prove particularly controversial, in part due to concerns over unemployment which would prove to be largely unfounded as most workers simply transitioned to private industries, but largely due to concerns that a lack of manned infrastructure would end up crippling the Legion later on once large colonial populations had been established. However, in practice most in the Legion high command noted that the majority of good mining prospects would be found on asteroids, comets, and distant moons which would be difficult to colonize anyways, thus a large concentration of automated infrastructure would always be advantageous even if manned mines could be produced in greater volumes.
The final phase of the plan, as announced, was quite hazily defined and amounted to building up sufficient colonial, convoy, and mining infrastructure in the Adamantine and Alpha Centauri systems. Both of these systems, while posing logistical challenges to fully exploit, were important long-term prospects albeit for entirely different reasons. Adamantine of course represented a major fleet base for the Legion Navy and was anticipated to eventually contain not only fleet maintenance facilities but also a selection of naval shipyards which could be supplied from the vast Kuiper belt encircling that system. As the name implies, the Adamantine asteroid belt was quite distant with the nearest asteroids exceeding 20 billion km from the parent star, however the belt was quite dense and contained numerous asteroids rich in TNEs which orbital mining operations would find no end to their joy in exploiting once established. Ultimately, Legion economic planners anticipated that a dense network of OMPs and mass drivers would render the great distances to be traversed while initially establishing mining operations relatively unimportant.
The Alpha Centauri system, on the other hand, contained several nearly-habitable bodies and was envisioned by many to be a future “Sol II” type of system. The ‘A’ component star was not flush with mining opportunities, aside from plentiful sodium reserves which could make up for the lack of high-accessibility gas giant deposits in-system, but did contain three large bodies which would not be too challenging to terraform to full habitability particularly with future technological advances. The inner system was thus envisioned as a robust industrial and financial hub for the Legion which would be supplied from mining operations around the ‘B’ component. This latter component star was orbited by only one nearly-habitable planet, albeit one with a breathable atmosphere which would only require some greenhouse gas to reach full habitability. However, the plentiful asteroid belt in the zone 40 to 80 million km from the ‘B’ star was not only rich in TNEs but consisted of nearly-habitable bodies which could be inhabited easily given an injection of atmosphere and the presence of low-gravity infrastructure, meaning that manned asteroid mining operations were likely to be established here in the not-too-distant future.
As economic struggles were the most pressing problem facing the Legion at this time, the bulk of the Lords Admiral’s conference was focused on these matters. However, some brief attention was given to the military situation in Kuiper 79 and beyond, if only in a half-hearted attempt to prevent the taking-root of inertia and malaise. Two principal outcomes emerged from these discussions: the first, simple enough, was to continue the run of Hellfire-class frigates currently on order, and in fact doubling the size of that order from four to eight to ensure an adequate reserve, particularly as refitting of the fire controls would be necessary as soon as new systems could be developed and trialed. The second outcome was while military in presentation largely political in origination, simply put the Legion Navy was possessed of a growing roster of junior flag officers without portfolios, and was further expecting to soon see multiple decorated heroes joining those ranks including the famous Captain Absolus Criasus. There was therefore a desire among the Lords Admiral to give their most decorated and publicly-visible flag officers a similarly visible assignment to raise morale as well as to further enhance the public prestige of the Legion Navy. Initially an afterthought mentioned idly in passing, it soon became apparent that the solution would be best served if it accomplished a military objective as well. To this end, cursory plans were drawn up for an operation to decisively take control of the Kuiper 79 system, an operation which would be spearheaded by several such officers including Captain Criasus, and which would have the ultimate aim of establishing a secondary Navy headquarters in that system which would direct future operations in the Belaire War.
These decisions having been made and duly announced to the rank and file as well as the broader public, the Legion high command adjourned their conference and resumed going about the work of actually running a galactic empire as was officially their collective job description.
As the hard-working crews of the Legion Navy and auxiliary fleets set about putting these plans into action, a strange report reached the Legion Survey Command. On 16 January, the survey frigate Ariadne had transited an unexplored jump point and emerged in a new star system located three jumps beyond the Mongolica research outpost. Astrographic sensors had quickly identified the system as Gliese 382, noting the existence of a single planet in the system which was reasonably close to human habitability though lacking both atmosphere and a water table. However, Captain Xeno Lycurgus had enclosed as an appendix to the astrographic report a brief analysis of some strange signals picked up by the astrographic sensors. These had been initially dismissed as sensor noise caused by an antenna out of alignment, however the mysterious signals had persisted even after a close inspection of all sensor systems. While the science officers aboard Ariadne were utterly confused, a tentative consensus was expressed in the appendix that the readings could imply a sort of localized tearing of the aether. The Captain concluded his appendix by stating that he intended to carefully investigate this phenomenon as Ariadne’s assigned survey duties carried her close enough to take more detailed readings. At the time, this report was considered a mild curiosity by the Legion surveyors, but otherwise to be of little importance.
System map attached to the Gliese 382 astrographic report by Captain Xeno Lycurgus, indicating the approximate location from which the unusual readings originated.
9 February saw the arrival in Kuiper 79 of yet another Legion reconnaissance project, namely the JR-1014 jump scout which had been designed for the purpose of carrying out deep space reconnaissance missions without the necessity for a supporting combat fleet. Unlike the other recent addition to the Legion’s reconnaissance capabilities, the JR-1014 was an entirely new construction, thus in theory it should have been fairly well-optimized. In practice, while broadly suited for its designed mission, the craft suffered severely from overloading as the dual requirement to mount both a full sensor suite as well as a self-contained gravity drive could only be met by installing an underpowered propulsion suite. This meant that the JR-1014 included the same propulsion section as the R-56 despite being twice the size, ultimately limiting the former class to only half the speed of the latter, a mere 2,500 km/s. While this would be adequate to get the jump scout to where it needed to be, any questions from junior crew members about escaping if detected were roundly ignored by commanding officers.
JR-1014 class Jump Scout 500 tons 14 Crew 73.2 BP TCS 10 TH 25 EM 0
2504 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 6 Sensors 8/8/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 13.39 Years MSP 58 AFR 10% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 9 Max Repair 16 MSP
Subcommander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Morale Check Required
Legion Gravitic Corps LG-10 Gravity Drive 'Dart' Max Ship Size 500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Hyperion Drive Yards HF-25 Fighter Engine 'Erinys' (1) Power 25 Fuel Use 178.89% Signature 25 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 64,000 Litres Range 12.9 billion km (59 days at full power)
Scamander Corporation Series XVI Traffic Scanner (1) GPS 2400 Range 33.9m km Resolution 150
Scamander Corporation Series VIII RF Wave Scanner (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series VIII Infrared Scanner (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
In any case, the first mission assigned to the jump scouts was not anticipated to be particularly endangering. As four JR-1014s had arrived in the Kuiper 79 system, three of them were assigned to proceed to each of the three jump points not controlled by the Legion, while the fourth would proceed to the inner system of each star and once again sweep for Belaire presence before establishing a semi-permanent watch over the second planet of the ‘A’ component star. With all four of these critical locations under close monitoring, the Legion Navy would be free to move into the system to establish a permanent occupation base although nothing as large as the planned Adamantine Base would be.
While these plans were put into motion, the stabilization ship Andromeda reported on 5 March that the jump network from Sol to Devil’s Hand had been fully stabilized, allowing the research outpost there to be expanded once auxiliary shipping tonnage became available.
The extent of the Duranium Legion stabilized jump point network as of 5 March 4008. In addition to forming natural trade links between emergent colonies and xenoarcheological sites, the stable jump point network would also improve the defensibility of Legion-controlled space as future shipbuilding orders would not need to include large numbers of jump-capable vessels to provide jump capability for the Navy’s defensive and rapid-response forces.
From 5 to 11 March the JR-1014 jump scouts reached their assigned observation posts without incident, saving for a minor navigation error by one of the crews. With the system thus confirmed to be clear of Belaire presence, First and Second Fleets along with attendant auxiliaries immediately set course towards the A-II planet to secure the area ahead of a freighter convoy which would bring components to establish a naval headquarters on the planet. The logistics of the operation would take some time, but ultimately would allow the Legion battle fleets to begin a proper offensive against the Belaire home system. The two main fleets would arrive on 20 March, with the Second Fleet Scouting Force detached to a position 70 million km from the Belaire jump point to supplement the active monitoring of the nearby JR-1014. The detachment arrived at this position on 23 March.
Closer to home, 27 April saw the formation of Third Fleet following the commissioning of the Furious-class jump destroyer Flatline Fakhoury. Third Fleet followed the same “standard” Legion Navy fleet composition of one cruiser, two destroyer, and one frigate squadron which had been in use since the year 4000. However, due to monopolization of large shipyards for more forward-reaching projects, Cruiser Squadron 4 lacked a Grand Cross-class jump cruiser, limiting the ability of Third Fleet to project power beyond the jump-stabilized borders of Legion space. In other words, Third Fleet would primarily serve as the main defensive bulwark against any potential threats which might arise from any direction besides that of the Republic of Belaire. This was not, at the time, anticipated to be a terribly glamorous posting. Nevertheless, the Legion high command would henceforth breathe easier while focusing the bulk of their attention toward their hated opponents.
Shipbuilding
3x Charybdis class Destroyer: Carnivore, Chu Ko Nu, Cretaceous
1x Furious class Jump Destroyer: Flatline Fakhoury
1x Hellfire class Frigate: Heavy Metal
2x Ars Magica II class Survey Frigate: Archrival (refit), Amalgam of the Void (refit)
2x JR-1014 class Jump Scout
2x Phaeton class Freighter
2x Libra class Fleet Tender
2x Achelous Mk II class Terraforming Platform
1x Gatekeeper class Traffic Monitor
Research
Beam Fire Control Speed Rating 4000 km/s
Systems Discovered
Gliese 382: FS Ariadne, 16 January 4008
Gliese 218: FS Amalgam of the Void, 17 January 4008
WISE 0713-2917: FS Amalgam of the Void, 26 January 4008
WISE 1639-6847: FS Argumentative, 12 February 4008
GJ 1119: FS Archon, 25 February 4008
Luyten 97-12: FS Aether Net, 13 May 4008
82 Eridani: FS Ascendant Might, 26 June 4008