8 August 4003
In the aftermath of the ground battle of Gliese 1-A II, closer inspection of the alien combat mechs raised several questions. One of these questions was readily resolved; scans of the wrecked battle stations by First Fleet confirmed the suspicion that there was no organic matter among the wreckage, however a large number of inert mechs were detected, similar to those on the planet surface but smaller and not heavily armed. Meanwhile, close inspection and reconnaissance on the surface revealed no trace of organic matter or any signs of life, save for the ancient ruins themselves which were judged to be millennia old. The inescapable conclusion was that both the orbital stations and the surface garrison had been placed here to defend the ruins from interlopers - but by whom? Particularly, if the automatons had been left in place by the original occupants of these ruins, who had been departed for millennia by now, how technologically-advanced had this society been to create such a long-enduring robot army? Most disturbing, many of the troops agreed, was the potential that this race with such advanced technology might be elsewhere in the galaxy, perhaps not even too far from the Gliese 1 system. Such grave concerns would only be answered, however, once the Legion could deploy properly-equipped Xenoarcheology teams to study the ruins and decipher the ancient language.
These questions aside, the work of the Legion was never done, and so life went on. The Armored Corps would be retrieved from Gliese 1-A II and returned to Duratus to be reinforced back to full strength, while a mechanized infantry brigade would be shipped to the Gliese 1 system to guard the ruins until a proper exploitation could be done. To provide further surveillance and warning capability, if not much in the way of actual defense, a deep space tracking station and Warden monitor would be deployed to Gliese 1-A II to provide basic passive and active detection capabilities in case the unknown alien race decided to return for their robots. On the economic side of things, the Legion high command had become increasingly concerned about the deteriorating gallicite reserves on Duratus, and had thus ordered that transport of mines off-world should begin as a preventative measure. For now, this meant that automines would be slowly relocated to the Olympia system while Luna would receive as many mines as her growing population, nearing ten million by this time, would be able to work. In the short term, gallicite scraps recovered from a stockpile of alien missiles on Gliese 1-A II would provide a useful buffer once these minerals were transported back to Duratus.
Year 4004
While various departments within the Legion high command continued analyzing the Battle of Gliese 1, the Emperor seeing the clear importance of this system to the future of the Legion issued an order officially re-designating that system as Mongolica, after the ancient empire ruled by the very Genghis Khan whose name had been immortalized in the recent battle. Left unspoken publicly was the implication that the Legion had defeated a great foe, comparable in might to this ancient empire. Briefly, a small schism broke out among Legion historians over whether to designate this important battle by the former name of the system, which was current at the time of the battle, or by the new name in keeping with the spirit of the Emperor’s decree. The eventual resolution of this schism is left as an exercise for the reader.
Otherwise, time progressed with no incidents and little of note. On 1 March, with the rechristened Mongolica Outpost defended by a brigade of Legion infantry, First Fleet was finally given the order to return to Duratus for resupply and overhaul. In the interest of setting some kind of deadline to motivate the Naval staff, the Legion high command announced that the preliminary assessment of the Battle of Gliese 1 would be released on the day of the Fleet’s return. Far more exciting to the newspaper readers of the Legion was the news on 9 March that the first orbital mining platform to be deployed beyond Sol, the OMP Amber Station, had been deployed over a small moon orbiting Olympia IX, supporting the growing mining industry in that system.
Olympia-A IX - Moon 2
Corbomite 2,209 Acc 1
Tritanium 3,969 Acc 1
Gallicite 9,801 Acc 1
On 25 March, First Fleet finally returned to Duratus having been deployed for nearly a year. However, as they had arrived at 22:00 on a Thursday night, the Legion high command instead determined to release what was becoming known as the Mongolica Report the following day at 17:00, to ensure wide media coverage so that all citizens of the Legion would be duly informed of the report committee’s conclusions. At 22:01 the report was leaked to the Legion media by an anonymous staff officer.
In general, the Gliese 1 Report broadly confirmed the soundness and success of Legion military doctrine and attributed any failures to poor-quality work by cowardly spreadsheet-makers in the battle planning department, some 12,000 of whom were sacked accordingly. Whether these self-aggrandizing conclusions would bear out as the Legion continued to expand across the galaxy would of course remain to be seen. In any case, despite the overly-positive tone of the report, the report committee had given several avenues for improvement of the Legion’s military forces, albeit these ideas were for the most part not new ones within the halls of the Legion high command. These ideas would be integrated into future Legion doctrine, to varying degrees, and the Legion would carry on as always.
The reader is referred to Appendix A for further details on the Battle of Gliese 1 Report and Assessment.
The next major milestone in Legion colonization efforts was reached on 27 June, as communications reached the Legion high command on Duratus from the stabilisation ship Andromeda, which along with her sister ship Sagitta had just completed a stable jump gate network reaching from Sol to Alpha Centauri. On receiving this report, the Legion high command hurriedly set about finalizing their plans for colonization of that system, of which several candidate versions had been drawn up. The decision was quickly made, by the standards of the Legion high command, and on 7 July the Alpha Centauri Convoy was launched from Duratus orbit with the mission of establishing a Legion base on Alpha Centauri A-II. This planet had been selected from several candidates principally for its ease of terraforming, as while it was rich in TNE deposits most of these were quite inaccessible. The expectation was that this planet would serve as a hub for extensive mining operations, particularly in the asteroid belt of the B-component in the system.
Alpha Centauri-A II
Duranium 38,158,848 Acc 0.1
Neutronium 3,504,384 Acc 0.1
Corbomite 1,440,000 Acc 0.1
Tritanium 7,225,344 Acc 0.1
Boronide 57,600 Acc 0.7
Mercassium 2,822,400 Acc 0.1
Vendarite 20,358,144 Acc 0.9
Sorium 8,856,576 Acc 0.9
Uridium 589,824 Acc 0.1
Corundium 4,064,256 Acc 0.1
Gallicite 22,127,616 Acc 0.1
Nitrogen 67.632% 0.535 atm
Oxygen 25.014% 0.198 atm
Carbon Dioxide 7.254% 0.057 atm
Water Vapour 0.100% 0.001 atm
Base Temp (K / C) 263.88 -9.17
Surface Temp (K / C) 341.80 68.80
Near-simultaneously, on 30 June the Legion Survey Command announced the activation of the Legion’s first Geosurvey Brigade, consisting of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Geosurvey Companies escorted by a mechanized infantry battalion containing the brigade headquarters. These would be deployed to Venus to clarify the anomalous readings made by the Adamant several years ago, a mission which would serve as training for the new surveyors as well as proof of concept for the skeptics in the Legion high command.
Gorilla Mk I GSV
Transport Size (tons) 218 Cost 8.72 Armour 16 Hit Points 32
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.1 Resupply Cost 0
Geosurvey Equipment: Geo Survey Points 0.1
Geosurvey Equipment: Geo Survey Points 0.1
Non-Combat Class
The Geosurvey Brigade was quick to complete its first mission, reporting on 7 August that the amount of duranium contained within the crust of Venus was more than twelve times greater than had initially been reported. However, skeptics of the ground survey mission were quick to point out that this duranium was hardly any more accessible than the orbital survey had reported, so the actual usefulness of the ground survey results were quite limited. In any case, as the Geosurvey Brigade was already activated there was no point in letting it go to waste, so the Legion high command ordered the Brigade to study several other bodies in neighboring systems which had given unclear readings during orbital surveys. Once several more ground surveys had been carried out, the long-term future of the geosurvey division would be determined.
Venus
>>>Duranium 20,576,882 Acc 0.3<<< (was 1,648,202 Acc 0.2)
Tritanium 2,289,169 Acc 0.1
Vendarite 5,288,896 Acc 0.1
Sorium 5,570,922 Acc 0.1
Another incremental milestone, characteristic of Legion economic progress since the initial rush of “firsts” had died down, was the commissioning of the first Olympia-class cargo shuttle on 15 August. These had been designed with the strict requirement that it be compatible with the slipways at the Haemus Shipyard which was responsible for Gatekeeper construction. Thus it had been designed on the basis of the Gatekeeper-class hull, with the commercial jump drive removed and the compartments replaced with cargo handling and storage facilities. The result was not a particularly impressive freighter, but for making of regular mineral shipments from her namesake system to Duratus she would be sufficient, so long as the Olympian mining operations did not grow extremely large.
Olympia class Cargo Shuttle 4,250 tons 44 Crew 155.9 BP TCS 85 TH 225 EM 0
2647 km/s Armour 1-23 Shields 0-0 HTK 13 Sensors 8/8/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 22 Max Repair 45 MSP
Cargo 1,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1
Subcommander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Hyperion Drive Yards HC-225 Deep Space Engine 'Orpheon' (1) Power 225 Fuel Use 3.82% Signature 225 Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 88,000 Litres Range 97.7 billion km (427 days at full power)
Scamander Corporation Series VIII Infrared Scanner (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series VIII RF Wave Scanner (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Shipbuilding
1x Defiant class Light Cruiser: Dissolution
1x Grand Cross class Light Jump Cruiser: Garrote
1x Charybdis class Destroyer: Caliban
1x Furious class Jump Destroyer: Flayer
2x Bellerophon class Frigate: Bad Omen, Broken Wind
2x Ars Magica class Survey Frigate: Apollo, Athena
9x Phaeton class Freighter
2x Olympia class Cargo Shuttle
1x Salamander class Troop Transport
1x Obsidian class Orbital Mining Platform
1x Achelous class Terraforming Platform
3x Gatekeeper class Traffic Monitor
Research
Construction Rate 14 BP
Salvage Module 500
Shipbuilding Rate 560 BP
Shipyard Operations: 10% Time-Cost Saving
Terraforming Rate 0.0004 atm
Xenoarcheology Equipment
Systems Discovered
FL Virginis: FS Adamant, 25 August 4003
L 145-141: FS Ardent Knight, 18 December 4003
2M1540: FS Ars Magica, 22 February 4004
AX Microscopii: FS Archon, 11 April 4004
WD 1142-645: FS Amalgam of the Void, 17 April 4004
Wolf 359: FS Adjudicator, 20 June 4004
Wolf 358: FS Athena, 2 October 4004
Luyten 302-89: FS Apollo, 5 October 4004
Gliese 229: FS Adamant, 30 December 4004