Thinking Of A New Story Thread

[History Guy]

MORGAN INTERSTELLAR HOLDINGS (STAR SYSTEMS)
From Dome of the Sky http://einstein.stcloudstate.edu/Dome/

Propus (Procyon):
Distance (Light Years) 11.41 ± 0.04
Visual Magnitude 0.4
Color (B-V) 0.42

Names For This Star

Procyon is the Greek name for Alpha Canis Minoris from the earliest times. In English the meaning of the Greek roots would be something like "Before (or in Front of?) the Dog." The star was sometimes referred to in Latin as Antecanis, which, according to Allen is equivalent to "Procyon".
Other names for the star are Elgomaisa or Algomeysa which are derived from the Arabic name Al Shi'ra Shamiyyah, meaning "The Northern Sirius."

Description of the Star

Procyon is a yellowish F5IV-V subgiant to main sequence star 7 times as luminous as the sun and with twice the sun's diameter.
Procyon is a binary star system with the bright star as the primary. Procyon B is a 10th magnitude star separated by about 4.5 arc sec from the A star, that is, about 16 AU away from the star. The orbital period is 40.65 years.

Other Designations For This Star


Flamsteed
10 Canis Minoris

Hipparcos Identifier (HIP Number)
37279

Harvard Revised (HR Number)
2943

Henry Draper Catalog (HD Number)
61421

Bonner Durchmusterung (BD Number)
BD+05 1739
Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory compendium (SAO Number) 115756

Fundamental Katalog (FK5 Number)
291




Castor (Yeah, that IS Latin for Beaver):
Distance (Light Years) 51.5 ± 1.0
Visual Magnitude 1.58
Color (B-V) 0.03

Names For This Star

The name Castor also identifies the mortal brother of the Gemini twins. The name is Greek.
This star was also known as Apollo to the ancient Greeks.

Description of the Star

Viewed through a small telescope, Castor appears to be a double star. The two components A and B are of magnitude 2.0 and 2.8 (see Burnham). There is however a dim third C component to the system. A and B revolve around their common center of mass with a period of four or five hundred years. The separation between the stars is about 100AU, that is about 25% more than the diameter of the orbit of planet Pluto.
C is separated from A and B by 73 arc seconds, corresponding to a projected distance of 1200 AU. According to Burnham, the period of the orbit of C about A and B probably exceeds 10,000 years.

Spectral Types

The The Bright Star Catalog lists Castor A as A1V, that is, a white main sequence star. B is A5m, that is a somewhat smaller and cooler main sequence star. C is of spectral type M1V, that is, a red main sequence dwarf.
Close Binary Stars

Each of the components of Castor proves to be a close binary star. Castor A consists of two almost identical main sequence stars of spectral type A in a rather eccentric elliptical orbit with a period of 9.2 days. The separation between the stars is about four million miles. Each star is twice the diameter of the sun and 12 times its luminosity according to Burnham. The total mass of the pair is 3.2 times the mass of the sun.
Castor B consists of two stars revolving in a circular orbit with a period of 2.9 days. Both stars are of type A5 according to Burnham. Each star is about 1.5 times the diameter of the sun and 6 times its luminosity. The total mass of the pair is 2.3 solar masses.

Castor C consists of two stars revolving in an orbit almost edge-on to our line of sight. The two stars are separated by about 1.67 million miles and orbit with a period of 19.5 hours. Each star has about 2.5% of the luminosity of the sun, about 0.6 times the mass of the sun, and 0.7 to 0.8 times the diameter.

Other Designations For This Star


Flamsteed
66 Geminorum

Hipparcos Identifier (HIP Number)
36850

Harvard Revised (HR Number)
2891

Henry Draper Catalog (HD Number)
60179

Bonner Durchmusterung (BD Number)
BD+32 1581
Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory compendium (SAO Number)

Fundamental Katalog (FK5 Number)

Pollux:
Distance (Light Years) 33.7 ± 0.3
Visual Magnitude 1.16
Color (B-V) 1

Names For This Star

The name of the star Pollux is Latin. This represents the immortal twin. In Greek, he was known as Polydeuces. An alternative name for the star is Hercules, the Latinized version of Heracles, who was the great hero who accomplished the Twelve Labors.
Description of the Star

According to Burnham, Pollux is the 14th brightest star in the sky. The star is an orange K0IIIb giant star having a luminosity about 30 times that of the sun.
The spectral type of the star implies a temperature of about 4500 K, a mass of maybe 4 times that of the sun, and a diameter about 16 times that of the sun.

Other Designations For This Star


Flamsteed
78 Geminorum

Hipparcos Identifier (HIP Number)
37826

Harvard Revised (HR Number)
2990

Henry Draper Catalog (HD Number)
62509

Bonner Durchmusterung (BD Number)
BD+28 1463
Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory compendium (SAO Number) 79666

Fundamental Katalog (FK5 Number)
295

[Kassiopeia]

Glad to help you out.

Now, if someone is interested, the star 51 Pegasi, which is 50 light years from Earth, has presumably a planet, what I mean is that it's not actually confirmed.
It is fairly large, but it orbits a yellow star and fundamentally could have life on it. The planet even has a name, "Bellerophon".

[Sprayber]

Kass: I just knew that the Spartans couldn't make their home there.

I agree that 350 ly is too much.

early colonies wouldn't have strayed much beyond the 100 ly mark. Just because they were eager to set up their colony early. Now that doesn't mean that later on they wouldn't have.

I figure most alien races start around the 400ly mark. Anyone agree or disagree?


I your picks for morgan are great. Keep in mind you can do what I did and have your home system based on a known star and use fictious stars for secondary systems. Just be resonable about them. Alose be careful not to spread your different colonies too far wide spread unless that is what your going for. The Spartans are staying compact in their territoral ambitions for the moment. The go in and occupy each system around their home system and go from there. I guess the Pirates will be all over the place.

Argonaut and Mr. President.--In my stats, I listed Sparta Prime as as having a small population of Drone and Angle citizens there. Maybe the drones can be there as expert workers building Spartan ships, all according to contract of course.

[Kassiopeia]

Maybe I should write descriptions of the Sol system planets?
Actually, that might have a point. Which moons have colonies etc.

I figure most alien races start around the 400ly mark. Anyone agree or disagree?

It's far away enough to give us humans a breather before the hassling starts.

Kass: I just knew that the Spartans couldn't make their home there

The Terrans are perceptive people, they forgot to calculate whether the planet will be partially consumed by one of the stars before colonizing it

[Sprayber]

Kass: A description of the Sol system planets would be great.



Here is something that I thought was kind of cool. Picture your a Morganite, Drone, pk, or even maybe a earther and you see this advertisement on your vid screen.



Spartan Marines. We fight the bugs, so that you don't have to.

[Kassiopeia]

Hey, that's from that game what's it's name...
Halo!
That's it. Takes place on a doughnut-shaped world, note the horizon making a strange turn upwards.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by kassiopeia
Hey, that's from that game what's it's name...
Halo!
That's it. Takes place on a doughnut-shaped world, note the horizon making a strange turn upwards.

Yeah, lookes like a pretty cool game

[Kassiopeia]

Ok, got the Sol system explanation finished. Where should I post it? The sign-in thread?
Beware, it's longer then... heck, pretty long still.

kass, don't remember if actually succeeded in posting a message about it somewhere... there is still few things i need to clear out in the sol history

What happened to the war against the Scions? :P wanted to have disastrous first contact, causing panic, rumours, exagerations, etc about some huge alien invasion of the system... so the two big factions, Earth Coalition and Mars Combine, join forces to fight the Scions....where it leads to some minor ship confrontations, Scion raids on some Jupiter/Saturn moons, aswell as on Pluto. Later, Earth/Mars ships finds the Dark Planet and goes in en mass with the intention to either take over the planet or wipe the scions clean from it.... by the time the ships gets into orbit of dark planet, a Fraal Mothership arrives and prevents any bombarment on the Dark planet....and mediating peace negociations where Earth/Mars discovers of the true origin of the Scions and so on...while learning a bit more about the Fraal, as it is first contact with more. Xenophobia towards Scions and maybe Fraal, but that dissapears by the time of formation of the Terran Alliance. Fraal is neutral.

As for the belters, don't want the faction to be solely comprise of undesirables.... also comprise of people from nations controlled mining operations, aswell of some from InEn...but declare independence or/and taken over by other Belter groups. InEn tried to retake their mines at the belt after the Independence War of Mars and its moons, but failed. Not all belter groups go off pirating, and etc.... there is some peaceful mining groups.

Now, about the Terran Battlecruiser...

I agree with increase speed then what is portrayed in Starcraft and as for the hovering, it is realistly hard to do that without causing to much pressure....unless the planet/moon as low gravity. I also don't want any super weapons like the Yamato Cannon

Battlecruiser will be able to carry fighters and battalion of marines.... 2 starfighter (something like starfuries? )squadrons of 12, 6 assault shuttles (assault shuttles like the ones in Master of Orion 2...visual wise) that can land the whole Marine Battalion.
Battlecruiser could be the backbone of the Terran Alliance fleet and quite tough, even if it may be slighty less advance in comparison to Chironian warships. As for the main weapons and so on..... thinking of pulse cannons like the ones of the Omega destroyers in Babylon 5 along with some anti-ship missiles (or torpedoes ala Starlancer/Wing Commander) launchers.
I could acquire a picture of the ship and do the complete stats which you can revise

Sprayber, as for ship sizes...i seriously don't want to get the types confused like in Starwars.... sure they may be revisions to classification.... but by 2700, what use to be Dreadnoughts of the old days are now considered Heavy Cruisers or Battlecruisers, etc.... and the starting size classification stays that way for several hundred years i can do a list of how ships are classified base on Length/Width and Mass...aswell as their roles and weapons. I can see Carriers being around Heavy Cruiser to Dreadnought sizes.

sorry for dissapearing, was busy this past weekend and too tired last night.

-LMP

[Sprayber]

Go ahead LMP.

Each writer can have name their own class of ship, but for the sake of consistency they will carry a desigination that everyone uses.

example

Spartan Woverine Class crusier(light cruiser)

That way we can all have an idea of what the person is talking about.

But we should expect differences in appearance from say a Spartan crusier and a Terran crusier. Maybe not radically different. But the spartans may go for the bulky compact look while a PK ship may be streamlined.

I expect that the Spartans will contract larger ships to be built by the Free Drone. In exchange for money and favors from time to time. Sparta will build its fighters and smaller spacecraft themselves in their shipyards around Brasides in the Home System.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by [LordLMP]
kass, don't remember if actually succeeded in posting a message about it somewhere... there is still few things i need to clear out in the sol history

Worry not, I read it. I left room for you in the Venus part about the colonists there, and also I left Dark Planet and Asteroid Belt undescribed. You could for example formulate the parts here, and then I can combine them in the post to have a consistent description.
I can take the Belt description below (or above), and add it in. When will the Belt conflict be, 2400's?

And what kind of is Dark Planet, will we leave it in mystery? Maybe an infrastructure-covered monster like Trantor in Foundation or Coruscant in Episode One?

What comes to the history, that calls for another post, does it not?

What happened to the war against the Scions? :P wanted to have disastrous first contact, causing panic, rumours, exagerations, etc about some huge alien invasion of the system... so the two big factions, Earth Coalition and Mars Combine, join forces to fight the Scions....where it leads to some minor ship confrontations, Scion raids on some Jupiter/Saturn moons, aswell as on Pluto. Later, Earth/Mars ships finds the Dark Planet and goes in en mass with the intention to either take over the planet or wipe the scions clean from it.... by the time the ships gets into orbit of dark planet, a Fraal Mothership arrives and prevents any bombarment on the Dark planet....and mediating peace negociations where Earth/Mars discovers of the true origin of the Scions and so on...while learning a bit more about the Fraal, as it is first contact with more. Xenophobia towards Scions and maybe Fraal, but that dissapears by the time of formation of the Terran Alliance. Fraal is neutral.

I'll get this in the history post. What time will this be? 2500's? 2600's?

As for the belters, don't want the faction to be solely comprise of undesirables.... also comprise of people from nations controlled mining operations, aswell of some from InEn...but declare independence or/and taken over by other Belter groups. InEn tried to retake their mines at the belt after the Independence War of Mars and its moons, but failed. Not all belter groups go off pirating, and etc.... there is some peaceful mining groups.

I could shape that up into the history too, no?

Battlecruiser will be able to carry fighters and battalion of marines.... 2 starfighter (something like starfuries? )squadrons of 12, 6 assault shuttles (assault shuttles like the ones in Master of Orion 2...visual wise) that can land the whole Marine Battalion.

Hrr... Coalition Marines... Ready to kick I'll tell ya what...
Oh, and I want my Starfuries!

Battlecruiser could be the backbone of the Terran Alliance fleet and quite tough, even if it may be slighty less advance in comparison to Chironian warships. As for the main weapons and so on..... thinking of pulse cannons like the ones of the Omega destroyers in Babylon 5 along with some anti-ship missiles (or torpedoes ala Starlancer/Wing Commander) launchers.
I could acquire a picture of the ship and do the complete stats which you can revise

Why not. I can't do everything. Btw, I posted about EC having dreadnoughts. I thought about, say, two or three of them. One, the flagship, for Admiral Wakazashi, and the other one/two for fleet operations.
Oh, and the dreadnought class is either Sovereign or Solaris. First or latter?
Btw, the Coalition ship designation is ECS, like ECS Solaris.

Sprayber: What is the starting date? I need that for my character biographies! Is it 2700? Confirm please!

[Sprayber]

1. What should we use for money? Energy as in regular SMAC or something else? Or do we keep it vauge.

2. Name for the Council. the name Human Council(what I thought up) sucks big time. Give me something good for this.

3. Is a 2700 starting date a good idea. Thoughts?
4. Final words on travel time and some vague idea of locations.

My ideas

The Pks are located around Chiron in the rough center of human space.

Earth is located around the center as well.

Spartans are located around the 75 to 150 light year range from earth

Drones are in roughly the same areal

Morgans are located roughly between the Spartans and Pks but spartan and PK space touch in certain areas

University is located along the morgan pk border

Pirates--I dont' know. Where you want the concentrations to be LMP

Angels spread out with no homeworld. or they have gotten a homeworld somewhere between Spartan Pirates and morgan space

gaians are located near pk space but on the opposite side as the spartans/morgans/drones

Believers are mainly on the outskirts of space near the gaians and pks

cult--where ever

Progenators--no one really knows for sure. the tend to appear in different places

Bree-located in the 200ly range past the spartan federation and drone republic. they should occupy large area of space i guess

Gorn--share a border with the bree exending far far away and a border with the morganites and small area around the Spartan federation.

Tarn-located near believer space

some independent planets spread out here and there. Some that have lost contact and some that maintain independence by manipulation or tradition.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Sprayber
1. What should we use for money? Energy as in regular SMAC or something else? Or do we keep it vauge.

Using Energy Credits has a certain point, except that I do not know of how the Credits are actually gained. I mean, can you set up a solar panel somewhere and start pumping out funds? Should energy collection be somehow limited?
That is why I would support an electronical currency unit, usable via cards or other identificationable systems (retina scans?) that allow access to infonets. Then this unit could be backed up by central banks by allocating the currency a value in universal energy credits.
Keeping it vague is an option. But it would be nice to have a CU to use when accounting costs etc. in the stories. Vagueness is good, at some extents.

2. Name for the Council. the name Human Council(what I thought up) sucks big time. Give me something good for this.

*clears throat*
Galactic Council (Could have aliens also)

:insert placename: Council (A planet where the Council sessions, perhaps?)

Interplanetary Council

Interstellar Council

Council of the Suns/Stars/Planets/Worlds

United Planets

Also, the word "Council" could be replaced with
"League", "Pact", "Hegemony", "Commonwealth"...

3. Is a 2700 starting date a good idea. Thoughts?

Suits me,

4. Final words on travel time and some vague idea of locations.

What people said before. Traveling in-system should be something like Earth - Pluto : one week, ten days max.

Earth is located around the center as well.

Morgans are located roughly between the Spartans and Pks but spartan and PK space touch in certain areas

Morgan hw is 35 LY from Earth, remember that.

[History Guy]

Morgan hw is 35 LY from Earth, remember that.

OK with me.

[Sprayber]

ok let me try to post again

energy credits idea is good by kass is right about needing to be limited in some way.

I like the Interstellar Council name. Sounds official, but without any real power unless the factions use it as alliance against alien threats.


travel time within a system should be like a day maybe, explain it by saying FTL drives can't be used for travel inside a system. Each system has a entry point where FTL vessel arrive at and then proceed to scheduled planet. Kind of like a jump gate but not a phyisical gate. It would be marked by nav bouys. It would be just a means to control where vessels could enter a system. Maybe the aliens posses long range sensors and can enter a system anywhere. travel from Sparta to earth should take weeks.

[History Guy]

Hey! Interstellar Council? They must have named after my company!

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by History Guy
Hey! Interstellar Council? They must have named after my company!

I knew I had heard that word somewhere before
If it would of been Interplanetary, then InEn could of had copyright over it

travel time within a system should be like a day maybe, explain it by saying FTL drives can't be used for travel inside a system. Each system has a entry point where FTL vessel arrive at and then proceed to scheduled planet. Kind of like a jump gate but not a phyisical gate. It would be marked by nav bouys. It would be just a means to control where vessels could enter a system. Maybe the aliens posses long range sensors and can enter a system anywhere. travel from Sparta to earth should take weeks.

Okay. So something like Earth - Pluto would be one to two days?

(Depending on the company you are using. A business ticket with InEn gets you to Pluto from Earth in less then 30 hrs guaranteed, a tourist ticket with Valhalla Planetary gets you there in three days )

the jump area stuff sounds interesting. A nice place to make a defensive stand. Would need explorers goind deep space and placing own buoys in enemy space before entering. If you don't do that, your big huge Dreadnought fleet has a close encounter with the star(s)...

[Kassiopeia]

HistoryGuy: Imran Siddiqui?
Not bad. Btw, that's some strong stuff that LV, unless this one is Imran II or III.

[History Guy]

Hey, yeah, Imran Siddiqui. Dat's da guy. He was in the story Journey to Centauri, actually, and I thought the name was pretty darn funny.

concerning FTL jumps... don't need beacons, but it is safer unless you have very accurate data on the system the ship is jumping to. Placing beacons in enemy place will simply warn them that your coming and Scouts can emit a homing beacon without needing to drop an actual beacon.

Proginators and Fraal are the only known aliens to be able to jump without needing any beacon or exploration at all.... maybe they have some advance FTL sensors or somehting.... and their FTL of course is more advance Can figure out where the proginators could be after we do a map


kass, i would have to look at the history to exact the dates....but the InEn trying to retake its mines in the belt could be soon after the Mars' Independence from Earth War and before the Mars Civil War between InEn and Mars Combine. Scion War can happen in the mid to late 2400s....before the FTL race and the Gaian contact in 2515.

way i see the Terran Alliance fleet could work is.... each faction have their own ships and registry...the militias in a way. The Terran Battlecruiser could be an joint project between all factions, which making the Battlecruiser one deadly ship and capable to take on a Dreadnought in some cases. the BC could take a lot of damage and so on... Anyway, the Battlecruiser will be multi-faction crew and the backdone of main official Terran Alliance fleet, with an Terran Alliance designation like TAS Hyperion. Of course, there would also be joint design of an Carrier too maybe

After looking at the Homeworld: cataclym box....thinking maybe the BC's main guns is Ion Beams or something...which is why it makes the ship quite powerful. with Pulse Cannons as secondaries and point defence, as well as anti-missile or torpedoe launchers. The BC will be the first Sol built ship to Ion Beam turrets and so many too due to advancement i miniatuazation and nanotechnology sort of provided by the Scions... (they still won't share their Biometal tech and can't steal it either via espionage). As for Starfuries, can having with the same design and look from Babylon 5 or hybrid of Starfury and Thunderbolt so it is aerodynamic aswell for planetary attacks.


I have trouble seeing an energy economy to continue to be use in such a stellar extent...especially if it is hard to establish networks in interplanetary/interstellar way....how about trade and economy became more barter base like, base on energy credit value or whatever.

Concerning ships...the fleet organize into Taskforce like it is propose for Master of Orion 3, without any ship limit of course, with a mix of Homeworld style? taskforces is usually lead by a Carrier or some big capital ship.


-LMP

If you ever played Battlezone 2 and the missions on Dark Planet... that kind of look but by 2700, the planet is quite populated by Scions and quite urbanize in a Scion way...with remnants of old alien architecture. World is bigger then Pluto, but smaller then Earth and Mars. The Atmosphere is artificial, same with the heat. because Dark Planet litterally looks black, can't see it with any telescopes from earth and hard to detect with ships too. Only kind of ships the Scions build is Frigate size ships, their multi use Drop Ships and long range Starfighters. Dark Planet currently protected by some Orbital Defence Satellites and Surface-to-Space anti-ship missiles.


-LMP

[Sprayber]

Like I have said before, beacons are not absolutely necessary but without them you have no reliable way of knowing what you are entering into. If you have an accurate chart of that system, then you can generally avoid dangers. But it wouldnt be pleasent to enter a system right in the middle of a mine field.

Then you just have to make sure your Intelligence service is good

besides, will be pretty hard to completly mine an solar system and there is so many places to warp to. May place mines in the most common jump points to the system from some other systems, but doesn't seriously prevent them to jump some distance away from the system or on top or bottom (depeding how you look at the system).

-LMP

[Sprayber]

Oh no, you couldn't mine an entire system. You would just have to put them in blind areas and use extensive sensor posts to keep an eye on possible ships. But I'll tell everyone. A ship or ships entering the Spartan system at anywhere other than the designated entry point won't even get a warning from Defense Command. Their mission is to blast first and investigate later on.

[Sprayber]

Everyone please use the new dicussion thread to continue your discussions. It's just that we need a one thread so everyone can get what they need witout checking two threads.


Thanks.