Shrike's Nanowrimo Project

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Rar!

The AIEC Algiers is on a patrol in the deep Expanse when it stumbles across rumors of a dangerous piece of posthuman machinery – an ascension device. The situation is complicated by the arrival of a ZOCU cruiser come to retrieve the artefact for transport to the separatists’ capital. A political standoff evolves between the two groups but unknown to both, a third party of Ultras puts a plot into motion to seize the device for themselves.

Geographic Places

Micra (HIP 24874)

Luminosity: 0.165 Sol

Class: K3V

Surface temp: 4730 k

No terracompatible planets; unpleasant rocks or gas giants with ice moons. Cooler and dimmer than the sun.

Redstone (Micra b)

Mass: 12% Earth

Diameter: 7400 km

Surface Gravity ~ 4m/s^2

Orbital Distance: 8.02e+7 km

Orbital Period: 171 days, 9 hours

Rotational Period: 30 hours, 43 minutes

Atmosphere: ~10 kPa

Receives about 50% of the solar energy that Earth does. Terraforming efforts are slowly progressing with both offworld volatiles and orbiting solettas.

http://seti.net/html/SETINet/Archive/Archive.htm

Ships and Stuffs

UNAC (United Nations ARROWs Craft) Algiers

Type: Deepspace Security Cutter / High Endurance Cruiser

Alignment: ARROWs

A modern ARROWs cruiser, the Algiers is on a standard long-sweep patrol mission through the backwater Expanse. Its mission goals include detection of new posthuman-derived constructions, tracking feral drones, identifying and updating charts/demographic info, providing a ready source of technical expertise and disaster relief and generally showing the UN flag. The Algiers is relatively lightly armed compared to a true warship, with more tonnage allocated to habitation, crew size, cargo and small craft. However, it is nonetheless a capable threat against most backwater weapons.

LS (Londenium Ship) Hadrian

Type: Concord cruiser

Alignment: ZOCU (Londenium)

A war-era cruiser, the Hadrian is on a mission to Redstone to escort a transport full of weapons and technical supplies in exchange for various posthuman artefacts and a large quantity of Theta dust.

JV (Jump Vessel) Saria

Type: Point class spacelift ships

Alignment: ZOCU (Londenium)

The Saria is a merchant ship under lease to the Londenium government, carrying an array of cargo including Hoplite combat frames, supplies, terraforming equipment and components for Redstone’s fabber.

ES (Ereban Ship) Nephthys

Type: Nephthys cruiser

Alignment: SIYAN

The Nephthys is a hyper-modern SIYAN stealth cruiser originally tasked to go on a deterrence patrol down the Pac-Am arm. However she will be called in by ZOCU, SIYAN’s ally, when the situation in Redstone becomes dangerous.

Iris

Type: Galileo survey ship (heavily modified)

Alignment: Civilian

An ancient Galileo survey ship, over a century old and heavily refitted. Capable of planetary landings into low-gravity fields. Armed with several railguns and missiles for defensive use against feral drones. Operated by Captain Khama as a private artefact-hunting ship.

Characters - ARROWs

Captain Jian Sun, PhD A long-term member of the UN and ARROWs, Sun is the captain of the Algiers and the highest-ranking UN character in the story. After receiving his PhD in chemistry, he volunteered for a UN mission in the early 50s and found his calling. He bounced between many different positions inside the UN and ARROWs, including a period in the Interstellar Atomic Energy agency. It was this that got him in to ARROWs. He was active during the war, though his battle record was limited. He is also fully licensed to detonate nuclear devices.

Sun is motivated by a desire to help people which he has systemized into the quest to bring security to the human sphere.

His goal is stop the proliferation of destabilizing factors as much as possible.

He is directly opposed by the ZOCU crew early on, though later the bigger problem he will face will be the Ultras.

Commander Someone

Second-in-command of the Algiers. Needs a name and a personality.

Flight Commander Patrick Vostrak

Patrick joined the EU Deep Space Fleet in the ZOCU war, eventually becoming a mecha pilot. He fought in several battles, including the last major battle of the war over Haraway. In the postwar RIF, he accepted a permanent transfer to ARROWs, where he has continued as a mecha pilot.

Patrick is no longer the hothead hotshot he was during the war, half a decade having cooled him somewhat. He still remains motivated by the belief that the colonies were in the wrong, though exposure to many different viewpoints during his time in ARROWs has begun to crack this.

His goal is to protect the Algiers by destroying or disabling the threats that appear.

He will squabble with some of the ZOCU pilots, but his eventual challenge will be against the Ultras and the weapons they have accumulated.

Major (?) Fann Li Chi :CO of the Algier’s small marine complement. She is ‘on loan’ from the PLA, having arrived on the Algiers for the current patrol mission. She was selected for the exchange program because there were several candidates up for promotion; in order to defer having to chose the PLA instead transferred her. She finds this somewhat galling, but will not speak ill of it or correct other’s misinterpretation of her reasons for being on the Algiers.

Fann is a quiet, reserved woman and is on the exchange tour due to internal politics in the PLA. Her primary motivation is to simply make time but to achieve a good report doing so.

Her goal is to survive the boring trip and receive a commendation from ARROWs in order to secure her promotion.

Fann will be forced to make use of all the Algier’s meagre ground-combat resources during the latter stages of the conflict.

Characters – ZOCU/SIYAN

LS Hadrian

Captain Michel Aznavour

A transgene from the ZOCU world of Londenium, Michel commands the Hadrian during its mission to Redstone. Another war veteran, he commanded a Proton light cruiser during the war and has since been promoted to command a larger warship. He was a mecha pilot during the prewar period.

Michel is dedicated to the ZOCU cause and a patriotic citizen of Londenium.

His goal is to efficiently complete his mission with a minimum of disruptions; he has orders to avoid making a diplomatic fuss

Michel is directly opposed by the Algiers and her crew and the resulting political complications from having an ARROWs ship show up during the handover. Later he will also face the Ultras and their weapons.

Flight Major Reginald Beaumont III

An aristocratic and well-heeled young man from the Londenium’s upper crust, Reginald (Reg to his friends) considers himself both a lover and a fighter. He is looking forward to visiting Redstone, for no other reason than the unique travels it entails. This his first deployment as the CO of a squadron as this was expected to be a simple pick-up and drop-off mission. As a consequence he is rather inexperienced for the battles he will face.

Reg is dedicated to making himself look good and not embarrass himself; as a result he can display a surprising amount of focus when his failings become apparent.

His goals will evolve over time, starting from a simple desire to perform sufficiently well on the trip and showing up the baselines to defending the Hadrian to the best of his ability.

He will be initially dismissive of Patrick, but his main opponent will be the Ultras.

JV Saria

Captain Ryan Carvalho

A baseline, Ryan captains the freighter Saria. He is privately employed as are the rest of his crew, but all are in the Naval Reserves. He served as the first officer on a Liberty Ship during the war but only saw one instance of action. Ryan is fairly gruff as an individual.

Ryan’s motivations/goals are simply to see the current contract through; he is not a fighter at heart.

ES Nephthys

Captain Arlene Sirenum

The captain of the SIYAN warship Nephthys. Like most Erebans she is a Zaria-series upgrade, with pigmented white hair. She was the XO on the most successful SIYAN warship of the war, the Fiorona, and as such is eventually promoted to captain of the new cruiser after spending three years groundside teaching.

Caral recognizes that helping ZOCU out helps out SIYAN, even if the latter is not actually part of the former. As such she will offer as much support as possible to Aznavour.

Her goal is to conceal as much of the Nephthys’ capabilities as possible from core world observation

Coming in later during the crisis, Caral and the Nephthys’ main opposition will come from the Ultras.

Major Cosa Margaritifer

The CO of the Nephthy’s frame complement. He was a pilot during the war and was in the reserves for four years finishing his degree and working with a combat archaeology group.

Characters - Civilian

The Iris

Captain Mompati Khama

A third-generation Botswanan immigrant, Mompati is the captain of the artefact-hunting ship Iris. He operates in the Veil near Micra/Redstone, and he was the one that discovered the site of the posthuman artefacts being sold to ZOCU, taking a few items and then turning the rest to the Redstone government for a percentage. Mompati has received some basic spacer gene mods

Mompati is mostly out for number one, though he is hardly amoral.