To that end, you have to make your meeting on Aikoro (at the very least). Your contact here is just a no-name recruiter.

Since it might come up later and this thread is more metagamey, I figured I'd post the Napai security stuff here:

Imperial Defenses

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1. Outsystem gates (2): Each outsystem gate lies several hours' travel from Napai. Napai's star system is home to many space stations - bureaucratic, martial, mercantile, and scientific. The outsystem gates are the only ones authorized for general civilian travel. There is a needleship (the Immaculate Monarch and the Imperious Leader) at standoff distance from each gate - close enough to hit newcomers, but far enough away to have a chance to intercept blockade runner tactics and to scramble fighters. Every unscheduled ship in the system is escorted by a pair of interceptors. Imperial vessels transmitting proper codes are allowed through without interceptor cover. Note: the assault ship apparently has these proper codes, but they're linked to it's designation V889 Solitary Hunter. Once in-system, you're given another auth-code for the duration of your flight and are required to broadcast it.

2. Planetary Defense Fleet: Three Needleships, the Heavenly Sword, the Invincible Overlord, and the Emperor's flagship, the Vidas Lam, orbit Napai. Wings of interceptors fly constant CAP, and assault frigates take up any slack. It is common for human cargo to constantly be coming and going from Napai, although it is not a terribly industrial world. It's a bureaucratic, cultural, and habitation world. At any rate, failure of ANY ship to transmit authorization codes typically results in lots of yelling, boarding, and possibly being shot down. Traffic patterns are heavily enforced.

3. Akwhela's Eye: The Imperial version of the Pentagon sits in high orbit. It is a massive space station the size of Delaware. It enshrouds the primary orbital gate and acts as Customs. Ships coming from outsystem or arriving via the Eye are scanned and boarded if necessary. The Eye is one of the only orbital gates that can block the ring. They keep the ring blocked, only allowing communication, not transport, until authorization codes are transmitted. As a military vessel, the assault ship's codes will work on the Eye but they definitely will be close enough to see if you, say, rigged the Morningstar with a new transponder.

4. Napai has two space elevator/orbital gate stations. They sit lower in orbit than the Eye, and are ONLY used for outbound traffic. One sprouts right from the City itself, while the other one is on the opposite side of the equator.

5. Skimmers: Once inside Napai's atmosphere, the Akwhela's Wings monitor the vast holdings of the Imperial City from the air.

6. Killdrones: Unauthorized or deviant flight patterns prompt swift response from surface-based drone accelerators.

7. Defense Grid: Beam emplacements are capable of striking vessels in low orbit and shooting down enemy drones or projectiles.

8. Security drones: The Imperial City is littered with thousands of ensconced security drones. Armed with neutron beamers (the only drone variant to be so armed), the drones act as the City's security monitors. It is rumored that the Emperor himself can control the drones and link through any number of their sensors.

9. Sensors and sniffers: Sensors integrated within the Imperial City detect energy spikes from weapons fire.

10. Turai: There is no lack of Turai in the City.

You'll note that there is no information on the smaller Gateways. No doubt they exist, but the information here mostly pertains to security measures taken for space vehicles.

This is more of a technical question post, so I figured I'd include it here rather than the main OOC thread. A few propositions about Gate mechanics, and other technical stuff.

First, a question that's been bugging me. Imagine a Gate pair, with one Gate on a flatbed train car moving at 20.0 m/s and the other mounted on stationary ground. Say I toss a ball into the stationary gate (at 2.0 m/s) so that it will come out towards the direction of the flatbed's travel. What is it's exit velocity? Will it have the same velocity relative to the ground (still 2.0 m/s) or rather instead the same velocity relative to the Gate (2.0 relative to Gate is velocity relative to ground of 2.0 (ball v)+ 20.0 (Gate v)= 22.0m/s relative to ground)? It's been bugging me, because if one were to substitue and orbital Gate for the flatcar Gate, it could be the difference between being able to toss a ball into a Gate and having it be in orbit with the Gate, or having it be basically stationary, and thus fall out of the sky.

Similaryly, if I were to instead stand on the flatbed, facing to the "rear," and toss the ball forwards with a velocity of 2.0 m/s relative to the gate (18 m/s relative to the ground, -2.0 relative to Gate), what would it's velocity be when it comes out? 18 m/s? -2.0 m/s? The last seems a bit ridiculous, so I guess it would be 18. Thus, I propose that it must be V relative to the gate that matters. Not really a big deal, but I makes possible a few things, like putting a Gate in the Shuttle's hold and putting it in orbit, then just shoving a few pressure-capable module through and all of a sudden: Poof! Instant space station. Convenient for, say, building one's own space fleet, or simply going to the moon. Launching a spacecraft is a lot of the cost of using one, just look at the Shuttle. One reason we don't fly it as often as it was originally spec'd to be is we don't feel like paying all the cash it would cost to keep getting the things ready to fly in the first place. Imagine if all it took to go to the moon was the capsule, the LEM, and the service Module's engine [all it takes once earth orbit is attained, really] instead of the whole Saturn V stack. I'd say space would suddenly get verrrry interesting for a lot of people. Ditto for all that nice, pre-chunkified ore in the asteroid belt. Send up one unmanned probe with a Gate, and it's as accessable as your local quarry. Water shortage? Saturn's rings are basically bunches and bunches of dirty ice balls. Grab a few, bring 'em home. Overpopulation? I hear property values are good on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility...

Since it writting this out, I seem to have answered my own question, I'll just sugest that the first thing to do when we go public is get a Gate orbital. It makes possible the start of construction of a millitary space force, based off of the Imperium's drive technology, and all kinds of other fun stuff. Bump a shuttle mission if it'll fit in the hold, if not, find some other suitable booster. Although, this is the kind of thing I'd be expecting HQ's science boys to puzzle out, so maybe they could be seeing to the arangments back home while we're off deailng with the mission.

Quote:

Imagine if all it took to go to the moon was the capsule, the LEM, and the service Module's engine [all it takes once earth orbit is attained, really] instead of the whole Saturn V stack. I'd say space would suddenly get verrrry interesting for a lot of people. Ditto for all that nice, pre-chunkified ore in the asteroid belt. Send up one unmanned probe with a Gate, and it's as accessable as your local quarry. Water shortage? Saturn's rings are basically bunches and bunches of dirty ice balls. Grab a few, bring 'em home. Overpopulation? I hear property values are good on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility...

And Luis gets a Wild Die. Congratulations, you've reasoned out how the Imperium expands. I'll raise you one more. What if all it took to go to the Moon was a spacesuit? Stick a personal Gateway there and you can take a moonwalk on your lunch break.

Earth has a "Turai keg" that makes personal Gateways. It HAD an orbital gate, and although you've found the pieces for most of it, it's very broken. One would figure that there must be a keg that makes orbital gates somewhere.

admiralducksauce wrote:

Quote:

Imagine if all it took to go to the moon was the capsule, the LEM, and the service Module's engine [all it takes once earth orbit is attained, really] instead of the whole Saturn V stack. I'd say space would suddenly get verrrry interesting for a lot of people. Ditto for all that nice, pre-chunkified ore in the asteroid belt. Send up one unmanned probe with a Gate, and it's as accessable as your local quarry. Water shortage? Saturn's rings are basically bunches and bunches of dirty ice balls. Grab a few, bring 'em home. Overpopulation? I hear property values are good on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility...

And Luis gets a Wild Die. Congratulations, you've reasoned out how the Imperium expands. I'll raise you one more. What if all it took to go to the Moon was a spacesuit? Stick a personal Gateway there and you can take a moonwalk on your lunch break.

Thanks muchly. That bit of logic (Is speed conserved through the Gate relative to the Gate or the absolute speed had been bugging me for a while. As for the personal Gate, that's basically what I'm planning. Use a personal Gate like a savepoint in a video game: we launch a rocket to orbit, carrying a Gate. Put a new, specielly built rocket together using the Gate to put it directly into orbit, use it to go to moon, establish base with it's own personell Gate. (Like the backup facility on the moon in Stargate, except with a construction center there, too. easier to keep security when you're a hundred thousand miles from the nearest reporter.)

Quote:

Earth has a "Turai keg" that makes personal Gateways. It HAD an orbital gate, and although you've found the pieces for most of it, it's very broken. One would figure that there must be a keg that makes orbital gates somewhere.

Yeah, and the orbital Gate's something we should look into. Problem is, the more Gates we open in the Earth system, the more chance of the Imperium stmbling across our Gate codes, and while the most they could do with a personal Gate is start marching Turai through it, maybe with some light vehicular units, if we build an orbital Gate, we're basically asking to have a Needleship droped into our yard. Isn't worth the risk, considering that if the personal Gate is big enough (I think) for most of the space hardware we use (or at least the constituent modules thereof, excepting the shuttle- wings don't fit) to fit, we really don't need an orbital Gate yet. Incidently, a little research shows that the shuttle won't work as a Gate-launch vehical- bay's too small. Mass is not really an issue, but that diameter of 15m is... might just have to suck it up, put it in a aerodynamic covering, then stick it on the top of a Delta IV or an Ariane. Neither would have a problem with the mass, I think, based off of my reasearch, but that diameter is a deal-breaker: 15 m is just big. It'll help us when we get going, but it's a problem while we start.

Personal gates are 15 FEET, not meters. Well, they're more like 17 feet, but they have a 15 foot interior diameter. There were three things I checked on before I said how large the gates were: Semi trucks, Huey Cobras, and M1A1 Abrams tanks. 15 feet should allow all of those vehicles through. And if for some reason I did my math wrong, I'll change the gates to allow those things through.

admiralducksauce wrote:

Personal gates are 15 FEET, not meters. Well, they're more like 17 feet, but they have a 15 foot interior diameter. There were three things I checked on before I said how large the gates were: Semi trucks, Huey Cobras, and M1A1 Abrams tanks. 15 feet should allow all of those vehicles through. And if for some reason I did my math wrong, I'll change the gates to allow those things through.

Oh fark. This is what I get for thinking in metric. I'll recheck my analysis tonight.

First off: all your vehical checks were good. 15 ft fits the characteristics you wanted. The chopper, trucks, and tanks all fit. (The chopper will not be able to fit through while flying, incidently, rotors have to be pretty much parallel to the fusuilage since the rotor is 33ft.

So, revised plan (Note: this is based on the assumtion that the mention of the Mesa Negras nuke plant meltdown mentioned on the wiki was from the other run like most of the data, and that we thus still have a working Gatekeg [personal]):

1. After public anouncement (or before, depending on willingness to to risk serious leaks), pre-empt next shuttle mission to ISS an replace its cargo with a Gate. It'll fit in the Shuttle at 15 ft. Once it's in near-proximity to the ISS, test it. Pass through- oh, I don't know, some engineers to hand check the shuttle heat shield or something, as well as maybe giving all the groundcrew a few hours on the space station- after all the work they've put into getting it built, they deserve a trip to touch the thing.
2. Begin building modular space station components- think tractor trailer sized "pods." Once enough for, say, a fifteen-man station are ready, begin passing them through the gate and assembling them (note: solar panel arrays too!).
3. Go hog wild on expansion into space. Next shuttle mission, once it gets to the ISS and the new station, the crew come home and the shuttle is refueled and used to take a Gate to the moon. Build colony there- ideal spot for high-security research, no kids hoping the fence! Assemble a mars mission with a small ship made up of one or two Station Pods, a Gate, and a couple of boosters. Send it to Mars, switching out a crew of, oh, threeish every couple of weeks. Once it's there, land the Gate on the planet, begin colony there, too.

Yeah, most of the wiki was from the original tabletop campaign. They were not interested in winning hearts and minds. They nuked Sambasan. They nuked 3 Needleships. They nuked a Gateship construction facility AND the Gateship a little later. They set fire to Aikoro's atmosphere. They nuked Napai. Good times.

You guys still have Mesas Negras (with the original Gate from Antarctica) as well as a keg [personal gate] and Gate 2 at Diego Garcia.

There's a lot of stuff that got invented during that campaign that was with you guys from the start. The spear-bombs and the Cyllans and the details of their ships and Turai armor and such. The timeline's different too - In this campaign, General Akamu and Bashakra are history. In the first game, Akamu was one of the actual villains.

Oh, the nuking will come later. I already have a tasty plan that involves medium-yield nuclear devices as precision demolitions. :twisted:

All right, now all that I mentioned in my first post could even have some of the basics laid while we're gone (i.e. the "pods" could be designed under the idea of being modular payloads for a heavy-launch rocket designed for launching (what else?) space station components. Make it like the DARPA rbot car contest- the requirements are a bit wierd by the standards of what, say, a robot tank would need, but it gets others with fresh ideas looking at the problem. As for the shuttle mission- well, that's just a payload swap. Load-balancing (getting the payload placed properly in the bay) is the only real issue, and a chimp could figure that out with the right software and data, it's just a center of mass thing, high-school math.

It's a good foundation for a rapid developement of a space precence, and not exactly (forgie me) rocket science. They could be planning this back at Mesa Negras while we're gone, using our existing tech base and a couple Gates. Once all that's done, though, we need to build on this with the tech we'll be bringing back- gravimetric impellers, whatever's in he Morningstar's cruise engines and crashers, power generation, ect... This is more research/reverse engineering, and can happen while the pre-planned expansion is being carried out. Once the basics are learned, we start building a unified planetary defense force- call it Earthfleet for now. Any nation that signs on has its space program merged into Earthfleet and has to provide a given amount of the organization's budget. In exchange, it gets access to the Space Gates, the research, it's scientist's get into the research and developement wing, it's population can join the corps of Earthfleet officers and enlisted. NASA and the ESA and Russia if we can get them should immediatly lead the way.

I imagine for the start, the officers would be drawn from either naval or air force personell, but they'd be put through intense re-training for tactics and systems. Earthfleet has two purposes- act as the front line of expansion into the solar system, and build up a fleet to meet the Imperium if we fail to beat them in the next 30 years and their force shows up on our doorstep. Emphasis on ships about 1/2 the size of Needleships (500 m long, 150m max beam and hieght), pocket-nuke and ballistic armed to start, transitioning to to a mix of railguns and lasrs if and when it becomes possible. Figure on aiming to build, oh, twelve of the mo-fo's. Call it one a year, starting 18 years after we get back. Sounds not-too-bad, considering that during WWII, we could spew carriers out at a rate of some six a year, and that was just the US of A. These'll be harder to build and bigger (call it about 6-8x the volume), but we can probably still pull off one a year. We can't be sure exactly what the Imperium sent against us yet, but chances are it couldn't resist a force with as much firepower as 6 Needleships, especielly one tossing armor-piercing nukes. If our raid on the RoBS can tell us the specifics, we'll be that much better prepared to resist them, especielly if we can locate weak spots and such.

If our mission to Napai succeeds and Punkey's plan gets carried out (resulting in a choatic and disintegrating Imperium), we might be able to make off with an orbital Gate keg, and then use Earthfleet as the proverbial big stick to back up our soft speaking about independence, planetary soviergnty, and such.

I call dibs on Commandant of the Terran Space Marines.

Is it possible we could move the scheming in here, so it goes a little faster and we can get on with the killings/sneakings? Since this was supposed to be the high-level planning thread, I believe.

A grand idea! I wish I had remembered about this thread. Yes, by all means.

In that case, how's about we say that shortly after Punkey's last comment IC gets responded to, our characters are dismissed and call it a day? We get our meals and some rest, then we sort of spend time R&Ring while us bigwigs here in NQOOC work out the Plan and give the Orders (and fill out the Requisitions and Other Assorted Paperwork).

First of all, we're gonna need a bigger boat.

Gatac

And more explosives. If there's one thing Angel's learned, its that stealth fields and Imperial armor are pants against plans that involve filling the air with tiny bits of metal.

Well, depending on the answers I get from our friends, we need to adjust our plans to account for the possibility that they'll just blow the Spire sky high. Fortunately for us, I read the old post in this thread about Boronai, and it's a lot less difficult than we thought. We'll be dealing with maybe a few thousand troops and support vehicles on the outside, and the Spire is 600 miles away from the city, which means we can surround and isolate it while keeping the city under control. The biggest concern is the fact that the Spire is huge. It's a massive building surrounded by five miles of sprawl, presumably littered with smaller buildings and such. Breaching the perimeter of the compound shouldn't be hard, it's just that we're basically going to have to clear another city in order to hold it. At this rate, we should consider blowing the Spire gate just to keep them from reinforcing their positions and keeping them from running off with all the really cool stuff in the Spire.

(Edit: I'd still like to roll up with at least twice the force that they could conceivably field, maybe 4,000 to 5,000 or so. Two armored battalions, two infantry battalions and one helicopter battalion. Enough that we can hopefully get the city to surrender, disarm and contain them, secure the city and then focus our forces on capturing the Spire, but enough that we can secure a perimeter around the Spire if they don't surrender and keep them contained.)

Anyone want to call a mission role?

My idea for the shipboy is that he'd stay on Earth. The brass are nasty pieces of work, yes, but it's highly unlikely they would send a kid into battle, especially a kid who has few connections to the Imperium and who has a fairly impressive technical skillset. They need the kid to teach people about Imperial tech.