Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Countryman made his way down the corridor. That meeting to discuss their security and logistic issues had ended up postponed after the drive failure. Now that they were underway again they were about to meet again. Arranging these meetings was always interesting.

The reason for that was the difficulties involved with communicating between ships at warp. Human ships were capable of several methods of communication, but they were all restricted to sublight speeds. For centuries the radio has been the preferred method of communication, and for most purposes, it works quite well. Although not so well for secure communications, military ships have tight-beam photonic radios for that purpose. Not only are they more secure, but they can support high-bandwidth communications. Making them quite the useful addition to a ship’s comm array.

Now when two ships traveling at warp attempt to communicate with each other, they quickly run into several problems. The main radios are not able to connect with each other, nor the photonic ones. The reason for this is twofold, first, the spatial field responsible for the space warping effect that allows for FTL travel disrupts those signals. The second major problem is that the transmissions are slower than the ships.

One method considered for solving this was courier vessels, but they ran into problems with that idea. First passing a ship through the warp field of another was very tricky, they were not even sure it could be done. Not to mention failure would mean complete destruction of the ship trying to pass through the field. In addition, the warp drive technology had so far eluded attempts to miniaturize it to the point it could be fitted on a shuttle. As such courier ships were out. Even after subsequent trials found that the warp field could be tuned to allow a transmission through the field since it would still require a ship to come close enough for the fields to come in contact. Of course, that meant that starships in tight formations could communicate with each other. Yet that presented other complications, as formations that tight at those speeds could mean disaster if any error was made.

There was one technology that could allow a transmission through the field with a looser safer formation, and the distance between the ships mattered little. It was a technology explored during the twenty-first century, but its limitations prevented it from achieving any form of widespread use. It was able of a very limited form of FTL communication. These comms had to be specially tuned to each other, and once tuned could not be tuned to another one. In addition, these comm units had to be in physical contact for the tuning to take place. Although since they were the only method they knew it was the one they had to use. Unfortunately, it was also limited to simple text-based communication since it wasn’t able to support the kind of bandwidth needed for more complex communication. Factors that prevented it from ever entering any form of widespread use. In fact, the tech had been languishing in disuse since its discovery over a century ago. Although that didn’t mean it wasn’t used, it was. In fact there were a number of labs that had been working on improving it, but every avenue pursued had failed. It was now largely considered a dead-end technology, a barely useful curiosity, but nothing more. One that they would gladly discard if they ever figured out a better solution to faster than light communications.

Then there was gathering for these meetings. That presented another issue, unlike in certain science fictions Humanity had not discovered a viable method of teleportation. Transferring personnel between ships could only be done at sublight speeds via shuttlecraft. That is why Reynolds and Drakes came aboard just before they had gone to warp. They would need to stop again later so that they could go back to their respective ships. The transfer could be done fairly quickly in fact as with centuries of experience they had gotten very good using shuttlecraft to transfer people between ships. The Enterprise had the two main hangers, the forward cargo hanger, and several smaller shuttle bays all capable of receiving ships. She also had a number of docking ports that would allow ships to dock with the hull. Most of those were on the belly of the ship near the troop and manufacturing bays which took up most of the lowest decks. Like any good warship capable of landing it only made sense to have those bays there, it also helped to have the manufacturing bays in the belly of the ship, as it added with repairing other ships when needed. Those thoughts reminded him of the war machines they had stowed in the lower decks. The Enterprise was carrying some 1200 tanks, and 80 heavy walkers. He had no idea if they would ever use those.

They were carrying Raptor Class Main Battle tanks. It was designed as a successor to the highly successful Rex. The Raptor had already proved itself on Mars in the final months before they were forced to evacuate the colony. The Rex had been very effective against Cathamari ground troops, but the Raptor was absolutely devastating. As for the heavy walkers, they were carrying the Scorpion class battle walker. It was more than just a walker though, it was also a submarine. The vehicle was designed to be dropped from orbit preferably into an ocean. It was no light weapon system either, it was built for breaching heavy fortifications, and was outfitted with quite a few heavy weapons. Not to mention it was heavily armored. They too had been used to great effect defending Mars from Cathamari ground assaults.

Reaching the door, he headed into the meeting room, where the last of the officers were already sitting down. It was time for this long-overdue meeting to start. The whole drive issue had led to them postponing it, but that had left the issue unresolved. As such a few more security breaches and reports of missing supplies had crossed his desk. Most of it was food, but a few crates of clothes had also been misplaced. Both were issues. They need that food to last them a few more months. As the food growing in hydroponics is not yet ready for harvest. As for clothing, it was a limited resource. At least for the foreseeable future, they had no space for the plants usually used for that. The same could be said of the artificial polymers often used for making clothes. Along with a lot of other things. Everything was finite now, without new sources of critical resources they would eventually run out of things they need. Food, water, and air shouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as they ration, but the most critical resource for them is fuel. At the moment they had plenty, but it was finite. They had no ports from which to refuel, and as such they would have to harvest it themselves in deep space. Since they ran on deuterium that shouldn’t be too hard. It was abundant on water-rich worlds, but it could be found elsewhere as well.

Settling into his seat he started the meeting and presented the issues at hand. The ones he felt they needed to discuss. The civilians, the issues with the current rationing system, the security concerns he had, and the current levels of unemployment. There were simply too many people with nothing to do, and as Earth found out during the era of fools that was a recipe for disaster.

Drakes leaned forward, “Yes I have noted much the same issues on my own ship. It doesn’t help that the civilians we rescued aren’t used to military rationing. In fact they call the current measures draconian and complain about them at every turn. It doesn’t help that we have to ration access to everything from food, and clothing to the use of shipboard utilities.”

Reynolds nodded, “I don’t blame them. Its the civilians from Luna who put forth the most complaints, and frankly unlike those from elsewhere they haven’t had to deal with supply shortages before. Well not in recent memory anyway. It doesn’t help that the current rationing system is completely foreign to them.”

Williams interjected, “Yeah the thing about rationing is that it has never gone well with civilians. I’ve been looking into the problem, but with so many people its hard to keep track of who is supposed to get what. The computer helps to a degree, but many people are also complaining that it is not enough.”

Countryman said, “perhaps a system more familiar would work?”

Reynolds leaned forward, “care to elaborate on that?”

Operations officer Misaki nodded, “I would like to hear more about that idea as well.”

Drakes and Williams followed by expressing interest in the idea as well. Richards didn’t say anything but her body language indicated that she was listening. Ruri was the only one who didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in the idea. Countryman knew that she was listening though.

“They aren’t used to a military rationing system, and it shows. Perhaps a rationing system that works much like currency would be easier for them to adapt to. We will issue single-use credits on say a monthly basis. These credits will naturally expire at the end of each cycle, which forces people to use them and not save them. They will be allowed to ‘spend’ them on what they need. The council will set their value, and the amount people get.”

“Interesting, I can see the merits. In some respects, the system would be simpler than our current system. The first question to consider is what value we are going to set to these ‘Ration Credits?’”

“That is as good a name as any for them. As for value, I was thinking of setting the value at one meal costing one credit. I figured it would be easier for us to determine the value of the credit if we based it off the cost of a meal.” said Countryman.

Williams scoffed, “With that idea we might as well base it on the value of shit.”

Greyman gave her a look, “Don’t be like that.” turning towards Countryman the first officer said, “I actually think that is a fine idea. Besides there isn’t much else we can base it off of.”

Drakes interjected, “So which meal of the day would be the one credit? Most people are given two small portions, and then one large portion over the course of a day.”

Countryman replied, “I’d base it off the large one.”

Williams scoffed, but was cut off before she could finish her remark.

“That might work. So if the large dinner portion is a credit, than that would make standard portions half a credit. Budgeting that most people would spend two credits a day on food. Assuming they are sticking to the basic menu. Other items would cost more to have on their plate.”

“Sounds about right. Using that as a base it should not be too difficult to determine the cost of other things like basic utilities, and goods. We might have to adjust it a little.”

Countryman interjected, “38. The magic number is 38 credits a day for a comfortable living, at a minimum they can get by with 22 credits. That is using the two credits a day on food as the basis, and taking into account that we are talking about a zero-sum currency.”

Williams frowned, “Why don’t you explain it for those us who don’t have a computer for a brain?”

Ruri interjected, “Its not to hard to guess. I suspect around ten of those daily credits he mentioned would be for access to the basic utilities. That doesn’t cover officers like us, the utilities provided in our quarters cost the ship more to maintain. I would guess around 30 credits for those. However there is about 15 credits I’m not sure about with Countryman’s calculation, and they would have to be something people use on a daily basis.”

“I have noticed an number of people using the terminals in their quarters for access to the ship’s data net mainly for the games or movies in the library. While I have nothing against it, the traffic has been getting rather heavy. Something that isn’t exactly ideal, but the ship’s entertainment resources are limited so I don’t blame them for doing this. However we will need to limit this, placing a daily ration credit cost on using the terminals for that, should help reduce the load.”

The ship’s optical data net was able to handle the load. However the ship’s computers were a vital resource, used by any number of systems. Systems that were constantly communicating, a starship required a fair amount of interconnectivity to function. Not to mention they were vital to current projects, and as such limiting access only made sense. Then there was the security concerns that the widespread access to the library was presenting.

Reynolds nodded, “I agree that does need to be restricted.”

They spent the next few minutes, hashing out details on the new system. They talked about everything, considering and debating how much things would be worth. They also discussed how much people would get, and considered workplace incentives as well with the new system. Before long they had hashed out the groundwork for a system they all believed could work. Allowing them to move on to other considerations.

“As for security, I think our biggest issue is a lack of personnel. We simply don’t have enough trained security officers.”

“Agreed. Thankfully I think the solution is simple. We should start recruiting, there are plenty of people with nothing to do. I’m sure we won’t have problems finding recruits.”

Countryman nodded, “No the real problems would be in training. We technically have the facilities for it, but a shortage of people with experience training personnel. There are a few people but not enough for the volume of recruits we will need trained.”

“There are some officers I can think of that would like more to do. We can have the few instructors we do have train them as instructors.”

Countryman nodded, and the discussion continued. It didn’t take them long to hash out the details for a new training and recruiting program, so they moved on to revising security measures. They did need to do something to keep more supplies from vanishing, while the new rationing measure being put into effect were meant to solve the other problems. Before long they adjourned, with most of them finding the meeting particularly productive.