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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 23, 2011 17:22:26 GMT -5
Do you think there could be a future where colonies might go to war with almost purely privateer armies and fleets? Might that be an interesting story?
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 23, 2011 18:15:50 GMT -5
The Kingdom of Andrus has issued a letter of marquis and reprisal rewarding private vessels for the capture of enemy ships. The Republic of Ampere has attempted to blockade the trade between Andrus and other solar systems. It has invaded Andrus space and stolen its resources from the outer planets and asteroids. The Kingdom had no real choice in the matter but to respond as a sovereign entity should.
The Kingship Majestic orbited high above the world, its mission was a simple one today: signing up privateers. While the Majestic was a powerful, modern warship it was actually the only one for the Kingdom. It was a small post-colonial world with a population not yet reaching 10 million. However the Kingdom of Andrus was also a trading hub and travelers often stopped to see Teutonic Castle and other sites.
The news streams were all eagerly reporting that the Kingdom would respond in kind to the trespassing enemy vessels and this could become a “real war”. Outlying mining operations were now being told to arm themselves in the event of enemy attack.
A lot of colonies find themselves regressing in technological level to that which their population can support. This usually did not apply to space travel technologies. All one really needed was a workable null-gravity device, an airtight chamber with life support system, a warp field generator and a navigation computer with relatively recently updated charts. This sounds complicated and expensive but in this day and age these technologies were nothing more special than a rotary engine a few centuries ago. Junkyards were full of engines that would have amazed people a century before.
The days of junkyards were long gone and any serviceable vessel could manage to hop from one system to another relatively easily. Movement between worlds was more or less free, except between worlds hostile to one another. Sometimes it was better to chart a course around those if possible.
Buckeye Jones had been dealing in junk his entire life and he knew that your “junk” might be something another person would pay good money for. He had inherited the business from his father and he was now one of the bigger “junk” dealers in the Kingdom. His fathers’ friend, Rudy Johnston, still alive after all this time, continued to work for the business.
On this fine day Rudy seemed particularly excited. “Remember that proposal to turn that old hull into a cargo ship?”
“Far too small for that kind of thing” Buckeye told him “We don’t have any Type-E drives around to be towing chunks of asteroids to processing. Besides there are too many doing that these days anyway, that pie is already cut into too many pieces.”
“No, no” the old man said waving a hand “I’ve ar-ready agreed with that. Today the King is sending us to war; we can make a goodly profit as privateers!”
“We aren’t soldiers” Buckeye told him “What are we going to do, look for destroyed ships?”
“Nah, those are to be the prizes claimed by the destroyers, obviously” Rudy answered scratching his white beard “What I am saying is that we have all the parts we need to build a small, fast attack craft”
“You are senile, old man” Buckeye told him with a wave off.
Looking over the accounts though, Buckeye began to seriously think about how it might be good for the business. He found himself out on the yard inspecting the old shell of a hull. Because of centuries of simplifications, there had been achieved a modular system of ship construction. It was actually quite simple to attach the Type-B fusion drives and the null-grav devices. They had a couple of used nav-coms in one of the out buildings and fashioning a life support system was a simple thing. Plus as back-up they could wear the old war suits, if the ship is holed by a laser they could simply zip up and attach the helmet.
“The only question is what kind of weapons we add” the old man said from behind him. He didn’t sound smug, just determined. He wasn’t going to rub it in that he had won the argument.
“You know, I was watching an ancient vid once and they mentioned something about inertial dampeners because back then they thought warp would crush you to the back of the ship” Buckeye said, still staring at the old hull. “They didn’t understand that the ship wasn’t actually moving, just the bubble of space surrounding it”
“It was all theory and make-believe in those days” the old man answered “They also thought it would require massive infrastructure to get into interstellar travel. It would while the technology was still in its infancy, but later on it would become efficient, simplified and any hack could do it. It was the same with everything. At first it was new, intimidating and requiring great effort. Boats, cars, computers, films etcetera, later on anyone could do it.”
“I wonder what kind of things we think is hard now that will become old hat to our grandchildren?”
“My grandchildren are already born, Buckeye” the old man said with a humorous lilt to his voice.
“How long will it take to connect all that stuff to the hull?”
“Not even two days, then we have to sync everything to the onboard computers. Easy. Then we need to load up on provisions, we might be out there a while”
“We’ll look like sitting ducks”
“We won’t hardly be noticed until it’s too late, me boy. I fought in the First Andrus War, you know. I learned a few tactics about hiding a vessel in open space” the old man said “Of course, I’m pretty sure that everybody else learned most of them since then too”
“A tiny ship like this might be ignored unless we get too close or look too hostile”
“Exactly. We could even hide next to a drone ore freighter and never be seen on their sensors at all until we ram a torp up their exhaust vents” the old man said.
Buckeye wondered where they could get a torp. They were easy enough to make but that would take time, the war was on, more or less. It would likely be a low-level conflict for quite a while, unless the enemy was waiting and ready for the Kingdom to strike back.
“I think we should the ship the Alicia, after your mother” Rudy said after some silence between them.
“Quite a name for a warship” Buckeye answered with a nod.
....
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 26, 2011 15:54:43 GMT -5
No comment at all?
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Jul 26, 2011 22:30:15 GMT -5
I am sorry. I have been busy. I have just read it.
I like this idea of a makeshift ship and privateers though! I hope you write more.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 26, 2011 22:56:28 GMT -5
I'll try
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