3307-July-14 Unclaimed Fringe Space, RND Modular Command Dropship "The Castle", Conference room
It's rare that all the leaders of the RND Corps Clans gather in the same place, there are many reason for this. The 99th HQ command personnel were of course all present as this was their ship but the leadership of the 82nd Omicron Guard, 111th Baconators, 123rd Alpha Strikers and the 151st Nova Knights, as well as representatives of the two Bacon Addicts clans were also present. On the walls also hung the banners of the 64th Combat Engineers, 75th Black Diamonds and the 144th Caissa Light Cavalry, clans that had been lost in combat and reorganization over the last decade. The tactical holodisplay, often referred to as the chessboard by members for RND, in the middle of the room was currently displaying a yellow main sequence star with the orbital tracks of three rocky worlds, 2 asteroid belts, 2 gas giants and a rogue ice giant.
They had all spent the last couple of months fighting against the forces of the Prince of Iron on the orders of their contractor the Prince Kiyomasa right after their clans participation in the 3307 Clan Wars. Due to the informal nature of the RND Corps most were not wearing uniforms or rank insignia of any sort, casual ships clothes being most common with a few exceptions. At the moment the room was quiet as they all read what was on their data tablets about the objective of their new orders from the Prince of Flowers.The data tablets all read:
Faction: Meiji Shogunate
Sector : 4240
Star System: Avalon
Star Name: Avalon
Star Type: G4V
Important Note: almost all the inner planets and asteroid belts have an orbital eccentricity that is practically 0, such circular orbits for multiple planetary mass objects in a single star system is a statistical anomaly of such magnitude it is believed that the Forerunners engineered they entire star system to one degree or another to make Camelot an almost perfect earth-like world.
1st Orbit: Camlann
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 0.4 AU
Orbital Eccentricity: approximately 0
Rotational period: 73 days
Type: Telluric
Mean Radius: approximately 3800 km
Surface Gavity: 0.5 g
Natural Satellites: 0
Atmosphere: Minimal
Description: Small, rocky, mineral rich world. Tide locked with Avalon such that it does not appear to rotate in relationship to each other. Day side temperatures exceed 800 K and night side below 100 K.
Gateway notes: There is a single gateway in the center of night side, this gate way links to several locations within the Meiji Shogunate and at least 1 known fringe gateway, but not to any known gateway within the Avalon system.
Human History: Since the Terran Overlord Government took over the system Camlann has been a base of operations for mining itself and the inner asteroid belt and a variety associated industries. Primary exports are heavy metals and radioactives. Although when the TOG existed they had a variety of heavy manufacturing on the surface and in orbit, since the Meiji Shogunate took over the system the only manufacturing is spare parts for the mining and mineral processing equipment used.
Military Situation: There is a garrison force of Meiji Shogunate troops loyal to the Emperor and the Prince of Flowers guarding the planetary facilities and gateway, however they lost almost all of their space lift capability fighting against General Fujiwara's forces when they captured Camelot.
2nd Orbit: Inner Asteroid Belt
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 0.6 AU
Orbital Eccentricity: approximately 0
Description: No dwarf planets but a total mass of planetary scale making.
Gateway/Forerunner Notes: no gateways, possible remains a of a world destroyed by the Forerunners.
3rd Orbit: Camelot
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 1.0 AU
Orbital Eccentricity: approximately 0
Rotational period: 365.24 days
Type: Telluric
Mean Radius: approximately 6500 km
Surface Gavity: 1.0 g
Natural Satellites: 2
Brittonum: Spherical with a mean radius approximately 1651 km, surface gravity 0.1389 g
Cambriae: Spherical with a mean radius approximately 902 km, surface gravity 0.0232 g
Atmosphere: N2, O2, Ar
Description: Forerunner terraformed and possibly manufactured although slightly larger than Earth it is also slightly less dense giving it the exact same gravity as earth. An almost 0 axial tilt also means the northern and southern hemisphere have no appreciable difference in seasons. Surface is 75% liquid water with a single large geologically stable continent with a scattering of surrounding islands. The main continent is dotted with lakes and crisscrossed with rivers and streams. There is central mountain range but most of the the continent is rolling hills and plains and was originally very heavily forested. Winter is short and summers are mild creating a yearlong growing season at the equator for pretty much any terrestrial plants. A Year on Camelot is exactly the same as a year on Old Earth, however the days are slightly longer so there are exactly 364 days per year with no leap years or other necessary calendar corrections needed.
Gateway notes: Several gateways clusters almost all lead into the Meiji Shogunate and several gateways connect to core industrial worlds within the Shogunate, but not to any known gateway within the Avalon system.
Human History: Camelot and the Avalon system were first settled by humans during the Diaspora (sometime between the 24th and 26th centuries) by cultural recreationists from the Old United Kingdom, mostly from Wales. For at least a century the dominate languages were new-Gaelic and Welsh, many place names on Camelot and throughout the system are still named in these languages. Camelot and the Avalon system was ruled by an elected constitutional Monarchy of which the house of Pendragon dominated politics. During the rise of the Terran Overlord Government (TOG) the Avalon system was occupied, enslaved and Camelot became an Agri-world with factory farms and industrial livestock facilities spreading across the continent from the gateway clusters.
The 32nd century began with the complete collapse of the TOG, unfortunately The Illyrian Republic had become the Illyrian Empire while fighting the Meiji Empire. The Avalon system was first "liberated" from the TOG by the Illyrians who decided to keep things pretty much the same. Later during the Faction Wars the reorganized Meiji Shogunate took the Avalon system from the Illyrian Empire. Under Shogunate rule, they decided to establish more environmentally friendly policies on Camelot and began reforestation projects, but the descendants of the original settlers are still pretty much slaves.
Military Situation: General Fujiwara's forces took control of Camelot via a gateway invasion, but were unable to do the same to other planets in the system. While attempting to take Camlann and Badon the generals forces lost all of their space lift capability and have been setting up defenses around the gateways and constructing surface to orbit anti-spacecraft sites. Although General Fujiwara controls many of the systems on the other side of the Camelot Gateways he does not control all of them. As a result his sub-commanders on Camelot are concerned about attack from both space and the gateways.
Intelligence indicates that the Dragon's United Clans operating under orders from the Prince of Iron have already made a gateway head on Camelot unfortunately at this time exactly which gateway they control is unknown.
4th Orbit: Outer Asteroid Belt
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 2.0 AU
Orbital Eccentricity: approximately 0
Description: No dwarf planets but a total mass of planetary scale.
Gateway/Forerunner Notes: no gateways, possible remains a of a world destroyed by the Forerunners.
5th Orbit: Badon
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 2.5 AU
Type: Telluric
Mean Radius: approximately 8000 km
Surface Gavity: 2.0 g
Natural Satellites: multiple small and irregular satellites
Atmosphere: CO2, N2, Ar
Description: Large, rocky, mountainous, cold, mineral rich world, with a non breathable atmosphere. Planetary rotation results in a day about 1.5 times longer than a day on Camelot, Orbital rate makes is about 1/2 of Camelots making its year about twice as long.
Gateway notes: 4 gateway clusters in a tetrahedral relationship to each other. These gateways link to many locations within the Meiji Shogunate and at least 1 known fringe gateway, but not to any known gateway within the Avalon system.
Human History: Since the Terran Overlord Government took over the system Badon has been a base of operations for mining itself, the outer asteroid belt, and skimming the gas giants as well as a variety associated industries. Although when the TOG was in control it had a variety of heavy manufacturing on the surface and in orbit, since the Meiji Shogunate took over the system the only manufacturing is spare parts for the mining and mineral processing equipment used. Exports a variety of metals and gases with industrial uses.
Military Situation: There is a garrison force of Meiji Shogunate troops loyal to the Prince of Iron guarding the planetary facilities and gateways, however they lost almost all of their space lift capability fighting against General Fujiwara when he captured Camelot. Intelligence indicates that the Dragon's United Clans have support forces on Badon as well.
6th Orbit: Arthur
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 5 AU
Type: Gas Giant
Natural Satellites: Large set of rings often called Arthur's Crown by locals, 12 larger spherical satellites called the Knights, and 52 small irregular satellites called the squires.
Description: Swirling purple and gold coloration to most of the cloud bands, the Ring appears mostly gold and sparkles from ice and other minerals that make it up.
Gateway notes: None known
Human History: Gas skimming operations from Badon harvest Arthur's atmosphere for a variety of resources.
7th Orbit: Merlin
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 10 AU
Type: Hot Gas Giant
Natural Satellites: More than 60, almost all are small and irregular in shape, 1 (Celyddon) however is larger, spherical and sports some life.
Description: Primarily shades of blue, Cleydonn is heated by Merlin and is warm enough for liquid water with a thin N2, O2 atmosphere and covered by a Co2 producing bacteria and tall bushy broad leafed trees.
Gateway notes: 1 gateway cluster located on Cleydonn, does not seem to be operational.
Human History: Although explored by humans its distance from Badon's orbit and lack of a functional gateway has left it pretty much untouched by humans.
8th Orbit: Morganna
Semi-Major Axis: approximately 20AU
Type: Ice Giant
Natural Satellites: none known
Description: Little is known of this ice giant it has a very eccentric and elliptical orbit traveling counter to all other planets in the system indicating it was likely a rogue planet captured by Avalon prior to human habitation of the system. Weather this happened before or after the engineering of this system by the Forerunners is unknown
Gateway notes: None known
Human History: None of the human inhabitants have bothered to really visit this world as its eccentric counter orbit make it costly fuel wise to travel to and from.
The silence was finally broken by someone muttering, "It's about time the Princes stopped fighting each other and focused on the real threat."
"Yes," former CIC of the RND Corps and current leader of the 123rd Alpha Strikers, Richard Millich asked, "but what will be the best way to Camelot?"
"I say we do what Dragons United did," Schindoe of the 82nd Omicron Guard announced, "and hit one of the gateway clusters with everything we have."
Michael Telladira, leader of the 151st Nova Knights, said, "That might work for your heavy formations but would be suicide for my light troops."
Millich pointed out, "All the gateways are now guarded by either General Fujiwara's forces or Dragons United, and we don't know which one the Dragons have control of, or even if the General's forces have pushed them back."
"Even if the Dragons still hold a gateway or even a cluster, after they made a gateway head the General's forces are probably making sure no one else will be able to do that at any of the other gateways on Camelot without heavy losses." said one of the representatives from the Baconators, "If we arrive at gateways controlled by the Dragons they will probably do the same since they are working for the Prince of Iron."
Another of the Bacon Adicts spoke up, "So that leaves Camlann and then flying up the gravity well for a drops ship assault. We don't have any gunships and such an assault could be contested if they see us coming, and they will have a bit of time to notice us enroute."
One of the 99th leadership mused, "If they see us coming."
Millich asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well Camlann has no space lift capability, they already lost their Dropships and gunships fighting off the generals attack but what about asteroid movers?" The member of the 99th began to explain their idea, "It's the processing center for the inner asteroid belt mining operations. If they have any asteroid movers we push a couple rocks on an intercept with Camelot and our dropships follow behind them in their sensor shadow."
Edmond Dantes, executive officer of Bacon Adicts 1, noted, "They would have to be big enough to hide all our dropships and also to not be destroyed by surface to space weapons before they got close enough for us to uncover."
"If they are that big though if we botch trajectory even a little we could do serious damage to the planet and its people." Millich said, "Last I checked the orders from the Prince of Flowers was to take this garden world undamaged."
"We get some big ones but we rig them with shaped charge explosives to break them up into small pieces at our command." Another member of the 99th leadership built upon the idea, "If the trajectory is right we will have a meteor shower to cover our entry and landing, most of the pieces will burn up on entry and the planet is mostly ocean so putting any big pieces in the drink should be easy."
Telladira commented, "That might work."
At that moment the door opened an Commander Wadey of the 82nd Omicron Guard entered the room, wearing the rarely used official lab coat and goggles uniform of the RND. He was holding a larger than normal data tablet in one gloved hand and saluted with the other, "Excuse me, Sires and Madam, but I thought you should know we just decrypted a small fraction of the data we gathered on Kawaguchi."
Schindoe glared at his subordinate for interrupting, "And this is significant to us now, why?"
Commander Wadey continued, "There are references to gateway connections to all the worlds in the system from gateways in the system but that none of these connections have worked since either the Illyrian or TOG Invasion, not quite sure which. There are also references to a key to unlock them and something about a vault on the sun side of Camlann. We are still working at getting more details but I thought this information might affect your planning."
Submitted by Sean Wadey # 356597