Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nirur Torir]

The votes are 7 to 4, in favor of the red dwarf.

Spoiler: Votes (click to show/hide)

I'd say we head to the Red dwarf system.

Binary star systems are notoriously unstable, while red dwarfs are extremely stable, for long periods of time. We have little population, so we will be relying on robotic systems for most tasks. Plant life is therefore not needed, and in fact a liability.

I also vote for the Red Dwarf System

As we don't know the politics of this place, it would be prudent to stay mobile, instead of becoming sitting ducks on some planet. Let us get an extensive robotic workforce, and then upgrade our ship to something like a seed / mothership. Oh, and I would be all for making backups of our data, just in case.

Yeah, I'd say we should go for the red dwarf system as well.

I vote we visit the red dwarf system.

During the trip, I think we should prepare data packets of cultural works, to serve as trade goods. Try to avoid data that will paint our race as warmongers. (If I was a system governor or whatever, I'd gladly trade a few ships for books and games from an undiscovered alien race.)

I agree with Nirur's plan, also Red Dwarf.

We need to make a backup of our data if possible.

On arrival we should start mining and make several fully automated mining drones.

I agree with the Red Dwarf idea. Let's get some industry going, so that if we want, we can use automated rigs to slowly terraform any world we want to colonize rather than try to adapt to an existing biosphere. Though, one of the first things to build would be a mobile cloning lab so we can get started on increasing the workforce

I vote for the Red Dwarf for the short term. We can colonize the terrestrial world afterwards.

There is no mention of any asteroid belt in the yellow star system. I wouldn't bet on there being one.

I vote for the yellow star system myself, we're there to make a self-sustaining new homeworld, not a mining colony.
Habitability is the most important criiteria.

I'm with Kaian. Our food supplies can only support the population we have now, and unless we can expand them, we should head to the yellow star and it's system instead.

Any planet that can support life is one we want.

Go for the yellow star.

+1

[~Neri]

Doooooorfs!

[Mlamlah]

I'm gonna address some points i think are relevant.

There's no need to totally commit to a decision from the beginning. The various modules of the ship may be detachable, but with time and effort they can also be reattached. Setting up shop somewhere does not neccecarilly permanently cripple mobility.

I saw it mentioned somewhere that the ship is not equipped to land. That's partially true, but not entirely. The ship *can* land, but only on ideal relatively flat conditions, and if for example the ship landed on a planet with life it would likely cause small-scale ecological devastation.

The databank, supercomputer, scientists and robotics workshop are all in part for the purpose of developing the technologies and facilities you currently do not have. It's a starting point, and even if you don't have a technology or facility available, that does not mean you cannot create it with access to the proper materials.

You do not have meaningful energy shields, shipboard lasers are standard for destroying incoming debris.

[tryrar]

quick question that I think is relavant: Is there room fore more modules to be attached, or would we need to leave one behind for say, a cloning lab?

[Mlamlah]

The Ship (Nameless)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Population:112 (no children)

Weapons:
-Two Industrial Mining Lasers
-One Ballistic Cannon

Power Sources Available:
-Pantheon Reactor Engine
-Hull covered in Solar Panels. (Vulnerable to damage, armor underneath Solar Panels)
-Supply of Emergency fuel 3/3 (Hydrogen, suitable for intersystem travel at the most)

Releasable Partitions of the Ship:
-Atmospheric Dome
-Robotic Machining Factory
-Databank
-Supercomputer AI
-Food Ecosystem Dome

On-Board Space Vessels
-Three Long Range Robotic Probes (Powered by Radioisotope generators, capable of uncomfortably transporting one person)
-One Shuttlecraft. (Powered by Hydrogen fuel, capable of comfortably transporting 15 people.)

Supplies:
-50 tons of raw steel
-60 Pressure Suits (complete with Pneumatic Jets for fine control in extra-atmospheric conditions.)
-12 Military Hand Lasers
-A variety of industrial tools.
-Dna Information of thousands of earth species flora and fauna, including humans.
-Basic Ammenities including sufficient clothing, medical supplies and hygienics.

Current system (Nameless)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Red Dwarf Star
53 Small Rocky Planets with thin atmospere, mineral rich.
Several Hundred Dwarf Planets and orbiting asteroids, most of likely similiar composition.
-Computer Analysis indicates high concentration of orbiting bodies may have been in part caused by the destruction of some larger planets in distant past. Projections indicate that left untouched many of these bodies may begin to drift towards eachother.

You plot a course for the nearest Star system, and you assemble the top scientists on the ship for discussion on what to do next.

A lot of argument ensues. Some of the scientists want to make for the planet with life, they consider it a great opportunity for study, and a potential location for a colony. Other scientists claim that decision would be foolish, that the priority should be acquiring resources for the purpose of setting up better facilities. You explain to them that you've already tentatively decided on the latter option, and that they should begin making suggestions on how to make such an operation more successful. You also mention that you'd like to begin working on backing up the Databank.

The scientists explain that they would need a similiar memory storage device to back-up the databank, something that would take time and resources to create. They stress just how much information is stored on it, though they mention that if you wanted they could probably back up specific parts of it with much less effort.

Beginning work on mining drones would greatly benefit any mining operation, though with the facilities you have available any drones you created would be very simple, both physically and by programming. They wouldn't be able to react to changing circumstances, and unless you wanted to re-purpose military lasers for some of them then they would be working with rather crude lasers and industrial tools.

It's also mentioned that your robotic workshop factory is programmed quite well, they can accomplish a great variety of tasks, though they specialize at none. It's possible that you could have the scientists work tweak their programming to give them greater skill at more specific tasks, as it is they can do a great variety of things, but only at mediocre effectiveness. One scientist mentions you could also create drones and download the A.I of your factory robots to more autonomous designs. This would allow you to have multi-purpose drones of greater skill, but any A.I they are replaced with in the machining factory would at least initially be deeply inferior.

Further down the line it would be a good idea to create specialised workshops for the creation of more advanced machinery. Anything that you create using your generalised workshop will be servicable, but will never be of the highest quality.


It does not take long for you to arrive at your destination, and you dismiss your science officers for the time being. You have some decisions to make, and you arn't sure exactly where in the system you are heading.

Current Operations:
-Robotic Machine Factory: Offline
-Supercomputer A.I: Running only routine processes.
-On-Board Population: Mostly unoccupied.
-Robotic Probes: Docked and Offline
-Shuttlecraft: Docked and Unoccupied.
-External Solar Panels: Gathering Solar Energy sufficient to sustain current power usage.
-Pantheon Reactor Engine: Currently running at much less than one percent capacity.

[Mlamlah]

quick question that I think is relavant: Is there room fore more modules to be attached, or would we need to leave one behind for say, a cloning lab?

There is space for this to be possible, but would require modifications to the ship. It's worth noting that the more modules attached to the ship the more likelihood of any of them being damaged if the ship were to be attacked.

[tryrar]

OK, plan: We find the planetary body that seems to be the richest in metals, then have a couple scientists work on designing good robotic mining drones. Try to get ones that have decent AI, but the simple AI we can currently do will be fine for now. Sacrifice a few military lasers for this

Then, program the factory to replicate the drones, and send them to form up a small robotic mining force. When we get enough raw materials, let's modify the ship to carry a couple more modules, and make one of them a genetics and cloning lab, with the other being an isolation lab for studying the biosphere of that world we were considering for the yellow star system. Once we have them, deactivate and recover the mining drones and then jump to the yellow star world to get started on our colony

[~Neri]

We could also stripmine the system and make a decent sized automated fleet before jumping to the yellow system.

[tryrar]

My other idea was to see if we could replicate the FTL drive and have some automated deliveries to us via mining barges, but I figured that unlikely. However, if this is possible, instead of shutting down, we'd have an automated mining colony sending us raw materials to the yellow star system. Of course, we might need to have a few people to stay behind in a prefab facility to oversee things so the drones don't go screwy...

Oh, and have we actually named the ship yet? If not, I vote CS Prometheus

Edit: Also Kevak, we don't need to stripmine the system at this point, because we don't have a need for all that resources. When we get a colony established, we can come back to this system and establish a larger mining base to relay resources to us

[~Neri]

Nothing ever bad happens when entire planets turn into robots!

[10ebbor10]

Constructing an FTL drive is a possibility, as humanity has mastered FTL technology long before the Pantheon ships arrived.

As such, here's a plan:

- Robotic Probes start surveying the entire system for mineral deposits
- Main ship moves to a planetoid with decent resources, and commences to harvest it using it's mining laser
- Our AI subsystem begins the designing of :
      - Automated Modular Droids
             - Mining edition
             - Transport edition
      - Foundry/ Refinery Complex*
      - FTL drive
      - Shipyard Complex
      - Simple though reliable power generator
- Our Factory is to commence construction of basic Modular droids, a few of these will be fitted with modified military lasers to serve as mining installation, others will carry the resources
      - If resources are adequate, it is to start at the Foundry/Refinery complex

* A simple thing really. The Refinery consists of a large area that can be separated from space through an airlock. This allows harvesting to commence. Initially, the module is equipped to harvest smaller, low density planetoids. The refining installation consists of a microwave array, which heats the rock, causing the ice that keeps it together to evaporate. This ice can then be harvested, while the ore remains as dust and can be transported to the Foundry

The foundry exists to tackle more solid objects, taking them apart, sorting them by material and refining them. Considering all this happens in zero gravity, a centrifugal sorting system should be easy.

It's also mentioned that your robotic workshop factory is programmed quite well, they can accomplish a great variety of tasks, though they specialize at none. It's possible that you could have the scientists work tweak their programming to give them greater skill at more specific tasks, as it is they can do a great variety of things, but only at mediocre effectiveness. One scientist mentions you could also create drones and download the A.I of your factory robots to more autonomous designs. This would allow you to have multi-purpose drones of greater skill, but any A.I they are replaced with in the machining factory would at least initially be deeply inferior.

Ok, this is weird.

What happened with copy and pasting. Any reason why we can't duplicate our AI systems?

[~Neri]

Quality control I assume. Would you want fifteen thousand Lil Hal's running around?

[10ebbor10]

Quality control I assume. Would you want fifteen thousand Lil Hal's running around?

Should be no problem to copy them. After all, the AI is already spread out over all the robots in the robotic manufacturing system, so ...