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[tryrar]

The year is 2622, and the war between the Terran Empire and the Free Colonies of Siraxis is drawing to a bloody close. With the war lost for Siraxis, those of the Colonies who won't bend their knee to the brutal Empire have come up with a plan; send out refugee ships deep into the uncharted gamma sector of the Milky Way to establish a new civilization far from the reaches of the empire, and start anew.

Year 2648. Refugee Ship SNS-123JX "Freedom" deactivates its alcubierre drive in the vicinity of several stars, its AI processing information from several advanced sensors. Several targets present itself for possible colonization;the AI weighs and measures each star, unable to decide which one is best. Its subroutines activate, and wake up the captain from coldsleep to make the final decision.

The star systems are:

Sj-21A, a Sol-class star with several rocky planets, a gas giant, and two spectacular asteroid belts. However, limited scans cannot definitively confirm any of the planets harbor water or oxygen

DX-314, a binary system with a white dwarf and a orange k class star, with  a few planets orbiting the K component. Again, scans cannot confirm oxygen worlds around the star

GH-912, a red dwarf star with a single large rocky planet, ~2x the size of Earth. Sensor scans indicate that it is largely an ocean world, but cannot confirm that the oceans are liquid water, but it does have an atmosphere of some kind. There are several large islands and one small continent that could support a colony if water is present....

As captain, your choice is final, and will be the deciding factor as to where the ship goes. At present, the ship has enough fuel remaining in the reactors powering the drive to visit only one of the stars. You do, however, have 2 alcubierre-equiped robotic probes that you can send to both of the stars for more detailed scans of the system to narrow down choices. it will take ~a year round trip for the probes to  reach the system, scan, and return, but will provide much better information on the systems scanned.

What do you do?

[WhitiusOpus]

DX-314, of course.

[The Froggy Ninja]

Send probes to Sj-21A and GH-912.

[10ebbor10]

Send probes to Sj-21A and GH-912.

[tryrar]

A few more details while we wait for more people. Currently, the ship holds 1500 population units [a unit here is a 1000 of something, so that'd be 1500x1000 or 1.5 million refugees], as well as enough housing and hydroponics units to set up a basic colony, as well as some mining equipment, and portable fusion generators. There are also 10 units of bulk metal for turning into whatever is required with the shipboard factory section, and 15 units of hydrogen fuel. It'll take 10 units to travel to any of the stars discovered from our current position.

So, the stat line is:

Colony Ship "Freedom"

Population [1500/1500]
Bulk Metal [10/10]
Fuel[15/15]
Factory Section Status: Standby Mode

[kaian-a-coel]

Backing the probing.

[tryrar]

The probes are programmed and released. With a flair of distorted light, they light off their warp drives and disappear. Meanwhile, stationkeeping protocols are activated, and more of the crew is awoken. Life support sections are activated to accommodate them, and work begins in preparation to moving to a final destination. The wait begins....

The first 6 months goes without incident, until alarms blare in the ship as a reactor malfunction threatens the whole mission! The malfunctioning reactor is shut down, but repairs are needed. The ship can still continue to a destination, but the strain on the other powerplants from the warp drive means an increased chance of something frying mid-flight, with attendant consequences(depending on what breaks), as well as reduced functionality to other systems. Do we try to repair the reactor(which will cost ~2 units of metal), or just keep it in shutdown and try to soldier on?

Colony Ship "Freedom"

Population [1500/1500]
Bulk Metal [10/10]
Fuel[15/15]
Factory Section Status: Standby Mode

[scapheap]

Backing the probing.

...
Normally it tell you if a post come up...

[10ebbor10]

Repair the reactor. We can't risk a complete system failure.

[Culise]

Repair the reactor. We can't risk a complete system failure.

Aye.  It's a bit tougher to replace a reactor than it is to replace the materials for some spare parts. 

[kaian-a-coel]

Agreed.

[tryrar]

Repair teams swing into action, and the factory section is brought online. It seems a computer glitch with the mag containment for the reactor plasma caused a dangerous instability that allowed a section of the reactor wall to be melted dangerously thin. Happily, the damage is not as bad as initially feared, and no major components were damaged in the accident, so they only thing needing replaced is the reactor plating, which only costs half a unit of metal to produce and install.

Meanwhile, with the factory section operational, the captain and his council decide this is a perfect time to start producing equipment and machinery needed for landfall. What are we gonna produce? Mining equipment? Farming tools? Medical implements? Something else?

Colony Ship "Freedom"

Population [1500/1500]
Bulk Metal [9.5/10]
Fuel[15/15]
Factory Section Status:Operational

[RulerOfNothing]

That largely depends on where we are going. We will almost certainly need mining equipment though, and medical equipment would also be useful in a wide variety of situations.

[Nirur Torir]

How many people can the hydroponics systems feed? How did we get here if we're at full fuel?

I'm not sure we know enough about our destination to begin production, but it's hard to go wrong with drones for refueling from the atmosphere of a planet we're orbiting. Maybe 2.5 metal for refueling drones and 2 for mining equipment, keeping 5 in reserve.

Preliminary vote for Sj-21A, barring signs of a space-faring civilization. I don't want to be constrained to a system with only a single planet, and if the ocean world is inhabitable, we can probably go back to place our main colony there after starting operations in Sj-21A.

[tryrar]

The current hydroponics could comfortably feed our current pop+25% for several years(and more people than that for a shorter time), allowing time to establish local farms. Also, good point about the fuel 

Colony Ship "Freedom"

Population [1500/1500]
Bulk Metal [9.5/10]
Fuel[15/30]
Factory Section Status:Operational