Neither Here or Now - (Nation Maintenance, Closed)

[Kajal]

Shalbatana Daily News, Shalbatana Arcology, Kajur-Barol Territory, Mars
Arakar Shalbatana Heru, Kajur-Barol

Amendments to the Constitution Act moving forward

After nearly a year of rumblings that the Constitution Act - otherwise known as the Arakar i Shiyar Da Rin - was in need of serious overhaul, it appears that the Committee on the Constitution of Kajal has spent nearly the last year drafting a raft of amendments to do just that. While the list of amendments to the Constitution Act is still said to be incomplete, a number of unnamed sources within the Federal Council of Sora and other arms of the government have indicated that the amended Act will be greatly expanded in scope and specificity compared to the relatively short and vague first document promulgated upon Sera Nujuraan Keral's ascension in 879 EI.

Sources have also indicated that the proposed amendments to the Act borrow heavily from similar documents enshrined by Kajal's closest allies, with the greatest influence appearing to originate with the United Imperial Kingdoms of Macisikan. It was no secret in 879 EI that the Arakar i Shiyar Da Rin was heavily inspired by Solarian ideals, or that the reformed Himiro Murana took a form closely resembling a Westminster Parliament. Parliamentary scholars that had opportunity to review the amended Constitution have pointed out that the amendments largely close and eliminate space for interpretation in many areas that the original Constitution left vague or undefined - and also that the amendments so far reflect a long-needed update to bring the Act in line with the realities of the present day.

Strangely absent from discussion so far is any real criticism of the proposed amendments, which are so broad in range as to define entirely new protected classes, legal personhood, corporate rights, the selection of judges, and even the powers of government in times of war. Whether this is simply due to the volume of amendments or that these amendments will enjoy broad support in the Himiro Murana is an open question, but one that will be answered relatively soon, as the Act to Amend will require a three-quarters majority in the Himiro Murana to be successful. The Committee on the Constitution of Kajal has not openly opined on when the amendments will be presented to Parliament, though most pundits expect it will be brought to Parliament for first reading before the end of the year.

[Kajal]

Titan Fleethold, Saturn; 12 Avaal 254 DE
Alai Titan, Vaal; xe'éiö Avaal xe'el-séö'tel.

It was, hilariously, mere coincidence that it was a year to the day (or at least a Kajali year to the day) of the construction of Galat Vaal that the first three Galat-type vessels were called to action against a hostile power. That Galat Vaal had first served as testbed for the first Kajali-built annihilation plants was no coincidence, nor was the fact that she had been intended to receive larger powerplants than originally constructed. It had taken the foundry at Station Gamma the better part of the past year to refine their production chain to reliably produce powerplants meeting the designed power for the Galat-type, and substantially less time to remove the 500-meter plants originally installed in Galat Vaal and replace them with the 1,100-meter plants now installed.

The spaceframes for her sisters - Galat Barol and Galat Jeraan - had received their powerplants shortly after Vaal's new powerplants had been integrated. The three 500-meter powerplants had then been integrated into Station Gamma itself, both requiring and granting the installation far finer gravitic capabilities and a powerful local control zone. The three vessels had shortly thereafter been deployed to Sol for shakedown and final fit-out at the facilities at Saturn.

That was mere months ago. Now, as they vectored towards the Synergy Clubhouse's general position, they would - in theory - become record-holders within the Combined Federal Services for the shortest time from class introduction to first shots fired in anger at a hostile force, if they could rendezvous with Synergy Clubhouse before the invaders were rendered inert.

[Kajal]

Future Power Concepts lab, Station Gamma, Arasur

It was another day ending in "-y" at the Future Power Concepts division aboard Station Gamma, which naturally meant that someone somewhere was on the receiving end of scorn for pointedly and completely failing to recognize the failings and general vulnerabilities of the class of power systems colloquially named "Space Oil".

Now, "Space Oil" was a wide-ranging, sweeping generalization of a broad classification of power generation. At the extreme low end of the range, it could be taken literally - meaning hydrocarbons or similar chemicals extracted from objects in space that were not planetary bodies - but more often than not referred to what was officially designated a "Zero-Point Energy or Equivalent" tap. The methods to create such typically involved some sort of synthetic element that could be used to generate "spooky" action to manipulate spacetime in some way. These methods were almost always the same methods that a particular spacefaring polity used to travel faster than light, and the "discovery" was almost always in the form of "Hey, what if we turned this on but we didn't go anywhere?"

If the "creator" survived the "explosion" that usually followed that thought, they were usually able to refine the device from "plasma flamethrower" to powerplant in relatively short order. Some civilizations were more successful at this than others, encasing the created anomaly in man-portable devices, while others were not, and simply built ever-larger "taps" to harness a greater energy flow.

There were however hard limits, typically enforced by the size of the anomaly, the materials available to a particular civilization, and their appetite for risk. The Federated Imperium had not yet found evidence of a civilization rendering itself extinct in a planet-shattering kaboom, but had in its own history utilized such zero-point energy taps in great quantity, because despite the obvious flaws, they were relatively easy to create as a logical development of faster-than-light drives.

As logical developments of faster-than-light drives, the key flaws were, of course, susceptibility to interdiction, commonly by way of "Reality Anchors", and production capability of key materials required to sustain the process, e.g. "element zero" and other such spooky synthetic elements that would not and could not occur naturally.

The Federated Imperium had determined decades ago that upper-limit energy densities for these devices would never match the direct-conversion, single-cycle generation capability of advanced technologies such as the annihilation plant. While some ZPE powerplants existed that did not require dual-cycle power generation, those typically were roughly equivalent to the ancient Radioisotope Thermal Generator, or RTG, in that they degraded overtime and eventually became depleted. The only other option was to implement a powerplant with a conventional bootstrapping reactor - fusion tokamaks were very common here - in order to provide sufficient initial energy to pierce through spacetime to a higher-energy domain.

This too was generally a losing proposition in the long run given that the more energy was extracted, the deeper the well had to go, so to speak. Moving plants around was expensive if they weren't already installed in something mobile, and also largely pointless for large powerplants, given their area of effect.

And today, this day ending in "-y", was notable only because a new belligerent had been determined to be using a crude version of the same thing the Federated Imperium had been weaning itself off of, and seemingly without any knowledge of how it actually worked or any measures to safeguard it from both misuse or malicious outside action.

The laughter in the Future Power Concepts division office was raucous until it was interrupted by an off-colour remark that it was time to get back to work.

[Kajal]

+++ DISCLASS ULTRAVIOLET - DESIGNATED ENTITIES ONLY +++

As of 10:12:27 05 Adaar 254 DE, the Federal Security Intelligence Service became aware of potential activity matching previously recorded signatures of Polity {AD6A0:410A23:B6712/16D47E} as detected by Federal Naval Service monitoring installations. TRIPWIRE SIGINT suggested unstable boundary conditions in the following areas:

• Solarian Reaches, centred upon the star Sol (CFS Designation "LAEDAN") and extending to a distance of roughly 140 AU.

Intelligence indicates current extent of fractal activity to be within tolerance for deployed Reality Anchors in the affected area. Further monitoring is indicated; however, this event is believed unrelated to ongoing intrasystem activity by Polity {AF1F0:4D3946:195557} at Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter. No diversion of Federal Naval Service assets is recommended at this time.

+++ DISCLASS ULTRAVIOLET - DESIGNATED ENTITIES ONLY +++

[Kajal]

Classroom 5040, Federal Naval Officer Candidate's School, Kitharmani, Mars

"...invariably the idea of 'population' messily interjects itself when the question of who or what is a 'Peer' is asked, and in almost all modern cases it is not only an unwelcome interjection but an irrelevant one. When this is pointed out, almost every layperson asks 'why?' or makes some argument about population allowing an 'apples to apples' comparison of some sort."

"Comparisons of population are, to start, fraught at best, as unless the two groups being compared are not already members of the same general population - homo sapiens sapiens, for example - it will quickly become apparent that there is no 'easy' direct comparison. One can easily make outlandish but 'true' statements that are, in fact, irrelevant, on the basis of population."

"Now, a question for you, two in fact; What was the population of the old Imperium of Kajal in the year 878 Era Imperial, and what was the total strength of the Navy in that same year, considering all hull types?"

Most cadets in the class raised their hands, and the instructor selected at random. Both questions were considered 'gimmes' - if one got these ones wrong, they'd not have made it past the application stage.

"The census population in 878 Era Imperial was ten billion, nine-hundred-sixty-nine million, one-hundred-twenty-one-thousand..."

"Yes, correct. And the strength of the navy?" Another cadet was selected.

"Estimated to be slightly under two million hulls at its peak, in roughly the same composition as a modern naval battlegroup."

"Also correct. A typical Federal Naval Service battlegroup is in fact modelled on that original composition, with the vast majority of hulls typically considered to be strike craft assigned to various larger vessels."

"Now, consider for a moment. Two million hulls. The vast majority, perhaps five-sixths, under 50 meters length and 300 tons. These craft were distributed how far afield?"

No hands this time, though the Instructor selected a cadet just the same.

"Uh... 52 holdings outside of the Core region?"

"Yes. 52 holdings, typically with a single System Command vessel, a cadre of carriers, battleships, and corvettes, and the rest either frigates or small craft. What does that work out to per holding?"

A murmur as the cadets did the math. "...just under 40,000 hulls per holding?"

"Not quite. 30,441 'per holding'. In practice, generally fewer, since the Navy was not evenly distributed amongst all 'holdings'. Actual deployments were typically much smaller - just 3,672 hulls - or a single System Defense Fleet."

"Consider also; the Imperium in 878 EI devoted nearly 40% of its annual budget to defense, and this bought them oh, 'two million' hulls as we've noted. The Federated Imperium, Today, devotes 31.8 % of the annual budget to defense, and fields a navy that is, at minimum, an order of magnitude larger. The population of the Federated Imperium as of today is a measure daily active platforms in physical space. The low end for this measure is typically around 39 billion; the high end, up to 150 billion. This is still very low compared to our current Peers."

"...how do we classify ourselves as a Peer compared to some of our allies, then?"

"Capability. The size and nature of the Federated Imperium's resource base. It took the old Imperium the better part of a year to build a single battleship, and the logistics simply were not there to support construction of anything larger. A modern example can be constructed in a matter of hours or days, depending on the exigencies of any given situation."

"Because it took that long to get all the pieces into once place, and the builders had to operate the machinery by hand..."

"Not only that, but the production methods available at the time were vastly energy inefficient by comparison to today, requiring several transitional steps even to manufacture a simple hull plate, whereas now..."

"Direct fabrication of practically all required components is possible on-site at any Foundry."

"Precisely. This capability is a shared characteristic amongst all the nations we consider 'Peers'. It is thus unfortunate that we also have examples of individuals abroad who also share this title..."

[Kajal]

+++ DISCLASS ULTRAVIOLET - DESIGNATED ENTITIES ONLY +++

FLASH ALERT - FLEETWIDE - COMBINED FEDERAL NAVAL SERVICES

CONTIGENCY ALERT STATUS HAS BEEN DECLARED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

As of 14:27 21 Mirauv 255 DE, the Combined Federal Services became aware of an evolving emergency in polity {162C0:75}, otherwise known as the Grand Radiant Dynasty of Roania. Allied accounts indicate the incident began at 14:06 02 Avaal, and has since evolved significantly; Allied assets are in-system and have engaged or intercepted hostile forces.

As of 16:17, the incident was upgraded to a FEMR Magnitude 3.1 event, necessitating deployment of monitoring and rectification assets. Incursion by a single entity into NS1 was documented.

ALL AVAILABLE ASSETS ARE DIRECTED TO INITIATE RESPONSE AND CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES IMMEDIATELY.

DIRECTIVE ISSUED 18:15 21 Mirauv 255 DE, Combined Federal Services Central Command
DIRECTIVE COPIED, to Council of Yut, Second Triumvirate of Yut
DIRECTIVE COPIED, to the United Species of the Eridani Imperium
DIRECTIVE COPIED, to the United Imperial Kingdoms of Macisikan

+++ DISCLASS ULTRAVIOLET - DESIGNATED ENTITIES ONLY +++