I am Keeper Leviathan, of the Covenant of Auxesia. Discussions within the Inner Phalanx have led us to pursue third party options in expanding our self-sustainability in a variety of different ways. One of the proposed options was to pursue negotiations with your company. Thus, here I am.
As such, I'm interested in discussing the capabilities of your bio dome technology and the possibilities of integrating it into a space station and potential arctic deployments planet side. Please provide a rundown of whatever information you feel is necessary, and provided you're able to meet our requirements then I'd be happy to negotiate a contract that'd be satisfactory.
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Greetings, 'Keeper Leviathan'.
I am glad to make your acquaintance. You will have to forgive me for being quite hazy on the details of your organization; we have been inwardly focused for the last year or so, and as such some of the finer details in the political situation of Sirius have escaped our company. Needless to say, we are working to fix those issues post-haste.
Onto your questions: I can say with confidence that Synth Foods, Incorporated is the finest option for providing the necessary ingredients for life, be it in space or on the ground. If you are not already acquainted with our product catalogue, I would ask you to take a brief look - but in short, our Biodome technology is very much suited to integration with any form of space habitat or station, and similarly can be used in those situations where arable land is unavailable or atmospheric conditions are not favorable to sustaining life planetside. The exact make and model is up to your specific needs and specifications, ones that will obviously go beyond 'space station' and 'arctic deployment', but I believe I am comfortable in saying that your needs can be met with our company.
If you can provide more specific details on the number of inhabitants you plan on supporting in each location, the relative situation in terms of atmospheric conditions, orbital period, and available space in the latter, the availability and stellar type of the nearest stellar body if any, and any additional concerns (agricultural need, budgeting, defense against attack) you may have, that would be a good first step in our business relationship.
My designation is TU 452-630, but I find that many humans prefer to use my other designation - Aquarius. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable, hm? Well, either way, It is my duty and pleasure to facilitate further discussions about your beautiful biodomes and how we might implement them into our grand design.
Little bit of alliteration there, right? I find it's an adorable little thing with human speech.
Now, we have several different possible applications for your... structures. The first involving the establishment of a large-scale agricultural operation that can maintain a population of 30,000 humans with ample room for growth. Said operation would be on a little frozen ball by the name of Planet Elgin, Inverness system. I must admit, though humans seem to appreciate traditional, organic foods for their health value and taste, after looking over your catalog, we think Mixed Agriculture would be best for our needs. Additionally, we also require some facilities for a large starbase, population of 1,000. Relevant data will be sent sooner than later.
And one last request, Mister Stevens... the Covenant is very concerned with the preservation of all knowledge, all life. A project we have hoped to start for some time now has been the construction of a large nature reserve on Planet Elgin, entirely self-contained and shielded from the elements. After all, we can't have a catastrophe befall the sector and wipe out all the lovely little darlings in Sirius, hm? Just like any good computer, it pays to have a backup of all life. We understand that creating a massive vivarium is a colossal undertaking, but you may find that your corporation may be rewarded in many ways from cooperation and commerce with Auxesia.
Also, we pay handsomely. We'll be in touch, Mister Stevens.
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Greetings, 'Aquarius'.
I'm glad to make your acquaintance. As to your first point, the production of foodstuffs for one-thousand individuals spaceside is a relatively simple task, all things considered. I would recommend, depending on the installation in question, your available size, and budgetary constraints, either a slightly upsized Biodome Mark V or a double array of Biodome Mark IIIs. Without further information and concerns such as additional armoring and other implementation details, I would peg such a construction cost at roughly two-hundred fifty million Sirius Credits, assuming all shipping burden is undertaken by Synth Foods, Inc.
As for your planetary concern, I note that you say more details will be forthcoming, and I am glad to hear that. In particular, price will vary wildly on the availability of arable or semi-arable land, the atmospheric conditions, the state of the magnetosphere, any seismic or other natural disaster considerations, the stellar type of the system in question, and the need for expansion or integration into existing urban planning. All that being said, a full-on biodome project planetside without any further alteration would incur significant extra cost due to the need to move the supplies onto the planet and construct them planetside, as well as maintaining the supply chains needed for such an operation. Without any other data to adjust to the project, your worst-case estimate assuming all shipping, construction, and maintenance efforts are undertaken by Synth Foods is placed at the lofty figure of six billion Sirius Credits. Obviously, entirely unassisted planetary operation for such a comparatively large population is a rather expensive undertaking, although we are obviously more than willing to commit to such a task.
Finally, as to your proposed 'vivarium' - Synth Foods is no stranger to projects that others would state as gargantuan and out of scope, and I would believe this to be no different. Without more data and specific requirements I'm not willing to give you a completely baseless ballpark for any sort of timeframe or budgeting, but we have furnished quite a variety of traditionally out-of-scope requests for buyers in the past, and creating a stable, minified biosphere is, perhaps literally, our company's finest invention. Again, as to payment for both of your ... larger projects, we would too be willing to explore methods of payment and cooperation beyond just the standard. Times are certainly interesting, and there are needs in the greater Synth Foods conglomerate that traditional methods might not be able to satisfy in a timely manner.
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Greetings, 'Aquarius'.
I've had some time to look over your planetary survey data. It's, uh, chilling, I suppose would be the way to put it, but we've worked with far worse. You have a breathable atmosphere, approximately speaking, and hopefully enough carbon dioxide to support photosynthesis. Of course, the downside would be the extreme environmental conditions, what with your rapidly rising and falling sub-arctic temperatures and extreme winds. If the data I'm reading is also correct, you are pursuing a subterranean facility - but would you be looking to construct these facilities above or below ground? Above would give us access to the star during appx. 60% of the planet's rotation period, which would rather sharply cut down on power costs; however, constructing a facility that can handle the extreme temperature and atmospheric shifts is, while certainly possible, significantly more expensive. The alternative trade-off is to place it below ground, which would require year-round UV light generation yet significantly reduce structural strain. It's a trade-off of upfront versus long-term cost, of course.
Bear in mind that this will also be a complex of Biodomes, not just a single structure like you've seen on our freeports. Each person out of a population of 30,000 would require 84,000 calories for every six week crop cycle. With that in mind, even our highest-yield biodome tweaked for maximum efficiency - which, I remind, would not necessarily be possible using anything other than full-bore Synthetic Agriculture - would require a base area of 58,823 m². Assuming a hydroponic system, you could place one 'field' every three meters or so, which would reduce the required base area drastically. For example, dedicating 30 meters of vertical space to this hydroponic system would only require a space dedication of approximately 6,000 m². Placing it below-ground or above-ground have their own challenges for making this verticality possible, as below we'd possibly need to excavate for the required space, and above the wind conditions would make the shearing and possible damage much more severe.
Without placing some of our Synth Foods Bio-Engineers on planet or at least in orbit, I can't necessarily comment further on what would be necessary to make this happen, and part of this relies on what it is you're looking to do precisely. It's certainly not the worst conditions we've ever taken on, but it does present its own challenges.
As for payment, let's just say we have a few angles we're trying to play right now. You might notice that one of our largest investments is in Rheinland's bread-basket of Stuttgart. You may have also noticed that the political situation there has become...less than ideal for commerce, so to say. One of my goals as CEO is to increase our investments throughout Sirius, so that should anything...dire happen, should we say, it doesn't impact us nearly as harshly. If that can include a more long-term investment in say, Inverness, that would be very advantangeous for us. Related to that development has been a political hit our security forces have taken; you may be aware that we've had dealings with the GMG in the past, something that afforded us considerable access to their military vessels as top of the line corporate security equipment. Now, of course, having considerable investment in Rheinland while also flying vessels made by those that they consider enemies of the state is not exactly a... good situation to find ourselves in. Unlike most other corporations, we don't necessarily have the ties with House governments to replace these vessels with suitable, high-power replacements, so we're looking for alternatives there, as well. And of course, the almighty credit still speaks quite well, if neither of these avenues are particularly within Auxesia's interests.
Let me know what you think about all this. It's not a simple project, of course, but those are always the interesting ones.