Nansei Research Complex

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Nansei Research Complex
Owner
Kusari Office of Intelligence
Location
E-6, Kyushu

CLASS: Amaterasu

GRAVITY: Complete

DOCKING: Yes

AMENITIES: Yes

CREW: 650

In 400 AS the Kusari government began offering incentives to attract new businesses and existing corporations to establish themselves within the Kyushu system. Taking advantage of the offer Samura Industries began work on the Nansei Research Complex, fast tracking the complex to be finished later the same year. Designed primarily to study antimatter and antimatter based weaponry, the facility utilises vast solar arrays to provide consistent power to its electromagnetic containment fields which isolates the several kilograms of stored antimatter.

The facility is often a favourite target of attacks by the Blood Dragons, leading to the Battleship Nagumo being stationed nearby to oversee both the defence of the Tau-29 jump gate and of Nansei itself. Should the Blood Dragons ever succeed in compromising any of the storage cells, the annihilating antimatter would result in an explosion in excess of 100 megatons of force wiping out the facility and anyone unfortunate enough to be caught within the blast.

The base has, on occasion, been the venue for a number of secret research projects by the Naval Forces using the collective expertise on antimatter for military purposes. While no products of the research have been directly linked to Nansei, its importance and location has been deemed strategic to the Imperial Kusari Navy as well as the Kusari Intelligence, who defected to the Imperial forces. Forgoing a direct assault on the facility that would most likely compromise the research materials, the imperial command employed a strategy of isolation and attrition against the garrison with the aim of weakening the defenders enough to succumb to a later boarding action.

The plan backfired as the KNF became aware of the passive stance adopted by the imperials and devised a breakthrough operation allowing them to take the valuable research data and abandon the increasingly untenable location. Once the data was copied to their ships and the base databanks erased, the KNF forces departed in a fast convoy, leaving behind a barren facility and its remaining Samura staff. By coordinating with units from the Nagumo, they were just able to break through the encirclement of the IKN, escaping into New Tokyo with minimal losses.

As advances elsewhere put the station out of reach of the Republic, plus with there being no KNF garrison left to defend it, the Imperial Kusari Navy and Kusari Intelligence moved in. Although disappointed by the missed chance to attain any Naval Forces secrets, the Kusari Intelligence have assumed control of Nansei. Operatives stationed here are currently attempting to retrieve any fragments of the previous research, including interviews of civilians that were left behind, whilst continuing development of new weaponry for the Imperial cause.

Bribes & Missions Offered

Bribes
Missions


Commodities

Imports
Commodity Price
Energy Field Equipment 62$
Titanium 48$
Uranium 32$
Oxygen 19$
Water 17$
Food Rations 31$
H-Fuel 133$
MOX 40$
Super Alloy 45$
High-Temperature Alloy 48$
Superconductors 39$
Pharmaceuticals 39$
Optronics 44$
Consumer Goods 24$
Bio-Neural Processors 132$
Azurite Gas 147$
Xeno Relics 232$
Iridium 177$
Nanocapacitors 59$
Quantum Multiplexors 43$
Synth Paste 39$
Xenobiotic Filters 62$
Passengers (Kusari) 333$
Exports
Commodity Price
Deployable Mining Container 50,000$
Solar Panels 28$
Crew 424$
Scientists 396$
Munitions 71$


Ships sold


Ship Class Price
Chimaera Heavy Fighter 15,008$
Wyrm Light Fighter 13,052$
Umibozu Bomber 66,376$


News

[833 AS] Relief Convoy Arrives In Kyushu Orbit

Today a combination of Samura, independent, and government backed relief vessels arrived in orbit of the storm-stricken Kyushu, setting up a temporary depot in the planet's low orbit to better organise the distribution of relief supplies. Fighting through high winds, freighters deliver construction supplies, emergency generators and other relief materials to where they're needed most.

Battleship Matsumoto and its task force remain in the Kyushu system to protect the fragile transports from vultures among the Blood Dragons or Golden Chrysanthemums. Some Farmer's Alliance vessels have even been glimpsed to patrol the routes left largely unnoticed by the wider Naval blockade of the system, and have subsequently been given some leniency by Naval Forces and State Police patrols.

While the relief effort is now well underway, criticism has been leveled at Samura for the prioritisation of rebuilding profitable farming infrastructure over the care of the local populations. Spokespeople for the company have repeatedly assured that displaced victims of the storms that continue to ravage the planet are being cared for to the best of their abilities, but that supplies are strained and not all communities are yet able to be reached.

[833 AS] Kyushu Faces Rising Temperatures And Falling Profits

Kyushu, the key to Samura's monopoly on the organically-grown food industry, has faced rising ocean temperatures lately, owing to a vast temperature surge in the mantle plume underneath its largest ocean. This has been compounded by the resultant eruption of several underwater volcanoes, releasing enormous quantities of greenhouse gases into the planet's atmosphere.

Partially as a result of the geological activity, the equatorial monsoon season produced some of the strongest tropical storms ever recorded on Kyushu since its colonisation. These storms devastated the world's agricultural sector as they blew through the most fertile tropical lowlands, destroying as much as 20%% of the planet's annual crop yield, on top of damage to infrastructure and tragic loss of human life.

Many rural communities are reported to be struggling, with some farming communities still remaining flooded ghost towns even a month after the worst of the storms abated, though smaller-scale tempests still rage around the equator. A Samura spokesperson outlined the company's intent to restore the planet and its communities to full productivity by the middle of next year, despite the ongoing circumstance.

[832 AS] Battleship Matsuda Meets Its Demise!

It had long been rumored that the grand Battleship Himeji had not been lost in the Tohoku system as previously thought; That it had been brought back and given a second life by the unlawful elements that are the antithesis of the Kusari state. This rumor had been proven true as the Kusari Office of Intelligence reported movements of a Meiji-class Battleship in the Kyushu system, deploying Golden Chrysanthemum fighter wings that seemed to deliberately target Kusari patrols in the northern part of the system.

Immediately upon learning of this, Battleship Matsumoto and its battlegroup were redeployed from Hokkaido, and within two days were poised and ready to face this new threat. Only a short few hours later, a patrol of fighters reported a warship with the transponder reading Battleship Matsuda operating in the relative open, heading for but not yet reaching the relative safety of the Seiran Dust Cloud.

Matsumoto itself departed with its escort to confront the Chrysanthemum battleship, close to the edge of the nebula. Within minutes of it coming into sensor range, bomber and fighter squadrons from both sides closed in and opening salvos were exchanged between the battleships. It didn't take long before the KNF's preparation was shown to be well worthwhile; their superior numbers whittled down or otherwise preoccupied the Chrysanthemum's fighter force leaving a variety of openings in the Matsuda's defensive cover for KNF bombers to exploit.

While the Matsumoto was withstanding a heavy beating from the guns of its older sister, it was plain that the Matsuda was slowly being whittled away as its shields began to fail and the very same engine design flaws that had rendered it immobile in KNF service were now exploited by bomber wings to once again cripple the warship.

After several more minutes, the Matsuda's escape pods began to eject from the ailing battleship, picked up by Chrysanthemum fighters as they fled deeper into the Seiran dust cloud. It didn't take long thereafter for the ship's powercore to falter and fail completely, culminating in a vast explosion that reportedly almost turned night to day on the dark side of Planet Kyushu, if only for a split second.

Matsumoto itself sustained moderate damage in the engagement, relatively untouched by Chrysanthemum bombers however still suffering the ill effects of Matsuda's anti-capital weaponry. Despite its damage, it remains deployed in the Kyushu system to continue the blockade of the cardamine trade and to serve as a show of force to any who would challenge the might of the Emperor.

[831 AS/747 AGS] Gate Corps Clash Over 'Blackout'!

ABBEVILLE -- 831 AS/747 AGS -- EFL's 'Resilience Taskforce' today reported its findings on The Blackout, claiming to have gathered forensic evidence that proved the cause as Ageira negligence. A spokesperson claimed that the destruction of the Dublin jump gate by Molly separatists had created a hyperspace feedback loop that was propagated and amplified through the Ageira gate network.

Ageira disputed this finding in their own press release, calling EFL 'fantasists' and countering that their own scientists had narrowed the cause to a rare 'hypernova' stellar event that originated outside the Sirius sector. Both corporations claim that network-wide hardware safeguards have been implemented that would prevent a similar occurrence in the future. Independent researchers have sharply criticized the corporate announcements, accusing both of self-interested misdirection.

Professor Sophia Nagel from Heisenberg Research Station called EFL's accusation 'incoherent' and the hypernova explanation 'nonsense' that did not explain the characteristics of the 'Blackout Pulse'. Despite multiple different Pulse recordings being widely disseminated across the neural net, public efforts have so far failed to triangulate its source.

[831 AS/747 AGS] 'Blackout' Causes Jump Network Fail

MANHATTAN -- 831 AS/747 AGS -- Two days ago Jump Gates failed simultaneously across Sirius, freezing commerce and neural net access across the sector. When the network resumed 31 hours later, restored communications broke the news of Bretonia's loss of the Dublin system. This twin shock has plunged the market into chaos, prompting fears of sector-wide economic recessions. Interspace estimates indicate that the stoppage alone caused billions of credits in losses. Gallia immediately accused Liberty of culpability for the outage, claiming the destruction of Dublin's jump gate instigated a cascading failure in faulty Ageira infrastructure. Ageira has sharply refuted the allegation, claiming such a systemic effect would be physically impossible. Independent researchers in Cologne and the Edge Worlds have also announced that a hyperspace pulse of unprecedented strength was detected moments before The Blackout, with data about 'The Pulse' being widely shared across the neural net in recent days. House authorities have remained tight lipped, refusing to comment on their own observatories' data.

[828 AS] Birds of a Feather

STUTTGART -- 828 AS -- Many of the LWB’s remnants took up the Imperial cause during the Civil War, hoping for an isolationist government that would expel Synth Foods from Rheinland. These pilots were left feeling betrayed and enraged when this failed to happen. Lacking funding and resources, they looked abroad to find support. An unexpected benefactor was found in Kusari’s Farmer’s Alliance, who fight a near identical battle against the Liberty corporation. The Alliance has provided leadership, funding and resources to relaunch anti-Synth operations in Rheinland as a wing of their own organization. It remains to be seen how this united Farmers Alliance will impact affairs on the wider stage, with the security forces of both Rheinland and Kusari already strained by internal conflict and crime.

[825 AS] Ibusuki station massacred - Kusari enters war!

SAIGON -- 825 -- In a furious speech, Prime Minister Yukihara Reijiro of Kusari has declared a state of war against Rheinland. This follows the destruction of Ibusuki Survey Platform in Sigma-21, 12 hours before Rheinland's eviction ultimatum expired. Despite Rheinland's protests that it was not responsible for the act, Kusari has accused the Battleship Bayern of the murders, releasing the station's final distress calls that begged Rheinland forces to cease fire. As a result, Kusari has mobilized the Kusari Naval Forces to begin joint military operations alongside the Gas Miner's Guild. The Prime Minister has ordered Rheinland to withdraw all of its forces from the Sigmas immediately or face Kusari's fury.

[804 AS] Treaty of Honshu eases Colony War wounds

HONSHU -- 804 -- Dignitaries from Rheinland and Kusari today ratified the Second Treaty of Honshu, officially normalizing relations between the two Houses and ending Kusari’s embargo. Rheinland has formally accepted sole culpability for the Colony Wars and agreed to a 20 year reparations package. This includes preferential rates for Kusari corporations on military goods and resources needed to rebuild the Kusari Naval Forces, and financial compensation for the damages inflicted in Honshu itself. Chancellor Steller offered his sincere condolences to Kusari over the war, and promised a brighter future of mutual prosperity.

[801 AS] Kusari imposes embargo on Rheinland

NEW TOKYO -- 801 -- Shogun Edo has announced that a full economic embargo of Rheinland will be imposed by Kusari due to the outrages of the Colony Wars. Liberty’s President Jacobi has taken a leading role in mediation between Rheinland and the other Houses, with the Provisional Rheinland Government offering a message of condolence to the Kusari people for the actions of the toppled previous regime. Despite this, Kusari has remained resolute that no normalization of relations will be considered until full reparations are made for the devastation in Honshu and New Tokyo, and the many crimes Kusari alleges were perpetrated there.


Rumors

Kusari Office of Intelligence
  • We require many Superconductors and all sorts of Robotics to create the massive electromagnetic fields needed to accelerate hydrogen to the speeds that create antimatter particles. The high efficiency Liberty Superconductors are far more economical than any Kusari has been able to fabricate.


  • The field of solar collectors you see outside generate the immense amounts of power required in antimatter production. We have done a lot of allied research in cheap manufacturing methods for solar collectors.


  • If there were ever an accident in Nansei, all of Kyushu would know immediately. This entire complex would be vaporized in an instant. Antimatter destroys matter on contact in a mutually destructive collision. We have several metric tons stored here for research purposes. That would make a 1000-megaton thermonuclear weapon explosion look like a candle flame in comparison.


  • The antimatter research is a cover for our real purpose here: replicating the Ageira Superconductors. Somehow Liberty has learned extremely advanced manufacturing techniques to create compounds that we've never seen.


  • Nansei is in direct competition with Kansai. They have more innovative and well paid scientists at Kishiro. Samura receives much money from the government for this project, yet we lack simple supplies and modern laboratory facilities.


  • The scientists here feel that it would be foolish to store antimatter in a ship. Somehow we need to find a way to generate on the fly the moderate amounts of it needed during the high boost phase of the engines.


  • It appears from our research that it is still not economical to create mass quantities of antimatter, even with cheap solar energy. Then there is the issue of transport. A large amount of antimatter transported on a ship would be a tremendously powerful bomb if the containment field were ever breached by accident or hostile action.


  • The Blood Dragons know what our weakness is here. They always go after the antimatter storage vessels. If they were to breach just one, it could be a chain-reaction catastrophe.


  • Kusari is attempting to use antimatter as the primary propellant rather than as an intermediary to superheat the hydrogen plasma in engine combustion chambers. To do this, we must dramatically lower the cost of antimatter production.


Samura Industries
  • All the best scientists work for Kishiro -- everyone knows that. Most of us are Kyushu University graduates, a school known more for its agricultural research than up-to-date propulsion engineering programs.


  • We supply this facility with the Superconductors and Robotics that it needs, along with Basic Supplies from Kyushu. It is an isolated location, which I guess it needs to be, given the dangerous nature of their research here.


  • We are not making nearly as much money as Kishiro research scientists. Plus, all of our equipment is outdated. Some of our materials are getting so old that accidents can happen. This is not a good place to work, though I could not dishonor myself by leaving Samura.


  • The Samura scientists stationed here have been demoralized by the cuts in overtime and bonuses by Samura during the last year. Rumor is that our support of the Farmers Alliance has been more costly than expected.


  • In 400 AS the Kusari government decided to offer corporations incentives to move offices and bases into Kyushu. This was to help stimulate development of the system. We decided to take advantage of that offer; in return the government is getting the best research available governing antimatter. Eventually, these projects could lead to new forms of propulsion, energy, and weaponry.


  • This is just another kickback from the government to Samura. Samura receive 50 million from Tokyo every year, yet we never are allowed to spend more than 20. The rest goes to fund all of Samura's extracurricular activities around Kusari. I don't know how much longer we will keep getting the money though. If the new government ever audits us there will be serious questions asked about our operations here.


NOTE: Page generated on the 07/06/2024 at 15:55:47 UTC