Cold Bay Depot

Cold Bay Depot

File:Iw02 04 base.png

Owner

Planetform, Inc.

Location

E/D-6, Hudson

CLASS: Unalaska

GRAVITY: Partial

DOCKING: Yes

AMENITIES: Limited

CREW: 230

Cold Bay is a small Planetform base built near Planet Atka in 816 AS, being the first hidden step in preparations for Atka terraforming ordered by the Liberty government. Rheinland discovered this base in 817 AS and demanded its immediate decommissioning, since populating Atka would mean that Liberty is going to claim the whole Hudson system as a part of its own territory.

Liberty however did not decommission Atka, which gave rise to tensions that would eventually escalate into a major war between the two houses. As the Rheinland and Liberty military forces came to blows, Planetform evacuated the station, citing it would not risk sending it's employees into what had become a warzone. The Liberty Police occupied the station with a skeleton crew to prevent looting by the various pirates that called Hudson home.

However, as the war turned favorable for Liberty in the Hudson system, it has petitioned Planetform to resume the terraforming efforts. Preparations are underway by Planetform to initiate stage one terraforming on Atka.

Bribes & Missions Offered

Bribes

Bretonia Police Orbital Spa and Cruise Planetform, Inc. Synth Foods, Inc. Bounty Hunters Guild

Missions

Planetform, Inc.

Commodities

Imports

Commodity Price Nanotubes 13$ Zinc 52$ Silver 120$ Oxygen 7$ Water 7$ Alien Organisms 34$ Food Rations 39$ H-Fuel 130$ MOX 29$ Pharmaceuticals 27$ Polymers 35$ Optronics 82$ Consumer Goods 12$ Terraforming Gases 38$ Synth Paste 19$ Passengers (Liberty) 355$

Exports

Commodity Price Deployable Mining Container 50,000$ Crew 200$ Xenobiotic Filters 13$

Ships sold

Ship	Class	Price

News

[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] Bretonia Withdraws From Dublin System

WATERLOO -- 831 AS -- Markets are down across Sirius as the sector grapples with the twin shocks of The Blackout and Bretonia's withdrawal from the Dublin system. Molly separatists appear to have exploited a worker revolt on Graves Station to take control of and later destroy the base. Of even greater concern is the attack that crippled the New London jump gate, forcing the Battleship Essex to retreat. EFL have accused the gate destruction and faulty Ageira infrastructure of causing The Blackout, which the Liberty corporation denies. The Mollys have since declared their ownership of Dublin, while Bretonia has imposed a strict blockade, jeopardizing the sector's Gold supply. Gold exports previously made up a significant element of Bretonian state revenue, helping to fund post-war recovery efforts. While the reconstruction of LD-14 in the Leeds system offers some relief, Interspace Commerce has already downgraded Bretonia's sovereign credit rating, citing increased volatility and risk for lenders. Bretonia has confirmed that action to retake the system will be launched shortly, providing assurances to partners in the other Houses.

[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.

830 AS - Victory Over Veracruz!

OHIO -- 830 AS -- An announcement by the Liberty government today unilaterally declared victory over the once-Insurgency as the LNS Ohio settled into high orbit over Veracruz last week. The Battlecruiser Triton, the infamous warship that felled the Delaware, was left as little more than debris burning through the planet's atmosphere that now rests in a crash site located on Veracruz's smallest continent. Over the last few days, Archer-class siege cruisers have been deploying their massive coaxial cannons to suppress military infrastructure on the planet, systematically targeting the very last bastions of the Insurgency. First to be destroyed were the planet's few remaining ground to space weapons installations, quickly crippled by bomber strikes from the Ohio herself, before the remaining desolate ground defences and deserted infrastructure were reduced to rubble, their populations having already long fled the world. A small service was held on the Ohio as the bombardment drew to a close in memory of Rear Admiral Dylan Brandt and those thousands of sailors and marines who had given their lives in the name of Liberty; fought their own lost brothers-in-arms so that others may not live under their misguided yoke, and many more who had their lives irrevocably changed as a result of the evils the campaign sought to end. The announcement also confirmed identical monuments to the Insurgency campaign would be erected on every world in Liberty, from Planet Houston to Planet Erie, each monument an obelisk carrying the names of every serviceman lost in the conflict and serving as a reminder that Liberty is stronger when it stands together.

[830 AS] Troubles in Erie's Paradise

ERIE -- 830 AS -- It was the early hours of the morning when a missile was launched from Erie's surface; A missile that struck its target of an LSF satellite in orbit of Erie. The attack was claimed to have originated by militant Zoners seeking to separate themselves from Libertonian governance, and proved to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. For some time, it had been alleged that Insurgent and Xeno-backed cells had been stirring trouble on Erie, inciting violence in the population and seeking to turn the planet into a second Veracruz. Never, however, had such open acts of terror been visited upon the governing Libertonian forces. The response was quick and decisive. In coordination with the LSF, Vice Admiral Hamish aboard the Battleship Alma lead a Liberty Navy task force directly into the system in Operation Pesticide, escorted primarily by Siege Cruisers, Gunboats and fightercraft, with many of the Navy's capital warships tied in the Vespucci campaign or ever watchful at Liberty's borders. They were met by Zoner Q-ships based from Bethlehem, with many coming from as far as Galileo or even the Sigmas, accompanied by a motley assortment of freelancers and other anarchist elements. Leading the Zoner line was a Aquilon-class carrier, the Pinnacle. While the Pinnacle came under heavy bombardment from the Alma and her task force, supplies quickly gathered onto Zoner transports from Erie attempted to run the Navy blockade. While some transports were lost to Navy bombers, others yet escaped to parts as of yet unknown. This 'victory', however, came at a heavy price. The Pinnacle was lost with most of her hands still on board and the rest captured, while the Liberty Marines landed virtually unopposed, quickly securing population centers for both the safety of Libertonian assets and the civilians on Erie itself. The Alma is settled now into the low orbit of Erie, a constant reminder to those below that they are under the protection of the Liberty Navy. A comfort to some, a dire warning to many more.

[829 AS] Battleship Delaware lost In Vespucci: Part II

LOS ANGELES -- 829 AS -- Navy pilots fought in a heated scrap with many of their former comrades-in-arms as a fearsome shroud of flak rippled around the great Battleship Delaware, several trails of explosions snaking towards myriad bombers and torpedoes swarming the vast Mitchell-class. Delaware herself launched volley upon volley of anti-capital torpedoes at the Insurgent Battlecruiser Triton, whose own flak screen was considerably weaker than that of the Battleship. The missiles found their mark, but the battlecruiser retained its hull integrity as the Insurgents' one advantage in fighter superiority began to shine through. Torpedoes and antimatter cannons landed hits on the Delaware's vital flak batteries as they went silent, one by one. Admiral Brandt was heard to give the order to abandon ship right as the ship's hull could take no more and began to be torn asunder, with hull breaches on multiple decks. Tragically, the armored engines of the Delaware had suffered a great deal of damage, and as the armor and shielding was whittled away, vast quantities of radiation and superheated gas began to flood into the crew compartments of the vessel. In an emotional announcement, the Liberty Navy officially stated that they consider the Delaware to be lost with all hands, including Admiral Brandt himself. No life pods could be secured in the heat of battle, with the remainder of the Delaware's escort making a fighting retreat back to the LNS Ohio which had herself been caught lagging behind the Delaware's doomed thrust into the heart of the Insurgency. The Ohio now remains with her own escort, augmented by survivors of the Delaware's battlegroup, and will continue as the Liberty Navy's bastion in the Vespucci system, ready to ensure that the Insurgents pay dearly for the toll they have extracted upon one of Liberty's finest Admirals.

[829 AS] Battleship Delaware lost In Vespucci: Part I

LOS ANGELES -- 829 AS -- The state-of-the-art Delaware was the tip of Liberty's spear in the Kansas system; it was from here that the charismatic RAdm. Dylan Brandt commanded the fleet that secured the system from both Rogue and Insurgent elements. But now, he sought to strike a crippling blow to the Insurgency in their very home, an attack to break the back of the movement and stand as a warning to those who would stand against Liberty's unity. Leading a fearsome line of some of Liberty's most advanced warships, the Delaware bore down on the Insurgency's remaining, cobbled-together fleet in the Vespucci system, out of position from dealing with a Bretonian thrust from Magellan. Immediately caught was the Battleship Vanquisher, one of the scant few Arbiter-class Battleships available to the Insurgents. Caught by itself, the Vanquisher put up a fearsome fight but was ultimately unable to stand against the Delaware and its escort, despite its fighter component dealing severe damage to much of the Delaware's own, smaller fighter contingent, as well as the Delaware herself. With the great Arbiter all but vanquished, the Interdictor-class Battlecruiser Triton stared down the guns of the damaged Delaware and her escort. Outnumbered two-to-one, and outgunned to an even greater degree by the Libertonian heavyweight, Triton and her escorts launched their one and only advantage, their fighter and bomber superiority gained at the Vanquisher's expense.

[828 AS] - Rheinland Civil War Ends in Reunification

HOLSTEIN -- 828 AS -- After weeks of intense deliberations between Imperial and Federal delegations on Holstein, the two governments have issued a joint decree dissolving both the Imperial and Federal governments in favor of reforming into a re-unified administration. The Holstein Accords, currently in the process of ratification by all parties of the Rheinland Federal and Imperial delegations, reorganizes the newly unified Rheinland under a representative democracy under constitutional monarchy - as well as calling for reforms in multiple branches of the military, and industry. In an immediate show of change, the Federal and Imperial fleets have completely withdrawn from what used to be the battle lines separating the two Rheinland fractions - many have returned to stand-down docks for maintenance and repairs, and off-duty military and civilian personnel have already begun to travel back to their homes. While details of how the reunification will proceed, or whether it will be successful are yet to be seen, but the Holstein Accords has brought the Rheinland Civil War effectively to a close.

Rumors

Planetform, Inc.

We get the Consumer Goods for our population from Fort Bush. It's ironic that those goods are being manufactured at the Huntsville by the relatives of the Rogues and Xenos who try to hijack the shipments when they enter Hudson. What's even more ironic is when those criminals get captured by the Alma they get sent to the Huntsville to manufacture more Consumer Goods for us. The Liberty sense of justice. I approve. We'll need to induce greenhousing in the atmosphere to raise the temperature. We can do that by releasing Terraforming Gases, especially the Fluoride based ones we produce at Merthyr Tydfil. Then as the glaciers melt and the water levels rise, the atmosphere will thicken with moisture and start to create weather systems. Once the soil is exposed, stage 2 will start - introducing nutrients into the soil along with microorganisms to kickstart a planetary ecology. Stage 3 will be the stabilisation of the climate and ecology, and introduction of human-grown flora and fauna, as well as the establishment of colonies on the surface. Our client will take over control of the planet from that point. All in all, with the improvements to our technology over the years and the situation planetside, we think we can initiate stage 3 in roughly 70 years. I'll admit, my favorite part of this new partnership is that it got me out of Bretonia. And getting out of Bretonia means no more Green Party and their nonsense about despoiling nature blah blah blah. We enhance nature. We take the crud that nature failed to deliver on and turn it into a thriving ecosytem. Of course, in Hudson we have Xenos and Rogues... but at least they don't sputter on and on about Gaia and her blah blah blah. They just shoot. Atka is gearing up to have stage 1 terraforming initiated. We've done a thorough geographical analysis of the planet. To make this planet comfortably habitable for human life, the average temperature will need to be raised between 30 and 50 degrees celcius. The planet has large glaciers that cover most of the land masses, and a liquid ocean beneath roughly 20 meters of solid ice. The ocean is being kept liquid by volcanic activity at the seabed, and plays host to a wide variety of microorganisms, but no macrocellular life. The soil beneath the land ice is suitable for plant life, but contains only trace amounts of nutrients. It's certainly an exciting time to work for Planetform. After years of speculation that the company was spiraling into bankruptcy due to missed deadlines on Harris and Ayr, we've struck gold with these new filter packs. And the strategic alliance we've made with Synth Foods and Cryer is going to make all three companies a fortune. On top of that Liberty has pushed the Atka project up again, and with the Alma guarding us, the Xenos shouldn't be a problem anymore. Bloody marvellous! The Xenobiotic Filters find plenty of use on various mining and industrial stations. We are shipping out to mining stations like Graves, Stokes, Fujisawa, and Birmingham. Fresh water isn't too much of a problem, usually, but recirculating air on a mining station can be problematic. Traditional filters can only do so much. Bretonian and Kusari systems are our top customers right now for Xenobiotic Filters. Many space stations are clamoring for them to upgrade their filtration systems with them, especially those who deal with biohazards. We're even trying to slip a few past the blockade onto the surface of Leeds to give the boys planetside cleaner air to breathe. They are ideal for military use as well. Biological filters don't need power. Synth Foods knows agriculture, Cryer knows genetic engineering, and Planetform knows filtration and geoengineering. The combination is a scientific and technological powerhouse. The ability to do true terraforming and ecoforming. Samura executives must be quaking in their slippers at the thought. Their paltry efforts to develop terraforming technology can't compare to the storm of innovation that we're about to unleash on Sirius. We will take efforts to preserve the bacteria on this planet. We're not worried about them going extinct due to climatological changes. They live off the compounds ejected from the thermal vents on the ocean floor, which is a naturally isolated biosphere. If anything, the introduction of more nutrients in the water should cause their numbers to increase. We're planning to maintain a presence here even past stage 3. These Xenobiotic Filters generate a nice, steady stream of revenue for the company, it would be foolish to abandon that.

Cryer Pharmaceuticals

Our Pharmaceuticals come straight here from our factories on Denver, even though the Xenobiotic filtration system installed on Cold Bay removes nearly all the pathogens brought onto the station by arriving passengers. Every so often though, a pilot needs treatment after a brush with the Xenos or Rogues in the system, so we have to keep a fully stocked medical bay ready to treat any injuries. The genetic engineering that we performed on the bacteria found on Atka isn't revolutionary for Cryer. The application of microorganisms to this purpose is a major breakthrough, however. Inorganic filtration is passive. It just lies there inert, filtering whatever comes into contact with it. Organic filtration is another story. The bacteria actively seek out particles to break down into nutrition. The bacteria found here are unique in that they have an extremely wide surface contact to absorb as many food particles as they can - for a microorganism, these bacteria are huge. What comes out are broken down molecules that are almost entirely inert and harmless to humans. The bulk of it consists of water, carbondioxide, nitrogen and various other oxides, depending on what the bacteria are being fed by the air or liquid they are filtering. The Xenobiotic Filters are especially effective in various research stations which deal with biological or chemical hazards. The Cambridge Research Institute, and the Atka facility in Sigma-17 come to mind. The ability to recycle atmosphere after a single pass filtration rather then a thermal sterilisation makes the life support systems of those stations much more energy efficient. Our customers in Honshu are installing Xenobiotic Filters to replace their old filtration systems. Yukawa Shipyard and Kansai Research are already fairly pristine to the naked eye, but now they'll be pristine on the molecular level as well.

Synth Foods, Inc.

Planetform is so used to thinking in time scales of decades and centuries that they miss the advantage of a consumable product over a durable one. A filter than never wears out, you can sell just once to a customer. A filter that has a shelf-life can be sold over and over and over again. The bacteria we cultivate for the Xenobiotic Filters absorb toxins and pollutants from the atmosphere, but they only have a limited capacity to do so. Eventually, the bacteria will die, leaving the filter ineffective and in need of replacement with a fresh one. Synth Foods is eager to see if the filtration techniques developed here can be applied to soil filtration. Toxic spills can really harm agriculture on a regional scale. If a bacteriological filter can be released into the soil to neutralise any toxins, that could allow us to rapidly revitalise areas that have been spoiled, either by government neglect or terrorist actions. Can you imagine what something like that could do for Houston, or Leeds? While Cryer, Planetform and Synth Foods all have their individual strengths as companies, they also each have unique weaknesses. Cryer is so focused on innovative science that they sometimes forget that the point of research is to create a profitable product, 'though I must admit, Stabiline is likely to change that. Synth is so concerned with undercutting competitor's prices that they can forget the value of a superior product. Paste remains paste, no matter the flavor. Synth Paste and Synth Gel lack texture, which makes them unappealing as a Luxuary Food. Planetform only runs projects at such a long timetable that it is hard for anyone without an extremely long term vision to do business with them.

NOTE: Page generated on the 17/11/2023 at 17:48:44 UTC