Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or Gundam SEED Destiny
PS. This is unbeta read, sorry
The Second Manhattan Project
New Manhattan Orbital Group
Atlantic Federation Territory
New Artemis Base
New Manhattan Orbital Group Governor Richard Woolsey watches the Jupiter Explorer passes by near the Artemis observation lounge, where he passes by civilians and personnel and SF officers who are cheering for the completion of the test flight of their newest spaceship.
Right then an aide arrived and report a certain situation to Governor Woolsey regarding a ship that just arrived earlier than expected and it got itself in a jam.
"The Archangel is stuck in traffic Jam?" Woolsey has never heard as something so ridiculous
"For two hours sir," the aide verify
"How in the world does a traffic jam happen in space?"
"Well sir, uhmn" the aide felt nervous "as you well know, there has been a lot of ships arriving earlier than usual and they came early to watch the JE ships do its preliminary flight at the testing grounds, and the Archangel is one of hundreds of ships doing 'spectator sports' at the JE ships testing grounds. When the test was finished, we have about 200 to 300 spaceships waiting to enter the space lanes. Space traffic control in their wisdom decided to let multiple entries to the space lanes which caused some unwanted space collisions"
"Unbelievable" Woolsey shook his head "So, what has traffic control have been doing, now?"
"Sir, they are working on the problem, but they said that it will take an hour to de-clogged the lanes and according to them, the Archangel is stuck at space lane 2"
"The Archangel" Woolsey pretty much knows in command of that particular ship and she is someone he's eager to see her… Lewis Halberton Protégé.
"Tell traffic control to speed up the de-clogging of the lanes and send ships to escort the Archangel to Artemis. It is after all, a diplomatic ship and should be treated with priority"
The aide went and left Woolsey to watch the JE ships returning to its berth with others where next week the second JE ship will start its trial runs. Some of the crews of the second ships are young and enthusiastic teenagers some are under apprenticeship and everyone are eager to get their new spaceship into service, yet none of them knows that the service the JE ships will be performing goes beyond the official scope.
Once the JE ships get to Jupiter Sphere, their spaceships will be converted into starships after they secretly rendezvous with several ships from the SGC Star Forces Space Fleet where they will install interstellar drive, hull integrity field, inertial dampening field, energy shields, extra weapons, automated combat drones and advance sensors. All will be installed to protect humanity's insurance policy should the worst comes to Earth.
The making of the Jupiter ships are mankind's highest achievement to date and, it may also be their last if Anubis has anything to say about it. A constant worry and a depressing thought for the military governor of New Manhattan. Everything around him is the result of hard work that he and his people have put in…it started with a few hundred then more people followed, many of whom the rest of the world left out in the cold.
After the war, many men and women of the former Earth Alliance have found themselves lost, abandoned and at times they are treated like pariah by their own people. Richard Woolsey took some of them out of the cold and gave them a fresh start, a start that began under the mountains ranges of Colorado, Cheyenne Mountain.
It was three years after the war, in the aftermath of a mass withdrawal of AF member nations and a terrorist attack at Mass Drive construction project in Hawaii, the AF or what remains, took drastic measures to save their country, and that's why Woolsey was brought to the former USAF base, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) base underneath Cheyenne Mountain to meet in secret with the members of the AF Joint Chiefs, the President and the Vice president (who is now the current president) and the secret division of the AF Military, SGC or Stargate Command.
It was there that Woolsey was given the honored task to lead his chosen team of former EAF Army Corps of Engineers, construction crews and technicians, contracted workmen, miners and soldiers on a mission to covertly build a new space base in the sol system as the first step to begin the reestablishment of the AF space presence, a new orbital group,
Codename: the Second Manhattan Project and like the First Manhattan Project which was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, a program that cause a great change in the world and so will the second program but not by building a bomb but building a city in space.
Like in 1942 the second program is made secret, for establishing a new space base openly they fear, will attract an unwanted attention from hostile governments, organization and groups who don't want an AF presence in space.
Before the Second Manhattan Project even started, there was the Gerard K. O'Neill Project in Hawaii where the construction of a new magnetic accelerator launcher was located. During the construction, unknown groups armed men with mobile suits, suddenly and deliberately attack Hawaiian Islands. The attackers destroyed it along with all the necessary facilities and also killed the engineers and construction crews working on the project.
From Wiki:
Gerard Kitchen O'Neill (February 6, 1927 – April 27, 1992) was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver.
The project itself was supposedly the first step in establishing a presence in space and then begins construction a new space station afterwards. The destruction was a terrible loss, but it did not deter the AF from reaching space.
Aware of the importance, Woolsey accepted his mission without second thoughts, though he has some questions yet all are answered as he was surprised and awestruck to know how they will get his construction crew to space, and that's by way of the Stargate, the Atlantic Federation greatest secret and hope for the future..
Woolsey and his people, gated to an offworld base that has a shipyard that SGC built to construct their new ships using reverse engineered alien technology that SGC salvage, traded or stolen specifically from the Goa'uld.
What Woolsey now know about SGC and its three years of its operation is that, not only that they are exploring but also acquiring things ranging from a knowledge, technology, a number of planets with enormous resources and other worlds willing to trade with them. All of which were to defend the Earth against an alien invasion which they have been doing very well and covertly for three years.
One of the results of SGC operations are the 2 X-303 Prometheus, two human built starships though limited in range because of their Al'kesh Hyperdrive but it's enough for SGC operations and these two ships brought Woolsey and his people back to the Sol System, behind two asteroid mining bases codename: AC195 and UC0087 about 120 million miles from Earth Sphere.
There the mining bases possess 6 Marseille III class ships, 1 Agamemnon class, 2 Nelson class and 3 Drake class ships which SGC salvage and rebuilt a while back, along numerous mobile suits reconditioned for construction work and combine with a dozen acquired (usually means stolen) Al'kesh and Tel'tak ships with Mirage Colloid technology
Woolsey and his people immediately went to work to build or in this case, rebuild an abandoned base, the abandoned Eurasian Federations base Artemis which they hyperspace transfer the old base behind the Texas size asteroid, AC195 and nearby is an equally large asteroid UC0087.
Now with Artemis base secured Woolsey and his people began to effect repairs, give ceremony for the dead they recovered and started their job of gathering resources.
The old military base became the platform to help sort out salvage coming from the Debris Belt, recycling everything from solar panels, beam cannons to computer circuit boards. They also mine the two asteroids. AC195 is mined for Neutroniumand UC0087 is mined for Trinium two precious materials perfect for building spaceships especially SGC ships.
A year later, in the far out sector between the L3 and L4 points is an area called the 'Vacant Lot Sector' a barren lot of space with no resources to claim and no space colony built and where at times, space trash from the debris belt drift into which makes navigation difficult in that area and it's where Woolsey picks that location to establish the AF new orbital group.
The Prometheus (under their new Tok'ra Stealth Cloak) assisted the Artemis base (Under a Mirage Colloid) to the Vacant Lot Sector. It's newly installed propulsion engine, help move the base and once there the AFSF brought more people from Earth covertly and immediately they started expanding the base operations, added more conveniences and accommodations for easier living.
They have their own fabrication facilities and even greenhouses to grow their food yet still most of their supplies are secretly brought in via Prometheus, Al'kesh and Tel'tak ships using stealth cloaks and transfer it to waiting cargo ships heading for Artemis.
Work went on unimpeded for six months, continuously increasing their resources in the form of salvage EAF ships and cargo haulers and containers now floating outside or inside the dockyard. Every vessel they salvage have sported damages and missing parts which were no doubt been remove earlier by other salvagers, still they are all repairable and when they were repaired, they became part of a modest fleet of the Atlantic Federation Space Fleet but just enough allowed by the Treaty of Aprillius.
They also salvage a number of mobile suits and mobile armors mostly EAF designs and these suits boost their defensive capabilities should trouble comes their way and yet still, their numbers is accord to the Treaty of Aprillius the rest are retooled for construction work.
Still not yet discovered, the AFSF stop bringing in salvage from the debris belt and started manufacturing materials for them and adding more people as more and more work are created as they recovered two O'Neill type space colonies that was abandoned at L4 during the wars and left adrift in deep space. The two abandon space colonies were found and towed near Artemis and immediately they were repaired and put back online and not far from them are shipyards under construction where they plan to build newer ships.
It was right about that time as several spaceships arrived from the Junk Guild and they came after being invited by Woolsey, offering them contracts to do some work for him.
Two months later, hundreds of spaceships (mainly cargo haulers and carriers) from all across the Earth Sphere started converging to a newly opened and unknown orbital group … the New Manhattan Orbital Group.
The first ships that arrive to do business are people that the Gunk Guilds regularly do business with and they came to the allure of resources sold at half price. They all came under invitation and accepts no gate crashers and those who are invited, they found an enormous stockpile of resources especially the most important and most expensive resource 'Helium-3' and recently, market prices on the Helium-3 are soaring.
They called it 'Helium-3' dub as 'Jupiter Gas' the primary fuel source for all of Earth's fusion reactors, and it is a precious resource being mined all across the Lagrange Points and on the Moon, yet it will soon to be exhausted in 20 years unless more of it are found.
The AF found it on Jupiter Sphere
Jupiter and some of her moons, satellites and asteroids have an enormous deposit of H-3 as well as other resources viable for commercial use. The mining the H-3 on Jupiter became the AF primary source of income and the AF brought it to Earth using kilometers long space trains called 'Space Supertankers' led by the massive space vessels called the 'Jupitris class' formerly an EAF deep space exploration vesselspropelled by the most powerful ION Drive engines the AF developed and is now responsible for the major colonization movement of the Atlantic Federation in two planet Sphere's and between.
The Jupitris class ships were develop for the EAF 'Second Jupiter Expedition' led by then, EAF Seventh Fleet Rear Adm. Richard Woolsey himself.
The Second Jupiter Expedition started, six months after the end of the first war where at the time, the alignment of the planets was right to start the journey. The goal then was to establish a resource satellite for new sources of fuel as well as territorial mapping for future colonization missions.
Assembled in secret by the EAF Seventh Fleet, they sent six ships to Jupiter; three of them are Marseilles III class cargo ships, augmented and modified with umbrella type solar sails and ion engine boosters and all three ships tow one disassembled mobile fabricator and resource refinery platform ready to be reassembled upon arrival and lastly, two of the EAF experimental 'Jupitris class' vessels.
Both ships are capable of carrying massive amount of cargo along with crew, personnel, living quarters, storage for supplies and even a cylinder type biosphere, the ships own green house farm.
During George Glenn time, it took the spaceship Tsiolkovsky seven years to reach Jupiter one way during the historic 'First Jupiter Expedition'
The Second Expedition took them only 300 days of travel time using at first, solar sails in order to ride the solar winds like in the nostalgic days of maritime voyages, where you need a strong wind to make a voyage on the open sea. Then adding to the shortened travel time, they used a new type of ion drive engines that contributed to the short length of travel and gave mankind the opportunity to travel the solar system faster and farther than ever before.
The SJE spent six months in orbit of one the Jupiter's moon called Europa. There they reassembled the platform and began prospecting for resource sites, doing scientific research as well as placing communication and research satellites for the scientists back home. After six months they began their journey home, timing their departure right to use the only window of opportunity, where the planets are close enough to each other to make the trip home alot shorter.
Their homecoming would have been the glorious event for Earth Alliance history, but as they travel back to Earth, they receive grim news that Earth is under terrorist attack by Coordinator terrorists and later, War broke out as the result of that, then months into the war, the Earth Alliance lost when the Atlantic Federation lost its entire administration in one blast from the Super weapon Requiem.
Soon afterwards, several colonists in the AF space colonies took advantage of the situation and began declaring independence without anyone opposing them.
Seeing what has happened on Earth, the SJE Commander, Seventh Fleet Rear Adm. Richard Woolsey whose loyalty is to the Atlantic Federation first, decided to scuttle the two most important ships into deepspace before returning to Earth Sphere on the cargo ships. The Jupitris class ships have avoided falling to anyone else's hands when Admiral Woolsey sent it on an automated journey to points unknown.
The two ships were never seen since until it was found by Prometheus 1 on its first test FTL flight just well outside the Earth Sphere. The two ships has some minor damages but nothing serious and most of all, their precious cargo of He-3 is still intact.
SGC put the two ships back online and by their own power and brought it AC195, and there the Jupitris ships were repaired and improved the ion drives and fusion reactors which let the two ships travel faster and farther than ever before.
With improvements thanks to SGC, travel to and from Jupiter took less than 100 days which is the fastest on record. If the Jupitris ships were given advance alien tech, it can travel that same distance in just 10 days, but that kind upgrade was not approve by the Joint Chiefs.
With the successful opening, the New Manhattan Orbital Group started building more Space Supertankers and Jupitris class ships with expanded cargo capacity to bring more He-3 and other mineral resources from the other planets in the solar system and at the same time the ships brought people and materials to colonize the other planets and expand AF territories where territorial dispute is nonexistent because no one else is there to dispute their claim.
Today and under Woolsey governship, the colony group prospered despite a few problems thrown in their way, it continued operations which brought much needed revenues to an ailing country. The vacant lot sectors have been cleared of debris for ship passages and with the revenues gained on trade so does the creation of more job opportunities for its citizens down on Earth.
As time passes, their shipyards have expanded to make new spaceships where some are designed to do specific types of jobs from establishing colonies, mining/refinery, and biosphere/hydroponics and space transport ships, all to further the colonization of the entire solar system and all of them have the latest in state of the art technology installed giving them improved life support, computer navigations, energy efficient systems, powerplant and propulsion.
When the Earth Sphere heard about AF built ships possessing these state of the art technologies, many industries started looking towards the AF, inquiring certain units or parts they could buy from them and install it on their own ships and space colonies. The AF pointed them to the home companies who manufacture them and this boosted the AF home economy tremendously in both Earth and Space.
Now with access to Mars and Jupiter now possible, the AF government encourages its people to head for deep space and find greener pastures. There were skeptics at first but later on, the people became encourage at the first news from prospectors making their fortune in the AF newly mapped territories in Mars, Jupiter and between it, the Asteroid Belt.
The people's interest in making their fortunes in space soars and the AF gave full support for anyone who is courageous, brave enough or willing enough to make a life in Space if they can't make a life on Earth.
The mass migration to the other planets started with 100,000 people three years ago, today there are over a million people heading to the frontier and the AF establishing a frontier government working the bureaucracy outside Earth Sphere.
Everything is going well for them now, and Today the Atlantic Federation is enjoying a prosperous time as every smile on the faces of the people, and it reminds Woolsey and everyone who help build the orbital group, that they have done a good job for their country.
For Woolsey however, he has some concerns of what is coming Tomorrow
Governor Richard Woolsey Office later on
Woolsey look at a number of contractors offering their services for the construction of 5 Jupiter Explorer as the AF plans to build 10 more JE ships supposedly for future mission to Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.
Approving the contracts for the JE ships fell onto Woolsey lap and the construction department with a budget already approved by the AF government.
Normally, giving out contracts this big requires the approval of the Senate and they don't give contract to any company outside the country as they want to keep projects such as this in-country and yet they approve it.
Woolsey knows that giving the job to outside contractors is a clear sign of trouble heading their way soon which is why they are willing to spend so much money on anyone who can to build the JE ships and fast and on a schedule, and the AF even took out a huge loan from the World Bank to finance the massive construction.
This sort of move put a lot of people uneasy as they interpret this as an out of control territorial expansionism and many have begun voicing opposition to the AF request for loans from the largest bank on the Planet, The World Bank.
The World Bank reviewed the AF requests for loans and at the same time reviewed the current debts that are being paid without the adverse effect to the country's economic growth.
Loss and Gains are weight and balance and they found it in favor to the AF and so, the loans are approved.
The World Banks Woolsey wonders what their reaction will be like if the heads of the World Bank finds out that they are not just financing the construction of ships meant to colonize the rest of the solar system but also, interstellar arks for the preservation of humanity.
Still everyone is oblivious to the truth for they are still buying the company line which is a good thing for them, and opposition to their expansionism is high even though many of the overseas companies, financial groups and governments of the other nations around the world are so vehemently trying hard to join in and reap the benefits of doing business with the AF.
It amuses Woolsey that the very people who walk out on them are now trying hard to walk back in. Their possession of the Stargate shows how tremendously powerful an instrument of change it truly is, the Atlantic Federation golden goose.
Now it seems they have to reveal (reluctantly) their golden goose err-Stargate to the other nations, especially to the nations with a considerable space power namely the Plants and Orb
Disclosure is something Woolsey and the others are hoping to avoid doing (a century maybe two) for a while but the situation outside their solar system gave them no choice but to disclose their country's best kept secret.
In a few hours, delegates led by Orb and the Plants will be arriving for trade talks. A legitimate invitation since both countries wanted to increase their business with the AF and they also want to strengthen their diplomatic relations with them.
Relations between the three nations are stable but no one will say that their attitudes with each other is friendly especially between their military.
TO BE CONTINUED