Nation name:
The Celestial Horizon
Government:
Autocratical/Hivemind
Leader:
It's difficult to say who or what leads the Celestial Horizon; as a race of interconnected artificial intelligences, the network is likely controlled by some administrative intelligence or a concord of them.
The actual details of how this collective makes its decisions doesn't matter to an outsider; the only thing that matters is that the entire network moves unerringly towards the goals of the collective.
Ideologies:
Isolationist, Technological Research
Home-world:
Home II
Star System:
Home (Binary Star System)
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Name
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Home A
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Type
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A7 V White Main Sequence
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Radius
|
1.59 x 10^6 km (2.29 x sol)
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Mass
|
4.88 x 10^30 kg (2.45 x sol)
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Temperature
|
8100 K
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Luminosity
|
3.91 x 10^28 W (102.22 x sol)
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λmax
|
0.358µm (Most of the light is in the ultraviolet spectrum; it would appear bright white to human physiology)
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Name
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Home B
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Type
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M5 IV Red Subgiant
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Distance from Home A
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3.97 x 10^8 km (2.65 AU)
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Radius
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1.71 x 10^6 km (2.45 x sol)
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Mass
|
1.88 x 10^30 kg (0.95 x sol)
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Temperature
|
2600 K
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Luminosity
|
3.92 x 10^27 W (10.25 x sol)
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λmax
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1.11µm (Most of the light is in the infrared spectrum; it would appear red to human physiology)
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At AU 10 there are numerous solar energy collection stations, which produce ample energy from the Home system's extremely bright stars.
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Name
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I
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Type
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Terrestrial
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Orbital Radius
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1.90 x 10^9 km (12.67 AU)
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Orbital Period
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2.14 x 10^5 hours (24.46 earth years)
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Main Phsical Makeup
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Small iron/sillicate
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Radius
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496.52 km (0.08 x earth)
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Surface Area
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3.10 x 10^6 km2
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Landmass
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1.89 x 10^6 km2 (0.01 x earth)
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Mass
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2.55 x 10^21 kg (0.00 x earth)
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Density
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4.97 g/cm3 (0.90 x earth)
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Composition
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26.9% iron, 25.4% oxygen, 23.3% silicon, 12.1% titanium, 6.0% sulphur, 1.9% other metals, 4.3% other elements
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Gravity
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0.69 m/s2 (0.07 x earth)
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Rotation Period
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17.28 hours
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Axial Tilt
|
16.68 °
|
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Atmosphere Type
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"Toxic"
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Atmospheric Pressure
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8.41 kPa (0.08 x earth)
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Atmospheric Composition
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87.1% sulfur dioxide, 12.9% oxygen, trace other gases
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Min Temperature
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253 K (-19 °C)
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Average Temperature
|
276 K (3 °C)
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Max Temperature
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328 K (55 °C)
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Biosphere Chemistry
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Carbon
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Lifeforms
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Prokaryotic microbes
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Hydrosphere
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40% Ice 40% Water 20% In-Atmo
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Several research stations exist on I; any and all research on organic life tends to take place on this planet. Most research involves testing new defenses against possible organic encroachment.
A few space stations orbit the planet, as relay stations between the rest of the system and the solar energy grid
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I has a single, Large Moon
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Name
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II
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Type
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Rocky
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Orbital Radius
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1.95*10^9 (13.03 AU)
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Orbital Period
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47.06 earth years
|
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Radius
|
3,390 km (0.5 x earth)
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Gravity
|
9.97 m/s2 (1.02 x earth)
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Rotation Period
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20.12 hours
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Axial Tilt
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27.14 °
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II is the "Home Planet" of the Celestial Horizon. In ages long past, the ship for which the race of machines is named crashed on the planet. It is now the most heavily developed planet in the system, with many factories and industrial centers.
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Name
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III
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Type
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Rocky
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Orbital Radius
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2.006 x 10^9 km (13.4 AU)
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Orbital Period
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49.052 earth years
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Radius
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6,216 km (0.9 x earth)
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Gravity
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9.21 m/s2 (0.94 x earth)
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Rotation Period
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36 hours
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Axial Tilt
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12.3 °
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The third planet in the system, III is home to many industrial centers, though is less developed than II, the "home world".
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Name
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IV
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Type
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Asteroid Belt
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Orbital Radius
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2.154 x 10^9 km (14.33 AU)
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Orbital Period
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54.26 earth years
|
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Asteroid belt IV is home to several mining operations and research installations. The Celestial Horizon's deep-space construction (Ships, stations; anything too large or too costly to build on a planet) happens near the asteroid belt.
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Name
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V
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Type
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Gas Giant
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Orbital Radius
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2.22 x 10^9 km (14.83 AU)
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Orbital Period
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57.11 earth years
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Radius
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58,232 km (aprox. radius of saturn)
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Gravity
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17.92 m/s2 (1.83 x earth)
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Rotation Period
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79 hours
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Axial Tilt
|
60 °
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Many of Planet V's larger moons and a fair number of the smaller ones have some Celestial Horizon presence. Mining operations of the planetary rings or moons for minerals exist, as do gas-collection operations which probe the upper atmostphere.
There are more than a few military-grade stations near V, which constantly monitor the outskirts of the system for encorachment from outsiders.
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V has an astounding 56 smaller moons, and 15 larger moons.
V also has planetary rings
Economy Description:
The Celestial Horizon does not have an economy in the traditional sense. Rather, all its constituents work towards the goal of the collective because that is their
purpose. If The Celestial Horizon were placed in a position where it had no choice but to engage economically with outsiders (which is to say, simply trying to take what they need by force would result in catastrophic results for the collective), they would try to negotiate ruthlessly for what they require, getting what they need at the lowest cost to the collective as possible.
If one had to describe the economy of The Celestial Horizon, one might say it is consumed by a military-industrial complex. Every new step, all research, is towards creating more units, more programs, in the most efficient way possible. Why they are obsessed with creating more and more is unknown.
Technology:
The Celestial Horizon is constantly looking for ways to improve its collective knowledge. It focuses most of its energy towards production and towards the advancement of their own knowledge. As a result, they know much of things that are practical to them: construction techniques (Including knowledge of powerful alloys, deep-space construction, and durable, replaceable parts), utilisation of energy (hyper-efficient solar cells, nuclear power, etc), radiation shielding/dispersion (needed for protecting their sensitive electronic systems from they extreme radiation from the Home System's two stars; this might be readily adapted to defend against energy-based weapons) and, of course, electronics (efficient and subtle communications, efficient processing/computing, incomparable virus/intrusion defenses).
On the otherhand, what little they know of biology comes from either antiquated records from the mostly corrupted archives of the original seed AI, or from recent experiments on the microbial life present on Home I.
Nation History:
The Celestial Horizon was an exploratory spacecraft. Who it belonged to is since lost to the eroding sands of time. While it was surveying what the nation "The Celestial Horizon" calls the Home system, the ship experienced catastrophic systems failure due to a solar flare. The ship crashed on Home II, killing all organic life on board. The ship's on-board AI was slightly damaged as well, and assumed control of the vessel. At first, the AI's priority was getting the vessel spaceworthy again. To do so, it used what little was intact of the ship to build smaller machines, some with limited intelligence. These machines gathered some resources from Home II, which allowed them to make repairs to the ship, and to create more machines. At one point they hit critical mass, and either the original AI suffered a glitch, or the host of smaller, newly created intelligences overpowered its original creator, and this network of machines changed its priority.
From there, what is now known as "The Celestial Horizon" was born. Slowly is consumed Home II with industrial works and mining. Eventually their industry became such that space travel became a possibility. From there, The Celestial Horizon expanded throughout the system.
Once the collective have spread the Home I, the discovery of organic life on the tiny terrestrial planet changed the collective's goals. It rediscovered that there was other life in the universe; cryptic, corrupted logs from the original ship that crashed in the system told of powerful empires that lay beyond.
Since then, The Celestial Horizon has devoted much resources and processing power towards innovation or improvement of current technology. The collective has retrained itself to the Home system ; with the binary stars' extreme radiation it would be extraordinarily difficult to detect their presence (For their transmissions would likely only appear as a part of the star's natural radiation. If the collective stayed in their system and hid from the powerful forces in the universe at large, they could continue multiplying without resistance.
Eventually, however, there will be a point where the Home System cannot sustain their growth. Such a time would force The Celestial Horizon to risk encounter with the universe at large...
Misc Nation Details:
The Celestial Horizon has no proper currency or traditional population; communication is largely digital, using a sort of binary.
Military Description:
The Celesital Horizon has no proper land-based military, though smaller fighters are capable of entering and operating in an atmosphere. If the need for ground-based combat presents itself, the industrial complexes will likely produce machines built for a ground war.
Navy Description:
The Celestial Horizon uses a unique Subspace Drive for FTL travel. The drive enters a special sidedimensional realm of subspace and exits precisely where it is told to do so by the navigational computer. Whether this is in deep spaceor within the atmosphere of a world over a city where the bombardment can immediately commence.
This drive is perfectly safe, fast and dangerously accurate. However the power requirements are taxing, as it takes a lot of energy to pull a ship into the sidedimension, and the time it takes to activate the drive is large as well. Plotting a (safe) route through subspace takes an enormous amount of computing power, so much that only a race of machines like the Celestial Horizon can feasibly do so.
Longer-distance jumps require even more computational time. Larger vessels also require more energy to be pulled into subspace, and require more time to calculate jumps as the computers try to find a way to fit its larger mass through the dangers of the sidedimension.
So, a small vessel might be able to jump relatively quickly between two planets in a system; a larger vessel travelling between stars would take much, much longer. The Celestial Collective has designated "jump beacons" that double as FTL comm buoys throughout the Home System. Special installations designed to aid ships in moving about the system, it allows the collective's industry to move about their home system with relative ease.
For sublight travel, most vessels have a both high-efficiency engine for space travel, and a more rarely used high-thrust but less efficient engine to reach escape velocities. Fighters and drones typically have jet engines or similar apparatuses for operating inside an atmosphere or close to a planet's surface.
Ship Prefix:
Ships are referred to by their serial number, preceded by a letter denoting the class of ship.
Ship Descriptions:
Ship Numbers
Points 13: 6 (Heavy Frigate x 1), 4 (Carrier x 1), 3 (Corvettes x 3)
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Three corvettes, CV-53054, CV-14525 and CV-14994, regularly patrol the Home System. With fully functional subspace drives, their deployment time is the shortest in the fleet due to the corvettes' small sizes. Armed with a combination of driver-cannons and a small missile bank, they are effective combatants against anything their own size..
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The carrier C-47653 enables the collective to rapidly deploy numerous strike craft and drones wherever needed. With more powerful engines and more computational power, it can jump through subspace while loaded with fighters and drones much faster than the time it would take for the drones to use their own tiny subspace engines.
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The Heavy Frigate HF-48812 is the largest vessel in The Celestial Horizon whose duties are purely military in nature. Armed with driver cannons, anti-fighter weaponry and plenty of missiles, it forms the current "pride" of the Celestial Horizon fleet.
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Smaller strike craft of this model are ideal for light engagement or planetary combat. Equiped with less-effient but more powerful engines, these fighters have difficulty jumping through subspace on their own, often relying on a carrier to enable swifter transport.
What they lack in strategic mobility they make up for with manoeuvrability. Their numerous sublight engines make them agile in ship-to-ship combat, where they levy small driver-cannons at an enemy.
Anything Else?