7163-9-9, 20:16 EDT

Afton Sutcliffe sighed: “Mrs. Potash, so if I have understood this correctly, you first want to know when the space elevator can be finished, and how many resources this would take. And after that you want to know if we can first design vessels of war meant for space combat and then build then? For the first thing I have the data at hand thanks to some very annoying people who say we should finish the space elevator as quickly as possible. They have created those numbers since the plans to begin building were leaked, and are nice enough to update those weekly!”, Afton basically steamed that last word: “Excuse me, but the last one hundred and fifty years I and my predecessors spent a significant chunk of their time discussing why this is possible, but inadvisable. It is a bit of an emotional topic for me. Where were I? Oh, yes. How quickly can the space elevator be build. Keep in mind, my numbers are out of date by 34 hours at that point, although that should not make a difference. You wanted to know the fastest way, and how much that would cost. Hmm. Ah, here. It could be finished in 379 days, plus or minus one. The big problem here is the cost. We need a lot of additional workers, which need to be specially trained. Therion has those workers, but we would need to pay a lot and invoke some emergency laws to get access to those. My assistant will send you the numbers, but this I see not as a problem. It is annoying, and because of the war we can get them significantly cheaper than the numbers here suggest. Although we would need to declare it, which, to the best of my knowledge, has not happened yet. It is currently being debated in parliament. The big cost is the cable. We currently have one of four planned finished, although we can get by with three cables if necessary. It would reduce the amount of resources that can be carried into orbit at once, but it would speed up the opening date. And it is fairly easy to add new cables. Assuming just three cables, and taking into account existing production, which is currently mostly hampered by missing the high purity carbon necessary, we can finish one in the next two hundred days. The second needed one could be produced by the Artisans of Talkor, who could finish it in roughly a year. We could have that ready for launch in 370 days at the latest. The counterweight and the station that is attached to it needs to be relatively fancy, mostly for ease of upgrading. So that adds those other nine days, and honestly, it is the part most likely to cause delays. We have enough launch vehicles to keep the building site supplied, but accidents would be difficult to deal with and if they take out workers out of commission, we would run into issues to replace them. So 380 days in total until operations can commence. Add another two weeks to a month to make certain that everything goes smoothly and we are up and running at capacity in less than 410 days. If we want to add the fourth cable roughly 300 days after that, we would have a week with a quarter of throughput to deal with, roughly. I hope that answers this part of your question?”

Aubrey Potash answered: “Yes, thanks. Please send me the exact numbers after our meeting here concludes. Even though getting anything from the Artisans is prohibitively expensive, especially something as difficult and specialized as this, I would expect the expense to be approved. Please plan accordingly. You will get the final verdict in the next twenty four hours. So, to continue, please tell me if you are able to design and produce armed space ships. And if yes, how long it would take, roughly. Expect to have the elevator available.”

Afton looked a bit pained as he answered: “This is significantly more difficult to guess any sort of timetable for, and I do not have any ready. But I can tell you that without access to the attackers systems, we can basically forget to get a faster than light engine for those ships. I have a suspicion that Therion’s universe is bad for faster than light. But that is a matter for another time and place. To use theoretical warships, we would need a Gate in space. That Gate would need to be large enough to easily fit the largest ships we design. While Gates up to three hundred meters diameter are fairly easy and cheap to build, in the sense that it does not significantly increase the cost from the four and three fifts centimeter diameter Gates which are the cheapest we, as in the UE, have ever designed, at least besides steel and copper wiring and a bit of glass and other dirt cheap stuff, especially considering that one can basically ignore…. Sorry, this topic got away from me. We will likely want very large and heavily armored ships, especially considering our possible mobility deficits. Designing the first class of ships would likely take at least two years, and I would plan for up to ten years. And that assumes known, unchanging specifications. Developing those specifications will take at least a year, and we would really like an intact enemy warship. We likely want a small one, although a large one would be more useful, it is likely more difficult to pull of. If we manage to get people into space and board a ship…”, the sentence began to get quiter and quiter. One could see that he was hard at work, thinking.

But then he continued: “Ah, yes. We want a Gate that can fit at least most of the shown specialized warships in construction as quickly as possible, although I would wait until the space elevator is finished. We can do some prep work, but the workers are the same and those are our most finite resource. We need to quickly establish more training centers, and so on, especially because that is likely at least part of were we will get the potential crews from until we have something specialized. Back to the ships. Two to three years planning of what the military wants, if we do not get an enemy ship, up to five years if we get. And then two to ten years of planning how to do that actually, interspersed with a lot of tests. We want something that is at least nominally functioning in the end, after all. But then there is the construction. If my guesses are correct in which direction we will go with those ships, large and heavily armored, we do not have the facilities to build them. We can build those facilities, but it will take away from other projects. I would not expect to see the first ship ready for combat before fifteen years are over, and that assumes that the planning and specification phase is quick. If those two combined take fifteen years, I would expect to see that first ship at some point in the next twenty to twenty-two years. And then the ships will begin competing for the workers that build them to use as crew, so that bottleneck needs to be solved before that first ship runs of the assembly line. I can not give you estimates of how quickly we will produce ships afterwards. My office will send you more details later.”

“Thank you for your time. We need those ships quicker than that, I hope you realize that?”

“Actually, no. We need to get the enemy away from Terras orbit, and a way to prevent any other hypothetical invader to take any other orbit, or at least immediately respond to such an attack. An early warning system that actually works would be nice to. Missiles can do a lot of that, and satellites can do the rest. We need the ships to act within the solar system, prevent the enemy from creating a fortress in our own system. They actually are not vital for our defense. Although, admittedly, they are useful for it and significantly more capable of dealing with surprising situations. The ships only really become vital as a way of answering the enemies attack. And that will only happen if we manage to develop an FTL-Drive. And here it is quite possible that we will need to develop one for any universe we encounter aliens capable of FTL in. But, I would check that with the military before you take it as gospel. I am after all only someone that has studied the peaceful applications of space-travel for his entire life.”

7163-9-10, Across multiple Earths, during the entire day

Repeating announcement of the UE, presented by President Vanwagner: “My fellow citizens. I am sad to be forced to inform you that on the Seventh of September in the year 7163 Anno Domini at seven pm and twenty four minutes into that hour thirteen foreign objects had been detected, in orbit around Terra. It was quickly established that those objects were artificial. Less than a quarter of an hour after that, it was clear that those visitors from outer space had no peaceful intentions. With no declarations, no attempts at communicating, the visitors, no the enemies began attacking, making no difference between civilians and armed personnel. In less than a minute, we passed emergency legislation, declaring war upon the invaders. But as is common knowledge, we do not have a significant military. Still, thanks to some very brave individuals as well as some quick thinking, we managed to mostly defend the evacuation points. Still, many police men and women lost their lives, and the evacuation is still not finished. But it is already clear, that from the twenty billion humans which lived on Terra, at least ten percent, two billion humans, did not manage to reach the evacuation points. Six-hundred million humans are still awaiting evacuation, and if the enemy continues to attack, we do not expect most of them to make it. This is a sad day for humanity. But those attackers, those aliens have no idea who they have attacked. The military has promised me that Terra will not stop fighting. We will not capitulate. We will not be defeated. We will drive them from our world. From the first earth known to humanity. And then we will drive them out of the solar system and hound them across the stars. The United Earths will take revenge for this transgression. But we will not be monsters. Their military will be punished. Their government reformed. But their people will not be destroyed. They will not be enslaved. Because we are better than that. We have learned from the past. Over the next few days we will announce what You can do to help. I hereby beg you to do your duty and make it possible for our society to not live in fear of another such attack. We are a federation of a thousand earths and more. I have already declared that the protectorates will not be abandoned in this time of our need. Do your duty and defend our democracy and way of life.”

Across uncountable numbers of earths this spot was transmissioned. Many reacted with unbelief. Aliens had finally be found and they were hostile? They came from the stars? Why would any advanced civilization need war? The Gates prevented resource shortage, after all. And only crazies would go to the stars.

But others believed it. Maybe because they had seen it, lived through the attacks. Or because they did manage to wrap their head around the fact that the attackers did not seem to know what the Gates were.

Others believed. They feared for their loved ones, who had been on Terra at the time of the attack. Maybe as tourists, maybe because they lived or worked there. It did not matter. Many of those waiting would get the dreaded message over the next few days. Others would not know for certain for weeks. The last lost one would only be confirmed three hundred years after the war began. He had survived and died of natural causes after a malfunctioning Gate brought him to an untamed earth.