April 8th, 2025. The first mass driver shipment from Mars arrived today, carrying over 20 tons of Neutronium as well as similar amounts of Sorium and Uridium and minor amounts of Gallicite. In total, about 69 tons of ore. If this rate of delivery can be maintained, it will halve our projected shortfall. We're still in the red, though. Our stockpiles are still dwindling... but not at the previous alarming rate. We have bought ourselves some time.
That time must be used to find a permanent solution to the resource shortage. More robot mines are currently under construction here on Earth, for shipment to Mars and other high-concentration Neutronium deposits. A second pair of Mass Drivers is being assembled. We are taking every possible measure to meet the emergency... and it still might not be enough. Tentative schedules are being drawn up... strictly as paper-studies at the moment... for shutting down selected sectors of the economy in order to reduce our Neutronium consumption to a minimum without crashing the whole economy. The shipyards are by far the main consumer of this scarce resource, and any full or partial shutdown will have to hit them hard.
How will I explain this to Captain Arjyla?
... perhaps it won't be necessary. It will be tight... very tight. But perhaps we can squeak through without halting production on any of the warships, and without slowing down the expansion work on any of the military shipyard slips. If we were forced to halt expansion work on the Civilian shipyard slips in order to conserve the last of our Neutronium for the Military construction... I believe Captain Arjyla would accept that solution.
Commander Hellvink arrived yesterday, refueled and departed this morning with the Alien Analysis Team, bound for Procyon VII. That's another can of worms. God knows what they might find... or what might find THEM. The Procyon system is by no means secure... we don't even know where the exit jump-points are, or how many of them exist. The system might be right on the border of an alien empire.
Well... there's one ray of hope, anyway. By the time Captain Arjyla and his men return from their training mission, our armaments factories will have some Missiles ready to load into their ships. For the first time in Human history, we will no longer be entirely naked to attack.
That time must be used to find a permanent solution to the resource shortage. More robot mines are currently under construction here on Earth, for shipment to Mars and other high-concentration Neutronium deposits. A second pair of Mass Drivers is being assembled. We are taking every possible measure to meet the emergency... and it still might not be enough. Tentative schedules are being drawn up... strictly as paper-studies at the moment... for shutting down selected sectors of the economy in order to reduce our Neutronium consumption to a minimum without crashing the whole economy. The shipyards are by far the main consumer of this scarce resource, and any full or partial shutdown will have to hit them hard.
How will I explain this to Captain Arjyla?
... perhaps it won't be necessary. It will be tight... very tight. But perhaps we can squeak through without halting production on any of the warships, and without slowing down the expansion work on any of the military shipyard slips. If we were forced to halt expansion work on the Civilian shipyard slips in order to conserve the last of our Neutronium for the Military construction... I believe Captain Arjyla would accept that solution.
Commander Hellvink arrived yesterday, refueled and departed this morning with the Alien Analysis Team, bound for Procyon VII. That's another can of worms. God knows what they might find... or what might find THEM. The Procyon system is by no means secure... we don't even know where the exit jump-points are, or how many of them exist. The system might be right on the border of an alien empire.
Well... there's one ray of hope, anyway. By the time Captain Arjyla and his men return from their training mission, our armaments factories will have some Missiles ready to load into their ships. For the first time in Human history, we will no longer be entirely naked to attack.
