Key crew
The Key crew of the Amazonia were CEOs of companies that helped fund the project:
- Chiwetei Babangida
- Charis Kobayashi
- Vasily Peshkov
- Ryoichi Hamaguchi
- Huy Phạm
- Brahim Keder
- Faris El-Hashem
About
The Amazonia Concordia, constructed in 2243 by the C.V. Krup Capital Group of Venus, was the first and largest attempt at an interstellar-class human-occupied vessel by major inner system interests. Previous ventures, including the asteroid-ark Jerusalem, were projects of small religious sects, political breakaway groups, and many outer-system fringe polities. Amazonia Concordia would be the first time a major inner system shipyard would take on such a project.
C.V. Krup Capital Group was a kind of corporate coalition; made of multiple corporations all sharing common goals and with mutually profitable industries. It was formed explicitly for the creation of Amazonia Concordia, allowing each corporation to dilute their fiscal risk in pursuit of a project that would cost 3 trillion Venusian kir and could fail before even truly leaving the system.
The ship’s propulsion method would be the “Orion” drive, based on the concepts first drawn up by the United States of the 20th century. Also known as “nuclear-pulse propulsion”, the design is both comfortingly human and very intricate.
The ship has an enormous, very thick pusher-plate attached to the stern. Fitted onto enormous hydraulic joints and springs, the plate can be “pushed” in to provide thrust to the vessel. The source of energy for this are the small thermonuclear warheads shot out the back of the ship and detonated just behind it. Their explosive force smashes into the pusher plate, which slides along its rails and springs until it contacts the upper end.
Repeating this in rapid succession, firing warhead after warhead, the ship can quickly accelerate up to impressive fractions of the speed of light. The drawbacks are severe, however. The pusher plate and its housing must be maintained constantly, if not, the entire thing may be compromised beyond repair. Because the plate’s reinforcements are built directly into the ship’s vital infrastructure, this eventuality will leave the vessel dead in space. Additionally, the ship must either have or be able to produce a continuous supply of warheads, which then sit menacingly within their holds. The crew can only hope accidental-or mutinous-detonations onboard do not happen.
The entire drive can also contaminate an entire planetary atmosphere with radioactive material, if desired.
Mission
The corporates chose the Epsilon systems as their target, with an ambitious plan to claim both and bootstrap their nascent civilization into an interstellar power. C.V. Krup was open about the mission, engaging in large public awareness campaigns to attract more investors and the extremely specialized engineers and others needed to pull it all off. Their publicly-disclosed plans for settlement were very complex and featured considerable detail, but can be simplified to the following:
- Journey out to destination systems will be quiet, with no crew awake due to the dangers of cryo-sleep of the era precluding frequent wake/sleep cycles.
- When 2ly out from Epsilon Eridani, Approach Crew will wake and begin going over new sensor data. A comprehensive map of Epsilon Eridani is made.
- Approach Crew draws up plans, including picking a world to put the ship in orbit around and begin post-arrival repairs and refits. Auxiliary bases, fallback worlds, resource extraction sites and many more things are planned here.
- Automated machine swarms are sent ahead to prepare for the Amazonia Concordia. These will spend centuries developing infrastructure, ensuring that the ship can begin operations as soon as possible. Included is an experimental, very early prototype Neumann swarm designed to be dropped into the largest gas giant of Epsilon Eridani, Apfelhaus. The goal is for it to begin converting its mass into various necessary fuels and industrial chemicals needed for later mega-scale engineering projects.
- Approach Crew returns to cryo-sleep, their contractual duties satisfied due to the immense risk of returning to cryo.
- After crossing Epsilon Eridani’s heliopause, General Crew begins waking in cycles. The ship is slowly brought up to full functionality after repairing everything that broke on the way over.
- Amazonia Concordia enters an orbit around the world previously selected by the Approach Crew. Apfelhaus is generally considered the most likely for selection here.
- Utilizing the work done already by their automated swarms, the crew engage in extreme expansion to the ship, turning it into a massive orbital station and habitat. This will be the base of operations for all crew and corporate executives as terraforming work begins on viable targets.
- After the primary habitat is complete, corporate executives and high level staff will be woken and placed into their waiting orbital palaces.
- Settlement continues, and the most workable worlds of the system are slated for terraforming.
- Eventually, after a number of other requirements are met, a secondary and purely automated fleet departs Epsilon Eridani for the close neighbor of Epsilon Indi in order to claim it as well.
Relevant Information on Corporate Backers, Known Executives Onboard, and More
CORPORATE BACKERS AND CEOS A number of corporate interests, large and small, hitched a ride on Amazonia Concordia in hopes of a more profitable future. This list contains the eight primary corporate backers who provided most of the funding and support.
- Azam Microtech
- Blueshift
- INFERON Agri-Aqua-Culture
- Kobayashi Extractions
- Medicocene Lambda
- Uchida Financial Services
- Venus Solar Power Company
- Wu-Hofmann Biotech
OBJECTS AND THINGS OF INTEREST
The vessel holds many quality scientific survey systems, terraforming equipment, supplies, and more. This list is of only a few items of relevance; conceivably there may be more onboard.
- Agricultural supplies (soil, nutrients, bacterial cultures, fungal cultures and spores, seeds, etc.)
- Terraforming equipment/supplies/infrastructure
- 1x prototype Neumann device (self-replicating nanotech swarm)
- 1 “Secondary Colonization Fleet”, an unknown collection of automated vessels for colonization of Epsilon Indi
- Manufacturing facilities for infrastructure like habitats, mining stations, etc