Post by Robert DeVries on Feb 23, 2018 12:44:19 GMT -5
OVERVIEW
The Orbital Rings were built a century before the Great Interplanetary War, when the State of Denaus and People's Republic of Okar formed the Global Development Initiative. The inclusion of a dozen minor states was little more than a political move; encouraging the small fry to give up their materials to look good on the global stage saved precious resources for the other two giants. It was meant to be a sign of everlasting cooperation, but just a decade after its construction it became exclusive to scientific communities and military intelligence gathering with the occasional commercial satellite launch. This continued for twenty years before the global community turned its attention to space again, using the ring to build their orbital habitats.
THE GDI
The Global Development Initiative formed during the most stable period in pre-Singularity history. Having escaped war for a solid forty years, the great nations of Brumas enhanced their cooperation for a time, sharing technology and culture -- the latter of which would once again fracture the globe as progression fought tradition later in the century. The scientific community, having already acquired rocketships and rudimentary space stations, believed that a global travel network was the primary concern of the Initiative. It took years to win the public over, and construction never began until the Lovang Group graciously donated to the cause in exchange for promises of being able to use the rings for their trade network.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
The initial ring, built after sixteen years, was a pitiful thing. Little more than a long hollow tube running along the equator, the most costly portion of the entire project went into the space tethers that attached it to the world below. Automated rail cars hooked onto the loop could carry fuel and other supplies between stations, but transporting personnel was out of the question. Especially damning was the inability to easily transport anything from the ground to space without expensive and sophisticated rockets, and even then it was less expensive just to do the same by air!
Needless to say, construction did not continue until the space tethers became space elevators, a different project entirely that nevertheless renewed the prospect of commercial use of the rings. The ease of transport was marred only by the need for checkpoints in space according to borders on the ground, the paranoia of nations striking once again. Attention once more moved onto other projects. The ring supported construction of O'Neill Cylinders and other habitats that took up the rest of the century to build, as well as the colony ships that claimed moons close and far.
THE WAR
Initially during the Great Interplanetary War, the ring's checkpoints were shut down and each nation agreed not to touch the thing from a militaristic standpoint. They continued to do so in the form of military intelligence, obviously. When the war ramped up and the State of Denaus began constructing orbital weapons on their section of the ring, the other factions interdicted with nuclear weapons that fractured the structure and brought fragments raining down on the world below. The State did the same to them. Even during the early post-Singularity years, space was utterly trashed by the amount of debris and the occasional malfunctioning reactor... but enough fragments remained to remind the humans below of the great frontier of space.
THROUGH THE GENERATIONS
The first post-Singularity generation focused much of its effort on renewing humanity and building the Loftstrom Loops. They helped their children clean up the orbit enough to renew the ring, and then moved onto other projects.
The second generation focused on sending drones to space to evaporate anything larger than a loose nail. The ring at this time was still fairly basic, providing little more than materials to supply the drones and the sensors that told them where to go. No longer needing the space elevators to easily get to orbit, ships were regularly sent up to restock the ring and its drone complement, focusing their fuel on getting back home safely instead of breaching atmosphere. Unfortunately, this generation accomplished little more than cleaning up -- whether it be old fission reactors, radiation, or space junk, the pre-Singularity times left plenty of junk around.
The third generation had the most support. With life expectancy skyrocketing, their parents and grandparents paved the way for them to do great things. They not only rebuilt the first ring in its entirety, but designed a second ring some few kilometers above the first specifically meant to assist travel away from the planet and form a massive sensor network around Brumas. All the way until the present, new rings have been created to form a giant ring network around Brumas -- the inner rings have even replaced their cables with particle accelerators meant to stabilize them in orbit without relying on a physical connection.
The Orbital Rings were built a century before the Great Interplanetary War, when the State of Denaus and People's Republic of Okar formed the Global Development Initiative. The inclusion of a dozen minor states was little more than a political move; encouraging the small fry to give up their materials to look good on the global stage saved precious resources for the other two giants. It was meant to be a sign of everlasting cooperation, but just a decade after its construction it became exclusive to scientific communities and military intelligence gathering with the occasional commercial satellite launch. This continued for twenty years before the global community turned its attention to space again, using the ring to build their orbital habitats.
THE GDI
The Global Development Initiative formed during the most stable period in pre-Singularity history. Having escaped war for a solid forty years, the great nations of Brumas enhanced their cooperation for a time, sharing technology and culture -- the latter of which would once again fracture the globe as progression fought tradition later in the century. The scientific community, having already acquired rocketships and rudimentary space stations, believed that a global travel network was the primary concern of the Initiative. It took years to win the public over, and construction never began until the Lovang Group graciously donated to the cause in exchange for promises of being able to use the rings for their trade network.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
The initial ring, built after sixteen years, was a pitiful thing. Little more than a long hollow tube running along the equator, the most costly portion of the entire project went into the space tethers that attached it to the world below. Automated rail cars hooked onto the loop could carry fuel and other supplies between stations, but transporting personnel was out of the question. Especially damning was the inability to easily transport anything from the ground to space without expensive and sophisticated rockets, and even then it was less expensive just to do the same by air!
Needless to say, construction did not continue until the space tethers became space elevators, a different project entirely that nevertheless renewed the prospect of commercial use of the rings. The ease of transport was marred only by the need for checkpoints in space according to borders on the ground, the paranoia of nations striking once again. Attention once more moved onto other projects. The ring supported construction of O'Neill Cylinders and other habitats that took up the rest of the century to build, as well as the colony ships that claimed moons close and far.
THE WAR
Initially during the Great Interplanetary War, the ring's checkpoints were shut down and each nation agreed not to touch the thing from a militaristic standpoint. They continued to do so in the form of military intelligence, obviously. When the war ramped up and the State of Denaus began constructing orbital weapons on their section of the ring, the other factions interdicted with nuclear weapons that fractured the structure and brought fragments raining down on the world below. The State did the same to them. Even during the early post-Singularity years, space was utterly trashed by the amount of debris and the occasional malfunctioning reactor... but enough fragments remained to remind the humans below of the great frontier of space.
THROUGH THE GENERATIONS
The first post-Singularity generation focused much of its effort on renewing humanity and building the Loftstrom Loops. They helped their children clean up the orbit enough to renew the ring, and then moved onto other projects.
The second generation focused on sending drones to space to evaporate anything larger than a loose nail. The ring at this time was still fairly basic, providing little more than materials to supply the drones and the sensors that told them where to go. No longer needing the space elevators to easily get to orbit, ships were regularly sent up to restock the ring and its drone complement, focusing their fuel on getting back home safely instead of breaching atmosphere. Unfortunately, this generation accomplished little more than cleaning up -- whether it be old fission reactors, radiation, or space junk, the pre-Singularity times left plenty of junk around.
The third generation had the most support. With life expectancy skyrocketing, their parents and grandparents paved the way for them to do great things. They not only rebuilt the first ring in its entirety, but designed a second ring some few kilometers above the first specifically meant to assist travel away from the planet and form a massive sensor network around Brumas. All the way until the present, new rings have been created to form a giant ring network around Brumas -- the inner rings have even replaced their cables with particle accelerators meant to stabilize them in orbit without relying on a physical connection.