“I don't like this,”
The response was a wry snort, “do you think we do? Hell, do you think anyone of us here on God's Earth likes this? And yet, he is not malicious, what he takes with one hand, he gives with another.”
“The risk is high,” the First voice noted calmly, carefully ignoring the more religious overtones of the others words.
“And so is the potential for profit,” a third voice noted, leaning forward into the dim lights over the boardroom table, revealing a tall, hawkish woman, her face showing imperfectly healed burns, “the Americans, they have already gathered together behind Boeing and already they work on their designs. The Colonials are even further ahead… but they are not of Earth.”
“True,” First noted, “And Boeing has been close to a monopoly on large aircraft production for some time, hence why Airbus was always funded by Europe .”
“There are signs that the Russian government may be making its own move and the Chinese…” Third shrugged, “who knows what they are doing? Lord knows half the time they don't seem to know themselves.”
“It will be strange,” Second commented, “this new realm, now it is open to us, it may well require both the skills of the shipwright and the aircraft designed to give fruit.”
“If it give fruit,” a Fourth voice interjected with a sigh, “the Military will not allow such a project to go ahead with their permission and given their control over the technologies such a project would require, if they say no, then we will be dead in the water.”
“A point indeed,” Second replied, “and whilst the Americans don't have absolute control over the Starfleet, they are the single biggest funders and the biggest provider of personnel. If their government throws its weight behind the Boeing led consortium…”
First shrugged, “In some ways the conservatism of the current administration will help us; they are unlikely to grant us funding but they seem to understand the necessity of not having all your eggs in one basket. They may well allow us simply to have an alternative should the consortium fail.”
Second sighed, and rose from his seat, slowly pacing around the room and the fourteen still seated around the desk. As he passed between the dim lights they revealed a short chubby man wearing a suit that had seen better days and with eyes that told of recent pain.
“I do not like the idea of any monopoly, be it government or otherwise on Earth, it stifles the market. The costs if we do move, they will be high and have no guarantee of success nor can we rely on purely business funding.”
“Grants are highly unlikely in the current financial crisis,” Fourth noted, “it is all most governments can do to maintain the remaining infrastructure and provide some funding to the military. New infrastructure projects have dropped ninety-six percent since disclosure and grants to commercial enterprises… forget it.”
“You are suggesting we put our own funds towards this project,” Third noted grimly.
“Yes,” First replied.
Protests filled the room at that suggestion and it took First a few moments to quieten the room, “I know the value of the personnel fortunes of everyone in this room has dropped massively since disclosure, I also know a few of you have near bankrupted yourselves in the name of philanthropy and aid but if this is to work, then we will need to gather funding from as many disparate sources as possible.”
“We talk of a project that will cost Billions before the keel is even laid on a prototype,” Third replied, glancing sympathetically around the room, “if it fails, the businesses of directly involved are not likely to survive it and with those businesses, will go what remains of our personnel fortunes. I am one of those who perhaps spent more in the wake of Disclosure then they should of, I gave ten million to the reclamation of London and Exeter but what I have left, I have already signed over to the project.”
Silence filled the room at that declaration and it was almost two minutes before a voice sounded again.
“Where would the profit come from this?”
It was a new voice, young, trying to sound firm but all within the room caught the quiver of nervousness within it. Second sent the new speaker a nod of sympathy, knowing that the boy now controlled his families fortunes simply because there was no-one else alive in the family to do it.
“At first, we have internal traffic in the core systems, Sol and Alpha Centauri. At this point in time the capacity for shifting large amounts of freight and people in simply insufficient and the military has too many other concerns to take control here and provide the level of transport that is actually required. It would actually be to there benefit for us and others like us to provide more capacity, a fact of which they seem to be well aware.”
First nodded, “then we have Edonia. Security will be an issue with that run but there are four slips being underutilized simply because there isn't sufficient freight capacity to support them. I'm sure the TSS wouldn't mind having an increased capacity on that route.”
Second smiled, “and then, God willing, there are the Allies. The Orbanians are a prime example of a group planning on doing some major expansion but we also have two very distant groups being supported by our military. And who knows what expansion the future will bring?”
“I have had a few rough projections done,” Third noted, “and assuming a ship capable of transporting some three hundred persons and fifty standard containers of freight, then the Sol to Alpha Centauri run alone may well require up to thirty ships within the decade.”
“Only fifty containers per ship?” Fourth noted puzzled, “that seems somewhat small.”
“Compared to an ocean going container ship certainly,” Third replied, “but the difficult part is going to be the surface to orbit phase and that is the part where weight will need to be watched.
Simply designing a ship strong enough to hold the weight of fifty containers in air will be difficult let alone the added weight of all the engines and support necessary to get it into the air in the first place.”
“What about Ro-Ro capability?” Fifth asked.
“The use of cars and similar on Alpha Prime and Freedom is minimal,” Third replied swiftly, “roads between outposts simply don't exist… except where a dirt track for maintenance access follows the length of a railway. The way Alpha Prime in particular is being developed, one or two ships with the capacity to carry locomotives and the associated wagons would not go amiss.”
“They have already designed that capability into the Ha'tak refits haven't they?” Fourth asked.
“Yes,” First replied, “at two gauges.”
“The opportunity is there,” Second noted, “the profits if we succeed are likely to be truly huge.”
“Yes,” Fifth cracked a smiled, “but trying getting Lloyds of London to do the underwriting…”
A chuckled filled the room at that, but it quickly died away as Third nodded, “he is right. We are talking about running combined cargo-passenger ships through a warzone and the devastation if something goes wrong or worse, is made to go wrong on lift-off or re-entry…”
Silence filled the room once more then Third said simply, “The Americans think this can be made to work and I agree with them, but you already know that I am in on this one. The reason we three asked you here is that we want you in on it as well.”
“In,” Fifth said simply with a shrug, “and not just because the profits are likely to be huge. Just reducing the strain on the military freight capacity should have a major effect on their ability to keep us safe and alive.”
“He's right,” Fourth replied, “and you know the basics of the conditions Boeing are under. If the worst comes to it, these ships will be called to the defence of the homeworld as well, I have twelve grandchildren to consider. The chance for both profit and help keep them alive? I'm in.”
“If we do this,” a Sixth voice noted, “it might be worth considering a design that can be changed on the stocks to include either a Colonial jump-point drive or Goa'uld Hyperdrives. The first is cheaper and more then adequate for local work, the second will be necessary for longer routes.”
“That's true,” First noted, “but its also possible to include both within the same design.”
“Surface to orbit will remain the bottleneck though and the main influence over the designs,” Third commented.
“There is more then enough spare space on Ravenbright then we may be able to push for a transhipment point there should it be necessary,” Fourth shook his head, “but no such capability exists for Earth. Such a capability would mean we could go for far larger ships for the intersystem phase but we would need to expand the surface to orbit capability because that is frankly lacking at the moment.”
First laid back in his seat surprised, “we may be getting ahead of ourselves here, first we have to build and design a craft capable of taking freight and passengers from system to system before we start talking about accelerating the capacity.”
“No we don't,” Sixth grinned smugly, “the Colonials are cash starved. Even if we would be operating in competition with them, I'm sure licensing or outright buying one of their existing designs would be manageable. Hire some of their engineers as well to start us off, contract with the TSS of course to have the design modernised, though the primary concern there would simply be the ships ability to defend itself and we could be active long before Boeing are.”
Second shot Sixth an appreciative nod.
“Of course, the Colonials avoided bulk surface to orbit freight,” Third mused, “if they needed raw materials they mined them in space, refined them in space, even did a lot of the manufacturing in space. Only specialist work was done surface side.”
“The bulk freight was apparently primarily foodstuffs, particularly from Aerilon,” Fourth noted, “if the records are to be believed that world saw more freighters in a week then the rest of the Colonies put together.”
“We are not going to reach the level of orbital infrastructure the Colonials managed for many years,” Fifth grinned, “the bulk of the work will still need to be done surface side. The bulk of the industrial capability is on Earth and whilst for now the bulk of the goods will be staying in system or going to Alpha Centauri, sooner or later the number of destinations and the amount of cargo to other destinations will increase.”
“Transhipment,” Third noted flatly.
“Sooner or later, it will be needed,” Sixth smiled, “but I say if we do this we try it my way. Decreased cost, decreased risk, largely proven starship designs and with that as a core, then we can consider expansion.”
“Agreed,” First noted after a few moments, “but we should also plan for the Colonials refusing to release any designs to us.”
“True,” Second noted, his eyes glinting “but Six is right, they're cash starved. It'll cost like the dickens but I've no doubt that they can be bought.”
“Still be cheaper then designing and building from scratch,” Fourth nodded, “reduces the chance of Government interference too as we'll be increasing the Colonial cash-flow and that is being encouraged at the moment. Assume six months of negotiation and laying the ground-work… twelve to eighteen months for the construction of the first unit. That will of course go down once we have more experience… we could be operational within two years.”
“In theory,” First pointed out, “but I agree. The question is who's in?”
He glanced around the room and hid a smile as he received thirteen nods.
“Then, I believe we have some work to do.”
I do not own nor do I claim ownerhsip of characters and or concepts from Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica or any other non-original works contained within.