Title: E.S.S. Emissary - Vertical Mothership for Thrust Contest - Final Draft Images and Videos
Name: Shawn Weixelman
Country: USA
Submitted: 13th June 2016
Work In Progress Timelapse:
The fabric of the universe billowed and swirled, expanding ahead and contracting behind Captain Alexi Ogiyevich. The current carried his crew of 101 and their vessel the E.S.S. Emissary. Only 99 were under his command (three shifts of 33). Ambassador Kersemich and his aid were autonomous representatives of the UN. Alexi spared a look back at the Ambassador. Like the other bridge crew, he sat agape at the cosmic lightshow enveloping them. This was the first time the Ambassador had descended from the luxury quarters in his landing craft since they left drydock.
In some alternate universe the Ambassador might have been President of the U.S.A. but a report surfaced that he had once seen a UFO, and he refused to deny it, saying only Its true. I could not identify it. Old publications surfaced indicating that the experience had a profound effect on his life, and his campaign crashed and burned before he had much of a chance. Alexi thought it likely that this same reputation that cost him the presidency earned Kersemich his seat on the Emissary.
Alexi himself had never believed in Aliens prior to the transmission. The son of a Russian pilot and a Czech musician, Alexi was born in Saint Petersburg, but spent his childhood in the skies above Europe, traveling with his parents as they flew between his mothers performances. His father let him fly for the first time when he was 10 and by 14 he had his own licence and a dream of seeing the Earth from space, but hed never put much thought into other worlds, and trying to fathom one now, even as it rapidly approached, taxed his imagination to exhaustion. Alexi turned his thoughts back to his proud vessel.
A lifetime aboard aircraft and two years aboard the international space station had given Alexi a keen sense of respect for the engineering behind them. The Emissary had been conceived by the finest minds in the world, engaging the full resources of six space programs and more than fifty countries. It had taken a new age of industry and international cooperation, as well as reclamation of the entire cold war nuclear arsenal to fabricate the Graviton Drive. The towering 106 meter tall ship constructed in orbit around the drive had required more than a thousand subassembly payload deliveries from around the world, most of them for the massive dry dock that even now had begun construction of the second ship in Earths fleet, which would begin exploring the galaxy freely. Alexi couldnt help but envy them.
Alexi and his crew were conscripts. A tribute to our alien benefactors, the Emissary would serve in a fleet composed of one ship from each of a thousand interstellar empires. If any member planet were to be threatened by one of the dangerous frontier civilizations that had refused conscription, the fleet was responsible for planetary defense. The signal told us we were allowed to build as many other ships as wed like, provided we always kept one in their service, replacing the ship and crew should they be lost.
Our instructions and the plans for Graviton Drive had taken nearly a year to decode, extracted from an ancient message that we had misidentified as cosmic background noise for decades. In addition to the plans for the Graviton Drive the Aliens had also provided an easy to read map of all member systems, and a description of each species that Earths best anthropologists had been unable to decipher prior to their departure. They hadnt included any weapon schematics, but the Graviton Drive required the development of a number of exotic alien technologies, some of which (such as the Tachyon Beam and Graviton Lance) could be easily weaponized. We were also able to engineer a sublight propulsion system for the Mothership and an atmospheric engine for the Ambassadors landing craft, based on pressurized emission from the discharge of graviton turboencabulators; corkscrew turbines that used the ships variable gravitational pull to generate energy for ships systems.
At its heart, the Graviton Drive was powered by a small singularity (only 40 million kilotons at idle). Unless fed matter, the singularity would bleed Hawking radiation until diminishing to nothing. It had been determined that wastewater was the best fuel to feed the singularity. Their Chief Engineer was a both a rocket scientist and master plumber.
The final part of the message was the location of a boot camp and orders to report for duty. This was their impending destination. It had taken twenty hours to collect enough gravitons for the Graviton handshake to transit the vessel to the outer orbit of the destination star. Theyd released the handshake ten minutes ago and the slingshot effect had already propelled them halfway across the galaxy. In another ten seconds they would arrive. The countdown began.
After arriving at the outskirts of the system they would need to find the fourth planet in the system and establish another handshake. It could take more than a month to charge the drive again, assuming the planet was Jupiter sized, as the map indicated. After that it would be a matter of moments before humans made contact with the rest of the galaxy for the first time. Alexi glanced back at Ambassador Kersemich again. He hoped the earnest man would make a good first impression.
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The psychedelic cosmic lightshow vanished. Alexis eyes took a few moments to adjust. The local sun was a tiny cold pinprick at this distance. The bridge crew called all systems green one by one. A perfect first voyage. Alexi opened the intercom and informed the crew.
It was the happiest moment they will ever share. In the months to follow, Alexi and his crew will arrive at bootcamp to discover a cold ruin guarded by a mysterious device, and find that the Alien empire that conscripted them has diminished to a dozen star systems. Civilization has crumbled, and the galaxy has fallen into a dark age. The crew of the Emissary must choose their allies and enemies carefully, with Earth at stake.