The First Frontier

[Samantha Arrow]

[Important, look back at the last two posts I made in the other topic to get familiar with the ship and her crew]

November 6, 2071

Launch Day.
This day would be the most important one in all of Earth's history, besides maybe the discovery of fire. The first interstellar vessel was ready for launch, and my, Voyager 3 is a thing of beauty.

Named after the Voyager 1 & 2 probes, probably the closest thing Earth had to interstellar vessels - being the furthest man made objects in space. It seemed strange to think Voyager 3 would overtake them in a matter of days. In fact, that is our first mission, to retrieve those probes. It's a bit silly of a task, the probes will only take up space, but it will be an easy way to test all our systems. And if the Dark Matter drive fails, limping back home we'd still be back in time to live a little longer; whereas if the first mission was to Alpha Centauri we would be long dead by the time the spaceship arrived at sub-light speed.

Not all is fine and dandy though, a lot of humanity is upset that a furry is not only in the captain's seat, but furries make up the entire senior crew. Already, two attempts to shoot down Voyager 3 were made to day, luckily they were stopped. NASA did their best though, they at least balanced the male to female ratio 4 to 4, and the furry to human ratio 4 to 4. I figure though if the people in charge down home didn't want us here, we wouldn't be. Personally I think giving us these positions is a PR move for the current administration, to show how progressive they are. Surely their are more qualified people than us for this job...

We're just waiting for the captain now. Not just the crew, most of the world is watching. Hope she has a good speech... At any rate, I talked to Ted and he told me some interesting things. Can't wait to see how the captain reacts when she finds out a new fangled AI was installed and Ted modified the probe launcher so it can launch 'torpedoes' - NASA was really hesitant about allowing that but even they realize if we actually do meet hostile life, a couple vulcan guns aren't going to help much.

I have to go, I think the captain is about to come onto the bridge...

(No pressure Nelle xD)

[Nelle Kozera]

(No pressure Nelle xD)

(Sure :V *Has to come up with something good.*)

Taryn Fara would float into the bridge for the moment ignoring most of the people on the bridge for the moment. She had a mic on her uniform which she had just activated, “Personally I never liked giving speeches but I figured I might as well say something, besides NASA mandated this."

"As of this moment we stand on the edge, the razors edges of so many barriers the idea is almost impossible to fathom, from racial and societal barriers to scientific and political barriers. Even then that all minor compared to what we are about to do. As of this moment, we merely hours away from the first time people will break the FTL barrier. I guess the really question is, will this go the way of the jet engine? In the span of thirty years be in every spacecraft into the future?

“To be honest I don’t know, nor do I think anyone can guess what the world will look like in thirty years. At this moment, for those of us in this vessel we stand on the most advanced machine ever built in Human history. None of us can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of recorded history in a time span of a half-century. Stated in these ultra condensed version, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than four months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last two months ago electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only two weeks ago did we create my grandparents the first hybrids of human and animals, and now if this new spacecraft succeeds in breaking the FTL barrier, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

“In this condensed version of history one cannot help but think that with all the progress at such a vertigo inducing pace that we also come across new things, and the ignorance of new things begin to sow distrust, and yet if this teaches us anything, it is that we, in our quest for knowledge and progress cannot be deterred and that the petty struggles between us mean nothing in the cold vastness of space."

"Thank you.”

She shut off her mic, “Right give me a sit rep of this ship; I want to know what everyone is doing before we pull out of orbit and get this multitrillion dollar vessel up to speed...” She moved from the rear of the bridge forward, he fluffy tail following behind her.

[Brome Teks]

Martin nods at the captain's speech. "Very nice..." He thinks back to his home on Earth, with the cool morning breeze over the seemingly infinite lakes. How far he had come, his entire life seeming to lead up to this mission. He was still the youngest on board, but had the important duty of their navigator. Speaking of which...

When the captain asked for a sit rep, he turned around and looked at his console. He and the NASA team had spent a good amount of time determining Voyager one and two's last known locations, then extrapolating from there where they had wound up now. He waggles his thick tail and twitches his whiskers as he looks at a computer model of the solar system, and zooms it out to see the current estimated locations of voyagers one and two. Back in the day, voyager one and two had both exited out of the solar system perpendicularly in opposite directions, Each one heading for interstellar space. Voyager one had hit the heliopause and entered interstellar space more than 50 years ago, and both of the probe's had to shut down all instruments because of power loss more than 40 years ago. But With the instruments they had on board Voyager 3 and carefully plotting Voyager 1 and 2's trajectories, they should be able to get in the ball park of the small probes and then maneuver in one of the auxiliary vehicles to catch it.

"That'll be fun, trying to catch a 35,000 mph fastball..." He mutters to himself. Well, he was confident that he could get the Voyager 3 to match her predecessor's speeds so it would be easy to catch them. He loads in the predetermined course to voyager 2, the closer of the pair, to the navigation computer. He turns towards the captain. "Navigation is go. Our escape then intercept course to Voyager 2 is laid in and good to go."

(Yay Wikipedia research! )

[Samantha Arrow]

[Just a couple notes, not a big deal though. The dark matter drive has been successfully used before on test craft, Voyager 3 isn't breaking the barrier, but it does have a faster model and is the first true to life interstellar spaceship. Also, there's only been 3 generations of furs, Taryn shouldn't have grandparents, I think you said she was second gen or at least that's where her age puts her... Not a big deal though]

Sam relaxed some when the captain finished her speech. It was good, everyone back home would be happy well, should be happy. She made her way to her station, it was close to the captain's chair but had a full computer system connected to it, the captain's chair just had a quick-command console. It felt strange to Sam, being weightless yet still attached to the ground via the light velcro shoes and floor. She was about to call up the commands for a systems check when a electronic voice filled the bridge.

"All systems are fully functional and ready for use. If you wish for a more detailed report, do ask." Said a feminine voice that came out of various speakers on the bridge. It was the AI, a system installed in a hurry - it had only been invented and operational weeks ago.

Then another voice came into the room, it only came from a speaker in the captain's console though, this time it was male "This is Ted, sorry captain, didn't catch you in time to tell you about the AI."

Sam pressed her head into her paw a little bit at all the commotion, the lifted her head back up. "Anyway, the AI is correct. All systems are ready for go on your mark captain." she turned to the otter at navigation, "I don't need to tell you the engine on this thing has a lot of power flowing to it. Don't give it too much gas." She warned, mainly not wanting to get thrown back into her seat, and it would really look good on camera to see the ship jerk out of the construction station.