Spacefleet

Spacefleet
Nicknames	Eagles
Home Base	Spacefleet HQ & Guestton, Mars
Population (2015 rough)	probably below ten thousand
Political Influence	Minor
Allies	The Trekkies
Major Achievements	Hard-tech spaceplane (Skylon), hard-tech sub-orbital plane
Stereotype	Nostalgic for 1950s Britain

Created by Ace Dreamer.

Dan Dare.

Spacefleet is a Fenspace faction which is almost totally British in origin, though it does not reject people from other countries or cultures. Their aim is for humanity to get well-established across the Solar System, and then move onwards towards the stars, as friendly explorers, if possible righting-wrongs, and only resorting to violence if forced to; lethal violence being very much a last resort.

Founding

In 2008 the BIS and Reaction Engines both got so annoyed by the lack of progress in the UK that they moved to Mars. They establish Spacefleet HQ next to Guestton, named after the "Dan Dare" UK space organisation, and "Hubert Guest", first man (in Dan Dare) to land on Mars. Quite a lot of British Fen at least want to visit, and some moved there.

After some careful advertising many families of redundant British shipyard, and aerospace, workers moved to Guestton, and while some work locally, some seek employment at Utopia Planitia. Infrastructure and light industry quickly arrived, and by mid 2010 it is a place most people would be willing to live. Ex-British Steel workers and miners were also welcome. Schools and a college were quickly established, as was the (free) Martian Health Service (MHS).

When asked, one new Martian said, "It was either here or Australia, and Mars doesn't have *bleep* stupid immigration rules", as she patted her wife, who appeared to be a dog-girl. Rumours of a "biomod a bureaucrat on sight" policy are vigorously denied.

Note that the BIS announced that they were now the "British Interstellar Society" in Spring 2008. "Interplanetary" was solved, the next target was the stars.

Origins

They are referred to as "Eagles" because the first "Dan Dare" story was published in Issue #1 of the Eagle comic, in 1950. This is also why some believe they are nostalgic for the 1950s, though "Dan Dare" was set in the 1990s. Spacefleet really, really, hope that no one ever biomods themselves into The Mekon in the hope of becoming a super-scientist ruler.

Society

Spacefleet share a considerable number of ideals with the Trekkies, and while you could describe both of them as techno-utopians it is arguable that they are less violent than the Trekkies (they only use non-lethal weapons, e.g. paralysis rays). They are really not fans of the Warsies, accusing them of being techno-dystopians, and fans of "grunge tech".

Food shortages were a major plot point in "Dan Dare", and Spacefleet if nothing else aims to ensure they both have a food surplus, and have rotating stores ready for food shortages. They emphasise the importance of human effort, and heroism, and while they don't distrust AIs the infrastructure of their society runs on expert systems and human hard work. As far as media is concerned, they are far more likely to use radio ('wireless') than television.

Technology

One of the founding forces behind Spacefleet is Reaction Engines, who grew out of the failed HOTOL project. By 2008 they had all the technology and most of the engineering finished for the replacement, Skylon, and were just seeking further funding. This used some clever helium pre-cooling of the air entering the engines, allowing a round-trip to orbit with 15tns payload.

While they constructed a mock-up using handwavium, with almost identical functioning properties to the proposed hard-tech, the UK and EU bureaucrats weren't convinced, and wanted "further study". Possible pressure from the USA was one explanation.

Once on Mars handwavium-assisted production processes allowed them to finish the hard-tech version of the spaceplane, rapidly followed by its sub-orbital brother. They are waiting for reactions to things manufactured in Fenspace to become more reasonable, when they anticipate selling a large number of pure hard-tech planes capable of round trips from the ground to Earth orbit, purely on internal fuel, with no booster rockets. Followed by sales of a hyper-sonic passenger plane capable of Brussels-Sydney in 4.6hrs.

There is at least one Skylon prototype which has been waved so its oxy-hydrogen engine acts as a speed drive. This is one of the fastest vehicles in its size class in Fenspace, as it is basically two hyper-sonic rocket engines on a fuel tank moving around a 15tn payload.

Bad Eggs

No society is perfect, and sometimes people turn bad, maybe from some sort of pressure, when previously they've just about got by. The Eagles can refer to these peoples as 'bad eggs', and they can be the British equivalent of the Turnerites. They may have come to Mars because "foreigners were taking their jobs", or "English was becoming a minority language", or there were "too many non-white faces around". Those who admit that they may need help, get help, those who claim everyone else needs to change, but who otherwise are judged to be sane, are politely shown the door. The same applies to otherwise sane people who prove repeatedly too fond of anti-social violence.

The attitude to bureaucrats is a bit more ambiguous. Quite a few people believe that it was bureaucracy that drove them off Earth, but almost all will acknowledge that you need some sorts of management. Professional bureaucrats, who seem to enjoy manipulating the rules to upset others, and who don't have a wider moral and ethical stance of duty, are what really upset. "You're being bureaucratic" has become close to a deadly insult. The main thing is, bureaucrats are required to be accountable, and the way they carry out their jobs 'fit for purpose'.

Incidentally, the old-fashioned slang 'bad eggs' started as a sort of joke, but, it turned out to stick.