ASC Fort Worth
| File:Colossal-Class Miner.png | |
| Service | |
|---|---|
| Operator | Allied States (Space Authority) |
| Manufacturer | Bennett Industries |
| Classification | Planet Mining Vessel |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Cause | Fell to Neptune's atmosphere |
| Characteristics | |
| Length | 900 m |
| Width | 300 m |
| Power plant | Starship Class C Fusion Generator |
| Propulsion | 4 Ion Engines |
| Operating Crew | 500 |
| Maximum Crew Capacity | 2000 |
| Armament | 4 Anti-Asteroid Turrents |
| Ship of the EcruFox Corporation | |
The ASC Fort Worth (Allied States Civilian Craft: Fort Worth) was named after Fort Worth, Texas, Allied States. It was a Colossal-Class Miner mining vessel and the EcruFox Corporation's mining fleet's flagship. The Fort Worth was commissioned on the 16th of February 2027, and manufactured by Bennett Industries. The ship went missing on Friday the 13th, September 2030 while on a mining mission on Pluto, with Captain Benjamin Isaacs as its captain. In October of the same year, the Fort Worth was found again, and after the Asuncion Spaceplex Massacre, fell to Neptune's atmosphere, being instantly destroyed.
Ship Layout
Main Article: Colossal-Class Miner
All Colossal-Class Miners look almost identically the same:
Bridge
The control room is where the Fort Worth is navigated and monitored. It consists of several sections: the Atrium, which is the bridge of the Fort Worth; the Captain's Room, which is Captain Isaacs' personal observation area and sleeping quarters; Administration Deck, where the ship's section leaders work; and Communications/External Access, where the Comm Array is located. The various sections are serviced by elevators accessed from the Atrium. Escape Pods are located outside the Captain's Room. The Captain's Room itself is a restricted area and only officers holding the rank of CO Class 5 (as per Allied States Space Authority regulations) are allowed to enter. The bridge controls are all holographic. Various stations with holographic displays are present throughout the Bridge.
Crew Deck
The residential area of the Fort Worth. It is a large deck, housing numerous sleeper bunks, a mess hall, a Zero-Gravity basketball court and several small lounges containing chairs and sofas placed around a large holographic display for means of entertainment. The Executive Lounge and Executive Quarters (leaders of the ship's homes) are located here, as is the Executive Shuttle. The Crew Deck consists of five blocks, Block A, -B, -C, -D, and Block E.
Engineering Deck
The section of the Fort Worth where various engineers work at maintaining the ship. This area is responsible for ensuring the correct function of the ship's engines, gravity centrifuge, and the navigation rockets, as well as a continual lifting capacity of 550 trillion kilograms. Only CO Class 5 Engineers are allowed entry. Unlike other ship areas such as the Bridge and Medical Ward, the Engineering Deck is very dark and industrial, often with pipes, conduits and exposed circuitry on the walls. It is divided into 3 primary areas:
- Gravity Centrifuge Access: A large chamber that holds the Gravity Centrifuge, a machine that holds the ship in high orbit over a planet.
- Fuel Storage: A large, very dark open area. It is separated into 2 sections by a mini-tram. This area feeds fuel into the engines. The area is rather high above the floor and is dominated by a large rotating ring of huge fuel cells and the main fuel line, and is by far the darkest area of the deck.
- Engine Room: A large room that displays the Fort Worth's immense engines on the ceiling, several hundred feet in diameter.
Flight Deck
Location of the main hangars where shuttles would enter and leave the Fort Worth. Contains a fully equipped departure/arrival lounge and has access to the cargo bay, allowing materials to be loaded into shuttles for transport. The Executive Shuttle Docking Bay connects to this, as well as the Cargo Bay. The Fort Worth has multiple docking bays situated all over the ship for shuttles of various sizes, ranging from the massive main hangar bay to smaller mining shuttle bays such as Docking Bay 17.
Hydroponics Deck
The Fort Worth's internal farm which produces the food needed to feed the many workers aboard the ship as well as providing a sustainable production of oxygen. It is typically maintained by horticulturists, which monitors the production levels of the food. A massive area, it spans the entire top portion of the Fort Worth's two cargo towers and is divided into 2 primary sections: the multi-level Vegetation Growth Chambers and the centrally located cylindrical Food Storage chamber. Directly before food storage is the air quality control and ventilation system, the Station features a large Hologram screen and controls that indicate air production, ventilation, and filtration systems.
Maintenance Deck
The Maintenance Deck is where maintenance is performed on shuttles and maintenance shuttles are docked. These hangers can be manually opened in the event of their Control Rooms sustaining damage.
Medical Ward
The Medical Ward of the Fort Worth contains various facilities including: Zero-Gravity Therapy, an Intensive Care Unit, Imaging and Diagnostics, Biolab, Cryo-Lab, Chemical Lab, Morgue and also various research areas and offices of the scientists aboard the ship. The deck is serviced by two trams: one at the main entrance, and one at the Cryo Storage entrance. The Medical Deck is divided into three areas: Emergency Ward, Imaging and Diagnostics and the Research Wing. The Attending Physician's office is located in the Research Wing's ground floor, while the ICU Head's is located in the Emergency Ward. The medical deck is one of the brightest areas on the ship with virtually all lighting in the medical areas being a vivid white.
Mining Deck
The heart of the Fort Worth, this is where asteroids and planet fragments are broken apart and melted for valuable minerals. A 4-level deck, it is by far the largest deck on the Fort Worth. Asteroids are brought in via an entrance on the third level and held in place by gravity tethers.
Ore Storage Deck
Directly below the Hydroponics Deck, this deck is where valuable ore extracted from operations on the Mining Deck was stored in large containment cylinders. The deck is basically a gigantic room in zero gravity.
Subsections and Systems
- Asteroid Defense System: A large fixed Array of Mass Drivers used on board many Colossal-Class Miners. Its primary goal is to track and destroy asteroids automatically, preventing damaging collisions with the ship. However, in the event that a part of the ADS goes offline, a crew member will have to manually control an offline ADS Cannon.
- Computer Core: The Computer Core is the central processing area for the Fort Worth's databanks. It allows remote locking and unlocking of various areas, remote disengaging of the ship's engines and access to the ship's library.
- Decontaminations Chambers: These chambers can be found throughout the ship protecting important areas such as the Gravity Centrifuge on the Engineering Deck. Their purpose is to cleanse workers of any bacteria and small debris that could contaminate these areas.
- Emergency Shuttles: Due to the Fort Worth's task as a mining ship and its frequent danger, the ship is equipped with a large compliment of escape shuttles which could be used to evacuate the ship in an emergency. The escape shuttles count numbers at 50, with a capacity of 30 each in order to accommodate the ship's crew of 1,500. The Fort Worth also carries a small compliment of mining shuttles for transportation.
- Filtration Systems: These systems transport all of the ship's the waste to the Water Treatment Facility. They are made up of large, interconnected chambers and pipes which run under various decks, such as the Medical Ward and Hydroponics Deck. On the ceiling of these pipes are smaller pipes where new waste is dropped in and extraction fans used to remove the fumes making the air breathable. These pipes also contain elevated walkways with doors to allow access without the need to come in contact with the waste.
- Quarantine System: Important areas on the Fort Worth are equipped with sensors that detect contaminants. When one or more of these is detected, the area is locked down until the threat is removed.
- Tram System: Due to the Fort Worth's size, a tram system has been built into the ship, allowing fast and easy access to each of the ship's sections. However, the system is single rail, so a single damaged tram will prevent travel throughout the ship. The floor of the tram's subway can be traversed, however.
Security
The Security Services of the Starship Fort Worth (S.S.S.F.W., or jokingly, SS) was the Fort Worth's policing/security force, responsible for maintaining order and peace throughout the ship.
Ranks
- Chief of Security
- Sergeant
- Officer
- Cadet
September 2030 Incident
On Friday the 13th, September 2030, Luna Post reported losing all forms of communication with the Fort Worth, which was on mining duty at Pluto. The last known recorded transmission from the ship was between two crew-members talking over a personal intercom system. The last part of the conversation is as follows:
- Male: "Yeah, the Captain has got me doing the pipes again. Fucking unbelievable."
- Female: "Don't worry about it Henry, ha ha, you've always been good at doing the dirty things."
- Male: "Whatev- *ship alarms heard in the background* what the hell is going on now? I'll call you back."
This conversation was confirmed to have been between Henry Garcia and Isabelle Johnson, both in the Crew Deck at that time. Another ship, the ASM Eternity IV, was near Pluto at the time, and was sent to investigate in what status the Fort Worth was. The Eternity IV reported finding nothing, apart from the large chunk of Pluto's surface (which the Fort Worth pulled out and was supposed to bring back to Earth) drifting around.
Two weeks later, on 27 September 2030, a radio message was transmitted to Asuncion Spaceplex from the ASC Fort Worth. In the message, a seemingly whispering person said: "They-... they've made us crazy... they've made me crazy. Please, I don't know what I will do... help me..." The message was immediately forwarded to the Allied States Space Authority's Space Marine Command.
October 2030 Massacre
Main Article: Asuncion Spaceplex Massacre
On 7 October 2030, the ASM Eternity II picked up a distinct signal approximately 3,000 miles from the Asuncion Spaceplex, and went to investigate. There the Eternity II, half-filled with Marines at the time, found the ASC Fort Worth. This was immediately relayed to Luna Post and Asuncion Spaceplex. The Eternity II requested three space tugs to assist it in guiding the Fort Worth to the nearest human population - the Asuncion Spaceplex.
Half an hour after being discovered, the Fort Worth was docked at Asuncion. The Eternity II remained undocked and continued patrolling the area around the spaceplex. The security forces of the plex soon boarded the Fort Worth to investigate, accompanied by an Allied States liaison officer. Inside, several seemingly crazy people were found, which tried to attack the security forces. The people were immobilized and taken to holding cells, and some to the infirmary for treatment.
Some of these Fort Worth passengers succeeded in killing several security staff, including the liaison officer. The Fort Worth was quickly evacuated of all South American forces, and locked down until an organized retaliation could be organized. Meanwhile, the passengers in the infirmary have somehow managed to discreetly kill the staff and escape to the general population.
A quarter of an hour after the Fort Worth was boarded, twenty crazy people have already escaped into Asuncion and managed to kill or injure over 200 people. The spaceplex management informed the population to remain calm and continue with their daily tasks, and the situation was "being taken care of." The Fort Worth was again boarded.
Unknown at the time, the chemical gas which caused the mental instability of the crazy people started spreading throughout the plex, and infecting more and more of the population. This was only discovered three hours later, when almost a quarter of the population was already infected, dead, or dying. At this time, all entry crews on the Fort Worth also lay dead.
Twenty-four hours after the Fort Worth was boarded, the evacuation order was given. The South American Space Fleet, which was docked on the other side of the spaceplex was the first to leave and remain in orbit around Asuncion. The Eternity II had by this time returned to the Asuncion, and unloaded all its Marines with protective HAZMAT gear.
Seven hundred people made it off the station before the infection could spread. The rest, more than 250,000 people, were either killed by the now-thousands of infected people, or dying of injury. The Eternity II's Marine forces were also all killed, after making a daring last stand in one of the Asuncion's mess halls. The Eternity II's crew were ordered by the Allied States Space Authority's Space Marine Command to scuttle the ship, and escape via escape pod to one of the South American ships.
With the scuttling of the ship, a large portion of the Asuncion's docking bays were sheared off from the main part of the spaceplex, and fell to Neptune. The South American colony also at this time jettisoned what's left of the spaceplex from the main structure of the Novo Paraguay Space Colony. Within an hour, the plex has fallen to and disintegrated in Neptune. The death count at the end of the event (which lasted 27 hours) was estimated at 258,123 persons, most of South American decent.