r/Spaceexploration

Hi guys,

I found this series of amazing CG series "SAVAGES" on Youtube by a Chinese person called FR0S7. It depicts near future orbital space combat, seemingly inspired by "Children of a Dead Earth" but taken to a new level of details and realism.

The following text is a background description provided by the author FR0S7:

In the next 150-200 years, around the year 2200, significant advancements in human theoretical knowledge, materials science, and engineering practices will have been achieved. Space industries and transportation systems will have been largely established and entered an expansion phase.

Orbital insertion technology will have seen major breakthroughs, with reusable rockets and Two-Stage-To-Orbit (TSTO) systems becoming the primary methods, both of which will have matured over several decades to a century of development. The materials needed for a space elevator on Earth will remain out of reach, and while the material requirements for a space tether are relatively lower, it will still be difficult to manufacture, stuck perpetually in the "fifty years away" phase (the tether's materials unable to support the required strength, and rigid materials failing to meet standards).

Solid-core nuclear thermal engines and centrifugal liquid-core nuclear thermal engines will be widely adopted and reach a certain level of technological maturity. Gaseous core nuclear engines will still be in experimental stages and not yet suitable for practical use. Significant progress will have been made in the engineering problems of vector thrust design, circuit integration, carbon buildup in some propellants, cooling, and surface pressure. Electric propulsion systems will have seen improvements in lifespan, exhaust velocity, and thrust performance.

Colonization satellite technology: Thanks to the widespread application of nuclear thermal rocket technology and advancements in nuclear power and fusion technology, human habitats and resource points will be widely distributed. The increase in transportation capacity and industrial capability will reduce the difficulty of building colonies on asteroids and various airless celestial bodies. Meanwhile, in regions with stable orbits, large residential space stations and colonies will emerge, expanding around various space industry bases.

Thanks to advancements in computational capabilities, traditional point-defense systems will be able to effectively intercept most missiles traveling at contemporary speeds. New-generation equipment will be able to integrate ship attitude, acceleration and displacement caused by recoil, gravitational and orbital data on projectile trajectories, target speed, and other information into fire control systems for guidance.

Railgun and coilgun technology will have advanced, increasing the limit on usage, reducing capacitor system size, and significantly improving efficiency. Issues like rail erosion, skin effect, and armature wear will have been mitigated to some extent, but power supply and cooling demands will still be considerable. Chemical energy guns will benefit from advancements in materials science and propellant technology, achieving significantly higher muzzle velocities, and will continue to be widely used due to their relatively low power demands, compact size, and cost advantages.

Laser weapon power and beam quality will have greatly improved. High-power continuous/pulsed lasers will be used on warships and will be valuable for intercepting payloads or small ships. However, they will struggle to damage warships with ablative armor and will face significant power supply and cooling challenges, making them unsuitable as the primary offensive weapons in ship-to-ship combat. Particle beams and free-electron lasers, due to their longer acceleration tracks, greater power demands, and system mass, will not yet be widely used in military applications.

Thanks to upgrades in miniaturized nuclear thermal engines, guidance technology, and computational capabilities, missiles in the space age will be powerful enough to become a primary weapon. Kinetic Kill Vehicles (KKVs) and nuclear missiles will be the main forms of missiles in this era. Given the presence of mature laser systems, redundant guidance heads, inter-missile links, and guidance drones will be widely used. Long-range missile interception methods will primarily involve lasers, KKVs, and nuclear interceptor missiles. Drones, in essence, will also be a form of missile, merely replacing the warhead with guns or other equipment, firing at a distance to allow launched munitions to penetrate defenses and damage enemy ships.

Low-efficiency controlled nuclear fusion (e.g., magnetic confinement, considering thermal efficiency, with a Q value greater than 10 but less than 100) will be in the early stages of use. However, due to its massive size, enormous cooling requirements, inherent losses, costs, and transmission losses, it will only be used in large populated areas, while fusion propulsion will still be in the experimental stage.

From the perspective of three factors:
-Important resource types and reserves (metals, water, energy, rare earths)

-Production cost and logistical efficiency (output × transportation capacity / cost × time)

-A mature local market scale (permanent population base × purchasing power)

It can be seen that the gas giant systems and the Earth sphere (Earth, Moon and Mars) will be the main powers in the solar system. In other regions, self-sufficiency will be almost impossible, and no extraterrestrial power will be able to compete with the Earth sphere. Nearly all non-self-sufficient space powers will be extensions of Earth or gas giant politics, with space conflicts primarily being conflicts between Earth and the gas giant systems, or proxy wars between the two.

And so, the story "Savage" begins.

The following is a text version of Ep.1 I compiled, in case you missed something.

Ep.1 - Vesta-Mars transfer orbit
The time is year 2206, on the Vesta-Mars Transfer Orbit, was Vesta-Mars Transfer Special Ship VesMa-24A.

Onboard VesMa-24A, a few politicians of various ethnicities stared at a screen, it was a virtual meeting, the Asteroid Joint Meeting, over the local network of VesMa-24A.

"I've said many times, as long as spaceships are still flying with nuclear fission power, the Psyche will always be a strategic point of interst."

"The Ceres Group, they have already garrisoned on there, how can you guys still be shooting the breeze here? Could you just perform some goddamn action!"

"Just shut the fuck up, listen, we always talk about how proxy wars should not affect foreign policies on the surface. I get it. But if we are really gonna fight till death under the current system of Space Laws, how will the international community recieve this? Are we just gonna simply leave the Vesta Group out of the picture? If everybody gets screwed, we are all fucked!"

Meanwhile, somewhere near the Vesta-Mars transfer orbit. A fleet of unmanned spacecrafts are adjusting their attitudes, with the pops of RCS sounding now and then. On these spacecraft wrote, "Kinetic Interception Missile". It drifted quietly towards the orbit of VesMa-24A.

As the captain of the VesMa-24A sat lazily in the chairs of the bridge, the computer automatically plotted a red trajectory, that may intercept with VesMa-24A's orbit, labelled "Uknown object".

Meanwhile, the Kinetic Interception Projectile lighted its main engines and soon accelerated fiercely.

In the bridge, the captain of the VesMa-24A stood up to a blaring red screen, "Warning: collision course with unkown object". With some hesitation, he pushed the thrust level to the max.

The six main engines of VesMa-24A roared to life, and pushed its body and the 2 spining living quarters to accelerate as much as it could.

The participants of the Asteroid Joint Meeting was confused as the whole status screen of the spacecraft they're on just turned bright red.

But it was all too late. The Kinetic Interception Missiles jettisoned their main fuel tanks and engines. The RCS, now with much less load to propel, powerfully adjusted the Missiles onto a precise collision course with VesMa-24A that the latter could not escape from.

The captain watched in anxiety as the unkown object gradually followed the red predicted trajectory, closer and closer to the predicted point of collision.

In the complete silence of the vacuum of space, VesMa-24A was shattered into pieces.

Meanwhile, in Terminal T4 of Deimos Spaceport, Martian system.

The orbital traffic controller (OTC) sit confused as his screen full of spacecraft info had one red mark, "VM-24A: Offline".

"VesMa-24A, this is Deimos. Your telemetry is abnormal, report your situation."

"VesMa-24A, this is Deimos."

"VesMa-24A, this is Deimos."

"VesMa-24A, this is..."

A voice interrupted him.

"VesMa-24A's situation has been taken over by Earth, continue other telemetry work."

"What is happening?" the OTC whispered.

"I don't know," the voice replied, "But the Earth guys, after the observed this, immediately notified us and took over the situation. The command is to standby. What a suprise, the Earth is even faster than us, there must something real wrong. Anyway, don't ask too many questions."

[End of Ep.1]

Here is Ep.2's text version I compiled from the video:

Ep.2 - A flight to Space Island

Some time later.

The cabin is dim. An old man holds a tablet in hand, on the tablet displayed a debris field observed by Space Telescope Marinoah, marked "Restricted Document" on the bottom. It is what remains of VerMa-24A, destroyed just as it was about to perform the injection burn into a Martian orbit.

The door opens, and a young man stood at the door, saluting the old man.

"Don't be so nervous, young man. Have a seat."

The young man nervously sat down, both palms on his knees, "We didn't expect it to happen at the moment of the Asteroid Co-chairs Meeting this time. A bit of problems occured in the Civil Aviation Authority, but it's under control now, no major consequences."

"How much intel we got so far?"

"At least 3 missiles. Launched from a Ceres orbit. Related signals have been found on the monitor log, but it was ignored as false alarm."

The old men put down the tablet and did not buy this explanation, "False alarm? False alarm rates are so low. There is nobody who thought something's off? Young man, the CBI didn't just send you here to sit around. You must investigate through what happened behind those scenes."

"Yes sir."

"Ceres...is it? Not the first they they had separatist thoughts, backed by the Gas Giant Systems. Everyone knows an full fledge war is inevitable but...they can't even wait for this long?"

The young man picked up his tablet, "Public opinion analsys showed that since hte last Co-chair Meeting, which was more than a decade ago, Cere's separatist tendencies have been on the rist. The internal radicals kept expanding their sphere of influence."

The conversation on a sleek spacecraft marked "United Earth", with a beautiful white coating and blue accent color. In the background can be seen planet Earth and the moon in the distance.

The old voice commented, "Basically it can be said that the radicals are behind the scenes."

The young man answered, with the marking "SES-14 Passenger Spaceship" on the window behind him, "Yes, this can be confirmed. And from a rational point of view, Ceres would definitely want Titan to intervene to distract us. But the problem is, till now, we still have no reports or movements on what Titan is up to. Something is off here."

"So I heard. Because of this, the old guys back home said that there must be something shady, and hesistated to use force. Hmpf. They enjoyed too much peace. In any case, the our principle is that no one can change the strategic situations in the Belt." the old man paused and asked, "What is going on on Vesta?"

"The back-up leadership just got into power. They're the self-sustainists. Still trying to stablize the unrests from the other factions. In terms of the operational guideline, not any real strategic issue here. But for the self-sustainists, we should keep an eye on him and work on some contigency plans."

"Fine. The Emergency Meeting will give a decision. The interests of Earth must be above all, period. As for Titan, whatever they want, that's their business, the Earth doesn't care. As for Vesta, that is foreign affairs, just work according to your plan for this and contact the gentlemen stationed there. Deal with it flexibly, within principles."

The young man left his seat and closed the door behind him.

"From a rational point of view, huh?" the old man whispered.

The front RCS of suddenly lit up, and the SES-14 rotated slowly, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing at the 5th Colony City Space Port in about 30 minutes, please be seated and fasten your seatbelt. Please ensure your carry-on items are securely stored. Thank you for your cooperation.

Beneath the SES-14 is a giant rotating cylinder, probably many kilometers tall, inside of it was sparkles of light resembling night streets. On the body of the cylinder painted "Island 5" in giant yellow text. The SES-14 seems so tiny in comarison as it floated slowly towards it.

To both ends of the cylinder is a giant ring that stays stationary, to which the SES-14 slowly approaches, and into a hole, where a robotic arm extends towards the body of SES-14. Back in the distance are many such giant cylinders.

[End of Ep.2]