Personal Journal - Iron, 30 DEC 2093, 0504HRS

Three days and we're free.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein penned that one over a century ago. But then Heinlein was also something of a fruitcake who Mary Sue'd himself into some pretty weird shit. I think I need to recruit a writer to handle the rest of these journals. Good title though, I'll give him that, even if it wasn't his preference.

Heinlein posited a settlement of a few million people, mostly convicts, feeding Earth by 2075. He had them declaring rebellion against the Earth government and fighting a vicious war for their independence. Makes for a good story, I'll give him that too.

Well, we're twenty years behind his schedule and all we've got to show for it is a single tiny research outpost with a skeleton crew. No cities under the surface, no factory farms, no electromagnetic transfer cannons, and no open rebellion against the government. Well, actually, as to that last one...

It is time to disassociate myself with the powers that be. I may not be able to fight a war with them, but I am able to go beyond their grasp. They will call me a criminal first; only later when they realize what I've done will they change that label to traitor.

As Commander of the next crew rotation out to LUNRESOP-3, I have contrived to secure control over crew selection for the mission. I have retained those few who see things as I do, and replaced the remainder with trustworthy individuals. They may not be as skilled as I would like, but they will have to do. For their part, they will have to do as well: reconciliation or return will be impossible once we begin.

We launch in less than a week. Lunar arrival is scheduled for 03 JAN, 0100 UST. As soon as we land, we will disable LUNRESOP-3's communications systems and sever all contact with Earth. From that point on, there is no turning back. I estimate we will have 24 Earth hours - 6 lunar sols - before any investigation or response ship could get close enough to find out what we're doing. We must complete our task within that window, or die trying.

We have 24 hours to build a craft capable of taking us to Mars.

It may sound like the impossible ravings of a madman, but I believe it can be done. We will strip LUNRESOP-3 of everything of worth, and destroy it in the process. We need power. We need life support. We need propulsion. And then we need to leave. We need to put as much distance between ourselves and the Earth as possible. Our only defense is to be so inconveniently out-of-reach that retaliation is simply not worth the expense of getting to us.

There are rocks adrift in the empty void. Even the occasional derelict satellite that long ago shut down. We dare not halt our craft to salvage these - the journey is too long and we may not even have the capability to do so - but we might be able to construct smaller secondary craft to recover what they may before returning to the primary. In this way we can outfit our craft as we travel.

Three days. Three days of oppression under the Earth regime, and then our Martian Transmigration begins.

I wonder if my crew will be up to the task.

This a real-time cooperative scenario event thing we'll be running in Space Engineers after manshoots has concluded on Saturday. If people are still interested in manshootsing, this'll get delayed until they're done.

The scenario will be up and running for as long as it takes us to succeed or die trying. We'll 24 hours from start to leaving the Moon during which we will have to scavenge and build as much as we can, and bring along enough supplies to build anything else we need as we fly. The rest of the scenario will be us drifting to Mars, assembling whatever we need from what we brought or can scavenge along the way.

The real-time nature of this means that you folks not in 'Merica-centric times will still have plenty of opportunity to participate! I don't know how long the flight will take. My brief limited test saw me run out of oxygen after a few hours of flying. I suspect it won't be a days-long flight, but I also don't want to spoil it by looking it up on the SE forums or via an editing tool. If you already know the distance in the engine, please keep that to yourself and don't spoil it for anyone else.