Archive / Ships

Ark Royal

Type: Ship — Colony Ark Dimensions: 6.5 miles long, just over 1 mile wide Built by: LMT Corporation (Earth) — "Lion, Mass-Tech", commissioned/led by Vee Captain (at launch): Patrick McHenery Departed Earth: 2037 (Earth calendar) Distance traveled (Earth to Maf): 75,000 light years Status: Canon (fully detailed via "A Brief History of the Original Colonists — Part One") Source: Medium

Maf's actual planetary diameter: ~56,000 miles (corrected from the source article's "~100,000 miles" estimate); surface gravity: 1.0987 g (matching the article's "1.1–1.2 gees" estimate).

Overview

The Ark Royal was a massive ark-type vessel built in Earth orbit over more than 10 years, at an estimated cost ranging from several hundred billion to over $3 trillion. Constructed to save a portion of humanity ahead of an anticipated, likely-nuclear World War Three on Earth, preserving human life, customs, culture, and history.

✅ See Ascendant-Class Ship for the modern multi-role starship class developed from the Ark Royal's salvaged plans, built by Danae Spacecraft (an LMT Corporation portfolio company).

The Fleet

The Ark Royal was fed by 15 football-shaped "shuttle" ships, each standing hundreds of feet tall, launched from strategically chosen sites around the globe: South Africa, western Egypt, near London, two in Canada, three in the USA, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, India, Japan, Spain, and the "Philadelphia" (208 miles southeast of Moscow). Each shuttle carried 20,000 people, for a full Ark Royal capacity of 300,000 refugees — consistent with the "300,000 refugees" figure already established elsewhere in this archive.

Passenger Selection

187,000 confirmed passengers: 70% randomly selected via a worldwide "Great Lottery" (a historical, real-world event — ✅ confirmed by the creator to bear no connection to the in-game Helvatica Luminary lottery, despite the shared nickname), and 30% deliberately chosen engineers, scientists, artists, and leaders.

The Launch Crisis

As launch approached, huge unselected crowds gathered at each shuttle site hoping for a last-minute chance to board, despite the lottery having closed months earlier. Fighting broke out 11 days before launch; riots at all 15 sites 5 days before. At the Philadelphia site specifically, the crowd grew to over a million people; food, sanitation, and crowd control collapsed, and people began dying. Vee ordered an early launch ("Launch in 24 hours") before all ships reached capacity, leaving many lottery winners behind.

At launch, the crowd at the Philadelphia site broke through military/police cordons; the resulting stampede and fighting killed thousands. The launching engines themselves killed another 9,000 people caught too close at that site.

The Russian Attack

The Kremlin, skeptical of the project from the start, ordered all 15 shuttles destroyed, then the Ark Royal itself, calculating that this would likely trigger World War Three but proceeding regardless. Six ballistic missiles were launched at the Ark Royal; U.S. Space Force destroyed three, the British one more, and the remaining two missed, detonating harmlessly in empty space. Three Russian "battle shuttles" (one turned back with a malfunction) closed to 300 miles of the Philadelphia and launched 12 conventional missiles total (4 each). American and British interceptors destroyed 7; one lost thrust and fell back to Earth; the remaining 4 (2 at Philadelphia, 2 at the Ark Royal) continued. Two struck the Philadelphia, destroying it and killing all 20,000 aboard. Two struck the accelerating Ark Royal — which reported "No damage" via Captain Patrick McHenery to Houston, and successfully escaped Earth orbit.

Appearances

The Journey (Part Two)

After escaping Earth, the Ark Royal swung past the Moon using a gravitational slingshot. Days later, the crew detected nuclear detonations on Earth — the first confirmed strike hit Berlin, with "several more" following. Second-in-command Commander Thomas Bretson concluded no one could plausibly have survived, though Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Rebecca Carmichael held out hope ("Someone had to"). The ship's crew — including Captain Patrick McHenery, ship's doctor Dr. Roberta Huntington, and Propulsion Officer Commander Naerus — chose to focus forward rather than dwell on Earth's fate.

The first baby born aboard the Ark Royal was Perold Jones, son of Anita and Eric Jones, born within days of the nuclear strikes — treated by the crew as a profound moment of hope. A dozen more babies (mostly premature) followed within the first ten days alone.

33 months into the voyage, sensors detected a candidate planet. The article's initial estimate of "~100,000 miles diameter" was inaccurate — ✅ Maf's actual diameter is approximately 56,000 miles, per creator confirmation. The gravity figure, however, holds: 1.0987 g — matching the article's "1.1–1.2 gees" estimate closely enough that the ambiguity in the original figure was reasonable. The size/gravity relationship no longer reads as a flagged physics anomaly at the corrected diameter, though 56,000 miles is still a very large planet (over 6x Earth's diameter). The crew (Science Officer Lt. Commander Thui Ng) named the planet "New Hope."

Approaching within 11 million miles, the crew discovered New Hope was already inhabited — visible city lights on the planet's dark side, and primitive (telegraph-level) radio emissions detected. Hydrosphere coverage was measured at 78.5%, average surface temperature ~20.55°C (69°F) — squarely within habitable range.

The Crash Landing

While decelerating for orbital insertion, Propulsion Officer Lt. Thomas "Tomtom" Davis first reported critically limited thrust from the maneuvering drives — the crew discovered the ship had sustained damage from the earlier Russian missile strikes (drives reduced to ~10% power, multiple systems failing) making orbital insertion impossible. Commander Naerus devised a last-resort plan: firing the ship's retro rockets and the rockets of all shuttles still docked to the hull simultaneously to slow the descent enough to survive atmospheric entry — an extremely dangerous maneuver (estimated ~1,000 killed, up to 5,000 injured) given the risk of shuttle fuel detonating and destroying the entire ship if the burn timing was off. The maneuver succeeded. The ship The ship struck the ocean roughly 208 miles from the nearest landfall (✅ this figure has been revised twice: the source article originally said "200 miles," a prior pass corrected it to "280 miles" to match the official site, and it has now been set to 208 miles as final canon — note this matches the distance of the Philadelphia launch site from Moscow, an interesting numeric echo, not confirmed as significant), then sank roughly two miles to the ocean floor, breaking in two on impact (engine section separating from the rest) — a further "couple thousand" lives estimated lost in this final impact.

The Landing (Part Three)

The Ark Royal rested on the ocean floor for 7 months while crew and passengers stripped the ship (bulkheads, deck panels, cabling) to build a fleet of deep-sea submersibles. Exact crash casualties confirmed: 3,051 killed, 17,236 injured (superseding earlier rough estimates).

313 submersibles ferried the full complement to shore in waves 15 minutes apart, each requiring 6 hours per one-way trip across the 208-mile distance; the full evacuation took ~160 hours and an estimated 8,380 total trips. The first submersible landed just before midnight on June 22, 1893 — the first confirmed calendar date in Maf's local dating system (this is Maf's own calendar as learned from contact with locals, not Earth's calendar — consistent with Maf's confirmed separate internal year numbering; see Dating Systems).

First Contact

The Original Colonists discovered Maf was already inhabited by native peoples running notably taller than Earth-average: natives stood 6–7 feet tall on average, with some up to 8 feet 4 inches. The Colonists concocted a cover story — refugees from a totalitarian government "in the far east," their fleet sunk by a typhoon, from a homeland where people range 5'2"–6'6" — to explain their arrival and comparatively short stature, concealing their true off-world origin. The locals, while skeptical, accepted the story rather than challenge it.

✅ "New Hope" vs. "Maf" naming resolved: the article confirms "Maf" is the planet's native name, used by the indigenous population themselves — the Colonists' own working name "New Hope" was superseded once they made contact with locals who already called their world "Maf."

The Colonists first landed in territory belonging to the nation of Peplle (pronounced "Pep-lay") — already independently documented in this archive via the Planetary Governments roster and the MACOFS Treaty. See Peplle for the full first-contact account and founding of Jonesboro.

Gold, Technology & the Submarine Escape

The Ark Royal carried substantial gold reserves and a cache of advanced technology, some too specialized even for the Colonists themselves to fully use. Rather than a single dramatic landing, survivors escaped the submerged ship gradually over several years — engineers built airlock-accessed submarines from salvaged ship components, ferrying passengers ashore a little at a time. The full story — including the tense first submarine dive, the "First Killing," and the Jones family's early political consolidation — is told in The First Years Chronicle of the Landings.

Open Questions

  • ✅ RESOLVED — casualty figures confirmed correct: 3,051 killed, 17,236 injured. The "3000/5000" figures from "Quest Hooks for Maf" were the imprecise ones; this page's detailed figures are canon.
  • ✅ RESOLVED — departure year: 2037. The Ark Royal left Earth in 2037 (Earth calendar) — supersedes the vaguer "early 21st century" framing and the "~2050" figure from "Quest Hooks for Maf."
  • ✅ RESOLVED — distance from Earth to Maf: ~75,000 light years. Newly documented figure (not previously specified elsewhere), set as current canon — the creator has noted this may be revised again in the future. A separate ChatGPT conversation ("Kila Vas Financial Growth") stated "32,000 light years" — that figure is superseded, not current canon.
  • ✅ RESOLVED — passenger count: 187,000 is the accurate figure. Multiple ChatGPT export conversations round this to "~200,000" — per the creator, 200,000 is a rough estimate; 187,000 (from "Original Colonists Part One") is the more specific and accurate count.
  • ✅ RESOLVED — landing distance remains 208 miles. A separate ChatGPT conversation ("Kila Vas Financial Growth") restates the older "280 miles" figure — that figure is superseded; 208 miles (set after prior back-and-forth) remains final canon.
  • ✅ Resolved by Part Three: exact casualty figures, landing date, and "New Hope" vs. "Maf" naming — see above.
  • Pre-existing native civilization — men roughly 5.9-7+ ft, women roughly 5.6-6.7 ft. Strong candidate connection to the already-documented Kaolsan/Kaolsani peoples and the United Kaolsan Emirates, though not confirmed — worth checking whether Kaolsani are described as unusually tall anywhere else.
  • Fate of Anita and Eric Jones (Perold Jones's parents) after the crash not detailed
  • ✅ RESOLVED (approximately): the Colonists' "far east refugee" cover story was blown sometime in the 1990s, per creator confirmation. Exact date not yet known — expected to surface in additional source material.