The WLNS Shelvocke

The Shelvocke was a WLN drive-ship commissioned in Year +27.

DESIGN

The Shelvocke used a revolutionary design involving two Baeder Drives designed to work in tandem. This allowed the ship to jump more often with less fuel and expense. Designed by Krupp-Sarkozy and constructed on Luna's surface, it was hoped that the Shelvocke would make faster-than-light travel less expensive and usher in an era of 'mass-transit' for spacecraft.

FLAWS

Unfortunately, design flaws only became apparent after the craft was complete and the engines underwent full field-testing. The engines were prone to sudden, inexplicable bursts of acceleration as well as power surges through the ship's electronics suites related to the twin engines, requiring full diagnostic scans as well as hardware replacements. Investigations kept the Shelvocke from being brought into commercial service until +36, a nine year delay that cost investors hundreds of billions of credits.

SERVICE

In service, the Shelvocke was used for asteroid surveying, both for charting trajectories as well as prospecting for mineral harvesting. These missions were used to further demonstrate the ship's effectiveness. They weren't the real mission for the ship's design - the vessel was meant for deep-space surveying and scouting. After six years, it was determined that whatever flaws and glitches that had affected the Shelvocke's construction were fixed and the ship was returned to Luna for maintenance and preparations for its real mission--exploration of three planets orbiting the star Kepler-9114.

This mission wasn't with the intent of colonization. The three worlds orbiting Kepler-9114 were not capable of supporting Earth-type life. Instead, spectral analysis suggested the three planets had high concentrations of rare-earth metals and radioactives.

DISAPPEARANCE

The Shelvocke and its crew of 1,700 left the solar system in +44 with an expected arrival at Kepler-9114 in +47. The surveying and initial mining sampling was expected to take 1-2 years with the Shelvocke's return to Earth expected in +52.

Unfortunately, the Shelvocke has not returned and no word has been heard since the ship passed by the Pluto Observatory on its way out of the system. There is private and public debate over the Shelvocke's disappearance, ranging from whether the engines malfunctioned to crew error to whether the ship is merely overdue, having had success with its mining mission. As with all such mysterious events, numerous conspiracy theories have emerged, few of which hold much water.

To this point, the WLN has not openly shown any interest in sending a rescue mission to investigate, nor have corporations been willing to risk funding a Baeder-Drive trip to Kepler-9114, despite large their large initial investments.