The moon base had been completed a while ago and Kane had decided to name it Sanctuary. The ship building facilities were fully operational and just required materials. Kane had already built the most simplest of ships to send out into space that consisted of pretty much an engine to get them where they needed to go and sensor and mining equipment. Now came the part of designing warships. Cargo haulers had been phased out centuries ago with the Terran Space Empire's space compression technology, which allowed them to turn things into data and store it in a buffer like Kane's codex so there was no need for the slow ponderous and bulking ships. This left the traditional ships like one man fighters, and bombers all the way up until the super massive behemoth class.
Due to a shortage of materials Kane could only build a few ships. The class of ships were as follows; a fighter and bomber for one person then a long rang scout vessel for a team of people that could be docked on almost any ship, a battle cruiser then a destroyer which was slightly bigger and had more weapons and shields, a dreadnought which was very heavily armed and shielded which was mainly used to assault heavily defended areas or to defend strategic locations, a carrier for deploying massive amounts of flight wings of fighters and/or bombers and then the behemoth which was essentially everything in one and more.
Every ship carried two flight wings at least as well as a scout ship, and the bigger ships had more. The behemoth class ship was a colossal titan, a true monster of a ship in every sense of the word. It wasn't very nimble in combat but then it didn't really need to be. It was a completely self sufficient city with everything that should accompany it. It had docks to repair and manufacture ships from scratch when the need arose to replace ships that had been destroyed. A blistering amount of shields and weaponry that could withstand prolonged bombardment and an academy to train replacement personnel.
There was one in every vital sector that the Terran Space Empire had. There would have been more but the sheer amount of time and resources to produce even one was staggering not to mention the amount of people required to fully staff and crew one. They served as the command and control for the fleets of nearby sectors and naturally they were large enough to house an entire fleet docked there hence the lack of need to be mobile in combat. As soon as they were attacked the docked fleet would disembark to defend it and they were also fully capably of building and deploying drones at a moments notice.
Kane was in a quandary of what to build. He didn't know enough about this universe and potential players in it and so far the ships he had sent out had set back data of several systems but hadn't come in contact with an alien civilization yet. Which in a way was good and bad. Was Earth already in the eyes of a space empire with dreams of conquest of this technologically backwards planet or were they unknown and undiscovered to the universe at large? If it was the former then they needed ships as fast as possible but if it was the latter then they should have some time to build up more of an infrastructure to support a large and extended space operation unless a ship happened to blunder upon them.
Either way both of the scenarios raised the same question; that of what to build first. On one hand the behemoth would be a practically impenetrable fortress and strong deterrent when built but it would take a lot of time and resources to build not to mention that until his plans come to fruition it would be at least a decade before it was fully crewed. With the artificial intelligence's that Kane had he could negate most of the problems if not all of them but he didn't like to rely on artificial intelligence's as much as possible. This was the definite meaning of the word investment, as the time and resources could be used to build several powerful ships maybe even a fleet or two in the time taken to build one behemoth. The behemoth could however help with the construction of fleets once it was operational and it would take a long time to build so the sooner it was started the sooner it would be completed and ready for use.
On the other hand building several smaller ships would allow for Kane to gather more resources at a quicker pace to perpetuate the process of building more ships and furthering the presences of Earth out in space. There would also be numerous ships ready to defend Earth should anything happen and more ships could be constructed and sent out in space to search for more civilizations and data on possible systems and materials to acquire.
The problem was it was all or nothing as he just didn't have enough resources to do both at the same time and couldn't very well start one to change his mind halfway through. Who knows maybe an alien ship was on it's way to Earth right this minute. Will the prevailing though that something, anything is better then nothing Kane made his decision to build a small flotilla of ships then expand and build another ship as soon as he could. The framework of ships was easily built and they could be added to as more resources were delivered.
Kane checked out how much resources he had stockpiled and what he required to build as many ships as possible. Once done he set out the groundwork to build a dreadnought, two destroyers and ten mining ships as well as recalling all of his ships so that he could refit them with the best technology he had. The ships were basic because they lacked anything that would be needed in a human controlled ship like life support, berths and food etc. This was done and more of everything was put in to bring it up to the level of a front line ship. The years of mining from his basic ships were all going to be used up after this.
Kane could have used the materials on Earth to build more, cheaper ships but they would have been inferior products that would take time, money and resources only to be replaced later. The way that the Terran Space Empire worked was that it never cut corners on building ships or anything else for that matter, and once they were built then they would be in service until they were destroyed, only taken offline to be updated and upgraded then put back into service. Even if the insides needed ripping out to be completely replaced due to age, the hulls would still be in perfect condition to be reused. It was with this mindset the Kane started construction of his fleet. The reason he send out ships that were that basic before was due to his desperate need for materials and information but while they were basic, the hulls of them were still built in accordance with Kane's philosophy. Kane had found in his experience that everything always had one more use no matter it's condition, even if that use was to be scrapped and recycled for parts or materials.
Over time not much had changed on Earth and it was business and research as usual for Kane when finally the first of the ships the dreadnought was ready and rolled off the production line. The mining ships had already been completed and put in service to be sent off to start their mining operations and the basic ships, both the mining and exploration had also been refitted and sent back out into space to continue their duties.
The first in line of a tiny handful of defensive ships that would make up Kane's initial flotilla had been completed, with the others well underway and nearing completion as well. Now had come the most important part of ship building and that was the naming of the ship followed by the ceremony. Some say and there was research that some believed to support the theory, that when giving a name to a ship it imbues some traits of the name for the good or ill of the crew serving on board as names had power.
Kane remembered a ship or rather a line of ships in his world that was named the Invincible and in every battle recorded in history they usually faced overwhelming odds that put the name to the test and in most cases but not all, the ship was destroyed. Usually dying in a heroic way but it was destroyed none the less thus proving it was not Invincible. Some believed the universe itself or some god was mocking humanity for their arrogance and pride thus forcing it to its fate but there was no way to prove this and others believed that it was because the crew had a name and example to live up to on a ship bearing the same name so they met similar fates. There were other names as well like a ship that was named Lucky that either the crew or ship itself suffered from mechanical problems at the worst time despite every test run before it after that showed there was nothing wrong and thus no reason for the problem in the first place or it seemed to have a charmed life with enemies either missing it or hitting already damaged sections of non critical areas.
Kane remembered an ancient television show that was remade when 3D hologram technology became mainstream that named their ship Enterprise. As a businessman himself with the things the has done and had in the pipe line he could be considered to be very enterprising but there was no way he was naming his flagship that. As he recalled they spent every episode being toyed with and experimented on by superior alien species, which was not how he envisioned the future of Earth or his space force. Plus the universe the creator of the show came up with was very idealistic and the universe doesn't work that way unfortunately. Traditionally the Admiralty Board would select names to assign ships but he had to come up with them on his own and he already had many in mind.
The names were as follows; Sovereign because Earth should stand strong in the face of anything and should have a noble, regal stance and bearing, Battle Star or Battle Spirit as there is always a conflict of some sort on Earth and it is a fighting planet no matter what they would like to think, Statement of Intent, Kane's Judgment, Titan's Wrath, Warhawk, Avatar of War/Victory, Pride of Terra, Storm Bringer, Painful Resolution and lastly Fury. The last one was a play on words as yet it was to unleash the fury of Earth onto her enemies but also after the Furies which were known as deities of vengeance or infernal goddesses and the name promised swift vengeance on people who wronged us and wished us harm. Kane was leaning towards Sovereign but that might have been his memories of his time in the Terran Space Empire influencing his thoughts.