- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, yes, I want you to vote on the I'isanah thing now. I'm currently working on the start of Moonraker, and so I'll keep the vote open until that's done. It'll take a little bit.
A Hive for The Galaxy (Sci-Fi CK2-style Quest)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Original
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- Tags
- science fiction ck2 quest
Turn 3: Moonraker, Part 1
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Moonraker, Part 1
Space, just another frontier. Just another part of the ever-growing expansion of sentient life which led, almost inevitably, to conflict, exploration, and commerce. Perhaps some species had had dreams that in the stars there was peace, but you know that these were the dreams of numbskulls, fools whose dreams turned out to be nothing more than delusions. Flights of fancy while others did the work of seeding the stars, of thrusting their great power hither and yon like a bunch of half-grown hatchlings, until at last something like sense came about.
Not a lot of sense, and there was plenty of friction, you have firsthand experience with that. Fucking hell, friction's what put money on the plate to piss away snorting your way to the bottom of the cup, mold everywhere, a fuckup by any definition. You are Hazitean, and you're pacing your cabin. Space was nice and all, important even, but you're not an admiral, even if you know enough about ships to know how they intersect with ground combat. So you're waiting in the ship, which is moving through hyperspace, trying to find something to do that doesn't involve any self-reflection.
Self-reflection leads to recrimination, leads to dark thoughts, leads to spiralling depression. Act instead. Move. Act. It's what you do, and it's what you are. You're on the Prince Iltixx, the Heavy Cruiser belonging to the Provisional Leader of this expedition, chosen by consensus, as the cleverest while also being good at communication and debate. Certainly, you've seen worse shipbounds than Bizentara, and he is at least polite, though curious as to your connections with the Speaker.
He can keep wondering. Soon, the ship will leave hyperspace. And then death lies ahead. More work to be done. You are Hazitean, adviser of no-one, and you quit toying with the gun before anyone gets any ideas, and move to the bridge.
******
The bridge is crowded, by human standards, other bugs scurrying about, but you are comfortable in your observer seat. "Will everything go according to schedule?" you ask, thoughfully.
"Yes," Bizentara says. He's very attractive, gold and mud-brown chitin-markings, and an intriguing fleck of white dots across his left side- from some long ago injury that didn't heal right, perhaps. Four legs decorated with a number of service pins. Wide, expressive eyes. Real lovely, shame that you were too busy to try to seduce him. And shame that he thought you were insane and preferred people of a more mixed gender identity. Eh, it took all types. "We'll be with the frigates, last, with the lighter units transitioning first in case there's someone waiting for us. They should be able to handle it. We should have it timed so that the moon is as close to us as possible. It'll give them only five hours to react until we're at the moon, and from there things should go reasonably simply, though I know those are infamous last words."
"True. We'll see," you said, distractedly, viewing the information. It would be complex, assaulting yet another moon, but this one far more built up, with thousands of little sub-stations. It'd take careful planning and cunning, and judicious application of force, and these are things you possess. You shall turn the gun on others, it's that simple. Before the day is done, there will be deaths. You will possess life, they will possess death, those slavers, those disgusting monsters...it's an oddly warming thought, as antisocial as it is. You don't even shudder at the sensation as transition happens. One moment of nothing, and then the sensors began taking in data.
The story they told was most surprising. Some of it was expected, plenty of merchant ships, some raiders, some better-equipped pirates that ultimately, you were told, still amounted to very little… and then, in neat formation, another fleet, clearly distinct from the cutthroat rabble. The software took a second to find a match for their transponder codes. Phoenix Wing. A mercenary company.
Now that made...a little sense. You knew of them, even if you'd never met them. Competent professionals who charged professional wages and had professional dental care and other such niceties that mercenaries, just like anyone, cared about. You'd have killed for good health care...even if you would have just ignored it and gone drinking instead. Eh. Still, it presented a pretty dangerous picture, especially when, numerically combined with the pirates they had something like parity, though with less capital ships, and the pirates were even more outdated than the worst of Gazinitah's forces. Still, looking at those numbers, it wouldn't be a cakewalk, fighting them all...if the enemy stood together. If that broke apart, came at you piecemeal, that was another story, but beyond that, you can't really tell.
"Huh… that's odd." The cruiser's first officer, you forget his name, leans forward in his seat, eyes fixed on the tactical display suspended in the bridge's central holotank.
"I thought Phoenix Wing usually used surplus Technocrat hardware. Every single ship in that force is a Iashec design." And he's right, they are. The division of four heavy cruisers that makes up the core of the force have all been positively identified as Iashec-built Restitutions. Not a cutting edge design thankfully, they're about the same vintage as the ship you're currently on. It's a similar story with the force's lighter units- thankfully they haven't got anything larger than a heavy cruiser present.
Well. This is getting shittier by the moment, you decide, nodding to yourself, then looking at the Captain, who admits, "Well, this might require a shift in strategy. I really want to know what Phoenix Wing is up to here, and whether it might relate to some of the muckity-muck that the Speaker's been involved in...we've all heard the rumors, and I know that this is more than just a pirate raid--"
"It's a link to a known criminal," you admit, rather cagily, "That's all that needs to be known now. So you have one of your little...meeting deals, where you try to convince everyone to do what you've already decided on?"
"Their input is valuable, and the decision will be improved by many minds--"
You chirp disdainfully, "You're smarter than that. I think you have an idea of what you're going to argue for. So, why don't you share? After all, I'm gonna be there, making sure that things go the right way… in my own way."
He shudders and begins to tell you. As you thought, it's a perfectly workable naval strategy.
What does he propose?
[] Stay the course: Aim for the moon, and then swing past it after dropping off Hazitean and her assault force. Make a circuit, perhaps harassing the ships some, and then return to provide support for the ground forces. But if there are mercenary ships there, there might be mercenaries, and leaving them alone to fight might be a mistake, and in the pass and turn around there's at least a chance the enemy forces could either get away or get a good hit, and either way you wouldn't be able to focus on it, with only a narrow window if you wanted to get back to the moon in good time.
[] Death from the Ashes: Focus on hitting the enemy ships exclusively, drawing them into battle by whatever means necessary and destroying or capturing them. It would definitely eliminate the threat of evacuation or interruption, but it would leave the defenders plenty of time to bunker down, and even worse, destroy the 'evidence' in the form of slaves and documents and files, all lost while you're fighting the fleet. Though it will allow a chance to pick up some of the documents from the less important satellites and other areas, though those are unlikely to be as critical as the Pirates' Moon.
[] Secure the Ground: Instead, blow past the enemy and maintain a constant watch over the moon, making sure to secure all of the documents you can. But if the enemy isn't destroyed in a single pass, they'll be able to spread out, get away, or continue to threaten your operations, and there's very little you'd be able to do about that, chained down to orbiting a moon, albeit a rather large one. If there are vital assets already loaded onto the ships, they will be lost, and the pirates and slavers will have the ships--the most valuable thing in their crimes--intact to try to rebuild from some other port in the storm. Eventually, at least.
[] Write-in:
A/N: So, it begins! My co-QM helped me a lot on this one, especially with ship-based stuff, their area of expertise. But yeah, the situation turned out to be more difficult than expected, at least seemingly, and a choice needs to be made now.
Also, blame them for the Phoenix Wright-ish pun in the ship-classes of Phoenix Wing. Or maybe they didn't intend it. Either way, I will mock them with it forevermore.
Space, just another frontier. Just another part of the ever-growing expansion of sentient life which led, almost inevitably, to conflict, exploration, and commerce. Perhaps some species had had dreams that in the stars there was peace, but you know that these were the dreams of numbskulls, fools whose dreams turned out to be nothing more than delusions. Flights of fancy while others did the work of seeding the stars, of thrusting their great power hither and yon like a bunch of half-grown hatchlings, until at last something like sense came about.
Not a lot of sense, and there was plenty of friction, you have firsthand experience with that. Fucking hell, friction's what put money on the plate to piss away snorting your way to the bottom of the cup, mold everywhere, a fuckup by any definition. You are Hazitean, and you're pacing your cabin. Space was nice and all, important even, but you're not an admiral, even if you know enough about ships to know how they intersect with ground combat. So you're waiting in the ship, which is moving through hyperspace, trying to find something to do that doesn't involve any self-reflection.
Self-reflection leads to recrimination, leads to dark thoughts, leads to spiralling depression. Act instead. Move. Act. It's what you do, and it's what you are. You're on the Prince Iltixx, the Heavy Cruiser belonging to the Provisional Leader of this expedition, chosen by consensus, as the cleverest while also being good at communication and debate. Certainly, you've seen worse shipbounds than Bizentara, and he is at least polite, though curious as to your connections with the Speaker.
He can keep wondering. Soon, the ship will leave hyperspace. And then death lies ahead. More work to be done. You are Hazitean, adviser of no-one, and you quit toying with the gun before anyone gets any ideas, and move to the bridge.
******
The bridge is crowded, by human standards, other bugs scurrying about, but you are comfortable in your observer seat. "Will everything go according to schedule?" you ask, thoughfully.
"Yes," Bizentara says. He's very attractive, gold and mud-brown chitin-markings, and an intriguing fleck of white dots across his left side- from some long ago injury that didn't heal right, perhaps. Four legs decorated with a number of service pins. Wide, expressive eyes. Real lovely, shame that you were too busy to try to seduce him. And shame that he thought you were insane and preferred people of a more mixed gender identity. Eh, it took all types. "We'll be with the frigates, last, with the lighter units transitioning first in case there's someone waiting for us. They should be able to handle it. We should have it timed so that the moon is as close to us as possible. It'll give them only five hours to react until we're at the moon, and from there things should go reasonably simply, though I know those are infamous last words."
"True. We'll see," you said, distractedly, viewing the information. It would be complex, assaulting yet another moon, but this one far more built up, with thousands of little sub-stations. It'd take careful planning and cunning, and judicious application of force, and these are things you possess. You shall turn the gun on others, it's that simple. Before the day is done, there will be deaths. You will possess life, they will possess death, those slavers, those disgusting monsters...it's an oddly warming thought, as antisocial as it is. You don't even shudder at the sensation as transition happens. One moment of nothing, and then the sensors began taking in data.
The story they told was most surprising. Some of it was expected, plenty of merchant ships, some raiders, some better-equipped pirates that ultimately, you were told, still amounted to very little… and then, in neat formation, another fleet, clearly distinct from the cutthroat rabble. The software took a second to find a match for their transponder codes. Phoenix Wing. A mercenary company.
Now that made...a little sense. You knew of them, even if you'd never met them. Competent professionals who charged professional wages and had professional dental care and other such niceties that mercenaries, just like anyone, cared about. You'd have killed for good health care...even if you would have just ignored it and gone drinking instead. Eh. Still, it presented a pretty dangerous picture, especially when, numerically combined with the pirates they had something like parity, though with less capital ships, and the pirates were even more outdated than the worst of Gazinitah's forces. Still, looking at those numbers, it wouldn't be a cakewalk, fighting them all...if the enemy stood together. If that broke apart, came at you piecemeal, that was another story, but beyond that, you can't really tell.
"Huh… that's odd." The cruiser's first officer, you forget his name, leans forward in his seat, eyes fixed on the tactical display suspended in the bridge's central holotank.
"I thought Phoenix Wing usually used surplus Technocrat hardware. Every single ship in that force is a Iashec design." And he's right, they are. The division of four heavy cruisers that makes up the core of the force have all been positively identified as Iashec-built Restitutions. Not a cutting edge design thankfully, they're about the same vintage as the ship you're currently on. It's a similar story with the force's lighter units- thankfully they haven't got anything larger than a heavy cruiser present.
Well. This is getting shittier by the moment, you decide, nodding to yourself, then looking at the Captain, who admits, "Well, this might require a shift in strategy. I really want to know what Phoenix Wing is up to here, and whether it might relate to some of the muckity-muck that the Speaker's been involved in...we've all heard the rumors, and I know that this is more than just a pirate raid--"
"It's a link to a known criminal," you admit, rather cagily, "That's all that needs to be known now. So you have one of your little...meeting deals, where you try to convince everyone to do what you've already decided on?"
"Their input is valuable, and the decision will be improved by many minds--"
You chirp disdainfully, "You're smarter than that. I think you have an idea of what you're going to argue for. So, why don't you share? After all, I'm gonna be there, making sure that things go the right way… in my own way."
He shudders and begins to tell you. As you thought, it's a perfectly workable naval strategy.
What does he propose?
[] Stay the course: Aim for the moon, and then swing past it after dropping off Hazitean and her assault force. Make a circuit, perhaps harassing the ships some, and then return to provide support for the ground forces. But if there are mercenary ships there, there might be mercenaries, and leaving them alone to fight might be a mistake, and in the pass and turn around there's at least a chance the enemy forces could either get away or get a good hit, and either way you wouldn't be able to focus on it, with only a narrow window if you wanted to get back to the moon in good time.
[] Death from the Ashes: Focus on hitting the enemy ships exclusively, drawing them into battle by whatever means necessary and destroying or capturing them. It would definitely eliminate the threat of evacuation or interruption, but it would leave the defenders plenty of time to bunker down, and even worse, destroy the 'evidence' in the form of slaves and documents and files, all lost while you're fighting the fleet. Though it will allow a chance to pick up some of the documents from the less important satellites and other areas, though those are unlikely to be as critical as the Pirates' Moon.
[] Secure the Ground: Instead, blow past the enemy and maintain a constant watch over the moon, making sure to secure all of the documents you can. But if the enemy isn't destroyed in a single pass, they'll be able to spread out, get away, or continue to threaten your operations, and there's very little you'd be able to do about that, chained down to orbiting a moon, albeit a rather large one. If there are vital assets already loaded onto the ships, they will be lost, and the pirates and slavers will have the ships--the most valuable thing in their crimes--intact to try to rebuild from some other port in the storm. Eventually, at least.
[] Write-in:
GAZINITAH
1st (Provisional) Heavy Cruiser Division
DEFENDERS
Assorted Pirates
Phoenix Wing PMC is a largely human-run mercenary outfit, though it doesn't restrict recruitment to just humans. As far as anyone was aware, they tended to use 'surplus' Technocrat vessels- seeing a Phoenix Wing force employing exclusively Iashec designs is a distinct oddity.
1st (Provisional) Heavy Cruiser Division
- Prince Izec (Prince Izec class)
- Prince Iltixx (Prince Izec class)
- Prince Zaynzem (Prince Izec class)
- Guardian (Warrior class)
- Thunderous (Warrior class)
- Aspereiz (Aspereiz class)
- Brazen (Aspereiz class)
- Crescent (Aspereiz class)
- Hunter (Aspereiz class)
- Skirmisher (Aspereiz class)
- Watchkeeper (Aspereiz class)
- Active (Aspereiz class)
- Chaser (Aspereiz class)
- Denguard (Aspereiz class)
- Pathfinder (Aspereiz class)
- Patrol (Aspereiz class)
- Pioneer (Aspereiz class)
- Afen (Zynshos class)
- Greai (Zynshos class)
- Kleyika (Zynshos class)
- Orvestath (Zynshos class)
- Ozos (Zynshos class)
- Shraw (Zynshos class)
- Uznal (Zynshos class)
- Zeyri (Zynshos class)
- Ektin (Zynshos class)
- Ilnik (Zynshos class)
- Irabrius (Zynshos class)
- Kluos (Zynshos class)
- Phen (Zynshos class)
- Styax (Zynshos class)
- Zim (Zynshos class)
- Zynshos (Zynshos class)
- Asteroid (Pulsar class)
- Comet (Pulsar class)
- Constellation (Pulsar class)
- Eclipse (Pulsar class)
- Meteor (Pulsar class)
- Nebula (Pulsar class)
- Pulsar (Pulsar class)
- Quasar (Pulsar class)
DEFENDERS
Assorted Pirates
- 3x Light Cruiser - assorted (obsolete)
- 10x Destroyer - assorted (obsolete)
- 19x assorted Raiders (armed merchantment and freighters of various sizes- not badly armed and with military-grade shields, but with less robust civilian-grade hull construction and only after-market applique armor. None carry graviton cannons)
- 4x Heavy Cruiser - Iashec Restitution class (Basilisk, Griffon, Gorgon, Hydra)
- 6x Light Cruiser - Iashec Caveat class
- 8x Destroyer - Iashec Tort class
- 8x Frigate - Iashec Writ class
Phoenix Wing PMC is a largely human-run mercenary outfit, though it doesn't restrict recruitment to just humans. As far as anyone was aware, they tended to use 'surplus' Technocrat vessels- seeing a Phoenix Wing force employing exclusively Iashec designs is a distinct oddity.
A/N: So, it begins! My co-QM helped me a lot on this one, especially with ship-based stuff, their area of expertise. But yeah, the situation turned out to be more difficult than expected, at least seemingly, and a choice needs to be made now.
Also, blame them for the Phoenix Wright-ish pun in the ship-classes of Phoenix Wing. Or maybe they didn't intend it. Either way, I will mock them with it forevermore.
lkmcclenahan
That which doesn't kill me, only makes me stranger
- Location
- UK
In my defense, that didn't even cross my mind. I was going for contract law terms since it seemed to fit the corporate-minded Iashec nicely. Phoenix Wing normally use Technocrat Imperium hardware, their standard heavy unit being the Consul class heavy cruiser.
Also, a profile of Gazinitah's aging Warrior class heavy cruiser has been added to the Warships Guide post.
Also, a profile of Gazinitah's aging Warrior class heavy cruiser has been added to the Warships Guide post.
[X] Stay the course: Aim for the moon, and then swing past it after dropping off Hazitean and her assault force. Make a circuit, perhaps harassing the ships some, and then return to provide support for the ground forces. But if there are mercenary ships there, there might be mercenaries, and leaving them alone to fight might be a mistake, and in the pass and turn around there's at least a chance the enemy forces could either get away or get a good hit, and either way you wouldn't be able to focus on it, with only a narrow window if you wanted to get back to the moon in good time.
Priority to the base and its contents.
Priority to the base and its contents.
Arkatekt
Harbinger of Shitluck
The question we need to answer is: What are our priorities here? Do we want to secure as much evidence as possible and try to tie it to Zaeswin, even if that means the pirates might escape and come back around later? Do we want to ensure that no pirates escape alive, even if it means we lose the evidence? Do we want to try and do everything, at the risk of losing it all?
What is our primary goal?
edit: fixing minor grammatical error.
What is our primary goal?
edit: fixing minor grammatical error.
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Evidence, I think.
The pirates are secondary, though physical threat, at worst, we need to destroy them again. Zaeswin's plans are the really dangerous part and once lost we'd have a trail with no leads.
But at the same time, the most important stuff is bound to be on the first ships out or scrapped first.
- Location
- Dreiländereck
[X] Stay the course: Aim for the moon, and then swing past it after dropping off Hazitean and her assault force. Make a circuit, perhaps harassing the ships some, and then return to provide support for the ground forces. But if there are mercenary ships there, there might be mercenaries, and leaving them alone to fight might be a mistake, and in the pass and turn around there's at least a chance the enemy forces could either get away or get a good hit, and either way you wouldn't be able to focus on it, with only a narrow window if you wanted to get back to the moon in good time.
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Hmm... perhaps what we can do is focus on Stay the Course... but...
Do the shields work on planet surfaces to protect from orbital fire? Because if they don't, I suggest using the 5 hours it takes you to reach the moon to identify the spaceports that are closest to the main slave areas and the other areas you want to obtain evidence from, and use kinetic bombardment to put those spaceports completely out of action. Sure, it'll destroy some evidence, and kill some slaves, but it means you don't have as great a rush to defeat the enemy orbital assets and return.
And don't say they don't have kinetic bombardment systems, because if the shields don't protect from orbital bombardment, then everything destroyer class and up would have a few of them... not sure of the smaller classes, and admittedly, the destroyers probably only have a few with small magazines... It's probably the last area kinetic weapons are still used, and only then because it's really, really cheap and easy compared to all the other options...
So my vote is -
[X] Stay the course
[X] Stay the course.
Sorry for the mess of a comment... :/
Do the shields work on planet surfaces to protect from orbital fire? Because if they don't, I suggest using the 5 hours it takes you to reach the moon to identify the spaceports that are closest to the main slave areas and the other areas you want to obtain evidence from, and use kinetic bombardment to put those spaceports completely out of action. Sure, it'll destroy some evidence, and kill some slaves, but it means you don't have as great a rush to defeat the enemy orbital assets and return.
And don't say they don't have kinetic bombardment systems, because if the shields don't protect from orbital bombardment, then everything destroyer class and up would have a few of them... not sure of the smaller classes, and admittedly, the destroyers probably only have a few with small magazines... It's probably the last area kinetic weapons are still used, and only then because it's really, really cheap and easy compared to all the other options...
So my vote is -
[X] Stay the course
[X] Use kinetic bombardment to destroy the spaceports nearest the most important areas, lessening the urgent need to secure space superiority and to secure those facilities.
Unless the shields defend against orbital bombardment, in which case it's just[X] Stay the course.
Sorry for the mess of a comment... :/
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Technically, they are bombarding the space ships on the ground and certain essential facilities like the aerospace control tower and the like...
The problem is you are using kinetic bombardment projectiles, which means even though you can aim them accurately, you will still destroy things around the targets, not to mention some slaves or evidence might be on those ships you are disabling... and even if you aim the 'rocks' at the engines of the ships and avoid the cargo holds, collateral damage and potential sympathetic explosions might kill them.
Anyway, it's the naval analysts who are tell us what needs to get blown up.
The problem is you are using kinetic bombardment projectiles, which means even though you can aim them accurately, you will still destroy things around the targets, not to mention some slaves or evidence might be on those ships you are disabling... and even if you aim the 'rocks' at the engines of the ships and avoid the cargo holds, collateral damage and potential sympathetic explosions might kill them.
Anyway, it's the naval analysts who are tell us what needs to get blown up.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So, there's been two votes so far. Does anyone have questions about the situation they want answered? Actually, I can answer something.
Kinetic bombardment is a thing.
Kinetic bombardment is a thing.
OOC: On how not to commit War Crimes.
lkmcclenahan
That which doesn't kill me, only makes me stranger
- Location
- UK
Kinetic bombardment is indeed a thing. How useful it is... is dependent on whether there's a shield generator present groundside.
It has to be pointed out that there's no such thing as planet-wide planetary shields- the power required for such a thing would be absolutely ridiculous. Specific locations can have their own shield generators, however, and the presence of one instantly renders the possibility of kinetic bombardment a moot point- see, the advantage that groundside shield generator and surface-to-orbit emplacements have over ships is that they don't need to be moved from A to B, so they get built much larger, with their own dedicated power supply. Thus, you probably could overload a ground-based shield generator with a sustained bombardment, but... you have a finite quantity of projectiles, and you probably wasted a disproportionate quantity of them bringing down just one shield. Put simply, the result rarely justifies the expenditure.
Yes, the shield would fall more quickly when subjected to graviton cannon fire, but... employing gravitic weaponry on an inhabited world is ever so slightly considered a fairly major war crime. Seriously. Too much of that will shatter a world's crust and turn it into a molten ruin. No-one has ever actually done it in the history of known space- even the Holy Empire of Hexamar never went that far.
It has to be pointed out that there's no such thing as planet-wide planetary shields- the power required for such a thing would be absolutely ridiculous. Specific locations can have their own shield generators, however, and the presence of one instantly renders the possibility of kinetic bombardment a moot point- see, the advantage that groundside shield generator and surface-to-orbit emplacements have over ships is that they don't need to be moved from A to B, so they get built much larger, with their own dedicated power supply. Thus, you probably could overload a ground-based shield generator with a sustained bombardment, but... you have a finite quantity of projectiles, and you probably wasted a disproportionate quantity of them bringing down just one shield. Put simply, the result rarely justifies the expenditure.
Yes, the shield would fall more quickly when subjected to graviton cannon fire, but... employing gravitic weaponry on an inhabited world is ever so slightly considered a fairly major war crime. Seriously. Too much of that will shatter a world's crust and turn it into a molten ruin. No-one has ever actually done it in the history of known space- even the Holy Empire of Hexamar never went that far.
[X] Stay the course.
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
[X] Stay the course.
The usage of kinetic bombardment might have been nice to prevent escapees, but the fact we are attacking pirates and that they 'might' have shields is enough that it probably becomes a giant problem to plan for... and the fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of the shield generators is right next to a facility's reactor 'for extra power' and would explode if overloaded...
The usage of kinetic bombardment might have been nice to prevent escapees, but the fact we are attacking pirates and that they 'might' have shields is enough that it probably becomes a giant problem to plan for... and the fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of the shield generators is right next to a facility's reactor 'for extra power' and would explode if overloaded...
lkmcclenahan
That which doesn't kill me, only makes me stranger
- Location
- UK
Clarification point- shields go down when a generator becomes so overstressed trying to maintain it that safety protocols kick in and shut it down. Even if you lock out those safety protocols, the worst that'll happen is that the generator stops working a few seconds later. The key difference between the two is not any explosive failure, it's that if a generator shuts down due to safeties kicking in it'll come online again a minute or so later once it's had time to cool and recover. In the latter, it won't, because the safety cutoffs exist to stop key internal components from melting.
Although once a shield goes down, you usually want to hit the generator to stop it coming back up ever again, and if there's a powerplant right next to the generator... yeah, it'd probably be caught as well, and for some reason fusion reactors don't respond well to that kind of rough treatment. Funny, that. (Granted, the fireball that results from a ruptured reactor looks impressive, but it's just superheated air. There's no real explosive blast. Poor consolation to the families of anyone standing near the reactor when it's containment let go, I know, but it's something.)
Although once a shield goes down, you usually want to hit the generator to stop it coming back up ever again, and if there's a powerplant right next to the generator... yeah, it'd probably be caught as well, and for some reason fusion reactors don't respond well to that kind of rough treatment. Funny, that. (Granted, the fireball that results from a ruptured reactor looks impressive, but it's just superheated air. There's no real explosive blast. Poor consolation to the families of anyone standing near the reactor when it's containment let go, I know, but it's something.)
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So anything worth bombaring would be behind a shield with expenables and slaves outside?
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Yes, I know that... but pirates...
Do you really expect them to have made and maintained the generator well?
Also I said it was connected directly to the reactor... the generator may go down, so what happens with all that power that now has nowhere to go? Lots of lots of surges, lightning flying everywhere, overloads...
Do you really expect them to have made and maintained the generator well?
Also I said it was connected directly to the reactor... the generator may go down, so what happens with all that power that now has nowhere to go? Lots of lots of surges, lightning flying everywhere, overloads...
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closed! Will begin working on it this afternoon. I've been talking for a while with my Co-QM as to how it might go, so hopefully it'll be fast, but I'm being called away from the computer right now.
Moonraker, Part 2
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Moonraker, Part 2
[X] Stay the Course
In a meeting room, you glance over at Hazitean, frowning a little. The meeting will begin in a matter of moments, and you have to make sure that nothing is derailed, that everything goes well, that the harmony and accord that you hoped to characterize your temporary leadership would be maintained. Accord...and victory. It's a lot to ask, since you've never lead a task force against an enemy this impressive. Nobody has, none of the captains here have ever faced a real battle, just simulator runs, though you did rather well at them, and got a small award, one of those 'peacetime awards' that are handed out for little things, for a high-score on several different simulator tests. It was not the same as achievement, you knew, but another part of you knew- from your first day joining the navy- that you were unlikely to get much in the way of real experience. Thus medals for being smart were something, and you were proud of them. Now you were waiting, to prove again that you could do a good job. Opportunity, actual battle, even if the actual moment of contact would last the blink of an eye...your heart was racing, but you were ready to start convincing people.
You are Captain Bizentara, formerly of the Hazmin caste, and today you will see battle.
******
It is not realistic to meet in person, of course. Even if you had time, sending shuttles from ship to ship would be highly wasteful, so instead, holographic meeting technology came to the rescue. With a press of the button the meeting began on schedule, and the table and room seemed to expand as the table filled with Captains and captains, standing at attention. One of them chirps, "Greetings, Captain Provisional-Leader Bizentara--"
"Hello, and welcome. It seems that we face a more complicated situation than we had thought before, however, some elements of it remain the same, most importantly our goal. But before we start to plan, I would like to open the floor to discuss the situation."
Captain Aszion of the Watchkeeper began with a buzzing, sing-song declaration, "This is a great puzzle, the greatest we've faced. Why are there Iashec ships here? I have heard there have been some tensions between us and them, and that Iashec merchants do tend to sell their goods, even ships, far and wide...but, this seems suspicious. Hazitean, can you tell me if it's related? Or is this just a coincidence--"
"The Iashec aren't to be trusted," Hazitean said, "Either they are involved or not, but either way, Phoenix Wing is not the mission, and not the goal…"
"Which is?" another Captain clicked, contemptuously, "We're doing this mission with only half of the information we need, and it's showing. The plan we have wasn't meant to deal with so many foes--"
"It can and will be adjusted, we have the time," Captain Mufeze of the Ozos said, "They haven't even seen us coming yet, light takes time to travel, but the closer we get, the more we'll be able to read each other's actions. What we see now won't be the reality, and so we're gonna have to play with timing a lot, and the delay's gonna be dangerous for a number of reasons. It's why I'd propose we allow the Provisional Leader broad authority to do as they wish, so long as they explain themselves here."
There was a murmur of agreement, and after a moment you say, "The basics of the plan don't need to change. We blow past them if they try to stand against us, we drop the pods and then loop around in order to hit secondary targets and threaten their fleet if it stays close-by. We'll only get maybe two passes total, but as has been said, we're not here to destroy their fleet, unless they force us to."
(Convincing them: 1d100+18 (Diplomacy)+11 (Half Martial)+5 (Time)=1d100+34=87)
There are arguments against it, towards attacking them more or less, and many of the Xvorzit seem concerned about what the Phoenix Wing forces will do, but the only major debate comes up when discussing what you'll do if they act together. As pointed out, there were a number of complications. Any attempt to run would be difficult in one sense: the hyper-limit was directly past your fleet, so there was a decent chance they'd stick together for a time, since running would be quite difficult. So, what part of the fleet to strike. After all, as one Captain said, 'If we're going to hit them only twice, they need to be solid hits.' Some argued for striking at the mercs, since they were the biggest danger and hurting them might lead to the pirates fleeing. Others argued that the mercs were too dangerous and that damage to the pirates would be less costly and more likely to make them flee, taking them out of the battle. In the end, you had decided to take it on its own terms. You had some ideas in that front, and the conversations went through several rounds of debate.
Yet ultimately, what you had was a consensus, in which even those that lost admitted they had been out argued.
*****
By the time you reached the display again, the reaction had begun. Ships were moving, coalescing, though not yet breaking orbit, and in around four and a half hours you would reach the moon. Depending on how they acted and moved, the confrontation would be somewhere within that time period. You looked at the data… Iashec ships, even ones the same vintage as your own newest ships, were fairly formidable. A little worse in terms of thrust-to-weight ratio (marginally) than Gazinitah ships of the same class and level of technology, less durable for their size but with more missile launchers, and heavier armament overall. Gazinitah and most Hives had the extra space to have deeper magazines than usual, but in a single pass, the extra launchers meant that they could be devastating. A long battle would see them run dry quicker, but long battles were rare enough, so you understood the design logic. Everything you were seeing was old, old by a good portion of an hour, so by now, for all you knew, they had broken orbit and were already closing the distance. You reviewed the data, as your ships took formation, cruisers up towards the front and sprinkled throughout, making a wedged body, of sorts, in space.
You ran the numbers. It was complicated, really, since the moon was a moving target, and the battle would require them to slow down to between 0.1 and 0.15 c in order to prevent relativity kicking in- the slight disparity between objective and subjective time even at low relativistic speeds prevents accurate targeting. There was a balance there, a dance. They should be meeting before too long, as the signs of movement from the ships should in theory coalesce into whether or not they run or not soon.
(Pirate reaction: 1d100=35)
(Merc reaction: 1d100+20+10=108)
The pirates seemed to be caught in indecision, while the mercenary ships were moving into something like a formation, not breaking orbit, yet, and you could guess that messages were going out. You could hear panicked messages, nothing significant. All that the intelligence analysts told you was that it was a complete surprise, and that many people were panicking. Nothing yet, and you were surprised that nobody had jumped yet. Minutes passed, and then nearly an hour, and you had little doubt that private messages were being passed.
(???: 1d100=23)
Then, finally, long after you'd expected, the pirate ships seemed to get together with the mercenaries. It was all that you'd feared, though they seemed to almost be forming two separate formations twined about each other, besides each other. You took a drink and checked the time, ordering the crews to go get a quick meal, since there would be no time soon for anything like that. They'd go in stages, since this was a critical moment...well, a critical hour or more. If nothing happened, in three hours and ten minutes, your fleet would reach the moon. But before that, throwing off those numbers somewhat, in 1 hour and 35 minutes the two fleets would meet if both continued towards each other. You glanced up to see Hazitean stalking off, no doubt for the preparations for her own mission- once past the enemy, you'd be skimming along the edge of the moon and dropping pods all the way. You began by setting up a more useful formation than the wedge. A flat disc of ships, capital ships distributed to protect the smaller ships some, destroyers near the edge of the disc, frigates clustered around your heavy cruisers as potential missile screens. A fairly standard formation, generic enough that it would be hard to read. That would change, most likely, but he'd been told time and again in the simulators that changing your formation too often was asking for something to go wrong. The key was to change it at the right times, taking advantage of the time delay to get the enemy at a point where they couldn't properly react to your latest move, whether than be a new formation or a last-second shift in course. It was a subtle game, but one that you were going to have to win.
(A plan?!: 1d100+5 (Talking session)+5 (Training)+21 (Naval Martial)=48...maybe?)
You had a plan, at least the start of one, but as the minutes passed you thought about it more, not sure at all whether it would work. You ran the simulations, frowning, not sure whether your instincts were right or not, and on a bit of a time crunch.
(Plan checking: 1d100+31-5=1d100+26=76, yes, yes…)
You could see it. The pirates, they seemed like a weak link, and they were, but the key was to change your formation to seem as if you were going to target them. Head on, heavy cruisers versus their destroyers and raiders, even the handful of light cruisers they have, would be a slaughter, easy, painless, simple even. Nobody on their side with any sense would dive straight into that, so hopefully the pirate flotilla would break away and try to avoid contact, perhaps trying to catch your ships between their two formations. At that point, then the your fleet would shift back to attack the Phoenix Wing fleet. The pirates would be able to do very little comparatively, some missiles perhaps, but not much more. It would take good timing and a very good bluff, and in just under an hour your fleet would meet theirs, one way or another. At this point that meant what you were seeing, and what they were seeing was nearly twelve minutes out of date. Twelve minutes and closing.
At thirty minutes, the last of the workers came back from break. From now on, you had ordered, there would be no break until the engagement was over. It was perhaps a bit harsh, but you were worried that the situation would change too rapidly if the right people weren't on duty. Minutes passed, and they toyed with the timing. They would need to begin slowing down to reach the right relative speed to allow accurate targeting, and they also needed to shift formation twice, the second shift at the last moment. By this point the Captain had stopped talking to the others, and the noise on the ship was dying down. Twenty minutes, speed was decreasing, now, deceleration starting, and so the time dialed up for a short bit and then began to tick down. And down a little bit more, until deceleration was done and it was back down to twenty minutes again, and barring a sudden change of velocity... it would be showtime soon.
"All ships, action stations," you order, your voice carried across the fleet, "Standy by for maneuvering orders and target designations."
Hatches began sealing, all across dozens and dozens of ships, as missiles primed, launchers gearing up, code being hastily checked one last time, all guns at the ready, everything warming up. And across the vast gulf, the enemy was soon to do the same. The ships activity devoted itself to one goal, and now metal and bug and programming all acted, hopefully, in accord. Lights flashed, bodies tensed, a blur of motion and action, as the enemy drew ever nearer.
As all of this was happening, you're calculating, waiting. Fifteen minutes to contact. At this point what they were seeing and what was going on were starting to match up. There would be only three minutes difference between what they were seeing and what was happening now.. The enemy formation was shifting as well, albeit not much, slowing down, maybe starting to clump a little instead of holding themselves far apart...though even close by warship standards was hugely far apart by terrestrial ones. Time to see if it worked.
Your formation veered slightly towards the pirates, but more than that, the frigates moved away from the heavy cruisers, distributing themselves more evenly. The pirates didn't have much in the way of missiles, the worst of the three groups, and frigates could genuinely defeat their raiders, to spreading them out and distributing them like that only made sense in two cases. Well, three.
Either you were planning on hitting the pirates primarily, you were an idiot and just doing random things, or it was a bluff. You watched to see how the enemy formation would react. The shift took a minute and a half, but they were seeing it at three minutes out, which means they'd begin to react to it around 12 minutes from contact, and they'd only see the whole thing with eleven minutes to react. The time difference would keep on shrinking, and you watched, watched while the fate of thousands hung in the balance. What would they do?
[Pirates Reaction: 1d100-17 (???)-10 (Bad Training)-5 (Good plan)-5 (Disparity)+5 (Stiffening)=1d100-32=-16. Well.
[Mercs reaction: 1d100-5 (Good Plan)-5 (Logic)-10 (Disintegration)-10 (Clause 7A)+10 (Good training)+5 (Schmott Girl)=1d100-5=72, success]
The Pirates do about three different things at the same time. Several of the raiders actually turn as if they are trying to merge with the Phoenix Wing, others seemed to turn to run, others moved towards what would be the 'right' position to grab your forces between both sides, and overall the force entirely disintegrated before your eyes. To that the Phoenix Wing began shifting towards you, trying to turn it into a head on engagement and corral the pirates, but it wasn't quite working, and while they wouldn't be as badly out of position as they would be if entirely self-assured of what was going to happen, their own formation was being broken up by the influx of ships moving this way and that as time passed, second by second. By the time most of it had played out, there were only eight minutes until contact, and the enemy was still trying to get their bearings. What you were seeing was only a minute and thirty six seconds out of date, and what you were hearing was only your heartbeat. You had to time this perfectly, to take the most advantage possible of the gift that had been given to them. A chance for a single crushing blow, maybe even something closer to a victory than you had expected.
Five minutes. The babbling on the bridge was loud, and yet you could almost pretend not to hear it. Everyone was tense, everyone was ready. They were seeing where you were a minute ago, you were seeing where they were, a minute ago. Reactions now were in real time as you shifted your forces, holding out, trying to time the final order just right. You had the package mostly planned, just a few details that were being automatically changed with data coming in…
[In Comedy and War, Timing is Everything: 1d100+10 (Handed in your lap)+10 ( Planning)+5 (Nerves are fire)+21 (Martial)+5 (Crew input)-5 (Overfocused)-5 (merc reaction)=1d100+41=88
At three minutes to contact, you make the orders. Your ships shift, frigates moving back into a sane position for the sort of missile fire they were going to face, moving, aiming, timed better than expected, though not perfectly, right at the Phoenix Wing and its ships. It will take a minute to take effect, but by this point within thirty seconds they might begin to react, but they'll be reacting to something they aren't sure of. The frigates moving could mean many things, and there was very little time indeed to work everything out. They have only two and a half minutes to react, and they won't see the real start of the movements until even less time out. Every second was precious, they glanced at the enemy disposition, "Concentrate all firepower on Phoenix Wing, fire at twelve seconds from contact." Twelve seconds at their current speed, they'd been compensating, of course, for their decreased speed in their timeline, ticking downward, to the final minute.
*****
From the outside two fleets charged forward at a tenth of the speed of light, give or take, the vast gulf between them closing. Contact would be only moments, missiles launched between fifteen and ten seconds outside of optimum energy range, death following, and firing, all of it done by machines, guided by human plans, but that moment of contact wasn't a moment of people pulling cords to guns. They watched, saw if their programming and maintenance work and planning would pay off. Missiles were fired, hundreds, than thousands, but where the pirates had expected and set themselves up to fire from was out of sorts, and the last minute shift had made things difficult indeed for Phoenix Wing as well.
Pirates Attack: 1d100+ 2 (Pirates Offense)- 45 (Hive Defense)=1/4= 1, total failure.
The pirate ships blink early, even those of them part of Phoenix Wing's ad hoc formation launching early, at about seventeen seconds out, when the positions are changing too fast for a good lock. Not a single shot hits, not even one, anti-missile capacity doesn't even have to be expended. In the end what they count for is: nothing.
Wings of the Phoenix: 1d100+37 (Phoenix Offense) -45 (Gazinitah Missile Defenses)=1d100-8=59
A Missile Hive: 1d100 34 (Gazinitah Offense) -47 (Phoenix Missile Defenses)=1d100-13=12
Something goes wrong, or rather, more importantly, the Phoenix Wing's defenses are too strong, perhaps, because far fewer shots get through than expect, than hoped. They had more shots, and even if in a long battle you'd stood more chances you'd rejected any idea that you should focus on the enemy fleet. You had only a single pass, and only a few moments to register the storm of missiles, and all you can see is that a single very lucky set of hits chained to utterly gut the heavy cruiser Hydra. Afterwards, you might have mused on how that would make the energy engagement easier, but at the moment, seconds were too quick to register everything.
To see later the frigate Nebula blow up, taking a hit for Thunderous, as the frigate Quasar spins off, useless, a hulk, spitting out escape pods, though by then they were joined by more from hits from the main attack, the grasers, and the destroyers Ektin, Kleyika and Styax similarly crippled and out of the fight.
Several seconds before the ships met in the most devastating part of the combat, and already hundreds of sentients were dead.
*****
[ Literally the Last Second: 1d100+21+10 (Positional advantages already)-5 (Loss of Frigates)+5 (Enemy is short on Heavy cruisers, pound him)=129
Contingency was one of the watchwords of the latest and greatest navies of the last centuries. And in those last seconds, your last orders go out. Changing positions to make it harder to be hit, though not enough to do anything against missiles, should help against particle beams, and the goal was simple. Even before the math had told rather strongly, and luckily, you had had more heavy cruisers, more light cruisers, and more destroyers. Without the pirates, they simply hadn't had parity in most areas, and the goal was simple: hit the heavy and light cruisers on the energy pass, and take out the enemy capital ships, and everything else should be easy to mop up. They were no doubt thinking the same...but this time, you were the one who gave the right orders, and in that last moment, ship still shaking from motion, trying to take in the details of the combat, you had all of the advantages.
(Gazinitah's Fury: 1d100+70 (Attack)-17 (Phoenix Defense)=1d100+53=143)
(Phoenix Flames: 1d100+61 (Attack)-35 (Gazinitah Defense)=1d100+36=69)
In a single moment of chaos and destruction, thousands die. You do not feel anything, your ship doesn't even shudder, but in the aftermath, the numbers come in, and you stare. First at your own losses, then at theirs. The light cruiser, Chaser, is damaged, Pioneer and Watchkeeper are wrecks, shooting out escape pods. Constellation is drifting just off from them, while there is nothing left of Meteor, Pulsar, and Uznal. You hadn't even thought about it, but you'll have to slow or split your fleet to pick up survivors from both ships. The laws and rules of war still applied, mercenaries or no, and your own bugs...you couldn't imagine drifting out there, waiting for rescue to come.
And plenty of dead to go with them. The enemy was hit even harder, the heavy cruiser Griffon nothing more than gas--your battle records showed that your ship had been part of that 'kill'--as its sisters Basilisk and Gorgon limped along, one of them showing heavy engine damage, the other showing moderate engine damage and, it seemed, widespread weapon dysfunctionality. Two other light-cruisers are destroyed, a third is even more damaged than Gorgon, and three destroyers were nothing more than wreckage, few if any escape pods even leaving it, while a fourth is entirely absent. Destroyed. And while your frigates had been hit hard during the battle, so too were theirs, and two were destroyed, a third sliced clean in half, floating through space, all systems offline.
Their fleet was gutted, and yours had merely been roughed up, though you had no idea where the Speaker would get the money and resources to replace the lost crews, fix the ships, pay the widows...it was a tragedy, and you watched as the butcher's bill came in, other ships reporting in, and survivors too. A thousand dead? No, it was 1200, the computer said a dozen seconds later, and it kept on going up to end at "Above 1800 with high probability, below 1900 at high probability." By all the hives past, present and future, you felt sick, looking at those numbers. A victory, though, and you needed to make some decisions, important ones. You couldn't let this rest, and at this point, several things were clear.
Most of the Pirates were running, and you couldn't catch them, but one light cruiser and a number of their merchant raiders were under the guns of Phoenix Wing, which was slowly retreating, but had its speed slowed down by the damaged ships, and thus you could swing around to hit them again. Or swing around and demand their surrender or threaten to hit them again. You saw those two Heavy Cruisers, and you had an idea…
You, Captain Bizentara, had ambition, and just as importantly, wanted Gazinitah's navy to be strong. If you did another pass, taking only another hour or two out of your schedule, you could threaten them with an uneven battle. As much as you lost, they had lost more, and a second pass would all but wipe them out, and with far less chance of doing you damage...and they knew it. They were smart, they were professionals, you could count on them knowing when to fold a bad hand. It would delay the attack on the planet several hours, but the rewards could be huge, and you had to leave a force behind anyways to recover prisoners and your own men. You could gain two new heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and a handful of working escorts. It seemed worth it, though perhaps Hazitean would complain. And, you thought, already frowning as you considered whether to test your will against hers, they would have information on who hired them and why they were there.
Go after them?
[] No, you don't want to annoy Hazitean, and surely they are only mercenaries, and know nothing. And the ships...well...okay, mostly it's the annoying Hazitean part. She's pretty scary and the way she leers at you and...eugh.
[] Yes, and demand they surrender. They know they're hosed, and those ships will be valuable, though guarding them will take up some of your fleet. It'll slow you down a few hours, but the rewards are huge.
[] Yes, and don't demand they surrender! Blood for blood! Their deaths will avenge your deaths! (.5 voting weight cause this is a joke vote.)
[] What ships do you leave to recover prisoners and manage any future prisoners?
-[] Write-in a plan.
*****
A/N: Okay, I might be slightly biased in my own vote, just so you know. I sorta started salivating when I saw that the enemy flagship was damaged badly but not a wreck. Also, if you're wondering where a lot of the rolls for damage are, that's my co-QM's field. They determined these things, and the way it worked was that each '10'...you know, what don't I let them explain it all!
Take it away! Also, a character with a speaking part, Captain Aszion of the light cruiser Watchkeeper, died in this battle. I know you shall mourn them not, but their death has not been in vain.
lkmcclenahan here; essentially, the result of each attack roll was divided by ten, rounded to the nearest whole number, and that number was the number of ships in the enemy fleet that sustained serious damage. It can be assumed that other ships received minor damage, just not enough to impact their combat effectiveness noticeably. Escorts were assumed to have been disabled or destroyed in one hit- capital ships, there was a roll to see if they were damaged, disabled, or just plain nothing-left-but-glowing-dust exploded. Xvorzit build their ships rather more solidly than the Iashec do, though, and to represent this the first serious hit they receive is modified downward by -2 ; so they can be turned into drifting wrecks, but they're unlike to just explode.
These rules are admittedly pretty basic and ad-hoc at the moment, and I'm not if they'd work that well for larger engagements. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Also, it's slightly surprising to me that it hurts a little, seeing ships I named being destroyed.
This is The Laurent, hope you enjoyed it! Also, once I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, this was a fun turn to write.
[X] Stay the Course
In a meeting room, you glance over at Hazitean, frowning a little. The meeting will begin in a matter of moments, and you have to make sure that nothing is derailed, that everything goes well, that the harmony and accord that you hoped to characterize your temporary leadership would be maintained. Accord...and victory. It's a lot to ask, since you've never lead a task force against an enemy this impressive. Nobody has, none of the captains here have ever faced a real battle, just simulator runs, though you did rather well at them, and got a small award, one of those 'peacetime awards' that are handed out for little things, for a high-score on several different simulator tests. It was not the same as achievement, you knew, but another part of you knew- from your first day joining the navy- that you were unlikely to get much in the way of real experience. Thus medals for being smart were something, and you were proud of them. Now you were waiting, to prove again that you could do a good job. Opportunity, actual battle, even if the actual moment of contact would last the blink of an eye...your heart was racing, but you were ready to start convincing people.
You are Captain Bizentara, formerly of the Hazmin caste, and today you will see battle.
******
It is not realistic to meet in person, of course. Even if you had time, sending shuttles from ship to ship would be highly wasteful, so instead, holographic meeting technology came to the rescue. With a press of the button the meeting began on schedule, and the table and room seemed to expand as the table filled with Captains and captains, standing at attention. One of them chirps, "Greetings, Captain Provisional-Leader Bizentara--"
"Hello, and welcome. It seems that we face a more complicated situation than we had thought before, however, some elements of it remain the same, most importantly our goal. But before we start to plan, I would like to open the floor to discuss the situation."
Captain Aszion of the Watchkeeper began with a buzzing, sing-song declaration, "This is a great puzzle, the greatest we've faced. Why are there Iashec ships here? I have heard there have been some tensions between us and them, and that Iashec merchants do tend to sell their goods, even ships, far and wide...but, this seems suspicious. Hazitean, can you tell me if it's related? Or is this just a coincidence--"
"The Iashec aren't to be trusted," Hazitean said, "Either they are involved or not, but either way, Phoenix Wing is not the mission, and not the goal…"
"Which is?" another Captain clicked, contemptuously, "We're doing this mission with only half of the information we need, and it's showing. The plan we have wasn't meant to deal with so many foes--"
"It can and will be adjusted, we have the time," Captain Mufeze of the Ozos said, "They haven't even seen us coming yet, light takes time to travel, but the closer we get, the more we'll be able to read each other's actions. What we see now won't be the reality, and so we're gonna have to play with timing a lot, and the delay's gonna be dangerous for a number of reasons. It's why I'd propose we allow the Provisional Leader broad authority to do as they wish, so long as they explain themselves here."
There was a murmur of agreement, and after a moment you say, "The basics of the plan don't need to change. We blow past them if they try to stand against us, we drop the pods and then loop around in order to hit secondary targets and threaten their fleet if it stays close-by. We'll only get maybe two passes total, but as has been said, we're not here to destroy their fleet, unless they force us to."
(Convincing them: 1d100+18 (Diplomacy)+11 (Half Martial)+5 (Time)=1d100+34=87)
There are arguments against it, towards attacking them more or less, and many of the Xvorzit seem concerned about what the Phoenix Wing forces will do, but the only major debate comes up when discussing what you'll do if they act together. As pointed out, there were a number of complications. Any attempt to run would be difficult in one sense: the hyper-limit was directly past your fleet, so there was a decent chance they'd stick together for a time, since running would be quite difficult. So, what part of the fleet to strike. After all, as one Captain said, 'If we're going to hit them only twice, they need to be solid hits.' Some argued for striking at the mercs, since they were the biggest danger and hurting them might lead to the pirates fleeing. Others argued that the mercs were too dangerous and that damage to the pirates would be less costly and more likely to make them flee, taking them out of the battle. In the end, you had decided to take it on its own terms. You had some ideas in that front, and the conversations went through several rounds of debate.
Yet ultimately, what you had was a consensus, in which even those that lost admitted they had been out argued.
*****
By the time you reached the display again, the reaction had begun. Ships were moving, coalescing, though not yet breaking orbit, and in around four and a half hours you would reach the moon. Depending on how they acted and moved, the confrontation would be somewhere within that time period. You looked at the data… Iashec ships, even ones the same vintage as your own newest ships, were fairly formidable. A little worse in terms of thrust-to-weight ratio (marginally) than Gazinitah ships of the same class and level of technology, less durable for their size but with more missile launchers, and heavier armament overall. Gazinitah and most Hives had the extra space to have deeper magazines than usual, but in a single pass, the extra launchers meant that they could be devastating. A long battle would see them run dry quicker, but long battles were rare enough, so you understood the design logic. Everything you were seeing was old, old by a good portion of an hour, so by now, for all you knew, they had broken orbit and were already closing the distance. You reviewed the data, as your ships took formation, cruisers up towards the front and sprinkled throughout, making a wedged body, of sorts, in space.
You ran the numbers. It was complicated, really, since the moon was a moving target, and the battle would require them to slow down to between 0.1 and 0.15 c in order to prevent relativity kicking in- the slight disparity between objective and subjective time even at low relativistic speeds prevents accurate targeting. There was a balance there, a dance. They should be meeting before too long, as the signs of movement from the ships should in theory coalesce into whether or not they run or not soon.
(Pirate reaction: 1d100=35)
(Merc reaction: 1d100+20+10=108)
The pirates seemed to be caught in indecision, while the mercenary ships were moving into something like a formation, not breaking orbit, yet, and you could guess that messages were going out. You could hear panicked messages, nothing significant. All that the intelligence analysts told you was that it was a complete surprise, and that many people were panicking. Nothing yet, and you were surprised that nobody had jumped yet. Minutes passed, and then nearly an hour, and you had little doubt that private messages were being passed.
(???: 1d100=23)
Then, finally, long after you'd expected, the pirate ships seemed to get together with the mercenaries. It was all that you'd feared, though they seemed to almost be forming two separate formations twined about each other, besides each other. You took a drink and checked the time, ordering the crews to go get a quick meal, since there would be no time soon for anything like that. They'd go in stages, since this was a critical moment...well, a critical hour or more. If nothing happened, in three hours and ten minutes, your fleet would reach the moon. But before that, throwing off those numbers somewhat, in 1 hour and 35 minutes the two fleets would meet if both continued towards each other. You glanced up to see Hazitean stalking off, no doubt for the preparations for her own mission- once past the enemy, you'd be skimming along the edge of the moon and dropping pods all the way. You began by setting up a more useful formation than the wedge. A flat disc of ships, capital ships distributed to protect the smaller ships some, destroyers near the edge of the disc, frigates clustered around your heavy cruisers as potential missile screens. A fairly standard formation, generic enough that it would be hard to read. That would change, most likely, but he'd been told time and again in the simulators that changing your formation too often was asking for something to go wrong. The key was to change it at the right times, taking advantage of the time delay to get the enemy at a point where they couldn't properly react to your latest move, whether than be a new formation or a last-second shift in course. It was a subtle game, but one that you were going to have to win.
(A plan?!: 1d100+5 (Talking session)+5 (Training)+21 (Naval Martial)=48...maybe?)
You had a plan, at least the start of one, but as the minutes passed you thought about it more, not sure at all whether it would work. You ran the simulations, frowning, not sure whether your instincts were right or not, and on a bit of a time crunch.
(Plan checking: 1d100+31-5=1d100+26=76, yes, yes…)
You could see it. The pirates, they seemed like a weak link, and they were, but the key was to change your formation to seem as if you were going to target them. Head on, heavy cruisers versus their destroyers and raiders, even the handful of light cruisers they have, would be a slaughter, easy, painless, simple even. Nobody on their side with any sense would dive straight into that, so hopefully the pirate flotilla would break away and try to avoid contact, perhaps trying to catch your ships between their two formations. At that point, then the your fleet would shift back to attack the Phoenix Wing fleet. The pirates would be able to do very little comparatively, some missiles perhaps, but not much more. It would take good timing and a very good bluff, and in just under an hour your fleet would meet theirs, one way or another. At this point that meant what you were seeing, and what they were seeing was nearly twelve minutes out of date. Twelve minutes and closing.
At thirty minutes, the last of the workers came back from break. From now on, you had ordered, there would be no break until the engagement was over. It was perhaps a bit harsh, but you were worried that the situation would change too rapidly if the right people weren't on duty. Minutes passed, and they toyed with the timing. They would need to begin slowing down to reach the right relative speed to allow accurate targeting, and they also needed to shift formation twice, the second shift at the last moment. By this point the Captain had stopped talking to the others, and the noise on the ship was dying down. Twenty minutes, speed was decreasing, now, deceleration starting, and so the time dialed up for a short bit and then began to tick down. And down a little bit more, until deceleration was done and it was back down to twenty minutes again, and barring a sudden change of velocity... it would be showtime soon.
"All ships, action stations," you order, your voice carried across the fleet, "Standy by for maneuvering orders and target designations."
Hatches began sealing, all across dozens and dozens of ships, as missiles primed, launchers gearing up, code being hastily checked one last time, all guns at the ready, everything warming up. And across the vast gulf, the enemy was soon to do the same. The ships activity devoted itself to one goal, and now metal and bug and programming all acted, hopefully, in accord. Lights flashed, bodies tensed, a blur of motion and action, as the enemy drew ever nearer.
As all of this was happening, you're calculating, waiting. Fifteen minutes to contact. At this point what they were seeing and what was going on were starting to match up. There would be only three minutes difference between what they were seeing and what was happening now.. The enemy formation was shifting as well, albeit not much, slowing down, maybe starting to clump a little instead of holding themselves far apart...though even close by warship standards was hugely far apart by terrestrial ones. Time to see if it worked.
Your formation veered slightly towards the pirates, but more than that, the frigates moved away from the heavy cruisers, distributing themselves more evenly. The pirates didn't have much in the way of missiles, the worst of the three groups, and frigates could genuinely defeat their raiders, to spreading them out and distributing them like that only made sense in two cases. Well, three.
Either you were planning on hitting the pirates primarily, you were an idiot and just doing random things, or it was a bluff. You watched to see how the enemy formation would react. The shift took a minute and a half, but they were seeing it at three minutes out, which means they'd begin to react to it around 12 minutes from contact, and they'd only see the whole thing with eleven minutes to react. The time difference would keep on shrinking, and you watched, watched while the fate of thousands hung in the balance. What would they do?
[Pirates Reaction: 1d100-17 (???)-10 (Bad Training)-5 (Good plan)-5 (Disparity)+5 (Stiffening)=1d100-32=-16. Well.
[Mercs reaction: 1d100-5 (Good Plan)-5 (Logic)-10 (Disintegration)-10 (Clause 7A)+10 (Good training)+5 (Schmott Girl)=1d100-5=72, success]
The Pirates do about three different things at the same time. Several of the raiders actually turn as if they are trying to merge with the Phoenix Wing, others seemed to turn to run, others moved towards what would be the 'right' position to grab your forces between both sides, and overall the force entirely disintegrated before your eyes. To that the Phoenix Wing began shifting towards you, trying to turn it into a head on engagement and corral the pirates, but it wasn't quite working, and while they wouldn't be as badly out of position as they would be if entirely self-assured of what was going to happen, their own formation was being broken up by the influx of ships moving this way and that as time passed, second by second. By the time most of it had played out, there were only eight minutes until contact, and the enemy was still trying to get their bearings. What you were seeing was only a minute and thirty six seconds out of date, and what you were hearing was only your heartbeat. You had to time this perfectly, to take the most advantage possible of the gift that had been given to them. A chance for a single crushing blow, maybe even something closer to a victory than you had expected.
Five minutes. The babbling on the bridge was loud, and yet you could almost pretend not to hear it. Everyone was tense, everyone was ready. They were seeing where you were a minute ago, you were seeing where they were, a minute ago. Reactions now were in real time as you shifted your forces, holding out, trying to time the final order just right. You had the package mostly planned, just a few details that were being automatically changed with data coming in…
[In Comedy and War, Timing is Everything: 1d100+10 (Handed in your lap)+10 ( Planning)+5 (Nerves are fire)+21 (Martial)+5 (Crew input)-5 (Overfocused)-5 (merc reaction)=1d100+41=88
At three minutes to contact, you make the orders. Your ships shift, frigates moving back into a sane position for the sort of missile fire they were going to face, moving, aiming, timed better than expected, though not perfectly, right at the Phoenix Wing and its ships. It will take a minute to take effect, but by this point within thirty seconds they might begin to react, but they'll be reacting to something they aren't sure of. The frigates moving could mean many things, and there was very little time indeed to work everything out. They have only two and a half minutes to react, and they won't see the real start of the movements until even less time out. Every second was precious, they glanced at the enemy disposition, "Concentrate all firepower on Phoenix Wing, fire at twelve seconds from contact." Twelve seconds at their current speed, they'd been compensating, of course, for their decreased speed in their timeline, ticking downward, to the final minute.
*****
From the outside two fleets charged forward at a tenth of the speed of light, give or take, the vast gulf between them closing. Contact would be only moments, missiles launched between fifteen and ten seconds outside of optimum energy range, death following, and firing, all of it done by machines, guided by human plans, but that moment of contact wasn't a moment of people pulling cords to guns. They watched, saw if their programming and maintenance work and planning would pay off. Missiles were fired, hundreds, than thousands, but where the pirates had expected and set themselves up to fire from was out of sorts, and the last minute shift had made things difficult indeed for Phoenix Wing as well.
Pirates Attack: 1d100+ 2 (Pirates Offense)- 45 (Hive Defense)=1/4= 1, total failure.
The pirate ships blink early, even those of them part of Phoenix Wing's ad hoc formation launching early, at about seventeen seconds out, when the positions are changing too fast for a good lock. Not a single shot hits, not even one, anti-missile capacity doesn't even have to be expended. In the end what they count for is: nothing.
Wings of the Phoenix: 1d100+37 (Phoenix Offense) -45 (Gazinitah Missile Defenses)=1d100-8=59
A Missile Hive: 1d100 34 (Gazinitah Offense) -47 (Phoenix Missile Defenses)=1d100-13=12
Something goes wrong, or rather, more importantly, the Phoenix Wing's defenses are too strong, perhaps, because far fewer shots get through than expect, than hoped. They had more shots, and even if in a long battle you'd stood more chances you'd rejected any idea that you should focus on the enemy fleet. You had only a single pass, and only a few moments to register the storm of missiles, and all you can see is that a single very lucky set of hits chained to utterly gut the heavy cruiser Hydra. Afterwards, you might have mused on how that would make the energy engagement easier, but at the moment, seconds were too quick to register everything.
To see later the frigate Nebula blow up, taking a hit for Thunderous, as the frigate Quasar spins off, useless, a hulk, spitting out escape pods, though by then they were joined by more from hits from the main attack, the grasers, and the destroyers Ektin, Kleyika and Styax similarly crippled and out of the fight.
Several seconds before the ships met in the most devastating part of the combat, and already hundreds of sentients were dead.
*****
[ Literally the Last Second: 1d100+21+10 (Positional advantages already)-5 (Loss of Frigates)+5 (Enemy is short on Heavy cruisers, pound him)=129
Contingency was one of the watchwords of the latest and greatest navies of the last centuries. And in those last seconds, your last orders go out. Changing positions to make it harder to be hit, though not enough to do anything against missiles, should help against particle beams, and the goal was simple. Even before the math had told rather strongly, and luckily, you had had more heavy cruisers, more light cruisers, and more destroyers. Without the pirates, they simply hadn't had parity in most areas, and the goal was simple: hit the heavy and light cruisers on the energy pass, and take out the enemy capital ships, and everything else should be easy to mop up. They were no doubt thinking the same...but this time, you were the one who gave the right orders, and in that last moment, ship still shaking from motion, trying to take in the details of the combat, you had all of the advantages.
(Gazinitah's Fury: 1d100+70 (Attack)-17 (Phoenix Defense)=1d100+53=143)
(Phoenix Flames: 1d100+61 (Attack)-35 (Gazinitah Defense)=1d100+36=69)
In a single moment of chaos and destruction, thousands die. You do not feel anything, your ship doesn't even shudder, but in the aftermath, the numbers come in, and you stare. First at your own losses, then at theirs. The light cruiser, Chaser, is damaged, Pioneer and Watchkeeper are wrecks, shooting out escape pods. Constellation is drifting just off from them, while there is nothing left of Meteor, Pulsar, and Uznal. You hadn't even thought about it, but you'll have to slow or split your fleet to pick up survivors from both ships. The laws and rules of war still applied, mercenaries or no, and your own bugs...you couldn't imagine drifting out there, waiting for rescue to come.
And plenty of dead to go with them. The enemy was hit even harder, the heavy cruiser Griffon nothing more than gas--your battle records showed that your ship had been part of that 'kill'--as its sisters Basilisk and Gorgon limped along, one of them showing heavy engine damage, the other showing moderate engine damage and, it seemed, widespread weapon dysfunctionality. Two other light-cruisers are destroyed, a third is even more damaged than Gorgon, and three destroyers were nothing more than wreckage, few if any escape pods even leaving it, while a fourth is entirely absent. Destroyed. And while your frigates had been hit hard during the battle, so too were theirs, and two were destroyed, a third sliced clean in half, floating through space, all systems offline.
Their fleet was gutted, and yours had merely been roughed up, though you had no idea where the Speaker would get the money and resources to replace the lost crews, fix the ships, pay the widows...it was a tragedy, and you watched as the butcher's bill came in, other ships reporting in, and survivors too. A thousand dead? No, it was 1200, the computer said a dozen seconds later, and it kept on going up to end at "Above 1800 with high probability, below 1900 at high probability." By all the hives past, present and future, you felt sick, looking at those numbers. A victory, though, and you needed to make some decisions, important ones. You couldn't let this rest, and at this point, several things were clear.
Most of the Pirates were running, and you couldn't catch them, but one light cruiser and a number of their merchant raiders were under the guns of Phoenix Wing, which was slowly retreating, but had its speed slowed down by the damaged ships, and thus you could swing around to hit them again. Or swing around and demand their surrender or threaten to hit them again. You saw those two Heavy Cruisers, and you had an idea…
You, Captain Bizentara, had ambition, and just as importantly, wanted Gazinitah's navy to be strong. If you did another pass, taking only another hour or two out of your schedule, you could threaten them with an uneven battle. As much as you lost, they had lost more, and a second pass would all but wipe them out, and with far less chance of doing you damage...and they knew it. They were smart, they were professionals, you could count on them knowing when to fold a bad hand. It would delay the attack on the planet several hours, but the rewards could be huge, and you had to leave a force behind anyways to recover prisoners and your own men. You could gain two new heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and a handful of working escorts. It seemed worth it, though perhaps Hazitean would complain. And, you thought, already frowning as you considered whether to test your will against hers, they would have information on who hired them and why they were there.
Go after them?
[] No, you don't want to annoy Hazitean, and surely they are only mercenaries, and know nothing. And the ships...well...okay, mostly it's the annoying Hazitean part. She's pretty scary and the way she leers at you and...eugh.
[] Yes, and demand they surrender. They know they're hosed, and those ships will be valuable, though guarding them will take up some of your fleet. It'll slow you down a few hours, but the rewards are huge.
[] Yes, and don't demand they surrender! Blood for blood! Their deaths will avenge your deaths! (.5 voting weight cause this is a joke vote.)
[] What ships do you leave to recover prisoners and manage any future prisoners?
-[] Write-in a plan.
GAZINITAH
Damaged
CL Chaser
Wrecked
CL Pioneer
CL Watchkeeper
DD Ektin
DD Kleyika
DD Styax
FF Constellation
FF Quasar
<NO CONTACT - ASSESSED DESTROYED>
DD Uznal
FF Meteor
FF Nebula
FF Pulsar
Estimated death toll: 1,833
Estimated wounded toll: Unknown
PHOENIX WING
CH Basilisk - damaged
CH Gorgon - damaged
CH Griffon <NO CONTACT - ASSESSED DESTROYED>
CH Hydra - wrecked
3x Caveat class Light Cruiser (1 damaged, 1 wrecked, 1 exploded)
4x Tort class destroyer (3 wrecked, 1 exploded)
3x Writ class frigate (1 wrecked, 2 exploded)
Estimated death toll: 3,280
Estimated wounded toll: Unknown
Damaged
CL Chaser
Wrecked
CL Pioneer
CL Watchkeeper
DD Ektin
DD Kleyika
DD Styax
FF Constellation
FF Quasar
<NO CONTACT - ASSESSED DESTROYED>
DD Uznal
FF Meteor
FF Nebula
FF Pulsar
Estimated death toll: 1,833
Estimated wounded toll: Unknown
PHOENIX WING
CH Basilisk - damaged
CH Gorgon - damaged
CH Griffon <NO CONTACT - ASSESSED DESTROYED>
CH Hydra - wrecked
3x Caveat class Light Cruiser (1 damaged, 1 wrecked, 1 exploded)
4x Tort class destroyer (3 wrecked, 1 exploded)
3x Writ class frigate (1 wrecked, 2 exploded)
Estimated death toll: 3,280
Estimated wounded toll: Unknown
GAZINITAH
1st (Provisional) Heavy Cruiser Division
DEFENDERS
Pirates (Not fleeing)
-2 Light Cruisers-assorted (obsolete
-10 Destroyers
-11 assorted Raiders
Phoenix Wing Mercenary Company
1st (Provisional) Heavy Cruiser Division
- Prince Izec (Prince Izec class)
- Prince Iltixx (Prince Izec class)
- Prince Zaynzem (Prince Izec class)
- Guardian (Warrior class)
- Thunderous (Warrior class)
- Aspereiz (Aspereiz class)
- Brazen (Aspereiz class)
- Crescent (Aspereiz class)
- Hunter (Aspereiz class)
- Skirmisher (Aspereiz class)
- Active (Aspereiz class)
- Chaser (Aspereiz class), damaged
- Denguard (Aspereiz class)
- Pathfinder (Aspereiz class)
- Patrol (Aspereiz class)
- Afen (Zynshos class)
- Greai (Zynshos class)
- Orvestath (Zynshos class)
- Ozos (Zynshos class)
- Shraw (Zynshos class)
- Zeyri (Zynshos class)
- Ilnik (Zynshos class)
- Irabrius (Zynshos class)
- Kluos (Zynshos class)
- Phen (Zynshos class)
- Zim (Zynshos class)
- Zynshos (Zynshos class)
- Asteroid (Pulsar class)
- Comet (Pulsar class)
- Eclipse (Pulsar class)
DEFENDERS
Pirates (Not fleeing)
- 1x Light Cruiser - assorted (obsolete)
- 8x assorted Raiders (armed merchantment and freighters of various sizes- not badly armed and with military-grade shields, but with less robust civilian-grade hull construction and only after-market applique armor. None carry graviton cannons)
-2 Light Cruisers-assorted (obsolete
-10 Destroyers
-11 assorted Raiders
Phoenix Wing Mercenary Company
- 2x Heavy Cruiser - Iashec Restitution class (Basilisk and Gorgon, both damaged)
- 4x Light Cruiser - Iashec Caveat class, 1 damaged
- 4x Destroyer - Iashec Tort class
- 5x Frigate - Iashec Writ class
*****
A/N: Okay, I might be slightly biased in my own vote, just so you know. I sorta started salivating when I saw that the enemy flagship was damaged badly but not a wreck. Also, if you're wondering where a lot of the rolls for damage are, that's my co-QM's field. They determined these things, and the way it worked was that each '10'...you know, what don't I let them explain it all!
Take it away! Also, a character with a speaking part, Captain Aszion of the light cruiser Watchkeeper, died in this battle. I know you shall mourn them not, but their death has not been in vain.
lkmcclenahan here; essentially, the result of each attack roll was divided by ten, rounded to the nearest whole number, and that number was the number of ships in the enemy fleet that sustained serious damage. It can be assumed that other ships received minor damage, just not enough to impact their combat effectiveness noticeably. Escorts were assumed to have been disabled or destroyed in one hit- capital ships, there was a roll to see if they were damaged, disabled, or just plain nothing-left-but-glowing-dust exploded. Xvorzit build their ships rather more solidly than the Iashec do, though, and to represent this the first serious hit they receive is modified downward by -2 ; so they can be turned into drifting wrecks, but they're unlike to just explode.
These rules are admittedly pretty basic and ad-hoc at the moment, and I'm not if they'd work that well for larger engagements. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Also, it's slightly surprising to me that it hurts a little, seeing ships I named being destroyed.
This is The Laurent, hope you enjoyed it! Also, once I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, this was a fun turn to write.
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they seem to work Very well for mid to small engagements though. which will be most of the ship-to-ship combat unless there is an all out war. between two major powers.
you could get away with a second system overlayed over this one for the bigger battles. or break those into pieces by dividing the Giant fleets into smaller ones.
oh, and a vote
[x] Yes, and demand they surrender. They know they're hosed, and those ships will be valuable, though guarding them will take up some of your fleet. It'll slow you down a few hours, but the rewards are huge.
you could get away with a second system overlayed over this one for the bigger battles. or break those into pieces by dividing the Giant fleets into smaller ones.
oh, and a vote
[x] Yes, and demand they surrender. They know they're hosed, and those ships will be valuable, though guarding them will take up some of your fleet. It'll slow you down a few hours, but the rewards are huge.