Space Battleship Andromeda

[ExNihilo]

A year and a half before I was born, the first undisputed signs of extraterrestrial life were discovered. While scientists from a dozen fields had been debating for decades on whether or not the findings on Mars count as life or not, the discovery of plant analogues on Enceladus definitely did. It would become the third extraterran body with a permanent manned mission, after the Moon and Mars. That its ice contained the hard-to-synthesize Cosmonite 90, a vital component to modern space-grade armor, certainly helped.

When I was seven, the first signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life were confirmed. Around the world, twenty-four people had a simultaneous vision, where a deceased loved one urged them to board a spaceship and head to the stars. Normally this would be dismissed as a hoax, but given that a wave of odd energy from what was assumed to be an unusual pulsar struck Earth at precisely the same time, an observation satellite was authorized, and the 'pulsar' discovered to be in fact a very anomalous planet. This sparked a wave of space fever, as governments and eventually, the UN, would invest much treasure in a wave of new colonies, space vessels, and observation equipment. This was the moment I decided to become a space engineer.

When I was sixteen, the second sign of extraterrestrial intelligence was discovered. In a far-off world, known to be one of the better candidates for life, suddenly disappeared. For some reason, centuries ago, in a burst of light, gravity waves, and exotic fallout, the study of which would propel particle physics decades ahead, the planet utterly vanished, leaving nothing in its wake. The apparent destruction of an entire world was enough to allow the UN, an entity gaining more and more power in recent decades, to federalize, and form the United Nations Cosmo Force. The new Earth Federation was now very much interested for more people to join any field related to space, so as someone set to join an engineering college in a year or two, I had an easy option available.

The third came when I was thirty-eight. I'd moved up the ranks quite quickly, being on the design teams for, among other things, the colony vessel Tupala, which would establish a foothold for Terrans in the Alpha Centauri system as part of the secretive Project Izumo. But like everyone else, when the Pluto Long Range Survey Orbiter detected a squadron of alien vessels entering the system via a process thought impossible by current physics, I was caught unaware. Our defense forces rallied at Pluto and made a good showing, and at Mars (then) Rear Admiral Juzo Okita destroyed their fleet at great cost, and for a brief moment, we celebrated.

But everyone knew it would not be the end.

Hello everyone! This will be my attempt at a reconstruction of the anime Space Battleship Yamato. I will be mostly taking from 2199, as Star Blazers (the first English release) is super cheesy (no one named Wildstar or Avatar here!), but I may grab bits, like the life on Enceladus thing. The main character is an OC and loosely based off myself, but I assure you there will be no meta-knowledge.

The anime itself is a mixed bag. Star Blazers was probably the first anime I ever watched, as it was one of my father's favorite, so he shared it with me, and while inspiring and also, apparently, a pioneer in sci-fi anime, it was always silly. I recently watched 2199, and while I do recommend it, it did have some issues, especially space sexism. However, I believe the premise is worth working on, and the best part is I basically get on the top ten list of best SBY fanfic by default because there isn't much, and even less good stuff.

As for needing knowledge of the anime, I'm going to try and explain what is going on in a reconstructionist way so as long as you can follow a basic sci-fi story you should be fine, but though I will be altering the story quite a bit, a few twists and ideas I feel are well-done enough to be included may be, so some things may be clear to any readers before it is stated.

Anyway, this is not quite my first bit of online writing, a oneshot and a bunch of omakes are floating around the internet with one of my various handles on them, but it will be my first major project, so advice and edits are appreciated, but please be kind.

 

[ExNihilo]

After Mars, the Cosmo Force was shattered. The biggest left was a heavily damaged heavy cruiser that was Okita barely managed to land, and the rest consisted of a half dozen Corvettes and a splattering of fast attack boats and fighters. The most functional were given patch jobs and sent out as patrol craft, but the damaged ones weren't worth saving.

Reactor failures on modern spacecraft tend to be catastrophic, but even without the few that died without exploding or their crew managing a self-destruct, knowing how a warship ought to look is a boon in figuring out how to build your own. Having sensor data on a Second World War destroyer might not help you figure out how to build a better Galleon, but it would allow you to skip the Novgorod monitor. And a few Gamilas ships did survive, or at least in good enough shape to do reverse engineering on. The technical engineers would be having a field day if they weren't all but conscripted into figuring anything they could about armor alloys, weapon construction, or how shields were even supposed to work.

As they were working, so was my team. Our assigned task was a defense satellite, and we were determined to make a good showing. One of the biggest problems was the haphazard trickle of information incoming. Prewar equipment was available in significant quantities for testing, as all but the projects closest to finishing weren't worth finishing, but most of it was outdated almost immediately. All the Gamilas equipment went to the reverse engineering departments, but even just knowing the specifications of what they could do was a big help. The new equipment was being produced, but it was constantly being invalidated by newer discoveries, and it tended to be monopolized by the higher-profile projects, especially the Battleships.

While their weapons outperformed ours wildly, Gamilas doctrine was garbage. They moved in predictable ways, left holes in firing lanes, and tended to react far too late. While at least some of that was likely this being an outlying fleet and Okita's brilliant use of pressure, it was clear they hadn't needed to actually deal in advanced fleet patterns in a while. The possibilities were endless, from lack of peer power to spark innovation to an old guard admiralty, but if anyone in Naval Intelligence knew, they didn't tell us.

Frankly, our work was a mess. Every week as some new higher-spec component came out, we often had to scrap entire sections of our work. Eventually, we settled on building highly generic parts and leaving lots of room for altering technology, as tearing out structural bars is a lot harder then circuit connections. When we did complete our prototype four months later, we were one or two generations behind the most recent tech and on the brink of collapsing due to overwork. Ten percent of the craft's internals were wasted space, it was bulky and annoying to transport, and there was STILL a stress point on the 'upper' side that tended to weaken and tear after any damage.

Apparently, it was the first delivered that even came close to matching the Admiralty's hopes. Thousands of the devices would be deployed around strategic locations in the solar system as Terra's factories retooled to produce the craft. As other groups copied our design style and we designed more, it became the Cosmo Force's unofficial aesthetic, a geometric, blocky, 'bolted-on' feel, compared to the submarine-looking vessels of prewar or the smooth elegance of Gamilas spacevessels.

Within five years of frantic war economy, the fleet had built itself back up, and while it was a bit haphazard, made up of dozens of sub-generations of warships and defense platforms, it had enough power to shatter the previous invasion fleet. It was good timing as well. One of the first things successfully reverse engineered was a faster-than-light communications array, meaning even if their warp drives were still incomprehensible, we could at least communicate with our extrasolar colony in a reasonable time frame. It took four and a half years for the plans to arrive via laser comms, and a month to build it on their end, but it allowed for much faster messaging and the immediate dump of all possibly relevant information. It wasn't nearly fast enough.

The Gamilas fleet, bigger than the one that attacked Sol, arrived in-system. Their defenses fought valiantly, but without the industry of Earth and Mars, they didn't stand a chance. A brief orbital bombardment, followed by a ground invasion, leaving the system all but dead, along with its tens of thousands of inhabitants. Only one group survived with an ansible, a hidden asteroid mining base that was having a shutdown at the time, but it was able to send a message back to Sol. The Gamilas fleet, aside from a picket force to mop up survivors, was moving in the direction of Sol and massing near the edge of the system. This time, we had warning.

 

[ExNihilo]

Ever since humanity figured out that space was a place a person could go, we've been dreaming of space combat. Though things like full 3d maneuvering and the lack of a proper top speed are challenges, they're solvable problems, and ones that we've spent a long time on, and what we didn't know we were more than willing to steal off of Gamilas. Interplanetary siege warfare is something else.

After their hard-won victory at Second Pluto, the Gamilon forces did not advance further, whether due to the commander's apparent reluctance in offensive maneuvers, (rightful) fears of the defenses guarding our more important worlds, or something else entirely, and set up a major base on Pluto. Somewhere. Apparently they had cloaking technology? Admiralty is pretty sure they're located somewhere in the Sputnik Plantia, but that's still 750 thousand square kilometers or so.

Thus began a great game of throwing things at each other as quickly as we could. We fired missile clusters, trying to blanket as much surface area of the Planitia as possible, they defended with superior Tadar (TAcheon Detection And Ranging, compare RAdio) and unerring point defense lasers. Without native industry of note, they responded with bio- and radio-weapon laced Kuiper-belt objects, traveling in odd orbits to catch Earth (for it was just Earth, they didn't bother bombarding any of the colonies) by surprise. Fleets are expensive to maintain and couldn't stay in orbit full-time, but when the Cosmo Force was in a full orbital setup, they could, quite successfully, prevent impacts.

When the Jade Spring hit China in the 2070s and it joined in the growing power of the United Nations, one of the things the UN inherited was an excellent surveillance state. While its laws prevented most of the more interesting effects from being used, what it did have access to was used efficiently. Offensively, Earth's espionage consisted of attempting to build spy satellites with reduced Tadar profiles, of which some progress has been made, and receiving messages from Centauri resistance groups, Gamilas was not so limited. Using a holographic shell to disguise themselves as humans, they attempted a direct infiltration of Earth. This was stopped almost instantly when cameras spotted them, and a combination of an EMP strike (they didn't know about the disguise, the EMP was to disable any comms and hopefully prevent a tech self-destruct) and a strike team was able to corner them before they committed suicide.

While this ended direct infiltration, Gamilas spy operations were not halted entirely. Privileged information, as head of a design team that Gamilas would love to have spies in, tells me that there exist networks, made up of idealistic xenophiles, conspiracy theorists, and would-be quislings, fed obvious mistruths and given ridiculous promises, and a few, either sufficiently trusted or blackmailed, have contacts in Gamilas Intelligence. NavInt and United Nations Counterintelligence have infiltrated quite a few, feeding specific information to Gamilas and preventing or obfuscating others, but an unknown number lurk in harder to find corners of the internet.

Occasionally, a cluster bomb would hit an outpost or small base on Pluto, and occasionally a Planet Bomb would impact Earth, prompting a massive industrial effort to clean it up we could hardly afford. Ships and defenses were modified with anti-Planet Bomb tech, but these came at the cost of combat power, and we were under no illusion that if our fleets got weak enough, Gamilas wouldn't launch a more direct assault. My team helped design colony ships, desperately seeding them among the stars, and while most were intercepted, a few did make it out. Hope was not yet gone, but barring a lucky hit on the Pluto main base or the capture of some Gamilas warp drive, it would be a losing war.

However, hope and fear can come in the same small package, or at least spaceship.

Next up is Interlude: Three There Were

 

[ExNihilo]

It began, as many tragedies do, with a parade. Mother, named… well, at this point, Iskandarians mostly communicated via telepathy, but it roughly translated to Star-Blessed, was leading a parade through a newly 'liberated' world, where a young man, still an adolescent, threw himself at the procession, detonating a high-grade explosive at point-blank range. While the defensive forceshield didn't even flicker, it was coated in gore, his own and that of his fellow countrymen. What could drive someone to do that? After all, Iskandar's rule was benevolent, uplifting, what grievance could there be not better solved with negotiation?

Even as the myth permeated every level of society, as Queen no secret could be hidden from her. It wasn't lies, not really, everything was strictly true. Iskandarian science and technology ended wars, disease, and need, wherever it touched. Iskandarian governers and administrators worked fairly and efficiently, without bias to those below. They knew better, could guide the younger races and prevent the mistakes Iskandar had made, of pollution, world wars, and oppression. Truly, all worlds under the aegis of Iskandar were veritable gardens, shining examples of what a world could be.

This was not freedom, but a gilded cage. They had no choices, could not explore, discover, or change the world in which they lived. Their art was primitive or derivative compared to ours, their intellect slower, their mind not yet ready to lead as we did. Some cultures adapted, a sort of Stockholm Syndrome to our overlordship. Others chafed, pushing the edges of what they were allowed to do. And some, like the one that encouraged the boy, attempted to protest in ways few could ignore.

Then there were the worlds and cultures deemed dangerous or counterproductive, too evil or too different to be allowed to continue. In mild cases, this would mean the armies, entirely mechanized by this point, to 'destroy the rot at its source' while the innocent and children would be brought up in a new, more Iskandar-friendly environment. In more extreme cases, the superweapons were brought out. It was a mercy, the operators said and were told, for with such a blast they wouldn't experience any more pain, ever again.

As this became known, our society began to… give up. They had devoted centuries to the task of being bringers of galactic peace, just to see it taken out from under them. The world around them continued to function, as most needs and wants had been long since automated, but as their entire lives works were revealed to be flawed, many stopped bothering to eat or locked themselves into hibernation pods with the ejection date disabled. A few, including Mother, committed suicide.

As Iskandar retreated in on itself, many worlds celebrated, but quite a few fell. We had assumed all government functions, so when they stopped working, more than one species wiped itself out completely attempting to fill that gap. Others, particularly the lower-tech ones, worshipped our memories as gods, with ancient rules morphing into religious commandments. A few called out for aid, but there was none to be had, and before long even these signals ceased.

We three were young, then. Biology had long been a plaything in Iskandarian hands, and with limited senescence and a culture of perfection, few natural births occurred. We were vat children, genetically engineered to be flawless and the start of a new age of glory for Iskandar, great leaders to surpass the old. Surveying the remnants of the gilded empire, one thing we all agreed upon was 'Never again'.

The eldest named herself Starsha and set about to understand. The empire had justified itself using elitist utilitarianism, so she dove deep into deontology, seeking to correct the mistakes made in ages past. The second, called Sasha, set out to know, to unravel the secrets of the universe and work the building blocks of reality. If there had been more options, if a better way had been known, perhaps it would have ended differently.

Finally, myself, the youngest, calling myself Yurisha. To my sisters' displeasure, I decided to take a more active approach. The outcomes, I reasoned, may have been horrifying, but our reasoning was pure. I began by attempting to make amends, traveling to worlds abandoned by the empire, explaining its fate, and then trying to fix what I could. Now, however, as polities rise again to fill the void left by the collapse, some seek foul ends upon the universe. Gamilas now attempts the same game we once did, but with less benevolent intentions, the theocrats of Gatlantis revere a remnant further gone than we and use it as justification for a war on all sentience, and many others besides, but my hands are tied. Starsha has forbidden direct involvement, especially into her current pet project of Gamilas, and I will not divide my siblings any further.

So I do what I can. Up until very recently, no force in its way stood even a sliver of a chance against Gamilas, so rescuing prisoners and slaves and sending them to one of Sasha's hidden bases was the most I could do for them. Instead, most of my efforts had been focused on fermenting a revolution, building something to tear down the madman Dessler. So far, progress has been slow, as counter-regime tactics were never something Iskandar was deeply interested in, plus the limpet Dessler brainwashed, Celestella, is a surprisingly competent Minister for Propaganda.

But when the Zul Expeditionary Force returned shattered, and a full Suppression Force was sent out to pacify the system, I became interested. The last time a new contact required a Suppression Force was Gatlantis, after all. Perhaps these 'Terons' could be interesting enough to justify my involvement.

I write when I have the motivation, so any coherent update schedule is likely impossible. Thank you for your understanding.

 

[ExNihilo]

Warp is an interesting thing. By shearing temporarily into subspace, a plane where time and distance are significantly altered, vast distances can be crossed in a significantly shorter time than would be otherwise feasible. The plane is not entirely unrelated to the one we inhabit, so large effects in ours, mostly major gravity wells, can alter the plane, it is otherwise mostly isolated. This presents a major problem for us, for while we can build microgates, small enough for a fiber optic cable to sneak through, every doubling in width is exponentially more difficult than the size needed for ansibles. To build an FTL device with our current technology, we would either need a full receiver on the other end and a massive investment of power, as was the plan for Centauri before the Gamilas attack, or an engine bigger than the shear it generates. Rumor has it that one or two vessels stolen off the Gamilons are still capable of FTL, but such a fact, whether true or otherwise, would only be available to the highest echelons of UN and Cosmo Force administrations.

Gamilas seems to sidestep this with a pseudo-receiver, by imprinting, from subspace, a temporary anchor to pull themselves into realspace with. This manifests to our telescopes as a brilliant red and infrared hexagon grid, the central polygon large enough to fit their ship through. Presumably, this saves a lot of energy, but to our advantage, the signature is pretty obvious. How they do this is baffling to the best theoretical scientists and is not widely known, the only reason I know as much as I do is that I helped design one of the telescope satts that looks out for more incursions. So far, none have been reported, but even the most hidebound of administrators realizes knowing when enemy reinforcements arrive is worth the cost of maintaining the network.

This ship, a small, patrol craft sized vessel, entered downright stealthily. No brilliant red polygons or even the ice coating that occurred in our microbot warp test. Other than a brief flash of exotic energies, it was completely unremarkable. Someone not looking for that particular spectrum would have seen a high-energy cosmic ray, at best. However, this wasn't the first time we'd seen this pattern. We'd seen it once before, about two decades ago. Whether it was the same group that made the second signal, or merely the same technology, it didn't matter. The Gamilas attack didn't matter. This was an existential threat to the planet and the human species as a whole.

Fortunately for us, this visitor had peaceable intentions. For three weeks, with even her arrival hidden from the general public, she and high ranking government officials negotiated in secret. During this time, I was drafted to the 'holy shit we need a counter yesterday' team, which didn't accomplish much beyond figuring out a really neat but expensive explosive, notably, turning a warp breach on, pumping it full of energy, then turning off all the safety measures at once. Given we had exactly one device able to make such a device, and it required a full-sized fusion plant to run, it's viability as a weapon was questionable, but it theoretically should tear through any defense we had ever heard of.

Even after her negotiations concluded, she was kept a secret, because apparently, she was an important person to the Gamilons, and revealing her presence would mean Gamilas would actually send more people, and those were people we could hardly afford. Similarly, her hands were tied, due to the politics of her world, but she would accompany us as an advisor. One person could end this war, her elder sister and queen, Starsha. She had ignored Yurisha's pleas, but she had reason to believe an in-person missive from those harmed would strike a deeper chord. But Iskandar was 150 thousand light-years away, far too long for our current methods. No ship of ours could make such a journey.

She claimed she was not a genius, when she came to the ship design board. That what she knew was little compared to her middle sister. It was more than enough.

It will likely be a bit longer before I put out the next one, I've got a bit more planning to do, and these last three were in large part due to me really wanting to get 'Three They Were' out. Until next time.

 

[ExNihilo]

The Andromeda Project would be unique in many fashions, not the least of which was a foreign tech advisor. Standard doctrine is highly defensive and base-focused in nature, so self-repair capabilities are mostly limited to 'patch it up enough so it can make it home', but the journey to Iskandar would be a year, round trip, and while a full repair can be done on Iskandar, along the way all it would have is what it carries with it and what it can steal from Gamilas bases. On a similar note, carriers were rarely used on our side, as most battles have been fought in planetary proximity, but fighters and attack bombers would be needed for such a voyage, along with a collection of other light craft, landers, ground vehicles, and Yurisha's ship. Many other functions that would normally be seperate crafts would have to be folded in as well, including a full hospital, science laboratories, a diplomacy wing, and a generation ship-grade life support setup, along with their assorted staff.

Frankly, the only reason we were able to fit everything in was the sheer ludicrousness of the Wave Motion Core. With the power to shatter continents at a minute's charge, it could run the main engines, the shields, and all weapons at full power, while still leaving more energy to work with than a normal capital-grade fusion plant, all while the size of a forearm. The physics was beyond me, I heard terms like 'tacheon gradients' and 'Calabi-Yau manifolds' being tossed around and just gave up, but it was a lifeline.

While designing was ongoing, a team of legends and prodigies was being assembled to man the thing. The captain would be Admiral Okita, of course, he had the tactical brilliance and aggression needed to run such a mission. Hikozaemon Tokugawa, who had held the wreckage of the Kirishima together long enough for it to land, would serve as chief engineer, as maintaining the Wave Motion Engine could be left to few else. Shiro Sanada, science officer and XO, and Kaoru Niimi, science and intelligence, understanding the technical and biological aspects of Gamilas to a similar degree as Yurisha. Akira Yamamoto, fighter leader Wing A, who once fought off a Gamilas squadron with a prewar fighter. Daisuke Shima, son of the original admiral at First Mars, an excellent capital pilot and a big shadow to come out of. Yuki Mori, whose parents were killed in a sabotage attack, and channeled the rage into singlehandedly designing modern Tadar tactics, with the help of her adopted uncle, Admiral Hijikata.

The last two are among the most interesting. Mamoru Kodai has been groomed to be Okita's replacement for some time, and as Okita approaches 230, he's not getting any younger. Serving as backup commander would be interesting enough, even if it weren't for the fact that he is apparently in a relationship with Yurisha? The details are confusing, but apparently, they had met at some function or another, and some part of Mamoru's philosophy (you don't get to be a Captain in the Cosmo Force without dabbling at least a little) clicked with the princess. If it weren't for the utter secrecy surrounding the Iskandarian, I'm sure it would be all over the tabloids. If it weren't really weird, I'd love to learn more as there's no better place to learn more about xenosociology than firsthand, but there's really no way to ask. They seem happy, which is the important part. His younger brother, Susumu Kodai, is almost as interesting. During sign-ups, it was made known that having skill in two fields, like my ship design and xenosoc or Niimi's bioscience and data analysis, would be looked down upon favorably. Due to a clerical error, Susumu's report got submitted twice, once as a fighter pilot with a secondary in ground combat, the other in weapons and command track. They were both exemplary, and he was selected as both Wing C command and bridge gunnery, and it was only when his older brother looked over his shoulder did anyone realize anything was amiss. His role as bridge gunnery was deemed more important, but he is a reserve pilot commander as well.

Though classified as a battleship, in many ways it more resembles early design thoughts on battlecruisers, which had ended up shelved after the style of war came through. Though possessing powerful guns and strong armor, proportionally more has been put into engines, as no matter how powerful, it couldn't have been designed to take on entire fleets, even had we wanted it to. The Wave Motion Gun is likewise a strange addition, while it does possess both a scattershot and beam mode, its tactical role is a bit unclear, as using it cuts dramatically into vital mobility. No one wanted to give up such a powerful tool, however, as having a hard-to-use ace is still a huge benefit.

Compared to the near production-line construction of most Cosmo Force vessels, the Andromeda would have to be almost artisanally built. The general consensus when building it was 'damn the costs, full speed ahead' and that very much did show. Hull alloy tolerances were microscopic, entirely new types of guns fit with Iskandarian advice had to be painstakingly built, and the housing for the Wave Motion Core alone, not the engines or the gun, could have been three battleships worth of time. But in the end, it would be worth it, for it would be embarking on a journey without peer.

Designing the Andromeda, and all your favorite cast members! Yeah, I'm pretty sure Mamoru is just magnetically attractive to Iskandarians. Interesting relationships run in the family, I suppose.

 

[ExNihilo]

In the early days of space warfare, before colonization or a powerful UN, the space force was pretty sexist. While some areas, like navigation, were pretty OK, the bulk of the organizations were former Air Force brass and the more ancap-adjacent descendants of Silicon Valley, which made sense in context as they were the ones with experience in spaceflight, it also meant they were inheriting a lot of their institutional problems (Navigation, on the other hand, was generally descended from NASA, ESA, and the like, which while not perfect were a lot better). Looking back on the early days there were a lot of things we look back upon today as cringeworthy, like how the default uniform for women was a plugsuit, regardless of where they were serving, to men's more standard uniform. The less said about the conditions of anyone outside the 'gender norms' the better.

It's come a long way since. Only two fields have statistically significant gender disparities, pilots and marines, but it is a small majority at best. Yamamoto's rise to head of pilots is still impressive, but it's hard to deny the promotion to someone who hit Ace of Aces in her second battle, and killed a cruiser in the sixth. Plugsuits are still in use, but only for under-gear wear, many pilots and mechanics wear them even while off-duty. Finally, thanks to modern biomedicine, trans and non-binary people experienced little more difficulty in their lives than cis people, with hospitals on Earth being able to even bypass the stupid 'chromosomes determine gender' talking point directly, should it be beneficial.

As the mission's planning went on, it wasn't just the path or supplies that had to be figured out, but issues like this as well. The fastest possible journey appears to be a year, and while Sol-based vessels don't need things like maternity wards or full psychiatric offices, especially since the introduction of the ansible, Andromeda will. It would need at least three different kinds of chemistry labs, for analysis, repairs, and medical needs. There were common areas on most larger vessels of the Cosmo Force, but the further we get from Earth the slower communications will get, limiting data for a lot of modern entertainment, not even mentioning how a good third of the crew isn't directly military, but experts and subcontractors (such as I) who are used to more comforts than a normal battleship.

It became more and more clear that while the data gained from the mission would inform a lot of next-gen ship designs, we wouldn't build anything like it again. The Andromeda was trying to be a colony ship, a science cruiser, and a battleship all at once, and while it was succeeding, in almost all other cases it would be more effective to build three separately. A shame, really, that such a masterpiece would be consigned to a museum as soon as she returned home.

The crew itself is shaping up nicely. Despite some tension on the bridge between Yuki Mori and Susumu Kodai, something about truly understanding pain and loss, and some chain of command issues (the ship designers and many engineers were pretty used to being under Cosmo Force command, the diplomats not so much), the simulations have been promising. Of course, months of simulations, even in the mock-ups of Andromeda's bridge and stations, isn't comparable to spending at least a year with no resupply or reinforcements, but far better than throwing in our best and brightest on a desperate mission with no warning.

Deep underground in the shipyards of Luna, the superstructure of the Andromeda was beginning to take shape. Sleek and angular, with a hexagonal hole near the bow, she was long and relatively thin. Unlike most ships of the Cosmo Force, she had a finished look about her, the hexagon of her wave motion gun extending across her entire length, where each side would have turret emplacements and missile tubes. Thanks to artificial gravity, one side was 'up' but which side would be all but indistinguishable from the outside. Someday, when she was no longer a framework, there would be docking bays and fighter launchers, retractable antenna and heavy alloy plating, but even now, the skeleton of what she would one day become, she was a formidable sight.

 

[ExNihilo]

The choice of shipyard location was a surprisingly complex one. The Andromeda would be joining fighters and Fast Attack Boats (a now obsolescent design from when miniaturization hadn't quite allowed fighters to be viable) in the ability to withstand a gravity well, but most ships, and thus most shipyards, were designed for low-gee environments. Artificial gravity is a thing, but it is a power-hog and doesn't make takeoff any easier. In an ideal world, orbital foundries would be used, and prewar there were great plans to build them, but after the Gamilas attack, they were deemed too risky. Thus, Luna is the site of our main shipyards, close enough to the foundries of Terra to make shipping easy and relatively safe, possessing the fourth largest population of any human-inhabited body in the solar system and thus a non-insignificant industrial presence, and a low enough gravity that ships wouldn't need overly worry about takeoff gee-forces. The second largest shipyards are on Enceladus, for while it doesn't have Mars's population it does have low gravity and surprising amounts of heavy industry and mining.

She was coming together. Last week her first skeleton crew test was performed, and other than a computer line being cut due to ongoing construction, it went well. In the meantime, the Admiralty has greenlit Operation Eurydice, a pincer attack on Pluto, after a seismic probe landed and forced the Gamilas base to send fighters to destroy it, which allowed the stealth probes to catch its location on their return trip. The general thought was that the destruction of Pluto Base, while giving a brief reprise, would attract a larger fleet to finish the job, as while Gamilas didn't have unlimited fleets to spare, something killing a full Suppression Fleet would warrant their actual attention. However, with the equivalent of a nuclear bomber headed straight for their capital inciting rebellion along the way, Gamilas Command would be a bit distracted to follow up attacks on Terra with any magnitude.

In the meantime, Yuki Mori had set up a meeting, with half the bridge staff (though not Admiral Okita, who was very busy) with the purpose of basic skill learning. 'I'm not going to have someone die on this mission because they didn't know how to aim a gun, pilot a shuttle, or do basic first aid' seemed the general theme, and between the best trainers brought in from Earth and the competence of the bridge team, it was sure to be an informative time. I volunteered to help with emergency repairs training, and over the course of the month learned how to shoot the standard rifle and pistol, speak at least tourist-level Gamilon, Iskandarian, and Gatlantian, pilot in non-combat situations all major craft available to the ship, and treat or at least prepare for treatment the most common injuries, as did the two-thirds of the crew that attended the voluntary seminars. Mori and Susumu seemed to have patched up their relationship at least a little, because Kodai was quite a good cop to Mori's bad.

It was the end of the beginning. In a few more months, Andromeda would be complete, and the fleets attacking Pluto would be in position. The tension, of which not even Yurisha was immune, for what could be the most important mission in history, was growing, but as was our determination. We would not be found lacking.

Can you tell I hated that plot? Next up: Launch 1

 

[ExNihilo]

Third Pluto, Operation Euridice, would be a difficult battle. The general plan was to launch the main fleet, under Admiral Lanba, in an attack meant to be obvious, while Admiral D'Aste took the stealthier fleet on a more roundabout course to catch them unaware. Finally, when engagement was given Andromeda would warp out from its position near the moon (not too close, due to the gravity thing) and smash the fleet like a hammer. Admiralty was confident that our warp-capability was still hidden, so between the surprise and the fact that its specs were even better than Gamilas's meant if everything went according to plan victory could be won without damaging Andromeda too much before her year-long voyage. It'd be a risk, but not necessarily more than anything else.

The launch window would be brief. The shape of the vessel would make it obvious to even the long-range sensors that Andromeda was something special, so delaying the launch to minimize the chance of them detecting it would be beneficial, but too long and it wouldn't have time to clear the Moon's gravity well and enter battle at the optimal time. Shima had the idea to disquise the launch as a fleet exercise with what remained of the home fleet, it could alert them that ships are missing and are on a stealth attack but would widen Andromeda's window, which was deemed more important.

I wouldn't be anywhere near the bridge, of course, but there were still quite a few observation decks. I'm not combat certified, but I've picked up some tactics from watching combat vids, but I imagine seeing the battle up close will help me understand how to build new ones, and I'll be able to see the censored but annotated version later. Knowing why the ship failed, in what conditions and to what effect, was an important feature in building its update.

It was an odd occasion, the launch. Before the war, the launching of a full capital ship would be a ceremony, with a bottle-breaking and a party for the crew-to-be, where the Captain would be formally given authority. After the war began, as luxury resources became thinner and saboteurs more likely, the parties dwindled, and for this ship, while not quite the largest to be kept in secret (that honor went to the Lovelock, a colony vessel bound to Luhman 16) it was certainly the best-kept secret of any capital-grade vessel, the party couldn't even be held in orbit. A heliopause ceremony, inspired in part by an old Iskandarian tradition, would be held, but it would be after we had already been blooded.

The observation deck was crowded when the Andromeda lifted off the ground and entered orbit. There was a sense of serenity to it, that we were to be off on a journey further from Earth than any before us, with no guarantee of our safe return but nonetheless, the hopes for the species, hidden as our mission was, resting upon us. There would be history books written about this journey, many had started preemptively writing memoirs or making video recordings. Thus, the Andromeda left the moon's influence, joining the home fleet in preparation for Euridice.

Next chapter will be Interlude: Alea Iacta Est. It should be sooner, as I've been excited to write it for some time.

 

[ExNihilo]

Observation and analysis are often key.

Colonial Walke Shultz was unusual for a ranking officer in the Gamilas military, in that he wasn't a Gamilon. His species, the Zaltz, were relatively lucky, Zaltz (the planet, the old Iskandarian governance hadn't been too creative with naming) was peacefully absorbed into the growing empire, standing no chance and possessing an unpopular plutocratic government few wished to fight for. While most were treated as third-class citizens, a few of the more useful could earn second-class status, and the promise of first-class (not Gamilas level, but at the same level as their most favored client races, like the Jirels) dangled out to them like a carrot. Shultz could likely have earned that privilege, but prejudice would always be barring the way, as now he was one of four colonials under Major General Goer in a dead-end position: Winning against primitives gives little prestige, and losing is an embarrassment, and with no room for promotion, he'd languish there, being sent to command the most difficult and least rewarding missions his technical equals could come up with, knowing full well any investigation would favor them above some Zaltz.

Still, being most deployed came with some advantages, specifically, getting a feel for enemy admirals. While Teron doctrine favored decisive encounters they had no chance of losing, each admiral had their own way of doing it. The only one who's name he knew was Okita, who favored brutal offensive tactics that seemed nigh-suicidal, but he had (private) analyses of the dozen or so he faced most often.

Thus, when the sensors detected the bulk of the Teron's interplanetary fleet in what amounted to a charge on Plut, he noticed a few things right away. This admiral was a relatively defensive one, with some skill at maneuver, but their greatest talent was coordinating with other fleets. Combined with the knowledge that this attacking force, while not hopelessly outgunned, would not have good odds, lead him to believe there was something more to this attack than the Terons were implying as they confidently blazed towards the Gamilas fleet set out to meet them. A combined missile strike? A hidden attack? Some superweapon borne of desperation and sacrifice? Shultz had no idea, but despite his confidence, he had no plans of telling his superiors. Because Shultz had a secret. While he was the very image of a new species officer, taking punishment without complaint and never failing to be perfectly patriotic, he was a revolutionary.

His mother and father had been protesters under the old Zaltz governance. They mastered the art of balance, pushing where they would have the most impact and run the least risk of danger, figuring out what could be protested, how, and how to maintain plausible deniability, should the plans go awry. This status had been a boon for when Gamilas arrived, for a record of peaceful anti-Zaltz protest meant the Gamilas authority kept an eye on them but for the most part assumed their problems were with the old government, as the husband-wife pair would never again take to the streets or to the factories.

The truth was that his mother, Wala, knew that protesting a regime like Desslers' would be a one-way ticket to a firing squad. He was certain they had contacts, but if they were still working for subversive groups, it was as front men or as spies. But now, he had an opportunity to do something. Even if by sheer luck he survived this battle, he'd likely die later to a firing squad for cowardice. Thus, the most difficult choice in his career, the thing he had been planning since the Suppression Fleet arrived at Plut.

A quick check around the bridge, everything was in position. The commissar had left to deal with a discipline issue as far away from the bridge as possible without being too suspicious, the other officers were all in on the plan, the door was locked due to a 'technical malfunction' that ought to buy them enough time to kill the comms and act nonchalant. Now or never.

-/-

Fifty thousand kilometers away or so, Admiral Lanba answered the communication. She had been half-expecting one, either insults or a surrender demand, but even insults could be valuable data and it would be unlikely to give away any in return. She was not, however, expecting a somber-looking alien that was clearly not a Gamilon to answer, but she wasn't going to fail to follow protocols now.

"This is Admiral Aisha Lanba, United Nations Cosmo Force Navy, how may I help you?" Couldn't hurt to be polite.

The other responded. "I am Colonial Walke Shultz, fourth Gamilas Suppression Fleet. I would like…" his voice caught, then continued "... to discuss the terms of my surrender."

Well. That was unexpected. But she could work with this, she'd been a junior officer onboard when the Abraham Lincoln had forced the last of the deviant asteroid colonies, a religious cult with some very sketchy practices, to surrender, and seeing how poorly those negotiations had gone, she was determined to make it run more smoothly.

"Understood Colonel Shultz. Don't break formation yet, but I assure you we are interested. Shall we begin?"

-/-

Shultz flew his fleet in the prearranged pattern, rear shields at max, as they floated through the Teron position. If he could fault them, it would not be in their treatment of prisoners of war, for many of his sailors it would be a vast improvement over their homeworlds. Lanba had been surprisingly helpful, telling them how to make it look like an officer's coup, by not firing as they left and allowing the commissar to be shot, on camera, in the bridge by the security chief (instead of just killing him surreptitiously), which would allow a bit more safety to his sailor's families, as they were mere prisoners, not active rebels. While he did fear for his daughter, his mother and father would keep her safe.

He ignored the comms from his superiors, no doubt urging him to get back into formation. Too late for that really, there was more than enough evidence to have him shot a dozen times over. Hopefully, these Terons would keep their word. He hadn't given up all his cards yet, he kept the ability, of which Lanba agreed, to void the flotilla's data banks, for while intact ships alone would be a massive prize the data may very well be more. As he watched the battle unfold behind him, as the hidden fleet crashed into the diminished and poorly-arrayed Gamilas fleet (he had left quite the gap) he'd realized just how good a decision he'd made. And then, when like a star out of the firmament a new vessel appeared, guns outpowering Gamilas weapons and moving like a ship half it's size, he almost fainted. This was the opponent Gamilas had picked a fight with? They might actually have a shot.