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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 593 80.4%

  • No

    Votes: 145 19.6%
  • Total voters
    738
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Yeah, not a fan of going for the evacuations. It's a nice idea, but we quite simply can't. We can't convince them to come, we can't transport a relevant number of them with the fleet we have, we can't afford to spare the shipping capacity needed to use the fleet we have to move them as it would heavily impact our ability to wage the war, we don't have a secure place to put them, and we don't have enough intelligence capacity to keep them under proper watch once we put them there.

I'm all for doing the right thing, but in this case the right thing is spreading our fleets out enough to shield as many of those worlds as we can rather than trying to do a literally impossible (on top of massively impractical) evacuation.

We have 16 battle fleets, each one supposedly enough to take out the size of fleet the Nids are splitting into convincingly. If we have the Eldar webway in and support for the climax of the battles (feasible for about 1/2 of them due to gates, but would probably require burning a favor for another one due to time constraints) we should be able to clear the entire wave hitting worlds we care about while only taking mild to moderate casualties (which we should be able to repair/replace a substantial portion of due to the length of time for the campaign.
 
Reynal said:
Yeah, not a fan of going for the evacuations. It's a nice idea, but we quite simply can't. We can't convince them to come, we can't transport a relevant number of them with the fleet we have, we can't afford to spare the shipping capacity needed to use the fleet we have to move them as it would heavily impact our ability to wage the war, we don't have a secure place to put them, and we don't have enough intelligence capacity to keep them under proper watch once we put them there.

I'm all for doing the right thing, but in this case the right thing is spreading our fleets out enough to shield as many of those worlds as we can rather than trying to do a literally impossible (on top of massively impractical) evacuation.

We have 16 battle fleets, each one supposedly enough to take out the size of fleet the Nids are splitting into convincingly. If we have the Eldar webway in and support for the climax of the battles (feasible for about 1/2 of them due to gates, but would probably require burning a favor for another one due to time constraints) we should be able to clear the entire wave hitting worlds we care about while only taking mild to moderate casualties (which we should be able to repair/replace a substantial portion of due to the length of time for the campaign.
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8 battlefleets, you need to keep half at home
 
Nurgle said:
You going to do a plan?
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I dunno. I'm not particularly in a mood to make one, though I put out a proto-plan that others could use as a basis. If someone else posts something else reasonable I'll probably just vote for it. I'm just wary of trying to do too much, or talk about exact force compositions since this is just supposed to be us giving ideas.


I also agree that trying to evacuate worlds is folly. Durin already told us that anyone who is still around is too paranoid to agree to that anyways, IIRC.
 
Shard said:
@Durin

1. Is this uncertainty one we can mitigate with more Greater Divinations thrown at the Hive Fleet?
2. Is this the first of the New-Nids that is hitting the galaxy? If it isn't, maybe the Eldar can tell us about how effective they are?
3. How fast are Tyranids in the galaxy? IIRC you said they were slower, but how much slower?
4. Could you divide the Hive Fleet Grakbakr into the first, second and third waves?
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1. to an extent
2. no but the others are very different. One even adapted to use living metal
3. something like 0.5LY a week
4. all ships are in all waves
noliar said:
While I agree that we don't want to set up a forward operating base in Amir Ka, we probably want one at the far edge of Sub-sector Cobalt. Travel time is going to be a killer and shaving a few months off each combat expedition will add up over the years.

@Durin
1. How long would it take Vanaheim to build a forward operating base variant Ramilles?
2. Are there any systems at the far end of Cobalt with gas giants but no planets with biospheres?
3. Are such systems likely to avoid major Tyrannid incursions?
4. Would having the Goliath in the forward base system significantly improve the logistics?
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2. yes
3. yes, though if you have a base their the nids may divert to destroy it
4. yes
Doomed Wombat said:
We don't have to move all of them just some would be better than nothing.

Because chances are we're not going to manage to save them all.

And again we're not going to be moving ****ing all of them. Most probably won't let us, I'd consider it a success if we got 2 human worlds and the Boesswareth.

Our chances of stopping every hive fleet or even the majority of them seem very very slim, especially since I have strong doubts that the Tyranids won't dispatch a new fleet to reclaim their biomass and finish the job.

In other news I was thinking and thought about psyker counters then remembered the Blanks, which are the closest thing they have to a hard counter.

Thus two propositions

1. Ask Nilfheim (in public if status known in private if not) if they have any blank research that could be of use in this situation.
2. In a stunning reversal from previous opinions we may want to investigate the Fortress of the Souless...AKA the Cullex Temple. AKA the strongest blanks in the galaxy who are not known as Solitaires.

Nids I imagine are significantly more vulnerable to blanks than even a regular psyker, given how reliant they are on their synapse network and these nids going all in on psycics makes it an even better counter.

Otherwise another idea I had requires some questions to Durin

@Durin
1. Does Tranth think he could take the Tachyon sensor net from the Deus design minimise it and put it on a smaller class of ship.

The Nids are using stealth in space and psycic means of detection are uncertain, lets use the best sensors we have compensate as best we can.
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1. he could put it on a dreadnought without to many issues
thatguy said:
It's cool, it was an irritating mistake.

I'm going to go comparing my google doc of the plan to what I have posted, see if I can find any other errors.

Do you have any other brainstorms for ways to improve the plan?

Also
@Durin I've been assuming that the Eldar minor fleet is an equivalent amount of force to one of the Tyranid world eating fleets despite the smaller size, but am suddenly uncertain.
1. How much is the Eldar fleet worth compared to a Tyranid system attack splinter fleet?

I ask because it it's less military force than one splinter fleet I might change my plan to include calling in more forces.

2. How much would it cost to gain the use of the local webway for this war?

3. Could a Krork detachment forcibly take over and reorganize Ironbusta's domain to better fight the Tyranids, then leave once done?
4. What would that cost?
5. Would it just inevitably backfire by drawing in the major Orkish Waaagh?
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1. it should be able to take one
2. not on the cards
3. no, that would take at a minimum half a century
Nurgle said:
@Durin
1 can we target the splinter fleets that are heading to the 12 human worlds and 3 xeno worlds?
2 if we double the Eldar force how many splinter fleets do they think they can take out before they hit Amirka?
3 if we warn Amirka will they attack non aligned chaos worlds and ork worlds?
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1. only when they arrive, due to their method of travel intercepting them in transit does not work
2. 2
3. you dont know
 
@Durin, I know this is a bit off to the side, but how many worlds did we get from Valinor, and what are their current taint levels (clean, light, moderate, heavy)?
 
Also, just to point it out, Shard asked in Discord "To be clear what should we be voting on? Overall plans? Ideas?" and Durin responded "ideas". Trying to hash out an actual detailed war plan is too much, and is beyond the level of abstraction we should be dealing with.
 
Reynal said:
Yeah, not a fan of going for the evacuations. It's a nice idea, but we quite simply can't. We can't convince them to come, we can't transport a relevant number of them with the fleet we have, we can't afford to spare the shipping capacity needed to use the fleet we have to move them as it would heavily impact our ability to wage the war, we don't have a secure place to put them, and we don't have enough intelligence capacity to keep them under proper watch once we put them there.

I'm all for doing the right thing, but in this case the right thing is spreading our fleets out enough to shield as many of those worlds as we can rather than trying to do a literally impossible (on top of massively impractical) evacuation.

We have 16 battle fleets, each one supposedly enough to take out the size of fleet the Nids are splitting into convincingly. If we have the Eldar webway in and support for the climax of the battles (feasible for about 1/2 of them due to gates, but would probably require burning a favor for another one due to time constraints) we should be able to clear the entire wave hitting worlds we care about while only taking mild to moderate casualties (which we should be able to repair/replace a substantial portion of due to the length of time for the campaign.
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Eh, as people pointed out we are unlikely to convince most of them but even convincing a few of them shouldn't be that much of an issue. The benefit of this is the fact that if say we managed to convince 3-5 planets then that would be less planets we need worry about and defend. Also we can just have Lin clear a few worlds of taint. Also sure that we can spare a few ships for evacuation since we do have around 20-30 years until they get there which would count as before the war.
thatguy said:
Going to start up a calculation to determine which Ork/Chaos minor worlds are worth soliciting help from rather than destroying. Then add it to my plan.
Does anyone see flaws in:
IF fleet assets greater than 1/2[1/2 for their own contribution to the fight 1/2 for what they might cost us taking them out]X(amount the Tyranids would gain from their worlds, measured as 0.5% the size of the Hive fleet.) per world THEN they are worth talking to.
IF NOT then we invade and wipe them out.

Edit:
I have come to the irrefutable conclusion that for us to stand a chance of losing more wiping out the minor powers than we would be allowing them to stay in place long enough to get eaten by the Tyranids they would have to have 3-4 Battleships, 37-38 Cruisers, and 325 escorts per planet. The Trust struggles to meet that standard. I think we're probably going to have to wipe them all out.
Unless we physically don't have enough ships to sterilize them in time or our brainy intrigue manipulation people think they can make these worlds unite into spaceborne forces arrayed agaisnt the Hive fleet, then sally out and lose quickly enough that we can still sterilize their planets I might have to drop bothering to warn minor powers about the Tyranids, then use their ignorance of anything being unusual to wipe them out quickly.
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Two suggestions:
1) Do not suggest wiping out non chaos worlds. Having a bad reputation is bad for us considering that it's been shown that we need to work together with other people to survive and having a bad reputation works against that.

2) Add a part of just giving human polities the highest level of Imperial Era STCs so that they can boost their defenses to give the Nids more of a fight and make things easier for us.
 
@Durin

1. would an exterminates weapon meant to be used as a denial charge by a worlds inhabitants be faster to build than a cyclonic torpedo?
2. would it be feasible to give the non chaos worlds about to get hit a means of wiping themselves out if/when they are overrun, both as denial and as a self mercykill option?
 
Enjou said:
Also, just to point it out, Shard asked in Discord "To be clear what should we be voting on? Overall plans? Ideas?" and Durin responded "ideas". Trying to hash out an actual detailed war plan is too much, and is beyond the level of abstraction we should be dealing with.
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In that case going to try to put the highlights for the most voted plan:

[] Plan communication
-[] Suggest warning Amrika and the surrounding chaos worlds in the hope that they would unite
-[] Suggest trying to convince the non corrupted worlds in the way to evacuate their worlds. This is unlikely to be much of an issue since most would likely not agree anyway. Even so we can give or trade them tech to improve their odds and give a better fight against the Nids. For humans the highest level Imperial era STCs for the xenos Tau tech.
-[] Suggest destroying unaffiliated chaos and ork worlds that are unlikely to contribute against the Nids but whose worlds would increase their mass if eaten.

Think this is good without being too long. Am open to suggestions.
 
StormySky said:
@Durin, I know this is a bit off to the side, but how many worlds did we get from Valinor, and what are their current taint levels (clean, light, moderate, heavy)?
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Okay since plenty of people have asked this and no one seemed to have an answer I just dug through everything to get answers.

Valinor was 16 worlds. We conquered 15 of these as the last was a daemon world and impossible for us.

Going through the turns after we finished conquering it.

T109 start 5 light, 7 moderate, 3 heavy
Ezellohar (starting heavy)
T110 5 light, 9 moderate, 1 heavy
Ezellohar and Taniqueti reduced from heavy to medium
Valimar last heavy
T111 3 light, 10 moderate, 0 heavy
Valimar reduced to medium
Avallone and Tol Eressea cleansed from light to clean
T112 No change
T113 4 light, 9 moderate
Calacirya reduced from medium to light
T114 4 light, 8 moderate, 1 heavy
Formenos crit fail increase from moderate to heavy
T115 Not on turn options
T116 Not on turn options
T117 Not on turn options
T118 Not on turn options
T119 Not on turn options
T120 Action returns and updated to say 6 light, 6 moderate, 1 heavy (Spontaneous reduction of 2 moderates to light???)
We don't take it though
T121 Don't take
T122 Don't take
T123 Don't take
T124 -1 heavy +1 moderate
Formenos reduced from heavy back to moderate
T125 -1 moderate +1 light
Formenos reduced from moderate to light
T126 -1 moderate +1 light
Tirion reduced from moderate to light
T127 -1 moderate +1 light
Helcaraxe reduced from moderate to light



This means we're currently at 2 purified, 9 light, 4 moderate, 0 heavy corruption.

Well at least if we assume the spontaneous reduction of 2 worlds from moderate to light in T120 was intended.
 
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So, ideas for potential plan use.
  • Have Ridcully divine how the Hive fleet will respond if some of the worlds it is approaching become barren so we can figure out if preemptive scorched earth is feasible. If so, send task forces to the Nids entry point and focus on destroying minor Chaos and Ork worlds to reduce biomass gains.
  • Have Ridcully divine the likely result of the fight between Chaos and the T3 Waaagh to make sure we don't need to worry about the Orks killing us as we focus our attention on the Nids.
  • Make sure that significant polities (both hostile and friendly, and likely including the Necrons) in the path of the Nids are aware it is coming. Due to the fact that only total defeat of their fleets and ground side assets is likely to result in a net loss of biomass, while it might also be a good idea to warn more minor powers that will likely only result in a minor reduction in the Nid's gain in combat strength and a delay in their movements. For Chaos polities, have Ridcully nudge them into discovering the information rather than openly supplying them the information.
  • Move all fleets that are not tied down in system defense into position to meet the Nids in the Void, prioritizing systems that are not hostile (uncorrupted humans and the one Xenos system) and have webway access. Stagger naval engagements so that elements the Eldar fleet(s) can support the human fleets via webway in the heavy fighting to increase the degree of local superiority with Divinatory assistance. Consider construction/conversion of a forward operating base to help with logistics and reduce losses due to damage.
  • Include ground forces and Descent-class destroyers to swing the ground battles against the Nids where feasible.
  • Get Nid samples from this fleet, either from Vlad's friend or from early battles, and bring them back for analysis for any identifiable weaknesses as well as developing targeted poisons against.
  • While preventing the Nids from winning any victories against Orks is important due to how much biomass they can harvest, steering Orks into minor victories against the Nids should reduce the Nids combat strength without seriously increasing that of the Orks.
 
So, I've been on an Alastair Reynolds kick recently, currently on House of Suns. I was considering writing an omake to bring Gentian Line into Embers, but I somehow doubt that @Durin would canonise the addition of ~1000 6 million year old dilettantes, each tooling around in their own Deus superdreadnought, to the Embers galaxy.
 
Alright, I think this is a reasonably sized plan that covers the important things...

[X] Plan Ideas
-[X] Ridcully can nudge the Chaos polity seers to possibly see the Hive Fleet coming, giving them at least some possibility of preparing for it. Amir-ka is still likely to lose, but if they are better prepared then the Tyranids will suffer more losses and take longer to advance. Alternatively, we could just warn them outright, though they will not likely trust us.
-[X] Avernus can try to ask HWWO to get some Norn-Queen samples to have the Nynye make a self-replicating poison.
-[X] Informing the local Necron dynasty of the issue could see them end up deploying forces against the Tyranids. Divinatory information could be used to direct them to where they'd have the best effect.
-[X] Inform every non-Chaos human and xeno power in the region of both the Tyranids and Bloodbusta. Consider providing the human powers with some level of additional technology to raise them to that level to increase the damage they can do, especially those that are below Imperial. Offer evacuation where it would be reasonable to do so without straining the Trust's logistics.
-[X] Use of cyclonic torpedoes against select Ork and Chaos targets. Ideally could be done after the Tyranids have landed forces.
-[X] Sub-sector Cobalt needs to be fortified as much as possible, funded by the Trust as needed. Militias need to be brought up to maximum size and training level possible.
-[X] Scorch some of the minor Chaos and Ork worlds in advance of the Tyranids to prevent their consumption. Divine which targets would be best to tackle. Consider building a forward operating base to support this effort.
-[X] Grant the Blood Dragons additional technology to better enable them to provide more aid. Continue to root out infiltrators in their polity to prevent tech theft.
-[X] Use a minor favor to double the eldar forces.

Evacuation offer is included, but only where it won't strain our logistics to do so.
 
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@Enjou the only criticism I have is that it will cost a favor with Eldar to kill blood busta and it may not succeed. It is too late to stop him from uniting the realm.
 
Red Bovine said:
Eh, as people pointed out we are unlikely to convince most of them but even convincing a few of them shouldn't be that much of an issue. The benefit of this is the fact that if say we managed to convince 3-5 planets then that would be less planets we need worry about and defend. Also we can just have Lin clear a few worlds of taint. Also sure that we can spare a few ships for evacuation since we do have around 20-30 years until they get there which would count as before the war.

Two suggestions:
1) Do not suggest wiping out non chaos worlds. Having a bad reputation is bad for us considering that it's been shown that we need to work together with other people to survive and having a bad reputation works against that.

2) Add a part of just giving human polities the highest level of Imperial Era STCs so that they can boost their defenses to give the Nids more of a fight and make things easier for us.
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Yes to the first, I'm not going to suggest that. I was just saying we don't have a materialistic reason to preserve worlds with less that level of fleet. We have ideological reasons to preserve the worlds with less than that level of fleet.

I think I had something on the second idea. Under discussing upteching human polities with the other people at the meeting. I'll double check.


After work I'll work on figuring out where we would try to divert the Tyranids for best effect. Because while we can't prevent them from reaching Trust territories we can tilt their main path of advance by focusing on killing one edge of their fleet.
 
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