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The Shadow of Old Transgressions (Homeworld/Mass Effect Crossover Quest)

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Voting 8.5
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Arcanestomper on Apr 13, 2023 at 1:53 AM, finished with 43 posts and 6 votes.
    • [X] Flanking Assault
      -[X] Hyperspace in behind the Void Wraiths position, and have the Slingers fire a massed barrage targeting the damaged Dreadnoughts, followed up by Ulysses's siege cannon targeting the rear-most Dreadnought - this ideally will minimize the risk to the Guardian Fleet and catch the Missile Cruisers in the blast zone. Valerius leads Oracle 13, the Raawan, our Slingers and our Shepard Destroyer in control of a strikecraft wing to assault the Dreadnoughts and Flagship. Oracle 13 uses it's interdictor - as much to keep them from fleeing as to hopefully keep the Carriers from dropping right into the thick of the fight if and when they attempt to reinforce the Void Wraiths.
      -[X] Laverna assaults the Missile Cruisers alongside the Kwan and Ulysses and as many strike craft as she can direct - they should be able to mop up what's left of them fairly quickly. Ulysses holds off on firing his Siege Cannon a second time (assuming that it's still functional after the first shot given our jury-rigged repairs and can be recharged or repaired quickly enough to fire a second time), saving it for if the Carriers arrive or if an excellent shot on one of the Dreadnoughts or the Flagship that won't endanger allies presents itself - if Oracle's interdiction is effective on their FTL, they'll show up well on the outskirts of the battle rather than in it, meaning Ulysses should be able to take a killshot at whichever Carrier shows up without endangering allies.
      [X] Flanking Assault
      [x] Integrated Strike Denial
      -[x] Harassment force leaves hyperspace "behind" the remaining Wraith elements in order to engage the Missile Carriers with bombardment missiles and strike craft.
      -[x] Our naval assets should stay combined in one task force. The hostile Carriers are unaccounted for and are likely to "fold in" on our flanking maneuver utilizing their exotic drives so Ulysses is tasked with denying them the critical mass they need to overwhelm us, while we need the protection of our defense fields from the dreadnoughts until a missile barrage can destroy it.
      -[x] The enemy is likely to pull something out of their corrupted shells, or uncorrupted Wraiths could show up from the Monolith. Either way, there is not much farther we can plan for at this point.
      [X] Heaven's Net casts wide. Though it's coarse, nothing slips through.
      -[X] With their point defense degraded the missile cruisers will either have to tank hits from our slingers, or try to dodge. We launch a full volley at the Wraith cruiser wall from maximum distance, then Laverna and Oracle 13 each take half the slingers, and jump to points on the opposite side of their formation, and launch more missiles, so that the Wraith wall has missiles coming at them from the 3 points on a triangle all synched to hit at the same time. Valerius and Ulysses stand by with charged hyperspace drives and Siege Cannon to blast the biggest clump of Wraith ships, whether they try to move away from the siege, or towards their flagship.
    Click to expand...
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Valerius Total: 4
    4 4
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Ulysses Total: 7
    7 7
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Laverna Total: 11
    11 11
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Kwan, Raawan, Oracle Total: 9
    9 9
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Shepherd Total: 8
    8 8
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Slingers Total: 7
    7 7
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Dervishes Total: 6
    6 6
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Acolytes, Cherubs Total: 18
    18 18
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Missile Cruisers Total: 2
    2 2
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Dreadnoughts Total: 6
    6 6
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Flagship Total: 1
    1 1
    Arcanestomper threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: Guardians Total: 20
    20 20
     
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  • Voting
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    Turn 8.5: The Last Wraith
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    • Core Space

    ​
    Arak System
    The Grand Conclave

    Things immediately go wrong as you exit hyperspace. For some reason you've exited far closer to the Wraith flagship than you intended. In fact close enough to be in firing range immediately. The battle space instantly fills with deadly energy as hundreds of plasma turrets align with new targets and start unleashing their deadly salvos.

    Fortunately you and friends are no longer a green choir on their youthful pilgrimage. No, you are battle hardened and tested in the forge of many battles. Despite the misjump the fleet immediately wheels around in a series of criss-crossed orbits that shelter your most vulnerable ships behind you and oracle while swarms of acolytes sacrifice themselves as living shields.

    You have no time to pick the wraiths off one by one so you immediately throw the drone minds of the slingers a targeting solution for the most damaged dreadnought. Then you ping your last shepherd, the Raawan and Oracle 13 to follow you and advance on the second damaged dreadnought.

    An almost solid wall of plasma greets you, but you weave back and forth with Oracle switching out your armor and defensive field in order to protect the Raawan and the Shepherd as it produces a massive wing of cherubs. Even as your little flotilla advances all of you lash out with your ion cannons to destroy plasma turrets and slash paths of destruction in the dreadnought's hull.

    Halfway through the flight your defensive shields fail and you begin to take hits on your armor even as the acolytes begin sacrificing themselves to help thin the hail of plasma. Fortunately you do not have to endure for long before your reach torpedo range at last and the massed cherubs begin to unleash their deadly salvo. As fusion detonations begin to blanket the dreadnought its fire lessens as more and more turrets are destroyed. Then the Raawan starts her own deadly dance and all three sets of ion cannons methodically slash the dreadnought to shreds.

    Meanwhile the slingers are performing their own deadly work. Unheeding of their own casualties they unleashed a blizzard of missiles on the most damaged dreadnought attacking it from every side and all angles. With no protectors of their own slinger after slinger died to plasma fire, but the stalwart drones never let up and the dreadnought soon perished as missile after missile impacted its already damaged hull. The fact that the Guardian cruisers were also taking advantage of its distraction also helped.

    Meanwhile Laverna and Ulysses were dealing with the last dreadnought. A single carefully placed siege shot flooded the battle space with light and the area between it and the missile cruisers with much more deadly radiation. Reeling from the massive blow it scrambles to realign its drives and bring its turrets back online even as Laverna vectors a wave of Dervishes in to cut it to pieces. Ulysses takes advantage of the chaos to methodically pick the missile cruisers off one by one.

    At last the battle space clears as the three dreadnoughts drift as so much scrap. The only remaining Wraith ship in action is the flagship and Oracle diverts all power to its interdiction field to keep it that way.

    For a moment the battle stills as both sides take stock of their damage. Almost all your slingers were lost in their suicidal assault. Your own systems are burned out and your armor shattered. Oracle and Ulysses are heavily damaged. Half the Guardian fleet is just debris now.

    The Wraith flagship is streaming crimson fluid from multiple locations and has burns all across its bow. But it still remains a dangerous threat. A mighty beast surrounded by its lessers. Something it proves as the uneasy stillness is broken by a mighty blast.

    In one fluid motion the flagship's crimson bow unfolds into a meaty blossom to reveal the tip of a massive weapon. Your sensors barely manage to read a massive energy spike before it fires. A singularity exits the weapon and with deceptive slowness crosses the battle space to touch the defensive sphere. The only way to describe it is a warping of space. Your sensors read only garbage for a few moments as a blip in reality overwhelms them.

    When it clears there is nothing left. The mighty defensive stations are simply gone. Not just the one that was touched, but a huge chunk of the sphere in all directions. Even the rear portion of the Guardian fleet has been completely wiped. The way to the Grand Conclave is open, the only thing between the flagship and the galactic council are the merest remnants of the Guardian fleet.

    You can't have that. You immediately order everyone forward. Even your own battered shell powers forward to engage the flagship with your secondary batteries. Ulysses unleashes his second and most likely last siege shot to tear into the flagship's flank. Dervishes and acolytes tear into it from all sides while the few surviving slingers bombard it with missiles. And they aren't alone as you, Ulysses, and Laverna unleash your carefully hoarded stocks of Cluster Missiles. The multiple quantum charges tear another huge chunk out of the flagship.

    But the flagship is enormous. Even with such massive damage it surges forward physically ramming into and destroying several of the Guardian cruisers that couldn't get out of the way. Or maybe they deliberately stood their ground. In the heat of battle it's impossible to tell.

    Distantly you register more Bentusi ships entering the battle space from the direction of the conclave. At first you are confused, but then you recognize them as your own designs. A squadron of slingers escorted by buckler shield frigates and wings of acolytes. Aurora and Iuno must have prepared their own contributions after outfitting the Guardians with anti-subversion modules.

    Missiles fly, ion cannons lance out, and plasma turrets respond in kind. The Wraith flagship refuses to die. Its hulls warp and as new crimson flesh crawls across damaged sections filling them in and turning the ship into even more of a monstrosity.

    One by one your fleet goes down. The surviving slingers are destroyed by a last ditch wing of wraith interceptors. Ulysses' engines are destroyed by a lucky shot and he angrily falls out of range. Oracle 13's fire slackens and eventually stops entirely as it devotes more and more power to maintaining the interdiction field against wraith carriers attempting to jump into the battle space to assist the flagship.

    You yourself make run after run against the flagship. Escorting the Kwan and Rawaan in to score hits and pulling back just long enough to repair your defensive field generators. Eventually you run out of parts and resort to using your own hull until that too is shattered and your flicker allies tug your body out of the flagship's engagement envelope.

    The flagship is almost into subversion range of the conclave itself when it is finally destroyed. Not by fire from you or Ulysses. Not from missile bombardment. Not even from a last ditch by the guardians. No, what finally does the mighty beast in is the humble acolytes. Iuno, Aurora, and Laverna have been producing them non stop and they cover the flagship not in dozens or even hundreds, but in swarms a thousand strong.

    Each acolyte lashes out with its ion cannons again and again. Alone they would be nothing against the flagship's armor, Their meager damage easily regrown by the crimson mas. But in their thousands they slice it apart with a multitude of tiny cuts. The acolytes don't let up until the flagship is completely destroyed. And once it finally crumbles nothing remains of the mighty wraith invasion force but a cloud of drifting debris. Mere scraps of crimson flesh and dark armor.

    Not much is left of your fleet either. Against all odds the last Shepherd destroyer survived, but every other drone in your arsenal larger than a fighter is now dust. You and Ulysses are low on power and drifting in space. Oracle is burning out protecting against carrier attacks, but those abruptly cease as they apparently realize there is no longer a wraith attack force to rejoin.

    Even Laverna has taken a large amount of damage, her protected position not counting for much when the fleet is surrounded on all sides. Only Aurora and Iuno are entirely undamaged not having been in the battle proper. They have already exited the remnants of the defensive sphere and have begun repair operations on you and Ulysses.

    The Guardian fleet is basically non-existent. Only two of their cruisers and a handful of frigates survived and they are busy rescuing escape pods from all their destroyed comrades. Civilian ships have exited the conclave ship to assist them.

    The question is, now what?

    [ ] Contact the Conclave
    You should probably at least let them know what happened. Maybe now they'll finally deign to acknowledge your warnings. They did just get invaded after all.

    [ ] Return to Bentus
    You have more than fulfilled your mission. Time to go and report everything you've done to your elders. Maybe get a proper Sentinel fleet to look into the remaining megaliths.

    [ ] Rebuild at Irune
    There are still more wraiths out there, so you aren't done yet. You're in no condition to fight anyone else right now, but you've still got an open line of credit at Irune. Use their shipyards to rebuild your fleet.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [ ] Rebuild at Irune
    -[ ] Leaving a forwarding address for it the Council deigns to ask us questions about what just happened

    Mostly because:

    [ ] Examine the T-Mat Wreckage
    -[ ] With the Irunese, trading access to the technology for additional concessions, technology, and so forth

    So we can earn a much, much greater sum of favors.
     
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    DaLintyGuy said:
    [X] Rebuild at Irune

    [X] Examine the T-Mat wreckage

    @Arcanestomper do we have a Research action this round?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We're heading into what I had planned as the second game/arc. So I'm thinking of changing how the voting and mechanics work a little bit. Make the fleet management a little bit more meaty, and open up different options so I don't have to keep coming up with vote options. I've found that's the hardest part of this.
     
    [X] Rebuild at Irune

    I'll admit, the 'nice to the point of almost being Nigh-Canadian' part of me wants to give the politicians of the Grand Conclave a chance to thank us for pulling their asses out of the fire.

    Then I recall how they politely dismissed our warnings and tried to dump problems that they couldn't be arsed to deal with themselves on our flotilla as if we were at their beck and call. If they want to talk to us right now, then my opinion is that they have until our flotilla is ready to limp back to Irune, otherwise they're shit out of luck.

    If they really want to seriously talk, then I hope that they have a courier ship ready to either leave with us or catch up and relay a message ASAP, because we gotta strike at the Void Wraiths while the proverbial iron is hot and I don't see the point of pandering to their overinflated egos; we actually might have too much to do and not much time to get it done in.

    Off the top of my head: catch up with the Exiles and relay the tale of how their Captain fought and died in glorious battle and maybe get them ready to be pointed at the next major offensive that the Void Wraiths launch instead of clashing against Taiidan forces. We also need to build a new hull for our surviving Kushan Flicker Friends - I'm thinking not just build but throw them a few bones during the design process so that they end up with the kind of ship that have other Exiles seriously considering giving up half their quad for (I'm imagining one of the females looking at her mate and going 'Oh come on, you don't even use all four of them anyways, and look, it even has enough room for our pet Thresher Maw! Just look at Mr Nibbles sad widdle face!) Given the fights that we've been getting into, there's a non-zero chance that they'll eat that up like it was deep fried and smothered in chocolate.

    We also have to check in on the Turanic Fleet and make sure that they're still gearing up to slug it out with the Void Wraiths while keeping a low profile - maybe even take on a liason ship from their fleet to become a part of our flotilla. The last thing we want right now is for the Void Wraiths to pounce on them and try to subvert/infect them. Fortunately, we can pass on some tech to help prevent that from a purely physical perspective.

    We really should build Ulysses a cruiser chassis, preferably one capable of mounting his siege cannon (pity he was only able to salvage one of those cannons - two of them on a single Bentusi hull would have been wicked). For that matter, gonna plan ahead and say that Laverna should also begin planning what kind of cruiser chassis she wants for herself - I'm personally thinking a hull designed primarily to maximize her ability to build, maintain, direct and coordinate our various drone craft, with some defenses to dissuade attackers from thinking that she's an easy snack. I also recall that Aurora might've had some ideas for upgrades for herself, and I'm pretty sure that Iuno's Ark chassis is still a little bit of a work in progress and should have room for more stuff?

    Hell, I'm gonna expand that to our entire flotilla - while we're at Irune, all of our Flicker Friends in particular might appreciate the opportunity to design/build bigger hulls, not just the Kushan. Modifications to a hull can only go so far, and when it comes to our Irunese buddies in particular, I suspect that the Kwan may have been more of a testbed craft given that they usually don't build warships. Irune deserves to know how well the Kwan has been doing - if the reviews are favorable, the Kwan might be the first and namesake vessel for a new class of Irunese warship.

    We really should check on that Monolith and see what it's doing now. It'll likely either be a good surprise or a bad surprise, and when it comes to bad surprises, I'd rather get those early before they become worse surprises.

    We probably should return to Bentusi and tell them just what we've been up to (I don't doubt that Memnon has already given Bentus an update). Yes, it's very likely that Bentus will mobilize the Sentinels on receiving our report... But at this point, Bentus would probably also send us right back out for three simple reasons.

    First, we've already built up substantial goodwill and contacts amongst the other races of the galaxy on top of accruing valuable experience. Second, our flotilla is pretty good at investigating various situations and has a strange knack for making allies (see the Exiles, the Keepers and the Turanic Fleet). Three, I suspect that Bentus wants to see just how much we're capable of. We've pulled off some impressive deeds so far. Most of the galaxy sees Bentusi as traders. Us? We're murderhobo adventurers problem solvers. We've also been reminding the galaxy (and maybe our fellow Bentusi too) that the Bentusi are still a power to be respected. If I were Bentus, I would not want to waste that free publicity.
     
    Geas said:
    Off the top of my head: catch up with the Exiles and relay the tale of how their Captain fought and died in glorious battle and maybe get them ready to be pointed at the next major offensive that the Void Wraiths launch instead of clashing against Taiidan forces.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Now that I think of it we should have some rather dramatic Clout with which to do this, as the optics of the Taiidan not being at the Council station while a bunch of unaligned Bentusi save their collective posterior is going to burn heavily. So if said Bentusi show up and help make a binding resolution (the actual shooting might be over by this point) they are going to have a lot of political ammunition with which to make sure the agreement sticks.

    Giving the Kushan (...more) advanced technology I am less than keen on, given that unlike the Irunese there is a notable risk of them going on a conquering spree.
     
    [X] Rebuild at Irune

    Who wants to talk to useless politicians when we can go do useful things. Also I am concerned if we went back to Bentus we would have a lot of explaining to do instead of getting to keep doing cool things.
     
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