NationStates Jolt Archive

The species always had to grow, learn, devour. For decades now they had restructured uninhabited systems, seldom did they venture out of their territory or did they interact with the organics.

But that was now changing as they began to encroach upon space already claimed by others. Species 2865 was too dangerous as they were amassing to attack, because of this Species 1 needed to gain additional strength and some new knowledge by acquiring the assets of one of the factions of Species 2866 known as Arenumberg.

Scoutvessels had already catalogued their defenses and assets but their defenses would still be tested to gauge their resistance. A hundred warvessels were prepared, they would approach one of their outersystems using conventional warp and assimilate their ships if possible, destroy them if necessary.

Then the massive cubes accelerated and went to warp. They would reach their territory in 3.5 days.

blink.. blink... blink.. The Red light on the sentinel blinked on and off, each blink sending a sensor scan back to Sentila IV Listening Station, The Sentinel watched the darkness of space all along the fringe of the southern border of the confederacy, this scan had found something.. Odd.

Sentila IV Listening Station

The Consoles showed scan after scan, expanses of data, one after another, The Sentinel sent in yet another scan, and another, and another, each showing unknown anomalies, on a course towards the border.

"Uh, Sir, mass amounts of unknown readings heading towards the border, ETA Shows 0.5 Days of Transit left" A Officer reported, staring at on of the consoles.

"How many readings Lieutenant?" The Commander of the station asked

The Officer's mouth dropped wide open "Uh.. 500,000 Sir, they will all arrive out of their main jump not very far from us.."

"500,000!? Send the data on to Bastillion now! Evacuate all non-essential personell on all available vessels, ask for some back up while your at it!" The Commander said

"Data transmitting, im trying to contact the local Task Force, they will be able to get here before the unknowns do, hopefully they can offer some resistance, or get us out of here" The Officer said, beginning to panic slightly

"Do it, at least we get a front row seat of the arrival.." The commander said.

He walked up to and stared out of the window. "We need a miracle" he said to himself

OOC: Ehm, this is just a probing force of 100 warvessels. The main group wont attack just yet. Is there anything else in the system apart from a listening post?

IC:
The cubes came out of warp and formed up in a standard attack formation. It appeared as if a disorganized wall of ships 3 rows thick came lumbering towards the listening post. Longrange sensors had detected several ships in the system.

As was standard procedure they send out a message giving them a chance to save themselves. But the organics were seldom wise enough to take it.

*We are Species 1. Lower your shields and abandon your ships. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.*

OOC: Sorry i stand corrected, just replace the words heh, Apart from the listening post there is 1 planet with a small colony on but nothing else

The message spread across the system, the listening post only had a few people on, trying to transmit all the reserves of data off as fast as possible, along with the scans of the ships, however the Task Force had a amicable answer.

The Task Force had been told to make contact, but obviously the unknowns identifying itself as Species 1 had made their intentions clear, the orders went to the task group, The Carrier launched its Fighters and bombers, the cruisers and destroyers fell into formation, and the battleship charged its weapons, They headed towards the wall, came within range, and fired.

Task Force:
1 Endurance Class Battleship
1 Izumo Class Carrer (or however i worded it ;))
3 Saxony Class Cruisers
4 Akinta Class Destroyers
500 Interceptors
100 Bombers

The first attack hit the shields of the warvessels that flared up from the barrage. They began to return fire with their plasma launchers, firing bolts of hot plasma at the opposing capital ships. After they had launched their drone compliment, they began to break up in several groups.

40 vessels continued to move in a straight line and meet the enemy fleet head on. 25 moved sideways and tried to pass the Arenumberg ships on the right while another 25 tried to do the same on the left. 10 of them fell back and seemed to act as a reserve.

The drones themselves also broke up in 3 groups. 2000 of them covered the 40 vessels against the enemy fighters and bombers while a thousand drones tried to get above the enemy fleet and began an attack vector from that position at the same time that another group of a 1000 drones tried the same below the Arenumberg fleet.

OOC: Hey species. Attacking another random target?

OOC: It was arranged


The Task force contracted and swirled in and out of a sphere formation, the shields contracting and absorbing, then refracting, before they finally began to buckle under the strain of the attack, the interceptors and bombers attempted to swarm the enemy ships, but the destroyers on the outskirts of the formation had endured too much, 2 Destroyers exploded in a fiery shower of light, whilst one careered off into the enemy formation.

OC: What Arenumberg said.

IC:
The controllers were pleased to see their small fleet crumble and now decided to begin stage 2. They had lost 260 drones already but they were irrelevant.

At the same time that the ten warvessels that had been held in reserve moved of to the listening post, every vessel activated its communications jammers. This would hopefully prevent any FTL communication leaving the system, but nothing was certain. These ten warvessels made sure to avoid the area of the battle to prevent being stalled by the enemy.

One of the cubes had taken a lot of hits and began to experience shield failure so it fell back and let the remaining drones and the other 39 cubes cover it. The largest group of drones were attacking the fighters and bombers using their greater numbers to attack them in pairs or even small groups while the others kept the pressure on the capital ships.

These drones were now joined by the two groups of cubes attacking the sides of the enemy fleet using a combination of plasma bolts and focused energy beams aimed at their shields and engines.

They tried to capture the careening destroyer by lashing out with tractor beams in the hopes of stopping the ship while they struggled to get out of the way of the damaged ship.

The Fighters and bombers depleted rapidly, whilst the Careening destroyer began to slow, unfortunately, the Carrier had manouvered away to support its fighters, when the Destroyer smashed into it, destroying both vessels.

The Last destroyer took a critical hit, going off course crushing a cruiser and plowing through a swarm of drones, Another Cruiser exploded from intense fire, its remains flying off into the direction of some more drones, the last cruiser suddenly stopped, and a silver slit in space began to appear, expanding and turning to a shade of deep indigo, it sped into the wormhole, and was gone.

The last fighters depleted themselves on another wave, while the remaining bombers launched their torpedoes and attempted to kamikaze.

The battle was with the Battleship, Harsburg, it charged its remaining main cannons and its main battle cannon, which had finally charged, and fired a full salvo into the heart of the enemy formation, alas, although this may cause extreme damage to the enemy, the Harsburg's reactors failed, shutting off shields engines and weapons, its secondary reactors barely keeping sensors communications life support and the like operational.

"Harsburg to .!¬"¬..#@~£$"$... sur..*&(&&^& we surrender ^&$^..

OOC: Where is the listening post located and does it have shielding? I don't know if its located on an asteroid, a moon or perhaps its a free floating object?

IC:
The kamikaze actions, dogfighting and the ships that flew off course took its toll from the drones. Only 2360 drones remained and they now concentrated on the battleship. They did not fire but they did surround it.

The last bombers were swatted by precision energy beams from the warvessels that now too surrounded the battleships. They did not fire but they did gather the debry from the battlefield with metal tentacles and cables that lashed out and grabbed pieces. They opened up a small band in the jamming field to allow short range communications and sent a message.

*We accept. Abandon your ship and we will let you go. Destroy your ship and we will destroy you and every individual in this system.*

The last volley from the battleship had unfortunatly hit a warvessels whose shields had begun to destabilize and because of that, most of the attack hit the armour of the cube. After the explosion a big crater could be seen were the weapon had impacted. The cube itself struggled to keep its core stable and began repairs. Two other cubes helped with the repairs but it would take an hour at least to get everything going again.

The ten cubes had reached the listening post and now they stopped. One of them leashed out with some kind of light. It was a scan that swept over the listening post to determine its exact value to Species 1 and its defence capabilities. Then they too sent out a message thanks to the gap in the jamming field.

* We are Species 1. Abandon your post and leave the system. We will add your technological distictivness to our own. Resistance is futile. Your lives are irrelevant.*

OOC: Its just a station, btw the battleship has one of the new AI systems that is partially sentient

Small pods began to push themselves off of the battleship one by one, flying away, ultimately flying off in the direction of the lone planet in the system.

At the listening post, one small shuttle left.

But, the commander remained.

"This is Commander Thyfa of the Sentila IV Listening Station, state your purpose and the meaning of this attack"

He was stalling for time, the colony needed it.

As the lifepods moved away from the battleship, two warvessels approached while several drones tried to get into the hangar of the ship. The warvessels extended metal tentacles with grapplers that they tried to attach to the battleship. The rest minus the damaged warvessel guarded by one warvessel accelerated towards the planet after all of the spare drones had been gathered.

At the listening post, the cubes formed up and powered up their weaponry. They sent a short message to the post.
*One lifeform detected. You have failed to comply.*

After that message they targetted the post and the small shuttle and they fired plasma bolts at both targets. Their intent was to destroy both the shuttle and the listening post.

The Station began to take shielding damage, its weapons and shields had been optomised in the time availabe, and all power, even life support had been charged into the shielding and weapons, whilst the lone lifeform made its way to a pod, and it ejected and slipped straight into a womhole,the station's turrets swivelled and targetted the weaker parts of the cubes, their sensors probing all of the weak points.

The Shuttle buckled and began to stream fire, before it jumped using rudimentary drives.

The Battleship opened its hangars, a message played over the inter system audio. "Welcome to the Harsburg, please refrain from ripping the bulkheads apart".

Sensing the target lock they stopped firing plasma bolts and fired 12 compressed antimatter missiles at the outpost, programmed to detonate 5 microns before they would impact the shields. At the same time the cubes moved away some what to be safer from the blast.

The four drones entered the hangar bay of the battleship and immidiately began searching for a computer interface or anything that connected to the central processor. The two cubes now placed their mechanical tentacles on the hull and released a stream of nanobots that began eating through the hull. Spiderbots that had taken a ride on the tentacles began crawling over the hull to look for a way in. More of them came crawling over the tentacles.

The rest of the cubes now reached the colony and took up position above the major settled area's. They would do a detailed scan of the planet to determine how many sentients were there and were they were located. Then they would calculate the most efficient attack pattern and then execute it.

The outpost really wasnt prepared or equipped to handle the force of such a blast, its shield collapsed, and its outer hull and a few decks were shred off.

The Harsburg was playing.. all of its protocols had been turnt off when it was abandoned, she felt the nanobots eating their way in, so she sent her own out to eat them and preserve herself, she also used the back up reactors to shock the odd spiderbot with pure energy, she let the drones access her processor, guiding them to certain data, however, she locked down all sensitive and classified data, that protocol was in action.

The Colony had managed to send a few transports away with people on board, even now the last few hundred thousand crowded into the star port on the opposite side of the planet, and a few more transports lifted off.

After the outpost had been disabled, four warvessels returned and they placed their tentacles upon what was left of it. Then they began pumping out nanobots that were there to analyse the technology and reform the station to Species 1 standards. The were assisted by spiderbots that went after the electronic systems and interface with them.

Meanwhile the assimilation process didn't go so well at the battleship. The nanobots were now eating away the armour in an attempt to keep their numbers up as they were taken out by the enemy's nanobots. The energy surges fried many of the nanobots that the spiderbots carried so they would only regenerate slowly. New spiderbots kept trying although most were kept back now.

Analysis of the countermeasures indicated that there was some kind of AI still protecting the ship and they decided that the ship itself was more valuable then its data. The drones were instructed to upload a viral program designed to disrupt the communications between the ship's systems.

The warvessels that had reached the colony noticed the lack of organic sentients but they did pick up the fleet of ships and six of them quickly engaged their FTL drive to reach the ships before they could make a run.
Once they were there, they would use their focused energy beams to take out their engines.

The Harsburg A.I. "Convulsed" shocking the entire skin of the ship, this "infection" was making her unable to control things effeciently, but.. it could be dealt with, she placed her digital hand into her core, and "ripped it out" if one could say that, she broadcasted a message "Unknown vessels, stop this, i will comply if you cease."

The Colonists boarded the last few transports, and were launched, the ships encountered unknown vessels, they were disabled quickly and effeciently, the lead ship broadcasted a message.

"We are refugee's, we are leaving surely you understand that we are innocent, please let us leave"

The six cubes positioned near the refugee ships, stopped firing and sent out a message: *Stay there, you will be allowed to leave in 30 of your minutes.*

Now that the colonists had been halted, the next step in their plan was unvailed. They recalled the virus and then told the AI: *Cooperate or we will terminate the colonists, all of them.* The message was followed by an image of the refugee ships surrounded by cubes.

Things had gone somewhat better then expected and they called for six scoutvessels to restructure the system. So far there had been no losses but it was not known when their military would arrive.

The Harsburg Replied "I will comply".


Meanwhile..

Bastillion Station, Bastillion Shipyards And Command, Bastillion Nebula

"Admiral Faran, what is the recommended course of action?" A Young Fleet Captain asked, eager to go nonetheless

"The President and the rest of the parliament have allowed the use of the 4th,5th,6th, and 34th Fleets." The Admiral replied to the Fleet Captian, and of course to the room, Admiral Faran was one of the new young admirals, and this would be his first major command, his eyes blazed a stronger blue with the approaching hours.

"The 34th? THE 34th?" One officer asked, partially amazed

"Yes, The Manticore will be coming, but they are deployed a while away and their drives need to recharge for such a long wormhole" Admiral Faran said
"Meanwhile, the 4th 5th and 6th await you, get to your ships." He ordered

"Yes sir" They all cried in unison

All around the shipyard and battlestation, and many other installations, ships buzzed as they were warmed up for the jump.

4th:
2 Endurance Class Battleships
3 Huang Class Battleships
5 Akinta Class Destroyers
4 Saxony Class Cruisers
3 Cobra Class Carriers
1 Velire Class Dreadnaught

5th:
2 Velire Class Dreadnaughts
5 Wakefield Class Cruisers
2 Huang Class Battleships
1 Aranamor Class Carrier
1 Yamato Class Carrier
1 Izumo Class Battle Carrier
3 Akinta Class Destroyers

6th:
1 Endurance Class Battleship
1 Huang Class Battleship
1 Izumo Class Battle Carrier
3 Wakefield Class Cruisers
4 Saxony Class Cruisers
4 Alliance Class Capital Ships
4 Akinta Class Destroyers
5 Akinta Class Destroyers

(34th wont arrive for a while)

The eight remaining cubes that weren't reforming the listening post into an armed Species 1 sensor node joined up with the warvessels surrounding the planet. Then they split up into two groups except the six that were guarding the refugee ships. These two groups of 44 warvessels each engaged their FTL drives and set a course for a different system.

The two cubes trying to assimilate the battleship received it's answer and retracted their tentacles. They left the spiderbots and nanobots to examine the workings of the ship and to take it over. The drones meanwhile began to access its database again, relaying the information to one of the cubes.

One of the two now attached a tractor beam to the battleship and began to tow it back to their territory, guarded by the other cube. They made certain to provide the battleship AI with a live video feed of the refugee ships being guarded by the cubes.

The Fleets inbound to the system recieved bad news, the system they were heading for had been changed, to another, then another, then another, the command system had flatered at exactly the wrong time, they abruptly dropped out of their jump, and waited for the command bug to pass.

The A.I watched, and thought to herself, the annoying little mechanical bugs walking all over her and prodding her would be tolerated, for preservation of the colonists, if the colonists were eliminated, the bugs would pay.

The two cubes now disengaged from the post and towed it to the planet. There they were joined by six scoutvessels that had just arrived and the other two warvessels.

One of the scoutvessels broke up into several pieces which merged with the restructuring outpost. It was now under the command of a member of Species 1 and powered by a quantum singularity. Hovering over the planet it would make it difficult to retake the planet.

The five others moved down to the planet, transforming to allow a safe landing on the ground. Once they reached the ground they would release spiderbots and nanobots that would begun building facilities for a new colony. First up were defenses and factories for the production of spiderbots and drones. It would take a day to get them all up but the nanobots not only spread along the surface of the planet, they also dug themselves in.

OOC: Post something more :)

The two groups that had left the overwhelmed system where now nearing their targets. 22 warvessels for one system and 22 for the other one. These systems were also positioned on the boarder and the main goal were the listening posts in both of them, second objective was the destruction of any resistance.

OOC: Sorry, but I can't think of anything more for the moment.

The 34th Fleet had warmed up, it shot off into its mass of wormholes, only to be jolted out by the system bug.

The ships had stopped straight out in one of the systems, on sensors, were unknown vessels..

"This could be them! Charge all shields, defensive formation, Charge all weapons systems, full acceleration!" The admiral ordered over the fleetcom

"Yes sir" rang out cries from many ships, cackling over the com..

And the fleet advanced..

34th:
1 Manticore Class Dreadnaught
2 Velire Class Dreadnaughts
2 Endurance Class Battleships
3 Huang Class Battleships
2 Cobra Class Carriers
6 Saxony Class Cruisers
4 Wakefield Class Cruisers
5 Akinta Class Destroyers
2 Izumo Class Battle-Carriers
1 Yamato Class Carrier
3 Alliance Class Capital Ships
2 Aranamor Class Carriers

One of the two groups encountered unanticipated resistance. A fleet of ships whose configuration matched the specifications of Arenumberg warships who had not been encountered before were detected.

They themselves were still some distance away from the enemy fleet and so 2 of them broke of and would try to go around the fleet and destroy the listening post. The other twenty moved on and prepared for a head on attack that began as soon as they dropped out of warp.

This time there would be no ultimatum, they had already declined it. Without hesitation the twenty warvessels launched 4 antimatter missiles each at the Manticore Class Dreadnaught as soon as they dropped out of warp. That ship had been deemed the most dangerous and it would be best to take it out now.

After that volley they would proceed with launching their drones to provide a screen against enemy fighters and the like.

The Admiral, on board the ACNV Manticore, saw the 4 blips on his ships radar screen, panic set in.

"No, stop, whats their trajectory?" The admiral said

A spew of numbers came out of an officers mouth.

"Wait.. theres a destroyer moving in the way.. Damn! Tell them to evacuate!!"

"Trying sir.. we can only hope they evac.. but there are still 2 missiles that will impact"

"Divert ALL power to the forward shields, Launch the fighters and bombers, try and raise them on the comms, they havnt attempted contact so we should."

"Yes sir... the 2 missiles have impacted.. destroyer lost.. 25% of all hands.. evaced.."

"Damn.. is the shield charged?"

"Yes sir.. 5..4..3..2..1."

The ship rocked, and dimmed, its new shield system flexed and vibrated, pulsed and contracted..

"Sir, Generators report we managed to absorb 34% of damage into the power systems, shields holding at 78%, we lost some armour and a few lower decks have been shredded to infinity, air lock shields activated."

"Now.. get all the battleships ready for broadsides.. and fire"

OOC: Ehm, it was 4 from every warvessel so there were 80 missiles, not four.

IC:
The twenty warvessels spread out ignoring the hail and gave another volley of six antimatter missiles each. 20 of those were programmed to detonate amongst the oncoming fighters and bombers, 20 were targetting the dreadnoughts and the remaining 80 targetted the other capital ships.

They also let loose with their plasma bolts and focused energy beams while their drones now tried to reach the enemy fighters and take those out. Four of the warvessels focussed their beams and bolts on the Manticore while the rest shielded them from attacks of the other ships and they concentrated their fire on them.

Of the 800 drones that went in, 75 were lost because of the broadside fire from the enemy. The shields on the warvessels held for now although they were being drained, in part because they had already encountered Arenumberg weapons before and were now better capable of repelling their attacks.

Meanwhile the two warvessels that had gone around the enemy fleet were now nearing the listening post. As soon as they would reach it they too would each fire six missiles at the post.

OOC: Sorry my mistake.

"God damn it, get those Point Defense systems online, form a effective perimeter now, All Capital ships, manouver and fire broadsides!"

The multitude of enemy missiles began their impact, smashing into the outer perimeter of ships, a few beginning to take hull damage, already, however, the capital ships of the fleet, and especially the Manticore, manouvered into the gaps, and fired their guns.

OOC: NP

IC:
The twenty ships kept on firing, they didn't move to another target before the first one was neutralized. Their own shields began to waver, they wouldn't be able to withstand this pounding for long. The drones kept on attacking the enemy fighters and bombers, flying in pairs to attack a target from two sides.

The four ships that had been concentrating on the Manticore now accelerated towards the ship, firing their weapons as they went.

The two ships that had reached the listening post now, fired 12 torpedoes at it without hesitation.

OOC: So sorry for the delay, computer problems etc, and this RP sort of left my mind.

The Station exploded in a flurry of blinding light.

The Manticore buckled slightly, but more capital ships closed in to support it, concentrating their fire with pin point accuracy on predicted weak points, some ships began to show wear and tear, but here they needed to make a stand.

The fighters and bombers dogfighted, neither side yet to take losses, but it wouldnt be long.

OOC: I understand, I feared that you had given up on the RP.

IC: The two cubes immidiately jumped to warp after destroying the listening post and raced back to the battle at full speed.

Meanwhile the warvessels fighting the enemy fleet was getting into problems, 7 of the cubes had lost shields and now the weaponsfire pounded directly unto the armour that wouldn't last long. The subspace field around the vessels cushioned the attack but it wasn't enough. They had also lost 200 drones, but they were expendable.

The ships gave as good as they got and were firing all of their weapons, spinning on their axis to spread out the damage and give the weapons more time to recharge so that they could fire at a higher power setting. They also fired of their last missiles, in total there were 64 missiles.

One of the four cubes that had been focussing on the Manticore, suddenly accelerated to .6c on a collision course with the Manticore. The other three shifted their weapons fire to any ship that could try to interfere. They too let their last 4 missiles loose, firing a volley of 12 missiles.

The Missiles fired first smashed into the shields and hulls of the surrounding ships, Disabling 2 and damaging most of the rest, the other missiles smashed and crumbled into the Manticore, then she was dead in the water, the escape pods able to launch detached off and then the Cubes smashed into her hulking form.

Meanwhile, around 30 Fighters and 20 Bombers had given up their lives, and 2 cruisers had bore the brunt of the debris from the Manticore and from other shots, and drifted off before exploding.

However, the fleet continued their co-ordinated and pinpointed attacks, as the cubes turned their "Better" side, weapons would cease, and channel to the shield being fired upon, then when the bad side camr back round, all weapons power would be redirected and fired onto the same point once again.

OOC: Sorry for waiting so long.

IC:
The one cube that had rammed the Manticore lost core stability and the now unstable quantum singularity crumpled the damaged vessel like a thin can. The entire cube was sucked into the singularity along with the debris that was in close by. The other three pushed on and tried to break through the enemies formation to reach the rear of the fleet firing their weapons as they went. Two of them lost shields but they kept on going.

Of the 20 other warvessels fighting the fleet, only three still had shields. The change in tactic actually helped Species 1 since the repair systems now had enough time to repair the damage because they could concentrate on one area. Meanwhile they kept a continuous fire on the enemy ships thanks to the fact that the weapons systems were distributed across the entire surface of the vessel.

They were still loosing drones, only 300 of the original 800 were left but they went down fighting.

OOC: and myself

Little fiery explosions signified the destruction of fighters and bombers, their pilots screaming as death took them.

The larger ships, destroyers mostly, began to falter, gaping holes appearing in their hulls, One, two, three, exploded in the darkness of space.

The Fleet targetted one vessel specificly, fired all its power remaining into it, then any and all ships that could, began their hasty retreat, one of the larger ships using its prototype to open a large wormhole, 2 Cruisers were destroyed trying to protect the fleet from the remaining enemies, then all was silent, except for the wreckage of the battle, and the screams of the dying.

The end came as a surprise to the battered fleet of Species 1. They were soon joined by the two cubes that had destroyed the listening post which immidiately started to help in the harvesting of the debris. It took them an hour to get everything they wanted and then they returned back to their own space. The other fleets inside Arenumberg space also left for home.

They had now assessed their resistance and knew that they would not be able to withstand a full assault by Species 1. In their own space, the fleet was ready. Thousands upon thousands of ships could be seen as far as the eye could see. They now began to move straight for the capital system of Arenumberg.