NationStates Jolt Archive

OoC: This is my quasi-introduction into future-tech thread. For any information on what my ships or technologies are, look http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=352433 here or ask me if it isn't in there.

13:42, Eleventh Fiscal Day, First Quarter
ESO-237 System, low orbit over ESO-237-P5

Rear Admiral Johns Vicken of the Third Expenditionary Fleet stared out the bridge window of his pride and joy; the Pillar of Truths, a Hammer class battlecruiser. Layed out before him was a medium-sized planet. The entire surface of the planet was rusty brown, though slightly hazey, enough to hint at an atmosphere. Initial scans with long-range MAD sensors were able to determine that the planet had a high metal content, specifically, there were hints at quadranium, a metal that forms naturally, but rarely, near the middle mantle of planets and in the depths of middle-aged stars. All hinted at this planet, designated ESO-237-P5, being not only a good subject for terra-formation, it being only slightly larger than Earth and composed of mostly the same materials, but quite a profitable one. If there was quadranium on this planet, it would be worth countless billions of isolat credits to the corporations back on Earth, and a hefty raise and perhaps a promotion for the admiral of the fleet that found it, of course.

He walked over to the holopad cell in the front corner of the Pillar's bridge and nodded at the comm officer, who activated the Spooky-Comm system, and the admiral began manipulating the datapad that rose to his left, dialing in for the other ships under his command, the three escort carriers Life of Peril, Brown Fox, and Captivation. After the moment it took for the computer at the center of the SC system to start up, the individual captains of the other three ships all appeared on the holopad cell in front of him, each giving short salute and query to the admiral as to what should be done.

The admiral smiled despite himself and began speaking to the men in front of him and miles away, "Hello gentlemen. As you know, the Pillar came in system to investigate this planet, code ESO-237-P5, while you were ordered to wait at the boundries of the system to watch for pirate activity. Now, I am countermanding those orders. ESO-237-P5 has turned out to be an amazingly promising candidate for terra-formation, and I need you, Captain Villion", he said, prompting the chief officer of the Brown Fox to step forward, "to jump in system and launch one of your retro-fitted recon-fighters. The pilot is to collect atmosphereic samples and return to his bay. From there, you shall send the collection tubes via shuttle right here to the lab facilities on the Pillar. And you, Captain Hallsworth", the captain of the Life of Peril moved forward as Captain Villion faded from view, "are to use your un-modified recon-fighters...yes, all of them...to go into a very low placed position, say fifty meters from the ground and do a full geo-scan from this side of the planet to the core. Finally, Captain Gorate", the final man stepped forward as his collegue followed the first captain, "are to jump into a position opposite the Pillar and ESO-237-P5 and bring both your MAD and GAD sensors up to full scanning abilities.

The last captain assented and the holopad cell shut down.

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Twelve Hours Later

As far as anyone else could tell, Admiral Vicken was in the best mood anyone had ever seen him in. Not for any bad reason, either. The geo-scans of the planet had returned a rather significant amount of quadrium settled right in the center of ESO-237-P5's mantle, and the final study of the planet's atmosphere was due back any moment now; though all initial signs pointed to an ideal base atmosphere for terra-formation. Nothing could ruin his mood now, nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

A silent alarm began as several consoles around the sensor's station on the bridge lit up in unison, "Admiral! Sir! Multiple unknown contacts entering the system! MAD sensors are unable to identify the class or origin. Visual confirmation expected in fifteen minutes" a nervous looking major said from his console.

The admiral's mood changed in an instant, "What!? How many?"

"The computers are still parcing that out, sir", replied the same major.

The admiral thought for a moment, then turned to the communications officer, "Colonel, open a direct channel to the unidentified ships using the boosted signal recievers".

The main viewport of the bridge fuzzled for a moment and the admiral began his address, "Unidentified craft, this is Read Admiral Johns Vicken of the Human Imperial Republican Navy of Industrial Experiment, please identify yourselfs and your intent in this system", and then he turned to the communications officer and whispered, "Send a secure text message to the captains of the Life of Peril and Brown Fox to deploy their fighter squadrons. Also send a message to all consoles in fire control to begin powering their weapons".

With that, the admiral turned back to the viewing screen, waiting for it to fizzle into something understandable...

OoC: Anyone can be the approaching craft, but I warn you that it'll be a first-come first-serve affair. If you can figure out a way to RP yourself into the ESO-237 system after the fact, I will accept it and respond.

Why do I ALWAYS have to bump my topics?

Do I suck with topic titles?

I'll do it, if you want.
It could be one of my slave fleets searching for populations to harvest and stumble upon your ships. We could have a conflict or I could move on.

RP away, then, I don't mind what you do. Central Command has already been informed due to the nature of my communications systems, so even if you were to destroy the task force, my government would know what happened.

Though, I was hoping this would be a diplomatic beginning to my introduction to the galaxy.

OC:You begin diplomatic relations by sending out fighters and powering up weapons? My ships could think you were pirates or hostile empires wishing to take or destroy our beloved slaves.

Twelve "Ghost Maker" Class fighters phased into view in an instant.
Another useless scan, the psychics controlling each ship thought to each other. For years now these slave fleets had searched across the universe, harvesting the poor populations that they could find

The twelve fighters moved thruogh the system, phasing in and out of truespace to make better use of the time they had to scan the area.
Just like the 3 systems before this.
Then something caught the sensors of one of the fighters.
What the...are those ships?
That is highly unlikely. Ships out here....

"Unidentified craft, this is Read Admiral Johns Vicken of the Human Imperial Republican Navy of Industrial Experiment, please identify yourselfs and your intent in this system" an Unknown Voice sounded inside each of the psychic's brains.

They are launching fighters and powering up weapons.
Affirmative, contacting Apparition swarm control, we will wait for our orders.
And so the small dark fighters held position, glimmering in and out of vision.
They sent no message back.

OoC: Heh, Johns did all that since he expected pirates. Only one other civilization near our technology level has been encounted in HIR history; but they're plenty of pirates in our space. Shame he's so ambitious, it might very well be the death of him; and looks like he'll be taking a Hammer class with him. Ouch.

After a full twenty minutes of waiting for any kind of reply from the very, very odd ships that he was presented with, the admiral eventually decided that they were damaged in some way. Their lack of communications, and indeed, movement at all hinted at some kind of spatial distortion problem with their ships. Perhaps their SJ-Drive had malfunctioned or something, "Unindentified craft, are you in need of assistance? We are picking up very odd readings from our sensors, and we wish to inquire if you are in any way damaged. Repeat, are you in need of assitance? We shall send five repair tugs out to your ships and bring them into a stable orbit over the planet nearest you and jump out there ourselves to give you access to our extensive repair bays".

With that, two repair tugs from the Pillar of Truths, and three from the Brown Fox leapt from their berths out into space, setting a course for the errant ships. During this, the three capital ships orbiting ESO-237-P5 plotted courses out to the planetoid located near the strange ships, ESO-237-P7, and activated their spurt jump engines, arriving in mere seconds.

OOC:Heh. Do you think you could answer a few questions for me?
First of all, how many of your race are present on these ships?
Second, how far are your shields from your hull? (If you have shields)

"Unindentified craft, are you in need of assistance? We are picking up very odd readings from our sensors, and we wish to inquire if you are in any way damaged. Repeat, are you in need of assitance? We shall send five repair tugs out to your ships and bring them into a stable orbit over the planet nearest you and jump out there ourselves to give you access to our extensive repair bays".
It could be a trap. They could be pirates or hostiles.
Either way, they are more slaves for prime.
And with that, space came alive.
1,600 Ghost Maker fighters and 1 Wither Dreadship sparked into truespace, each of the dark fighters charging their 4 EFWs (Electron Flux Whips).
This formed a sort of illusion, the 6,400 bright strands making it appear that there were more ships than there really were.
The Wither took place behind the large swarm of fighters, as it possessed no weapons, just stockpiles of antimatter torpedos which GM fighters could pick up in case of large capital ships.
The thousands of lights moved forward.

I wonder what they are thinking.
We have had no prior contact. They will not be adapted to our technology like the others.
It seems they haven't even enabled FTLi. Maybe they aren't here to fight afterall.
The hundreds of psychic pilots thought as one, the anticipation of battle racing through them.

This is the Wither to all fighters, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage unless fired upon. Shadow Tech Prime may have more a use for these.

Great The pilots thought. What are those damned politicians thinking?

OoC: All Hammer Class Battlecruisers employ up to 17,000 personnel, which is split into a crew compliment of 14,500, a marine compliment of 2,000, and a flight wing of 500. The flight wing, however, is only used for shuttles and repair tugs, as no Hammer have a fighter wing. If you think that number is high, remember, these ships are a mile and a half long by a little more than a half-mile wide. The Beehive Class Escort Carriers are signficantly less populated, at a total personnel count of 2,250, which is split into a crew compliment of 1,250, a detachment of 100 marines, and 900 flight wing.
None of my ships field any shields in the normal sense, as we have not discovered a technology that would work yet, but all ships do have EM field generators that are capable of shunting aside metallic objects that aren't moving too fast and also anti-matter or plasma shots that aren't backed by a more powerful EM field. All my ships are also amazingly sturdy, having honey-comb designs that sectionalize and strengthen the ship, along with very effective and very dense armor (My civilization has learned how to manipulate sub-atomic particles, so really no material is outside our reach). The armor is also ablative to combat energy-based weaponry.

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With the appearence of the almost number-less amounts of fighters, the admiral could do nothing but stare open-mouthed for a moment. He was just able to pick himself up when the fighter-count seemed to quadruple in a moment. However, he recovered even quicker from this shock and immediately went to the sensor stations, demanding a report from the major in charge there.

The man stuttered a moment before he gave his report, "Sir, our visual scopes estimate the enemy number at somewhere in the middle six thousands, but cross-checking our MAD and GAD sensor data shows the actual number somewhere in the area of the middle one thousands. I am more want to trust the..."

Johns cut-off the major, "So it's some kind of illusion then, eh? I'll show them to try to trick me. Communications, get me a direct connection to...what's the nearest FleetCom HQ? Seviliris? Yeah, get me a direct connection to Seviliris FleetCom, request immediate carrier reinforcement, but ask for them to jump in outside the system, preferably a dozen light-years away. Also, get me another connection with Central FleetCom on Earth and request 400 Warp-fighters be sent to the opposite side of the star in the system to sit by with the Captivation should we need them".

The major worked furiously for several minutes, even engaging in a small fight with Commander Ridot back at Seviliris FleetCom, but he was finally able to turn back to the admiral and say with a sense of triumph, "Sir, your requests have been granted. The warp-fighters will, naturally, be here in a half-hour, while the carriers from Seviliris are to be expected in six to eight hours".

The admiral contemplated this for a moment before giving his final orders, "Ok then, get in contact with the Brown Fox amd Life of Peril and order them to return all fighters to their bays, but keep them at high alert", he turned towards the fire control section of the crew pit and walked over there quickly, "Colonel, power down all weaponry to 50%, I want to be able to respond if these guys don't want to play nice", he said quickly before stalking back to the communications section, "Major, get me on the boosted signal recievers, now".

The major complied with all due speed, and the admiral spoke once more, "Unidentified fleet, we would like to inform you that we have no hostile intent. Please step down, and we will gladly do the same. We are merely scouting this system for resources and possible terra-formation of one or two of the planets, we do not wish for hostilities. Repeat, we wish for peace".

OoC: Note that all the extra forces being called in are going to be used as insurence should you attack me, they are not there for an ambush.

This is Apparition Swarm HQ to Wither Fleet 657, recall all forces to prime at once, they will be needed to prove our worth to the ESUS.

Recalling fighters from our Wither fleets?..... This must be a large operation.... war. Thought Commander Jis of the Wither.


"Unidentified fleet, we would like to inform you that we have no hostile intent. Please step down, and we will gladly do the same. We are merely scouting this system for resources and possible terra-formation of one or two of the planets, we do not wish for hostilities. Repeat, we wish for peace".
All fighters return to prime at once. Apparition is recalling all border forces. Something is up.
With that the irritated pilots blinked out of existance, angry that they hadn't gotten the opportunity to fight a worthy opponent.

"This is Commander Jis of Shadow Tech Prime to unidentified vessels. We hope that the flex of our muscles was not taken the wrong way. This ship, though very large, is completely unarmed and should be of no concern. Our fighters have jumped out of the system and will no longer need to worry you as well. Sadly, we have neither the time nor the personel to conduct a proper first contact....
Shadow Tech Prime sends its apologies. Good luck with your work here, Admiral."
The mighty 7km ship glimmered red for a second and was gone.

OOC: Of course my ships were planning on harvesting your populus but ST Prime is on the brink of war and there were enough enemies to be made.
On a side note, your a great rper and it doesn't appear like you get even close to godmodding. I expect to hear from you in the future. Adios.

Also, I saw that you were wanting to get involved with GZ's war.
As a member of the ESUS, my fleet was returning to ST Prime to organize as to possibly involve myself in that war and you could possibly track the general area in which we had come from.

OoC: Thank you for the compliments, and I really am grateful that my introduction to future-tech was aided by a writer of your caliber.

The entire bridge was silent as the strange voice played out over all the speakers. Indeed, the entire ship seemed to stand still, fear catching the hearts of several men. They had been briefed on the possibility of other space-faring civilizations, and they had been briefed on what to do should one be encountered. However, with all the signs being wrong, this species most certainly didn't appear to be another Proge, and more than one man breathed a sigh of extreme relief when this realization dawned on him. Every one of them recalled their history lessons on that most dark period of human history, and all of them most vehemently wished to die as old men and never have to face such a conflict.

As the alien announcement finally faded from the air, the admiral came to the same conclusion, but he was forced by establish protocol, so he almost regretting doing what he had to do next. He walked up to his own commander's console, typed in a quick series of numbers and letters, then pressed a seemingly blank portion of his console in for a few seconds.

Only moments later, a small hatch opened on the side of the Pillar, ejecting a meter long by half a meter wide craft. It was entirely black for a moment, but then it appeared to disappear entirely. In truth, it had activated its active camofluage systems, blending in with the backrounds around it. It's sleek shape and ceramic composure allowed it to avoid most types of Radar and all types of electromagnetic detection. It's gravity nullifiers allowed it to resemble a patch of open space to GAD systems, and its cold-plasma circitry further hardened it against EM detection and thermal scanning. Essentially, in open space, this thing was damn near invisible.

It's internal computer assessed its situation for a moment before opening communications with Central FleetCom on Earth. It began sending every bit of information it picked up as it tracked the exit trajectory of the disappearing alien ship and then activated its own FTL engines, engines that were classified enough so that only a small group of engineers and top-officials even knew about that. The ship folded in upon itself, following the alien ship to whereever it was going.