NationStates Jolt Archive

Above Darthirii, a largeish Portal opened. For a few moments, it rippled, fluctuating as it adjusted to the rip in Space it had caused. A few moments after that, three heavily armed 4KM ships emerged from the Portal, weapons powered down, their IFF Beacons pulsing.

On the OHLF Death's Head, Grand Admiral Slavik nodded at the Comm. Officer.

"Send the message."

To: Her Royal Highness Queen Kaymiril VII
From: Outer Heaven Light Frigate Death's Head
Subject: Agreed meeting

Greetings your Highness! This is Grand Admiral Anton Slavik. As agreed, I am currently in orbit, awaiting your permission for the Death's Head to Portal you up here. We have the Architects and experts on the Death's Head, ready to begin planning Kaymiril's Militarisation. I await your response.

Grand Admiral Anton Slavik

Permission is granted. I will be accompanied by two guards.

~Kaymiril VII, Valsharess.

So...this is it...we have foreign ships coming in with which to fight.

Slavik nodded at the Tactical Station.

"Open up a Portal to climb through. Open up the Exit point at the stairway."

Standing, Slavik smoothed out his uniform, and watched as a Portal opened below him...

___________________________________________________________________

In front of the Queen, a Portal opened up. It looked like a sea with a large glowing orb in the middle, with it rippling and making slight hissing noises. All that was left for the Queen was to step through with her Guard...

They stepped in, the three of them.

For the few brief moments they were in the portal, there was the illusion of a long blue tunnel, with a bright light rushing towards them.

Stepping out was like getting hit by that light.

The Queen had enough self control to remain poised after such an unfamiliar transporting experience, but one of the guards did not.

G1 -- "Shu."

They were standing in front of a stairway, and the Queen looked at her guard, who looked embarrased and returned to his former state.

The Grand Admiral descended down the stairs as the Portal closed.

"Your Majesty, it's an honour to meet you again."

Standing in front of the Queen, he bowed deeply, and then stood. The Bridge looked slightly odd. The walls were covered in computers and blinking lights, but the odd thing was that the walls were morphing, with new screens and computers and other things appearing and dissapearing at the will of the crew, or so it seemed.

"Shall we go and meet the Architects? They're very eager to get started." Slavik said, holding his arm out to a tube with a door on, seemingly stuck into the wall.

"Gre'as'anto lu' verve dro, Grand Admiral Slavik. It would be good to meet the architects."

Meanwhile, all three Drow were actively trying to ignore the morphing walls. There were some that did similar things in Kaymiril...by magick, though...not technology.

Nodding, Slavik led them to the Turbolift. The door automatically opened. Waiting until the Kaymirilians got in, Slavik cleared his throat.

"Level Five, Tactical Planning Hall."

The door slid shut in front of the group, and then everyone felt their inside leaving their bodies. Thankfully, they didn't in reality, but the tube seemed to drop. No-one could see how fast it was going, but it was too fast to be natural. Slavik stood there, grinning as he watched the plate above the door go from lighting up Level One to Level Five. With a hard jolt, the lift stopped, and the door opened. Slavik walked out of the lift, opened the door to the right of the corridor, and gestured that the Kaymirilians should enter.

G2 -- "Ussta Valsharess, xun dos talinth nindol zhah natha bwael ul'hyrr nin?"

K -- "Udos orn ragar doeb."

Fast travel wasn't an issue for the Kaymirilians...it was common...but turbolifts were new, as was a sharp drop. The gliders didn't tend to slam down.

They exited the turbolift, then entered the door indicated by Slavik, one guard before the Queen, and one after.

The Kaymirilians entered a massive room, with large morphing screens, showing many different views of Darthirii and the other Light Frigates. In the centre of the room was a large red table, with a hologram of Darthirii and it's surrounding space shown. Around the table were thirty chairs, all with a screen in front of them, with keys. Slavik took a seat to the North of the table, flanked by two large men on his right and two men in Uniform on his left. Slavik gestured to the chairs.

"Please, your Majesty, sit. It seems as if we're ready to begin."

Kaymiril VII sat down at the 'south' side of the table, straight yet easy.

"So it would appear, Admiral."

Nodding, Slavik turned to the two men on his right. One stood up, and pulled out a small tube with a button on it. The other one sat down, and was intently focused on his screen. The standing one cleared his throat.

"Greetings, my name is V'das. I am the one that will be hosting this presentation. My assistant D'arthul will be controlling the display, and the two men to the Grand Admiral's left are the ones that helped us formulate the plans we have today. However, this presentation will require your help your Majesty, seeing as this is your Militarisation, not ours. We have a few ideas of what we should do, but we need to know if you have any qualms with our ideas."

V'das bowed, and pressed the button on the small tube. The tube jolted back, and a long shaft of metal came out of it. V'das smiled, and guided the stick so it pointed at Darthirii.

"Unless you have any objection your Majesty, I'll begin on the Subject of Orbital Defence." V'das said.

Militarisation...Orbital platforms...for generations, all we have known is peace, and now we talk of an eventual war.

"I have no objections at this time. You may begin."

V'das grinned.

"This is your home planet. Completely undefended from any form of Orbital Attack, apart from your Allies Snake Eaters. However, we can rectify this very easily," The planet suddenly had red dots running vertically and horizontally across it, and V'das tapped one. It zoomed in, to show what looked like a tube with twelve Solar Panels on it.

"This is an Orbital Defense Satelite. Standard Issue. Has twelve Solar Collection Panels for primary power, and a backup Quantanium Battery if it can't recieve sunlight or any form of light," V'das tapped the front of the tube, which had a small crater in it, with some form of crystal in the middle, with a groove around it.

"This is a Beam Cannon. We typically have these on most of our vessels. A Standard Beam Cannon like this one fires a focused Beam of Plasma and Energy. The maximum time one of these can fire for is twenty seconds. Any longer, and the Cannon will melt itself. The Beam itself can go through most forms of shielding, and can do tactical or concentrated damage on a target, as shown..."

The hologram changed into an unknown ship with one of the Satelites to it's right. The hologram showed the Satelite charging, and then firing a Blue Beam at the ship. As the Beam the ship, the Satelite began to go right, making the Beam sweep across the ship, destroying weaponry and leaving moderately deep trenches in the hull.

"That is tactical damage. Basically, the Satelite sweeps the Beam over the Ship in question, removing anything from the hull, be it sub-systems or weapory. What you'll see now is concentrated damage."

The hologram reset the image, and this time, the Satelite charged and fired, but didn't sweep. Instead, the Beam plowed into the ship, and about ten seconds after, the Beam blew through the other side, taking some fragments of hull with it. The Ship itself seemed to die, lights flickering out, and the ship began to tilt downward. V'das, clicked, and the image reverted to the dots over the planet.

"That is the power of one of these Satelites. In the formation they're in, they'll offer complete 3-D coverage of your planet. The Satelites can be automated, or controlled by a Station on the ground."

V'das looked at the Queen, and smiled.

"Any comments so far your Majesty?" He asked, satisfaction in his voice.

"I don't think it a sound idea. If an enemy managed to gain control, then it would be our ships destroyed, and they could easily turn the beams planetside. A well aimed blow could destroy large tracts of land, and claim many lives. Our Silver Class mages do not carry that risk."

V'das nodded.

"We could perhaps hide it on one of your moons? If not, we could do something extra-special for you."

"Tell me...if a large chunk of rock and dust were firing at you from a specific point, and it were stable in its speed and orbit, and thus could be easily avoided, what would you do?"

V'das shook his head.

"I think you mis-understood my Queen. I meant hide the Control Station for the Orbital Satelites on one of the moons. However, I think you'll like my other option more."

V'das whispered to his assistant, and then nodded. The hologram changed into a Small Station, inside a blue tunnel.

"We can turn the Control station into that, a Control Station. What we can then do is uplift it into Subspace somewhere above your planet. This will ensure complete and utter security for you Station, believe me. To be able to reach the Station, you'd have to open up a Subspace Portal EXACTLY where the Station was uplifted to reach it, and only you would know how to. The Station would also come equipped with a Trans-Dimensional Communication's Array, allowing it to Communicate with Darthirii and give the Orbital Satelite it's orders."

V'das paused for breath.

"The station can be controlled by an AI, but I can assume your Majesty that you'd prefer to have your own people onboard?"

"We barely know any of the dangers of realspace yet. I doubt that any of my technicians are quite ready for the jump into subspace."

V'das raised an eyebrow.

"So does that mean you want the Station automated?"

"No. I merely believe that this is not the right option for Kaymiril at this point in time. We are not as defenseless as you would think. Otherwise, we would have never gone into space."

V'das raised another eyebrow.

"No disrespect intended, but how would you fend off an Armada if it jumped out directly above Darthirii and started bombarding it?"

The Queen conjured a cube of steel.

"This is real. Here...feel it. Touch it. See that it is no illusion."

While she let the presenters examine the cube, she continued speaking.

"I myself am not a powerful mage. But there are some in my nations that could take a ship as large as the one you showed up to the launch in, Admiral, and do this..."

She clenches a fist, and the cube crumples as though it were paper.

"To a much stronger alloy."

V'das was stunned. He decided he wouldn't try and fight back with an 'Anti-Magic' shield, instead he nodded.

"Right...and your Mages can actually focus on a ship 20KM, by 5KM, by 5KM and crumple it up like that!?!"

"T'puuli and Resa can, at the least. Not to mention what Plak'la and his Chosen can do to some hostile ship that dares to attack."

OOC: Is this thread closed to the public?

If not, I have some alternate soulutions to Kaymirl's defense problem.

OOC: Yes, it's closed.

IC: The Architect blinked.

"Well, lets just hope you aren't attacked by a large fleet..."

Clearing his throat, V'das looked around.

"Seeing as the Queen doesn't want anything in the way of Orbital Defence, I imagine I can move onto Shipyards and ship schematics?"

V'das looked at the Queen, doing his best to smile. But even Slavik could see the Architect was insulted. After all, Outer Heaven Architects were very proud.

To every problem, a meet solution. Do they not know this?

"We would like to see your schematics, however, we already have a shipyard, given to us by the Balroggan Empire, and the Snake Eaters have been very helpful, as far as design goes."

V'das bit his lip.

"Well, it depends, what kind of ships would you like to see? Mining Vessels? War Ships? Frigates? Fighters?" He asked.

"War ships and fighters would probably be best...what plans we have been looking at for those have yet to be finalized."

The Architect sighed in relief.

"I suppose I should start with the lowest Class Warship."

The hologram morphed into a sleek looking ship, about 1KM in length.

"This is a Cobra Gunship. Lightest Warship we have. Is armed with Six Shivan Beam Cannons," The hologram zoomed in on the slightly different cannons in succession, "Four Missile Tubes, Twenty Standard Turbolasers and Twenty Flak Cannons."

The hologram focused on the Engines.

"The Engines are specially designed to allow the ship to reach Near Light Speed without burning out or tearing the ship apart. The Gunship is heavily maueverable, is available in any colour you would like, and has FTL capabilities. However, the hull isn't too strong, along with the shields. It's a good hit and run vessel, but not useful for raids unless you have a group."

V'das looked hopeful.

"Perhaps you'd like this?"

"It looks good...but first, explain to me what a Shivan Beam Cannon is, and what it does."

V'das glanced nervously at Slavik, who merely nodded.

"A S-Shivan Beam Cannon is essentially a Beam Cannon, only it's not actually our typical design of Beam Cannon. It's alot more powerful than the Orbital ones you saw, and it can fire for longer. Just think a Standard Beam Cannon, just better."

"The Shivans make you nervous, then. They might be worth research. Overall, this looks like a fairly good ship."

Slavik's eyes sharpened.

"We have a comp-re-hen-sive library of information on the Shi-vans if you wa-nt." Slavik's voice seemed dark for a couple of seconds, before he reverted to normal.

"However, be aware that you don't want to go looking for these guys."

The Architect cleared his voice.

"People, if we can get back to the task at hand."

The Architect nodded at the Queen.

"Seeing as you've accepted the design, now is a good time to explain to you how Subspace works. Do any of your Guards have data recorders? This will be alot to take in." V'das said.

"I have a data recorder."

The Queen pulls a bracelet off her wrist.

"Phor."

It shape shifted, assuming a raven's form.

"Glider, he wants you to continue doing your job, and record this massive amount of data with which we are about to be bombarded."

The 'raven' fluffs and shakes, then turns his attention to V'das.

V'das cleared his throat, and bit his lip. The hologram changed into some sort of large device.

"In simple terms, Subspace is an N-dimensional tunnel between one point in the universe and another, a vessel can travel through this tunnel in a matter of minutes, making a journey that might otherwise take decades or even centuries at light speeds. A jump drive causes a ship to vibrate in multiple dimensions until its modulations are in perfect synchronisation with the Subspace continuum. A vortex opens, creating an aperture from an infinitesimally small point in the cosmos, enabling the vessel to cross the Subspace threshold. Subspace is one of the dimensions lower than Real-space, and is therefore smaller, which is why the travel from point A to B is quicker. There are two kinds of jumps that you can make with Subspace.

“First, a nodeless jump can occur between two points in space. Most, space-faring vessels are equipped with motivators capable of these jumps. Being in the presence of a large gravitational mass is preferable when making such a jump. The jumps are slower, but much more secure. We tend to use nodeless travel now our Subspace Drives are powerful enough to send us at speeds roughly matching those of node jumps. Anyway, secondly, ships can jump from system to system via nodes. Until the Great War, only larger ships could generate sufficient power to use jump nodes. The development of jump drives for fighters and bombers enabled us to destroy the SD Lucifer in Subspace. Producing these small jump drives is prohibately expensive, so we generally don’t build them. The vast majority of Subspace nodes are extremely unstable, forming and dissipating in nanoseconds. Other nodes have a larger lifespan, existing for centuries or millennia before collapsing. The jump nodes sanctioned by us for interstellar travel are expected to remain stable for many years.

“However, jump nodes aren’t secure. We’ve built technology that allows us to regulate vessels entering and leaving the nodes, but due to the fact that the Shivans might return, we rarely use the nodes, and prefer to be on standby to collapse them.”

V’das took a deep breath.

“That’s the most basic way I can give it to you, I hope you got it down alright?” He asked.

"What is a node? Is it more similar to a portal, or to a wormhole?"

"A node is basically inbetween the two. It's like a wormhole, but to access it, you need to synchronise your ship with the Subspace Continuum before entering. But nodes are also very fragile. If you have a moderate explosion inbetween two nodes, or on one end of the node, you collapse the link between the two nodes." V'das anwsered, his voice very matter-of-fact.

"H'mmm...then the most realistic way of thinking about it is as a spiderweb...only, also a series of tunnels that only opens for certain signals."

"Not really. One node connects to one point. That's it. Some systems have multiple nodes. We prefer to use Subspace with nodeless travel. It's alot less risky, and more secure too. Subspace, is basically, well, a dimension that requires tunneling through in essence. Many nodes we encounter are too unstable for travel, so we can't really form a web of nodes."

"The Warp seems much more stable and much less trouble. You enter the Warp in one point, and come out at another, near to where you want to go."

Slavik raised an eyebrow.

"That's what nodeless travel is for Subspace, only you can actually end up exactly at the point where you want to go." He said.

"And here I believed it was understood that actually coming directly into systems was dangerous for the system itself."

Slavik raised his eyebrow again.

"We entered the system directly above your planet Queen. Subspace is a minor tear in the Space-Time Continuum. No damage can be done just as long as the portal isn't huge and open for a long time."

"I will have to confer with my technicians and engineers. Your little...series of tunnels...there are a finite number of stable tunnels, no? And a finite number of locations that they can go. I do not see how then, you can do as you say. Perhaps they will have a better comprehension of it than I."

Slavik shook his head.

"I believe you are slightly confused my Queen. Our Architect gets over the top sometim-"

"Hey! I am not over the top you sleezeba-"

"SILENCE!"

Slavik gave a gaze so piercing many of the people at the table shrinked a bit. A half-Chiss seldom expressed their temper. Ever. Slavik cleared his throat.

"Nodeless travel is infinite. You can create an infinite amount of tunnels to an infinite amount of locations. Node travel is finite, because so few of them exist. Node travel is obselete, we merely mentioned it because it is one way of travelling. Nodeless travel means you can enter Subspace whenever, and wherever you like, and come out wherever you like."

Can he not control his people without the overbearing displays of temper?

"I will still have to confer, after this meeting. You see...we are new to space, and have many options. We need to find out which, out of all, is the best for us. We are not the kind of people that makes a decision in haste, without thinking over each and every slight detail. Do you think that we took our first step into space on a whim, Admiral? I assure you not. Kaymiril had reached a point where civil war could potentially break out among the noble houses and the provinces they protect, had there not been something to unite them. Space travel seemed the best option. Each of our thirteen provinces has something to contribute. We reach outwards, and thus avoid crumbling from the inside out. Now that the decision has been made and acted upon...and carried out, indeed...there are more variables to consider than we had originally expected. Thus we analyse them."

Queen Kaymiril VII said all this calmly, quietly. Her voice never wavered, and her eyes kept the red eyes of the half-Chiss admiral unblinkingly.

"Do you understand my motives now, Admiral?"

Slavik nodded.

"Indeed I do Queen Kaymiril."

"Good."

She looks back to the Architect.

"You may continue your presentation."

The Architect, cleared his throat, and looked rather sheepishly at Slavik, with a nod, the Architect continued.

"The next vessel we can offer you is this vessel we're in. An Outer Heaven Light Frigate."

The Hologram changed into that of the ship itself.

"4KM in length, this ship is truly the beginnings of a true Space Fleet. Four Heavy Turbolasers, Six Standard Beam Cannons, One Forward Shivan Beam Cannon and fourty-eight Missile tubes, along with a Hangar Bay which can house up to 100 Standard Fighters, this Frigate represents what a basic, mass-produceable Warship should be like."

V'das smiled at the Queen.

"While not as fast as the Gunship itself, this vessel is moderately armoured and well Shielded."

"To be honest with you, Architect, I do not understand your fascination with the grossly large. Anything over two kilometers in length is unnecessarily big. Good for display...but I fail to see it in actual combat."

The Architect rose an eyebrow.

"The ships are big because the power needed to run the arnaments, not to mention the space the weapons take up, is quite simply, big. Quite a few vessels these days are quite large, quite simply to keep up with the technology they posess. I'm afraid Queen Kaymiril it's not a matter of fascination, it's a matter of being able to run these weapons and the ship effectively."

"We do not believe we need a target the size of our moon to carry our people around on for war. I will, of course, keep it in mind and mention it to the council I will face tomorrow about all of this."

The Architect shrugged.

"Your loss."

The Architect then brought up what appeared to be a Fighter.

"We're only allowed to supply you with ships with the Class of Frigate and under I'm afraid, so we'll move on to the Fighters. As of this moment, we're only allowed to supply you with the Hades Assault Class Fighter. This Fighter is our best Multi-Purpose Attack Craft at the moment, and don't worry, this thing only measures five meters by seven."

V'das then prodded the four small cannons on the Fighter's front.

"Four Standard Quantum Laser Cannons, with a refire rate of two point five bolts per second. Damage capacity is above average compared to most lasers, and doesn't require much time to recharge," He then prodded the large launcher over the cockpit, "And twelve Missile tubes, which can contain two Standard Missiles per tube. The Fighter itself comes with all the trimmings. Auto-pilot, Subspace Drive, ejector seat and targetting for both Missiles and Lasers. The Helmets supplied with the ship link you up neurally, and give you a virtual Heads up Display, allowing you to focus on the job rather than having to look down to check your target lock or your fuel, which is a redundant statement because the ship doesn't require fuel, it's powered by Quantum Slipstream."

The Architect shrugged.

"This is a well balanced out fighter. It has great armour and shields, and it's manueverability is almost unparralelled thanks to the Shivan Engines we install on every Fighter. Well, we mimic the Engines, we don't actually place the damn things on, the Fighter isn't compatible with the Shivan stuff."

"Could you briefly explain Quantum Slipstream?"

"It's the way we power our Vessels, our buildings, everything. It's much more effective than electricity, and it's completely reuseable." The Architect stated.

"That does not explain what it is."

"No, it doesn't. Quantum Slipstream is Quantum which has been superheated into a liquid form." The Architect said again. Obviously, they didn't want to talk about Quantum Slipstream too much.

"Ah. Then this is a thing you do not wish for us to understand. I'm afraid we run into problems there, Architect. We do not trust what we do not understand."

Slavik piped in.

"All Quantum Slipstream is is a way of powering our ships. It's like Liquid electricity. It flows around the ship, and powers it. That's all it does."

Nuclear Physics whol dalharen.

"We will consider your fighters. However, we have already begun producing a class of fighter, and have plans for another scheduled to begin production soon."

Slavik grinned.

"That's fine."

The Architect shrugged.

"Well, if that's that Science Lesson over, I was wondering if we could move onto the non-military ships? Outer Heaven, surprisingly, had a decent line-up of non-military vessels."

"Very well."

Patronising, are you, Architect? I'd be careful about that, were I you.

None of the Queen's annoyance showed on her face...she didn't allow it.

She merely mentally braced herself for the next round. Just like always.

This is going to be a long day.

The Architect continued, ignoring Slavik's gaze.

"Outer Heaven produces Mining Vessels. These Mining Vessels are 10KM long, and house 2.5 Million Sentinels. Sentinels are effectively extentsions of the Mining Vessel's will. Oh yes, the Vessel is controlled by a loyal Sentient AI. So it's self-sufficient really. Anyway, this Vessel can mine anything you ask it to. Suns, Planets, Asteroids, etc. They can even take apart other ships with ease and turn them into resources," The Architect tapped the hologram of the Mining Vessel.

"At the front of the Vessel is a Super Beam Cannon, designed to reduce planets and moons to large fragments, which can then be mined easier. The six tubes you can see poking out the Vessel's sides are Access tubes. When something requires mining, the Sentinels are released, and they began tearing the rock apart, searching for the resource they seek and absorbing the excess sometimes."

The Architect smiled as he watched the stream of Sentinels begin to take apart some planetary fragments.

"The belly of the ship opens up to reveal Tractor Beams and Vacuum Chutes. Inside the Vessel, the resources themselves are down-sized, and stored away, or used on the Vessel itself."

"I'm afraid your offer is unnecessary. The Balroggan Empire sent us mining ships some time ago."

Kaymiril resembled closely her national views: If it is not needed, it is a waste of resources. If it is needed, claim it swiftly. If it might be needed, think on it.