NationStates Jolt Archive

This is the combat ring for the Flagship Contest.

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10496683#post10496683

I want the contestants to post their arrival before the fighting starts.

The Neti (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/battleship.png) "rolled" into place 4.8 million km out from Void Station. At 16 light seconds out, that gave her about 2 light seconds of manouvering room toward the observers, and lots more away.

All sensor read-outs would note weapons brought to ready status, Foyle field active...but of course the reactors weren't taken above idle. All in sensors and manouvering only.

***

"Captain Carrol," Admr. Stapleton called out. "All is in readiness?"

"Yes, sir...ship is all green."

"Good, then I pass command on to you since this is now a tactical problem. The Commodore and other fleet Captains will join me in the flag area to watch the proceedings."

Glancing at the bulk of their first opponent, he added:
"The forces of Trinity have never fought anything that size that was mobile. Try not to embarass us, but a victory would appear to be difficult. Do your best and never give up the ship....." And with a smile, "Good luck Connor, don't sweat any career damage. We'd all give our eye-teeth to do what you're about to do."

"Thank you sir."

Turning to the bridge crew, Carrol called out:

"All crew to full assault stations, all button ups will be observed at all times. Mandatory webbing for non-critical support crews. All crew on rebreathers and "smoke" the areas for battle decompress. Helm."

"Aye sir?,"voice now muffled and electronic from the breather.

"Edge on battle stance and advance us slowly. Gate Control, prep for two planar gates set at intruder plus 10km, sliding scale. Let's surprise them."

****

In space, the Neti rolled toward its rendevous with the miles long juggernaut.

The Metal Militia III moved towards the position it had been given.

"Prepare Recall Gate for activation and bring the wedge up to full strength. They're gonna be pissed when they try breaking through this thing."

"Aye ma'am. We'll be ready. All Yamatos ready to fire, PDCs armed, Burst Lasers at full power, and all other weapons systems prepared for combat. APOLLO pods are deployed and ready for activation."

"Be ready to fire as soon as they make their move."

Looking over the tacticals, Capt. Carrol decided to open hostilities at 12 light seconds (3.6 million km) out from the giant Metal Militia III .

"Give me a type A pattern dispersion, every kilometer, 128th arc. Primaries...execute"

****
Along the exterior of the "wheel", the primaries blinked like flashlights. On display screens it looked like a torrent of shots (at over 2,000 shots per minute) flashed toward the titanic ship. The pattern was spaced to impact a shot every kilometer on a grid that covered the Metal Militia III and a 500 km space around her.

The first impacts would happen in 12 seconds, unless the behemoth manouvered suddenly.

..the seconds until first impact ticked by as the barrage continued....

***

"Helm, prepare to flip us broadside. Gate Control...stand by for two second command discharge."

Inspite of his calm demeanor, a trinkle of sweat began to rivlet down the side of Carrol's face under the breather mask. The nervous rolling in his stomach waited for the relief of impact or counter-move....

Looking over the tacticals, Capt. Carrol decided to open hostilities at 12 light seconds (3.6 million km) out from the giant Metal Militia III .

"Give me a type A pattern dispersion, every kilometer, 128th arc. Primaries...execute"

****
Along the exterior of the "wheel", the primaries blinked like flashlights. On display screens it looked like a torrent of shots (at over 2,000 shots per minute) flashed toward the titanic ship. The pattern was spaced to impact a shot every kilometer on a grid that covered the Metal Militia III and a 500 km space around her.

The first impacts would happen in 12 seconds, unless the behemoth manouvered suddenly.

..the seconds until first impact ticked by as the barrage continued....

***

"Helm, prepare to flip us broadside. Gate Control...stand by for two second command discharge."

Inspite of his calm demeanor, a trinkle of sweat began to rivlet down the side of Carrol's face under the breather mask. The nervous rolling in his stomach waited for the relief of impact or counter-move....

"Start the Music. Then, open fire. They can't hope to touch us at this range."

At ranges in excess of 100,000 kilometers sidewalls were general;ly impervious to ANY weapon, and they were highly resistant to even heavy weapons at up to 50,000 kilometers. They were at over 3 MILLION kilometers. Not a single beam penetrated the concentrated gravity of the Sidewalls. And then the Metal Militia III returned fire. Unleashing a full broadside, thousands of Burst Lasers, hundreds of powerful Grasers, 30 Yamato Cannon blasts, Particle Disruprtion Cannon, and to add insult to injury, the 64,000 simulated Missiles of a full on APOLLO barrage. As the awesome power of the Terrans and their Protoss allies roared out through space, the power of the Terrans sound systems flooded the area. Every frequency was overwhelmed with the thundering of Metallicas "Disposable Heroes."

OOC: I TOLD you all to read the Tech Thread, but did you?

The hyperwave sensors picked up the hits and no effect on the "walls"...and the reprise. Good, they seem to think us foolish (not bad music though).

Impact at plus 10 seconds....

"Bring us about, broadside....Gate Control....(5...4...3...2...) first gate NOW!"

Four beams shot out on the displays and theoretically fractured space a thousand kilometers away from the Neti. It ruptured a kilometer diameter spherical area for a half second and collapsed, taking all the energy discharges within to semi-space. A nice once off umbrella saving the Neti from the first onslaught.

Carrol thought, "That much energy would probably warp the local area, the computers will determne if our little trick worked..."

The semi-space exit point 10km from the monster Metal Militia III was not as spot on as calculated. Only about 1% of the original barrage even impacted on the gravity walls. Carrol wondered if that could score damage...

"Gate Contol, second gate wait to catch as many missiles as you can, lasers on auto...now....helm hard in and bring us under the wedge cover. He can't fire through it either."

That took care of the second trick...the gates are out for at least five minutes now. Carrol didn't think the fight would last until they recycled.

He noted that the missiles re-appeared in much closer order to the Metal Militia III than the shots had...wait to see how the computer scores it.

He also noted the yellow and some red on the Neti's damage control board from the few missiles that had got through.

"Halt bombardment and wait for orders. Helm, take us in fast and close...he'll drop that wedge soon and plaster us. Get as close as possible until then."

"Primaries stand ready to fire as the gravity wedge permits..."

(Assume this took place right after you both took your place. Fluid time is great for situations like this)

As soon as every contestant was in their starting position the Emcee started the countdown to begin.

"...5..."

"...4..."

"...3..."

"...2..."

"...1..."

A large klaxxon sounded and the start buzzer sounded across all frequencies.

Several announcer covered each ship in their reports back to their nations. Their babble was mounmomentus but still drowned out by the spectators cheering.

The hyperwave sensors picked up the hits and no effect on the "walls"...and the reprise. Good, they seem to think us foolish (not bad music though).

Impact at plus 10 seconds....

"Bring us about, broadside....Gate Control....(5...4...3...2...) first gate NOW!"

Four beams shot out on the displays and theoretically fractured space a thousand kilometers away from the Neti. It ruptured a kilometer diameter spherical area for a half second and collapsed, taking all the energy discharges within to semi-space. A nice once off umbrella saving the Neti from the first onslaught.

Carrol thought, "That much energy would probably warp the local area, the computers will determne if our little trick worked..."

The semi-space exit point 10km from the monster Metal Militia III was not as spot on as calculated. Only about 1% of the original barrage even impacted on the gravity walls. Carrol wondered if that could score damage...

"Gate Contol, second gate wait to catch as many missiles as you can, lasers on auto...now....helm hard in and bring us under the wedge cover. He can't fire through it either."

That took care of the second trick...the gates are out for at least five minutes now. Carrol didn't think the fight would last until they recycled.

He noted that the missiles re-appeared in much closer order to the Metal Militia III than the shots had...wait to see how the computer scores it.

He also noted the yellow and some red on the Neti's damage control board from the few missiles that had got through.

"Halt bombardment and wait for orders. Helm, take us in fast and close...he'll drop that wedge soon and plaster us. Get as close as possible until then."

"Primaries stand ready to fire as the gravity wedge permits..."

Unless the Metal Militia III was crippled the wedge would not fall. As the APOLLO salvo reappeared nearby, the ship was caught in the middle of a roll to present its port broadside to the enemy. The ship shuddered under the massive momentum transfer from the Wedge to the nodes, but the ship hel;d together. Damage lights blinked as a pair of aft Beta Nodes faiuled under the strain, but the acceleration ability of the ship only dropped by 9%.

Now, with their roll complete, they released the fury of their second broadside, just as powerful as the first, and coming hard on the heels of their previous attacks. As soon as the broadside was away, the Warp Recall Gte they hd prepared for iuse earlier was opened, and the Metalk Militia III lurched through it, bringing them out just 50,000 kilometers from the enemy ship. Most weapons were still unable to penetrate the sidewalls of a Terran Warship at that range, and even then it was only the most powerful that manged to break through to damage the ship.

As the primaries winked their destruction away at the now stone-throw away behemoth, the sensors registered the impact of Metal Militia III's second volley.

The Foyle Field diverted the broadside into the impeller rings and the laser batteries ...producing perhaps the most beautiful similated expolsion ever seen on the view screens.

The volley had struck and disappeared, followed by two milliseconds later by two huge blinding blue-white plasma discharges out of the "top" and "bottom" of the ring a burst of x-rays filled space for 50,000km around the Neti while the primaries kept their fire unabated on the behemoth. Two hundred milliseconds after that a sphere of superheated plasma joined by the fury of Neti's reactors expanded outward and touched on the Metal Militia III even as the last primaries impacted.

The computers silently tallied the damage to the behemoth from the explosion of its prey.

(OOC Note: I guess I didn't make it plain in the tech post. The advantage of the primary system is that there is no energy drop off due to range...it's full then collapses and disappears when its energy begins to drop.)

****

Reacting to the damage control screen going full red, Carrol quietly cursed and pulled off his mask. He spoke in a deep tone:

"Secure from general quarters, we're all dead."

The admiral called down from the flag bridge:

"Good show, though brief. I know it's hard, but you know as well as I that we couldn't show everything we could do. Not that I think it would have mattered much against that."

The admiral then had this message beamed to the assembled ships:

" The Neti concurs with the computer similators in awarding the victory to the Metal Militia III. Best wishes to the victor. And, watch your tail in the free-for-all."

Transmission:

Thanks. You fought well for someone who had never been in combat with us before. I hope that you have better luck in the Melee later. You managed to effectively "cripple" us at least.

The simulated damage was actually rather severe, most of the impeller nodes were shot, and all of the sidewall generators were graded as offline. Half of the portside armor was "slagged" and the weapons emplacements that went along with it, the damage was actually pretty brutal. It was probably more damage than they would ever take in a real engagement.

Second Transmission:

We just got the full tally. You pretty much slagged our entire port broadside armor AND armament. Impressive indeed, especially at this range. We'll have to engage you farther out when next we meet.

Personal Transmission from Admiral Stapleton to Commander Metal Militia III

A very impressive ship you have, but I wonder...did you lose others like it in battle?

Your alpha strike would take a taskforce to just shed the accumulated energy. What enemies are out there that could destroy a ship like yours?

Forgive the question from a people who are relatively new to the greater galactic community.

- Admiral Karl Stapleton, TPSS, UF - FM retired

PS: 40,000 kilometers closer, watch for us there come tomorrow's furball.

Personal Transmission from Admiral Stapleton to Commander Metal Militia III

A very impressive ship you have, but I wonder...did you lose others like it in battle?

Your alpha strike would take a taskforce to just shed the accumulated energy. What enemies are out they that would destroy a ship like yours?

Forgive the question from a people who are relatively new to the greater galactic community.

- Admiral Karl Stapleton, TPSS, UF - FM retired

PS: 40,000 kilometers closer, watch for us there come tomorrow's furball.

Reply:

The Kythons, the Godulans, occasionally the Balroggans themselves. Many nations are properly equipped to destroy this vessel. If we encounter the Chronosian Sword of Arioch we are liable to lose quickly. In comparison, we are equivalent to you facing us, if we are facing IT. Vessels of this size are not uncommon in the galaxy at large. It would likely be in your best interest to make something along the lines on this "Unforgiven".

PS:

You may try. You may find yourself in the sun if you attempt it though...

Schmaldt, resplendant in red and black after its recent refitting, de-warped some distance fom the arena, and hailed.
"This is Schmaldt, victor of Furnace, crusher of the Carlusites, destroyer of the Divinity, and a load of other stuff. Anyway, we request permission to take part in the upcoming free-for-all competition. If multiple entries are permitted, we may summon additional ships, and if stations are acceptable, we will also enter our largest."

*Please post in the main thread. The link is in the first post.

All 16 slots have been taken but there is a Free-for-all after the awards ceremony that anyone can get in on, as long as your systems have been adjusted to Wargame Status as explained in the main Thread.

Oops. I originaly posted in the main thread, then deleted it and posted here! How dumb of me. Also, read my post carefully, I requested entry to the free-for-all specifically.

The Metal Militia wins the first round.