NationStates Jolt Archive

It was in the depths of space. Various radio signals, old television, and holodramas had been beamed into space carelessly by the people of the Paradise System. It was the flotsam and jetsam of bad holodrama which eventually attracted the Posleen.

While a Posleen was adjusting the communications panel on one of their ships, it picked it up, a rather bad holodrama called "Drinks on the Rock" about a group of asteroid miners hanging out at their favorite bar. The first signal was of a genemodded moreau dog serving beers to two humans at a bar. A laugh line quickly followed.

A simple signal that would forever change the history of the Paradise System.

"Humans. I would recognise those things anywhere. Two arms, two legs... a most stupid construction. Only one of everything vital and an inability to sustain high speeds for long distances. They can barely lift our railguns."

"Then what is your command?"

"Can you tell where it came from?"

"It's using a foreign..."

"Give me a yes or a no, nestling!"

"Yes."

"Then set course."

The battlelord waited until his technical advisor had gone, then played the message again.

"This other one... it has fur, why? What is this even [I]for[I]?

The signal begin picking up more "noise." Scanning through the noise, you see what look like several dog men in uniforms on a news cast searching cargo ships for contraband. They appear to have much sharper senses than their human counterparts. There is also a memorial being built to the fallen "scoobies" who protected the freedom of the Commonalitarianism during the Vodais zombie plagues. It appears that they were designed to find and hunt down plague zombies during the Commonalitarianisms darkest hour. There is footage of men and "scoobies" in teams hunting down the plague zombies with plasma flamethrowers, automatic shotguns, grenade launchers, and other weaponry.

A hyperspace corridor, or "valley drive", was a remarkably fast, fuel efficient and generally effective way to move between systems. It was also very difficult to interdict, but this advantage was offset by the fact that it was, as avdertised, a corridor. There were defined points of entry and exit, and if you blockaded these, any ship entering could be blown away in short order. This problem was compounded by the fact that it wasnt hard to detect an incoming ship, while that ship was basically blind until it dropped back into real space. It was not an effective way to enter a system that was expecting you.

No-one in the Paradise system was expecting anything.

At the galactic south corridor, first one, then two, and finally four ships flipped straight from not there to there. They were curious vessels, the twelve facets on each studded with large grav engines and weapons, five point-defence lasers in little turrets, various smaller systems around the edges, and the central facet weapon in the center. They were B-decs, the basic Posleen spacecraft for most operations.

Ahmed Ohyes, sat at the monitors of the deep space observatory. It was basically an astronomical observatory with secondary functions of monitoring ingoing and outgoing space traffic.

He was stunned, he thought what were those things, they obviously were armed with some kinds of weapons with turrets and various tubes sticking out of them. However, he had no idea why they were here. They were huge though, bigger than most capital ships.

He called the Space Exploratory Command Base, "We have confirmation of incoming vessels of an alien design, purpose unknown, armed vessels."

This is Rex, "We confirm sighting at forward Scout Base Beta, we are notifying border patrol and piracy prevention ships."


Three long tubular anti-piracy/ border patrol ships starting moving out from the asteroid fields. They are heavily armored with a mix of weapons, a mix of railgun tubes, torpedo tubes, and assault shuttles. Their primary function is boarding and seizing incoming ships. There was no obvious engine, except for a large torus at the back of the cylinder generating a strong contrgravity field.

IC: Most of my ships are powered by a antigravity field drive first mentioned by Burkhard Heim, a real conceptual drive that may be tested in the future.

IC: At the edge of the system there are two things, a scout base with lots of small exploratory vessels, some defenses, and an observatory.

"Three ships inbound, unknown technology. Most probable conclusion: local thresh capable of space travel. Advise pre-emptive attack."

Any Posleen could fertilise its eggsac with any other posleen, and while the idea of gentic relations and the social effects of such things were not foreign to them, they had no concept of gender. If they had, the shipmind would have speaking in the voice of the opposite one: the tone had been engineered in a certain way for much the same reason.

"Is power sufficient to activate tunnel drives?"

"Yes, but not without impacting on other systems."

"Then continue preperations and fire on any ship coming within range."

Captain Cruonis, "Polarize the ceramite armor, pre program attack sequence if fired upon. Do not attack unless fired upon."

Hailing, Posleen, "Identify yourself, you are entering Commonalitarianism space. Hail and identify yourself."

Attack sequence-- Each ship.
1) 2 EMP torpedoes, 2 plasmoid torpedoes (microwave pumped plasma), followed by 2 bursts of neutron beam radiation .

2) Followed by launch of assault pods.

A thin trickle of sweat rolled down Captain Cruonis's forehead. You never knew what would happen, you couldn't even know if any ships would survive an attack from an alien ship, or even if it was just passing through. Being fried would make it impossible to return fire.

A holographic image of a fox appeared next to her command chair, the AI avatar of the ship, "Sequence programmed, ready for evasive maneuvers if necessary. I am reading an energy buildup in the alien vessel."

"Show them our laser facets, this ship as command and reserve and each of the other lock on to the nearest enemy. Fire if fired on or as soon as tunnel drive is ready and use tunnel drive to dodge any sublight weaponary."

The sublight munitions, the torpedoes, and even the neutron gun are easily outmaneuvered -- the neutron cannon spins up to 70% of light speed. None of the interdiction ships have FTL weapons on them.

However, something odd happens. The twelve assault pods feature the same drive as the ships (4 per ship), they move incredibly fast, using their reactionless drive fields, they are capable of FTL, and high maneuverability. There is a loud clang as the assault pods first discharge a burst of energy piercing the outer shielding and landing on the outer hull of the Posleen ships. They use a combination of fusion cutters followed by shaped charges to attempt to enter the ships.

The facet lasers start burning through the outer layers of armor of the interdiction ships. Several of the facet lasers burn a hole into the command center of the main ship killing Captain Cruonis exposing the crew to outer space. The Ships AI takes over on the command ship.

The ships have no choice, ram and board or be cut to pieces by the Posleen.

Posleen battleplate is three feet of composite metals and plastics designed to turn kinetic energy into heat, to absorb the adverse effects of heat, and to bepretty damn difficult to punch a hole in, but medium-sized anti-matter missiles and things of equivelant or greater power will tear right through. Sustained fusion cutter action at point-blank range would slice away some of the K-absorbant outer plating and allow a fast moving projectile to make short work of the heat resistant layer, but then there was another 12-inches re-enforced plasteel. It would take quite a while to break through, but there was nothing stopping them.

Things like this were supposed to be taken care of by the point defence, but Terran Humans operated the same Valley and Tunnel drives as their Posleen foes. The idea of an FTL missile was foreign to both. The ships tried to pick off the pods, but they jumped. Then they tried tunnel evasion, but with the recharge rate this was a much slower method than the enemies and they could easily keep up. Finally, one of the brighter crew came up with a manouvre that was not programmed into the AI: this was why Posleen ships actually needed a crew. Ordinarily, the AI handled... well, pretty much everything.

The Posleen suggested that the ships move close in on one another and use their point-defence to pick off the pods. He also made a mental note that PD would have to be modified so it could blow targets off the hull.

By the time this was starting, several pods had broken the hull, but the shipminds, once they had ascertained what was going on, had warned their masters who had each given the same order: wake the normals.

Each B-dec was comprised of the core light-cruiser, mother-ship, and transport for elites, a "C-dec" (in Posleen "Oolt'po'slen'ar", roughly "clan ship"), and twelve "Lamprey" transports (Oolt Po'osol, "pack carrier"). Only the C-dec was a credible fighting ship and only it had FTL, the Lampreys being simple landing craft. This was a crucial part of Posleen social structure: until a Kessentai attained the rank of First Order Battlemaster, a C-Dec commander, he was entirely dependant on his superiors for transport.

What it meant in practical terms was that the B-Decs were just about the most heavily compartmentalised ships you ever saw. Each Lamprey would deal with its own breach until things got out of hand, waking the 400 cold-sleeping Posleen aboard and placing their trusty railguns in their scaly hands.

The hull damage was anoying, but at least they would eat well tonight.

Drawing from ancient history, the Commonalitarianism had figured out how to use swarming tactics in space. With a large conscripted army, they had thought over how it would be possible to deliver a large number of troops cheaply in space effectively.

The assault pods had done their jobs. They had burned entryways into the Posleen ships. The troopers were in heavy power armor, some would call it Orion armor-- a mix of ceramite, carbon 60, and electromagnetic polarization -- this tightens and strengthens the armor. Most were armed with Gauss rifles with grenade launcher attachments that fed into ammunition backpacks . A few even had Heinlein style suits, the kind with explosive fusion bottles if things went wrong enough and high powered fusion beam weapons-- burners. Their job was to prevent the Posleen from plugging the holes and create explosive decompression-- vent as much of the atmosphere inside the ship to the outside of the ship.

They sent a signal to the awaiting swarm of asteroid ships. Basically a lot of hollowed out asteroids left over from mining operations had been turned into cheap attack ships. A hollowed out rock with an armored steel can inside and a heim hyperdrive engine. While the Posleen ships were bunched together they came. Many were simply hollowed out rocks with engines attached. These would crash into the the Posleen ships. Others were hypervelocity missile platforms that would throw clouds of five stage fusion warheads attempting to blow more holes in the Posleen ships so troops could enter. And the others were troop platforms designed to deliver a mix of heavy power armor, robotic drones, and light mecha. It would turn into a killing ground.

IC: While the Commonalitarianism does not use a lot of antimatter, it has very advanced fusion and battery technology-- having successfully developed a variant of Sonofusion several hundred years ago. IC (The five stage warheads are what would happen if a hydrogen bomb exploded five times in the same place).

Manipulating gravity in a local area was a fine art and a complex science. One mistake and you were a bloodstain on the wall, or, in the case of the shipminds doing it, a piece of warped and burned circuitry. But the Aldenata had mastered it and passed this knowledge down to the Posleen.

Internal gravity hurled the enemy against the wall or into the bursts of fire from the normals while subjecting them to only an unpleasent wrenching feeling that might have inconvenianced a less physicaly optimised species. But not the People of the Ships.

After a quick scan, one shipmind determined that the Heinlein suit would make a big boom, so each ship attempted to thrust them into the centre to minimise damage and let the nmormals surgically hack it apart with monoblades. The other were dealt with normally. Each pod had been surrrounded as it cut through the hull: there was a deadly firetrap waiting for them.

The ships themselves were not sitting around all this time either. Their point defence and high sublight agility were a match for most missiles and ramships: these were fast, but terrawatt lasers, plasma rayguns, and gravetic missile launchers all fired fast projectiles. And every now and then a ship could tunnel.

They were loosing Oolt'os and taking damage, but things weren't going badly.


Tul'o'sten'a'loor brushed quickly over the report that had appeared on the datanet. Military resistance, attempted boarding, advise modification to turrets. He's had the tech people dream that upo and feed it into the fabbers: the first fewwould be being fitted by the time he was ready to attack.

Because he wasn't planning to just charge in wildly. That never worked. Instead, strike forces were being posted at the mouths of several vallies into the Paradise system. The attack would be carefully co-ordinated to hit the enemy simultaneously, hopefully before the scouting force had been entirely destroyed. With the map data they had transmitted, he had everything he needed to invade.

The troops from the pods were not prepared for being thrown into the fire per se. Some rather interesting things happened. Assuming they were firing from a distance many emptied grenades into themselves and the posleen at the same time. The general doctrine was fire grenades at distance, use shredder rounds in close. Needless to say they died horribly.

The Heinlein suits guns were a bit different than might be expected, they were a continuous cutting beam much like a torch, and much like a torch the beam could be focused and widened. They were also heavily reinforced because the back blast from the fusion beam was like standing in the back of a spacecraft engine. It took a while to cut through the suits, but it was far safer than shooting at the thing. Getting in front of the beam however was certain death for anything in the beams frontal arc. A few of the crazier Commonalitarianism Heinlein troopers blew themselves up, but most simply fought till the end.

The suits were linked into the data net of the Commonalitarianism. A number of things happened. Images of the Posleen came out to the asteroid ships. Also the links showed the lives wink out one by one. It showed that taking the ships from the inside might not work. Images of troops being thrown out of nowhere were disconcerting.

Rather than enter the ships the remaining troopers on the outer skin of the ship started to use the open holes as murder holes-- dumping explosives and rounds into the massed Posleen. They were stuck their landers destroyed by laser fire. By now there were numerous small holes in the globes. These holes became targets for the remaining missile and ram ships.

The line ships did not engage the Posleen yet, they programmed the data on what the Posleen were capable of doing into their computers and prepared the fixed defenses around human populations.

They were being beaten back. Pressure loss was a problem, but the enemy were being visibly mauled. Missiles heading for breaches were given high priority: a few destroyed turrets meant there were a few bad hits, and slowly, first one, then two, and finally three ships succumbed to the swarm tactics. The last tunneled out and appeared over the main planet in it's ten remaining functional component ships, each of which had selected a differant defence station to drop onto.

Hopefully the enemy didn't posses inhibitors. If not, the bomb ships would punch a neat hole to be exploited by the main force.

Speaking of which, a few signatures were starting to read around the gateways...

Several salvage ships haul off pieces of radioactive and thoroughly trashed Posleen ships into the asteroid field. General Sharp is satisfied he has some new equipment to examine. By now, the scout base has evacuated at the edge of the system, they have sent any military capable ships to the asteroid fields. Everyone on the observatory, except for a skeleton crew has also headed outbound. There are a few astronomers holed up in a buried base in the Oort cloud.

General Sharp sends out an order, do not take prisoners, fight to the end. They have found some of the Posleens larder in a storage area in one of the downed ship and are showing it to the military. Arms, legs, heads, a couple whimpering Indowy making noises they can't understand yet, several ragged looking human teenagers left from their last conquest.

System defenses are activated.

OOC: General Sharp has decided that now, they have pieces of the enemy ships, they no longer need to fight to capture, but should use system defenses.

OOC: Our society is a Heinlein variant, it has universal conscription, but this is not necessarily just military, it also includes police and emergency services, civil construction, etc. Each city has a "military grange"-- mutual military association somewhat like a military base supported by the citizenry, and a "police/civil guard bunker". In some ways this is modeled after the Swedish ideal of having depots for citizens against invasion.

OOC: I know "drop" was a bad choice of word, but I was refering to orbital defence stations.

Alright. We do orbital defense stations a bit differently. Here is what happens. You exit hyperspace and find yourself in the face of not a huge number of separate orbital defense stations, but something much different, automated standoff missile fields, and smart cloaked mine fields-- the mines move much more slowly locking onto hulls and blowing up near energy sources. They are free floating (the proper term would be standoff weapons). They can be replenished by resupply ships either from the asteroid fields or from the planet.

In addition instead of a huge concentrated giant stations we use beamed energy satellites much like a converted solar power satellite, these are fairly large and do require some manning, they are spread over a wide area-- with very high powered single beam weapons-- fusion beams, and high energy graser beams. This allows for a lot more weapons spread over a much wider area with less cost. They are in effect long range orbital artillery.

As for large targets here are ten per your request.

Your ships drop the bombs in strafing runs. The bombs fall tearing into the largest military structures which the Posleen can identify. The armor is thick but you manage to bust some holes through with antimatter bombs. For some reason the fusion bombs you dropped didn't go off. The standoff missiles streak at your ships, followed by graser and fusion beams, as well as kinetic ortillery missiles. The heavy graser beam platforms start to sweep the sky.

There are four stations for orbital ortillery-- solid tungsten steel alloy missiles coated with carbon 60 designed to orbital strikes on the ground without leaving residual radiation.

Three stations for launching all atmosphere fighters-- space, sea, and air, basically hangars that allow them to be scrambled quicker in the face of incoming traffic. They are flying antigravity spheres that fight in formation.

Three heavy beam weapon platforms are huge, they might be able to go halfway across the system. They would be the equivalent of a the human spinal column capital ship like in Hell's Faire which broke apart a Posleen sphere with a single shot.

Lots of stuff over a wide area with quick activating concentrated firepower.

The Commonalitarianism should begin working on nanite weaponry-- bio-nanites and regular nanite weapons to be used against the Posleen physiology. Apparently normal chemical and biological weapons won't work. We are not sure taylored nanites will work but they are the next generation after regular biological and chemical weaponry.