NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Please no huge armadas of ships, preferably a First Contact sort of situation, then maybe oh I dunno, a war? And yes Harvest is a Halo Reference, though the planet itself is different...

IC:

Captain Izac read the info coming through his HUD Headset, Planet up ahead, possible life, deploying space beacon to signal any sentient beings in area. Spectrograph scans intiating...SG.dll loaded...Database.exe running...SCM.dos loading...

In 2 minutes a beacon was deployed that would continuously transmit Galactic Basic/Standard messages.

Now the whole 2,000 meter long ship ZCM Kraken (http://www.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/original-midway.jpg) was on standby and waiting...

The APNS John Quincy Adams exploded onto the scene, the green-yellow directed blast of a Tesseract Window closing behind it.

Within a second, all the power relays where back on line, and the ship was lighting up again.

Captain John Paul had not been expecting any First Contacts, and as such had no ambassadors aboard. But, screw them, he had studied at the Feet of John Farragut, and had little use for the kind of Diplomacy that many int he Ambassadorial corps tended to favor.

"This is the APNS John Quincy Adams, Captain John Paul commanding. We come in peace and exploration. To whoever set up the beacon, we would like to initiate First Contact."

ZCM Kraken To APNS John Quincy Adams,
Message Received, please move towards the beacon and we will attach a space bridge over.

Izac said, "Prep weapons systems, full power to shields, we'll be vulnerable when we send the bridge."

OOC: I prefer something hostile happening soon lol.

OOC: Unless you are Genocidal Maniacs, Facist, Maoist, Stalinist, Slavers, etc., we have no beef with you, and you REALLY don't want to mess with us.

IC:
"Captain, we are reading weapons systems coming online. Shields are powering up as well. I am not sure what is up, but they seem to be preparing for hostilities."

"Scan them, full spectrum, I don't care how invasive. Pyro," He called out to the Ship's Ghost, "hack their systems if they don't stand down. I am going to order them to stand down."

The holographic panels lit up, and a man who resembled the Human Torch appeared, his eyes glowing angry. John Paul did not like having such a...belligerent Ghost for his ship, but acting without Ambassador, he needed a militaristic voice at his side to take over for his normal place in the pecking order.

"Tactical, all shields, full strength. Holtzman, Deflector, Ray, Particle, and then charge the capacitors. AstroNav, plot jump course away. Systems, prepare to switch power systems. Comms, open frequencies."

"ZCM Kraken, this is Captain John Paul, I am ordering you to stand down shields and weapons. Further actions along this line will be considered an attempted act of Piracy. If you want to meet with us, you are going to have to choose neutral ground. We came here in good faith for a First Contact, now, unless you follow the politics of Stalin, Mao, or Featherston, we have no quarrel with you. So Stand Down."

The crew smirked as they could hear the capitals fall into place on the order to stand down.

Captain John Paul sent off a quick communique to the APN Rufus G. Herring, A Republic Class Star Destroyer that was acting as Military escort for the Exploration Corps, and the APN Francis J Pierce, a Venator Class Destroyer Escort operating near the Grid Border, and alerted them to a possible problem on their end.

ZCM Kraken To APNS John Quincy Adams,
We will lower our weapons and shields but only if you agree to land on that planet. Our scanners have indicated that there might be plant life there.

A low hum penetrated the control bridge as the shield and weapons power drained back into the secondary batteries. The Kraken began to descend slightly to indicate that it was landing.

OOC: Need moar people...

There was life on the planet below all right, not plant life no, but kewen life this unlucky planet, had been choose by the kewen for one of there intricate and galaxy spanning exploration missions, as such the planet was teeming with life, just noone could actually see it, since it didnt want to be seen, nestled deep in the planet, in a rather un assuming patch of continent, a whole subterrainian colony lay.

Of course it was nothing big, this being far from usually kewenic space and usualy such outposts were deserted, and crumbled into atoms when discovered but by a Chance of fat, A Insane kewen, by kewen standards manned the outpost, and was shocked to learn when his stations told him, otheres were here, he was slow to respond you dont spend a few years doing nothing, and expect to be able to move like lightening do you, slowly but surely he roused the bases systems, and the earth began to quake, as a rather small but none the less well equipped and stocked Colony, or military base you never could tell rose from the soft muddy ground of one of the continents, on the far side of the planet.

ooc: Hello.

ZCM Kraken To APNS John Quincy Adams,
We will lower our weapons and shields but only if you agree to land on that planet. Our scanners have indicated that there might be plant life there.

A low hum penetrated the control bridge as the shield and weapons power drained back into the secondary batteries. The Kraken began to descend slightly to indicate that it was landing.

Captain Paul motioned to mute the coms after that last communication, as the ship's Xenobotanist, Dr. Haystrom, entered the room.

"They really don't know us that well do they?" the ship's Xenobotanist commented.

"It's First Contact Dr. I doubt they have even ever heard of us."

He motioned to the comms to open up the line again, "Gladly. We need to get Genetic Scans of the plants anyways for an ongoing experiment. Who knows, those plants might fit into a Terragen Environment. Just designate a landing spot, and our probes will stay well away."

OOC: We have Titans, like from Titan A.E. And so I send out Xenos with my survey ships to get more genetic lines for the purpose of gaining more diversity.

There was life on the planet below all right, not plant life no, but kewen life this unlucky planet, had been choose by the kewen for one of there intricate and galaxy spanning exploration missions, as such the planet was teeming with life, just noone could actually see it, since it didnt want to be seen, nestled deep in the planet, in a rather un assuming patch of continent, a whole subterrainian colony lay.

Of course it was nothing big, this being far from usually kewenic space and usualy such outposts were deserted, and crumbled into atoms when discovered but by a Chance of fat, A Insane kewen, by kewen standards manned the outpost, and was shocked to learn when his stations told him, otheres were here, he was slow to respond you dont spend a few years doing nothing, and expect to be able to move like lightening do you, slowly but surely he roused the bases systems, and the earth began to quake, as a rather small but none the less well equipped and stocked Colony, or military base you never could tell rose from the soft muddy ground of one of the continents, on the far side of the planet.

ooc: Hello.

OOC: Hey Kewen. Are yous talking me ont eh boards or something :P

IC:
The man over at Scans began to look...troubled.

"Sir, there is some kind of...disturbance. I am running a full scan to see what we can find down there."

"Good, and keep scanning. We want that genetic information, especially if it is compatible with Terragen Life."

OOC: Nice to see you again Kewen

IC:

The Kraken descended ever slower and the message from the APNS John Quincy Adams patched through. Captain Izac composed a message on his HUD, Received, we have designated a plateau a few miles from an anomaly or spectrograph picked up.
We are laser targeting it now.
You should get a lock on beacon anytime soon.

Meanwhile the Engineers we're busy directing the blue laser onto the plateau. "ED-1 reporting, laser is aligned, ready to target designate."

The laser shot out and burned a small hole on the plateau as it locked on.
A diamond lock-on symbol appeared on the ND-1's screen.

A blue rip in space appeared just outside the star-system, the ship that comes out of it is the Firebird from the 'Phenixican Exploration of Alien Cultures Society' or PEACS. Their job was to explore new regions for the Empire and see how the region can be used to suit Imperial Interests.

In command of this vessel is John Samuel who was the registered Captain of the vessel and had been for 3 years, he has been a member of PEACS for 12 years and is one of it's most respected members.

It was not a military vessel but if it came under threat they were allowed to activate a Warpgate Buoy which would allow a Imperial Fleet to arrive in about 5 minutes.

They detect a planet that was capable of sustaining a healthy population was more then a interest since the Empire was looking to setup a handful of bases outside the Citerian for further use.

The ship travels quickly through the system, about the size of a modern day Bomber-Plane it had a crew of 4 including John.

John Samuel is a Bis scientist of Astrophysics he joined the PEACS because he thought it was the best place for him to serve the Empire, he wanted to explore new worlds and help the Empire expand.

Jessica Fisher who is a Monran ex-pilot of the Phenixican Navy who left after she disagreed with the more agressive state that Phenixica was becoming. Might seem weird for a military girl but she is in the end a traditionist.

Alex Gurugan is Grunic explorer and is a respected member of PEACS, he has a friendly and honest personality and serves as the ships Engineer/Tactician Officer. He joined for the Grunic natural sense of adventure which you cannot get in the limits set in the military.

Adam was a Ruidian who was simply trying to gain experience to get into the Academy of Spacefaring to train as a Officer. He works as the ships Communications/Research Officer.

"I tell you, I am getting sick of having to look at 200 planets sending the information back to Devenis and just be told that we cannot use it. I mean whats the dam point?" Alex grunted

"It's charter as I always say, we have to explore anything that can be used by the Empire to further it's road forward. I don't like it either since I have seen about 1000 uncharted planets in my lifetime and none have been named after me" John replied, he was tired since he had a lack of sleep from piloting the night before.

"So what you want me to do 'Captain?" Alex added

"Just set a straight course and keep sensors going, our shift ends in 5 minutes so hopefully nothing keeps me from my bed"

((OOC: See made a little thing that could led to IRONY! BUM BUM BUMMMM))

OOC: Nice to see you again Kewen

IC:

The Kraken descended ever slower and the message from the APNS John Quincy Adams patched through. Captain Izac composed a message on his HUD, Received, we have designated a plateau a few miles from an anomaly or spectrograph picked up.
We are laser targeting it now.
You should get a lock on beacon anytime soon.

Meanwhile the Engineers we're busy directing the blue laser onto the plateau. "ED-1 reporting, laser is aligned, ready to target designate."

The laser shot out and burned a small hole on the plateau as it locked on.
A diamond lock-on symbol appeared on the ND-1's screen.

"Copy that. We see your beacon. We will meet you on the surface."

With that, the Captain and his Xenos made their way to the Teleportation Beam Room, a group of three Noghri following close behind.

They arrived in what could only be described in a clanging woosh, (think Asgard from Stargate). Already, they could see the Viper Probe Pods descending through the atmosphere, leaving trails of flame as they came.

A blue rip in space appeared just outside the star-system, the ship that comes out of it is the Firebird from the 'Phenixican Exploration of Alien Cultures Society' or PEACS. Their job was to explore new regions for the Empire and see how the region can be used to suit Imperial Interests.

In command of this vessel is John Samuel who was the registered Captain of the vessel and had been for 3 years, he has been a member of PEACS for 12 years and is one of it's most respected members.

It was not a military vessel but if it came under threat they were allowed to activate a Warpgate Buoy which would allow a Imperial Fleet to arrive in about 5 minutes.

They detect a planet that was capable of sustaining a healthy population was more then a interest since the Empire was looking to setup a handful of bases outside the Citerian for further use.

The ship travels quickly through the system, about the size of a modern day Bomber-Plane it had a crew of 4 including John.

John Samuel is a Bis scientist of Astrophysics he joined the PEACS because he thought it was the best place for him to serve the Empire, he wanted to explore new worlds and help the Empire expand.

Jessica Fisher who is a Monran ex-pilot of the Phenixican Navy who left after she disagreed with the more agressive state that Phenixica was becoming. Might seem weird for a military girl but she is in the end a traditionist.

Alex Gurugan is Grunic explorer and is a respected member of PEACS, he has a friendly and honest personality and serves as the ships Engineer/Tactician Officer. He joined for the Grunic natural sense of adventure which you cannot get in the limits set in the military.

Adam was a Ruidian who was simply trying to gain experience to get into the Academy of Spacefaring to train as a Officer. He works as the ships Communications/Research Officer.

"I tell you, I am getting sick of having to look at 200 planets sending the information back to Devenis and just be told that we cannot use it. I mean whats the dam point?" Alex grunted

"It's charter as I always say, we have to explore anything that can be used by the Empire to further it's road forward. I don't like it either since I have seen about 1000 uncharted planets in my lifetime and none have been named after me" John replied, he was tired since he had a lack of sleep from piloting the night before.

"So what you want me to do 'Captain?" Alex added

"Just set a straight course and keep sensors going, our shift ends in 5 minutes so hopefully nothing keeps me from my bed"

((OOC: See made a little thing that could led to IRONY! BUM BUM BUMMMM))

OOC: Lol

IC:
The Scanning Tech on the APNS John Quincy Adams sat up as his scanners went nuts. He turned to the XO and cried out, "CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT. We just had a Gravimetric Disturbance on the low band. Big spike. Directing scans in that direction. IFF not responding with any known codes. It will arrive within Five Minutes."

The XO had been focused on the monitors showing the Kraken ship as it slipped into the atmosphere, and turned to see the new vessel.

"Unkown vessel, this is the APNS John Quincy Adams. We are currently conducting a Biological Survey. What is your intent in this sector?"

OOC: I prefer something hostile happening soon lol.

OOC: Should not have said that. :P

Thalia Gesthik'kta was rare among Damalgian units in that it was not named after its lead ship, but rather after a nation: the nation it had originally been on Damalgia the planet, before the Passing had stripped it of anything useful to the Damalgians themselves. Gesthik'kta was one of the smaller thalië, with only fifteen warships and three harvesters, and its pair of colony ships held only a few million Damalgians in lifepods. Like all thalië it had a single goal, to find and settle a world with sufficient supplies of carbon and organic materials to sustain its population, and a secondary goal of harvesting sufficient such materials regularly to at least keep the thalia alive.

They had found a world now, but like the vast majority of habitable worlds they had discovered, it was orbited by several metal constructs much like Damalgian ships, but crewed by aliens so utterly different that their language was not audible to Damalgian ears. Fortunately, they were made mostly out of carbon and water and could feed a few Damalgians for a day, but they tended to be aggressive about their territory and were difficult to hunt.

The Captain (or equivalent), however, was growing weary of waiting. It would be only a few days before the thalia ran out of food, and then his charges would die; he hated having to ask the other thalië for assistance, partly because they usually didn't render it anyway. So he gave the orders:

"Science officer," he said. "How many of the alien ships are in the system?"

"Not many. Three or four. Plus a large metal asteroid," said the Science Officer, monitoring the computer with a pair of ... appendages.

"So what are we waiting for then?" the Captain said irritably. "Take us in. Maintain a defensive formation."

Space is silent. It therefore comes as a surprise whenever a hyperspace rift opens, and the noise it makes. Gesthik'kta materialized in orbit around the planet, all twenty-four ships; the warships formed a perimeter around the world-building ships and science vessels. Onboard, scanners and sensors had gone into overtime.

"Readings have informed us that the planet is habitable," said the Science Officer. "And inhabited, but not by sentient life."

"Good," the Captain said. "Have the science vessels continue their scans. Warships, do not fire unless provoked. Harvester crews, prepare for grounding."

The XO blanched at the sight of twenty four vessels coming out of a rift. They did not look friendly.

"Contact the captain, call in the escorts and contact the 3rd Fleet. Order them to stand by and alert Admiral Ray that we might have a problem."

Seconds after the call went out, the APN Rufus G. Herring (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Republic-class_Star_Destroyer) and APN Francis J Pierce (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator-class_Star_Destroyer) jumped into the system.

They activated their Kauffman Drives, and plowed in, taking a defensive position in front of the Exploration Corps Modular Taskforce Cruiser (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Modular_Taskforce_Cruiser#Survey_module).

"This is Commodore Aidan McNamara of the APN Rufus G. Herring. I am ordering you to stand down and back off, this world is under TAP'ian protection as of Right Now."

He sent off a message to the Kraken, urging it to take a position underneath the three ships.

They linked shields, Distortion Fields, Deflector Shields, Particle Shields, Ray Shields, Structural Integrity Fields, Federation Force Fields, Shield Grids. All where powered up and synced together.

Shield Drones where dispatched, moving to the periphery to sync up and strengthen the already impressive field strength facing the inbound fleet.

The Venator's central bay opened, and pilots scrambled their fighters out of it, using their own impressive fields to support the shields.

ooc: just a general hello to all you people here, so im assuming a few of you have detected me, but not sure what I am so i am still undiscovered. excellent.

IC:

The last of the ground tremours subsided, and from the soft moddy bronze patch a gleaming silver base now stood in its place, whirring machines stalked about the base, powered by unseen sources they continued there routines, ubiased by the reports from the Control center which had identifed many Aliens in orbit, fron one of its many "junk sats"

A junk sat was, junk, bits ofr debries, or even a wreck, which a small camera and transmitter had been attached to, four of these were in orbit.

The kewen below, muttered in a whole host languages, some quite common others, otheres that havnt, and would not be heard again.
"Computer, report!" he croaked, as he waddled about the base, looking much like a small frail old man as he softly walked from one part of the base to the other.

"Several alien ships have appeared over the planet, some appear to be warships Bere" THe female, almost soothing voice of the computer croaked out.

"Begin the secquence, I will adjour to my veiwing room." Bere replied, addressing one of the many physcial aspects of the AI, human shaped robots which walked around, there duty to serve.

From the base, a small pylon began to arise, from one of the silos it only stood about fifteen meters fron the ground and it pulsed with unseen radiation, harmless stella radiation, the kewen form of beacon it spread slowly from the planet, and out into space.

The Damalgian ships looked somewhat different from any of the others in the system. They varied from science vessels about a hundred meters in length, to the colony ships over a kilometer long; each ship looked a little different, but what they had in common was a rather pieced-together look with no regard for aesthetics, a somewhat aerodynamic shape (as they were used to landing on planets with heavy atmospheres), and no parts that stuck out. The warships had raised a perimeter of defensive shields and, while it was hard to tell unless you were in visual range, they had entered the system with weapons online, so there would be no "weapons coming online now!" grandstanding.

"We are receiving a message, Captain," said the communications officer.

The Captain shrugged. "These aliens never manage to communicate intelligibly. Ignore it."

"That might be unwise. Scans indicate other ships entering the system...." started the Science Officer. The Captain gave his species' equivalent of a sigh; if he had had a face, it would have had an expression of annoyance on it. "Fine. Play back the message if you'd like, but I can tell you that you won't get anything."

The message was played back. The audio went unheard by the Damalgians, except for some of its higher overtones, which manifested themselves as a faint buzzing on the edge of their hearing. As for the video, while the visible light spectrum is quite invisible to Damalgians, they used their other senses to determine that the alien speaking was in the 100-140 kilogram range and that its internal bone structure -- almost like that of a giant bh'klagtzrm -- made it look like a monstrous creature straight out of a folk tale. Human readers will comprehend this better if you understand that, to a Damalgian, a human looks like an enormous cockroach.

The Captain sent out a reply. Not having understood the statement, he said only, "This world has been claimed for the Thalia Gesthik'kta. If you are a sentient being and can understand this, please send a representative to meet with us at your earliest convenience, to avoid needless destruction."

What it came out as to the TAPians was a series of guttural clicks, whistles, growls, hoots and scents, most of which was more or less incomprehensible to a translator. There was no visual, although even if there had been one, it would have been no help because there is very little visible light on Damalgian ships. Even as the Captain sent the message, he received a communication from the lead science vessel.

"Scans are complete, Captain. We are prepared to land."

"Good," said the Captain. "Harvesters, begin grounding. Colony ships, prepare for descent."

The warships maintained their perimeter, but among and beneath them the larger ships began to descend into the atmosphere. Their goal: colonization.

A shrill alarm, buzzed across the compound, the Computer had been listening to the conversations above, and had known heard from these "Thalia Gesthik'kta" The computer, had correctly identifed thenre speech patterns, and how they communicated, and all ready have presented it to Bere.

Grumbling again, in a more lighthearted type of tone, meeting a new race that wasnt human... or fox. He had recalibrated his body, to be able to speak the language these new aliens used.

from a decoy transmisster someplace in system, it would appear the transmission would be comming from everywhere, but only to the Thalia Gesthik'kta.

"I am a Sentient being, And i comprehend your words , unlike the solids from above, with a single set path, I am afraid, I cannot come to meet you as I am planet bound, by and age old thing, but you can come visit me" Bere, inclosed the location, to a small secluded landing pad near his base, located on top of a hilly area, faint signs of a city could be seen, faint.

Stepping from thebase, and bringing a uplink he moved towards the outpost, a mere 15km away as he moved, his body went from its pale grey, to blinding silver, to that of aa stout robust form, of the planets native inhabitants, large ape sized creautres, like man but more primitive, powerful arms and legs and very sharp teeth, but with the tinkerings of Bere, they had become stronger then before, able to rip a tank in half at times.

A few o them, came from the nearby forest and joined Bere on the platue ashe waiting for the aliens.

From the plateau Bere and his retinue could see, in the distance, as the massive harvesters began their slow and almost graceful descent towards the land. They had already extended legs to anchor themselves in the earth, as buildings, and behind them the colony ships were visible. Inside the colony ships activity ran high as the crew prepared to awaken the millions in the life-pods. But first, the Captain had a message to hear.

"We're picking up a different transmission, Captain. It seems to be configured to communicate with us directly."

"Oh?" said the Captain, and he listened. Yes; these people were sentient alien beings, and they did speak Damalgian. Excellent.

"Record the co-ordinates given," he said after the message was done. "And prepare for me an environment suit. I will go to meet these people."

It would be an hour or two, the Captain suspected, before matters around the worldbuilders would be sufficiently advanced for his intercession to be required. In the meantime, he could visit and speak with the aliens. It was rare for Damalgians and outsiders to be able to communicate; this was partly because the Damalgians tended to eat any such outsiders before any diplomacy could be attempted. But only partly.

On the plateau fifteen minutes passed. The first harvester touched down and, while the curvature of the world might have made it difficult to see, large tubes began snaking out of it and consuming trees and dirt and plants and nearby animals the way a vacuum cleaner consumes dirt. The materials would be synthesized into a form that was comestible by Damalgians, while metals and inedible material would be excreted. This continued until the harvester had reached about a third of its capacity.

Meanwhile a speck became visible in the distance and soon resolved itself into a metallic figure, moving rapidly across the ground in a somewhat undulating motion following an asymmetrical pattern. At length the figure's motion slowed: now it could be seen to be a large boxy structure that conformed to no humanoid anatomy, which rolled or slid across the ground with no visible means of propulsion. The appendages that emerged from the structure numbered five, and as the aliens watched, they waved in the air irregularly, gathering sensory information. The environment suit could also hover, as became revealed when it began the ascent up to the top of the plateau; it almost floated up to reach the location, slowing every moment until it was traveling no faster than a man might walk. Then it stopped and rolled or slid again across the ground with a creaking sound that only now became audible.

The Captain stopped in front of the aliens. They still looked nothing like a Damalgian under his gamma ray vision; their mass was higher, and differently concentrated; the electrical activity seemed to indicate that their brains were located more or less in the position occupied in Damalgians by their reproductive anatomy. Nonetheless, if they could speak Damalgian, they could not be too bad; and the environment suits were outfitted with a plasma cannon on the off chance they decided he was hostile.

He said: "Greetings, aliens. I am Captain Tza'kthaikj'hmitk'afitha'khelthan'gzjahkz'wabeutng'vwuy of Thalia Gesthik'tka, on a mission of peaceful colonization."

(Damalgian full names list not only the given name but also the genealogy for the last eight generations, eight being a quasi-sacred number in Damalgian culture. Feel free to call this one just "Captain", like I have.)

The environment suit modified the speech slightly, but not much; and with his hearing now attuned to Damalgian frequencies the shifter could hear that Damalgian was very different at this pitch, almost musical and with double and triple tones that could not be reproduced by humanoid instruments. In fact, the sounds of all nature were very different, but that's another story.

The last of the ground tremours subsided, and from the soft moddy bronze patch a gleaming silver base now stood in its place, whirring machines stalked about the base, powered by unseen sources they continued there routines, ubiased by the reports from the Control center which had identifed many Aliens in orbit, fron one of its many "junk sats"

A junk sat was, junk, bits ofr debries, or even a wreck, which a small camera and transmitter had been attached to, four of these were in orbit.

The kewen below, muttered in a whole host languages, some quite common others, otheres that havnt, and would not be heard again.
"Computer, report!" he croaked, as he waddled about the base, looking much like a small frail old man as he softly walked from one part of the base to the other.

"Several alien ships have appeared over the planet, some appear to be warships Bere" THe female, almost soothing voice of the computer croaked out.

"Begin the secquence, I will adjour to my veiwing room." Bere replied, addressing one of the many physcial aspects of the AI, human shaped robots which walked around, there duty to serve.

From the base, a small pylon began to arise, from one of the silos it only stood about fifteen meters fron the ground and it pulsed with unseen radiation, harmless stella radiation, the kewen form of beacon it spread slowly from the planet, and out into space.

"Radiation spreading from the planet. Harmless to our people on the ground so far as we can tell. Seems to resemble some forms of EM Radiation."

"Hope the captain applied his sunscreen," the XO muttered.

The Damalgian ships looked somewhat different from any of the others in the system. They varied from science vessels about a hundred meters in length, to the colony ships over a kilometer long; each ship looked a little different, but what they had in common was a rather pieced-together look with no regard for aesthetics, a somewhat aerodynamic shape (as they were used to landing on planets with heavy atmospheres), and no parts that stuck out. The warships had raised a perimeter of defensive shields and, while it was hard to tell unless you were in visual range, they had entered the system with weapons online, so there would be no "weapons coming online now!" grandstanding.

"We are receiving a message, Captain," said the communications officer.

The Captain shrugged. "These aliens never manage to communicate intelligibly. Ignore it."

"That might be unwise. Scans indicate other ships entering the system...." started the Science Officer. The Captain gave his species' equivalent of a sigh; if he had had a face, it would have had an expression of annoyance on it. "Fine. Play back the message if you'd like, but I can tell you that you won't get anything."

The message was played back. The audio went unheard by the Damalgians, except for some of its higher overtones, which manifested themselves as a faint buzzing on the edge of their hearing. As for the video, while the visible light spectrum is quite invisible to Damalgians, they used their other senses to determine that the alien speaking was in the 100-140 kilogram range and that its internal bone structure -- almost like that of a giant bh'klagtzrm -- made it look like a monstrous creature straight out of a folk tale. Human readers will comprehend this better if you understand that, to a Damalgian, a human looks like an enormous cockroach.

The Captain sent out a reply. Not having understood the statement, he said only, "This world has been claimed for the Thalia Gesthik'kta. If you are a sentient being and can understand this, please send a representative to meet with us at your earliest convenience, to avoid needless destruction."

What it came out as to the TAPians was a series of guttural clicks, whistles, growls, hoots and scents, most of which was more or less incomprehensible to a translator. There was no visual, although even if there had been one, it would have been no help because there is very little visible light on Damalgian ships. Even as the Captain sent the message, he received a communication from the lead science vessel.

"Scans are complete, Captain. We are prepared to land."

"Good," said the Captain. "Harvesters, begin grounding. Colony ships, prepare for descent."

The warships maintained their perimeter, but among and beneath them the larger ships began to descend into the atmosphere. Their goal: colonization.

"Fire shots across the bow, and beam down flags all over the planet. Hoist our own. And damn it, send the fighters out to buzz those ships."

A spread of twelve dark matter warheads detonated in front of the descending ships, spouting miniature black holes far in front of the vessels. At the same time, all of the ships started waving their flags, the Seven Stars and Seven bars of TAP held stiff in the vacuum by a bar inserted in the top of the flag.

Similar flags began to appear all over the surface via the same means of teleportation that had been used to place the Captain of the John Quincy Adams at the meeting place.

"Run that garble through a translator, and see if we can't get SOMETHING we can work with."

Turning back to the coms, he repeated the ultimatum, this time using pictograms that flashed on the screen depicting the full force of the TAP'ian Fleet descending upon the world if the unkown ships didn't back the hell off. They where int he UV, IR, and Visual light spectrum.

The Viper Probe Pods broke open upon impact with the ground, and the probes began to scan the vegetation around them, gathering massive stores of genetic information.

From the plateau Bere and his retinue could see, in the distance, as the massive harvesters began their slow and almost graceful descent towards the land. They had already extended legs to anchor themselves in the earth, as buildings, and behind them the colony ships were visible. Inside the colony ships activity ran high as the crew prepared to awaken the millions in the life-pods. But first, the Captain had a message to hear.

"We're picking up a different transmission, Captain. It seems to be configured to communicate with us directly."

"Oh?" said the Captain, and he listened. Yes; these people were sentient alien beings, and they did speak Damalgian. Excellent.

"Record the co-ordinates given," he said after the message was done. "And prepare for me an environment suit. I will go to meet these people."

It would be an hour or two, the Captain suspected, before matters around the worldbuilders would be sufficiently advanced for his intercession to be required. In the meantime, he could visit and speak with the aliens. It was rare for Damalgians and outsiders to be able to communicate; this was partly because the Damalgians tended to eat any such outsiders before any diplomacy could be attempted. But only partly.

On the plateau fifteen minutes passed. The first harvester touched down and, while the curvature of the world might have made it difficult to see, large tubes began snaking out of it and consuming trees and dirt and plants and nearby animals the way a vacuum cleaner consumes dirt. The materials would be synthesized into a form that was comestible by Damalgians, while metals and inedible material would be excreted. This continued until the harvester had reached about a third of its capacity.

Meanwhile a speck became visible in the distance and soon resolved itself into a metallic figure, moving rapidly across the ground in a somewhat undulating motion following an asymmetrical pattern. At length the figure's motion slowed: now it could be seen to be a large boxy structure that conformed to no humanoid anatomy, which rolled or slid across the ground with no visible means of propulsion. The appendages that emerged from the structure numbered five, and as the aliens watched, they waved in the air irregularly, gathering sensory information. The environment suit could also hover, as became revealed when it began the ascent up to the top of the plateau; it almost floated up to reach the location, slowing every moment until it was traveling no faster than a man might walk. Then it stopped and rolled or slid again across the ground with a creaking sound that only now became audible.

The Captain stopped in front of the aliens. They still looked nothing like a Damalgian under his gamma ray vision; their mass was higher, and differently concentrated; the electrical activity seemed to indicate that their brains were located more or less in the position occupied in Damalgians by their reproductive anatomy. Nonetheless, if they could speak Damalgian, they could not be too bad; and the environment suits were outfitted with a plasma cannon on the off chance they decided he was hostile.

He said: "Greetings, aliens. I am Captain Tza'kthaikj'hmitk'afitha'khelthan'gzjahkz'wabeutng'vwuy of Thalia Gesthik'tka, on a mission of peaceful colonization."

(Damalgian full names list not only the given name but also the genealogy for the last eight generations, eight being a quasi-sacred number in Damalgian culture. Feel free to call this one just "Captain", like I have.)

The environment suit modified the speech slightly, but not much; and with his hearing now attuned to Damalgian frequencies the shifter could hear that Damalgian was very different at this pitch, almost musical and with double and triple tones that could not be reproduced by humanoid instruments. In fact, the sounds of all nature were very different, but that's another story.

A squadron of Colosuss Destroyers buzzed the meeting site, popping flares as they went. They where bound and determined to get these things off the planet.

A signal went out to the 3rd Fleet, calling them in.

"They have fired, First Officer."

The First Officer gave what could be best described as a curse. Like his Captain, he was a peaceful soul; but unlike his Captain he was idealistic and unwilling to use morally questionable methods to enforce that peace. So now he was torn. But not unduly torn, because there were standing orders from his superior: fire only if provoked. This certainly looked like provocation.

"Return fire," he said.

The Damalgians primarily used missiles as munitions. The missiles were equipped with fairly standard armour piercing tips that shielded about a kilogram of antimatter; the majority of the missile was taken up by a short-range hyperspace engine, sufficiently short-range to allow rifts to be opened in places that ordinarily wouldn't be attempted by any sane officer. Such as inside a starship.

Ordinarily, defensive shields are designed to prevent these sorts of munitions from working. That's why a forcefield disruptor was attached to each missile. Generally, an exceptionally powerful shield could absorb the strength of anywhere between one and twenty disruptors, but if it failed on the twenty-first, all of the other missiles in the swarm would make it onboard.

Three swarms of thirty missiles apiece emerged from their casings aboard one of the warships and promptly disappeared. Almost instantaneously, on the three TAP'ian capital ships in the system, hyperspace rifts opened and missiles emerged. At the same time, of course, the missiles that hadn't made it impacted the shields in flashes of brilliant light; but each impact weakened the shields further and made it more likely the next disruptor would allow the missiles through.

At the meeting site the Captain relayed further orders via his communications system. "Secure the planet. Take any and all defensive measures needed. Incoming ships are presumed hostile."

"They have fired, First Officer."

The First Officer gave what could be best described as a curse. Like his Captain, he was a peaceful soul; but unlike his Captain he was idealistic and unwilling to use morally questionable methods to enforce that peace. So now he was torn. But not unduly torn, because there were standing orders from his superior: fire only if provoked. This certainly looked like provocation.

"Return fire," he said.

The Damalgians primarily used missiles as munitions. The missiles were equipped with fairly standard armour piercing tips that shielded about a kilogram of antimatter; the majority of the missile was taken up by a short-range hyperspace engine, sufficiently short-range to allow rifts to be opened in places that ordinarily wouldn't be attempted by any sane officer. Such as inside a starship.

Ordinarily, defensive shields are designed to prevent these sorts of munitions from working. That's why a forcefield disruptor was attached to each missile. Generally, an exceptionally powerful shield could absorb the strength of anywhere between one and twenty disruptors, but if it failed on the twenty-first, all of the other missiles in the swarm would make it onboard.

Three swarms of thirty missiles apiece emerged from their casings aboard one of the warships and promptly disappeared. Almost instantaneously, on the three TAP'ian capital ships in the system, hyperspace rifts opened and missiles emerged. At the same time, of course, the missiles that hadn't made it impacted the shields in flashes of brilliant light; but each impact weakened the shields further and made it more likely the next disruptor would allow the missiles through.

At the meeting site the Captain relayed further orders via his communications system. "Secure the planet. Take any and all defensive measures needed. Incoming ships are presumed hostile."

OOC: Dude, you are doing this after warning shots across the bow (which detonated several kilometers in front of the ships [the black holes have a five meter event horizon])??? And they call ME trigger happy...

If you change the response, so will I

IC:
The APN Herring was hammered from the blast. The commodore sent out a last request for the Third Fleet to arrive before his ship died in a blast of fire. The APN Pierce was left striken from the missiles, having received a smaller grouping of the missiles.

Behind the enemy fleet, a massive Tesseract Window opened.

Out of it jumped the Third Fleet. Lights on, chromium shining, and all of them firing.

Two component beams of Super Lasers lashed out from the Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers APN Andrew Jackson and the APN William H. Harrison unleased massive sheets of turbolaser fire.

Behind them, 16 Endurance Class Fleet Carriers, 23 Escort Class Carriers, 26 Viscount Class Star Dreadnaughts, 7 Lusankya Class Super Star Destroyers, 12 Bothan Assault Cruisers, 6 MC 90 Star Cruisers, 9 Majestic Class Cruisers, 21 Nova Class Battle Cruisers, 11 Nebulon-C Battle Cruisers, a Scythe Class Command Cruiser, 3 Class 1000 Command Cruisers, 20 Bayonet Class Light Cruisers, 16 Carrack Class Light Cruisers, 84 Imperator II Class Star Destroyers, 171 Nebula Class Star Destroyers, 85 Republic Class Star Destroyers, 59 Venator Class Escort Star Destroyers, 17 Sacheen Class Destroyer Escorts, 11 MC 30 Class Frigates, 16 Assault Frigates Type 1.b, 33 Nebulon B-2 Frigates, 16 Lancer Class Frigates, 11 DP20 Class Frigates, 63 Assassin Class Corvettes, and a single Inexpungible Class Command Ship dropped out of their Tesseract windows and opened fire.

"Activate Warpgate Buoy and get a fleet here Immediately!" the signal that came from the buoy was so powerful it would overlay most of the transmission in the system and then another blue rip in space emerges and out of it comes.

73 Hercules Class Warships
135 Valkyrie Class Frigates
2 Carrier with 1200 fighters altogether
"This is John Samuel of the PEACS ship Firebird, reporting engagement in Sector 3G6. Requesting permission to dock, over"

The Firebird rushes and lands in one of the carriers, the fleet opens communications.

"This is Captain Rodrick of Tactical Group Beta, someone explain what is going on here?"

They had a report of who started the fight and how it was unprovoked, by charter such actions meant the aggressor was about to have a very bad day.
They simply had a job to make sure nothing could threaten the Empire, if the aggressor backed off or surrendered it would give them no reason to fight.

John enters the bridge

"Hello Captain, another proud day to be in the PEACS?" Rodrick was naturally be sarcastic, something John would not tolerate.

"Yeah, more pride in this then guarding a Warpgate which has a nil chance of ever being attacked then going home at the end of your term saying how challenging your job is"

"What can you tell us?"

"We were heading towards a possible planet for Colonization when a ship opened fire on another party. Before we became the middle man we decided to activate the Buoy to get the situation under control"

"Great, that means I have to play peace-keeper"

OOC: Let's just say that usually the shots people fire at the Damalgians aren't warning ones. I don't suppose they knew, and from the dialogue, I deduce that they fired after detecting your ships launching their weapons, not after the weapons arrived.

Also, couldn't you have summarized that fleet listing into, say, "Behind them, 722 assorted ships of the TAP'ian Navy showed up?" Adding up all those numbers is a pain, and we don't really care what class it is anyway. :P

There were fifteen warships, with decently interlinked shields, but the enemy fleet rapidly materializing was obviously far larger. The First Officer emitted his species' equivalent of a groan.

"Why does this always happen when I'm in command?" he asked nobody in particular. "All right, fire all available weapons, then throw up disruption and get us down to the surface as quickly as possible. We have incoming fire." As the missiles and beams of plasma launched, he added, "Number one priority is to protect the worldbuilders."

The missiles deployed numbered a little over three thousand; only about four for each enemy ship, but enough to damage the fleet. With so many ships concentrated in the same area, the disruptors were able to affect multiple shields at once; they were one weapon that actually became less useful when fleets were linked. As for the plasma beams, they would also serve to weaken shields for the missile attack, and maybe even destroy a few smaller ships; there wasn't time to concentrate them, as the first wave of laser fire was already hitting Damalgian shields. The warships descended.

They descended at a respectable fraction of the speed of light, causing a deafening sonic boom, and only slowed as they approached the surface -- even then, they hit the ground going fast enough to leave small craters. Eleven warships landed in a rough semicircle around the harvesters and colony ships. The First Officer "looked" towards the sky and waited, but the other four had not descended quickly enough, and not even debris was left. The enemy had definitely come in force.

"There's no time to lose," said the First Officer. "Get the colony ships to establish a shield dome -- route in all available power. All warships, get me damage reports immediately. Communications, send a hyperspace message to the Union."

"Yes, Officer?"

"Tell them we are Gesthik'tka, and besieged at a habitable world by many nonsentients. Tell them there will be organics aplenty should they deign to aid us in our hour of need. Er.... tell them to come in all force available. Tell them we shall grant them this world too if they choose, and anything else within our power." The First Officer's blood thrummed with neurotransmitters. He said: "Ideally a force like ours should be able to hold back a large pack of them -- a hundred ships or so -- but I think they can learn, like intelligent beings, and that is why now they show up in such numbers."

He paused. They were relatively safe now: but not for too long. The shield dome would hold for only a few hours under a full-scale attack from the enemy fleet, and as it diminished, it would shrink until it covered only the colony ships producing it (as they were the priority). But the Damalgians had a window, enough time for either the Thalië Union to show up and drive out the enemy, or for the enemy to get bored and leave; or if neither happened, they would simply perish. But they would not have abandoned the world ships, and that was paramount.

"Damage reports?"

"Shields are heavily depleted, Officer. We're recharging them but they won't be at full strength for some time. There are hull breaches on several warships, which teams are currently attempting to seal. And of course, we have almost no weapons, apart from plasma and point defence."

The First Officer exhaled sharply. "Get the Captain back here. We may need him."

OOC: The Union: So after their world was destroyed in some kind of catastrophe, Damalgia's many nations ("Thalië") took to the skies and became essentially nomadic bands of scavengers. Not only did their requirements for organic food earn them the enmity of most people they came across, but they also frequently fought wars with one another over habitable worlds or supplies or technologies. In Damalgian Year 7217 (six hundred years ago, or about eight hundred Earth years ago), several of the largest and most influential Thalië agreed that more could be done for the Damalgian cause by uniting into a single force that would consolidate control over all of the worlds those Thalië then occupied. This was the Union Pact, and the Union itself considers itself to exist for the betterment of the Damalgian race overall. But while it gained some support, many thalië opted not to join the Union, instead continuing their nomadic lives as they sought worlds where they could become independent species. Nonetheless, the Union may sometimes offer assistance to one of the independent thalië, as it feels it must preserve the Damalgian species -- if it can get something out of it, of course. Gesthik'tka is fairly small and thus usually on its own, but in this case, well.... think of all the raw materials seven hundred capital ships can provide, plus a whole star system with a habitable world. :P

As for the hairbreadth escape.... well, if I just went with the obvious and said "All fifteen ships blew up within a few seconds", the roleplay would be pretty much over and we wouldn't be having as much fun, right? :P

OOC: Let's just say that usually the shots people fire at the Damalgians aren't warning ones. I don't suppose they knew, and from the dialogue, I deduce that they fired after detecting your ships launching their weapons, not after the weapons arrived.

Also, couldn't you have summarized that fleet listing into, say, "Behind them, 722 assorted ships of the TAP'ian Navy showed up?" Adding up all those numbers is a pain, and we don't really care what class it is anyway. :P

Just showing off the different types of ships in my fleet. Plus, we did send that message showing what would happen (via pictograms no less) on wide bands for all to see.

Remember, this is one of FIVE fleets of warships.

There were fifteen warships, with decently interlinked shields, but the enemy fleet rapidly materializing was obviously far larger. The First Officer emitted his species' equivalent of a groan.

"Why does this always happen when I'm in command?" he asked nobody in particular. "All right, fire all available weapons, then throw up disruption and get us down to the surface as quickly as possible. We have incoming fire." As the missiles and beams of plasma launched, he added, "Number one priority is to protect the worldbuilders."

The missiles deployed numbered a little over three thousand; only about four for each enemy ship, but enough to damage the fleet. With so many ships concentrated in the same area, the disruptors were able to affect multiple shields at once; they were one weapon that actually became less useful when fleets were linked. As for the plasma beams, they would also serve to weaken shields for the missile attack, and maybe even destroy a few smaller ships; there wasn't time to concentrate them, as the first wave of laser fire was already hitting Damalgian shields. The warships descended.

They descended at a respectable fraction of the speed of light, causing a deafening sonic boom, and only slowed as they approached the surface -- even then, they hit the ground going fast enough to leave small craters. Eleven warships landed in a rough semicircle around the harvesters and colony ships. The First Officer "looked" towards the sky and waited, but the other four had not descended quickly enough, and not even debris was left. The enemy had definitely come in force.

"There's no time to lose," said the First Officer. "Get the colony ships to establish a shield dome -- route in all available power. All warships, get me damage reports immediately. Communications, send a hyperspace message to the Union."

"Yes, Officer?"

"Tell them we are Gesthik'tka, and besieged at a habitable world by many nonsentients. Tell them there will be organics aplenty should they deign to aid us in our hour of need. Er.... tell them to come in all force available. Tell them we shall grant them this world too if they choose, and anything else within our power." The First Officer's blood thrummed with neurotransmitters. He said: "Ideally a force like ours should be able to hold back a large pack of them -- a hundred ships or so -- but I think they can learn, like intelligent beings, and that is why now they show up in such numbers."

He paused. They were relatively safe now: but not for too long. The shield dome would hold for only a few hours under a full-scale attack from the enemy fleet, and as it diminished, it would shrink until it covered only the colony ships producing it (as they were the priority). But the Damalgians had a window, enough time for either the Thalië Union to show up and drive out the enemy, or for the enemy to get bored and leave; or if neither happened, they would simply perish. But they would not have abandoned the world ships, and that was paramount.

"Damage reports?"

"Shields are heavily depleted, Officer. We're recharging them but they won't be at full strength for some time. There are hull breaches on several warships, which teams are currently attempting to seal. And of course, we have almost no weapons, apart from plasma and point defence."

The First Officer exhaled sharply. "Get the Captain back here. We may need him."

Shields flickered, and most ships lost their distortion fields, but four of these missiles was not enough to bring down all of the different shield types available to the TAP'ians. (OOC: Sorry, but I use all these different types of shields purely for this reason)

The fire slacked off as the ships entered the atmosphere until it was down to only a few per-functory shots. There where survey teams down there gathering genetic information for the Titan Project, and New Tortuga University held a lot of power in the Diet, enough to get the Admiral fired should a species be wiped extinct accidentally.

The Admiral in charge bellowed for a communication channel to the beings bellow. In every language they knew the message was translated. In millions of alien tongues, the message was broadcast. Languages ranging from Doran to Gand to Andorian to the natural language of the seaweed-esque sargassons. On top of that, they included pictograms that said one very simple thing. Leave. We have claimed this world for our own. We will not further harm you if you leave right now. Refuse and we shall reduce your force down to slag. We do not wish to do so, but will if we are forced to.

OOC: The Union: So after their world was destroyed in some kind of catastrophe, Damalgia's many nations ("Thalië") took to the skies and became essentially nomadic bands of scavengers. Not only did their requirements for organic food earn them the enmity of most people they came across, but they also frequently fought wars with one another over habitable worlds or supplies or technologies. In Damalgian Year 7217 (six hundred years ago, or about eight hundred Earth years ago), several of the largest and most influential Thalië agreed that more could be done for the Damalgian cause by uniting into a single force that would consolidate control over all of the worlds those Thalië then occupied. This was the Union Pact, and the Union itself considers itself to exist for the betterment of the Damalgian race overall. But while it gained some support, many thalië opted not to join the Union, instead continuing their nomadic lives as they sought worlds where they could become independent species. Nonetheless, the Union may sometimes offer assistance to one of the independent thalië, as it feels it must preserve the Damalgian species -- if it can get something out of it, of course. Gesthik'tka is fairly small and thus usually on its own, but in this case, well.... think of all the raw materials seven hundred capital ships can provide, plus a whole star system with a habitable world. :P

As for the hairbreadth escape.... well, if I just went with the obvious and said "All fifteen ships blew up within a few seconds", the roleplay would be pretty much over and we wouldn't be having as much fun, right? :P

OOC: I was hoping you would retcon, but a standoff is MUCH more interesting. Good thinking. But just a warning, we can shrug off casualties. All of those who died have already been reborn on New Tortuga in Ressurection Chambers, and are thus giving a report to the President herself.

And again, this is one of FIVE fleets that I control, all of them with roughly equal firepower.

OOC: Tagged for future join (probably tommorrow -- it's too late in the night for me to write a good introduction of my entrance into this.)

OOC: I don't generally do the retcon thing. If I make a mistake, it's an IC mistake. Avoids OOC arguments, which I find kind of tiresome.

Also, I can't help wondering what the average TAP'ian crewman might be thinking right now. "I'm missing the super bowl for ten stupid warships?!"

"We're receiving another message from the enemy," said the Communications Officer.

The Captain slid or rolled in, it was hard to tell which. He'd just arrived from an emergency return. "I see you managed to get us into trouble again, First Officer."

The First Officer exuded a sheepish pheromone. "I'm sorry, Captain. The two ships present fired upon us, and when we attempted to defend ourselves, all of these others hyperspaced in."

"Well, first things first. The message, Communications?"

"It's quite extensive. It'll be a few moments before we have it all, but even so, I fear we won't be able to understand it, Captain."

The Captain turned to his first officer. "How many crewmen were on the four ships that were lost?"

The computer supplied the answer. "Two thousand, six hundred, fifty-two."

"And remains? Are there any?"

"No, Captain. The enemy attack overloaded their shields almost immediately and practically converted the ships to energy."

The Captain issued a breath of sadness. "Then we cannot perform the ritual. The enemy will deny us even the ability to die properly." He moved to the command chair. "Well, at least they died defending the lives of Damalgians. Their deaths were not wasted. Communications, the message?"

"We're detecting one small part of it that seems to make sense. I'm running it through the translators now."

What the Damalgians received in the end was an incomplete portion of the message as translated from the language of a rarely-seen and very ancient species -- one that usually kept to itself, but one that evidently the TAP'ians had encountered at one point. It was possible that they and the Damalgians were descended from a common ancestor, and hence, their language shared several points of similarity -- if transposed to the Damalgian auditory frequency, it was possible to convert into Damalgian, although there were many false cognates and the grammar was completely different.

The Captain listened to the translation. "I understand that they are asking us to leave the system?" he said.

"So it would seem. At least, those words can be easily understood. With the length of the whole thing, it's possible there's an awful lot more to it, of course."

"Of course," said the Captain. "Unless the message was in fact very short and they were simply running it through multiple translations in a desperate attempt to communicate with us."

The Communications Officer smelled skeptical. "I doubt nonsentients would be capable of that kind of ingenuity. Anyway, why attempt communication after we are obviously pinned down? Another thalia would recognize that we are depleted and simply destroy us, then claim the world."

"Do not underestimate them," the Captain said. "They may be nonsentient but they have a remarkable ability to learn. Why, just a quarter of a year ago we destroyed a fleet of seventy ships that fired upon us*. Intelligent creatures, when they return, would return with greater numbers. Communications officer, send a message in the language they have used."

"I'll have the translator filter it."

"Tell them that we are Gesthik'tka thalia, and here on a mission of peaceful colonization. Tell them that this world is ours. Tell them that...." The Captain paused. If the aliens thought like Damalgians, they wanted the planet itself, and any thalia would attempt to drive out other thalië settling there. "....that if there are sentient beings among them, those beings should meet with us on the world, to discuss allotment of the harvesting." He paused. "Word it as commands. It will remind them that despite their numbers they are still little more than domestic animals."

Translated through several languages and modified to a frequency audible to humans, the comprehensible portions of the message run:
NATION PEACEFUL COME-BEFORE WORLDBUILDING IS [break] TO-US WORLD IS [break] SENTIENTS EARTH COME-DOWN TALK HARVESTING PEACEFUL IS [break] plus several iterations of the word "Damalg'iru" or "D'malg'iru", as it appears in human language, and which could be correctly deduced to be the name of the race. The rest of the message is largely gibberish.

* Disclaimer, didn't happen in any roleplay, and the Damalgians think all humanoids are the same nation, so they probably weren't your ships anyway.

Also, the more of your FIVE fleets you deploy, the more vulnerable your home system becomes. :P

OOC: I don't generally do the retcon thing. If I make a mistake, it's an IC mistake. Avoids OOC arguments, which I find kind of tiresome.

Also, I can't help wondering what the average TAP'ian crewman might be thinking right now. "I'm missing the super bowl for ten stupid warships?!"

OOC: Lol, there is a reason that our ships get live broadcasts of our major sporting events. XD

"We're receiving another message from the enemy," said the Communications Officer.

The Captain slid or rolled in, it was hard to tell which. He'd just arrived from an emergency return. "I see you managed to get us into trouble again, First Officer."

The First Officer exuded a sheepish pheromone. "I'm sorry, Captain. The two ships present fired upon us, and when we attempted to defend ourselves, all of these others hyperspaced in."

"Well, first things first. The message, Communications?"

"It's quite extensive. It'll be a few moments before we have it all, but even so, I fear we won't be able to understand it, Captain."

The Captain turned to his first officer. "How many crewmen were on the four ships that were lost?"

The computer supplied the answer. "Two thousand, six hundred, fifty-two."

"And remains? Are there any?"

"No, Captain. The enemy attack overloaded their shields almost immediately and practically converted the ships to energy."

The Captain issued a breath of sadness. "Then we cannot perform the ritual. The enemy will deny us even the ability to die properly." He moved to the command chair. "Well, at least they died defending the lives of Damalgians. Their deaths were not wasted. Communications, the message?"

"We're detecting one small part of it that seems to make sense. I'm running it through the translators now."

What the Damalgians received in the end was an incomplete portion of the message as translated from the language of a rarely-seen and very ancient species -- one that usually kept to itself, but one that evidently the TAP'ians had encountered at one point. It was possible that they and the Damalgians were descended from a common ancestor, and hence, their language shared several points of similarity -- if transposed to the Damalgian auditory frequency, it was possible to convert into Damalgian, although there were many false cognates and the grammar was completely different.

The Captain listened to the translation. "I understand that they are asking us to leave the system?" he said.

"So it would seem. At least, those words can be easily understood. With the length of the whole thing, it's possible there's an awful lot more to it, of course."

"Of course," said the Captain. "Unless the message was in fact very short and they were simply running it through multiple translations in a desperate attempt to communicate with us."

The Communications Officer smelled skeptical. "I doubt nonsentients would be capable of that kind of ingenuity. Anyway, why attempt communication after we are obviously pinned down? Another thalia would recognize that we are depleted and simply destroy us, then claim the world."

"Do not underestimate them," the Captain said. "They may be nonsentient but they have a remarkable ability to learn. Why, just a quarter of a year ago we destroyed a fleet of seventy ships that fired upon us*. Intelligent creatures, when they return, would return with greater numbers. Communications officer, send a message in the language they have used."

"I'll have the translator filter it."

"Tell them that we are Gesthik'tka thalia, and here on a mission of peaceful colonization. Tell them that this world is ours. Tell them that...." The Captain paused. If the aliens thought like Damalgians, they wanted the planet itself, and any thalia would attempt to drive out other thalië settling there. "....that if there are sentient beings among them, those beings should meet with us on the world, to discuss allotment of the harvesting." He paused. "Word it as commands. It will remind them that despite their numbers they are still little more than domestic animals."

Translated through several languages and modified to a frequency audible to humans, the comprehensible portions of the message run:
NATION PEACEFUL COME-BEFORE WORLDBUILDING IS [break] TO-US WORLD IS [break] SENTIENTS EARTH COME-DOWN TALK HARVESTING PEACEFUL IS [break] plus several iterations of the word "Damalg'iru" or "D'malg'iru", as it appears in human language, and which could be correctly deduced to be the name of the race. The rest of the message is largely gibberish.

"Well Admiral, it would seem they doubt our...I think they meant to use Sapience here...but it would seemt hat they doubt our reasoning ability. But, on the plus side, we have now pinpointed a language we might be able to use for communications."

"Then repeat the message, in that language, and use the UT Circuit to try and get a composite form of the language. I want to explain to these arrogant assholes why destroying one of our ships is a bad idea."

A few moments later, a composite version of the language originally used and the response was sent. It was one of a dozen iterations of the Composite. Each one was repeated after going through the circuit.

If any of them where right, it would read as <Damalg'iru, this is The American Privateer, a nation from outside this Galaxy. Do not doubt our sapience. Your own mistakes in word choice make us doubt yours. Leave. We have claimed this world and it's genetic resources for our own. We will not further harm you if you leave right now. Refuse and we shall reduce your force down to slag. We do not wish to do so, but will if we are forced to.>

The message then repeated in another of the twelve composites, over and over, the pictographs sent with each depicting the exact same thing. Leave and you will not be harmed. Stay and we have no choice.

* Disclaimer, didn't happen in any roleplay, and the Damalgians think all humanoids are the same nation, so they probably weren't your ships anyway.

Also, the more of your FIVE fleets you deploy, the more vulnerable your home system becomes. :P

OOC: Heh, considering how Isolationist we are normally, I highly doubt it.

And don't bother trying to crash the Cloud. Artemis is celebrating her anniversary with the Commander of the Aerospace Force IC, and she is in charge of all the robotic defenses. Since she is a Ghost and her Husband rarely has time to Ghost Dive into the SoulNet, interrupting that would be VERY hazardous to your health.

Next week would be better, she would not be as blood thirsty.

The response eventually came through.

Of the various composites, most of them were incomplete, grammatically incorrect, or incomprehensible. But the clearest version, composite seven of twelve, came out fairly accurately:
DAMALG'IRU [break] THE [incomprehensible] PIRATE IS [break] NATION FROM OTHER GALAXY ARE [break] TO-US DOUBT NOT SENTIENCE* [break] MISTAKES [incomprehensible] TO-YOU DOUBT SENTIENCE IS [break] DEPART [break] TO-US WORLD IS AND ALL HARVEST-MATERIAL [break] PEACEFUL TO-YOU WE ARE IF DEPART [break] DEPART NOT AND YOU SHALL LESSENED BE [break] TO-US NOT WISH IS BUT [incomprehensible] MUST

"That doesn't sound right," the Captain said. "Can you configure the translator to produce more idiomatic grammar?"

"It should be doing that already, honestly," said the Communications Officer. "It should be rendering this message in your grandmother's Ksheth'thgi. But let me check a few things...."

"I hope not. My grandmother swore like a soldier."

"I'm working on it," the Communications Officer said. "But anyway, I understand the message. Should we respond with the standard claim of ownership?"

"No. We have nothing to back it up," the Captain said. "Tell them about us, but in more detail, and grammatically perfect or I will devour your sensory appendages. Tell them that we are peaceful by nature, and we are willing to meet with a representative of their nation to discuss allocation of the resources."

The First Officer sounded skeptical. "Captain? Are you sure you wish to waste such effort on....." he trailed off as the Captain produced a warning click.

"They understood the word for sentience. That alone should be evidence enough that they are at least sufficiently intelligent to understand the concept. If you'd like, I can have them bring proof." He turned to the Communications Officer. "And tell them to bring information about their culture and society, for the benefit of my First Officer." He smelled angry, but spoke with a deadly calm; discipline was not the Damalgians' strong point, but there were times when obeisance was the only option.

<Greetings, American Privateers. We are Gesthik'tka nation, of the Damalgian people, present in this system on a mission of peaceful colonization. We harbor no evil intentions towards your people, but this system is ours by claim. However, as we are reasonable, we shall grant you an audience, on the neutral ground outside our shield-dome; and if you so desire, we may allow you to harvest enough of the planet to keep your nation's harvesters and world-ships supplied until you reach the next world in your survey.

For the benefit of those Damalgians who doubt you are a form of higher life, please bring with you materials regarding your culture and society that you feel may be evidence of sapience.>

* Yeah, they use the same word for both meanings. Usually the right one can be inferred from context.

That's also why the message uses the right word -- the comms officer reconfigured it to correspond to Basic grammar.

Also, I'm going to sleep. So if anyone else attacks me over the next few hours, don't get impatient if I don't respond immediately. ;)

The response eventually came through.

Of the various composites, most of them were incomplete, grammatically incorrect, or incomprehensible. But the clearest version, composite seven of twelve, came out fairly accurately:
DAMALG'IRU [break] THE [incomprehensible] PIRATE IS [break] NATION FROM OTHER GALAXY ARE [break] TO-US DOUBT NOT SENTIENCE* [break] MISTAKES [incomprehensible] TO-YOU DOUBT SENTIENCE IS [break] DEPART [break] TO-US WORLD IS AND ALL HARVEST-MATERIAL [break] PEACEFUL TO-YOU WE ARE IF DEPART [break] DEPART NOT AND YOU SHALL LESSENED BE [break] TO-US NOT WISH IS BUT [incomprehensible] MUST

"That doesn't sound right," the Captain said. "Can you configure the translator to produce more idiomatic grammar?"

"It should be doing that already, honestly," said the Communications Officer. "It should be rendering this message in your grandmother's Ksheth'thgi. But let me check a few things...."

"I hope not. My grandmother swore like a soldier."

"I'm working on it," the Communications Officer said. "But anyway, I understand the message. Should we respond with the standard claim of ownership?"

"No. We have nothing to back it up," the Captain said. "Tell them about us, but in more detail, and grammatically perfect or I will devour your sensory appendages. Tell them that we are peaceful by nature, and we are willing to meet with a representative of their nation to discuss allocation of the resources."

The First Officer sounded skeptical. "Captain? Are you sure you wish to waste such effort on....." he trailed off as the Captain produced a warning click.

"They understood the word for sentience. That alone should be evidence enough that they are at least sufficiently intelligent to understand the concept. If you'd like, I can have them bring proof." He turned to the Communications Officer. "And tell them to bring information about their culture and society, for the benefit of my First Officer." He smelled angry, but spoke with a deadly calm; discipline was not the Damalgians' strong point, but there were times when obeisance was the only option.

<Greetings, American Privateers. We are Gesthik'tka nation, of the Damalgian people, present in this system on a mission of peaceful colonization. We harbor no evil intentions towards your people, but this system is ours by claim. However, as we are reasonable, we shall grant you an audience, on the neutral ground outside our shield-dome; and if you so desire, we may allow you to harvest enough of the planet to keep your nation's harvesters and world-ships supplied until you reach the next world in your survey.

For the benefit of those Damalgians who doubt you are a form of higher life, please bring with you materials regarding your culture and society that you feel may be evidence of sapience.>

* Yeah, they use the same word for both meanings. Usually the right one can be inferred from context.

That's also why the message uses the right word -- the comms officer reconfigured it to correspond to Basic grammar.

Also, I'm going to sleep. So if anyone else attacks me over the next few hours, don't get impatient if I don't respond immediately. ;)

OOC: First of all, much lols on the comment about the grandmother, much win there

IC:
"Sir, they are locusts. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they had some people gardens out there in this galaxy. And they seem to think that we are as such because we have probes down there scanning the planets."

"Damn, I hate Space Locusts. I thought they where myths for so long, wish that was true. Okay, alert the Captain of the Adams, and tell him to make his way over there. And send him down recording sticks on husbandry, politics, religion, but primarily anything to do with agriculture, maybe they will decide not to strip this planet bare if this works..."

On the surface, Captain Paul was not happy. He did not like Space Locusts, not one bit. If was in command, he would order them squashed, and suggest a campaign against them. Any locusts would ultimately turn on TAP. But perhaps he could change things.

Thus, he stepped in front of the shield dome, using his Pictor Torque to communicate that he was TAP by projecting the Seven Stars and Seven Bars. He held the sticks in his hand, the most important one being a communication of intentions on this world.

<We are The American Privateer. We are interested in the Genetics of this World. They are compatible with that of our Home World. We do not seek to strip this planet clean. We practice Agriculture and Animal Husbandry to allow us to live Sedentary Lifestyles, and avoid Nomadism and Locustism. The Flora and Fauna of this world may be of use to us. As for evidence of our being Sapient...>

As it ended, Pyro appeared. Clad in flames, he was amazing to behold. The fire in his eyes glowed white hot, while his body glowed blue. <We have traveled the multi-verse. Unlocked the secrets of M-Space. And we travel between worlds instantly. We are able to communicate across the universe instantly, and have a highly advanced society. But most importantly, we have this.>

And with that, he used the Pentagram to show the basics of the Pythagorean Theorum. He then showed images of the Prime Numbers in order. And then, he focused on the elements, showing images of every atom thus discovered in all the multi-verses. From there he moved on to molecules, and then to the most important one. He displayed the double-helix. The buildign blocks of life. As he did so, images of animals and plants from across the multiple verses of the 9-Dimensional P-Brane that the Universes inhabited, the DNA shifting as the animals where displayed. Intelligence, one of the three criteria for Sentience had been proven.

He then moved on to discuss those around him. Pointing to each one and naming them in Basic. He then pointed to himself and gave his name, Pyro. HE then pointed out objects in the sky and described them, including images of animals and ships that he pulled up. Self-Awareness, the second criteria, had been proven.

But he ended it with a simple phrase. <I think, therefore I am> Conciousness, the most vaguely defined of the three criteria, had been proven with but five simple words.

ooc: Whoa, you guys do awesome posts... and alot of them can someone summerise for me, what happened to me >.> and if the new alien dude Tenuria captain is still on the planet with me, it would help, i cant make heads or tails. also since my race makes its mission to adapt, i could be a translator if you were all to meet.

ooc: Whoa, you guys do awesome posts... and alot of them can someone summerise for me, what happened to me >.> and if the new alien dude Tenuria captain is still on the planet with me, it would help, i cant make heads or tails. also since my race makes its mission to adapt, i could be a translator if you were all to meet.

I fired a shot across his bow, he wiped out two of my ships, I called in one of my Numbered Fleets to blast his warships out of the sky and managed to hit four of them. We then tried to establish lines of communication (at which time my people finally realized that they are dealing with Space Locusts), and are now meeting on the ground.

Have your guy come to the meeting, I would love to paste a groan on Captain John Paul's face, I think I would like to have had him meet a Kewen serving in the National Archives of our nation (Biggest Library in TAP, with every book ever printed in a Terragen Language, along with our complete historical records, letters to the Presidents and Newspapers, Newspapers, genealogical records, etc.)

ooc: okay thanks, now im assuming the captain is still conversing with my guy on the platue, while somewhere else hes got a big machine gobbling everything up.

IC:

Bere watched the alien cautiously, he was easily able to understand it, and speak to it with no aides, as a Kewens body, was well not really a body but noone really knew that, few did but they were isolated cases.

"Captain Tza" Bere began, bowing very slightly, " I am Caretaker Bere, assigned to this planet in order to oversee the development and growth of the creatures you see before yourself" bere indicated to the two, creautes that stood by his side, he stopped and his formed again glowed a bright silver, The Plautue, also had several bio-scanners built it, and they had been scanning this Captain for a while, the AI back at the base, had sent Bere, data on its anatomy, and before the creatures eyes, he became more or less Damalgian baring a few parts here and there, this was why Bere was deemed insane, he usually shifted in the presence of a solid.



----


SOmewhere near the harvest ( if had not been destroyed)
A group of the primitive creatures, whos name sounded much like Gwort, stood upon a hill, and watched the vile machine devour and eat the surroundings, primitive they were but idiots they were not, they knew the basics of war taught to them by Bere, and had brought primitive catapults, and soon rocks were flying through the air, towards the vile machine as things from the skye lit the area up, the Gwort beat upon there chest, and make grunting and taunting sounds at the thing.

The Kraken descended on the plateau and released an ODSP (Orbital Drop Shock Pod). The Izak and his Elite Guard (http://www.mudpromotions.com/jihad/jihadarmor2.jpg) who were armed with 2 Jenovese Arm Guns, Dual Maulers (http://www.haloknights.co.uk/Mauler.png) , XM8 (http://www.haloknights.co.uk/Mauler.png) with Sniper modifications and a grenade launcher. The Captain was armed similarly except he had a combat knife in a side strap.

ooc: the platue with me and Tenuria?

OOC: Kewen: Things got a little confusing in there. The Captain was called back to within the dome after the TAP'ians attacked, so our meeting was cut short at some point. We can still RP it, if you'd like, or we can just state that "we talked for a while and then he left abruptly."

The Captain met his opposite number outside the shield-dome. To show peaceful intentions, he had disarmed the weapons of the environment suit, and his grasping appendages were positioned behind the main part of his body, with the claws laid open in a traditional gesture of peace. As the other Captain spoke, he watched curiously; more accurately, his sensory appendages and apparati carefully sniffed the air and recorded information about the conversation.

The Captain was impressed by the demonstration. It was curious to him that a completely different species, originating in another galaxy, could have come to similar conclusions about the nature of the universe as the Damalgians. And these were presumably beings that were made of carbon and water, and breathed oxygen, too; he marveled that they had learned this despite such thin atmospheres, which would obviously limit the amount of blood going to the brain. For a moment he felt like an explorer taking his first step onto an unknown world.

Then he heard his First Officer's voice over the short-range communications. "Captain, the Union--"

The Captain hushed him. "I'll talk to you later." Switching to the external speakers and configuring the translator to output in the composite language, he said: "Thank you for obliging my subordinates. In truth, it is rare for us to encounter other sapient species, capable of communication and reasoning and not simply base belligerence. But I must tell you our story.

"Homeworld -- what we call Damalgia -- was a young planet when we lived upon its surface, where life was continually renewed and natural processes in its [static] tar ponds* converted inorganic substances into compounds and proteins suitable for sustaining life. For thousands of years we lived on that world, and fed ourselves upon the vast biodiversity of the homeworld. But then the homeworld was ripped from its orbit around a yellow sun and into the orbit of another sun, a huge red one, and the tar ponds dried up and life ceased to arise naturally on the world.

"We became nomadic, traveling the galaxy in nations, in search of a world like Damalgia. But the few habitable biospheres were generally controlled by primitive versions of creatures such as yourselves, who showed us only violence and hatred. We were reduced to harvesting uninhabitable systems and synthesizing the organic materials yielded into a form we can consume -- hence, the harvesters you see even now doing their work." The harvesters were far behind the Captain, and the tubes were no longer claiming materials from the immediate area, but it might be possible to hear sounds of machinery from within.

"The body of a Damalgian consumes organic matter but excretes inorganic matter. Perhaps your species operates differently. Because we use the inorganic matter as fuel, and thus convert it to energy, we can only inhabit a world where life is naturally self-sustaining -- and more so, a world where it renews itself at a sufficient rate to support a Damalgian population. A world such as this one is ideal for our purpose, although it will only give us a few centuries to establish a base and search for other worlds before its indigenous life will be rendered extinct.

"As for you -- you seek to cultivate this world's genetic material. Why? Is it because you wish to breed them?" Despite the translated voice sounding very little like a human being, it managed to convey some of the Captain's disgust at the italicized word.

* I did my research. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#.22Primitive.22_extraterrestrial_life)

"ASEF Alphablade, you are clear for the jump to hyperspace. Good luck."
"Very well then. All personnel, prepare for lightspeed transition."
The ASEF Alphablade was a modified Scythe-Class Battle Cruiser, part of the newest generation of ships deployed by the ASF Alliance. Captain Yaris leaned back on his chair as the ship readied itself for the jump.
"We're all clear. Initiating lightspeed transition. Hyperdrives engaged. Jump.... Initiated."
The ship was heading to another region in the frontiers of known space. In a few hours, the ship dropped out of hyperspace again, in order to take measurements of the area and to plot the next course.
"Sir, we've detected multiple energy flares, and a slight gravitic disturbance coming from a sector that's not too far away from our current position. Do you want the coordinates plotted into our navicomputers?"
"Yes, but plot it so that we just come short of reaching the energy flares." replied Captain Yaris, "This could be a sign of a battle, and I doubt we want to end up in the middle of one."
"Very well. Plotting.... OK. Activating jump.... Done."
A few minutes later, the ship dropped out of hyperspace, a bit short of what seemed on sensors to be a group of other ships. A planet was also visible in the background, though the sensors couldn't tell exactly of what nature.
"Current orders, sir?"
"We don't do anything. Yet. No, there's not a chance that they haven't detected us yet. But seeing that we did get energy flares from this location, any actions on our part could be interpreted to be potentially hostile. Allow them to react first. Do drop a messenger pod, though, and send it back to HQ at Alpha 10. We'll need to inform them of this."
A small pod was ejected from the ship, containing a hyperdrive, a navicomputer programmed to reach Alpha 10, and a message. Moments later, the pod jumped to hyperspace, and was on its way.

OOC: Excuse me for my slightly inept introduction to this... I'm a bit tired at this moment. Anyways, I'll assume no one wants to shoot at the messenger pod, since it's tiny and rather hard to hit, not to mention the fact that you might not immediately know it's there in the first place.

OOC: Kewen: Things got a little confusing in there. The Captain was called back to within the dome after the TAP'ians attacked, so our meeting was cut short at some point. We can still RP it, if you'd like, or we can just state that "we talked for a while and then he left abruptly."

The Captain met his opposite number outside the shield-dome. To show peaceful intentions, he had disarmed the weapons of the environment suit, and his grasping appendages were positioned behind the main part of his body, with the claws laid open in a traditional gesture of peace. As the other Captain spoke, he watched curiously; more accurately, his sensory appendages and apparati carefully sniffed the air and recorded information about the conversation.

The Captain was impressed by the demonstration. It was curious to him that a completely different species, originating in another galaxy, could have come to similar conclusions about the nature of the universe as the Damalgians. And these were presumably beings that were made of carbon and water, and breathed oxygen, too; he marveled that they had learned this despite such thin atmospheres, which would obviously limit the amount of blood going to the brain. For a moment he felt like an explorer taking his first step onto an unknown world.

Then he heard his First Officer's voice over the short-range communications. "Captain, the Union--"

The Captain hushed him. "I'll talk to you later." Switching to the external speakers and configuring the translator to output in the composite language, he said: "Thank you for obliging my subordinates. In truth, it is rare for us to encounter other sapient species, capable of communication and reasoning and not simply base belligerence. But I must tell you our story.

"Homeworld -- what we call Damalgia -- was a young planet when we lived upon its surface, where life was continually renewed and natural processes in its [static] tar ponds* converted inorganic substances into compounds and proteins suitable for sustaining life. For thousands of years we lived on that world, and fed ourselves upon the vast biodiversity of the homeworld. But then the homeworld was ripped from its orbit around a yellow sun and into the orbit of another sun, a huge red one, and the tar ponds dried up and life ceased to arise naturally on the world.

"We became nomadic, traveling the galaxy in nations, in search of a world like Damalgia. But the few habitable biospheres were generally controlled by primitive versions of creatures such as yourselves, who showed us only violence and hatred. We were reduced to harvesting uninhabitable systems and synthesizing the organic materials yielded into a form we can consume -- hence, the harvesters you see even now doing their work." The harvesters were far behind the Captain, and the tubes were no longer claiming materials from the immediate area, but it might be possible to hear sounds of machinery from within.

"The body of a Damalgian consumes organic matter but excretes inorganic matter. Perhaps your species operates differently. Because we use the inorganic matter as fuel, and thus convert it to energy, we can only inhabit a world where life is naturally self-sustaining -- and more so, a world where it renews itself at a sufficient rate to support a Damalgian population. A world such as this one is ideal for our purpose, although it will only give us a few centuries to establish a base and search for other worlds before its indigenous life will be rendered extinct.

"As for you -- you seek to cultivate this world's genetic material. Why? Is it because you wish to breed them?" Despite the translated voice sounding very little like a human being, it managed to convey some of the Captain's disgust at the italicized word.

* I did my research. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#.22Primitive.22_extraterrestrial_life)

"It is not so rare as you think. We come from a completely different Universe, cast adrift into the p-Branes of the multiverse, transversing universes with any where from two dimensions, to those with seven."

"And in those universes, we came across millions of species similar to our own. All of them sapient. Some of them, we have taken into our nation. The Caamasi, the Andorians, the Vulcans, the Chiss. Species that exist in this galaxy of this universe. Species that you have no doubt had contact with. Species that in the haste of both sides, ultimately led to conflict."

At the comment about breeding, the Captain looked confused. "Of course. We do not know what properties this world might possess. There might be a creature here whose genetic information could be used to provide our future generations with stronger muscles, better vision, or non-winged flight. And, on top of that, by breeding them, we do not have to act as nomads. So long as you act as Locusts, culling worlds and rendering life extinct on them, then your species will always run the risk of some day becoming extinct for lack of food. On top of that, nations such as ours will act to thwart you. We value genetic information in it's own right, on top of the value that the Genetic Information might grant to us."

"It is one of the benefits of Titan. We might be able to create a world that meets your needs. For a time at least. The only permanent solution to your problem would be to settle down, and to attempt to achieve equilibrium with the world you inhabit. But if you cull it until all life is extinct...then you will eventually find that there are no more inhabitable worlds that have not been claimed. Carbon based lifeforms do not enjoy watching innocents slaughtered for the sake of locusts."

"All of these worlds you have stripped where naturally self-sustaining, until your species came in and devoured them."

OOC: Hmm lol nobody notices a pod dropping down upon you?

The Native life on the planet, ranging from the Gwort, to flying marsupials, to even the trees themselves were all altered in some way, it was very subtle but it was there, the only reason why no scan dected such chances was everything had been changed, it didnt look different if everything was the same difference.

Bere scuttled back down to his base, and wondered when his reinforcements would arrive, about now the wave he radiation he sent out before, being continuous and growing should hit a kewen lane, and it would bring kewen warships to the area, unless they had been changed in the last few hundred years, which Bere highly doubted.

Where ever the aliens landed on the world, the Gwort were just on the horizon, beating there chests and chanting there primitive warcries, as they watched these beings from above, unscared by them since it wasnt the first time...

ooc: im unsure of what to do here.

OOC: I guess I'll just say my pod missed.

IC:

The ODSP dropped somewhere in the middle of the forest as it's navcomputers miscalculated the drop on account of the different gravity here.

"Damnit! Who didn't enter the gravity percentage in!?"
"Probably one of those techies back there forgot."
-----
As they stepped out of the pod they were assaulted by Gworts who saw the crash. The captain slid out his combat knife and slit the throat of one. His Lieutenant Commader took out his Maulers and shot two Gworts. And just like that the Gworts were gone.

OOC: Im assuming that you Kewen are playing the Gworts?

ooc: Aye, I am.

IC:

They ran from the stranges, one group of who it would be effective to attack tm directly, but they were wrong, retreating to a steep hill they watched the aliens, and came up with a much more simpler plan.

rocks and lots of them, big rocks small rocks sharp rocks all rocks, tehy started rolling them down the hill to sqush these aliens from above.

"It is not so rare as you think. We come from a completely different Universe, cast adrift into the p-Branes of the multiverse, transversing universes with any where from two dimensions, to those with seven."

"And in those universes, we came across millions of species similar to our own. All of them sapient. Some of them, we have taken into our nation. The Caamasi, the Andorians, the Vulcans, the Chiss. Species that exist in this galaxy of this universe. Species that you have no doubt had contact with. Species that in the haste of both sides, ultimately led to conflict."

At the comment about breeding, the Captain looked confused. "Of course. We do not know what properties this world might possess. There might be a creature here whose genetic information could be used to provide our future generations with stronger muscles, better vision, or non-winged flight. And, on top of that, by breeding them, we do not have to act as nomads. So long as you act as Locusts, culling worlds and rendering life extinct on them, then your species will always run the risk of some day becoming extinct for lack of food. On top of that, nations such as ours will act to thwart you. We value genetic information in it's own right, on top of the value that the Genetic Information might grant to us."

"It is one of the benefits of Titan. We might be able to create a world that meets your needs. For a time at least. The only permanent solution to your problem would be to settle down, and to attempt to achieve equilibrium with the world you inhabit. But if you cull it until all life is extinct...then you will eventually find that there are no more inhabitable worlds that have not been claimed. Carbon based lifeforms do not enjoy watching innocents slaughtered for the sake of locusts."

"All of these worlds you have stripped where naturally self-sustaining, until your species came in and devoured them."

"You refer to locusts," said the Captain. "Are these an enemy nation of yours, or a species of wild animal? And in what way are they comparable to us?

"Leaving that aside, you state that many or most species resembling yours are sapient. Now, I can set aside your resemblance to an oversized [unintelligible], but while we have encountered several species similar to yours, none of them have displayed any particular ability to reason or to communicate. True, some of them had warships or advanced weapons, but it is entirely possible those could have been relics of an earlier, extinct race, and we operated under that assumption.

"As for breeding.... we find that objectionable." The translator was taking a while with these sentences, as many of the words had no real translation into Basic and the Captain was occasionally prompted to enter a replacement. "Meddling with the genetics of a species, altering it to suit our needs, we consider morally reprehensible. We view it, perhaps, the same way you view our harvests. I must clarify that many Damalgian nations occupy planets in harmony; the only problem is that, on many worlds, the life cannot repopulate itself fast enough to keep up with a Damalgian population, so after any time from a few decades to millennia, the system is harvested and the nation moves on. Our goal is not to render life extinct, but to find a world like the homeworld where we can live in harmony with it.

"There are, of course, extremists, who say that the only way we can attain that ideal is by finding a suitably biodiverse world and wiping out its dominant form of life, regardless of sapience. They are fortunately a minority, and my nation has only a few."

Meanwhile, a lesser ship of the TAP'ian fleet:

The engineer was performing a few routine checks at his station in the engineering bay or, wherever Star Wars ships keep their engines. :P when he noticed something odd: None of the shields were at full power.

It was not unusual for the shields to read anywhere between 95% and 100% when at full strength, especially on very large ships. But they seemed to have dropped, very slowly and almost unnoticeably, to 93%. As he watched, the number became 92%.

It could have been just a malfunction on that individual ship. But the same thing was happening on the others.

OOC: Dun dun DUNNNNN!

Also, this thread now has advertisements for farm equipment. I should name my resource-gathering process something else.

"You refer to locusts," said the Captain. "Are these an enemy nation of yours, or a species of wild animal? And in what way are they comparable to us?

"Leaving that aside, you state that many or most species resembling yours are sapient. Now, I can set aside your resemblance to an oversized [unintelligible], but while we have encountered several species similar to yours, none of them have displayed any particular ability to reason or to communicate. True, some of them had warships or advanced weapons, but it is entirely possible those could have been relics of an earlier, extinct race, and we operated under that assumption.

"As for breeding.... we find that objectionable." The translator was taking a while with these sentences, as many of the words had no real translation into Basic and the Captain was occasionally prompted to enter a replacement. "Meddling with the genetics of a species, altering it to suit our needs, we consider morally reprehensible. We view it, perhaps, the same way you view our harvests. I must clarify that many Damalgian nations occupy planets in harmony; the only problem is that, on many worlds, the life cannot repopulate itself fast enough to keep up with a Damalgian population, so after any time from a few decades to millennia, the system is harvested and the nation moves on. Our goal is not to render life extinct, but to find a world like the homeworld where we can live in harmony with it.

"There are, of course, extremists, who say that the only way we can attain that ideal is by finding a suitably biodiverse world and wiping out its dominant form of life, regardless of sapience. They are fortunately a minority, and my nation has only a few."

Pyro showed an image of a locust. "They are insects who come in, eat everything in their path and move on, stripping entire regions of planets clean in months. And they do so, because they cannot breed the plants they eat."

"How is it objectionable to help a world maintain the biodiversity that you are stripping from it? Would it not be preferable to assist the world in feeding you by assisting the population in growing to suit your needs? It seems...odd to me that you where able to obtain FTL, let alone a civilization as advanced as this, when you acted as nomads, stripping clean the areas you pass through. Civilizations, true civilizations, only emerged on our homeworld because of Irrigation and the breeding of plants in fields we call 'Farms.' It allowed us to divide the labor among many peoples, and allowed us to turn to pursuits of the mind. And do predators not shift the genetics of their prey through natural actions? Is not the preying on the slowest and weakest among them changing the nature of their prey on the Genetic level? Through selective breeding, we have developed species of wheat that grow in the coldest of temperatures, allowing us to farm grain year round in places that normally would not be able to support any plant growth."

"Those warships you encountered where probably built by the people manning them. IF you had taken time out to try and communicate with them, you might have found this out yourself. Just because a species communicates in different methods, doesn't mean that they are not sapient. Hell, the Sargassons, some of our most skilled morticians due to their uncanny sense to detect wrongness, communicate through colors and a form of sign language. And on top of that, they look like Seaweed."


Meanwhile, a lesser ship of the TAP'ian fleet:

The engineer was performing a few routine checks at his station in the engineering bay or, wherever Star Wars ships keep their engines. :P when he noticed something odd: None of the shields were at full power.

It was not unusual for the shields to read anywhere between 95% and 100% when at full strength, especially on very large ships. But they seemed to have dropped, very slowly and almost unnoticeably, to 93%. As he watched, the number became 92%.

It could have been just a malfunction on that individual ship. But the same thing was happening on the others.

OOC: Dun dun DUNNNNN!

Also, this thread now has advertisements for farm equipment. I should name my resource-gathering process something else.

OOC: GODMODE! Rewrite that dude, or send me a TG and have me do this myself, I will for the sake of the story, and who knows, I might even try to get the Tech from the wreckage of one of your ships if I decide IC'ly that it is you.

OOC: GODMODE! Rewrite that dude, or send me a TG and have me do this myself, I will for the sake of the story, and who knows, I might even try to get the Tech from the wreckage of one of your ships if I decide IC'ly that it is you.

OOC: Hmmm. To be honest I put that in there from your perspective mostly to see how you'd react without OOCly knowing what's going on. In other words, making the actions of your command personnel more realistic. If you'd prefer, I can send you a TG explaining what exactly is happening.

Post for the Captain and his thalia will be up in a minute.

OOC: Hmmm. To be honest I put that in there from your perspective mostly to see how you'd react without OOCly knowing what's going on. In other words, making the actions of your command personnel more realistic. If you'd prefer, I can send you a TG explaining what exactly is happening.

Post for the Captain and his thalia will be up in a minute.

OOC: I will respond in IC as if they have no idea what is happening. I can keep IC and OOC knowledge separate (I have lots of practice in it in DnD, as I am usually the Rules Lawyer of the group)

The Captain made a vague gesture that a Damalgian might recognize as an expression of puzzlement. "But all of that was naturally occurring on our world. Plants grew naturally, and rather than interfere in their genetic processes, we simply devised machines to convert them into edible forms. Animals roamed naturally, but we hunted them, serving as natural predators at the top of the local food chain. Oh, we did change the planet -- we had to, to build starships and hyperdrives -- but we did not try to alter the very nature of the living beings around us.

"You say that simply hunting prey is akin to breeding it. But there is a crucial difference. Predators hunting prey causes both species to evolve beneficially to their own kind. Predators capturing and breeding prey to their own ends causes the prey to evolve beneficially only to the predators, and the predators to become lazy and weak. As for contact -- again, we attempted to negotiate peacefully with them. They ignored us." The Captain was starting to sound impatient.

Meanwhile, somewhere else under the shield-dome, the First Officer was receiving some quite interesting readouts in his environment suit display. They were on the point of making him wish he'd never seen this damned planet.

OOC: I will respond in IC as if they have no idea what is happening. I can keep IC and OOC knowledge separate (I have lots of practice in it in DnD, as I am usually the Rules Lawyer of the group)

OOC: Granted then. Sent you TG. I just see a lot of metagaming going on in NS, so wanted to make sure.

OOC: De nada, I love to use Dramatic Irony in stories...

IC:
The Shield Techs on the APN Blood Hawk, an Assassin Class Corvette, all started to notice the same thing. The power levels on the shields where slipping.

The Tech on the bridge fired a quick comment to the men stationed in the Shield Command Center (OOC: I have modified the ships with command layouts similar to US Nuclear Submarines, everything has a rep on the bridge, and their own dedicated station area elsewhere) to adjust the Meta-Stable Hydrogen in the Laser Induced Cooling systems (OOC: Thank you Halo: Fall of Reach for that Idea).

One of the men in engineering went down to check. Most of the crew assumed that it had something to do with the Heat Sinks, which drew the heat into the Ytterbium Laser Cooling system. But everything looked okay.

The tech scratched his head, and called up the ship's Ghost. "Hey, Coral, can you run a diagnostic on the cooling system and the power relays for the Shield Generators, I think we are leaking power somewhere but I can't detect problems with the Heat Sinks themselves."

"I will recommend a flushing of the Hydrogen in the chamber to the captain and replace it with one of the backups."

"Thanks Coral, I am going to activate the MSE's, maybe they can detect something that I missed while you are running your diagnostic."

Coral gave a sniff over that, annoyed that the Engineering crew where still relying on robots when they had infinitely superior Human minds available for the same task. It was one of the reasons Coral had not taken on a new body after she died, and someday she hoped to Ghost a Battleship, but her disdain towards droids would always hold her back.

The Captain, a Lieutenant, nodded and preparred a message for the Admiral.

Oddly, all the ships that had been rebuilt after the Hive Fight where having the worst problems, and the Admiral suspected it lay in shoddy repair work. He had already prepped a report to President St. James, and had just been about to give a call out to all ships to inquire as to the nature of the problem.

OOC: I am assuming with this that it is using EM Spectrum signals to drain power, which would fit with the above, as the Chromium Hull Plating (thank you Dragonstar) is able to deflect energy weapons and would indicate a flaw in the Chromium Application. This way, a third of the vessels would show the worst signs and register them first, slowly spreading to other ships, causing them to assume that whatever is causing it is a problem in the IFF Transponders.

OOC: I guess. I don't see how else it would drain power, unless I bought (er, scavenged) some of those black hole generating weapons you fired at me earlier. :P

OOC: I guess. I don't see how else it would drain power, unless I bought (er, scavenged) some of those black hole generating weapons you fired at me earlier. :P

OOC: what can I say, Dark Matter is heavy, and the only different between Dark Matter Warheads and Nuclear Warheads is that one Explodes in a burst of energy, the other collapses in on itself in a Superdense point of matter.

In the Captain's environment suit an alert began flashing. Well, sort of. (At very least, it began to alert him.) It was the emergency line from his second-in-command.

"I apologize, I must interrupt this fascinating discussion.... my first officer appears to be in trouble." Switching off the external speaker and translator, he said: "First Officer. What is it?"

"Well, Captain, er, as it happens, I had, uh, contacted the Union after--"

"You did what?!"

"Yes, yes, I know. I, um, we were under attack, uh, and I wasn't aware the aliens were intelligent, um, and."

"All right. I'll let that slide for now. What is the emergency?"

"The Union's gotten back to us." Back on the main colony ship, the First Officer took a deep breath. "Not with a message though. They've gotten back to us by linking their sensors to ours and picking up all our data files on the planet."

"This. Is. Bad." The Captain cut off each word with a harsh click, so one could literally hear the periods. "If we're fortunate, we might have to give up only the planet. If not, well.... Who's doing the linking? Who's in command?"

"We're not sure. We're working on it, but we don't know who's leading, how many ships they have, where the ships are.... nothing. The probe they're using is on the fringes of the system and really could have come from anywhere with how closely we're paying attention, and all the interference from the ships in the system."

"Get on it then. And keep an eye out for the dki'thzamh."

"Yes, Captain."

The Captain exhaled again and switched the translator and external speakers back on. "My apologies. A ... sensors malfunction." He paused for a moment while the translator worked to find the right words. "It is proper that they keep me informed like this, of course, although I would rather that I not be interrupted during diplomatic summits. You were saying?"

On the TAP'ian fleet, the power drain continued, barely abated, and still purposefully slow. Ships further and further into the fleet might begin to notice the shields dropping as well. Almost invisible next to the massive heat signatures of ships and their life-support and propulsion systems, one might notice the escaping energy as short plumes of rapidly dissipating heat, but so far they could still be easily taken for a minor energy anomaly, to be catalogued and filed away for the benefit of scientists.

.... So far.

OOC: If you are a comic book character and require a dramatic narrator, I also have a large library of orchestral music clips and sound (and unsound (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnsoundEffect)) effects!

OOC: Oh Jesus! Rocks!

IC:

A rock the size of a baseball tumbled down and nailed the Lieutenant Commader in the balls (LOL).

One of the privates laughed and was immediately nailed by a basketball sized rock in the head.

The Captain who had managed to calm down enough took out his XM8 and shot a grenade that created a pot hole in the ground where all the rock rolled into.

"Grab all the crap inside the pod and lets go."

The team took all the rations, ammo, and weapons inside the pod.
According to the Captain's mobile navcom the plateau was 10 miles away.

OOC: Weee! Survival time! And AF you should do something soon, or should my ship do something?

ooc: yes rocks, now im not sure what to do.... hrm... oh hey, would you look at that my beacon crossed my FTL lanes :D

IC:


If one, were to step outside a Kewenic vessel mid-FTL, you would die, but for the brief 6.7 seconds before your body dissovles, and your mind erodes you would see a truly plain, and uninteresting sight, not very decent considering you were dumb enough to die for it.

But what one would see, was a network of lines stretching far as the eye could see, Kewen FTL travel wasnt the usual method, when a ship broke into the little bits and where thrown at faster then light speeds to god knows where, it enters a section of space, which the kewen termed, the Mazed, due to the seemingly infinate of criss crossing, and intricate patterns of lines, which webed the universe, kewen ships travled this lines, from one destination to another, it also acted like a massive relay station, as if the right type of particle was eradiated into space, like a certain harmless stellar radiation found commonly near suns ( no fly zone) , it acts like a magnet, and can draw, and indeed do yank Kewen military vessels on patrols from "The maze" and to where they are needed, allowing kewen patrols to be everywhere, without actually being there.

It was at this point, the pulse sent out by Bere, had intersected a few million of these lines, and a few dozen military vessels of varying classes had been redirected.

The Base, which Bere was now in had resubmerged down into the muddy depths of that particular planet, and once again indistingushable from the rest of the planet,again from several dozen transmitters planet wide, Bere hailed all of the aliens, in a futile attempt to shoo them away from his ward.

"The people of this world, wish nothing to do of you and pray to me to send you away, you have one chance in order to leave us." It was an empty threat, but what they didnt know couldnt possibly hurt him, even if they paid no attention, there was the fact they had to devote some thought, to a message that seemed to orgininate from everywhere, yet wasnt visible.

In the Captain's environment suit an alert began flashing. Well, sort of. (At very least, it began to alert him.) It was the emergency line from his second-in-command.

"I apologize, I must interrupt this fascinating discussion.... my first officer appears to be in trouble." Switching off the external speaker and translator, he said: "First Officer. What is it?"

"Well, Captain, er, as it happens, I had, uh, contacted the Union after--"

"You did what?!"

"Yes, yes, I know. I, um, we were under attack, uh, and I wasn't aware the aliens were intelligent, um, and."

"All right. I'll let that slide for now. What is the emergency?"

"The Union's gotten back to us." Back on the main colony ship, the First Officer took a deep breath. "Not with a message though. They've gotten back to us by linking their sensors to ours and picking up all our data files on the planet."

"This. Is. Bad." The Captain cut off each word with a harsh click, so one could literally hear the periods. "If we're fortunate, we might have to give up only the planet. If not, well.... Who's doing the linking? Who's in command?"

"We're not sure. We're working on it, but we don't know who's leading, how many ships they have, where the ships are.... nothing. The probe they're using is on the fringes of the system and really could have come from anywhere with how closely we're paying attention, and all the interference from the ships in the system."

"Get on it then. And keep an eye out for the dki'thzamh."

"Yes, Captain."

The Captain exhaled again and switched the translator and external speakers back on. "My apologies. A ... sensors malfunction." He paused for a moment while the translator worked to find the right words. "It is proper that they keep me informed like this, of course, although I would rather that I not be interrupted during diplomatic summits. You were saying?"

"I would have to disagree with you there. The flora that we have created through artificial selection can now survive in places no one thought possible before hand, and that was just from selectively breeding the plants. Through Genetic Modifications, we created a Bear that could survive 50 below temperatures. Look at the Wolf of our homeworld. When we began to domesticate them, they all looked the same, now..."

Pyro showed an image of the Dog, all breeds of Dog, with their ancestral roots going back millenia. "And we are working on Uplifting them to Sapience. So far they are at stage One, and have trouble with a half dozen or so letters with their mouths, but we are working on that."

"Anywho, you might want to suggest helping the biospheres you discover to maintain equilibrium, if for no better reason than because it will allow you to live in one place longer."

On the TAP'ian fleet, the power drain continued, barely abated, and still purposefully slow. Ships further and further into the fleet might begin to notice the shields dropping as well. Almost invisible next to the massive heat signatures of ships and their life-support and propulsion systems, one might notice the escaping energy as short plumes of rapidly dissipating heat, but so far they could still be easily taken for a minor energy anomaly, to be catalogued and filed away for the benefit of scientists.

.... So far.

OOC: If you are a comic book character and require a dramatic narrator, I also have a large library of orchestral music clips and sound (and unsound (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnsoundEffect)) effects!

OOC: Nooooooooooooooooo! Now I am going to spend hours on TVTropes looking for more tropes to include in my Manga. Curse you Tenuria!!! :p

IC:
As the energy drain began to spread, Admiral McNamara ordered the IFF Transponders shut off. But the energy drain was still moving through the fleet, moving towards the planet from the rim of the system.

"Epoch, start a virus purge. I don't think we shut off the IFF Transponders soon enough. I am going to order a fleet wide Ghost Viral Hunt. Get to work."

Epoch's hologram bowed, and then swirled out of existence. Admiral McNamara always had found that vaguely annoying, but no matter.

On the Blood Hawk, Coral was highly annoyed. She might be younger than Epoch in terms of time as a Ghost, but she had been older than that wanker when he died. As she began the Virus Hunt, she noticed that Pablo, the Resonant Scanner Tech was getting nervous about something.

<\\> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL >> PETTY_OFFICER_2/c_JUAN_PABLO

<\ What's up Picaso? What have you found? \>

Pablo looked nervous, and typed in that the Resonant Return had returned with something...strange about the rocks, but that he would need the Jackson's sensors to investigate more on this.

<\ I will alert Epoch \>

<\\> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL >> ANDREW_JACKSON.SO.GHOST.EPOCH

<\ Our resonant Tech has discovered something unusual about those rocks. It would seem that they are getting energy. He requests that the Sensor Techs on the Jackson examine it. \>

<\\> ANDREW_JACKSON.SO.GHOST.EPOCH >> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL

<\ We don't have time to investigate that. Return to your Virus Hunt. That is an order. Or do you want me to contact Artemis and the Council of XIII? \>

<\\> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL >> ANDREW_JACKSON.SO.GHOST.EPOCH

<\ Understood sir \>

However, Coral knew it wasn't a Virus. He knew it. And so he suggested to the captain fo the ship that they investigate the rocks.

Back on the Andrew Jackson, Epoch grumbled about uppity Ghosts, as he created a group of four partials to help him hunt for Viruses in the Jackson's computers, starting with the sensors. Once he found no sign of a virus there, much to his disbelief, he quarantined the system and apologized to the Admiral, explaining his reason for it and moving on.

If one, were to step outside a Kewenic vessel mid-FTL, you would die, but for the brief 6.7 seconds before your body dissovles, and your mind erodes you would see a truly plain, and uninteresting sight, not very decent considering you were dumb enough to die for it.

But what one would see, was a network of lines stretching far as the eye could see, Kewen FTL travel wasnt the usual method, when a ship broke into the little bits and where thrown at faster then light speeds to god knows where, it enters a section of space, which the kewen termed, the Mazed, due to the seemingly infinate of criss crossing, and intricate patterns of lines, which webed the universe, kewen ships travled this lines, from one destination to another, it also acted like a massive relay station, as if the right type of particle was eradiated into space, like a certain harmless stellar radiation found commonly near suns ( no fly zone) , it acts like a magnet, and can draw, and indeed do yank Kewen military vessels on patrols from "The maze" and to where they are needed, allowing kewen patrols to be everywhere, without actually being there.

It was at this point, the pulse sent out by Bere, had intersected a few million of these lines, and a few dozen military vessels of varying classes had been redirected.

The Base, which Bere was now in had resubmerged down into the muddy depths of that particular planet, and once again indistingushable from the rest of the planet,again from several dozen transmitters planet wide, Bere hailed all of the aliens, in a futile attempt to shoo them away from his ward.

"The people of this world, wish nothing to do of you and pray to me to send you away, you have one chance in order to leave us." It was an empty threat, but what they didnt know couldnt possibly hurt him, even if they paid no attention, there was the fact they had to devote some thought, to a message that seemed to orgininate from everywhere, yet wasnt visible.

"Sir, Resonant message. The call seems to be originating from the surface of the world, or at least somewhere in this system based on the subject. It is ordering us to leave or die."

"Respond that we are here protecting them from a horde of alien locusts, and that those...things in the suits are their true enemies. Tell it to call us Guardian Angels if he has to."

The Captain examined the images. While it was difficult for him to tell one breed of dog from another, as he could also see all of the lines of light extending from the projector and had little sense of size beyond detection of mass, he understood that the alien meant to say that they were all very different from one another now. "All these modifications -- they would definitely be better for your own species should you apply them to yourselves, I agree. But modifying another species: creating a plant that can survive anywhere might lead it to displace and overrun native species, and upset the balance of the local habitat. Modifying 'bears'"-- the voice changed to an exact copy of the alien's for this word alone, as the Damalgian could not pronounce it-- "to live through climate changes that might have killed off a population of their kind could cause them to hunt their prey to early extinction, then die out themselves." (The Captain was unaware that bears also eat plants, of course.)

"And even if you might make correct judgments and engineer species only in beneficial ways, others may be less conscientious or more uninformed, and create species that will become dangers to the environment or to themselves. A tale is told of a great captain who experimented with genetics, first altering animals to be more effective servants to Damalgians, then changing Damalgians themselves. He wanted to turn a Damalgian into an unstoppable creature, so that he could dominate the other nations and then reclaim all inhabited worlds. But the experiment went wrong. The captain was killed and his creations were unleashed upon the galaxy..... In the ensuing battles billions died, so many that a fleet of harvesters could not process all their bodies in a lifetime. The altered ones were capable of traveling in space without environment suits, they had weapons built into their bodies, they could process their own inorganic matter into food.... changes that would be beneficial to every Damalgian. But they were also driven insane by the process, their only desire to kill and destroy."

There was a long pause. The Captain resumed: "But your ideas certainly have some merit. We shall look for a way to establish equilibrium, starting with this world, if we survive long enough to settle it."

OOC: Nooooooooooooooooo! Now I am going to spend hours on TVTropes looking for more tropes to include in my Manga. Curse you Tenuria!!! :p
OOC: I don't just RP an evil nation -- or shall I say a Well Intentioned Extremist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist) Horde of (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HordeOfAlienLocusts) Starfish Alien (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens) Locusts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HordeOfAlienLocusts)?? Mwa ha ha ha!!

The blinking numbers read eighty-one per cent.

If one could stand within a foot or two of the object hanging in space a distance from the Blood Hawk, one might make some interesting observations. It looked like a piece of space junk from afar, like a rock from nearer, but on minute inspection it was revealed to be a somewhat bullet-shaped object made of a substance that was definitely not stone. If one could survive exposing skin to near-absolute-zero temperatures, one could lay a hand on it and find it not much warmer than the space it rested in. But one could not float around its other side without coming into contact with greater heat.

It would be far more interesting to look at it with, say, a magical pair of goggles that could record energy of all forms. One would see a "lance" of energy arriving at the nose of the object, passing through, then dissipating on the other side. The other endpoint of the "lance" was at the shields of the Blood Hawk. But the object itself was difficult to see, because at these temperatures, its materials were superconducting. Nonetheless, one would only have to wait a few minutes to watch its temperature rising slightly.

With shields interlinked, they were dropping slowly. But they were also dropping more widely. And the more they dropped, the farther up a certain creek would the TAP'ian fleet be, paddle optional.

OOC: You're not the only fan of dramatic irony around. The Damalgians could well be genetically engineered themselves -- I'll have to think about that one, but the more the Captain argues against it, the more I'm attracted to the idea.

OOC: I did originally intend for the ship to be picked up by a routine scan or something, but if that's not really your style of contact, it can be changed. (Not going to make an IC post with this one because it depends on how you react)

The Captain examined the images. While it was difficult for him to tell one breed of dog from another, as he could also see all of the lines of light extending from the projector and had little sense of size beyond detection of mass, he understood that the alien meant to say that they were all very different from one another now. "All these modifications -- they would definitely be better for your own species should you apply them to yourselves, I agree. But modifying another species: creating a plant that can survive anywhere might lead it to displace and overrun native species, and upset the balance of the local habitat. Modifying 'bears'"-- the voice changed to an exact copy of the alien's for this word alone, as the Damalgian could not pronounce it-- "to live through climate changes that might have killed off a population of their kind could cause them to hunt their prey to early extinction, then die out themselves." (The Captain was unaware that bears also eat plants, of course.)

"And even if you might make correct judgments and engineer species only in beneficial ways, others may be less conscientious or more uninformed, and create species that will become dangers to the environment or to themselves. A tale is told of a great captain who experimented with genetics, first altering animals to be more effective servants to Damalgians, then changing Damalgians themselves. He wanted to turn a Damalgian into an unstoppable creature, so that he could dominate the other nations and then reclaim all inhabited worlds. But the experiment went wrong. The captain was killed and his creations were unleashed upon the galaxy..... In the ensuing battles billions died, so many that a fleet of harvesters could not process all their bodies in a lifetime. The altered ones were capable of traveling in space without environment suits, they had weapons built into their bodies, they could process their own inorganic matter into food.... changes that would be beneficial to every Damalgian. But they were also driven insane by the process, their only desire to kill and destroy."

There was a long pause. The Captain resumed: "But your ideas certainly have some merit. We shall look for a way to establish equilibrium, starting with this world, if we survive long enough to settle it."

"One reason we are glad to have the assitance of some members of Universe-211612 in that. They are skilled at terraforming and implanting new species so that they do not overwhelm the native ones. We have even retarded some of our best to work in low Rad worlds below Earth Normal."

"Well, we are almost done here, twelve hours more by the looks of things. But we believe that there might be another nation that already has claims on this world. Ancient ones at that. ... ... And on top of that, it looks like we might have a war brewing elsewhere we would be called to. If you want help with equilibrium experiments, we can contact some of our Xenos from New Tortuga University to assist you in that."

OOC: I don't just RP an evil nation -- or shall I say a Well Intentioned Extremist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist) Horde of (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HordeOfAlienLocusts) Starfish Alien (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens) Locusts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HordeOfAlienLocusts)?? Mwa ha ha ha!!

lol

The blinking numbers read eighty-one per cent.

If one could stand within a foot or two of the object hanging in space a distance from the Blood Hawk, one might make some interesting observations. It looked like a piece of space junk from afar, like a rock from nearer, but on minute inspection it was revealed to be a somewhat bullet-shaped object made of a substance that was definitely not stone. If one could survive exposing skin to near-absolute-zero temperatures, one could lay a hand on it and find it not much warmer than the space it rested in. But one could not float around its other side without coming into contact with greater heat.

It would be far more interesting to look at it with, say, a magical pair of goggles that could record energy of all forms. One would see a "lance" of energy arriving at the nose of the object, passing through, then dissipating on the other side. The other endpoint of the "lance" was at the shields of the Blood Hawk. But the object itself was difficult to see, because at these temperatures, its materials were superconducting. Nonetheless, one would only have to wait a few minutes to watch its temperature rising slightly.

With shields interlinked, they were dropping slowly. But they were also dropping more widely. And the more they dropped, the farther up a certain creek would the TAP'ian fleet be, paddle optional.

OOC: You're not the only fan of dramatic irony around. The Damalgians could well be genetically engineered themselves -- I'll have to think about that one, but the more the Captain argues against it, the more I'm attracted to the idea.

Pablo looked throughly puzzled. The material was superconducting. That was unusual among natural materials. He checked the calibrations on the resonant pulse, and sent out a second one. It returned the same thing. He sent off a comm to another Assassin Class Corvette, the Kaffit Bird, and requested confirmation.

The Res Tech on that ship returned the same image.

"Sir, I think we have found the problem. That piece of space junk, the one in line with those objects way in the distance, seems to be superconducting."

"Sir, not just that," the Sensor Tech cried out, "Those supernovas are heating up, and they seem to be doing so at a rate that follows with the shield depletion."

"Admiral, this is Captain Hoth of the Blood Hawk. We think we might have found the source of the drain. There is a piece of space junk that is superconducting, and seems to be heating up at a rate similar to the shield drop. Requesting permission to investigate, over."

"Granted Hoth, I want you to get there yesterday."

"Aye sir, disengaging Tortise."

The shields of the Blood Hawk changed frequencies, and the the corvette pulled out to investigate the hunk of rock. Jumping to Kaufman Drive, they would arrive in a minute and a half.

OOC: I have a variety of Gene Lines from X-Men that I have as standard mutations, atop the normal stuff that can be found in the real world. The Arctic Wheat is based off of real stuff I saw that I found fascinating. I read too much Michael Chrichton (R.I.P.)

Seventy-nine per cent.

As the corvette approached the alleged space junk, it entered visual range, from which it still looked mostly like a rock with a "tail" of heat (visible on sensors); as visual range closed to a matter of yards, the corvette could finally observe that it was a singularly unnatural-looking rock, and behaved in a way rocks ordinarily do not. It was not its superconducting that was unusual -- in the near-absolute zero temperatures of space, numerous conductors become superconductors -- but rather the fact that it was absorbing energy at all. Further investigation would reveal the beam funnelling energy from the shields into the rock. The energy flowing out from the rock manifested itself as a very faint light and increased heat, both almost invisible next to the immense amount of light and heat caused by the fleet, but detectable.

It was only a corvette so it probably didn't have a huge picture window on one of the decks looking out on space; but if it had, the Captain and his protagonist staff could have looked out to see, very faintly, more little smudges of light where light should not have been, like dust mites in the fleet's sunbeam. Of course, they could also use sensors, but it was hard to pick them up unless you were very close to the object, or had Pablo on board.

There wasn't just one rock.

The Captain looked at the monitors (OOC: I moved all the Bridges into the cores as CIC's, we use sensors instead, especially because Kaufman Drives make the Mk. I Eyeball irrelevant, you can't see anything in the visual spectrum at that kind of Translight Speeds, you don't have time) and saw them. Overlaying the EM Visuals, he could see it all. And the specks, where growing brighter.

He swore. The Captain had a reputation for swearing. But even this was enough to make his bridge crew blush.

Coral was on the horn instantly.

<\\> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL >> ALL_SHIP'S_GHOSTS

<\ Sensors indicate rocks are artificial. EM Spectrum Scans indicate energy lines draining power away from the shields and into the Superconducters. Numerous targets located... ... ... Captain requests permission to secure all targets. \>

<\\> ANDREW_JACKSON.SO.GHOST.EPOCH >> BLOOD_HAWK.SO.GHOST.CORAL

<\ Granted. Dispatching Assistance. \>

The APN Kaffit Bird, APN Snow Raven, APN Jade Falcon, APN Storm Raven, and APN Rust Hawk moved out to target the rocks, and opened fire with their warheads at maximum range.

Bere laughed, while transmitting two, these people had the guts to call themselves guardian angels, when they themselves had the intention to claim the planets probably.
"You think your angles?" he laughed again, a deep booming laugh " You have no right, you know full well that in time you will attempt to uplift these people, to "civilise" them,they are no better of with you, then they are with the others, which I have met, one choice leaves them dead, another leaves there culture, and thus themselves dead, my choice makes you all dead... or gone"

Some of the rocks, that the various ships had destroyed, or target were Bere's satellite rocks, and ones which he used to transmit his messages.

OOC: You're satellites resemble superconducting rocks with energy signatures that resemble shield leechers?

IC:
"No, we have no intention of uplifting them without the permission of the owners of this world. But the flora and fauna of this world is of interest to us. Thus, we seek to protect this world from those who wish to strip it clean. The Viper Probes hovering over your world and scanning and observing are there for the purpose of scanning copies of the genomes of this planet. If nothing else, we can re-create this world after the Damalg'iru have swept it clean."

ooc: yes, my sats resemble bits of junk with energy sigs.

OOC: Okay

OOC: Kewen: Bah. You can have all the collateral damage you want in a few posts when the fewmets really hit the windmill.

The rate of shield drain was increasing: the active signals from enemy sensors were interpreted by the tiny onboard computers -- scarcely more advanced than those powering, say, a calculator -- as a request for more power. Well, some of them, anyway. Radar and its equivalents could paint the rocks without causing them to heat up, but especially those operating in the higher-end EM spectra, like gamma rays and X-rays, were causing the power drain to speed up.

But it was not to last: the first warheads hit. Conventional warheads (the TAP'ians would find them most effective with proximity fuzes, as the heat left behind by the rock was an easier target to find than the rock itself) did their duty, and caused the rocks to explode into rapidly expanding rings of debris. Antimatter warheads converted the rocks to energy, which manifested itself mostly as heat and light. It took the methodical targeting of thirty rocks before the rate of drainage dropped to its original level, but by then other ships had begun searching for rocks -- the increasing drainage making them a little bit easier to find -- and a fleetwide balancing act was beginning: to the eyes of the observers, watching events vicariously from the Damalgian shield-dome, it became a diverting game. Could the TAP'ian fleet destroy the rocks fast enough to undo the damage caused by detecting them?

(And as a very simple exercise for readers: what is the strategically significant word in that last paragraph?)

OOC: I have read this through fifteen times now. Don't tell guys who play mind games for fun to look for the key words, they will dissect this and grow paranoid...

IC:
As the ships closed in, they opened up with Turbolaser fire to supplement their missiles. Each one fired a second spread, Dark Matter included this time in a third spread. In all forty five missiles spread outwards, targeting the rocks as beams of gas travelling at c slammed into the rocks.

Ordering a frequency change across the fleet, the shields changed at random, making it harder to mess with the shields across the entire fleet at the same time.

On the surface of the world, the Ghost of the APNS John Quincy Adams turned to the Damalg'iru standing before them. "What do you know about rocks that can leech the powers out of shields..."

The rocks lacked defenses. After all, they were rocks. (Sort of.) As a result, the turbolasers and missiles continued to blow them up. As another forty or so rocks were destroyed and precautions were taken with the linked shields, the rate of drainage decreased further, even looking like it would stabilize at under one and a half per cent per second. But as the rocks compensated for their losses and began to work at an increased pace, they became detectable again, and shields started to drop again.... the TAP'ian fleet began to realize that there were hundreds of rocks out there, perhaps as many as one per ship (well, not really, but you get the idea), and they would all have to be destroyed individually.

The shields were below sixty per cent now, but it would probably be three or four minutes (at current rates of rock destruction vs detection) before they went below fifty.

On the world, the Captain said what it is customary to say in such a situation: "Oh, excrement."*, and continued somewhat more rapidly than usual: "Would it be possible for your nation to leave this star system at once? There is a remote possibility that they are only attempting to impress you with their power..... If you depart they may satisfy themselves with exterminating our nation and claiming this system, and disturb you not."

* Well, not really, but the translator also filters for politeness. So that the Captain's grandma can mix in polite alien company.

The Captain of the APNS John Quincy Adams looked up quickly. "What? What do you mean? Who are you talking about?"

In the small group dispatched by the Admiral, they started to swear. Long and loud. There was a lot of interstellar debris out there, and all of it was shield draining technology.

"Admiral, I suggest all ships activate their Subspace Capacitors and re-direct as much power to shields as possible. We have a HUGE problem out here."

Scanning the Sensor logs, the Admiral blanched. There where a LOT of rocks out there. And all of them where draining shields. "All ships, enter that field NOW! Target all rocks, blast them out of the sky!"

The Imp Stars where the first ones there, unleash nigh-solid sheets of turbolaser into the void. They where dwarfed though, as the two flagships for the fleet arrived and began unloading petatons worth of energy into the rocks.

Across the fleet, Subspace Capacitors came online, drawing energy out of miniature universes, and channeling it into the shields. Mere Naquadah Reactors weren't going to cut it, not now.

OOC: Lol, you should be nicer to your GMa! Also, if the invasion fleet arrives, we have an Ace in the Hole that we can use. You will probably not like me very much if I have to pull it out. Remember, we are Privateers.

The Captain was already deep in communication with his officers throughout the thalia, and external speakers were off: "Make sure the shield-dome holds..... You're sure about the lack of dki'thzamh? Well, check again..... Are secondaries reloaded?" The alien's questions gradually filtered through to him, and he flipped speakers on.

"The Union," he said simply. "I'm not sure how safe the surface of the world will be. If you feel secure about entering the shield-dome.... it will be able to deflect debris and weapons fire for at least several hours. They may be more inclined to listen to a fellow Damalgian....." Here he checked himself and "looked" up into the sky. Through the atmosphere he sensed the numerous explosions. "Rock hunt," he murmured. "I suggest you make your choice now. They are here already."

Increasing power to the shields was an assured way of picking up all of the rocks out there -- because it increased their rate of drainage proportionally and caused them to heat up. The sudden increase in power raised shields about ten percent, but the equally sudden increase in drainage nullified this gain swiftly. Of course, there was a limit to how much heat the rocks could absorb. Within a minute or two, those that had not been destroyed by the blast of laser and missile fire had simply exploded.

When all the heat and light had died down, the various ships of the fleet had given the Damalgian Union a good idea of their weapons capabilities, and wasted a lot of ammunition on a bunch of rocks (admittedly dangerous rocks). There was nary a rock in sight now. And the power drain continued -- if anything, it increased as power to the shields was increased, now dropping over ten percentage points a minute on average (more near the fringes of the fleet, less near its center). It was a little unnerving, until someone pointed out that they were only scanning the immediate area for rocks and had no idea what the actual range on those things was. So they expanded the search radius and, found the source.

The new objects were still within weapons range, but there was more information the TAP'ians could determine: they had been hyperspaced in at about the point when most of the fleet's attention was directed against the rocks, quietly enough not to be noticed immediately or written off as an anomaly, but visibly enough to be detected and possibly even tracked. Unfortunately, it was too late for that to be useful. Shields were below fifty percent now.

The significant word in post #63 was diverting.

OOC: Leaving in about 10 minutes. Today may be the last day I can respond to posts before going on thanksgiving break. We'll see.

OOC: Happy Thanksgiving! And yeah, I got the diverting in seven out of the fifteen dissections...

IC:
As Pyro informed the Fleet of the incoming problems, the Admiral swore. "All ships, drop shields, shunt the power to our Super-Capacitors and prepare for an emergency Shield raise. Deploy Decoy Drones and spread out. Drop Shield Drones around the fleet. Scramble all fighters. And damnit, get the President on the Line. We have an invasion coming in!"

The captain had his choice made for him, as the XO beamed him and the rest of the crew back onto the ship. The Adams left, as a Star Train Class Star Base, escorted by seven Guard Interditor Cruisers, FTLi systems running, arrived and began to beam 1.2 MT Nukes into the storage bays of the Ships. These warheads where naquadah enhanced, and could get up to 4.23 GT in a blast.

The fleet was now surrounded by quite the quantity of drones. Each one had a dozen EM Decoy Drones sitting ready, their Hologram and Shield Projectors ready to replicate the ships. Seventy Shield Drones per ship had also been launched, ready to throw up their own defenseive fields as soon as the order was given. Each Ship also dropped 48 Cap Ship Weapons Drones, equipped with Turbolasers, and deployed them inside the Decoys.

They where ready, but would they survive.

OOC: Oh look, there's internet access here. Greetings from sunny, uh, New Jersey.

It is hard to get the drop on a seven hundred ship fleet. The Damalgian Union had been relying on the hijacked sensors of the grounded thalia to obtain firing solutions and data, so it had managed that on one count; it also had the advantage of being completely unexpected. The last-minute preparations of the TAP'ian fleet were all things the Damalgians had done about half an hour ago.

Practically the instant the shields dropped, in addition to all the ordnance and personnel being beamed to and fro, two sets of objects appeared in the system. Due to the nature of hyperspace they arrived in different places but at practically the same instant in time; the Damalgian fleet arrived on the outer reaches of the system, about twenty light-minutes away, while their missiles arrived inside the ships they were targeting. The missiles were fired in the few seconds between the dropping of the defensive shields and the raising of emergency shields via drones -- numbers had been calculated about five minutes ago and firing solutions had been queued a few seconds later.

The ships on the outer limits of the fleet had suffered the most shield damage, so they received the fewest missiles; ranging from two to eight apiece depending on the size of the ship. Ships deeper into the formation were better protected and so were targeted accordingly. The largest command ships and flagships received the most missiles, from thirty on up. Where possible, rift endpoints were spread evenly throughout the ship so that it would break apart and explode outward (the energy would weaken emergency shields).

By the time the massive quantity of drones had been activated and the FTLi ships had arrived, the first wave of missiles had been fired, and therefore, had reached their targets -- far more than would be necessary to wipe out the fleet to a ship, had it not already proven itself well-defended and well-armed and therefore not to be underestimated. As the results came back to the two hundred plus Damalgian ships lurking at the edge of the system, more missiles slid into the launchers, and new firing solutions were calculated. Time was of the essence: the events of this post had taken place in about one second of real time, with two hours of preparation, and in space warfare, every second counted.

The Admiral started giving his order at -00:00:09 and finished at -00:00:02.
The Damalgian fleet and its missiles arrived in the system at 00:00:00.
The missiles exploded at 00:00:01.
These sentences are primarily for OOC reference.

"Captain Gesthik'tka?"

The Captain keyed a command and perceived a familiar mental image. "Overcaptain." If heat metaphors can be used, his voice could freeze blood.

"Excellent. As you can see, the vanguard has arrived. We happened to observe you in the system and may be dropping in on your new home after we conduct a little bit of pest control."

"Overcaptain," the Captain of Gesthik'tka thalia said, "these are not unreasoning beasts like the savages we are used to dealing with. They are sentients, capable of intelligence and reasoning, with the accumulated knowledge of many universes and the amalgated peoples of many nations."

The Overcaptain paused for a moment. "So?" he said. "They are infringing upon Damalgian space, whatever they are. Anyway! Still sticking it out for independence, Gesthik'tka? I see it hasn't profited your fleet any." If Damalgians had had arms or shoulders, the Overcaptain would have rested his arm upon the Captain's shoulder. "Seriously, what's wrong with Union membership? Protection of the most powerful military this side of Earth and more resources than you can kht'zbik on doesn't sound so bad to me. Oh, wait, you can't join because your thalia isn't significant enough to warrant protection, right?"

The Overcaptain issued the Damalgian equivalent of a harsh laugh. He was in charge of the Silithas Thalia of the Union, not the largest of its member thalië but the most powerful due to its technological leverage over even other Union members (having developed probes to detect and counteract its own shield-draining technology), and Overcaptain Silithas was thus one of the most senior Overcaptains in the Union's command. He had never been promoted to supreme captain, however, simply because he had a reputation for being immature, brash, reckless, arrogant, megalomaniacal, and needlessly sadistic. He was all of those, to some degree, but as a result tended to be dismissed as a fool or a crackpot, which he was not.

If one could slow time to almost nothing and hang in space one could compare the Union's hundreds of warships to Gesthik'tka's eleven. The shapes were relatively similar, but the Union's lacked to a large degree the patchwork look of the thalia's; there were symbols identifying each ship, which the thalië lacked; and some of the ships were much larger, almost the size of the harvesters or colony ships. Activity between the ships of the fleet was not too extensive; what drones and equivalents had been deployed were firmly in place by now, or at least as firmly as one can get in outer space.

The conversation between Gesthik'tka and Silithas is occurring while the space battle rages. Gesthik'tka is not involved, having expended its missiles several pages ago, while Silithas has already constructed an extensive battle plan and is leaving its execution to his underlings. If Silithas's ship or the Gesthik'tka shield-dome is destroyed during the battle, the conversation will be assumed to have occurred in the intervening time between shortly after 00:00:00 and the time when the destruction occurs (please tag). Talking is not a free action so I won't be having my characters do much of it except when necessary for character background and development.

OOC: W00t Space Detection and a Battle

IC:

<<Massive Energy Flares>><<Weapons Fire Detected>><<Charging Wave Cannons>> This was what the HUD had said as the Brigadier General was on the Bridge in place of the Captain.

<<Ship AI Kairo, I want you to rull a full scanner check in the space around us, make sure nobody is near us, then I want you to take us back above the atmosphere. Fire the Wave Cannons as soon as you see the hostiles.>>

<<Please Designate hostiles sir>>

<<The Damalgians Kairo, hit them first.>>

<<Will do>>

In his normal voice the BG yelled for his Viper Mark XI (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2008/03/gradius_iii_vic_viper.jpg)s to be prepped for battle.

In addition his lead Corvette (http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/8/88/Crusader-Class_Corvette_Final.jpg), the "Shruiken" was being prepared...

<<BG, we have detected a lone ship in cloaking, orders?>>
<<Hail the ship with the standard welcome message>>
<<Commencing...>>

To unknown ship,
What are your intentions and nation?

OOC: Appears like my login broke for a few seconds - I was logging to post, and for some reason it looked like I logged in successfully -- only to return to the login page. Anyways...

IC:

"Well, it appears like we've been detected."
"That was more or less expected. I'll send back a reply."

This is the ASF Alliance ship ASEF Alphablade. We were exploring this area when we detected a few energy flares coming from this area. Our intentions are simply to explore and map this area. Evidently we are not really interested in interfering in the middle of any kind of battle...

ZCM Kraken to ASEF Alphablade,
Acknowledged, we will not interfere with your mission,
unless you come under hostile fire.

Meanwhile on the Bridge...

<<Fire the wave cannon Kairo>>
<<Firing in 3...2...1, Fired>>

The supercharged ions of the wave cannon sped through space and impacted the shield dome which the Damalgians had created...

OOC: Determin damage please. Also AF how are you going to fit into this RP?

ooc: it ate my friggin post!

OOC: Oh look, there's internet access here. Greetings from sunny, uh, New Jersey.

It is hard to get the drop on a seven hundred ship fleet. The Damalgian Union had been relying on the hijacked sensors of the grounded thalia to obtain firing solutions and data, so it had managed that on one count; it also had the advantage of being completely unexpected. The last-minute preparations of the TAP'ian fleet were all things the Damalgians had done about half an hour ago.

Practically the instant the shields dropped, in addition to all the ordnance and personnel being beamed to and fro, two sets of objects appeared in the system. Due to the nature of hyperspace they arrived in different places but at practically the same instant in time; the Damalgian fleet arrived on the outer reaches of the system, about twenty light-minutes away, while their missiles arrived inside the ships they were targeting. The missiles were fired in the few seconds between the dropping of the defensive shields and the raising of emergency shields via drones -- numbers had been calculated about five minutes ago and firing solutions had been queued a few seconds later.

The ships on the outer limits of the fleet had suffered the most shield damage, so they received the fewest missiles; ranging from two to eight apiece depending on the size of the ship. Ships deeper into the formation were better protected and so were targeted accordingly. The largest command ships and flagships received the most missiles, from thirty on up. Where possible, rift endpoints were spread evenly throughout the ship so that it would break apart and explode outward (the energy would weaken emergency shields).

By the time the massive quantity of drones had been activated and the FTLi ships had arrived, the first wave of missiles had been fired, and therefore, had reached their targets -- far more than would be necessary to wipe out the fleet to a ship, had it not already proven itself well-defended and well-armed and therefore not to be underestimated. As the results came back to the two hundred plus Damalgian ships lurking at the edge of the system, more missiles slid into the launchers, and new firing solutions were calculated. Time was of the essence: the events of this post had taken place in about one second of real time, with two hours of preparation, and in space warfare, every second counted.

The Admiral started giving his order at -00:00:09 and finished at -00:00:02.
The Damalgian fleet and its missiles arrived in the system at 00:00:00.
The missiles exploded at 00:00:01.
These sentences are primarily for OOC reference.

The missiles appeared on the edge of the FTLi field. (OOC: These ships move instantly, and the FTLi fields used don't affect our Jump Drives. And thus arrived the moment the order had been given, jammers active, sorry).

The ships on the edge of the fleet, the Blood Hawk and the Kaffit Bird being the first among them, where destroyed quickly. All twenty-seven of them exploded instantly.

The other missiles detonated in open space, distracted by enormous quantities of Chaff spewed outwards by the launchers installed around the ships or outright destroyed by Point Defense systems.

The Admiral swore. Those ships where expensive, and so was Ressing a crew. He flipped a switch and the Decoy Drones went active. Across the fleet, the shield went back up, the Capacitors draining their stored energy into the shields instantly. Shield Drones moved out in front of the ships, forming a screen. They where followed by the Decoys.

Resonant scans detected the ships, and painted targets over them. Kauffman drives active, the ships charged forward at 74c. They fired full spreads of Dark Matter Warheads and Anti-Matter Warheads. 43,000 missiles launched from the ships, aimed directly at the enemy vessels.

There was to be no quarter given. These ships where not but targets, and where to be secured as such.

Five seconds after the first spread had been launched, a smaller spread, half that size, of Naquadah Enhanced warheads where launched. Missiles that had formerly possessed yields in the low megatons, where now putting out blasts in the tens of gigatons.

The chances of survival for the Union warships was slim at best.

OOC: Sorry, but with the tech that I use for transit and FTL disruption, it is not possible to eliminate all of my ships. In fact, the ships arrive in system a half-second before they actually leave. Next time, send a TG, and ask. It is some pretty interesting stuff, and for the sake of the RP, I am willing to co-operate.

As the fighters launched one of the pilots screamed over the radio as he was suddenly hit by a stray missile from the TAP'ian ships.

"Brigadier General, what should we do?"
"The Shruiken will launch jammer drones just in case something tries to get us, or misses and hits us."
"Yessir, so I take no hostile action against them?"
"Damn straight soldier."
-----------------------
The paint of the Shruiken was a type of active camouflage paint, as soon as it cam out of the docking bay the ship mimicked the stars and planet.
4 Drones flew out of it's light hangar and began jamming missile guidance in a 10 mile radius.

OOC: Still waiting on you Tenuria and AF...

The shield-dome absorbed the power of the attack. It had been estimated to survive about two and a half hours of constant bombardment from the TAP'ian fleet, so the ion cannons of the Ziolisian ships would have a few days to blast the shield-dome before it came close to failing. (The shields of colony ships are very strong, as they are the most important vessels in a thalia and lack weapons almost entirely, and the shield-dome they can generate has to be capable of keeping in the needed atmosphere and defending against other thalië and raiding parties of aliens.)

Meanwhile on the world, the harvesters were busy. In addition to organic material, which provided food and fuel, they were harvesting metals and rocks, channeling them into sub-chambers within the vast structures where they would be constructed into standardized weapons. Energy weapons -- technically a secondary battery, but still useful -- were being recharged. It was time to make Thalia Gesthik'tka more than just scenery: to make it a real player in the game of warfare, capable of influencing the destiny of the world it had chosen.

-----------------------------

The fleet commanders knew what to do when the missile launch was picked up. They departed on a hyperspace path following the system's Oort cloud in a rough ellipse around the system, emerging a fraction of a second later on the fleet's opposite side (closer to one light-hour from the oncoming missiles). Presumably the fleet would have to change direction rapidly and the Ghosts would be somewhat more occupied redirecting the missiles to avoid hitting the ships of the fleet, but all that would take only seconds.

Meanwhile: a conversation. One that goes by too fast for human ears to hear, however.

"What's going on?"

"Our missiles aren't getting through. We think something's blocking them."

"The large ship?"

"Possibly. It looks like a mobile base. And there are unusual emissions from the ships around it."

"Destroy them all then. On priority with the other capital ships."

About twenty drones were deployed through hyperspace to destroy the mobile base and its escorts. They arrived at the edge of the FTLi field, where the onboard targeting computers immediately painted all ships in the vicinity and began hitting them with bursts of plasma, traveling at exactly the speed of light. The Damalgians, however, weren't really watching the drones; they were just drones, and therefore expendable. Instead they were looking for workarounds for the FTLi, to be able to use their main weapon against the enemy. Perhaps to stall and perhaps to test things, they deployed more drones -- these into the midst of the fleet, as far as the FTLi would take them.

Unlike the missiles the drones were capable of propelling themselves, and it also didn't matter as much if you destroyed them. Once they had entered the range of the fleet they had released hundreds or even thousands of small objects -- each a mini-missile, using technology similar to that of the shield-drainers, but with a different aim. Instead of draining shield power, they were essentially space limpet mines, designed to penetrate the shields and attach themselves to the hulls of vessels, where they blew up with the force of megatons. They sought out ships of all classes, even fighters and drones, indiscriminately; simply to cause damage. Even if they did not succeed in slipping past the shields, which was rare but usually occurred with the largest and best-shielded ships, each explosion would drain them further and require more power from the shield drones, and they would run out eventually.

----------------------

Captain Gesthik'tka held up an appendage for silence. "Wait. The vanguard?"

----------------------

Time as of the end of this post: 00:00:06
Naquadah enhanced missile launch: 00:00:07 [yeah, i'll get to it later]

OOC: I'm not sure what the maximum range of your missiles is, as specified in an earlier post when you fired on the rocks, but since my fleet moved to be about 54 times as far away from your fleet as it was when you fired the missiles, I'm assuming that at very least they'll take a few more seconds to get to me if they have that kind of range at all. Damage will be calculated when this is answered.

The fleet commanders knew what to do when the missile launch was picked up. They departed on a hyperspace path following the system's Oort cloud in a rough ellipse around the system, emerging a fraction of a second later on the fleet's opposite side (closer to one light-hour from the oncoming missiles). Presumably the fleet would have to change direction rapidly and the Ghosts would be somewhat more occupied redirecting the missiles to avoid hitting the ships of the fleet, but all that would take only seconds.

Meanwhile: a conversation. One that goes by too fast for human ears to hear, however.

"What's going on?"

"Our missiles aren't getting through. We think something's blocking them."

"The large ship?"

"Possibly. It looks like a mobile base. And there are unusual emissions from the ships around it."

"Destroy them all then. On priority with the other capital ships."

About twenty drones were deployed through hyperspace to destroy the mobile base and its escorts. They arrived at the edge of the FTLi field, where the onboard targeting computers immediately painted all ships in the vicinity and began hitting them with bursts of plasma, traveling at exactly the speed of light. The Damalgians, however, weren't really watching the drones; they were just drones, and therefore expendable. Instead they were looking for workarounds for the FTLi, to be able to use their main weapon against the enemy. Perhaps to stall and perhaps to test things, they deployed more drones -- these into the midst of the fleet, as far as the FTLi would take them.

Unlike the missiles the drones were capable of propelling themselves, and it also didn't matter as much if you destroyed them. Once they had entered the range of the fleet they had released hundreds or even thousands of small objects -- each a mini-missile, using technology similar to that of the shield-drainers, but with a different aim. Instead of draining shield power, they were essentially space limpet mines, designed to penetrate the shields and attach themselves to the hulls of vessels, where they blew up with the force of megatons. They sought out ships of all classes, even fighters and drones, indiscriminately; simply to cause damage. Even if they did not succeed in slipping past the shields, which was rare but usually occurred with the largest and best-shielded ships, each explosion would drain them further and require more power from the shield drones, and they would run out eventually.

Massive clouds of chaff, IR beacons, sensor foulers, and other such objects filled space as the 123 Dropships carried by the Startrains jumped. Thus freed, the Startrains boosted their Shields, all crew braced as impacts against the shields started to work past the Meta-Stable Hydrogen Coolant systems, powered by Ytterbium lasers, and into the general environment. Wiring began to melt, and the crystals that made up the computers began to twist and melt.

One of the Interdictors lost two of it's gravity well projectors, and was forced to withdraw at speed.

The others underwent 74c twitches, driving themselves in the direction of the Damalgian warships, lasers and missiles bursting forward as they went.

The rest of the fleet twitched as well. At 74 times the speed of light, a twitch takes you far. The fleet found themselves inside the enemy ships within seconds, and began to unleash tachyon cannons, turbolasers, ion cannons, naquadah enhanced missiles, concussion missiles, dark matter warheads, anti-matter weaponry, neutron hoses, anti-matter projectors, railguns, laser cannons, all of the ordanance of the fleet let loose at close proximity to the opposition warships.

Meanwhile, the First and Second Fleets, the two largest, had arrived.

Admiral Jacob Ray, Secretary of War for The American Privateer had dragged with him five dozen Golan III Defense Platforms, as he sat aboard the APN Theodore Roosevelt. Each ships deployed Decoy Drones and Shield Drones, making it look as if twenty six more fleets had arrived.

Beside him, his daughter's Ghost floated in mid air. Her hologram did not project the normal vaguely Greco-Roman clothing she wore during peace times. She was wearing her hunting Holo, and the look on her face radiated pure hatred.

The Third Fleet twitched out of the middle of the Damalgian fleet as soon as the First and Second fleet arrived, leaving behind a massive cloud of ordnance, radiation, and Anti-Matter particles.

Time as of the end of this post: 00:00:06
Naquadah enhanced missile launch: 00:00:07 [yeah, i'll get to it later]

OOC: I'm not sure what the maximum range of your missiles is, as specified in an earlier post when you fired on the rocks, but since my fleet moved to be about 54 times as far away from your fleet as it was when you fired the missiles, I'm assuming that at very least they'll take a few more seconds to get to me if they have that kind of range at all. Damage will be calculated when this is answered.

This is space, range is effectively infinite. In terms of maneuvering range, they are designed to be able to maneuver around the solar system a couple times before they lose the ability to maneuver and become so much dangerous space junk. They are moving at about 76c due to the push of the granted by ships moving at 74c.

And those Decoys are designed to perfectly mimic my warships. So that it appears as if there are 39 fleets of warships out there that responded to my calls for aid.

ORBAT follows
1st Fleet
3x Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers
17x Endurance Class Fleet Carriers
26x Escort Class Carriers
18x Viscount Class Star Defenders
10x Lusankya Class Star Dreadnaughts
13x Bothan Assault Cruiser
7x MC90 Star Cruiser
10x Majestic Class Heavy Cruisers
24x Nova Class Battle Cruisers
11x Nebulon-C Class Battle Cruisers
3x Scythe Class Command Cruisers
3x Class 1000 Command Cruisers
21x Bayonet Class Light Cruisers
17x Carrack Class Light Cruisers
87x Imperial II Class Star Destroyers
171x Nebula Class Star Destroyers
86x Republic Class Star Destroyers
63x Venator Class Destroyer Escorts
18x Sacheen Class Escort Destroyers
12x MC30 Frigates
19x Assault Frigate 1.B
36x Nebulon-B2 Frigates
19x Lancer Class Frigates
12x DP20 Class Frigates
65x Assasin Class Corvettes
1x Inexpungable Class Corvettes

Second Fleet
2x Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers
16x Endurance Class Fleet Carriers
24x Escort Class Carriers
16x Viscount Class Star Defenders
8x Lusankya Class Star Dreadnaughts
13x Bothan Assault Cruiser
6x MC90 Star Cruiser
10x Majestic Class Heavy Cruisers
22x Nova Class Battle Cruisers
11x Nebulon-C Class Battle Cruisers
1x Scythe Class Command Cruisers
3x Class 1000 Command Cruisers
20x Bayonet Class Light Cruisers
16x Carrack Class Light Cruisers
85x Imperial II Class Star Destroyers
171x Nebula Class Star Destroyers
86x Republic Class Star Destroyers
61x Venator Class Destroyer Escorts
18x Sacheen Class Escort Destroyers
11x MC30 Frigates
17x Assault Frigate 1.B
34x Nebulon-B2 Frigates
17x Lancer Class Frigates
11x DP20 Class Frigates
64x Assasin Class Corvettes
1x Inexpungable Class Corvettes

OOC: Tenuria I'm assuming your talking about my jammer drones and the lead corvette?

IC:

"BG, we have drones headed towards us."

<<Kairo activate our point defense laser systems>>

Turbolaser turrets swiveled and fired a wall of laser fire at the approachin drones downing them almost immediately.

<<Kairo, get our Aggressor-class Destroyers (http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/8/80/Aggressor_destroyer.jpg) now!>>

<<Warp signal sent, Dimension Tear should appear about 10 minutes from now>>
-----------------------10 minutes later------------------------------------
A rip in the blackness of space signaled the arrival of the 1 Aggressor Destroyer and it's support fleet which consisted of 2 Corvettes, 3 wings of Star-Vipers (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/f/f4/StarViper-EaWFoC.jpg/250px-StarViper-EaWFoC.jpg), and 4 wings of GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/19/Skipray2.jpg)s (Bombers).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trans Ship Comm
----------------
"Captain Xik of the 32nd Enforcer fleet reporting, what is the situation?"
"We have a massive space battle between these Damalgians and the TAP'ians."
"I see, I shall prepare the main cannons of my ship, out."

OOC: Still waiting on you AF

OOC: At 74c it will take your ships.... *back of envelope calculations* .... 48.6 seconds to reach my fleet. The missiles, traveling at 76c, will reach it slightly earlier, in 47.3 seconds. One light-hour is 1.08 billion kilometers; 74c is 22.2 million km/sec. (Well, actually, all these numbers are a little bit off because the speed of light isn't exactly 300,000 km/sec, it's more like 299,792 km/sec, but it's close enough.) There's a reason this has been a battle primarily of missiles so far. :P

Of course I'll assume that the other fleets arrived closer to my ships anyway, as that makes sense, so any attacks are coming from the First and Second Fleets.

Also, there's no such thing as a perfect decoy: to mimic your ships perfectly, they'd have to be about the same size as the ships, with similar engines and everything; I recall that the conclusion of the article was that they were feasible but expensive and kind of useless. Anyway, the Damalgians make a living looking for organic matter, so a decoy would basically be any ship without living things on board. Unless it fires on us.

Ziolis: Nope. TAP's, not yours. In fact, unless you attack my fleet, it probably won't care much about you people, as you're attacking the grounded thalia (which the fleet plans to eliminate after destroying everyone else in the system, anyway).

"Yes, Captain: the vanguard. Overcaptain Drath'jikz'a is joining me -- you remember him? He totally kicked your ass at Galu'eroth, it was awesome -- and you didn't seriously think this was my only fleet, did you?"

Overcaptain Silithas closed the link, turned, and twitched slightly as the newcomers appeared onscreen. It was the Damalgian equivalent of a blink. Then he made an irregular choking noise that indicated laughter or amusement.

"Aha. Playing with drones, are they?" he said. "The kids play around at that too in The Shadowlands. Shortly before they get the shit beaten out of them." He turned to his Executive Officer. "Fucking hilarious. They're trying to scare us with drones. Get me the Science Vessel."

The commander of the Science Vessel came on the line. "Yes, Overcaptain?"

"See all the ships out there?"

"How could I miss them, Overcaptain?"

Silithas extended a limb and let the razor-sharp claws lazily uncurl. "Paint for me all the ones with organic life-forms on board."

On the large screen the true ships were swiftly painted in. Not with colour, because Damalgians can't see colour (except for Silithas, who had special implants on his sensory appendages), but it is still a form of painting. There were still many ships, but they looked much less numerous among the clouds of drones, decoys, and other sensory debris. Silithas showed his teeth in an almost universal gesture of aggression.

"Now.... wait for it....."

Near the middle of the fleet several ships appeared. Damalgia's own version of the interdictors, obviously: the field they set up was designed to only let through ships registered with the Union, stopping all others. Due to the limitations of Damalgian technology (realspace limit of a little under 1c for non-energy weapons), it would prevent any faster-than-light travel, whether through realspace or some other dimension -- anything traveling at a multiple of c would revert to sublight speeds upon entering the field. Silithas was immensely proud of the interdictor ships and used them practically every chance he got.

The first of the weapons fired by the TAP'ian fleets arrived before the field was up and impacted against the shields. Even with only a fraction of the ordnance arriving on schedule it created a lovely lights display (the drained shields were fed by shield-drones, which in turn were Harvested once they were fully depleted). The remainder of the weapons, reduced to traveling at only the speed of light, were easily destroyed by rapid-fire point defence weapons and the usual fleet of countermeasures. Several ships were destroyed outright, the first Union casualties so far, but Silithas wasn't paying attention. He was talking about his interdictors.

"Now these," he said, "are why Silithas rules the whole damn Union. See those little beacons on top of the ships?"

The XO looked. "They're hyperspace beacons, obviously," she said, nonplussed. "They facilitate hyperspace travel."

"WRONG! Well, okay, they do that too," said the Overcaptain. "But you know what else they do? They find other interdiction fields in range, and shut 'em down! And so do the little missiles they fire. Watch and learn!"

The wave of missiles the Damalgians fired, at the actual ships as they had been painted, consisted of three items. From about fifty warships came missiles that disrupted shields. From two hundred or more came the actual missiles, the ones with explosive payloads. From perhaps ten -- the newcomers -- came the missiles that disrupted the FTLi. The entire swarm, of thousands of missiles, entered hyperspace immediately and reappeared, mostly upon the bridges of ships further away from the Interdictor Class cruisers. Those closer reappeared in normal space, but due to the massive size of the fleet, they all hit something (most of the time a drone or decoy, but a few impacted and damaged actual ships).

"Overcaptain," the XO said when she saw the results, "exactly how extensively did you test these missiles before using them in combat?"

"How about you go fuck yourself?" Silithas said. Then he opened a comlink and affected a grin. "Oh, hey Ti'gahzt."

Captain Ti'gahzt and the second wave of Damalgian ships had arrived.

OOC: At 74c it will take your ships.... *back of envelope calculations* .... 48.6 seconds to reach my fleet. The missiles, traveling at 76c, will reach it slightly earlier, in 47.3 seconds. One light-hour is 1.08 billion kilometers; 74c is 22.2 million km/sec. (Well, actually, all these numbers are a little bit off because the speed of light isn't exactly 300,000 km/sec, it's more like 299,792 km/sec, but it's close enough.) There's a reason this has been a battle primarily of missiles so far. :P

Of course I'll assume that the other fleets arrived closer to my ships anyway, as that makes sense, so any attacks are coming from the First and Second Fleets.

Also, there's no such thing as a perfect decoy: to mimic your ships perfectly, they'd have to be about the same size as the ships, with similar engines and everything; I recall that the conclusion of the article was that they were feasible but expensive and kind of useless. Anyway, the Damalgians make a living looking for organic matter, so a decoy would basically be any ship without living things on board. Unless it fires on us.

Ziolis: Nope. TAP's, not yours. In fact, unless you attack my fleet, it probably won't care much about you people, as you're attacking the grounded thalia (which the fleet plans to eliminate after destroying everyone else in the system, anyway).

They put out all the EM signatures of the ships, including the engines, and the appearance of the energy weapons, though they are little more than holograms themselves. And no, they do not mimic life signs, we haven't learned how to do that yet.

"Yes, Captain: the vanguard. Overcaptain Drath'jikz'a is joining me -- you remember him? He totally kicked your ass at Galu'eroth, it was awesome -- and you didn't seriously think this was my only fleet, did you?"

Overcaptain Silithas closed the link, turned, and twitched slightly as the newcomers appeared onscreen. It was the Damalgian equivalent of a blink. Then he made an irregular choking noise that indicated laughter or amusement.

"Aha. Playing with drones, are they?" he said. "The kids play around at that too in The Shadowlands. Shortly before they get the shit beaten out of them." He turned to his Executive Officer. "Fucking hilarious. They're trying to scare us with drones. Get me the Science Vessel."

The commander of the Science Vessel came on the line. "Yes, Overcaptain?"

"See all the ships out there?"

"How could I miss them, Overcaptain?"

Silithas extended a limb and let the razor-sharp claws lazily uncurl. "Paint for me all the ones with organic life-forms on board."

On the large screen the true ships were swiftly painted in. Not with colour, because Damalgians can't see colour (except for Silithas, who had special implants on his sensory appendages), but it is still a form of painting. There were still many ships, but they looked much less numerous among the clouds of drones, decoys, and other sensory debris. Silithas showed his teeth in an almost universal gesture of aggression.

"Now.... wait for it....."

Near the middle of the fleet several ships appeared. Damalgia's own version of the interdictors, obviously: the field they set up was designed to only let through ships registered with the Union, stopping all others. Due to the limitations of Damalgian technology (realspace limit of a little under 1c for non-energy weapons), it would prevent any faster-than-light travel, whether through realspace or some other dimension -- anything traveling at a multiple of c would revert to sublight speeds upon entering the field. Silithas was immensely proud of the interdictor ships and used them practically every chance he got.

The first of the weapons fired by the TAP'ian fleets arrived before the field was up and impacted against the shields. Even with only a fraction of the ordnance arriving on schedule it created a lovely lights display (the drained shields were fed by shield-drones, which in turn were Harvested once they were fully depleted). The remainder of the weapons, reduced to traveling at only the speed of light, were easily destroyed by rapid-fire point defence weapons and the usual fleet of countermeasures. Several ships were destroyed outright, the first Union casualties so far, but Silithas wasn't paying attention. He was talking about his interdictors.

"Now these," he said, "are why Silithas rules the whole damn Union. See those little beacons on top of the ships?"

The XO looked. "They're hyperspace beacons, obviously," she said, nonplussed. "They facilitate hyperspace travel."

"WRONG! Well, okay, they do that too," said the Overcaptain. "But you know what else they do? They find other interdiction fields in range, and shut 'em down! And so do the little missiles they fire. Watch and learn!"

The wave of missiles the Damalgians fired, at the actual ships as they had been painted, consisted of three items. From about fifty warships came missiles that disrupted shields. From two hundred or more came the actual missiles, the ones with explosive payloads. From perhaps ten -- the newcomers -- came the missiles that disrupted the FTLi. The entire swarm, of thousands of missiles, entered hyperspace immediately and reappeared, mostly upon the bridges of ships further away from the Interdictor Class cruisers. Those closer reappeared in normal space, but due to the massive size of the fleet, they all hit something (most of the time a drone or decoy, but a few impacted and damaged actual ships).

"Overcaptain," the XO said when she saw the results, "exactly how extensively did you test these missiles before using them in combat?"

"How about you go fuck yourself?" Silithas said. Then he opened a comlink and affected a grin. "Oh, hey Ti'gahzt."

Captain Ti'gahzt and the second wave of Damalgian ships had arrived.

A squadron of fifteen ISD's detonated from the force of the impact. Others where damaged, and the navigation and docking bridges of most vessels where destroyed outright.

It was looking bad. And then the fields kicked in and the Kaufman drives where disrupted. The ships went to a standstill, as happens when Kaufman drives are shut down.

Then, more missiles slammed into their ships. More and more of the Chormium Plating boiled away under the onslaught of missiles.

As the leading edge of the missiles impacted the Assassin Class Corvettes on the leading edge of the fleet, millions of Chaff Containers where launched, and in some cases, Brilliant Pebbles systems where launched to intercept the missiles.

(OOC: The weapons I am firing at you now have the explosive equivalence of 610 GT/Warhead, and they do not actually ever move. They transport themselves from one universe to another, in the exact location of their endpoint, and then slide back in.) 300 Horizon devices launched. And then they disappeared in a flash of orange light. In another Universe completely, they re-oriented, and in a flash of light, they reappeared inside the Damalgian fleet. The ten Naquadah Enhanced Nuclear Warheads targeted the ships and detonated.

Meanwhile, a frantic message was sent, as Beacon Drones made their way into the heart of the enemy fleet, using Universal Translocation the same way that the Horizon devices did.

As soon as they began to cry out, a massive rift opened, and a rock the size of Ceres, made of 45% naquadria, appeared less then a light-second away from the enemy warships.

Overcaptain Silithas watched rather curiously as flashes of light appeared inside his fleet. Obviously some new weapon that didn't use hyperlight travel. Virtually instantly, the massive arrays of point defense weapons had eliminated most of them, but the ships were still rocked by explosions as gigaton-yield nuclear bombs impacted the shields and, in several cases, destroyed them totally, blasting holes or outright demolishing warships. When the attack was over, the Overcaptain looked over the figures -- eleven warships destroyed, six badly damaged -- then contacted one of the Harvesters.

"You tractored one, I see?"

"Yeah. It's been disabled through our beams, and we're bringing it into the tech room."

"Good job. I wanna know how these things work. Fire a second volley."

As the second volley disappeared and reappeared inside the enemy ships (its composition similar to that of the first volley, albeit larger), or at least in realspace very close to the enemy ships, the Science Vessel informed the Overcaptain that what appeared to be a large asteroid had been transported into orbit only a few hundred thousand kilometers from the fleet.

"An asteroid. Really. What's it made of? Anything organic?"

"Uh..... wow. By composition it appears to be constructed mainly of explosive materials."

"Oh, how convenient," he said. "And let me guess, it's traveling toward us. Well..... give it a Union IFF."

"Overcaptain?"

"You heard me. Now surround it with hyperspace boats."

"Yes, Overcaptain."

The hyperspace boats emerged and positioned themselves as specks around the drifting asteroid. They were small unmanned vehicles with hyperspace engines; their ingrained life support systems allowed them to be used as lifepods to allow crews to jump from a battle site back towards Damalgian territory even if their ships had been destroyed, and were one of two devices Silithas was employing now whose original purpose had been to facilitate retreats, but which he was using for offensive purposes.

"They networked?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Link their hyperspace signatures to the rock..... Have them go to these coordinates. I want them coming out of hyperspace at twenty or better." (i.e. 0.2c)

Momentum is conserved between realspace exit and reentry....



..... say it with me .....



In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.

The hyperspace boats accelerated rapidly, bearing the rock in between them (although it lagged behind with the acceleration, being a big honkin' rock). The hyperspace link was originally designed to allow even ships whose engines had been damaged a way out of battle; Damalgians placed a great emphasis on teamwork and cooperation, when they weren't trying to kill each other. They vanished and reappeared practically in the midst of the TAP'ian fleet, or as close as they could get before encountering what was left of the FTLi field. They arrived perhaps a second or two after the second volley of missiles.

---------------------------------

Gesthik'tka's harvesters were still working. Inside the tech rooms the Captain had authorized access to a forbidden database detailing weapons that were no longer used or talked about -- weapons produced through genetic engineering or used for purposes so heinous even the Union disavowed them. The list was unsurprisingly very short. The weapon the thalia was planning to use was one that had been banned, by common practice, for about eight centuries. But the Captain had no choice, or at least felt that he had no choice.

The Union fleet had attacked the TAP'ians even in the knowledge that each attack they launched killed thousands or millions of sapients. (For that matter, they attacked Damalgians too, but at least that was justifiable.) The Captain had no idea whether the aliens he had spoken to still lived; he could not make out the John Quincy Adams in the turmoil of battle. And it was intolerable to him that the Union, and especially an asshole like Overcaptain Silithas, could show up at a world he'd claimed, destroy the nation he'd contacted, and then eliminate him and his own fleet just for its own amusement. It didn't need the extra system. Gesthik'tka did. The Captain had demoted his First Officer to working sanitation duty at a colony ship, but in the throes of anger he wished he'd killed him outright and left his body to drift in space, just for so much as tipping the Union off.

He only hoped the weapon would be ready in time to save some of the aliens. Maybe he'd be able to convince them to let him capture some of the Union ships for his own thalia once they were emptied of Damalgian life, but if not, it didn't bother him all too much.

ooc: it keeps eating my post -_- i have a big one planned.

OOC: Something, or somebody, should provoke my ship at this moment, either by firing or by some other hostile action.

It was at this moment, in the middle of all these hostilites and actions, that the kewen arrived, late for the most part, but they arrived none the less, far from all the hostilities, but still none the less quite close, the kewen fleet formed in system, and took stock of there surroundings.

Four crusiers, nine destroyers, eleven frigates, and a single carrier was all that comprised the fleet, not terribly large, but not miniscule either, a figure stepped up to a small control panel, in a pool of darkness and spoke, it was translated into both Dalamgian, and galatic standard.

"What is going on here, why are you battling over our... "preserve" I am Fleet Seer Ssskava, and this is my jurisdiction" The word, preserve came as close as possible, to what kewen thought of the planet.


ooc; jolt fails, it ate my post a 2nd time, so this is as close to my post as i could get, without writing the full page and a half..

OOC: Tenuria, I guess I'll start attacking your "main fleet", you can assume that I had the wrong info.

IC:

"You mean to tell me that they have an even larger fleet in space!?"
"Umm yes..."
"Get us a in battle range of them at once."

10 minutes later
--------------------
Trans-Ship Comm-Link

<<Captain Xik, your capacitors are at full?>>
<<Affirmitave Brigadier General>>
<<Wonderful, Overcharge them Xik, I want those Mark VI Plasmid Charge-Guns ready to unleash their payload.>>

A loud humming noise penetrated both ships armor as the Mark VIs started overcharging and gathering gravitational force from the planet to power it's massive Gravity Capactiors (keeps energy in a sphere of gravitical force).

OOC: These have the capability to destroy whole moons like the one over Earth, you guys had your powerful weapons, now I have mine.

IC:

<<BG, the Mark VIs are charged sir>>
<<Captain Xik, engage them at once fire all you've got at that fleet.>>
<<Very well sir>>

The loud hum that once was a loud but bearable noise transformed into an ear-splitting scream that would deafen anybody without cybernetic implants.

2 lances of Plasmid Energy left a trailing energy wake as it hurtled to impact the Tenurian fleet.

OOC: Determine the damage, also the Plasmid Lance is about the size of the cannons of my Aggressor.

As the second volley disappeared and reappeared inside the enemy ships (its composition similar to that of the first volley, albeit larger), or at least in realspace very close to the enemy ships, the Science Vessel informed the Overcaptain that what appeared to be a large asteroid had been transported into orbit only a few hundred thousand kilometers from the fleet.

"An asteroid. Really. What's it made of? Anything organic?"

"Uh..... wow. By composition it appears to be constructed mainly of explosive materials."

"Oh, how convenient," he said. "And let me guess, it's traveling toward us. Well..... give it a Union IFF."

"Overcaptain?"

"You heard me. Now surround it with hyperspace boats."

"Yes, Overcaptain."

The hyperspace boats emerged and positioned themselves as specks around the drifting asteroid. They were small unmanned vehicles with hyperspace engines; their ingrained life support systems allowed them to be used as lifepods to allow crews to jump from a battle site back towards Damalgian territory even if their ships had been destroyed, and were one of two devices Silithas was employing now whose original purpose had been to facilitate retreats, but which he was using for offensive purposes.

"They networked?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Link their hyperspace signatures to the rock..... Have them go to these coordinates. I want them coming out of hyperspace at twenty or better." (i.e. 0.2c)

Momentum is conserved between realspace exit and reentry....



..... say it with me .....



In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.

The hyperspace boats accelerated rapidly, bearing the rock in between them (although it lagged behind with the acceleration, being a big honkin' rock). The hyperspace link was originally designed to allow even ships whose engines had been damaged a way out of battle; Damalgians placed a great emphasis on teamwork and cooperation, when they weren't trying to kill each other. They vanished and reappeared practically in the midst of the TAP'ian fleet, or as close as they could get before encountering what was left of the FTLi field. They arrived perhaps a second or two after the second volley of missiles.

OOC: Love Portal, but do you really think we would let something like Apollyon be a superweapon without the ability to control it?

Another squadron of Star Destroyers detonated, their crews gasping to life back home on New Tortuga and swearing in disgust. They called out to send more Interdictors to the planet the battle was taking place over. The President complied.

A squadron 24 Interdictor Cruisers jumped, their FTLi fields activated as they did so, and took up positions along the edges of the field thrown up by the previous Interdictors. Now the field completely covered the TAP'ian fleet.

As soon as the Apollyon Rock arrived in the middle of the TAP'ian Fleet, it jumped again, it's primitive AI bound and determined to detonate it inside the enemy fleet.

This time, it jumped into the fleet, and detonated a Naquadah Enhanced Bomb instantly...

Gesthik'tka's harvesters were still working. Inside the tech rooms the Captain had authorized access to a forbidden database detailing weapons that were no longer used or talked about -- weapons produced through genetic engineering or used for purposes so heinous even the Union disavowed them. The list was unsurprisingly very short. The weapon the thalia was planning to use was one that had been banned, by common practice, for about eight centuries. But the Captain had no choice, or at least felt that he had no choice.

The Union fleet had attacked the TAP'ians even in the knowledge that each attack they launched killed thousands or millions of sapients. (For that matter, they attacked Damalgians too, but at least that was justifiable.) The Captain had no idea whether the aliens he had spoken to still lived; he could not make out the John Quincy Adams in the turmoil of battle. And it was intolerable to him that the Union, and especially an asshole like Overcaptain Silithas, could show up at a world he'd claimed, destroy the nation he'd contacted, and then eliminate him and his own fleet just for its own amusement. It didn't need the extra system. Gesthik'tka did. The Captain had demoted his First Officer to working sanitation duty at a colony ship, but in the throes of anger he wished he'd killed him outright and left his body to drift in space, just for so much as tipping the Union off.

He only hoped the weapon would be ready in time to save some of the aliens. Maybe he'd be able to convince them to let him capture some of the Union ships for his own thalia once they were emptied of Damalgian life, but if not, it didn't bother him all too much.

OOC: Feel free to do so, I plan on turning Neutron Hoses on them...

IC:
A Jump window opened. This wasn't the Tesseract Window of normal FTL travel used by TAP'ian ships, this was Universal Translocation. When a single large object, or a flurry of small ones use it, it has little ill effect upon the ships around it, but when a couple thousand warships do it all at once, a massive gravitational burst occurs that can throw off ships that are not hardened against it.

It was with such a window that the TAP'ians arrived in the midst of the enemy fleet. They turned their Neutron Hoses on the Damaglians the moment they arrived, spraying deadly radiation onto the enemy vessels.

Shieldbuster Torpedoes where launched from fighters into the enemy shields, as Resonance Torpedoes detonated. Dissolving the EM, Weak, Strong, and Gravitic bonds in the areas of it's detonations, no object could hold itself together in the blast of a Resonant Torpedo.

Dark Matter Warheads blasted into the enemy fleet, using the chances granted by the Shieldbusters to start pulling apart enemy warships.

Tachyon Cannons fired, their FTL particles slamming into enemy warships. The Tachyon Cannons where joined by Turbolasers, Anti-Matter Cannons, Hydrogen Jets, Laser Cannons, and in the case of Seven Sovereigns, Super Lasers and Super MAC Cannons.

OOC: Ziolis: With the timescale this battle's occurring on, "10 minutes later" probably won't be for a few more posts. The battle may have been going on for about 30 seconds so far; less than a minute for sure. I'll determine damage when it appears 10 minutes have passed since the start of the battle.

Also, do not try to get into a pissing contest with Overcaptain Silithas over who can destroy the most stuff. It won't be good for anyone. :P

TAP: Yeah, except ships without Union authorization cannot enter realspace within a Union interdiction field: trying to do a universal translocation thing would result in a "Coordinates specified may be unavailable, or do not exist"-type message. The Union defends against a lot of different technologies, as many of the thalië it fights are scavengers and picked up different kinds of FTL tech from different people. Your ships would have to appear like ~1.3 AU away, not in the middle of my fleet. The Apollyon Device, on the other hand, has been branded with a Union IFF so we can use it as a weapon, so it can make it.

Shrapnel from the unfortunate warship rebounded against the shields as Silithas looked out upon the rock; through his "visual spectrum glasses" he could see that the explosion was a sort of orangey-yellowy colour. He wondered again what the point was to seeing that kind of light; you gained no useful information from it, after all. "Harvester One?" he said.

"Overcaptain?"

"The asteroid came back. It's like it bounced." He paused. "Put it in a holding beam and find out what makes it go. Find out if it belongs to, uh, these guys we're killing. Hey, Number One--" this last addressed to his XO-- "who the hell are these people anyway?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Overcaptain," she said. "I can get one of the science vessels to hack back into Gesthik'tka's banks and find out, if you like."

"Actually, I don't give a shit," Silithas said. "But the Admiral wants it for the records, or something."

Another call came in from across the bridge. "Overcaptain?" It was his Science Officer.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Gravitational anomaly picked up. A few ships are reporting malfunctions and power drains."

"Well, shit. What's causing it?"

"Sir?"

"You heard me."

"Uh.... it could be related to the appearance of the enemy fleet only a few jghath'kizlengths away," the Science Officer said hesitantly. "And they seem to have reinforced their interdiction fields."

"Oh, is that all?" Silithas said. "I thought maybe some Damalgians were attacking us..... No such luck, I guess. Do these idiots never learn?" He turned to his XO. "Get out the order for another volley. Did they send more ships to reinforce the field?"

"Well, Overcaptain, we're picking up more ships. They jumped in from these coordinates a few seconds ago..... To be honest, sir, there really are a lot of ships. We can't monitor all of them--"

"It's gotta be the new ships. They're priority targets. Along with flagships and anything that's really big. Fire!"

The third volley reached the enemy ships. It was larger in that there were more FTLi-disrupting missiles in it, to compensate for the increase in FTLi on the opposite side. As the explosions were detected on hyperlight sensors, arsenal ships began beaming their complements of missiles to restock the warships further. In his ship Silithas checked up on his third fleet; it was still preparing for departure, but would be ready to show up on his command. And much to his delight it had a pair of Battlestations with antimatter artillery. This was going to be fun.

OOC: Inside the holding beam, the Apollyon Device cannot move, as it is essentially under control of the harvester. Blowing it up will destroy the beam, the harvester, and possibly a few other nearby ships at most, but not the whole fleet; the beam will contain and absorb most of the explosion.

As for the antimatter artillery.... well, if the Apollyon Device is the spacedy equivalent of a n00k, they're the spacedy equivalent of a thirty-inch cannon.

OOC: Ziolis: With the timescale this battle's occurring on, "10 minutes later" probably won't be for a few more posts. The battle may have been going on for about 30 seconds so far; less than a minute for sure. I'll determine damage when it appears 10 minutes have passed since the start of the battle.

Also, do not try to get into a pissing contest with Overcaptain Silithas over who can destroy the most stuff. It won't be good for anyone. :P

TAP: Yeah, except ships without Union authorization cannot enter realspace within a Union interdiction field: trying to do a universal translocation thing would result in a "Coordinates specified may be unavailable, or do not exist"-type message. The Union defends against a lot of different technologies, as many of the thalië it fights are scavengers and picked up different kinds of FTL tech from different people. Your ships would have to appear like ~1.3 AU away, not in the middle of my fleet. The Apollyon Device, on the other hand, has been branded with a Union IFF so we can use it as a weapon, so it can make it.

Shrapnel from the unfortunate warship rebounded against the shields as Silithas looked out upon the rock; through his "visual spectrum glasses" he could see that the explosion was a sort of orangey-yellowy colour. He wondered again what the point was to seeing that kind of light; you gained no useful information from it, after all. "Harvester One?" he said.

"Overcaptain?"

"The asteroid came back. It's like it bounced." He paused. "Put it in a holding beam and find out what makes it go. Find out if it belongs to, uh, these guys we're killing. Hey, Number One--" this last addressed to his XO-- "who the hell are these people anyway?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Overcaptain," she said. "I can get one of the science vessels to hack back into Gesthik'tka's banks and find out, if you like."

"Actually, I don't give a shit," Silithas said. "But the Admiral wants it for the records, or something."

Another call came in from across the bridge. "Overcaptain?" It was his Science Officer.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Gravitational anomaly picked up. A few ships are reporting malfunctions and power drains."

"Well, shit. What's causing it?"

"Sir?"

"You heard me."

"Uh.... it could be related to the appearance of the enemy fleet only a few jghath'kizlengths away," the Science Officer said hesitantly. "And they seem to have reinforced their interdiction fields."

"Oh, is that all?" Silithas said. "I thought maybe some Damalgians were attacking us..... No such luck, I guess. Do these idiots never learn?" He turned to his XO. "Get out the order for another volley. Did they send more ships to reinforce the field?"

"Well, Overcaptain, we're picking up more ships. They jumped in from these coordinates a few seconds ago..... To be honest, sir, there really are a lot of ships. We can't monitor all of them--"

"It's gotta be the new ships. They're priority targets. Along with flagships and anything that's really big. Fire!"

The third volley reached the enemy ships. It was larger in that there were more FTLi-disrupting missiles in it, to compensate for the increase in FTLi on the opposite side. As the explosions were detected on hyperlight sensors, arsenal ships began beaming their complements of missiles to restock the warships further. In his ship Silithas checked up on his third fleet; it was still preparing for departure, but would be ready to show up on his command. And much to his delight it had a pair of Battlestations with antimatter artillery. This was going to be fun.

OOC: Inside the holding beam, the Apollyon Device cannot move, as it is essentially under control of the harvester. Blowing it up will destroy the beam, the harvester, and possibly a few other nearby ships at most, but not the whole fleet; the beam will contain and absorb most of the explosion.

As for the antimatter artillery.... well, if the Apollyon Device is the spacedy equivalent of a n00k, they're the spacedy equivalent of a thirty-inch cannon.

OOC: Apollyon is based off of a Naquadah Rock half that size that Anubis sent to destroy the Earth in SG-1. With a less potent material and smaller amounts, it was enough to boil away the atmosphere of the Earth.

IC:
Apollyon detonated and the fleet jumped out to the Oort Cloud, leaving behind a parting spread of warheads.

The holding field could control a lot of power, but there are limits to everything. The explosion of the rock boiled over the field and consumed the harvester, and in the few nanoseconds before it engulfed the dozen or so ships around it the fleet hyperspaced out of there, resurfacing a few dozen AU off and leaving a rapidly expanding cloud of shards of rock and metal traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light -- large enough that they destroyed many of the incoming missiles, but also large enough that they could damage or destroy anything else in the system they could run across, pockmarking moons and asteroids with small craters and damaging ships and artificial objects.

"We lost that harvester and two escorts," a random officer reported as Silithas watched the explosion.

"Maybe so, but it was awesome," Silithas said. "Did you see the scale of that thing? I gotta get me some of those. All ships, keep an eye out for shrapnel.... use the clearing lasers or something to destroy it. Number One, how are our shields doing?"

"Could be better. Seventy-eight per cent overall and shield drones are pretty much depleted. Do I call in the third fleet now?"

"Sure, if you want." Silithas lowered himself into a chair and examined the readouts from the enemy fleet. "What I don't get -- they remotely detonate this rock, it's sure to damage our shields and leave us vulnerable, and they leave? I mean sure, shrapnel, but I'd just toughen up and use PD on it and put a bunch of missiles up their ass."

Silithas's third fleet appeared. It was not technically his; it was Overcaptain Dal'githor's, but Dal'githor was cowed enough by Silithas that it counted. "Thor! Nice to see you here. We're just getting this party started."

"Uh, okay," Dal'githor said. "You sure about this, Sil? It looks like a lot of ships out there."

"Number One said that too. It's like you people can't see past that." Silithas mock-sighed. "Fire a full volley of missiles."

"Aren't they too far? They're [about three light-days] out. Missiles only got a range of [about two light-days]."

"Well, you'd know, the ladies say that to you all the time!" Silithas looked over towards his XO. "Take us in a little closer. Close enough to fire another spread."

The arrival of the third fleet had augmented the Union fleet to over five hundred ships. So the volley they fired once they jumped into range was far larger than the previous attacks had been, and with more interdictor missiles, also more likely to damage the enemy. The battlestations had yet to come into play, and were mostly just sitting there and looking sinister. After firing the volley the Damalgian fleet retreated to its previous position, well out of range to either attack or be attacked without actual fleet movements.

ooc: i feel inadequte, when my fleet jumps in and everyones to buzy dying to notice it.

OOC: Oops, sorry Kewen. Didn't even notice you, haha. :$

"We're picking up an incoming transmission, in Damalgian Standard," the XO said. Somehow, in the midst of a raging battle. Pretend it makes sense.

Overcaptain Silithas listened to the message. "Hey, Number One, can you route my response so it looks like it's coming from that ship, over there?" He indicated a Ziolis ship on the screen in front of him.

"Er.... The nearest I can do is modify the tr--" She stopped short as Silithas fixed her with a glance. "Will it do what I want?"

"Most likely. I can't make any promises. But it will look like the transmission came from that general area."

"Great. Begin recording." The message, if translated into standard American English, would read: "Hey there, Fleet Seer Ass-skava. The big boys here are engaging in a little bout of pest control, and if you kids wanna play, well.... tough. Now skedaddle, and say thanks that we're only claiming your preserve as payment." In Galactic Basic the slang words are somewhat different, of course, but it will read the same way to a local.

Meanwhile, another transmission reached the Kewenites from down on the planet: it was Thalia Gesthik'tka, from under its shield dome.

"Greetings, Seer. We are the Gesthik'tka thalia, here on a mission of peaceful colonization. While this world is ours by claim, we are willing to share its surface and harvest-material with other sapient species such as yourselves. The space battle you see remnants of is one between the Damalgian Union and a force called the American Privateer. While we seek no part in it, desiring only to be left alone, it is likely that the Unionist forces -- once they defeat the Americans -- will attempt to exterminate us as well, and we must humbly request your assistance in defending ourselves should they turn on this world."

OOC: Right then next time I'll not bother to input time... And ignore my prev. post about firing 10 minutes later...

IC:

<<BG, I believe that was an insult to our fleet sir.>>
<<Damn straight it was!>>
<<Order to fire?>>
<<Yeah, tell Xik to fire in oh about 2 seconds.>>
<<The Mark VIs will not be fully overcharged...>>
<<Well damn that, tell them to overload power output to 1000%>>
<<Very well>>

Immediately the scream of the guns rose to an uncontrollable shock wave as the sound rose so high that some techies eardrums broke under the strain.

But then suddenly everything quieted down...
The charge was complete.

<<FIRE!>>

2 lances of screaming Gravitational Plasmids hurtle through space and slammed into the Tenurian fleet.

OOC: Again determine damage. BTW who's draining your shields, my massive gravity capacitors? Or TAP

To Fleet Seer Ssskava
If we were infringing upon your territory we apologize,
but we were on direct orders to search for planets
possibly containing sentient life.
We were not aware that something like this would happen.
-Brigadier General Zarot

OOC: TAP most likely, you haven't really done anything to attack me yet.

News of the incoming fire didn't even reach Overcaptain Silithas. The incoming lances of energy were detected from several light-hours out by the crews of a few outlying ships, which, after making several calculations, hyperspaced to a set of co-ordinates a few light-seconds from the incoming plasma and, at a computer-specified time, fired their own powerful beams of plasma into the massive lances. The additional energy did not destroy or stop the weapons -- it wasn't supposed to. Instead, by hitting the beams at a particular angle, they caused the beams to shift position by a few degrees. They went wide.

Several AU from the Damalgian fleet the lances reached targets, striking icy bodies in the system's Oort cloud in powerful explosions that practically converted them to energy, detectable from the Damalgian fleet's position. Only then did Silithas ask the smaller ships what was going on, and they told him about the weapons fire (they had returned to the fleet's position immediately after confirming that the enemy weapons would not hit the Damalgian fleet).

"Huh. I thought they weren't part of that fleet. Weird," he said. "I guess we missed them in the last volley, then? Fire upon them as well."

A small burst of missiles targeted the Ziolisian ships, "small" being relative: standard fire against the two thousand plus ships of the TAP'ian fleet was thirty thousand missiles or more, now over fifty thousand per volley with the reinforcements. The Ziolisian fleet was of course smaller, so fewer missiles were used, but still enough to suffice: ten or more conventional missiles per capital ship, two to eight on escorts and small combatants, with additional missiles disrupting shields and FTL interdiction fields. The missiles traveled through hyperspace to endpoints on the bridges of enemy ships, or if the bridge couldn't be found, the engines.

Then Silithas turned his attention back to the larger fleet and awaited the results from his most recent attacks. If the others somehow managed to survive the missile attack, he'd keep an eye out for them as well.

OOC: I'll assume the ship is still being ignored (since I haven't really seen anything at this moment that would affect its current status).

IC:

"Sir, we detect heavy fire in the area. It might become a bit... threatening."
"I don't see a problem if they're not directly affecting us. Still, it might be wise to call for some help, if it is just for peacekeeping purposes. Send a message back to Central Command, and tell them we need a fleet of... a decent size."
"Got that."

The hyperwave transceivers on the Alphablade powered up, and sent the message across the long stretch of space that separated the ship and the Central Command on Alpha 10.

OOC: Dang, I thought it would do more than that, I only have 15 of those left. They don't grow naturally in this universe...

IC:
The missiles would never hit their targets. As soon as they had jumped away, the TAP'ian warships had activated their Reman Cloaking Devices and their Null Mass Thrusters, and pushed their Kaufman Drives to the max.

Orbiting around the Solar System at 74c, they planned to launch a strike at the Damalgian warships from behind.

Their sensor drones had shown that the weapon had not acted to the best of it's abilities. The ships had jumped out of fear of the blast. But the shields of their opponents where to strong.

And on top of that, more ships had arrived.

Fleet Admiral Jack Ray was at a loss. These weren't the enemies he was trained against. He had been trained to fight enemies that traded light shows with each other, which was the reason for the Chromium Hull Plating.

Then, he had it.

He put in a call to Marquesas, to the Xavier Institute to be exact.

"Professor, I need your assistance. We have come across a horde of alien locusts who are bound and determined to eat all of the life on a local planet. We think they might be vulnerable to psychic influence. Any chance you can bring the XSF Cerebra out to our location and give us a hand on this?"

"Admiral, you know I detest warfare, and that goes for the kind of action you are asking of me. But if these beings are determined to eat all life off of the world, perhaps I have no choice. I shall be there within minutes."

On Marquesas, Xavier gathered the most powerful Psychics of the Xavier Institute, and launched the Cerebra. They would arrive in seven minutes.

OOC: Awwww....I was hoping for a WMD result...

IC:

<<Missiles detected warping to our location>>
<<Deploy hyperspace interdiction drones>>
<<Deployed>>

The Interdictor drones disrupted a small section of hyperspace around the fleet and the missiles were disrupted by the interdiction bubble and they swerved off to hit a few asteriods in orbit.

<<Return fire, use the mass driver cannons, they can't deflect those solid tritanium rounds.>>
<<Yes sir>>

<<Also, Kairo send a message for Ares (http://eaw.heavengames.com/cpix/foc_units/eclipse.jpg).>>
<<Are you sure? It is highly destructive>>
<<Damn sure>>

3 milliseconds later Ares had jumped in and was 20 times the size of The Kraken.

ZCM Ares,
Cease Fire now or we will engage with our weapons.

OOC: At least 10,000+ Turbo laser batterys, 2,000 Mass Driver Emplacements, Hyperspace Rail Gun. Length is a few miles.

ooc: ooo ecplise.

IC:

The Kewenic fleet, rather then get involed decided to hang back for a bit, in order to watch what was going on , they would wait untill it was all over, then they would decide what todo, unless they were shot at first, and all the while ships continued to trickle in, as the scale of the battle escalated, AI programs and cameras documented anything, and everything, while scanners observed and detailed weapons used during this battle.

A reply, was sent to the Dalmagians on the planet.
"The world is not yours by "claim" it is ours, one of many nature preserves we keep track of across the galaxy, seeded with Sentient life, we monitor, adjust, adapt and learn, one giant testing lab, if you may, we are of course, willing to share, but for a price. Our agent will be there to meet with you.


------

On the surface of the planet, by a unknown, and one time way, Bere popped up inside the dalmagian sheild bubble, quiet a ingenious method, but guarenteed to only work once, as the Dalmagians would surely find out how, and there fore prevent such a use ever again ( one time godmod ftw >.>)

Bere, had assumed a Dalmagian form, but was still distingushable as non-dalmagian.

OOC: Lol finally someone who may play EAW:FoC... Still waiting for the guys...

OOC: I'll get an IC post up when I get back from the UK later today. I have to say you people can be pretty inventive. :P

Ziolis: The missiles do not work that way. They're the kind of weapon you can only defend against in advance; once you detect their launch, it's too late as they have already arrived at their targets. (Unless your sensors can travel in time.) Plus, each burst of regular missiles I've been firing for the past ten posts or so has been accompanied by numbers of anti-interdiction and anti-shield missiles, to get past TAP's defences. I can see maybe a few ships surviving if their shields are exceptionally strong and they are centrally located, but otherwise, your fleet should be dead, dude. Not like I mean to be a killjoy or anything, but there's a reason the Damalgian fleet uses these things and not, say, lasers. (And yes, you can defend against 'em -- but since most non-Damalgians who encounter them don't live to tell the tale, there's not much information out on how.)

TAP: Cloaking devices? How exactly do those work? (I refuse to be seen on the same computer as Memory Alpha.)

And psychics: well..... I never really thought about them enough to include psychic weaknesses or strengths among my species. I hate it when someone brings up a plot point like that. >:-(

OOC: Rawr! Ok I feel like dieing anyway!

IC:

The interdiction drones were not perfect and a few missiles slipped through and detonated in the engine room of The Kraken.

<<Kairo, damage report?>>
<<Engines offline, power fading...>>
<<Kairo? Kairo? Dammit!>>

The power on the ship was off and it was at that point a drifting hulk of useless metal. However the Crusader-class corvette that the BG was on was unharmed so the battle could still be fought from the new command ship the Ares.

OOC: I'll get an IC post up when I get back from the UK later today. I have to say you people can be pretty inventive. :P

TAP: Cloaking devices? How exactly do those work? (I refuse to be seen on the same computer as Memory Alpha.)

And psychics: well..... I never really thought about them enough to include psychic weaknesses or strengths among my species. I hate it when someone brings up a plot point like that. >:-(

OOC: The Reman Cloaking devices are Plot Devices, I have unwanked them a bit to make them less Godmode and more realistic

They put out Tachyons (Though we try to collect them for our ship's Tachyon Cannons, about 30% of the Tachyon Particles escape) and Anti-Protons which can be detected. The ship still puts out a Mass Shadow (though our Null-Mass Thrusters cancel that out [we use them for normal movement anyways]). If it moves too quickly (faster than .75c) occulation can be detected and the ships spotted. Damage to the shields will reveal a patch of the shields, and will give you a general shape of the ship. It can still fire and use shields without decloaking, though not moving will give away the location simply by following the trails of the weaponry.

And as for the Psychics, all of my citizens are mechanically psychic thanks to the GitS style Cyber-Brains that most citizens get at the age of 12. I might start introducing the normal psychic X-Gene (Psylocke or Xavier, not Grey) into my citizenry.

And now there came a lull in the battle. Scarcely a minute had elapsed since the first of Silithas's fleets had entered the fray; there were now two entire Damalgian fleets in the system, amalgamated into a single unit, with over four hundred of capital warships alone. The Damalgians made good use of the lull, summoning additional shield drones to replenish damaged shields and restocking on missiles of all varieties and point defence.

The lull didn't mean that the battle was anything close to stopping. There was still one ship attacking the Damalgians, albeit a large one, about the size of Gesthik'tka's colony ship, and several times larger than the single most massive warship in the Damalgian fleet (Overcaptain Dal'githor's flagship was two kilometres long, and another individual warship, designated Union 462, was even larger). However, due to both its firepower -- the Damalgian fleet as a whole was intended to go toe to toe with fleets of similar or larger size -- and its distance, which was approximately three light-days, it was far less of a concern, and only a few ships were tasked with dealing with it at the moment.

In his own flagship Silithas unhooked from the neural comlink and turned to his XO. "Losses?"

"Nineteen vessels, including a harvester. Some drones. And, of course, light to moderate damage to twelve or thirteen ships--"

"Psh. That's nothing. And Drath's missed all the fun, it seems. Where's our gaggle of jza'tvreni gone?"

"Hmmm. Either they've gone far enough away that they're no longer showing up on our sensors, or there's something funny going on." The XO indicated a line on a map with the sensory equivalent of a laser pointer. "There's definitely something orbiting around the system, which will pass about [10 AU] further out than we are now, at hyperlight speeds. It doesn't look like ships though. I'll get a full analysis out in a min."

"They've probably gone home," Silithas said. "On account of them having had all the effectiveness of a [wet noodle]."

He didn't really believe it, though. They'd left behind what looked like only a token complement of warships -- the big one now attacking them and a smaller one that was probably an escort -- and he recognized the tactic as a primitive form of making a diversion. Maybe the fleet and all its monolithic attacks had been only covering for this single warship, which was preparing to fire a weapon sufficiently powerful to destroy the Damalgian ship. Silithas plugged back into the neural comlink.

"Captain Ti'gahzt?"

"Overcaptain."

"Kindly destroy the big warship, at will."

"Yessir."

Five Damalgian ships reappeared from hyperspace a few AU from the Ares and targeted it with a little over a thousand missiles, including full complements of shield drainers and interdiction disruptors. Any missiles that failed to reappear in critical locations within the ship to deliver their several kg of antimatter would wind up impacting either the shields or the secondary targets (the corvette and the hunk of metal that had once been the Kraken, which would still be a functioning weapon if power could be restored); due to the lack of time delay, it was possible that the ship would be completely destroyed before every missile had exploded, leaving many to simply convert the expanding cloud of debris to energy. Once they had fired they returned to the fleet to resupply, having expended most of their complement in that volley.

Silithas unlinked and returned to his XO's side. "Well?"

"The computer's still analyzing the situation, Overcaptain."

"Still? It's been nearly thirty seconds. You've had enough time to find out whether the system's habitable, find every living thing in it, and kill them. And some stupid scans are trying to claim they're still running?" He attempted to scowl, which is difficult to do when you have no face.

"Large amounts of [mu and ro tachyons] detected," the XO carried on, ignoring Silithas utterly. "Evidence of and even some [reverse gamma tachyons]*; there's no way those are showing up naturally. And..... yes, there's the fleet, although it is utilizing a tachyon-emitting heat neutralization/dissipation system to camouflage itself and increase the difficulty of obtaining firing solutions."

"Damalgian, woman. Do you speak it?"

"It's hiding. Under some kind of shield."

"Right, then. And it's traveling through the middle cloud?"

"More or less. It's hard to get a lock on."

"Meh. You'll get a lock on it when I tell you to."

"Yes, sir." But the XO knew her commander. She quietly sent out the order to deploy more sensor drones and to begin attempting to obtain firing solutions. Sooner or later something was going to happen and Silithas was going to yell at her for not having done it earlier.

--------------------------

"Greetings, [Bere]."

The voice came from the Captain, whose short name was Tza'kthaikj'hmitk'afitha'khelthan'gzjahkz'wabeutng'vwuy (it sounds much less intimidating in Damalgian, trust me); here I might digress slightly to [i]describe the Damalgian that Bere had disguised himself as.

The Damalgians resemble a somewhat inferior variety of eldritch abomination to a human: a description might yield comparisons to a hybrid of octopus, centipede, dinosaur and stranger things. A main stalk, thick as a pine trunk, from which myriad appendages extend like tentacles or feelers: some of them shorter and closer to the body, some longer; some tipped with sharp talonlike points, others concealing masses of delicate sensory equipment. Closer to the ground the trunk becomes thicker and covered in plates resembling armour; herein is the brain and many of the important organs, while on the opposite side from the ground is the maw, usually closed tightly, but forming a large toothed circle when open and consuming food. There are no legs, but the Damalgians move seemingly a short distance above the ground in a surprisingly graceful asymmetrical motion, resembling a sidewinder. For their bulk and height -- up to about two metres -- they weigh less than might be expected, usually less than humans, and can move surprisingly quickly. They do not use their mouths for communication, instead a variety of highly specialized appendages along the main stalk, and have no vocal cords with which to produce human sounds. The atmosphere in the shield-dome was also noticeably different from that without, like the air on a high mountaintop.

"Welcome to Gesthik'tka. Is there any comfort or respite you desire? While we are still in progress of building our new home, there is room for us to speak and rest."

* For the purposes of realistic physics, we assume that tachyons, faster-than-light particles are subdivided as extensively as sublight particles, such as leptons and quarks, and some of them are extremely short-lived (decaying into other kinds of tachyons plus radiation) while others are sufficiently stable to reach Damalgian sensors intact. While real life tachyons have yet to be experimentally observed or proven, if they are ultimately discovered and classified with Greek letters, I'll be waiting for my Nobel Prize.

OOC: If you play EAW: FOC then you'll probably know what must happen next.

IC:

The Ares was crippled by this missile barrage, but it still had it's capacitors.

<<Kairo, get the Ares AI to pilot the ship towards the Tenurians, no actually, have it hyperspace into the middle and overheat the capacitors>>
<<You will destroy the ship>>
<<It doesn't matter, there are no crew onboard only AI, it is near it's death. So send it out in glory!>>
<<Confirmed, beginning overheat sequence, hyperspacing>>

The Ares hyperspaced directly into the middle of the Tenurian/Damalgian fleet. It's capacitors overheated, there was no way to stop the self-destruction short of destroying the AI in less then 20 milliseconds and cooling the capacitors in 20 milliseconds. It was inevitable, the ship will explode.

OOC: Hehehe, if you don't think these things can explode then i'll explain. Since the capacitors have a massive amount of energy contained, all you have to do is to increase the power flow to the gravity shields, which overcharges it, press a button and all the power is diverted to the capacitor shields, the shield generators overheat from surplus of energy and all the energy escapes in the form of an explosion and pulse wave.

OOC: And here's where it pays to have read some of the previous posts in the thread. ;)

The Ares appeared from hyperspace at the edge of the Damalgian interdiction field; its momentum continued to carry it through realspace, but at a small fraction of the speed of light. When it blew up it yielded a cloud of sharp-edged debris moving rapidly towards Damalgian ships; while the ships' point defence lasers and gun batteries were designed to clear debris, it was not particularly important, as the original purpose of shields (before they had been cleared for military applications) had been to deflect atoms and space dust from ships traveling at velocities sufficiently high for such debris to cause real damage. What shrapnel was not destroyed would eventually reach the fleet, within not less than eight minutes even if it had been accelerated to the speed of light; and it would most likely bounce off shields or pass harmlessly through the gaps between the ships (for, like any sensible commander, the Overcaptain kept his ships far enough apart that the destruction of one would not damage those around it).

"Overcaptain?"

"Harvester Three. What is it?"

"We've analyzed the device....."

"What device?"

"The weapon you ordered us to pick up, sir. The one that destroyed eleven ships."

"Oh, right. How does it work?"

"It appears to be a standard matter explosive attached to a primitive AI and an unusual propulsion device."

"How unusual?"

"It doesn't have a hyperspace engine and only a basic realspace engine. But it seems to be capable of moving between parallel universes at will. I've transmitted some of the data back to Admiral Fen'a'gthk on Laishk. It's similar to some of the translocation stuff we captured from Thalia Baragkith, although with additional components that I don't really know how to work."

"It could be a simpler way of bypassing hyperspace interdiction," Silithas said, half to himself. "Can you reverse-engineer me a design? Preferably with antimatter explosives, [a hundred kilograms]* or more."

"No, not at the moment, Overcaptain. We would require days or weeks of study and experiment. Then it would take some time to produce a design and put it into production. These things do not happen immediately, Overcaptain. With respect."

"I see numerous applications. These aren't constrained by the normal rules of hyperspace, right? You could conceivably attach one of these universe jumping thingies to an artillery slug and have it rematerialize in the inner core of a planet." Silithas paused reflectively. While Damalgians technically shouldn't destroy planets, as they require the organic materials to live, he did have something of a passion for finding new ways to do so. It was surprising how many different ways there were with just the technologies available to a handful of ships, let alone an entire fleet or even the full resources of the Damalgian Union (which, he reflected, could probably cause severe damage to the galaxy, although why they'd want to was beyond him).

Meanwhile, among the debris and rocks of the system's Oort cloud -- through which the TAP'ian fleet now travelled -- there were some of the rocks we've come to know and love, draining the ships' shields once again, albeit slowly. Of course, they were now surrounded by rocks and debris. Which ones were dangerous, which ones just harmless rocks? Silithas was doing his best to make sure that even if he was out of range to attack them, they'd have no chance to take a break.

* about 4.7 GT; for comparison, a standard Damalgian missile incorporates 15.6 kg of antimatter, or 733 MT. Still enough to level a city.

And now there came a lull in the battle. Scarcely a minute had elapsed since the first of Silithas's fleets had entered the fray; there were now two entire Damalgian fleets in the system, amalgamated into a single unit, with over four hundred of capital warships alone. The Damalgians made good use of the lull, summoning additional shield drones to replenish damaged shields and restocking on missiles of all varieties and point defence.

The lull didn't mean that the battle was anything close to stopping. There was still one ship attacking the Damalgians, albeit a large one, about the size of Gesthik'tka's colony ship, and several times larger than the single most massive warship in the Damalgian fleet (Overcaptain Dal'githor's flagship was two kilometres long, and another individual warship, designated Union 462, was even larger). However, due to both its firepower -- the Damalgian fleet as a whole was intended to go toe to toe with fleets of similar or larger size -- and its distance, which was approximately three light-days, it was far less of a concern, and only a few ships were tasked with dealing with it at the moment.

In his own flagship Silithas unhooked from the neural comlink and turned to his XO. "Losses?"

"Nineteen vessels, including a harvester. Some drones. And, of course, light to moderate damage to twelve or thirteen ships--"

"Psh. That's nothing. And Drath's missed all the fun, it seems. Where's our gaggle of jza'tvreni gone?"

"Hmmm. Either they've gone far enough away that they're no longer showing up on our sensors, or there's something funny going on." The XO indicated a line on a map with the sensory equivalent of a laser pointer. "There's definitely something orbiting around the system, which will pass about [10 AU] further out than we are now, at hyperlight speeds. It doesn't look like ships though. I'll get a full analysis out in a min."

"They've probably gone home," Silithas said. "On account of them having had all the effectiveness of a [wet noodle]."

He didn't really believe it, though. They'd left behind what looked like only a token complement of warships -- the big one now attacking them and a smaller one that was probably an escort -- and he recognized the tactic as a primitive form of making a diversion. Maybe the fleet and all its monolithic attacks had been only covering for this single warship, which was preparing to fire a weapon sufficiently powerful to destroy the Damalgian ship. Silithas plugged back into the neural comlink.

"Captain Ti'gahzt?"

"Overcaptain."

"Kindly destroy the big warship, at will."

"Yessir."

Five Damalgian ships reappeared from hyperspace a few AU from the Ares and targeted it with a little over a thousand missiles, including full complements of shield drainers and interdiction disruptors. Any missiles that failed to reappear in critical locations within the ship to deliver their several kg of antimatter would wind up impacting either the shields or the secondary targets (the corvette and the hunk of metal that had once been the Kraken, which would still be a functioning weapon if power could be restored); due to the lack of time delay, it was possible that the ship would be completely destroyed before every missile had exploded, leaving many to simply convert the expanding cloud of debris to energy. Once they had fired they returned to the fleet to resupply, having expended most of their complement in that volley.

Silithas unlinked and returned to his XO's side. "Well?"

"The computer's still analyzing the situation, Overcaptain."

"Still? It's been nearly thirty seconds. You've had enough time to find out whether the system's habitable, find every living thing in it, and kill them. And some stupid scans are trying to claim they're still running?" He attempted to scowl, which is difficult to do when you have no face.

"Large amounts of [mu and ro tachyons] detected," the XO carried on, ignoring Silithas utterly. "Evidence of [ipsilon tachyons] and even some [reverse gamma tachyons]*; there's no way those are showing up naturally. And..... yes, there's the fleet, although it is utilizing a tachyon-emitting heat neutralization/dissipation system to camouflage itself and increase the difficulty of obtaining firing solutions."

"Damalgian, woman. Do you speak it?"

"It's hiding. Under some kind of shield."

"Right, then. And it's traveling through the middle cloud?"

"More or less. It's hard to get a lock on."

"Meh. You'll get a lock on it when I tell you to."

"Yes, sir." But the XO knew her commander. She quietly sent out the order to deploy more sensor drones and to begin attempting to obtain firing solutions. Sooner or later something was going to happen and Silithas was going to yell at her for not having done it earlier.

* For the purposes of realistic physics, we assume that tachyons, faster-than-light particles are subdivided as extensively as sublight particles, such as leptons and quarks, and some of them are extremely short-lived (decaying into other kinds of tachyons plus radiation) while others are sufficiently stable to reach Damalgian sensors intact. While real life tachyons have yet to be experimentally observed or proven, if they are ultimately discovered and classified with Greek letters, I'll be waiting for my Nobel Prize.

The rocks would find nothing returning to target, as the EM fields bent AROUND the ships, and kept going. But now it was obvious that they had been found.

Activating their Phasing Devices, they activated their Tesseract Drives, jumped to a location beside the Damalgian Fleet, and rode the gravity in, reaching speeds of 79 to 80 times the speed of light.

FTLi systems work by creating a Mass Shadow, and thus fooling the FTL systems into thinking there is an object in the way that will cause them harm. Phasing Devices where able to ignore that.

By dropping into another dimension of M-Space, they would be able to pass through a Mass Object, and thus continue on in the direction of travel, regardless of objects in the way.

For ships with Phasing Devices, Mass Shadows where nothing but a way to accelerate in their journey.

As they approached, capacitors charged, MAC Cannons and Banks of Turbolasers and Tachyon Cannons charged. FTLi systems on Interdictors and Sovereigns charged. And warp coils spun up, ready for .8c maneuvering.

This was going to be bloody.

As soon as the enemy ships where in range, the Sovereign Class Star Destroyers let forth brilliant verdant beams of light from their component beams, as brilliant Yellow-cored beams of purple light where unleashed from the Tachyon Cannons installed on the fleet.

Verdant sheets of light sprang forth from the fleet's Turbolasers, as Anti-Matter and Naquadah Enhanced Nuclear Missiles where let loose. All of them returned to phase as soon as they left the ships, as the Phasing Field was tight to the hulls of the ships.

OOC: Hmmm. Is that really how they work? I just figured they created a "Laws Of Physics Apply Here" field around whatever object was setting up the FTLi, which could be bypassed by powering your missiles with a rapidly rotating Albert Einstein's grave. *shrugs* Well, whatever.

At any rate, Damalgian FTL does not worry about dangerous objects in realspace, as hyperspace acts sort of like an overlay universe which allows vessels to pass through those potentially dangerous objects. That's why the missiles are designed to emerge from hyperspace inside ships, not immediately outside. The Union's FTLi establishes a kind of bubble prevents realspace entry by any non-Union ship within the range, and uses the more traditional version to prevent anything from entering through realspace at hyperlight velocities. With phasing drives active your ships can pass into the FTLi field really fast, but only in realspace, not in parallel or overlay universes (this consequently limits maximum velocity and theoretically prevents the use of weapons traveling through such parallel or overlay dimensions, although the Horizon Devices managed to bypass that).

Maximum range seems to mean different things to different people. The Damalgians could engage their enemies with their primary batteries, the missiles, from about two light-days distance, which, to put it into a comparative unit, is about 346 AU (or a little less than the distance from the system's Oort cloud to its sun). The secondary batteries, mostly plasma weapons of various types, had a useful range of several dozen light-minutes for "plasma torpedoes" with short-range hyperspace engines (about 5.76 AU), and a few light-seconds for plasma beams traveling at lightspeed (about 0.008 AU).*

The total firepower available from both primary and secondary batteries was a good deal larger than any amount of attacks the TAP'ians had yet encountered. And it had been something of a mistake to appear so close to the Damalgian fleet, within the range of both missiles and plasma torpedoes, yet still out of their own range. Of course, they'd probably expected to arrive closer, so it was less of a mistake and more of a tactic, albeit the enemy's.

There were about six seconds before the enemy fleet would reach the Damalgians' position. In those six seconds the warships of the Damalgian fleet unloaded hundreds of thousands** of missiles and tens of thousands more bolts of plasma into the enemy fleet; in the first volley the various disruptors were concentrated among the missiles in sufficient numbers to drain shields and bypass interdiction, but within the few seconds that the second and third volleys were launched drones had been deployed before the fleet to fulfill the same function. There was the slight matter of the cloaks, of course, but apart from sending several missiles slightly off course and causing them to explode against shields or debris, they were more or less useless at the fleet's current velocity and closeness: the amounts of heat and energy emitted by the engines, life support systems, and charging weapons had the effect of turning anything into a giant target, regardless of any disruption in the way. It also helped that the XO had worked out targeting solutions beforehand, although she was fairly certain that Silithas would take the credit for that himself, as was his way.

The Damalgian fleet also moved. The ships repositioned themselves rapidly, spreading out a little and carefully concentrating shield drones and the like, while keeping the logistical and command ships closer to the center of the fleet, where they were less likely to be hit. From a near standstill they virtually immediately accelerated to about .7c, then fired deceleration thrusters to prevent themselves from going out of control. The Union's warships were a finely coordinated and highly experienced fighting force, and did this sort of thing all the time.

When the enemy weapons fire reached the Damalgians first blood was spilled, but the enemy was now also in range of the secondary plasma fire, consisting of old-fashioned lightshows. Now also the battlestations raised their guns and began to fire, delivering big slugs of antimatter at hyperlight velocities into the largest of enemy command ships, each one producing the equivalent of several naquadah enhanced nuclear bombs' worth of fiery death.

The Damalgian fleet was good at bloody.

* It is worth noting that energy weapons cannot travel faster than lightspeed by their very nature, so it is kind of useless to fire them while traveling faster than lightspeed as they will only hit your own ship. Weapons such as the "plasma torpedoes" which only look like energy weapons will not be subject to such limitations.

In addition, useful range doesn't mean total range; it only means the range from which one can fire the weapon before the enemy has time to react and get out of the way.

** Maybe. I'm not sure exactly how many missiles the fleet can fire before requiring in-battle reloads from the arsenal ships. It's basically "alot".

OOC: Oooohhhh you ignore huge ship! Gasp! It really should have been massive considering the amount of firepower the ship could've pumped out when it was still active, anyway, how many ships did I maim/destroy?

IC:

<<Ares has self-destructed, no indication of damage to enemy fleet yet>>
<<Damnit, fire the Mass-Driver cannons now>>
<<Firing 3...2...1...Fired>>

A massive wall of Tritanium-Tungsten rounds hurtled through space at just under 6.0 AU per second.

Which would practically cover the distance in 4 milli-seconds.

OOC: Gah it ate my post, i'll post later! :gas:

OOC: Hmmm. Is that really how they work? I just figured they created a "Laws Of Physics Apply Here" field around whatever object was setting up the FTLi, which could be bypassed by powering your missiles with a rapidly rotating Albert Einstein's grave. *shrugs* Well, whatever.

At any rate, Damalgian FTL does not worry about dangerous objects in realspace, as hyperspace acts sort of like an overlay universe which allows vessels to pass through those potentially dangerous objects. That's why the missiles are designed to emerge from hyperspace inside ships, not immediately outside. The Union's FTLi establishes a kind of bubble prevents realspace entry by any non-Union ship within the range, and uses the more traditional version to prevent anything from entering through realspace at hyperlight velocities. With phasing drives active your ships can pass into the FTLi field really fast, but only in realspace, not in parallel or overlay universes (this consequently limits maximum velocity and theoretically prevents the use of weapons traveling through such parallel or overlay dimensions, although the Horizon Devices managed to bypass that).

OOC: M-Space isn't another universe at all, it is another facet of our own. So we are in fact, in realspace the entire time, just in another facet of it

Maximum range seems to mean different things to different people. The Damalgians could engage their enemies with their primary batteries, the missiles, from about two light-days distance, which, to put it into a comparative unit, is about 346 AU (or a little less than the distance from the system's Oort cloud to its sun). The secondary batteries, mostly plasma weapons of various types, had a useful range of several dozen light-minutes for "plasma torpedoes" with short-range hyperspace engines (about 5.76 AU), and a few light-seconds for plasma beams traveling at lightspeed (about 0.008 AU).*

The total firepower available from both primary and secondary batteries was a good deal larger than any amount of attacks the TAP'ians had yet encountered. And it had been something of a mistake to appear so close to the Damalgian fleet, within the range of both missiles and plasma torpedoes, yet still out of their own range. Of course, they'd probably expected to arrive closer, so it was less of a mistake and more of a tactic, albeit the enemy's.

There were about six seconds before the enemy fleet would reach the Damalgians' position. In those six seconds the warships of the Damalgian fleet unloaded hundreds of thousands** of missiles and tens of thousands more bolts of plasma into the enemy fleet; in the first volley the various disruptors were concentrated among the missiles in sufficient numbers to drain shields and bypass interdiction, but within the few seconds that the second and third volleys were launched drones had been deployed before the fleet to fulfill the same function. There was the slight matter of the cloaks, of course, but apart from sending several missiles slightly off course and causing them to explode against shields or debris, they were more or less useless at the fleet's current velocity and closeness: the amounts of heat and energy emitted by the engines, life support systems, and charging weapons had the effect of turning anything into a giant target, regardless of any disruption in the way. It also helped that the XO had worked out targeting solutions beforehand, although she was fairly certain that Silithas would take the credit for that himself, as was his way.

The plasma caught the TAP'ian EM fields, the farthest out shell, and dissolved into blobs of plasma. The missiles meant to smash shields hit that first level and shattered it.

It was followed by the Holtzman Shields, which stopped the missiles dead, preventing detonation. The impacts started to overheat the shield systems, and the Meta-Stable Hydrogen was not able to fully keep up.

Eventually, the forward Holtzman Shield generators failed, and where taken off line to let them cool off.

OOC: Even at the speed they are moving, it will be hard to target them, as the heat given off by the engines is sent in through our Meta-Stable Hydrogen Coolant systems.

The Damalgian fleet also moved. The ships repositioned themselves rapidly, spreading out a little and carefully concentrating shield drones and the like, while keeping the logistical and command ships closer to the center of the fleet, where they were less likely to be hit. From a near standstill they virtually immediately accelerated to about .7c, then fired deceleration thrusters to prevent themselves from going out of control. The Union's warships were a finely coordinated and highly experienced fighting force, and did this sort of thing all the time.

When the enemy weapons fire reached the Damalgians first blood was spilled, but the enemy was now also in range of the secondary plasma fire, consisting of old-fashioned lightshows. Now also the battlestations raised their guns and began to fire, delivering big slugs of antimatter at hyperlight velocities into the largest of enemy command ships, each one producing the equivalent of several naquadah enhanced nuclear bombs' worth of fiery death.

The Damalgian fleet was good at bloody.

The Anti-matter slugs collided with the Disruption Fields, and bounced off, finding no matter in the pockets to react with. Perfectly smooth, frictionless fields where a neccessity when dealing with Anti-Matter weaponry.

Plasma met the EM fields and disintegrated, their residual heat being shunted into the massive Ytterbium Laser Induced slurry of Meta-Stable Hydrogen.

In response, the ships on the edge of the fleet fired off Resonance Warheads. They detonated with their usual effect, dissolving all molecular bonds within a kilometer radius of the warhead. And in the meantime, creating large molecular clouds, just ripe for Anti-Matter abuse.

They where followed up by Anti-Matter Weaponry, fired into the holes created by the Resonance Warheads.

All the while, sheets of verdant and purple energy where unleashed into the enemy warships, starting with the bigger ones and working their way down.

Neutron Hoses where turned on the enemy fleet, firing massive streams of Neutron Radiation into the enemy ships.

* It is worth noting that energy weapons cannot travel faster than lightspeed by their very nature, so it is kind of useless to fire them while traveling faster than lightspeed as they will only hit your own ship. Weapons such as the "plasma torpedoes" which only look like energy weapons will not be subject to such limitations.

In addition, useful range doesn't mean total range; it only means the range from which one can fire the weapon before the enemy has time to react and get out of the way.

** Maybe. I'm not sure exactly how many missiles the fleet can fire before requiring in-battle reloads from the arsenal ships. It's basically "alot".

OOC: Shoot, it ate the part about them slowing and using FedImpulse once in range! Oh well, that is why I coat my ships in Chromium, Lasers and Turbolasers, and Tachyon Cannons just bounce right off. And I understand about the Plasma, but those are kept in place by EM Fields, and my first line of shields dissolve said fields.

And remember, Tachyons are FTL anyways, and would arrive before they are fired, and my Tachyon Cannons deal double the damage of a Heavy Turbolaser.

OOC: Ziolis: It blew up about 1.5 AU from my fleet's position because that's the area that is blocked off by FTLi. So nothing yet. It'll take 8-10 minutes for debris to reach my fleet (and, by my calculations, about 3 days for it to reach yours or anyone else's in the system). And I should add that there's no way your single capital ship and bunch of escorts could have been within a few light-seconds of mine the whole time (i.e. 0.0015 AU) without being destroyed outright, even if it was completely accidentally by clouds of ordnance aimed at me. You'll have to wank your fleet having been a little farther out, sorry. :P

TAP: So basically, M-Space is an overlay. Like hyperspace or slipspace or the way Star Trek explains warp fields. Well, at least, that's what I call them, if that wasn't clear.

Also: The missiles that break through shields use the same technology as the rocks that drain shields, more or less, except concentrated so they and attached swarms can pass through the shields (leaving "holes"). If it's an energy shield of any type, they're designed to break through them; if it uses gravity or zero-point energy or technobabble, the probability of swarm breakthrough lowers to about 40% for stuff that I can't understand, and 20% for stuff that I can -- mostly for NS purposes, as stuff that doesn't make any sense has a much higher chance of having been made up on the spot expressly to defeat my weapons. Hey, at least I have a system. Unless the Holtzman Shields are physical walls, numbers of missiles are going to get through, especially on smaller ships and ships on the fringes of the fleet.

I'll also ask for reference's sake about how much energy it requires for the shield generators to go offline, so I can give you an estimate of how many missiles would remain to encounter the remaining shields and hit their targets.

Finally, I highly doubt that tachyons can reach targets before you fire them (what happens if a target is blown up by tachyon fire and its explosion destroys the tachyon cannon before it has actually fired?), but hell, they're theoretical particles, so I'll assume it's a specific variety of tachyon that requires a lot of energy (and cash ;)) to produce. "Reverse omicron" or something.

The Damalgian vessels reloaded and, undaunted, fired a fourth volley. This one included a somewhat greater proportion of shield-disrupting missiles; and these missiles were aimed towards the five antimatter slugs that now clung to the edge of the enemy disruption fields (they had targeting systems, although far more primitive than those of the missiles, and simply knew that their targets were "down there"). The reasoning: the disruptor fields must be powered by energy of some kind; therefore, since the shield disruptors can break through fields of energy, they should be able to break through a disruptor field as well. Should this attempt be successful the five slugs would descend upon their targets (large command ships) and, in short, cause them to explode. Otherwise, Silithas would try a different tactic -- the slugs weren't going anywhere.

But from his own flagship he observed that the enemy was getting close. Very close. Suicidally close, in fact, but with their remaining numbers they would be sufficient to take the Damalgian fleet down with them. He also lost his first ships of this stage of the battle, but that wasn't nearly important as planning tactics, and anyway, the debris wasn't going anywhere. It could be recycled into more ships, while more Damalgians would be born. Waste nothing.

The TAP'ians arrived at the Damalgian fleet's former position and unloaded their neutron hoses and turbolaser batteries upon.... widely floating bits of debris and a few drones that had been forgotten. The Damalgians had moved.

They had hyperspaced to a new position about 25 AU further out into the Oort cloud; still well within missile range. As they repositioned themselves and fired a fifth volley of missiles -- the increased range would not also increase the amount of time it took for the missiles to arrive by any useful factor -- the mass driver rounds fired by the Ziolis fleet arrived at its former position, which was now occupied by TAP'ian ships. Those that survived the encounter would continue on until they hit an object with sufficient velocity to stop them, undoubtedly adding interesting craters to some asteroids or something. The Damalgians weren't paying much attention anymore.

"Overcaptain! We lost--" It was his XO.

"Tell me later, Number One. If it looks serious, call Drath in."

ooc: you all post too fast, and too awesomely. give a poor non-awesome writer a chance >_>

OOC: Har har har, I have the same feelings

IC:

<<Mass Driver rounds missed, preparing hyperspace jump.>>
<<Jumping to closest allowed location to Damalgian fleet.>>

The ships jumped close to the enemy fleet (1.5 AU right?). And released another barrage of Mass Driver Tritanium-Titanium slugs. The plasma boosted shots were about to reach the enemy fleet...

And just as the shots were approaching the Damalgian fleet a Ziolisian patrol fleet jumped into the system, curious about the weapons fire. The fleet consisted of 5 Crusader class corvettes and 2 MC30 (http://www.theforce.net/SWTC/Pix/cg/eaW/foc_frigate.jpg) Frigates. The Frigates were specialized for taking down enemy shields with Abyss-class Hyperspace missiles.

The kewenic fleet, decided to still sit back and wait, as more and more ships trickled in, it seemed noone noticed the growing fleet, as it slipped past the hundred ship mark, small agile frigates ducked and weaved over the long and dangerous hulls of the larger vessels.

Another ship, of a jury-rigged kind was the last to arrive in system for know, it looked like a normal kewenic cruiser, that was to say except for the several large bublous hangings on its sides, which were FTLi Generators, making a 1.5AU sphere around them.


-----

On the planet, Bere respectfully declined anything they offered
"I do not require any sustinance at this time, but have come to talk about your "claim" to this planet, this world is one of many valued to us for its diverse live and a pre-iron age society, we are willing to let you rebuil on this planet, but not at no cost, and you cannot have this planet, suffice to say it will mean that you will have a section of this planet for your use, as you see fit, and any breech of the agreed upon area, which i have come here to set, will be met with destruction and termination of offending party" Bere spoke with a robot like autonomy, as if he had done this many times before, in fact he had done it five or six times before, so it wasnt new.


ooc: everytime i write a new post, but the time i post it its obsolete, so i have to updated it :(

TAP: So basically, M-Space is an overlay. Like hyperspace or slipspace or the way Star Trek explains warp fields. Well, at least, that's what I call them, if that wasn't clear.

Also: The missiles that break through shields use the same technology as the rocks that drain shields, more or less, except concentrated so they and attached swarms can pass through the shields (leaving "holes"). If it's an energy shield of any type, they're designed to break through them; if it uses gravity or zero-point energy or technobabble, the probability of swarm breakthrough lowers to about 40% for stuff that I can't understand, and 20% for stuff that I can -- mostly for NS purposes, as stuff that doesn't make any sense has a much higher chance of having been made up on the spot expressly to defeat my weapons. Hey, at least I have a system. Unless the Holtzman Shields are physical walls, numbers of missiles are going to get through, especially on smaller ships and ships on the fringes of the fleet.

I'll also ask for reference's sake about how much energy it requires for the shield generators to go offline, so I can give you an estimate of how many missiles would remain to encounter the remaining shields and hit their targets.

Finally, I highly doubt that tachyons can reach targets before you fire them (what happens if a target is blown up by tachyon fire and its explosion destroys the tachyon cannon before it has actually fired?), but hell, they're theoretical particles, so I'll assume it's a specific variety of tachyon that requires a lot of energy (and cash ;)) to produce. "Reverse omicron" or something.

At the distance we are talking, yeah, Tachyons would impact before they are fired, but the Purple beams travel at the speed of light, so that is what we base combat with them off of.

Holtzman Shields are energy fields (they are the shields from Dune) but they function by removing all inertia from the incoming ordanance and just stopping them. If you have a G-Force based detonator where stopping activates the weapons, that would still set them off.

Same with the EM, Ray, Deflector, Energy, and Radiation shields.

The Distortion shields on the other hand. Well, R.M. Meluch hasn't given me enough to work with except that they are frictionless and that they provide protection against FTL pebbles.

For the ISD's, the SR (Shield Resistance) is 125, and SP as 250, with it's Heavy Turbolasers dealing 11d10x5, or about 500 GT. (Average result equals [11x5x5=275], so it takes three volleys to break through a shield).

The Damalgian vessels reloaded and, undaunted, fired a fourth volley. This one included a somewhat greater proportion of shield-disrupting missiles; and these missiles were aimed towards the five antimatter slugs that now clung to the edge of the enemy disruption fields (they had targeting systems, although far more primitive than those of the missiles, and simply knew that their targets were "down there"). The reasoning: the disruptor fields must be powered by energy of some kind; therefore, since the shield disruptors can break through fields of energy, they should be able to break through a disruptor field as well. Should this attempt be successful the five slugs would descend upon their targets (large command ships) and, in short, cause them to explode. Otherwise, Silithas would try a different tactic -- the slugs weren't going anywhere.

OOC: They can't cling to the Disruption (spellcheck on my part reveals typo, it's Distortion) fields, as there is nothing to cling to. They simply bounce off or slide off depending upon angle. Aim for the weapon ports, as that is where they are weakest.

IC:
The missiles slammed into the shield, and detonated as they slid alongside it.

In the Coolant Control Depot, new banks of Ytterbium Lasers was brought online and a massive load of new Meta-Stable Hydrogen was dumped in.

Seven other Coolant Depots where brought online, and liquid Nitrogen was sent into the Shield Generators themselves. Fins extended along the rear of the ships, with the Liquid Nitrogen pipes pumping through the fins and then back into the shield generators.

But from his own flagship he observed that the enemy was getting close. Very close. Suicidally close, in fact, but with their remaining numbers they would be sufficient to take the Damalgian fleet down with them. He also lost his first ships of this stage of the battle, but that wasn't nearly important as planning tactics, and anyway, the debris wasn't going anywhere. It could be recycled into more ships, while more Damalgians would be born. Waste nothing.

The TAP'ians arrived at the Damalgian fleet's former position and unloaded their neutron hoses and turbolaser batteries upon.... widely floating bits of debris and a few drones that had been forgotten. The Damalgians had moved.

They had hyperspaced to a new position about 25 AU further out into the Oort cloud; still well within missile range. As they repositioned themselves and fired a fifth volley of missiles -- the increased range would not also increase the amount of time it took for the missiles to arrive by any useful factor -- the mass driver rounds fired by the Ziolis fleet arrived at its former position, which was now occupied by TAP'ian ships. Those that survived the encounter would continue on until they hit an object with sufficient velocity to stop them, undoubtedly adding interesting craters to some asteroids or something. The Damalgians weren't paying much attention anymore.

"Overcaptain! We lost--" It was his XO.

"Tell me later, Number One. If it looks serious, call Drath in."

The ships kicked their Kauffman drives into action again, as soon as the Damalgians jumped, and thrust themselves at the enemy fleet.

Meanwhile, Artemis, pissed as she was that this was coming on her anniversary, and the only time her husband had been able to log into the SouNet for pleasure on top of that, acquired the language from Pyro, and started broadcasting a message.

"Give up. We do not fear death. Because Death here means re-birth on our homeworld in a new body. Death here is nothing but an inconvenience. We will continue to fight until you are dead. We care not about the bodies we inhabit for they are as artificial as the ships they inhabit. Death here is not but an inconvenience, and one that will be answered within seconds. Give up and leave this land, for you cannot defeat an enemy who has no fear of death."

She set the message to infinite repeat, and smiled smugly, then went back to targeting the enemy warships.

OOC: TAP: The missiles employ antimatter explosives as well as matter explosives, and since the antimatter containment fields are very weak and usually destroyed by hyperspace travel, the missiles explode on arrival whether they reach their targets or not. In addition, as they are moving through hyperspace, their realspace velocity is technically undefined, and therefore so is their momentum, it being a product of mass and velocity (if you want to get nitpicky, momentum is the mathematical term whereas inertia is the principle describing it). To reduce a hyperspace-capable object's momentum to zero, you have to remove it from hyperspace; and with all the shield and interdiction disruption I have in the system, most of the missiles are going to pass through FTLi or explode against the shields if they don't. The Holtzman shields would probably require an undefined amount of energy to drain an object's undefined momentum to zero, leading to divide-by-zero errors on their generator AIs, unless you can provide a good mathematical reason why not. <.<

The various other kinds of more traditional shields plus the assorted disruption you have in the system will have to take care of the missile volleys. Taking into account shield disruption plus the average of 275 GT shield resistance (I'm targeting everything, not just ISDs) I'd say 2-7% of missiles would get through, or 5,000 - 18,000 hits, mainly on smaller ships (one hit can destroy a corvette or fighter, up to twenty required to vaporize a large command ship) and ships on the fringes of the fleet. This is spread across five volleys, of course, so not all at once. I'm not sure what kind of outcome you have in mind for this battle; I'm working towards an eventual Union withdrawal with losses sustained, but not before it causes some actual, moderate-to-severe casualties, and makes alien officials justifiably paranoid.

Ziolis: Yeah, 1.5 AU is probably the closest you can get outside of realspace. Mass driver rounds will be slowed to lightspeed by the FTLi, but it's weakening somewhat due to the loss of two or three interdictor ships, so a few will get through and actually cause me some real damage for a change. :P

Kewen: We're all kinda busy way on the fringes of the system. Gesthik'tka is making a note, however.

"Incoming message," an Officer stated.

"Really? Let me hear it."

The message was incompletely translated from the composite language, mostly because the Union itself had not yet encountered the language. It was not delivered idiomatically, but the translator produced a sufficiently competent version of Artemis's message, one bearing only a passing resemblance to a mistranslation of an ancient Earthly arcade game about starfighters into a language called 'English'.

"They want us to leave because they're not afraid to die? Hah!" Silithas said. "Every wannabe suicide charger says that. They can be reborn, blah blah blah, who are they trying to convince? Me or themselves? See, they even set it on infinite repeat. Number One!"

"Yes, Overcaptain?"

"Start broadcasting now." He continued, still in damalgian, but now to Artemis: "Bitch, please. You're not only an incompetent tactician, but pretty damn stupid as well. Telling us all about how dead people get reborn on your homeworld? Well, guess what. We followed your fucking FTL trails more easily than your mom can find a piece of cake. We know where your homeworld is. We know how many ships you have, how many worlds you control, how many ordinary civilians you have in your nation. And what you've done meanwhile? You've been, at best, a minor inconvenience to the Damalgian Union. Go home now and maybe we'll only take this star system from you, k?"

It would not translate idiomatically, of course. But about a third of the Damalgian language is implanted directly into the mind, like telepathy, so Artemis could easily piece together the total sum of the message.

It wasn't all true. Silithas, for instance, did not know exactly how many ships TAP had, or its population, but he'd have the information within a few days: the data from the FTL trails had been passed on to command staff on Laishk who even now were sniffing out the information and translating the publicly available materials on TAP. But enough of it was true to worry the enemy. Plus, of course, Drath'jikz'a was on his way to provide reinforcements, even on the off chance that the enemy somehow did manage to inflict more losses.

"From where was that message broadcasted?" Silithas asked his XO after the link was cut.

"From here," the XO indicated a ship.

"Fine. Remember that ship. When the enemy fleet's in ruins, I want it tractored and irradiated thoroughly. We're taking it back to Laishk for the techs."

"And.... er...... supposing the enemy fleet isn't in ruins and we can't get that ship?"

"Don't be foolish, woman. Of course the enemy fleet will wind up in ruins! But if by chance that ship gets destroyed beforehand, just pick up any other capital-looking ship. We--"

"Weapons fire incoming!"

Most of the mass driver rounds had been slowed to 1c or so by the FTLi field. But a few of them had not. One was targeted directly at Silithas's flagship (probably by coincidence, as his flagship was not identifiable as such by either external markings or appearance). Without missing a beat, PD missiles streaked out from concealed bays and hit the round before it could reach the ship. Elsewhere across the fleet similar scenes took place, although several ships were not fast enough and were damaged or destroyed (one smaller warship, about the size of a frigate, received two mass driver rounds at 6 AU/sec and more or less imploded). The remainder were still approaching.

"Interdictors, bouncy shields please!" Silithas ordered.

"Beg pardon?"

"You know. Those shields that cause stuff to bounce off!"

"Oh, right. The deflector shields, sir." The deflector shields were set up by a trio of interdictors in front of the incoming hail of MD rounds, which simply reversed direction and headed back towards the Ziolis ships. To augment the rebound, the Damalgians accompanied this with several hundred missiles, spread among the various ships and starfighters. With nothing the size of the Ares left anymore, this should have been more than sufficient, with one missile enough to destroy a ship of corvette class or smaller.

---------------------------------------

Captain Gesthik'tka analyzed Bere's scent for a moment. "That sounds acceptable. The Americans, whom we met with earlier, suggested that rather than stripping the world of organic material, we cultivate its existing life to excess numbers in order to supply ourselves with food and materials of all types. The territory we would require for this would consist only of the land under the shield-dome, where we would build our city--" (at the moment, about ten square miles) "--plus the land around its outside perimeter to keep animals and crops. Additional materials, if required, we could extract from comets and other worlds in the system."

He considered for a moment. "With our warships, we would also defend the world and system against intrusions by the Union--" he gestured towards the very distant explosions that were becoming visible against the twilit sky "--and other enemy forces who seek to take the world and its resources for their own. What manner of payment would be required to make our home here?"

[size=1][color=navy]OOC: TAP: The missiles employ antimatter explosives as well as matter explosives, and since the antimatter containment fields are very weak and usually destroyed by hyperspace travel, the missiles explode on arrival whether they reach their targets or not. In addition, as they are moving through hyperspace, their realspace velocity is technically undefined, and therefore so is their momentum, it being a product of mass and velocity (if you want to get nitpicky, momentum is the mathematical term whereas inertia is the principle describing it). To reduce a hyperspace-capable object's momentum to zero, you have to remove it from hyperspace; and with all the shield and interdiction disruption I have in the system, most of the missiles are going to pass through FTLi or explode against the shields if they don't. The Holtzman shields would probably require an undefined amount of energy to drain an object's undefined momentum to zero, leading to divide-by-zero errors on their generator AIs, unless you can provide a good mathematical reason why not. <.<

The various other kinds of more traditional shields plus the assorted disruption you have in the system will have to take care of the missile volleys. Taking into account shield disruption plus the average of 275 GT shield resistance (I'm targeting everything, not just ISDs) I'd say 2-7% of missiles would get through, or 5,000 - 18,000 hits, mainly on smaller ships (one hit can destroy a corvette or fighter, up to twenty required to vaporize a large command ship) and ships on the fringes of the fleet. This is spread across five volleys, of course, so not all at once. I'm not sure what kind of outcome you have in mind for this battle; I'm working towards an eventual Union withdrawal with losses sustained, but not before it causes some actual, moderate-to-severe casualties, and makes alien officials justifiably paranoid.

OOC: Just trying to force you out, grab my probes (they still have ten hours of scanning to do) and run

After all, like I said int he post, we don't care about dying, and will stay until the objective is met.

"Incoming message," an Officer stated.

"Really? Let me hear it."

The message was incompletely translated from the composite language, mostly because the Union itself had not yet encountered the language. It was not delivered idiomatically, but the translator produced a sufficiently competent version of Artemis's message, one bearing only a passing resemblance to a mistranslation of an ancient Earthly arcade game about starfighters into a language called 'English'.

"They want us to leave because they're not afraid to die? Hah!" Silithas said. "Every wannabe suicide charger says that. They can be reborn, blah blah blah, who are they trying to convince? Me or themselves? See, they even set it on infinite repeat. Number One!"

"Yes, Overcaptain?"

"Start broadcasting now." He continued, still in damalgian, but now to Artemis: "Bitch, please. You're not only an incompetent tactician, but pretty damn stupid as well. Telling us all about how dead people get reborn on your homeworld? Well, guess what. We followed your fucking FTL trails more easily than your mom can find a piece of cake. We know where your homeworld is. We know how many ships you have, how many worlds you control, how many ordinary civilians you have in your nation. And what you've done meanwhile? You've been, at best, a minor inconvenience to the Damalgian Union. Go home now and maybe we'll only take this star system from you, k?"

Artemis laughed.

They knew where the TAP'ian Homeworld was? Bullcrap. Not even their closest allies knew it's location. And FTL trails? Yeah sure, like that was possible. Only Kauffman drives left trails. Tesseract Windows left no trails to or from their starting location or their destination.

And they knew how many ships we have?

Good for them, they obviously didn't know anything about the Holy Order of Saint Longinus, and those guys could get mean if you inteferred in TAP'ian Space.

Artemis sent back a response

"You can try Damalgia, but like all others who try to mess with us, you will die."

It would not translate idiomatically, of course. But about a third of the Damalgian language is implanted directly into the mind, like telepathy, so Artemis could easily piece together the total sum of the message.

It wasn't all true. Silithas, for instance, did not know exactly how many ships TAP had, or its population, but he'd have the information within a few days: the data from the FTL trails had been passed on to command staff on Laishk who even now were sniffing out the information and translating the publicly available materials on TAP. But enough of it was true to worry the enemy. Plus, of course, Drath'jikz'a was on his way to provide reinforcements, even on the off chance that the enemy somehow did manage to inflict more losses.

OOC: We have been Isolationist for a VERY long time. And we use something called the SoulNet, which is another universe entirely, for our communication. It is where our AI's reside (because they are the minds and souls of the dead, hence they are known as Ghosts) and it is where we store our information. And, like I said above, there are no FTL trails. Not with Tesseracts. They work similar to the Quantum Faxing in Timeline, only it halts it halfway through and re-assembles the ships in this Universe instead of another one.

"From where was that message broadcasted?" Silithas asked his XO after the link was cut.

"From here," the XO indicated a ship.

"Fine. Remember that ship. When the enemy fleet's in ruins, I want it tractored and irradiated thoroughly. We're taking it back to Laishk for the techs."

"And.... er...... supposing the enemy fleet isn't in ruins and we can't get that ship?"

"Don't be foolish, woman. Of course the enemy fleet will wind up in ruins! But if by chance that ship gets destroyed beforehand, just pick up any other capital-looking ship. We--"

"Weapons fire incoming!"

Most of the mass driver rounds had been slowed to 1c or so by the FTLi field. But a few of them had not. One was targeted directly at Silithas's flagship (probably by coincidence, as his flagship was not identifiable as such by either external markings or appearance). Without missing a beat, PD missiles streaked out from concealed bays and hit the round before it could reach the ship. Elsewhere across the fleet similar scenes took place, although several ships were not fast enough and were damaged or destroyed (one smaller warship, about the size of a frigate, received two mass driver rounds at 6 AU/sec and more or less imploded). The remainder were still approaching.

"Interdictors, bouncy shields please!" Silithas ordered.

"Beg pardon?"

"You know. Those shields that cause stuff to bounce off!"

"Oh, right. The deflector shields, sir." The deflector shields were set up by a trio of interdictors in front of the incoming hail of MD rounds, which simply reversed direction and headed back towards the Ziolis ships. To augment the rebound, the Damalgians accompanied this with several hundred missiles, spread among the various ships and starfighters. With nothing the size of the Ares left anymore, this should have been more than sufficient, with one missile enough to destroy a ship of corvette class or smaller.


The ships kept pressing forward, turbolasers and tachyon cannons blasting.

Corvettes and Frigates died left and right as the missiles made their way through, but the fleet continued on.

Then, the Decoy Drones activated all around the fleet. The pumped out massive amounts of Radiation, and began to jump here, there, everywhere, drawing enemy fire towards them

"I have an idea. Fire a full spread of Dark Matter Warheads at this location, near the center of their fleet. Have them detonate Simultaneously. We might be able to create a small black hole, and the fleet is far enough away from the system now for it to effect the planet. Load the Horizon Devices, and launch them all in que."

The Horizon Devices where loaded and launched, set to blast a new black hole into existence in seconds...

There was in fact an FTL trail -- there always is, even if the travel itself does not leave traces. The arrival or disappearance of something as massive as a ship in a realspace location creates resonances or "ripples" which, analyzed by probes, can yield a surprising amount of information. A sufficiently advanced probe can tell between hundreds of different transport methods and identify the class of ship and whether its weapons were armed, from two light-years away. The Damalgians' probes were nowhere near so advanced, but they had arrived in-system when the now-grounded thalia had called for aid, and over the next half an hour -- while the Captain talked with Paul of the Quincy Adams and the Union's rocks began to drain shields -- more probes had been deployed in an ever-expanding perimeter around the system, moving on when their scans of a particular star system or area yielded nothing. The resonances grew fainter as time wore on, but patterns matching Tesseract Windows or similar technologies were nonetheless found in numerous worlds and areas, where ships arrived or left -- presumably individual ships, as the resonances were not as strong as those left by a fleet. The deployment of the other two fleets created a much easier-to-track ripple, zeroing probes in on a single area of space a few light-years in volume, where the fleet had apparently originated (although it just as easily could have come from another area the same distance away in the opposite direction).

In short, there was a strong possibility that the Damalgians did in fact know the location of the TAP'ian homeworld. They also knew the locations of three or four thousand other worlds where use of similar transport methods were common. Now it remained to find out which one, hence the research already alluded to.

"Oh, don't be silly," Silithas answered. "We never die. We're too pretty to die."

It would be a few more seconds before the enemy fleet was in range for their weapons to be useful. Here, the Damalgians could easily dodge or countermeasure most of their weapons, with the exception of some of the more powerful tachyon cannons (which, so far, had been causing most of the casualties). Shields were suboptimal, although increasing from a low of 62% overall; however, FTLi was holding, and in fact power had been increased thanks to the reinforcements, which in theory should block off even methods of transport like universal translocation.

Theory, however, didn't mean practice. Many of the Horizon Devices were unable to translocate at that exact location, due to the presence of the FTLi. But so many attempts at once overloaded the system, and numerous of the devices got through; Silithas recognized them after a moment, and recalling the damage they had dealt to his fleet earlier, moved his ships "up" and out of the way. The warheads that emerged, however, were not the nuclear warheads he'd expected, but something entirely different. He watched in some fascination as debris and gases began to spiral inwards towards the points of explosion, even as the Damalgian fleet continued to get farther from the site, traveling z+wards (or "Galactic Up") at several times lightspeed and more Devices continued to follow its path, exploding into singularities at points that, by the time they did, were a good deal away from both the Damalgian fleet and the other singularities. Each individual spread of warheads seemed to be amalgamating itself into a single larger black hole, sufficiently powerful to draw in at least shield drones (as Silithas soon discovered).

"Well, isn't that interesting," he said to no one in particular. "Harvester Five, the next time one of those devices comes through, get it in a holding beam. Don't let it activate its payload. Beam it in and tell me what's inside."

"You got it, Overcaptain."

Unfortunately this seemed to be the end of the first spread of Dark Matter warheads, so the Damalgian fleet changed direction to move "Galactic Down" and Coreward, back towards the star system it had claimed for itself, and doing its best to avoid the black holes which were now sufficiently massive to prove a real danger to the fleet were it ever to approach them.

"Fire again on the fleet," Silithas said. "They evidently haven't learned."

"Sir, the amount of contacts has increased by a large percentage," the XO said. "It is likely that they have been reinforced."

"That, or they're using drones. Target every warship with life signs onboard."

(The Damalgians, in their search for organic matter, have managed to develop fairly sophisticated technologies for finding life signs. The only way for decoys to imitate life signs is by having people on board, which rather defeats the point.)

The sixth and seventh volleys of missiles were fired. And the Damalgians reloaded, this time from the fleet's arsenal ships. They didn't have much variety in terms of weapons, but they did have firepower, which is far more important.

There was in fact an FTL trail -- there always is, even if the travel itself does not leave traces. The arrival or disappearance of something as massive as a ship in a realspace location creates resonances or "ripples" which, analyzed by probes, can yield a surprising amount of information. A sufficiently advanced probe can tell between hundreds of different transport methods and identify the class of ship and whether its weapons were armed, from two light-years away. The Damalgians' probes were nowhere near so advanced, but they had arrived in-system when the now-grounded thalia had called for aid, and over the next half an hour -- while the Captain talked with Paul of the Quincy Adams and the Union's rocks began to drain shields -- more probes had been deployed in an ever-expanding perimeter around the system, moving on when their scans of a particular star system or area yielded nothing. The resonances grew fainter as time wore on, but patterns matching Tesseract Windows or similar technologies were nonetheless found in numerous worlds and areas, where ships arrived or left -- presumably individual ships, as the resonances were not as strong as those left by a fleet. The deployment of the other two fleets created a much easier-to-track ripple, zeroing probes in on a single area of space a few light-years in volume, where the fleet had apparently originated (although it just as easily could have come from another area the same distance away in the opposite direction).

OOC: Gravitational Ripples tend to die off after 300 ly. And the LMC is over 175,000 ly away from the closest part of the MW. And we are several hundred ly into the cloud. So while you have detected those inside the MW, trying to detect something in the LMC, with black holes between there and here, is going to be extremely difficult.

In short, there was a strong possibility that the Damalgians did in fact know the location of the TAP'ian homeworld. They also knew the locations of three or four thousand other worlds where use of similar transport methods were common. Now it remained to find out which one, hence the research already alluded to.

"Oh, don't be silly," Silithas answered. "We never die. We're too pretty to die."

It would be a few more seconds before the enemy fleet was in range for their weapons to be useful. Here, the Damalgians could easily dodge or countermeasure most of their weapons, with the exception of some of the more powerful tachyon cannons (which, so far, had been causing most of the casualties). Shields were suboptimal, although increasing from a low of 62% overall; however, FTLi was holding, and in fact power had been increased thanks to the reinforcements, which in theory should block off even methods of transport like universal translocation.

Theory, however, didn't mean practice. Many of the Horizon Devices were unable to translocate at that exact location, due to the presence of the FTLi. But so many attempts at once overloaded the system, and numerous of the devices got through; Silithas recognized them after a moment, and recalling the damage they had dealt to his fleet earlier, moved his ships "up" and out of the way. The warheads that emerged, however, were not the nuclear warheads he'd expected, but something entirely different. He watched in some fascination as debris and gases began to spiral inwards towards the points of explosion, even as the Damalgian fleet continued to get farther from the site, traveling z+wards (or "Galactic Up") at several times lightspeed and more Devices continued to follow its path, exploding into singularities at points that, by the time they did, were a good deal away from both the Damalgian fleet and the other singularities. Each individual spread of warheads seemed to be amalgamating itself into a single larger black hole, sufficiently powerful to draw in at least shield drones (as Silithas soon discovered).

"Well, isn't that interesting," he said to no one in particular. "Harvester Five, the next time one of those devices comes through, get it in a holding beam. Don't let it activate its payload. Beam it in and tell me what's inside."

"You got it, Overcaptain."

Unfortunately this seemed to be the end of the first spread of Dark Matter warheads, so the Damalgian fleet changed direction to move "Galactic Down" and Coreward, back towards the star system it had claimed for itself, and doing its best to avoid the black holes which were now sufficiently massive to prove a real danger to the fleet were it ever to approach them.

"Fire again on the fleet," Silithas said. "They evidently haven't learned."

"Sir, the amount of contacts has increased by a large percentage," the XO said. "It is likely that they have been reinforced."

"That, or they're using drones. Target every warship with life signs onboard."

(The Damalgians, in their search for organic matter, have managed to develop fairly sophisticated technologies for finding life signs. The only way for decoys to imitate life signs is by having people on board, which rather defeats the point.)

The sixth and seventh volleys of missiles were fired. And the Damalgians reloaded, this time from the fleet's arsenal ships. They didn't have much variety in terms of weapons, but they did have firepower, which is far more important.

OOC: Doesn't mean they can't fox the sensors somewhat

IC:
The missiles slammed into the Frigates and Corvettes of the fleet. Destroyers and Cruisers where being worn down, and the Decoy Drones could only do so much.

More and more damage was being done to the fleet. But they continued onwards.

More shield drones where pushed to the fore, with FTLi drones joining them.

And then, the ships slowed down, and moved at .6c.

They went under the radar, and continued to move closer, their Reman Cloaking Devices hiding them as they came ever close at just under the speed at which they would be easily detected.

OOC: You crazy tech people!

IC:

The few hundred missiles actually were deflected by the shields the Ziolisians had already put up around themselves, it formed a EMP bubble in hyperspace and realspace that disrupted the missiles targeting systems, so they went haywire and scattered in every direction but the ships. The MD rounds that did get through were quickly neutralized by the point defense systems of the corvette.

Meanwhile the two fleet AI's were communicating to each other.

<<I was not aware there were any fleets around our position>>
<<Kairo, do not underestimate the MC30 scanners, we saw the weapons fire as it began from a long way away. We just had to route through our warpgate>>
<<Ok Takira, but are any reinforcements coming?>>
<<Yes, two Concord Battleships (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i1918-Concord-Army-Battleship-details.html) are approaching.>>
<<Wonderful, I will tell the Brigadier General.>>

"BG, we have 2 Concord Battleships warping in through the warp gate."
"Good we need the power of those CEDT (Concentrated Energy Discharge Turrets)."
"In the meanwhile Kairo, tell those MC30s to fire."
"Will do."

<<Takira! Tell the MC30s to fire the Abyss missiles.>>
<<Firing in 3 Kairo>>
-----------------------------------------------------
Two Abyss class missiles slipped out of each MC30 and hyperspaced off to the enemy ships control centers.

The missiles were equipped with Mark III Energy Burrows, the missiles when hit by an FTLi bubble they "drilled" through by shooting ions through the bubble, creating a small hole through which the missiles could slip through.

OOC: Expect to see EVE Online ships appearing since I love to play EVE.

OOC: Ziolis: Allow me to acquaint you with a futuristic device known as a Faraday cage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) which Damalgians (and, one would assume, most other space navies) use as a preemptive countermeasure, considering that everyone and their dog uses nukes or energy weapons in space. EMP won't be very useful against the missiles.

TAP: Yeah. It might take a long time for the Damalgians to find your homeworld; however, if they really want to -- Silithas has a policy of gaining the ability to make good on his empty threats within a fixed time limit -- they will be able to eventually find it, plus a large number of other inhabited worlds using similar technologies, TAP'ian space patrols in the Milky Way, and practically anything else they might come across that would be useful. I'm not sure if I'll have them actually undertake an extended search, as opposed to, say, quietly attaching a probe to the underside of one of your hulls just before they leave the system and picking up everything it tells them before it's destroyed (which might not work in any case).

"The enemy fleet is slowing down..... hmmm. It seems to have disappeared into a patch of interference. It's becoming hard to get locks on."

Silithas sighed. "Obviously it's gearing up for what it thinks is a stealth attack. Take us out [another few light-minutes] and let's see what we can do."

"Something's interfering with the hyperspace beacons," the XO said. "I'll have the interdictors increase power.... There we go."

The interdictors had now cut almost all power to the weapons and their shields were relatively low. This was probably bad, but they had a more important function, and shield drones were still available to replenish them. The fleet jumped out another few light-minutes (its path of late had been taking it back into the system proper, and this jump took it even closer to the planet), leaving behind numerous sensor probes, and Silithas got on the neural comlink to the battlestations.

"Can you see your antimatter slugs?"

"Sir?"

"The antimatter slugs you fired about half a minute ago."

"Uhm..... We've returned to active guidance, sir. We were trying to maintain them in an orbit around their target starships, searching for weak points in their deflection fields."

"Cut the Treknobabble, ok? Here, hyperspace them out to these coordinates--" he mentally transmitted the coordinates of the largest Ziolisian ships "--to detonate. Fire a few conventionals at the big fleet."

"Where on the big fleet?"

"Anywhere, doesn't matter really."

The artillery guns swiveled again -- ten on each of the five battlestations -- and fifty high-explosive rounds emerged at very, very high speeds. Attached to the tail of each one was a small whitish device that had possibly a more important purpose in the effectiveness of the weapon than its large payload. The devices sought to fool sensors by mimicking common mechanical anomalies, greatly lowering the amount of heat and energy given off by the shells, and playing havoc with sensors that functioned by looking for gamma or X rays. However, unless shields on the target vessel were very weak, the rounds would not destroy anything. That wasn't their purpose.

They had been designed for surface bombardment, and came complete with penetration warheads and various types of explosive payloads, ranging from standard explosives to incendiaries to neutron radiation; but when they hit enemy shields, the resulting reactions would indicate to Damalgian sensors the locations of ships (as opposed to decoys) and, perhaps, give them some idea what the enemy was doing. The sensor probes now englobing the enemy fleet would provide even more information.

As the Overcaptain watched the shells streak off into the void, he saw a few explosions against a warship's shields, then watched it explode. (The Damalgian vessels barely moved to avoid it; harvesters collected the debris, as they had been doing with most of the other vessels blown up so far.) Without moving from his position or turning to look at his XO he asked her: "What was that, Number One?"

She manipulated the Damalgian equivalent of a computer with a few appendages. "Er.... some FTL missiles got through interdiction," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Not Damalgian, by their FTLi disrupting pattern."

"Good. See that it doesn't happen again. They came from the little fleet?"

"Yes."

"Target them with a small volley then. Maybe seven, eight thousand missiles. And get me the Damalgian-[Galactic Basic] translator fixed up if any of the ships survive."

"Right."

TAP: Yeah. It might take a long time for the Damalgians to find your homeworld; however, if they really want to -- Silithas has a policy of gaining the ability to make good on his empty threats within a fixed time limit -- they will be able to eventually find it, plus a large number of other inhabited worlds using similar technologies, TAP'ian space patrols in the Milky Way, and practically anything else they might come across that would be useful. I'm not sure if I'll have them actually undertake an extended search, as opposed to, say, quietly attaching a probe to the underside of one of your hulls just before they leave the system and picking up everything it tells them before it's destroyed (which might not work in any case).

And I am telling you that the probe would be the only way, and then you would have to pass through the Tarantula Nebula, and it puts out all kinds of weird rads that affect FTL travel...

How big is your FTLi barrier?

"The enemy fleet is slowing down..... hmmm. It seems to have disappeared into a patch of interference. It's becoming hard to get locks on."

Silithas sighed. "Obviously it's gearing up for what it thinks is a stealth attack. Take us out [another few light-minutes] and let's see what we can do."

"Something's interfering with the hyperspace beacons," the XO said. "I'll have the interdictors increase power.... There we go."

The interdictors had now cut almost all power to the weapons and their shields were relatively low. This was probably bad, but they had a more important function, and shield drones were still available to replenish them. The fleet jumped out another few light-minutes (its path of late had been taking it back into the system proper, and this jump took it even closer to the planet), leaving behind numerous sensor probes, and Silithas got on the neural comlink to the battlestations.

"Can you see your antimatter slugs?"

"Sir?"

"The antimatter slugs you fired about half a minute ago."

"Uhm..... We've returned to active guidance, sir. We were trying to maintain them in an orbit around their target starships, searching for weak points in their deflection fields."

"Cut the Treknobabble, ok? Here, hyperspace them out to these coordinates--" he mentally transmitted the coordinates of the largest Ziolisian ships "--to detonate. Fire a few conventionals at the big fleet."

"Where on the big fleet?"

"Anywhere, doesn't matter really."

The artillery guns swiveled again -- ten on each of the five battlestations -- and fifty high-explosive rounds emerged at very, very high speeds. Attached to the tail of each one was a small whitish device that had possibly a more important purpose in the effectiveness of the weapon than its large payload. The devices sought to fool sensors by mimicking common mechanical anomalies, greatly lowering the amount of heat and energy given off by the shells, and playing havoc with sensors that functioned by looking for gamma or X rays. However, unless shields on the target vessel were very weak, the rounds would not destroy anything. That wasn't their purpose.

They had been designed for surface bombardment, and came complete with penetration warheads and various types of explosive payloads, ranging from standard explosives to incendiaries to neutron radiation; but when they hit enemy shields, the resulting reactions would indicate to Damalgian sensors the locations of ships (as opposed to decoys) and, perhaps, give them some idea what the enemy was doing. The sensor probes now englobing the enemy fleet would provide even more information.

As the Overcaptain watched the shells streak off into the void, he saw a few explosions against a warship's shields, then watched it explode. (The Damalgian vessels barely moved to avoid it; harvesters collected the debris, as they had been doing with most of the other vessels blown up so far.) Without moving from his position or turning to look at his XO he asked her: "What was that, Number One?"

She manipulated the Damalgian equivalent of a computer with a few appendages. "Er.... some FTL missiles got through interdiction," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Not Damalgian, by their FTLi disrupting pattern."

"Good. See that it doesn't happen again. They came from the little fleet?"

"Yes."

"Target them with a small volley then. Maybe seven, eight thousand missiles. And get me the Damalgian-[Galactic Basic] translator fixed up if any of the ships survive."

"Right."

(OOC: Gotta love Null Mass Thrusters)

The fleet went Interphase, and and used their Null Mass Thrusters to move instantly form one direction to another.

The shells passed through the ships, creeping out the crews as they did so, and continued on.

The ships of the fleet also passed through the sensor drones, and kept going.

They moved at just under the detection threshold, and continued forward, set to reach the Tenurian Fleet in a couple hours.

Meanwhile, the Xavier Institute's Ship arrived.

It was very stylish, designed more as a pleasure craft than a war one, but it was chock full of psychics, and all of them where connected to Cerebra's.

Xavier was at the center of the group, with Rachel Summers, Jean Grey-Summers, Emma Frost, Absolon Mercator, Nate Grey, the Five-in-One Stepford Cuckoos, Astrid Bloom, and a host of other telepaths as they all focused on various members of the enemy fleet.

They had one goal, fool the Damalgians into firing on each other.

They worked their way to the sensory organs, as Forge, Cable, and a small number of other Technopaths made a concentrated effort (supported by Cerebra's of their own) to trick the enemy sensors into showing that the other Damalgian Ships where firing on each other.

They focused on fleet divisions, and used their mutant powers to try and fool the Union into thinking that the two groups where firing on each other.

OOC: Meh. I shouldn't be arguing with you about this. Laishk and the Union core system is also quite hard to find, for all kinds of reasons, so I'll let it go.

Suffice it to say that we will make at least a concerted effort to find out more about the TAP home system, until we get bored with it, or until we capture a TAP'ian and force the information out of his mind with scary looking machines <.< did I say that out loud?

As for the FTLi barrier, the fleet's is located about 1.5 AU out in all directions around the fleet, although use of interdiction drones can extend this (unfortunately many such drones were destroyed in the battles, due to shrapnel traveling at 0.75c and suchlike). That's more or less where your fleet will probably have to revert to realspace, even though it's not technically traveling faster than light. I'm not really sure, actually. It's one of those things. I'm not sure what a Null Mass Thruster does, but I'm assuming interphase is another kind of overlay space, as opposed to, say, a phase in cell division.

The sensor probes continued to move along with the fleet, being essentially in orbit around it (or around whatever interference there was in the area: they had been linked to "that weird patch over there", although the laws of physics indicated that they would continue to follow the ships even if they decloaked). They knew there were ships somewhere in the area. But the objects they returned were insufficient for firing solutions, too insubstantial; there was too much jamming in the way. The Damalgians had to dissipate it to get a clear shot at the enemy ships.

The shells, meanwhile, failed to hit any targets. Almost as though there were no targets. Instead all fifty simply targeted the nearest outside object, which happened to be the Xavier Institute's ship, newly arrived in the system, and which was less than a second away at their speeds.

As for the Damalgian Fleets, the two main fleets (Silithas's and Dal'githor's) had amalgamated well. This was mostly because Silithas had simply placed both of them under his personal command, and fleet movements had ensured that they were inextricably intertwined. Any thoughts of controlling the fleet through Silithas would vanish upon finding his mind, as well, which was like a sphere: apparently so self-absorbed and bullheadedly stubborn that nothing could penetrate it, a mind that saw only itself whatever direction it turned. The lesser captains and officers were more susceptible, with some exceptions, so they were more easily taken in by the belief that the other fleet was firing upon them.

The information only reached Silithas through the comlink. "Overcaptain. Dal'githor has betrayed us!"

"Why? What've they done, landed the bar tab on us?"

"No, Overcaptain. They are firing secondary batteries. They are attacking us!"

"That's nonsense, man. I can see both of you and nobody's firing anything. What, you think just because the enemy forces aren't attacking us anymore, Thor's gonna flip? Hang on, I've got an incoming."

The incoming was Dal'githor's Overcaptain himself. "What is the meaning of this, Silithas?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Why have you fired upon us? I thought you said we'd get a piece of this world once we'd won!"

"Wha--? They're fucking with your sensors, Thor. I'm not firing and nobody else is, either. In fact my other ships seem to think you're attacking them. It's some kind of interference."

"Oh?"

"Look here, Thor, if I were firing on you, you'd be dead and recycled. You wouldn't still be talking to me. Fleetwide announcement time."

[Fleetwide announcement:] "All right! Listen up, everyone. Looks like the enemy fleet buggered off and left us here with some interference. If it looks like any Damalgian ship is attacking you, well, it's not. Union 355, you heard me, power down that plasma battery or you're going to be reduced to slag, y'hear? So basically, we've won, they tried a last ditch full on charge and now they're down to their last tactics -- making us think we're shooting each other. Next they'll try flying Damalgian flags to fool us into thinking they're Union ships, I'll bet. Now don't celebrate just yet -- we still have work to do. There's another little fleet in system, plus Gesthik'tka, and if we want it we have to wipe them both off the map, which we should be able to do with our main stalks cut off. Come on."

And the Damalgian Fleet disappeared. More accurately, they hyperspaced, and they hyperspaced directly to the habitable world Gesthik'tka had taken over. The fleet and its widely spaced position formed a second planetary ring around the world, except it was more of a planetary sphere, as space is 3-D. The Kewenic fleet was also within perhaps a light-minute, definitely within weapons range for both sides, and Silithas sent the commander a message in Damalgian Standard as the fleet aligned itself.

"Look, I know this is your preserve, and you probably care a lot about it, blah blah blah. You're seriously outnumbered, and with the kind of beating that fleet we were fighting earlier received, you people don't stand a chance. And really, how did you get the preserve? Presumably, you took it from a species weaker than yourselves -- the ones living on the surface, right? So that's just what we're doing now to you. No hard feelings or anything. But leave this system now, or you're gonna die."

Meanwhile, the battlestations charged up their surface bombardment weapons. Target: the shield dome. The Overcaptain didn't feel Gesthik'tka was worth talking to.

OOC: I figured, for a grand finale, it only makes sense to go back to where this whole mess started. ^.^

OOC: Meh. I shouldn't be arguing with you about this. Laishk and the Union core system is also quite hard to find, for all kinds of reasons, so I'll let it go.

Suffice it to say that we will make at least a concerted effort to find out more about the TAP home system, until we get bored with it, or until we capture a TAP'ian and force the information out of his mind with scary looking machines <.< did I say that out loud?

As for the FTLi barrier, the fleet's is located about 1.5 AU out in all directions around the fleet, although use of interdiction drones can extend this (unfortunately many such drones were destroyed in the battles, due to shrapnel traveling at 0.75c and suchlike). That's more or less where your fleet will probably have to revert to realspace, even though it's not technically traveling faster than light. I'm not really sure, actually. It's one of those things. I'm not sure what a Null Mass Thruster does, but I'm assuming interphase is another kind of overlay space, as opposed to, say, a phase in cell division.

Null Mass makes it so that there is no mass. It is as if there is nothing there, gravity wise. It allows for uber-fast acceleration without inertial damage to the crew or equipment.

Interphase is what I used earlier to drop into M-Space, and avoid your FTLi systems by skipping over them.

The sensor probes continued to move along with the fleet, being essentially in orbit around it (or around whatever interference there was in the area: they had been linked to "that weird patch over there", although the laws of physics indicated that they would continue to follow the ships even if they decloaked). They knew there were ships somewhere in the area. But the objects they returned were insufficient for firing solutions, too insubstantial; there was too much jamming in the way. The Damalgians had to dissipate it to get a clear shot at the enemy ships.

The shells, meanwhile, failed to hit any targets. Almost as though there were no targets. Instead all fifty simply targeted the nearest outside object, which happened to be the Xavier Institute's ship, newly arrived in the system, and which was less than a second away at their speeds.

As for the Damalgian Fleets, the two main fleets (Silithas's and Dal'githor's) had amalgamated well. This was mostly because Silithas had simply placed both of them under his personal command, and fleet movements had ensured that they were inextricably intertwined. Any thoughts of controlling the fleet through Silithas would vanish upon finding his mind, as well, which was like a sphere: apparently so self-absorbed and bullheadedly stubborn that nothing could penetrate it, a mind that saw only itself whatever direction it turned. The lesser captains and officers were more susceptible, with some exceptions, so they were more easily taken in by the belief that the other fleet was firing upon them.

The information only reached Silithas through the comlink. "Overcaptain. Dal'githor has betrayed us!"

"Why? What've they done, landed the bar tab on us?"

"No, Overcaptain. They are firing secondary batteries. They are attacking us!"

"That's nonsense, man. I can see both of you and nobody's firing anything. What, you think just because the enemy forces aren't attacking us anymore, Thor's gonna flip? Hang on, I've got an incoming."

The incoming was Dal'githor's Overcaptain himself. "What is the meaning of this, Silithas?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Why have you fired upon us? I thought you said we'd get a piece of this world once we'd won!"

"Wha--? They're fucking with your sensors, Thor. I'm not firing and nobody else is, either. In fact my other ships seem to think you're attacking them. It's some kind of interference."

"Oh?"

"Look here, Thor, if I were firing on you, you'd be dead and recycled. You wouldn't still be talking to me. Fleetwide announcement time."

[Fleetwide announcement:] "All right! Listen up, everyone. Looks like the enemy fleet buggered off and left us here with some interference. If it looks like any Damalgian ship is attacking you, well, it's not. Union 355, you heard me, power down that plasma battery or you're going to be reduced to slag, y'hear? So basically, we've won, they tried a last ditch full on charge and now they're down to their last tactics -- making us think we're shooting each other. Next they'll try flying Damalgian flags to fool us into thinking they're Union ships, I'll bet. Now don't celebrate just yet -- we still have work to do. There's another little fleet in system, plus Gesthik'tka, and if we want it we have to wipe them both off the map, which we should be able to do with our main stalks cut off. Come on."

And the Damalgian Fleet disappeared. More accurately, they hyperspaced, and they hyperspaced directly to the habitable world Gesthik'tka had taken over. The fleet and its widely spaced position formed a second planetary ring around the world, except it was more of a planetary sphere, as space is 3-D. The Kewenic fleet was also within perhaps a light-minute, definitely within weapons range for both sides, and Silithas sent the commander a message in Damalgian Standard as the fleet aligned itself.

"Look, I know this is your preserve, and you probably care a lot about it, blah blah blah. You're seriously outnumbered, and with the kind of beating that fleet we were fighting earlier received, you people don't stand a chance. And really, how did you get the preserve? Presumably, you took it from a species weaker than yourselves -- the ones living on the surface, right? So that's just what we're doing now to you. No hard feelings or anything. But leave this system now, or you're gonna die."

Meanwhile, the battlestations charged up their surface bombardment weapons. Target: the shield dome. The Overcaptain didn't feel Gesthik'tka was worth talking to.

OOC: I figured, for a grand finale, it only makes sense to go back to where this whole mess started. ^.^

The xavier insititute ships phased, but not fast enough. It's engines where blasted to hell and gone, leaving it dead in space. But the ships wasn't gone.

Angered, Jean and Rachel left the ship, the full effects of the Phoenix Force coming to bear.

In the ship, Xavier and Emma decided to focus on the commander, and trick him into seeing what the Damalgians would fear most.

It would be mere seconds before the two incarnations of life itself would arrive, and spread their wings over the enemy fleet.

As they came, they hooked the TAP'ian fleet, and brought them along for the ride.

OOC: Gotta love those two!

OOC: Damalgians and their crazy love of wiki tech!

IC:

The Damalgian missiles got through and decimated 3 of the Crusaders and damaged a MC30, destroying the weapons control center and the engines.

Just as that happened, 2 Concord Battleships warped right into the middle of the Ziolisian fleet.

3-way AI Comm.

<<See Kairo I told you they would come!>>
<<Takira, shut your digital mouth!>>
<<This is Kronos, what's going on?>>
<<A battle basically.>>
<<Takira didn't I tell you to shut up? Anyway tell your ships to hyperspace near the Damalgians again.>>
<<Will do.>>

The now 9 ship fleet warped just at the edge of the FTLi bubble. The remaining capable MC30 released missiles but this time right at the edge so they would have little time to destroy them if before they got through.

The Concords being the heavily armored ships of the fleet piloted straight through the bubble and began firing with MD rounds and Ion rounds.

The Corvettes meanwhile were deploying interdiction shields from their miniature gravity well generators.

OOC: Didn't I just make it clear that an EMP bubble will not stop any Damalgian missiles? *sigh* Not to mention, 733 MT is enough to destroy New York City many times over. How much larger is your corvette than New York City?

Also, waiting for Kewen, on two fronts. When he shows up, I'll post for real.

OOC: Gah! Shiite Muslim! Changing Post.....

ooc: Awe crap, Tenuria, fleet size pl0x.
IC:

The Kewen were outnumbered, no denying that at this moment in time, keyword this moment in time, the scale of the battle had been told across the empire, and parts of almost every fleet from every near system and fleet were inbound, two very special ships were inbound two, the first was the "Stubborn Watcher" A Battlecube, quite possible a uninteresting, and very lame vessel, if not for the fact it was a solid cube with faces of 4km by 4km, titanic big and mean, it sported its own fleet sized arnmanet.

The second ship, was infinatly smaller, it was barely a ship, a small shuttle barely twenty five meters long, the ship itself wasnt that special, but what it carried was...

The Kewen fleet, hit the one hundred and fifty mark, as another lot of ships seemed to just phase in with every passing second four or five new ships would simple appear in or around the fleet, at random intervals.

So far, twenty five Crusiers, seventy destroyers fifty five frigates were assembled, with more incoming if they were all assembled at one moment in time it would amount to about four hundred ships.

----

Bere, breifly paid head to a small alarm, chirping from what looked like a watch on one of his many appendages, " Payment, fory ou use of this planet is not much, all we ask and require is knowledge, fully 25% of all information you posses, be it on your own race or others minor events history, we want it, and also information on how to deal with your brothers" He pointed up.

----

The Dalmagian fleet, would find orbiting the planet to be highly stupid, as the first wave of the planets defense systems came online, many millions of small grenade like explosives, barely the size of your fist packing a small amount of antimatter, these could be made by the millions, and indeed were, like a space mine of sorts.

The began to De-phase, not fully in the Maze, but not fully out of it, the Dalamagian fleet, would soon find on its hand almost a billion little tiny antimater grenades, which honestly werent expected to do much.

----
The Kewenic reply was thus, in the Dalmagians own language.
"We did not take the planet from the inhabitants below, if you had bothered in your arrogance to examine our statements, and the planets, you would find only a single installation from us you could see, we do not wish to industriliase this planet, nor consume it, but to keep it intact for the coming of the final age."

Across the fleet, a paltry fifteen crusiers, extended the forward barrels, and balls of bright red death began to form at the tips.


---- OOC: ORBAT ---- GENERAL OVERVEIW ----
twenty five Crusiers--- 1.25km, big mean, carries a massive plasma cannon. :
seventy destroyers -- bout 750m long, heavily armed n armoured
fifty five frigates -- Small, about 125Meters, lightly armour packs a surprise
Battle Cube -- Huge, powerful and mounts railguns which fire slugs the size of frigates. :D
1 Shuttle: unarmed un armoured.

350 Reinforcementsm to arrive soonish and in the next 2-3 posts.
50 more crusiers
250 more frigates
50 destroyers


aaaand sorry for the late post, heh maybe we could have a land battle too :P

OOC: Lol Kewen those cruisers sounded like my dead Ares either that or im sofa king wee todded!

IC:

As soon as the Brigadier General saw the Kewenic fleet phasing in reinforcements he ordered for 2 dozen Manticore Stealth Bombers (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i12032-Manticore-details.html), One Orca-Industrial Ship (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i28606-Orca-details.html), 4 Heretic Interdictors (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i22452-Heretic-details.html), and One Leviathan Titan-Ship (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i3764-Leviathan-details.html). The new ships would arrive as soon as the Warpgates had time to channel these ships in.

OOC:

Meh everybody has moar ships than me. Also they should arrive in 1-3 post depending on what happens next.

OOC: Fleet size was about 515-525 ships when the reinforcements arrived, 425 warships or armed interdictors and 90-100 other ships. By now it's probably down to about 375 warships and 80 other ships due to TAP's attacks, so we'll say 455 ships total -- could be a bit less, I haven't fully calculated damages. FTLi means any reinforcements starting from the fleet's arrival in orbit will have to come in around the long way, from about 1.5 AU out, so we will be able to see your ships coming from a ways away. Ships will not just be able to phase in anymore.

A land battle would be fun. Unfortunately, Silithas didn't think to bring any infantry with him (because he's never lost a space battle! The times he had to retreat in dishonour having lost 99% of his fleet and failed to meet his objective? "Short-term tactical withdrawal", "sometimes you have to take a step back to make two steps forward."), but maybe next time.

Also TAP, how many ships do you have left, and how fast are they traveling now?

"Two large life-forms are approaching our fleet," the XO informed Silithas.

"Life-forms? Oh, like jk'anthxyitliou.* Well, we could use more fuel. Harvesters, get them in holding beams please."

The holding beams locked and caught the two life-forms, immobilizing them. Spaceborne organic creatures were an uncommon food for the Damalgians, but it was better than nothing. Then the two life-forms dissolved and reappeared inside the harvesters.

The Damalgians had never mastered transport beams, hence why they had to take shuttles to get to the surface of a world. They could reduce an object to its constituent fundamental particles and stream those to another location, but while they could rebuild the object, they couldn't reproduce its consciousness or its life-energies. As a result, transport beams killed any living things caught up in them, preventing practical use for the average Damalgian. Of course, when you're harvesting a jk'anthxyitlin, you don't want its flippers whacking the techs in the harvester to death, so it wouldn't have made much sense anyway.

Silithas didn't particularly care about these new life-forms. In some ways his self-absorption was both a strength and a weakness. A strength, because mental efforts couldn't break through it easily; they could explore the personality, but they couldn't affect it. A weakness, because he was thus rendered incapable of detecting any amount of such mental intrusion: it seemed that he couldn't wrap his brain around the idea that other people might have minds and independent thoughts, rather than just being scenery designed to obey his orders. The psychics might be surprised to find that below the appearance of arrogance, flippancy, and nonchalance lay cold and ruthless calculation and his knowledge that despite his statements to the contrary, the TAP'ian fleet was still out there; or they might not. They might be shocked at the mind's total inhumanity, or they might be more shocked to find how similar it was to the minds of some humans they'd encountered.

But the strengthened psychic presence in Silithas's mind was powerful enough to spill over to those close to him, and especially those neurally linked to him. Closest of these was his XO, who -- if she was worth a glance from the psychics -- might be seen as far more reasonable, self-conscious, psychically sensitive, but most importantly vulnerable, than her superior.

She felt their presence, if Silithas did not; only faintly, of course, since she was not their primary target. She seemed about to say something about it. But Silithas didn't believe in psychics. He thought telepathy was a load of rubbish (even though he used a neural comlink to communicate; go figure) and didn't think it possible for minds to affect each other, again mostly because he didn't seem to believe anyone but him actually had a mind. So she quietly gave the order to a single Science Vessel inconspicuous among the fleet's ships.

"Union 1069? Have you studied much psionics in your time with the Union?"

"Somewhat, yes. We have encountered some civilizations who navigate via mental energies."

"Good. If you were worried about some of their ships showing up in this system now, how would you go about looking for them?"

"Well, we'd start on FTL scans for gamma-ray and gravity ripples, move on to closer scans on the infrared and light spectra.... Oh. This is a question about psionics, isn't it, ma'am."

"Yes. Yes it is. Assuming their ships were cloaked, for instance."

"I'll get the data and run some scans." There were the sounds of computers working. "We'd look for psionic emissions, like so - ooohhhhhhhh....."

If the XO had had a face, it would have held a self-satisfied smile. "Thank you. Get Union 57 the targeting data and have it fire a few missiles."

"How did you know, ma'am? That would not have been my first guess for a new attacker. It's like--"

She cut out of the comms as Silithas became aware of her. "Number One? What are you doing?"

"Nothing, sir. Nothing important."

"Good."

A small number of missiles emerged from hyperspace within the now-crippled ship. The XO had made sure the orders reached Union 57 before there was any chance of them being recalled via psychic influence; an enemy that could read and affect minds could be the ruin of the Damalgian fleet far more than any weapon in common use, if it used its abilities aggressively, so any orders had to be given before your own thoughts could be turned against your will.

While the XO performed this search, Silithas received the return message, and began to pick up Kewenic and Ziolis ships arriving at the edge of his FTLi field. They were arriving from opposite directions, that being the only way he could differentiate between them; that and the Ziolis ships were firing weapons while the Kewenic ships weren't. He was composing a strategy for these two, plus Gesthik'tka, even though -- unbeknownst to him -- the last was about to prove it was not worth underestimating.

"All right," he said after a few moments, now on comms to the whole fleet. "Obliterate [the Ziolis ships]. Fire a small-medium burst at [the Kewenic fleet]. Battlestations, engage the shield-dome. Let's play this game."

Only a few warships engaged the Ziolis ships; but they did with their complete firepower. Plasma batteries of several types, the hyperspace missiles we have already encountered, and hyperspace-capable projectile weapons, which would phase into hyperspace upon encountering any realspace barriers and then back into realspace once their hyperspace engines ran out of fuel. All of these but the missiles were fairly short-range weapons, but then, the enemy ships were fairly close.

Most of the remainder fired a "small-medium" burst -- about 18000 missiles -- at the Kewenic fleet. That was over a hundred missiles for every ship in the fleet; complete with shield-drainers and interdiction bypass missiles, it should have been more than enough to overwhelm shields and FTLi through sheer force of numbers and reduce most of the enemy ships to floating debris. Silithas fired it mostly to see how they'd react, and whether he'd have to increase his missile count to deal with them in the future; he also wanted to save his missiles for the TAP'ians, as he suspected they were still out there somewhere.

The battlestations fired upon the shield-dome, with massive slugs of explosives slamming against it in blinding and deafening displays. But also worth noting were the rocks, which had come into play again; this time hyperspace-thrown onto the surface of the world and resembling just about any other rock. They were draining the shield-dome's power as well. Under both assaults, Gesthik'tka's time on the planet had been reduced to less than an hour. However, Gesthik'tka was not the only thing they attacked. Knowing that the Kewenites had a headquarters somewhere on the planet, they also fired shells at any building they could see, or anything that looked like it could conceal a building. And with the yield of the shells, there was a lot of collateral damage. Pillars of smoke erected themselves through the atmosphere wherever a shell hit home, with all life and greenery around the crater wiped out, dust thrown into the atmosphere, rivers polluted, et cetera. Naturally, Silithas didn't care so much about the planet anymore as he did about winning.

----------------------------------------------------

The Captain visibly "winced" at the first impact from above. "Oh, that is simple. Information we possess much of, many banks full, within the colony ships; almost eight thousand years of spacefaring history, and millions of years of prehistory and scientific studies going back to the dawn of life on Homeworld.** And as for information on how to defeat the Union, well.... it is by far more technologically advanced than any nation*** and its weapons are designed to be the ultimate in warfare, but this is also its primary weakness. It believes itself superior to all others." He indicated a harvester with what Bere would find the closest analogue to be a laser pointer.

"That harvester has just finished constructing two hundred examples of a weapon designed to exterminate life, a weapon which can only be used in good conscience in a closed system such as a warship, as used on a planet it would wind up cleansing it of any habitation. Two hundred canisters is not enough to destroy the Union's fleet, only a part of it, but it is enough to make them leave; for losing so many ships would indicate to them that they are fallible, and if they can lose to only twenty ships, they will reconsider coming back when we have fifty or seventy. Especially the person you are fighting -- he is Overcaptain of Silithas -- he does not believe it is physically possible for him to lose, or to die, and he has instilled that belief in his followers. Kill the leader and those who follow him, though they gain a new leader and a more powerful one, will never return."

The two hundred canisters slowly rose into the air, identifiable by the strange patterns of lead and iron that ran through the otherwise uniform surface, and then rocketed into the sky with a small sonic boom.

"We have many tactics, of course. The Union has developed countermeasures for all their own weapons in case any part of it secedes, and we have gained knowledge of some of them. Silithas the Union only keeps in favour because it has developed bypasses for the countermeasures; if it were to secede, and gain a large enough following, the Union would be at its mercy. But Silithas now, if it does not become a non-issue altogether through loss of its main stalk (i.e. the Overcaptain), will have suffered a serious political setback should it choose to leave or call for aid after receiving this attack, and those are the only two choices it will have if it wishes to maintain any kind of advantage. Come with me."

The Captain indicated what looked like a small lean-to, whence he had emerged. It was in fact the first structure to be constructed upon Gesthik'tka's new soil, and numerous mechanical devices too strange to describe -- robots of some description, obviously -- were moving about rapidly, evidently constructing something. Inside the shelter was a computer terminal linked to Gesthik'tka's main banks.

* "Space whales" to a human.
** It would be inaccurate to call it "Damalgia" in Damalgian, as that's only the way the words sound in English. They don't have the special harmonics and untranscribable guitarlike sonority they do in the native language.
*** implied: "nation of Damalgians". Claiming it's more advanced than *any* nation would lead to snarky and completely accurate comments from someone like The Ctan.

OOC: Fleet size was about 515-525 ships when the reinforcements arrived, 425 warships or armed interdictors and 90-100 other ships. By now it's probably down to about 375 warships and 80 other ships due to TAP's attacks, so we'll say 455 ships total -- could be a bit less, I haven't fully calculated damages. FTLi means any reinforcements starting from the fleet's arrival in orbit will have to come in around the long way, from about 1.5 AU out, so we will be able to see your ships coming from a ways away. Ships will not just be able to phase in anymore.

A land battle would be fun. Unfortunately, Silithas didn't think to bring any infantry with him (because he's never lost a space battle! The times he had to retreat in dishonour having lost 99% of his fleet and failed to meet his objective? "Short-term tactical withdrawal", "sometimes you have to take a step back to make two steps forward."), but maybe next time.

Also TAP, how many ships do you have left, and how fast are they traveling now?

I have to check, but I am out of Corvettes and running low on Frigates

"Two large life-forms are approaching our fleet," the XO informed Silithas.

"Life-forms? Oh, like jk'anthxyitliou.* Well, we could use more fuel. Harvesters, get them in holding beams please."

The holding beams locked and caught the two life-forms, immobilizing them. Spaceborne organic creatures were an uncommon food for the Damalgians, but it was better than nothing. Then the two life-forms dissolved and reappeared inside the harvesters.

The Damalgians had never mastered transport beams, hence why they had to take shuttles to get to the surface of a world. They could reduce an object to its constituent fundamental particles and stream those to another location, but while they could rebuild the object, they couldn't reproduce its consciousness or its life-energies. As a result, transport beams killed any living things caught up in them, preventing practical use for the average Damalgian. Of course, when you're harvesting a jk'anthxyitlin, you don't want its flippers whacking the techs in the harvester to death, so it wouldn't have made much sense anyway.

Silithas didn't particularly care about these new life-forms. In some ways his self-absorption was both a strength and a weakness. A strength, because mental efforts couldn't break through it easily; they could explore the personality, but they couldn't affect it. A weakness, because he was thus rendered incapable of detecting any amount of such mental intrusion: it seemed that he couldn't wrap his brain around the idea that other people might have minds and independent thoughts, rather than just being scenery designed to obey his orders. The psychics might be surprised to find that below the appearance of arrogance, flippancy, and nonchalance lay cold and ruthless calculation and his knowledge that despite his statements to the contrary, the TAP'ian fleet was still out there; or they might not. They might be shocked at the mind's total inhumanity, or they might be more shocked to find how similar it was to the minds of some humans they'd encountered.

But the strengthened psychic presence in Silithas's mind was powerful enough to spill over to those close to him, and especially those neurally linked to him. Closest of these was his XO, who -- if she was worth a glance from the psychics -- might be seen as far more reasonable, self-conscious, psychically sensitive, but most importantly vulnerable, than her superior.

She felt their presence, if Silithas did not; only faintly, of course, since she was not their primary target. She seemed about to say something about it. But Silithas didn't believe in psychics. He thought telepathy was a load of rubbish (even though he used a neural comlink to communicate; go figure) and didn't think it possible for minds to affect each other, again mostly because he didn't seem to believe anyone but him actually had a mind. So she quietly gave the order to a single Science Vessel inconspicuous among the fleet's ships.

"Union 1069? Have you studied much psionics in your time with the Union?"

"Somewhat, yes. We have encountered some civilizations who navigate via mental energies."

"Good. If you were worried about some of their ships showing up in this system now, how would you go about looking for them?"

"Well, we'd start on FTL scans for gamma-ray and gravity ripples, move on to closer scans on the infrared and light spectra.... Oh. This is a question about psionics, isn't it, ma'am."

"Yes. Yes it is. Assuming their ships were cloaked, for instance."

"I'll get the data and run some scans." There were the sounds of computers working. "We'd look for psionic emissions, like so - ooohhhhhhhh....."

If the XO had had a face, it would have held a self-satisfied smile. "Thank you. Get Union 57 the targeting data and have it fire a few missiles."

"How did you know, ma'am? That would not have been my first guess for a new attacker. It's like--"

She cut out of the comms as Silithas became aware of her. "Number One? What are you doing?"

"Nothing, sir. Nothing important."

"Good."

A small number of missiles emerged from hyperspace within the now-crippled ship. The XO had made sure the orders reached Union 57 before there was any chance of them being recalled via psychic influence; an enemy that could read and affect minds could be the ruin of the Damalgian fleet far more than any weapon in common use, if it used its abilities aggressively, so any orders had to be given before your own thoughts could be turned against your will.

While the XO performed this search, Silithas received the return message, and began to pick up Kewenic and Ziolis ships arriving at the edge of his FTLi field. They were arriving from opposite directions, that being the only way he could differentiate between them; that and the Ziolis ships were firing weapons while the Kewenic ships weren't. He was composing a strategy for these two, plus Gesthik'tka, even though -- unbeknownst to him -- the last was about to prove it was not worth underestimating.

"All right," he said after a few moments, now on comms to the whole fleet. "Obliterate [the Ziolis ships]. Fire a small-medium burst at [the Kewenic fleet]. Battlestations, engage the shield-dome. Let's play this game."

Only a few warships engaged the Ziolis ships; but they did with their complete firepower. Plasma batteries of several types, the hyperspace missiles we have already encountered, and hyperspace-capable projectile weapons, which would phase into hyperspace upon encountering any realspace barriers and then back into realspace once their hyperspace engines ran out of fuel. All of these but the missiles were fairly short-range weapons, but then, the enemy ships were fairly close.

Most of the remainder fired a "small-medium" burst -- about 18000 missiles -- at the Kewenic fleet. That was over a hundred missiles for every ship in the fleet; complete with shield-drainers and interdiction bypass missiles, it should have been more than enough to overwhelm shields and FTLi through sheer force of numbers and reduce most of the enemy ships to floating debris. Silithas fired it mostly to see how they'd react, and whether he'd have to increase his missile count to deal with them in the future; he also wanted to save his missiles for the TAP'ians, as he suspected they were still out there somewhere.

The battlestations fired upon the shield-dome, with massive slugs of explosives slamming against it in blinding and deafening displays. But also worth noting were the rocks, which had come into play again; this time hyperspace-thrown onto the surface of the world and resembling just about any other rock. They were draining the shield-dome's power as well. Under both assaults, Gesthik'tka's time on the planet had been reduced to less than an hour. However, Gesthik'tka was not the only thing they attacked. Knowing that the Kewenites had a headquarters somewhere on the planet, they also fired shells at any building they could see, or anything that looked like it could conceal a building. And with the yield of the shells, there was a lot of collateral damage. Pillars of smoke erected themselves through the atmosphere wherever a shell hit home, with all life and greenery around the crater wiped out, dust thrown into the atmosphere, rivers polluted, et cetera. Naturally, Silithas didn't care so much about the planet anymore as he did about winning.

----------------------------------------------------

The Captain visibly "winced" at the first impact from above. "Oh, that is simple. Information we possess much of, many banks full, within the colony ships; almost eight thousand years of spacefaring history, and millions of years of prehistory and scientific studies going back to the dawn of life on Homeworld.** And as for information on how to defeat the Union, well.... it is by far more technologically advanced than any nation*** and its weapons are designed to be the ultimate in warfare, but this is also its primary weakness. It believes itself superior to all others." He indicated a harvester with what Bere would find the closest analogue to be a laser pointer.

"That harvester has just finished constructing two hundred examples of a weapon designed to exterminate life, a weapon which can only be used in good conscience in a closed system such as a warship, as used on a planet it would wind up cleansing it of any habitation. Two hundred canisters is not enough to destroy the Union's fleet, only a part of it, but it is enough to make them leave; for losing so many ships would indicate to them that they are fallible, and if they can lose to only twenty ships, they will reconsider coming back when we have fifty or seventy. Especially the person you are fighting -- he is Overcaptain of Silithas -- he does not believe it is physically possible for him to lose, or to die, and he has instilled that belief in his followers. Kill the leader and those who follow him, though they gain a new leader and a more powerful one, will never return."

The two hundred canisters slowly rose into the air, identifiable by the strange patterns of lead and iron that ran through the otherwise uniform surface, and then rocketed into the sky with a small sonic boom.

"We have many tactics, of course. The Union has developed countermeasures for all their own weapons in case any part of it secedes, and we have gained knowledge of some of them. Silithas the Union only keeps in favour because it has developed bypasses for the countermeasures; if it were to secede, and gain a large enough following, the Union would be at its mercy. But Silithas now, if it does not become a non-issue altogether through loss of its main stalk (i.e. the Overcaptain), will have suffered a serious political setback should it choose to leave or call for aid after receiving this attack, and those are the only two choices it will have if it wishes to maintain any kind of advantage. Come with me."

The Captain indicated what looked like a small lean-to, whence he had emerged. It was in fact the first structure to be constructed upon Gesthik'tka's new soil, and numerous mechanical devices too strange to describe -- robots of some description, obviously -- were moving about rapidly, evidently constructing something. Inside the shelter was a computer terminal linked to Gesthik'tka's main banks.

* "Space whales" to a human.
** It would be inaccurate to call it "Damalgia" in Damalgian, as that's only the way the words sound in English. They don't have the special harmonics and untranscribable guitarlike sonority they do in the native language.
*** implied: "nation of Damalgians". Claiming it's more advanced than *any* nation would lead to snarky and completely accurate comments from someone like The Ctan.

[OOC: Dude, check the Marvel Database and edit that, this is the Phoenix Force we are talking about...

[OOC: Dude, check the Marvel Database and edit that, this is the Phoenix Force we are talking about...

OOC: Never heard of it. Link or short description plz.

ooc: missed the many millions of anti matter grenades that appeared in and around your fleet! and they werent in FTL, even the most basic of scans would have told you MINES AHOY>_>.

OOC: Muahahhaha! Did you notice that one of my ships (Orca-Class) was a industrial command ship? AKA it can make frigates, fighters, etc with time.

IC:

Just in time the ZCM Battle Fleet 47 warped in just as the Damalgian rounds teared through the 2 remaining Crusaders, but not the Lead. Also one of the Concord's were taken out by the concentrated enemy fire.

Once in the area Battle Fleet 47's stealth bombers (Manticores) engaged their spatial distortion cloaking devices. They formed a semicircle around the Damalgian fleet and began firing about a total of 15,000 Abyss Missiles with their SD drives still on.

OOC: Spatial Distortion drives bend space, allowing the ships to go faster than lightspeed while in cloak, it also makes the missiles seem like their coming out of random areas.

IC:

The Heretic Interdictors immediately set up an interdiction field when they hyperspaced out. They slowly began to catch up to the rest of the fleet. The combined interdiction fields would neutralize anymore Damalgian missiles, but not necessarily energy weapons.

Meanwhile the Orca ship began production of Autonomous Maller Cruisers (http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/item/i624-Maller-details.html) that could link up to the TAP fleet and become theirs if they accepted the offer, if accepted 40 pre-made Mallers could be up and running in a few moments.

And finally the Leviathan Titan started up its shields to max power and all its weapons came online. The Brigadier General would be transported up to the command center once all preparations were finished.

OOC:

Tell me if the Orca thing is overrated, I wanted to try out the new piece of tech. Also TAP instead of getting a message to you IC just pretend that I did send a message.

OOC: Oh yeah. I knew I was forgetting something.

Ziolis: So it's like a Large Harvester (as opposed to the Small Harvesters that we've been dealing with all thread)? Neat. I've always had a surreptitious fondness for giant mobile bases, no matter how inefficient or unlikely. (In MT I even once designed a giant airship bomber the size of a naval cruiser, in my younger and more foolish days.)

The mines became rapidly visible, evidently numbering in the thousands. Silithas was unsure whether they had been Gesthik'tka's defences or preexisting planetary defences; they certainly resembled a common Damalgian weapon, although they seemed unable to phase through shields whereas the Damalgian mines could (that Silithas attributed to the inferior technological advancement of all but himself). As the first mines exploded against shields, point-defence lasers and suchlike emerged to destroy them or knock them away from the Damalgian ships. The ships themselves also moved, reasoning that it wasn't worth remaining too close to the planet's surface if they had minefields around it; someone who would invest in something so expensive and impractical must be hell-bent on defensive measures.

"Did those come from under the shield-dome?"

"No, Overcaptain."

"All right. Find out where they did come from, and hit the launchers with precision plasma strikes. We don't want them bothering us later."

As narrow lances of superheated plasma streaked down into the atmosphere towards the launchers, the Ziolisian ships arrived.

Despite himself, Silithas approved. Rather than attacking with few ships and moderate quantities of very powerful weapons, in which every stray missile could cut one's firepower in half, they were attacking with many ships and very large quantities of less powerful weapons, like the Damalgians did. Unfortunately there were two factors working against the Ziolisians. First of all they were well beyond useful range for stealth, being so close to the Damalgian fleet that there was no way they could fully conceal their massive energy signatures without actually leaving the universe. Second of all, their Abyss missiles operated very similarly to the main armament of an enemy the Union had been fighting for the past six hundred years.

Mostly, the Union's FTLi worked by blocking off realspace. You couldn't enter it from other dimensions or parallel universes (again, in theory). But it contained another component that blocked off hyperspace -- with not just an obstacle, but an explosive barrier reminiscent of ERA. Only Union ships and their hyperspace beacons could navigate FTLi hyperspace successfully, as the beacon neutralized the explosive force through some random technobabble I don't feel like making up right now. The vast majority of the Abyss missiles exploded in hyperspace rather than reverting to realspace the way other FTL weapons or ships did. Those that made it through to the other side were insufficient to do serious damage. One or two ships were destroyed, several more suffered minor damage or reduced shields, but overall the attack was less than successful.

The Damalgian vessels responded not with ordinary missiles -- those were being reserved for the larger Kewenic and TAP fleets -- but with a variety of secondary weapons. Most important, perhaps, were the plasma batteries; they fired not true beams, but guided "bolts" or "torpedoes" which did their best to ignore any distortion or anomalies in their way and concentrated on the warm, hard facts -- the heat and radiation put out by the engines and life support systems and weapons ports of an enemy ship. Of lesser importance, purely because there were fewer of them, were the KE rounds: unlike the plasma bolts, they could phase into hyperspace to bypass obstacles such as shields or decoys, although their guidance systems were somewhat less reliable. Then there came a kitchen sink of smaller weapons like "limpet mines", again designed to pass through shields and attach themselves to hulls; "dirty bombs", which acted like limpet mines but instead flooded the target ships with neutron radiation; and what one might call "magnetic bombs", whose static magnetic fields could not only disrupt existing fields*, but pass right through a standard Faraday cage.

This was considered to be sufficient for the time being, until Silithas could figure out a way to use his existing technologies to break through the enemy FTLi fields. At these ranges, simple beacons wouldn't cut it, and he wasn't sure how well his interdiction-bypass missiles would work. Experimentally, he had his ship alone fire a small swarm of a hundred missiles, targeting their largest ship, with five FTLi-bypass missiles attached; the five, one attached to every swarm of 20, would use EM "drains" -- like the shield-draining missiles -- to temporarily reduce FTLi power so that the swarm could pass through and reach its targets in the command centers of the enemy ship. In theory, again. (Then he reloaded; the harvesters had used the debris of the numerous destroyed warships to construct more missiles, as usual.)

* Ok, well, maybe. Who here has a physics degree? <.<

OOC: I have both the White Phoenix of the Crown (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jean_Grey_(Earth-616)) and her daughter (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Rachel_Summers_(Earth-811)) out there. I thought the use of Xavier would be a clue to this, we are talking the greatest telepaths in the universe here...

OOC: My big huge wonderful ship? Which one there are two big huge wonderful ships, the Leviathan or the Orca? And yay I like big ships too! BTW I'm assuming it would be the Leviathan since it's in front.

IC:

The Leviathan was protected by the four intertwined interdictions shields and it's own grav repulsor shields (they repel things). However a few slipped through and struck one of the many fighter bays on the huge Giga-Dreadnought.

As the Orca reached full production power it began to produce several Cadaver class Pulse Wave missiles. They tips were equipped with the same ion stream tech that allowed a few Abyss missiles to penetrate the FTLi field. They were very similar but with a few exceptions, the missiles had shields and traveled in realspace. The missiles would be accompanied by a huge cloud of decoy drones which produced massive heat and energy signatures that would make the drones the real target instead of the missiles.

As soon as the first was built it was towed into the Leviathan's Missile Tubes. The first Cadaver was launched...

OOC:

Pulse wave as in faster than light wave of protons and ions expanding out. Capable of knocking out shields, accompanied by about 200 decoys.

ooc: Tenuria, is your commander the one im facing, is his ship any different to the rest, so that one could identify it from looking at your fleet? i.e the biggest ship. the colourfullest ship.

OOC: I have both the White Phoenix of the Crown (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jean_Grey_(Earth-616)) and her daughter (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Rachel_Summers_(Earth-811)) out there. I thought the use of Xavier would be a clue to this, we are talking the greatest telepaths in the universe here...

OOC: Uh, yeah. You don't get to use that here. Sorry.

Well, we can compromise. You can use them, and I can use a time-traveling weapon capable of erasing your nation from history by ensuring that it never came to exist. That's a comic book device, too.

Kewen: The Overcaptain's ship does not look or seem particularly different from any other warship in the fleet. In fact, as most of the ships are more or less the same shape but different sizes, it's hard to tell one from another; Harvesters are identifiable because of their much larger size (4km+ long) and more elongated shape, while battlestations are the only vessels that are roughly spherical (and usually 1.5km+ diameter).

The missile (and decoys) passed through the FTLi barrier, slowed to about 1c, and continued for a short distance towards the Damalgian vessels. They were rapidly destroyed by point defence fire before ever reaching their targets, but three or four slipped through and, upon coming closer, were revealed to be harmless decoys.

Well, sort of:

"Missiles incoming!"

"Are you sure, Subcaptain? I don't see any indication of explosive charges."

"You can detect that from here?" the Subcaptain of warship Union 179 asked.

"Well... Er.... To be honest, no. But they're much smaller than any missiles we've dealt with so far, and while they replicate the energy signatures of shields and ion streams, I'm not picking up any corresponding particle emissions."

"Oh, what the hell. It's only a few missiles, they'll hit the shields a little but won't do any real damage. Let's see what they do."

The decoys, true to form, hit the shields and caused zero damage.

"You're right. They are decoys. I'll inform the Overcaptain."

Word passed to Overcaptain Dal'githor, who dutifully passed it on to Overcaptain Silithas, who in turn added it to his list of problems to figure out. Meanwhile, the barrage of secondary weapons continued to strike targets within the Ziolisian fleet, and the battlestations continued their assault upon the planet's surface.

OOC: *Random muttering*, well that was one missile only though so oh wells...

IC:

"Damn those point defense systems!"

As that was said several more Cadaver missiles were transported over and loaded into the Leviathan's newer Pulse Tubes. The tubes would accelerate the missiles to many times over lightspeed using a system of Pulse magnets arranged in a wave. As those were launched several Kamikaze fighters were scrambling to accompany the missile and to certain death as their bomb loaded ships flew at the Damalgian battle fleet.

OOC: Yay for Japanese influence!

IC:

Meanwhile the Damalgian weapons fire was stopped by the interdictor fields and the Leviathans massive shield bubble. As well as that the Orca was about to reach peak manufacturing power with it's massive forges fed by the energy from the miniature Particle Accelerator contained in the heart of the ship well away from enemy weapons.

OOC: Also Tenuria, didn't you catch the part about my missile having shields? I'm assuming your point defense is either projectile or laser systems, which probably wouldn't be able to penetrate shields...

OOC: fine, they are still on the ship then, acting as Psyckers

IC
The Psykers on Xavier's ships continued their mental assault on the Damalgians, their pilot jinking and juking around to avoid a spread of incoming munitions.

The primary goal of the assault had shifted over from dissension among the ranks to shutting down the FTLi systems.

Using their TK, they searched for vital but fragile components, and used their TK to to break the FTLi.

As soon as the FTLi was gone, the ships of the TAP'ian fleet would surge in, and close with their opponents at point-blank range, and batter away shoulder to shoulder.

Ziolis: I know the missile has shields. Sufficient weapons fire, however, can overload shields and kick them offline; and something the size of a missile is not going to be able to generate shields powerful enough to resist a sustained barrage of, say, laser fire for more than twenty or thirty seconds. Someday I plan to write up a short essay summarizing Admiral Saiki's Rules of Engagement: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Planet Looters in which Rule #1 is: "There is no such thing as overkill."

TAP: Rule #16 is "Who has the range, has the battle."

The missiles targeting the Psykers' ship simply changed direction to follow it. This they could keep doing until their thrusters ran out of fuel, which would be in about half an hour. Just in case, though, Union 57 fired a few hyperspace missiles as well, which couldn't exactly be dodged -- it seemed they hadn't yet noticed that the Damalgians had figured out they were there, or were concentrating their power on something else. Regardless, the XO could no longer feel their presence, so she was inclined to write them off as a threat -- this however she knew she couldn't do until the ship was totally destroyed.

As for the FTLi: It could be traced to about nine interdictor vessels, indistinguishable on the outside from any other warship in the fleet; these were the obvious sources. A number of drones also helped reinforce it, scattered around the periphery of the fleet; even as they scanned it, more drones seemed to appear from hyperspace -- leaving rapidly fading paths, studded with stops in realspace, to a point about three hundred light-years away (at which some kind of interference would block scans) -- and the interdiction field strengthened a little bit. The Damalgians did not believe in "vital but fragile" components, and even if they had, their technology had been scavenged from all over the place and reused, sometimes in odd ways, so it was hard to tell what was important and for what purpose.

The TKs broke a capacitator on one warship, and observed: the FTLi field didn't weaken; instead a few Damalgians came over, looked at it, ran scans and contacted one of the fleet's harvesters. Within a fraction of the second it was exchanged for a working one via transporter, the broken one being rebuilt or perhaps broken up and its components built into whatever else the harvester was working on at the moment. They continued their search, examining the interdictors' weapons and then finally reaching the hyperspace beacons, which seemed to directly affect the FTLi field.

The Damalgians were now concerned mainly with the Ziolisians and Kewenites, however. The former had fired another spread of missiles; only a few, still, and these accompanied by what looked like drones. The Union fleet quickly determined that all of these had shields and thus treated them as combat drones; they were engaged not with tertiary weapons but with secondaries, such as plasma and various kinds of projectile batteries, and not before the Damalgians' own drones had drained the shields with the same kind of beams they used in Post 60 or thereabouts.

These were a minor annoyance in comparison. The two largest ships were definitely going to be a threat -- one looked like a command ship, protected by extremely powerful shields, while one was some kind of harvester, although it didn't seem to have picked up any of the debris of former Ziolisian ships for processing. A marked oversight, that. Damalgians' usual response when in a corner -- or anytime -- is to increase the firepower. Silithas was almost unique among Damalgian commanders in that his response was to unveil his latest elaborate technological gambit.

In this case, he ordered a harvester to put one of the Ziolisian ships generating the FTLi field in a holding beam, transport it into itself and immediately flood its bay with enough radiation to deactivate the AIs. The techs were understandably skeptical about putting an armed warship inside a harvester bay, but Silithas convinced them, first in a common-sense way ("You have those stupid force field things, set them up in the bay and any shots it fires will rebound to hit itself, right?"), then his way ("If you don't, I'm hyperspacing you into the fucking sun.")

So, rather reluctantly, the harvester locked a Ziolisian interdictor in a holding beam, immobilizing it, and then transported it into the belly of the ship. As already mentioned, the transport process killed any life-forms on board the ship; whilst there had been ways to fix this problem for years or decades now, Silithas had always thought of it as an advantage and refused to get his own transporters fixed. Once within a forcefield-bounded cargo bay, the interdictor would be flooded with enough radiation to deactivate AIs; then, if necessary, shields and any other fields generated by the ship would be turned off from the harvester's computer room. Providing it worked, of course.

--------------------------------

Having made escape velocity, the two hundred canisters rapidly slowed to almost nothing and seemed to just drift towards the Union fleet. They emitted no heat or energy, and for all intents and purposes, were indistinguishable from debris or space dust. But this wasn't the kind of debris a harvester would want to pick up.

A good distance away from the planet one canister broke away from the formation towards a Union ship, one of the farthest ones out from the centre. It nosed gently towards the shields, then became fuzzy as it approached them -- almost as though it was phasing rapidly back and forth between dimensions. And it passed right through the shields. Then its speed increased suddenly, and even as point defence weapons moved towards it to eliminate it, it hit the hull of the ship soundlessly (there is no sound in space) and split open. The metal thing inside seemed to burrow into the hull deeply, so that by the time cannons and lasers opened on it, it had almost completely merged with the hull.

Within ten seconds, every living thing aboard that ship was dead. Within twenty its automatic systems had been seized control of by Thalia Gesthik'tka and the computer banks in its command ship. But as yet they did nothing with them.

One down. One hundred and ninety-nine to go.

ooc: post coming

OOC: Damn wonderful 3 interdictors and 2 minor Crusaders that still have interdiction capability...

IC:

The Interdictor's failsafe activated when the AI's shut down. It was activated when the AI was about to die and it tripped a circuit which activated the gravity well generator which was powerful enough to stop ships from hyperspacing several AU away so it would definitely be powerful enough to crumple the Harvester into a sphere.

The Cadaver missiles headed towards several ships and quickly approached their chosen targets. The kamikaze fighters zig zagged and approached several other ships, many didn't make it but several did and they exploded in a burst of antimatter. In fact each bomb had enough to destroy several cities once.

Meanwhile to stop Harvesters from getting any other ships the Orca quickly produced several disruptor shield modules to be installed in all the interdictors.

Also the remaining Concord was prepping it's weapons to try and takedown a Harvester with it's Phasers and Abyss missiles.

OOC: The Concord is already inside in my prev post.

Inside Harvester Four, Lieutenant Vakal'athi'ka!thioja'sltilpatnime'gkaleital'aki!thas -- Vakal for the remainder of this thread -- approved. The captured ship's AI had been almost completely shut off, and the main commands would soon be accessible to Damalgian computers. Then he noticed the energy spike from within.

If he had not abruptly hit a command that altered the frequency of the radiation, killing the engines almost immediately, it would have likely been the last thing he visualized. As it was the force field around the bay appeared to have been collapsed or absorbed, and the first reports to come in indicated that the metal was weirdly bent and crumpled around the interdictor ship. Vakal turned to a Sublieutenant.

"What was that, exactly?"

"No idea, Lieutenant. Possibly the destruction of the AI, or the radiation, activated some kind of fail-safe. Who knows how these creatures think?"

Vakal muttered something unintelligible and hooked into the comlink. "Overcaptain, we've deactivated the interdictor. What now?"

"Lock every other interdictor class vessel you can find in a holding beam. See if you can remotely turn off their engines.... actually, just lock them and I'll send some drones to flood them with radiation."

"On it now. What about the captured one, sir?"

"Hmm. I have some ideas."

As he activated the holding beams to immobilize the enemy interdictors -- and the other two ships generating FTLi fields -- Vakal listened to Silithas's ideas. They were not actually that bad, considering Silithas's reputation for insanely convoluted and impractical plans. Then he passed them on to his subordinates.

Meanwhile, around the captured interdictors, fighter-drones appeared and immediately began to pour radiation into the ships -- first at a high frequency sufficient to boil the water within the humans onboard, causing them a horrible death, then at a higher frequency sufficient to disrupt sensors and computer systems (although not to shut down AIs, as Silithas wasn't interested in gaining control of any of those ships. Just in destroying them. One was enough for him). The main goal was just to destroy the computers generating shields, so that a few pot-shots could turn the interdictors into debris. Turning off FTLi would be a reasonable substitute.

Meanwhile meanwhile, on board Harvester Four, the captured interdictor was passed into another room, where cleanup 'bots broke down its doors and removed the corpses within, for processing into food or fuel; then into another room where builders descended upon it to fulfil the specifications Silithas had requested and modify the computer systems to be controlled from the Union fleet. The harvesters were efficient machines and all this would take only seconds, ideally.

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, a second pass with shield-draining weapons followed by secondaries destroyed the few remaining Cadaver missiles and kamikaze fighters that the first pass had failed to take out. One lone ship lost shields as a result of shrapnel and a kamikaze explosion, but hyperspaced out of the system and back towards Laishk before it could be destroyed by more enemy fire.

OOC: Umm Disruptor shields stop that?

IC:

Once again the Interdictor's failsafes were tripped and all 3 began to start the gravity well generator process.

The remaining command corvette fired upon the radiation drones before they killed sufficient amounts of crew.

Meanwhile the Concord was blasting it's way towards Harvester 4 where the faint traces of the ship's AI could still be found.

-----Inside the Interdictor-----
<<Initia...tin... sel....destru...ct....sys...tem...3..........1

With it's last spark of energy the AI blew the ship to smithereens.

The Dalmagian missiles, to put it lightly were eradicated, not even nearing the fleet, those that strayed close to the planet on there path to the Kewenic fleet, were caught in a explosion of mines and shrapnel, what the dalmagians didn’t know, where the mines were produced from small auto-factories that orbited the planet, you could see them as they were half phased like every other mine, and they were indistinguishable from the rest, they would suck in small bits of dust, or in this case the plenty of wreckage lying about, and churn out more mines.

The strike to the surface of the planet, did little, and the efforts to find the Kewenic fire base where flawed.

The battle stations on the other hand, were starting to cause a bit of a problem, and it was noticed, more kewen structures revealed themselves, specifically shield generators, not big ones but large enough to cover vital areas of the planet, its major tribal population area’s which were everywhere, but one in ever three would be protected.

It was really obvious to find it, you’d just need to look for a certain background signal that would highlight its position, one that brought the kewen here.

The missiles that didn’t go near the planet, were met with the specifically designed Echidna Class Frigates, small light frigates, who’s sole purpose was to tote enough CIWS to make a battle station cry out in shame, the forty or so that were there, worked in concert to annialated every missile, before it got anywhere near the Kewenic fleet.

In response, a great cloud of plasma left the Kewenic fleet, as plasma weaponry, and rail gun fired at the Dalmagian Harvesters, hopefully someone of value, or even a lot of people where on bored them and they would go boom.

To follow the rapidly approaching cloud of plasma and tungsten rail gun slugs, literally, a swarm of missiles about the same size as the Dalmagians missile probe, was launched at the Dalmagian fleet, the tempest type missile, was a four stage missile, fairly big about the size off your average fridge, it would accelerate to a extremely high speed, launch the missiles it carried, and would serve as a CIWS target.

The Fifteen or so cruisers, which had previously been sitting about generating a massive ball of plasma at there bow, suddenly fired, all together at one of the harvesters that were close by, each beam usually managed to tunnel through a planets core, and penetrate it creating a small 1meter by one meter hole in it, usually enough to let the nice warm magma seep out, but in recent years it had found a secondary purpose, and it was serving it right now.

Bere nodded at this, and looked at the strange machines
“What are they making?”

Ooc: Basically, the mines are being made by a hundred or so scattered auto-factories, and the base is hidden in a big valley, somewhere, the big balls of plasma, when fired are incredibly thin lances of plasma, a continual beam and its directed at the closest harvester, im reasoning if its 4km+ sized, if I blew one up, it would make a nice bang.

Bump

Bump Again

OOC: Post coming.... sometime. With holidays'n'vacation trips coming up I plan to finish this within two or three more of my posts anyhow, but this is a rather busy time.

OOC: Ziolis: You mentioned that the Orca was producing the disruptor shield modules. It is assumed that we locked onto the interdictors before the modules could be installed. Also, I'm assuming the crew is activating the failsafe manually, as the AI hasn't been deactivated yet -- would the failsafe also destroy the ship, or what?

Kewen: CIWS that fires through hyperspace? Nice idea, but given the velocity at which the missiles are traveling and their relative paths, there's no way the frigates could get in position or fire their weapons in time. If they just lay blanket fire down everywhere between the Damalgian fleet and the Kewenic fleet, a few missiles will still get through on the fringes or wherever a frigate fired a few milliseconds late. The number would be small but not negligible: maybe 200 or 300 missiles of the 18,000 originally fired, but enough at least to damage shields.

Overcaptain Silithas was impressed. A little. The Kewenites had apparently mined hyperspace around the planet; this certainly indicated that they were well prepared against Union attacks, although they had had plenty of time to observe and extrapolate. However, even the oddly phasing frigates he suspected to hold banks of point defence weapons would not save them. A second and larger volley of missiles was fired. But since hyperspace is not bound by the limitations of normal space, it followed a different path, traveling "galactic up" sufficiently far out of the range of CIWS and mines, then coming "galactic down" back to their targets in the bridges and engine rooms of the Kewenic ships. This simple alteration in trajectory would not take noticeably longer to manage, would avoid the established defences, and -- even with a projected 80% of impacts serving only to weaken or overload shields -- still held enough firepower to destroy the fleet twice over. As was the Damalgian Way.

Meanwhile he got his ships about the business of defending against the Kewenic attacks. Shield drones and suchlike were already active, and the missiles and plasma beams seemed to be targeted mostly at the harvesters, which were largely englobed by Union warships and some of the best-shielded vessels in the fleet. As very large and powerful ships, they had no weapons, no life support, no artificial gravity, and no lights; power that didn't go into making things went into shields. (The techs onboard wore weighted environment suits.) Even the shots that managed to get through the barrage of tertiary and secondary weapons -- plasma torps knocking enemy plasma beams off target, plasma beams and lasers scything across waves of missiles, mass deflectors reflecting projectile weapons back towards the enemy, et cetera -- did little damage to the targeted harvesters, short of draining shields (restored from shield drones, of which the Damalgians had a seemingly endless supply, thanks in large part to regular reinforcements) and occasionally putting a few holes in a harvester, destroying modular cargo bays or processing rooms. One of the harvesters damaged was the one currently attempting to reverse-engineer a Horizon Device, although that project in particular was not affected; nonetheless, it resulted in more attention being redirected to the big hole in the hull and delayed the project for a few hours more. Considering its proposed duration -- one month -- that wasn't a big deal.

Inside Harvester Four Vakal's techs were examining the captured Interdictor. The remnants of its deactivated computer system seemed to be trying to give an order to the main weapons and engine rooms, links that had been essentially turned off by the radiation. While the order was couched in an unintelligible language, its "source code" seemed to indicate that it was attempting to overload all systems and possibly destroy the ship. When Vakal was informed of this he ordered them to attach a Damalgian AI to the computer systems and leave full override power in his metaphorical hands. Otherwise, when power was restored to the warship, it would simply blow up -- while that was its eventual intended purpose, it would not do to have it blow up prematurely.

They followed his orders, attaching Damalgian standardized parts to all of its main systems, and linking them to Harvester Four itself. The actual renovations performed upon the interdictor were very simple and took a very short time. Now it only remained to "reboot from disk", which the harvester techs proceeded to do, and restore the links from the main command center to the rest of the ship, which wasn't too difficult -- some parts had been melted or destroyed and had to be replaced, but machines could do all that work, and it was back in spaceworthy condition within moments. Next it was beamed out to a landing pad atop Battlestation Two.

Three things are worth noting about the New and Improved™ interdictor. First, it had a crew of zero and was controlled entirely from Harvester Four, so that the last shreds of its indigenous computer system were powerless to do anything to affect the ship. Second, because it had a crew of zero, power could be redirected from areas like life support and artificial gravity to the shields and FTLi, strengthening them far beyond normal capability. Third came its modifications. The Damalgians had packed every square inch of space in the interdictor full of explosives. When it hit its target it would go off with the force of bajillions of tons of TNT.

Lieutenant Vakal examined the controls of the ship, set its target, and accelerated it to its highest possible speed. Shields and FTLi would hold off any secondary or tertiary batteries, presumably enough for the few seconds before it slammed into the Leviathan at many times the speed of light and exploded in an incandescent column.

In the meantime, the fighter-drones were under attack. Due to having very weak shields and few weapons, each hit would generally destroy a drone; but the bad news for the crews of the interdictors was that they were no longer relevant to the Damalgians' plans; the ships were simply linked to the remaining drones and the lot were hyperspaced into the sun. The holding beams deactivated and Harvester Four continued its mission of manufacturing shield-drones and missiles, to which retrofitting a captured interdictor had been a mildly interesting side-note.

---------------------------------

"They are building a city," the Captain said. "Homes, buildings, transport hubs, processing centers. And, of course, the establishment of a proper dome, one that won't turn a power outage into an environmental crisis. You see, it is standard for each Damalgian settlement on a new world to be within a 'bubble', as you might call it; where our optimal atmosphere can be maintained, where our cities can be protected from harmful atmospheric radiation and meteorites. This will be especially true should our nation expand to the degree where we are led to colonize the rest of the system."

He indicated the terminal. "This links to our main computers. Herein the history of the Damalgian race is contained, the knowledge of our societies and various languages, the information on demographics and agriculture, and of course the list of all systems Gesthik'tka has visited since the Kl!tka Wars, and their interesting features."

If it wasn't clear before: the apostrophe is a sound, a kind of click, and not just punctuation thrown in at random. The ! is a different kind of click. Neither of them can actually be pronounced with human vocal cords, but you can approximate (' is closer to the front of the palate, ! is near the back).

OOC: No actually I was asking if the disruptor modules could stop em. Failsafes are activated when the AI detects something like radiation or weapons fire about to destroy the ship. And no the initial failsafe won't destroy it, only if the systems are overloaded.

IC:

The Interdictor's AI was still alive and was bugging the Damalgian AI with a pointless flood of information to slow it's processing power.

The AI was channeling simple math problems to try and give the Damalgian AI a syntax error or a crash.

Meanwhile the Concord focused it's weapons on Harvester 4 and fired. Mass Driver rounds were fired, so were it's Masers and missiles.

OOC: Holding beams are fairly powerful, as they can yank a decent sized asteroid or comet from its orbit; they're a bit like futuristic grappling hooks, so they wouldn't be affected by shields or energy fields in the area. I guess.

With Vakal's appendages on the controls of the Damalgian AI, he'd already set it to ignore and override any commands made by the Interdictor's original AI. Its attempted DDoS was unsuccessful, as the Harvester's processing power and metaphorical bandwidth far exceeded the capacities of the ruined and crippled ship's AI; the spam was rapidly filtered out, although it had little time to work its effect anyway: within two or three seconds the ship would hit the Leviathan just on schedule, and presumably explode.

In response to the Concord's fire, the Harvester -- now no longer with any direct business in the system, save controlling the Interdictor for its final second or two of existence -- hyperspaced out of danger, into the center of the Damalgian fleet. The attack was countered by the ships englobing it, which suffered little damage as the missiles were not targeted at them specifically. Only a few hits registered on Harvester Four's shields, none of them particularly damaging. Several warships responded by firing upon the Concord with plasma and projectile weapons, accompanied by shield-breakers. All this was only secondary to Overcaptain Silithas's notice, however.

He had monitored the ships firing their twenty thousand (or so) missiles upon the Kewenic fleet. And, despite his orders, several ships had done nothing. Twelve or thirteen warships, a single interdictor and an arsenal ship. "Union 577?" Silithas ordered. "You didn't fire a single damn missile when I gave the order. What's up?"

Silence.

"I said, Union 577. Can anyone hear me?"

Silence.

"Number One. Is this Union 577?"

"It is, sir." She paused, then turned to Silithas again and indicated the ship on a fleet plan. "But it doesn't appear to have anyone on board."

"Huh. Union 1318? What's happened to you?"

Again, silence.

"Union 1318 is also devoid of crew. Still functioning, but no-one's there to take orders."

"Well, they're ships. Take control of their AIs. We're in command, after all."

Pause as the XO attempted to access the main consoles of the silent warships. "I can't," she said. "Someone else has overriden fleet authority."

Silithas was about to say something when he noticed the floating object.

His voice quieted down. He became very calm and lost his outward arrogance and self-confidence. But now it made a sound like spun steel, and each click and snap was heavily accented. "Attention all ships, we have a Sudden Death scenario on hand, repeat, Sudden Death. Any probelike objects within the fleet perimeter should be destroyed on sight. Please key in to confirm you have received this message."

The pings arrived. Four hundred and twenty-six total. That meant it was worse than it seemed: twenty-five ships lost already, including Harvester Three (damaged by enemy fire, but still a useful asset), a second interdictor, several more warships, and a drone-carrier. Sudden Death was almost unheard of in the present day, and Silithas had only recognized it for what it was because he himself had used the weapon twice before, once for a tactically valid use (to destroy and take control of a terraformed world in order to coerce the nation to give up another planet to his force) and once out of spite (he'd attacked a planet with a full fleet of ships which its defenses and navy had reduced to just his flagship, at 20% shields and out of missiles, so he'd decided that if he couldn't have the planet no-one could). He was annoyed because the plans had been permanently removed from his harvesters after what he'd done, and he wanted to use it on Gesthik'tka in return.

Point defence and tertiary batteries engaged the canisters, but they were bloody hard to destroy. They could move surprisingly fast out of the way, phase in and out of realspace when targeted, and (of course) just happened to be one of the deadliest weapons in the Damalgian arsenal. The Overcaptain did his best to at least direct them away from the largest and most important ships -- harvesters, battlestations, large warships, and of course his flagship -- but was not entirely successful; the harvesters tried to hold and transport them towards the enemy fleets, which only worked about a quarter of the time. Most of the canisters were destroyed or redirected, but when it was over about forty or fifty ships had lost crews entirely and been placed under Gesthik'tka's control. In addition to the damaged harvester, the yield included Battlestation Three, whose guns fell silent as they ceased assaulting the shield dome; two more interdictors, dropping the Damalgians' FTLi to about 80% of its former potency; and many more warships, including one stretching to about 1.8 km (one of the largest warships in the fleet). And all of them disappeared and came to earth within the thalia's shield dome, where they would be transported one by one into the thalia's own harvesters to be decontaminated, apart from the battlestation.

Seventeen canisters, meanwhile, continued to float out through space towards the Ziolisian, Kewenic, or even TAP'ian (although it was fairly distant) fleets; each one a potent WMD. Very difficult to detect, capable of bypassing shields and phasing in and out of reality, capable of high-speed maneuvering, and causing death to 99% of all lifeforms within a few seconds of the contents' introduction into the atmosphere of the ship while the discarded casing worked its way into the computer systems and placed them under the attacker's control, there was a reason even the Union had outlawed Sudden Death. Only Neural Pulse had the same combination of reliability and lethality, and it was an experimental psychic weapon which didn't allow control of the computer systems and didn't affect blanks or those within a meter or two of them.

(Speaking of which, Battlestation Five had been configured to fire a Neural Pulse, although Silithas had never actually used it on anyone.)

OOC: I have to make this short as I'm at a friends house.

IC:

The Concord imploded from all the weapons fire. While the Leviathan' main cannons fired on the interdictor. The failsafes on the remaining three interdictors would probably prevent the Damalgian controlled one to damage the Leviathan.

Meanwhile the Orca started to run out of materials so it began to tractor beam in enemy ships, mainly drones into it's dismantling bays to be destroyed for scrap.

'.'
but the bad news for the crews of the interdictors was that they were no longer relevant to the Damalgians' plans; the ships were simply linked to the remaining drones and the lot were hyperspaced into the sun.

OOC: So my interdictors are dead? You really made it sound like your interdictors were hyperspaced away.

OOC: Would I really destroy my own interdictors? :P

Well, I might for plot reasons, but Silithas wouldn't. He'd be in big trouble without them and he knows it.

ooc: how are your missiles hyperspace capable, if there are FTLi EVERYwhere, from almost every faction, and i dont see missiles going .99c the force would make em go boom?

also pointing out, with the amount of FTLi systems active, in all fleets, how are your missiles getting past that, let alone timing through different dimensions to get within my ships, i really dont see that happening >_> tbh and slightly wanky imownopinion

OOC: Aww crap, now I have to divert the Orca to Interdictor production.

ooc: how are your missiles hyperspace capable, if there are FTLi EVERYwhere, from almost every faction, and i dont see missiles going .99c the force would make em go boom?

also pointing out, with the amount of FTLi systems active, in all fleets, how are your missiles getting past that, let alone timing through different dimensions to get within my ships, i really dont see that happening >_> tbh and slightly wanky imownopinion

OOC: To be honest, I have no idea. How close is your fleet to my fleet? In AU? (The interdictors aren't just supposed to block off FTL travel, they're also supposed to allow Union materiel to travel through the FTLi barrier. FTLi isn't very useful when you can't bypass it yourself. The FTLi bypassing missiles operates on similar principles: "beacons" to neutralize explosive charges by concealing the missile from their triggers, sensors to determine whether an obstacle determined is a real threat to the missile or a decoy to fool it into leaving hyperspace, a small explosive charge to blast through a realspace barrier and allow a swarm (approx. 20) of conventional missiles through. Ordinarily I'd sit at one end of the solar system with my FTLi turned on and try to fire enough of them at the enemy at the other end to destroy them before they could respond in kind. But ranges of 1 AU or less kind of screw up my calculations.

Just assume that the missile volley consists of 19048 standard missiles and 952 FTLi-bypass ones; assume that any swarms that fail to break through and continue through hyperspace emerge into realspace and explode there; calculate losses based on how far the targeted ship is from the source of your own FTLi (for simplicity, every single ship in the fleet is targeted), and based on how your FTLi works. I'll be lenient on account of the thread being almost over anyway and Sil having yet to actually blow up the moon or something just to show everyone that he can.

OOC: IMHO that's alot of sciency stuff eh?

IC:

The Orca received orders to begin creating interdiction nets and modules to be oufitted onto the Leviathan and the cruisers.

Meanwhile the last 20 Cadaver Missiles and their decoys were fired from the Pulse Acceleration tubes.

OOC: I'm a fan of hard SF. It shows sometimes.

Also, whatever happened with that interdictor we remote-control piloted into your Leviathan?

OOC: I should think it was annihilated by the Leviathan and cruisers, did I forget to post that?

ooc: a post is coming.

ooc: sorry newyearsa+ Xmas, no time to myself :(

OOC: Yeah, plus the RPs in NS2 are growing so I've joined a few.

OOC: I was gone for a few days without internet access. Rather than go back to RPing the events of this thread I have made reference to the conclusion of the battle here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=579261). Feel free to post your version of the battle's end, or go on to do whatever you planned to do afterwards.