NationStates Jolt Archive

[The topic is somewhat closed, however a few people can get in if they still want by posting in the OOC thread here; http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=583943&highlight=Sertian Note, however, that only a few more people will be allowed to join.]


Galactic Politics was always a, virtually unstable, chaotic thing - seeming to take on a life of it’s own. Of course Politians and military generals had to pay attention to it, always looking for potential opportunities or enemies that might strike at them from who knows where. Of course, there was one, gigantic error in galactic politics; you can only factor the nations and people that you have contact or knowledge of - and a colonization force that originates from outside of the galaxy always seem to throw the entire equation out of balance.

Take, for example, when the Sertian Colonial Force entered a world that was claimed by the Amazonian Beasts, a rather old fashioned empire that prided itself on every system they happened to have stuck a probe in to make themselves look like a much bigger threat than they actually were. Of course it’s well known now that the Sertian forces were the ones that blew the thing into pieces, but at the time they were an unknown force, an enigma that some people happened to have come into contact with every now and then, thought to be a nomadic people at the time. But at the time, blame so easily fell onto the people that showed up, either to explore why a probe died in a blazing, fiery inferno, or to try and claim the system as their own.

-Excerpt from the Modern Sertian Thesaurus


On board the SIV Lazarus, resting in Drift space shortly after destroying the Amazonian probe

Commander Yufu liked to stand, more than he liked to sit, and for this reason he was standing in the center of his bridge looking at the scans of the Drift, waiting, watching for the nation they poked to respond. They didn’t know much of the probe they destroyed, but it was a good guess that it didn’t have the capability, or at least the time to send out what had destroyed it. The owners might be able to piece together that it was destroyed with a single, precisely aimed plasma bolt, but that might take time. Until then, the cause of their probe’s demise would be an enigma since the ones responsible had virtually disappeared in the Drift.

Not that they weren’t totally undetectable in the Drift, but trying to find a Sertian cruiser in the Drift from real space, without knowing about the unique and exotic FTL device they used, was like trying to find a submarine with radar. Unless you had the precise knowledge of Drift physics and the capability to bounce a signal around in that dimension without letting it leak over into Real Space, all you’d get was either nothing or a bunch of information that was useless.

Of course, it was highly unlikely any one that showed up would even know what the Drift was. So the Sertian forces were safely hidden in their space, watching…

ADV Oath of the Founders
Assault Group Epsilon 4xT
Wild Space

Captain Y'psl'ani Cantus was an imposing figure by any Human standards; the Theron's muscular mammalian form towered at 9'4" - despite that being slightly short for a male of the Dominion race. Theron, like the Sangheili, Skrawl, and Krogan, were in the minority to Humanity in the Amazonian civilization, yet served with distinction nonetheless - and Captain Cantus's race had done it better than most, utilizing the strong, decentralized intelligence of the species to promote forward thinking and advancement through the Dominion to the point where Theron were recognizable in the society as leaders. They still faced some of the skepticism of the other races, but at the very least they were doing things the right way rather than sticking tight to instinct and slaughtering prisoners the way some certain Dominion constituent races did.

Oath of the Founders was unique in the way that its bridge officer crew only contained two Humans, despite the primary Amazonian race making up a similar proportion of the military. Instead, Oath's command contained, along with the two Humans at sensor officer and XO, a Sangheili pilot, Skrawl security officer, Krogan weapons officer and astrological officer, a Baragwin chief engineer, and a Tondani chief medical officer. It was a diverse bunch that got along to accomplish the jobs at hand, but species tension was always felt aboard the Pinnacle-class heavy cruiser whenever tough decisions needed to be made.

As of now, the assault group the Oath was a part of - headlined by the Subjugator-class fleet carrier ADV Radiant Fist - was moving through what was colloquially dubbed "Wild Space" - officially claimed territory of the Dominion, yet thoroughly unexplored and unknown for the most part. Several lower-tier intelligent races had been encountered and summarily reduced to constituent atoms. Planets had been categorized and little else - the group was out here simply if a civilization at or near the tier of most galactic civilizations (such as the Amazonian Dominion) existed on one of the claimed worlds. If they were...they were to be either enslaved or eradicated with extreme prejudice, and the assault group certainly had the firepower and fleet elements to do so. Radiant Fist alone had enough ground warfare pieces and crew and warrior compliment to subjugate a well-fortified planet. The rest of the fleet could certainly chip in as well to conquer a stubborn foe.

What had come up was a little odder, however.

"Captain," the astrological officer reported from his bridge station as the assault group moved through an uninhabited system. "Two systems over has stopped giving live feed."

Cantus mosied over to the sensor operations station: "Stopped feeding?"

"It is as if it dropped off the astrological plane, sir."

Cantus turned his predatory head around the operations node, scanning over the spatial plane depicted. The system had indeed been replaced by a blank field...as if it had simply stepped out of existence to Dominion records.

"Transmit to Fist," Cantus ordered, as the astrological officer quickly commed the feed to the command carrier.

A reply came less than a minute after - Oath was to hyper to the system and investigate why readings had stopped. Cantus wasn't exactly happy to be sent on a goose chase, but what was ordered was to be done.


2 hours later

After a short hyperjump following deliberations with Fist's command crew about sending a smaller scout to investiage, Oath showed up in-system and immediately activated its full sensor suite, lighting up local space with a horde of sensor activities that would alert any in the area to the heavy cruiser's presence.

The Golugani believe that in all things military the most tactically sound option is overwhelming force applied from a secure defensive position. Thus, the means by which they expand their Boundless Empire to the intersystem scale is threefold: The homeworld being the innermost layer where fleet production facilities sit in orbit of nearly two dozen terraformed planets and moons is secured by fortified positions in the second layer of inner systems where planets were being remotely terraformed, encasing the homeworld in gravity well choke points.

The Dalgorak class capital ship makes itself present in the outermost third layer, those systems beyond the terraform area that are patrolled for potential allies, potential enemies, and potential extensions of Golugani territory. The blocky vessel was shaped, in essence, like a giant sledgehammer, and scattered errant debris across the forward shields as it entered the system. Their objective was simple: Check for local colonies, and claim the system if none were present.

Accompanying the capital ship were various lighter craft, each with unique signs. The Drengi fleet were weaker ships, nowadays intended to die, and as such traditionally escorted the city-ships on their missions to potentially hostile territory. Upon arrival, Thane Thaguli Thorek II transmitted to his subordinates: "Drengi ships, fan out and search the planets for locals. Report back to me if you find anything of note."

United Hawk Ship Intrepid

Captain Harry Kong, sat in the command chair of the Valiant. This is left be could see, just out the port, the UHS Voyager, the Intrepid sister ship. Looking back round the bridge he saw his crew working somewhat hard, but as not much had happened recently, it was a more relaxed atmosphre on the bridge.

The relaxed feeling was broken by the soft beeping of a console to Harry's right.
"Report" He requested
"Reading an explosion in a nearby system" Tactical officer Jornos reported.
"Voyager signles we should investigate" The Comm officer reported.
"Alright, alter course, warp speed"

Ten minutes later the two ships dropped out of warp in a flash of light on the edge of the system.

OOC:

My ships-

http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll167/Battlehawk08/292px-Enterprise_NX-01.jpg

Drift Space presented a tactical advantage for Sertian ships - unlike warp or hyperspace used by some races the Sertians had contact with, the travel to Drift wasn’t an instantaneous hop from one point to another and they weren’t actually in Real Space anymore where they could be shot at. Instead they virtually phase shifted into an alternate dimension where they couldn’t be detected unless by an alien race that also used the same dimension for travel, which was highly unlikely given the unique circumstances that the Sertians had to go through to even find out about this dimension.

But the Drift had a problem with it, namely all the Sertians used to be able to detect of Real Space from the Drift were masses. So before all they could detect that was happening in Real Space was that, A) two ships a few hundred meters long appeared, followed by one huge ship with several smaller masses around it, and, somewhat later a large Heavy Cruiser operated by the system’s owner. Fortunately though, the Sertian ship was an Ascension Scout Cruiser and thus was equipped with a D-OMSA system.

A D-OMSA, or Drift-Oscillating Matter Sensor Array, was a system that detected the energy waves that went through Drift Space from the ever present vibration of mass due to heat. Now, they could detect the actual size, shape, and any other unique energy signatures of a vessel in the nearby vicinity - which didn’t help them much other than that they could now know which direction those ships were pointing there guns.

There Commander Yufu was standing on the bridge of this Scout Cruiser though, looking at the fuzzy holographic image of the ships as they appeared, the best that the D-OMSA could come up with without focusing its sensor array on one ship and leaving them blind to the others. “Stay in Drift for now, lets watch what they do first…”

And thus the Sertians stayed in Drift space, waiting for the opportune moment to step in and excite the situation more than they already had.

"My Thane, an unknown quantity has entered the system." Thaguli Thorek II sighed as he called over an apprentice to take over his work, switching his comm to active as he strode out of the temple's forge to make for the lift on the level above. Evidently a pair of Battlehawk ships had already been in the system, but they hardly counted as worth note since a pair of Battlehawk ships were in every system, at least as far as the Outer Circle Watch indicated.

"What do you know about this ship, warrior?" The communication had come from one of the larger Drengi ships, a light cruiser by conventional standards that favored the (now obsolete) large central cannon to have the ship built around.

"Well, it's bigger than any Drengi vessel, but not by too much in our case. It's got enough sensor systems running that it probably knows all that we have here... I wouldn't be surprised if it can hear this conversation."

"In that case, pull back to our position. I want the Drengi covering us in case they're hostile. Out." As he took the rune-disc up to the the ship's 'head' he switched his comm to general command, contacting all the Drengi ships. "All units, return to vigilance formation, we have visitors. Bridge, prep for hostiles, but don't take action unless they do."

With that, the Thane decided to hail the Battlehawks vessels. Best get them out of the way, considering that they'd be less likely to be hostile. "Hail, Battlehawks. What brings you to this system?"

"We're being hailed" Vaughn reported
"lets hear it" Elizabeth ordered
"Hail, Battlehawks. What brings you to this system?"
"We picked up a explosion on Long Range Sensors" Elizabeth responded "Thought we'd check it out"

This news brought the Thane to sit up in his seat. He turned his gaze upon the comm officer with a raised brow, his glare almost accusing. The comm officer turned his attention to his control screen to evade the gaze, then looked back at his lord. "All Drengi ships are back in vigilance formation, my Thane. None of them have reported any of the planets or moons being inhabited."

"Battlehawk commander, did you see any ships leaving the system prior to our arrival? Signs that a ship may have been in the system but left?" The Thane then pushes back his helmet's mask for a moment so he can get a command off without being overheard. "Send a corvette home to call for a Gandongliz, this system warrants further investigation."

With that order, one of the smallest craft in the Drengi battlegroup Warped out of the system.

"We didn't see anything leave, but we were two lightyears away, it took us a few hours to get here" Elizabeth replied

Oath's sensors sniffed around the area, ignoring potential frequencies of other vessels that had passed by the area recently and instead looking for those of the Dominion. As no Amazonian ships on record had been in the system within the past week, a fresh sublight trace of engines on the Amazonian drive frequencies would likely indicate the location of the probe that had been floating around and marking the system as a Dominion conquest. Possibly, it would lead to implications on whatever had happened to the small device, as well. It had been blaring its sensor markers to mark the system, but that was no liable reason to blow the thing out of space and provoke the very large and irritable Dominion.

The path did indeed lead to a small cluster of space junk floating in space, drifting apart at slow speeds. Quick analysis via sensor sweep of the junk indicated it had a Dominion signature - and that it was originally belonging to a marker probe of sorts. The sort was particular, indeed - it was of the type that had been positioned in the system a short time before.

The Oath immediately activated full shields and weapons when this came to light, active sensors on full sweeping for gravitational anomalies - if a ship was in realspace and lurking around, the heavy cruiser was bound to notice it, especially now that they were looking for others.

"Understood. We have one of our detection-specialized capital ships en route to this system, but in the meantime we're blind to anything beyond the obvious. Have you noticed anything odd other than the explosion itself? Perhaps the remains of what was destroyed?"

"Commander, the newcomer cruiser has shifted to combat readiness!"

"My apologies, Battlehawk commander, but it seems our guests have taken offense at something. I suggest that you take defensive precautions, and we'll do the same." After shutting off the comm link, the Thane began barking orders. Soon, the Dalgorak had shields at full, and the support engines were rapidly approaching full power.

"Commander, apparently the owners of this system just found out their probe met a very, violent end, or at least they seem to be the owners of the system since we're got from chatter between the two others that they coming to explore," the tactical officer stated, looking over to the standing commander as he thought.

"Tell the crew to prepare for battle, we're going to observe for a few more minutes but, perhaps we can, stir the pot a bit more..." he spoke carefully, as if the plan he had in mind was just forming in his head at the moment. Of course it would depend on a few things, namely that the two factions that showed up DIDN'T garner the trust of the owners, or they hadn't met before.

Otherwise his plan would come crashing down around him and they'd have to get the hell out of dodge before his ship met a similar end as that of the probe.

"Yellow alert" Elizabeth ordered "Shields up, weapons on hot stand-by"

OOC: My bad on taking so long to respond, I wanted to close out the thread with Tarsonis I had running since he's leaving for Basic.

IC:

Gravitational scans picked up at least three vessels matching potential ship profiles - and additional scans quickly confirmed that prediction. A general sensor sweep proceeded to confirm the three currently visible as two Battlehawk craft - a civilization popping up recently - and one from an unknown registry. That wasn't at all surprising, but Oath was fully designed for ship-to-ship combat, and was prepared to engage here and now. Still far out of at least Dominion-range visual spotting, Oath activated sensor masking by extending hundreds of tiny sensor wands from the cruiser's hull to scatter and disrupt sensor output from the war vessel. At the same time, two squadrons of fighters and a gunship squadron deployed from the ship, staying close in the vessel's wake as close support but also to be within the jamming screen of the ship.

Simultaneously, communications from Oath relayed a system-wide message in realspace, bounced off of nearby space junk to scatter the message's origin so the cruiser could remain hidden behind its sensor dispersal field.

"To ships in the area with ulterior motives - a Dominion sensor buoy marking this system as Amazonian territory was destroyed within the past Galactic Standard Day and with little outbound FTL trail sensor data in-system to indicate departing vessels, it is highly likely that one of the present ships committed the act. If one vessel steps forward, they will be submitted to a standard demand for replacement cost in regards to transportation and construction of a new buoy, as well as their civilization being marked as hostile. If none shall step forward, all will be marked as hostile on the spot and retributive action will immediately be taken.

The choice is yours. The Dominion is flexible."

The accompanying Drengi fleet moved to intercede itself between the Oath and the Dalgorak, the Thane of which was quick to hail the warship presenting the ultimatum.

"I am Thane Thaguli Thorek II, of the Boundless Empire of Golugan. The vessels of the Battlehawks can attest that our arrival came after theirs, just as surely as I can attest that they would not engage in unprovoked aggression; in all our interactions with them they have resigned themselves to observation. The Battlehawks attest they arrived some time after detecting the explosion I assume was your... Wait a moment, why isn't there are debris of the marker if you were using it to mark territory?"

This is Captain Harry Kong, of the UHS Intrepid,we can confirm the Golugans report of our movements, we picked up a explosion on Longrange sensors and altered course to investigate, by the time we got here it was all over" Harry responded to the Hail "The Golugans arrived a short time after our own arrival.

The Intrepid and Voyager put themselves into a somewhat defensive posture as they couldn't tell where the hailing ship was.

"There IS debris," Oath replied, continuing to mask its sensor output. "We just happen to be sitting on it. Someone here, however, is lying - and answers will be extracted somehow. Who would like to be the first target?"

OOC: Sorry for the short/shitty post, I wasn't really sure how to proceed.

"If the debris is small enough to be hidden, the marker wasn't sufficient to secure the territory. NOW," Although the Thane is only transmitting on audio, he was clearly enraged by the tone of his voice, "I will overlook your insult to my integrety for the moment, if only because you failed to overlook the obvious possibility: Those responsible for attacking as aggressive a state as yours ran before you arrived to investigate. Or, to put it in terms a child like yourself, who I doubt has even a century's wisdom to his father's name, can understand: We are innocent, you are wrong."

If any of the present factions have systems to detect incoming vessels, they would notice a singular corvette and a capital-sized vessel en route to the system.

[Late, but bite me. D: ]

“One of the leaders of the vessel is smart,” the communications officer spoke while keeping one hand over an ear to make it easier to hear the communications. “Or at least, he deduced it can’t be anyone in Real Space at the moment. He did insult the owners, so our little plan is working.”

“Excellent,” the Commander spoke, turning his eyes to look at the small, budding hologram that revealed what they had scanned so far of the Amazonian ship’s schematics. So far they had gotten the size, shape, location of weapons and other such data, but the electronic counter measures they were deploying was making it harder for the computer to sift through the data and filling in what they really needed - shield emitters, power couplings, things that could be considered weaknesses that the small Sertian fleet could use to it’s advantage. “The Amazonians need to report back the situation about the two vessels in the area, afterwards it would be in our best interest to… have the ship mysteriously disappear. Hail the Agamemnon, it should be little under thirty minutes out from here. If we’re going to tackle a ship like this we’re going to need the extra firepower.”

Of course, while the Sertian commander made plans to create a war between the nations present, his mind worked through other alternatives. Jumping into the system and lying to the Amazonian’s to frame the others could result in the same end, but doing so would reveal that their drive left no traces… Making themselves appear guilty. Then there was something that jumped to his mind, a small smirk appearing over his face, “Coms, get me anything you can about how the Amazonian’s communication work, as well as their nearest colony or ship if we know it. Hell, get me anything about them in this area of space.”