Anta posted:

I suggest we keep running but increase speed to match them. Unless I remember wrong we can also do 5k.

A few reasons to do this:

1. We keep the distance, obviously. There's no reason for us to get in a fight here now, if we can avoid it.
   
2. We show that we are not interested in a fight.
   
3. We show our capability. They might be less inclined to fight a stronger enemy.
   
4. We learn something about their capability. We already know they have at least 4 armor layers and enough engine to do 5k. They clearly wanted to get closer, so if they can, they probably will increase speed again.
   

BwenGun posted:

I think we have to assume that they're hostile, the coming straight at us without acknowledging our hails or even attempting to respond either means they're hostile or so far removed from our own frame of reference as sentients that they may as well be. More importantly though if we let them close to beam range we risk potentially losing the entire squadron in a knife fight because with the exception of the two Azrael destroyers the squadron is entirely defenseless and too slow to outrun them.

Which means there are good odds our ships will be massacred if we wait for them to fire first.

That being the case I would like to propose Plan Alpha.

1) The two Azrael Class Beam destroyers will break with the rest of the squadron and head directly towards the approaching ships at their top speed of 5,000 km/s until they reach maximum range for their beam armament, 320,000km. Once they have reached this range they will reverse course back towards the rest of the squadron at maximum safe speed, effectively keeping the range between themselves and the unknown ships stationary. They will then fire a pair of warning shots from their 30cm lasers across the bows of the unknown ships.

2) If the warning shots do not have the desired effect the Azrael's will open fire upon the unknowns whilst again reversing course towards the attackers to bring the range down to either 150,000kms or the commencement of enemy fire, whichever comes first before resuming the previous heading to rendezvous with the rest of the squadron. This should provide the Azrael's 20+ minutes to fire upon the unknowns with their 30cm and 15cm lasers before the unknowns overtake the rest of the squadron. Hopefully long enough to negate the threat they pose.

Saros posted:

The Azrael class are capable of 5000kps in the nebula

Saros posted:

The Alien ships are just under 2m, km away and have suddenly increased speed to 5000kps.

LLSix posted:

We can match their current speed.

Nevets posted:

Definately DO fire first

Missile don't work in nebulas, right? So any possible confrontation will be decided by beam range & max ship speed. These guys can at least match our speed, maybe exceed it. This means that there are two possiblilties:

They are at least as fast as us & have farther ranged weapons - We're screwed as they can dictate range & fire on us from outside ours.

They are at least as fast as us & have shorter ranged weapons - We have the advantage as long as we start firing at max range & try to maintain it (if possible).

I recommend we continue running away at 3750 kps & broadcasting messages of peace, until they get to our max beam range. The we accelerate & try to maintain range & start shooting.

BwenGun posted:

I think we have to assume that they're hostile, the coming straight at us without acknowledging our hails or even attempting to respond either means they're hostile or so far removed from our own frame of reference as sentients that they may as well be.

Rhjamiz posted:

Let's split the difference, let a sacrificial Destroyer slow to close with them and see if they fire while the rest stand back at laser range. That way if they are packing plasma or mesons we only lose or damage the one before we find out.

Fray posted:

We’ll just lose that DD, then all the others a little later if we sacrifice half our combat power. So it better be one of the missile boats

Crazycryodude posted:

I like the plan, but this is a dumb assumption to make. There are a trillion minor things between evolution and thousands of year of cultural quirks that could explain trying to get close being seen as non-threatening/peaceful, and they might not even recognize our comms as comms - a radio transmission just looks a lot like a weird radar if your culture never invented/doesn't use radios as communications devices. They may be pinging away at us with whatever nebula-friendly/novel alien method of communications they use and we don't even recognize it as communications. Assuming that they're inscrutable xenos who we will never understand because in our roughly 10 minutes of experience they don't use radios isn't much better than saying the same about a deaf person who doesn't use spoken language.

BwenGun posted:

That's a fair observation, but we did try communication with both radiowaves and laser comms, which are the basic forms of communication through space as far as I can tell. But you may be right, they may be attempting to communicate to us via telepathic messaging, tachyon pulse transmitters, even google hangouts and are having the exact same frustrating experience as we are having with only silence. However if they are you'd expect them to be looking very closely at their sensor readings and trying to pick up anything other info on who or what we are and what threat we pose. At which point I'd assume they'd notice the comm lasers we've been repeatedly shining on their ships like thirteen years old with a laser pointer. Even if they have no experience using laser comms themselves they're smart enough to build TN starships so I'd hope they would recognize it as an attempt at communication and perhaps try and do something similar back in order to let us know they're at least trying to communicate.

Even then we can alter the plan to fire multiple warning shots before actively targeting them, to give them more time to back off without actively harming the ability of the Azrael's to the protect the rest of the squadron.

BwenGun posted:

That's a fair observation, but we did try communication with both radiowaves and laser comms, which are the basic forms of communication through space as far as I can tell. But you may be right, they may be attempting to communicate to us via telepathic messaging, tachyon pulse transmitters, even google hangouts and are having the exact same frustrating experience as we are having with only silence. However if they are you'd expect them to be looking very closely at their sensor readings and trying to pick up anything other info on who or what we are and what threat we pose. At which point I'd assume they'd notice the comm lasers we've been repeatedly shining on their ships like thirteen years old with a laser pointer. Even if they have no experience using laser comms themselves they're smart enough to build TN starships so I'd hope they would recognize it as an attempt at communication and perhaps try and do something similar back in order to let us know they're at least trying to communicate.

Even then we can alter the plan to fire multiple warning shots before actively targeting them, to give them more time to back off without actively harming the ability of the Azrael's to the protect the rest of the

[quote="BwenGun" post="478128536"]
That's a fair observation, but we did try communication with both radiowaves and laser comms, which are the basic forms of communication through space as far as I can tell. But you may be right, they may be attempting to communicate to us via telepathic messaging, tachyon pulse transmitters, even google hangouts and are having the exact same frustrating experience as we are having with only silence. However if they are you'd expect them to be looking very closely at their sensor readings and trying to pick up anything other info on who or what we are and what threat we pose. At which point I'd assume they'd notice the comm lasers we've been repeatedly shining on their ships like thirteen years old with a laser pointer. Even if they have no experience using laser comms themselves they're smart enough to build TN starships so I'd hope they would recognize it as an attempt at communication and perhaps try and do something similar back in order to let us know they're at least trying to communicate.

Even then we can alter the plan to fire multiple warning shots before actively targeting them, to give them more time to back off without actively harming the ability of the Azrael's to the protect the rest of the squadron.

Not Alex posted:

1,000 tons eh?

How do stealth and signal dampeners work in Aurora? I believe I remember the IC had some ships that appeared tiny until we blew up the device that was masking them.

Pharnakes posted:

I could agree with your plan but only if it is modified such that the Azraels hold the range without firing until they are 2 minutes from rejoining the slow ships. If nothing has changed and the enemies are still holding speed behind the Azraels then fire some warning shots. Do not fire for effect until the Azraels have rejoined the slow ships.

Like habituallyred said, we don't know how firing will be interpreted. Let's wait until the absolute last second before we do anything violent.

quote:

1) The two Azrael Class Beam destroyers will break with the rest of the squadron and head directly towards the approaching ships at their top speed of 5,000 km/s until they reach maximum range for their beam armament, 300,000km. Once they have reached this range they will reverse course back towards the rest of the squadron at maximum safe speed, effectively keeping the range between themselves and the unknown ships stationary.

2) They will then wait one minute before one ship fires a pair of warning shots from their 30cm and 15cm lasers across the bows of the unknown ships. Making sure to have them miss by a large enough margin that it was clearly deliberate. Leave them a full minute to reduce speed to the squadron's current speed or slower.

3) If the warning shots do not have the desired effect the Azrael's will open fire upon the unknowns whilst again reversing course towards the attackers to bring the range down to either 150,000kms or the commencement of enemy fire, whichever comes first before resuming the previous heading to rendezvous with the rest of the squadron. This should provide the Azrael's 20+ minutes to fire upon the unknowns with their 30cm and 15cm lasers before the unknowns overtake the rest of the squadron. Hopefully long enough to negate the threat they pose.

Rorac posted:

Don't shoot first, rejoin with the rest of the fleet, keep pinging and sending first-contact messages.

I'm not interested in an unnecessary fight, and if it comes to a fight, I'd rather leverage the full task force's strength if possible. If they fire at us though, we're free to open full fire back upon them.

Mikl posted:

I agree that with this plan we risk a destroyer and all the loyal men and women who are heroically serving Mars among the stars in addition to the Azraels, but this is in my opinion the best chance to make a good first impression.

LLSix posted:

Mikl posted:

I'm probably being hard-headed, but I can't agree with a plan that involves us shooting first, even warning shots. We might be starting an interstellar war with those, and after that lots of ships will get blown up and lots of people will die.

This is what I propose:

Split off a single slow ship and let her fall behind the rest of the task force, going at a slower speed, allowing the aliens to catch up. All the while keep broadcasting peaceful messages.

After that, split off the Azraels. The rest of the task force will continue for the main fleet, while the Azraels will stay behind and see what happens to the ship.

Now, what happens next depends on what the aliens do:

a - If the aliens open fire, the Azraels close with the aliens to maximum weapons range, then open up on them; they then turn around, keeping the distance while firing, and book it at max speed towards the main fleet.

b - If the aliens don't open fire, congrats! We have a successful and peaceful first contact.


I agree that with this plan we risk three ships, but this is in my opinion the best chance to make a good first impression.

Anta posted:

No, if we're letting them catch us we need to do it with the entire squadron. If they attack we still stand a good chance of surviving the encounter. If they don't, fine and good.

At this point the rest of the squadron are effectively ablative armor for the Azraels, which have our only weapons. So don't leave a third of that hanging. And that's without even going into the morality of sacrificing people and ships like that.

E: hell, if we're doing this then it's better to just come to a full stop, at least that sends some kind of message to them

Our slow ships are completely reliant on the Azraels, to the extent that I would say we should change our nebula doctrine. Treat the missile destroyers and all the other ships that don't have nebula-capable weapons or that can't keep up with the Azraels like the support ships. Just leave them in the rear.

BwenGun posted:

They will overtake us in 26 or so minutes, there is no time to get back to the rest of the fleet.