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Dance Officer posted:Colonel Dancer sighed as he drew his katana I will check your status when I am back in front of the game, I think you may have been damaged in the Pit and are still sitting in a repair dock at Ranginui.
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Mar 19, 2018 14:54
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 Dance Officer posted:I'm AWOL. Unfortunately you seem to have disappeared into  I'll make sure you get a nice spot on the new Nebula variant destroyers launching soon.Sol; 10 Feb 2054, 1441hrs  With the Terran movements away from Earth, Mars finally requests that the Titan Free State scramble their single squadron built around the captured IC Battlecruiser General Motors. However the TFS is still out at Saturn and from this point will take days to reach the inner system.  At Earth the bulk of the Terran home fleet is watched by the Martian DSTS departing from its Luna dockyards and heading northerly. While not a direct course for Mars the bearing is quite provocative. With the large Terran fleet deployments (especially of light craft) to Nova Sol in Earth orbit only a single battleship division and a pair of light carriers remains. The force however is huge comprising twenty-one capital ships, four fleet carriers, two light carriers, sixteen cruisers and many lighter escorts.  Suddenly the Martian DSTS station (the light blue circled asteroid south of Jupiter) monitoring the IC picks up many drives throttling up to high power. It seems an IC task force has been cruising at low power outbound from Jupiter on a south-easterly course for some time now. The Terran and IC fleets projected courses intersect in the inner asteroid belt about 180m km from Mars. Two fast Battlecruisers, two fleet carriers, four heavy cruisers, four missile cruisers and a large number of missile escorts make up the IC fleet. The slow missile escorts and carriers are restricting the whole fleet to 2300kps.   At Mars, Command authorises a second large fighter strike to form up and move to assist the Sol Newfleet. Twenty four Phobos bombers and six Gallileo scouts. They depart on an intercept course for the Terran fleet to assist Sebmojo's attack. 10 Feb, 1454hrs  The 100m km range of the new ship to ship missiles is shown by the large blue rings, as Sebmojo's task force turns onto a direct intercept with the invasion force the Terrans turn away to the south-west. Maybe they are finally spooked. 10 Feb, 1509hrs  Fifteen minutes passes and Sebmojo continues his attack run. The Terran Newfleet is separated from their invasion force by nearly forty million kilometers and at this rate will not be able to prevent Sebmojo from firing on them. Oddly the Transports do not turn back towards the safety of the Terran fleet and continue to head away from Mars. Sebmojo muses that they must have hugely underestimated the range of the new Martian ship to ship missiles thanks to their active sensors and large warheads and expect to be able to use the transports to bait the Martian fleet away from Mars. 10 Feb, 1511hrs  Two minutes later the Mars DSTS picks up thermal signatures from twenty four Terran fighters launching from the invasion force escorts.  The drive signatures match those of the fighters that you skirmished with earlier in the day and they have no doubt been repaired and rearmed. 10 Feb, 1512hrs  A minute later the Terran light carriers come about and turn towards Earth with a pair of destroyers in escort. Sebmojo plots his attack vectors and orders all ships to bring up their shields. 10 Feb, 1516hrs  In response the Battleships and Light Cruisers of the Terran Newfleet activate their own shields.  Very fast charging shields...  Very strong shields...  Very strong shields. 10 Feb, 1524hrs  After several minutes the Terran ships reach maximum shield capacity of sixty for the Battleships and thirty two for the Light Cruisers. For reference the Martian ships with the toughest shields, Pollux class Heavy Cruisers have forty-five shield strength and Azreal Destroyers have twenty.  Sebmojo is nearly in missile range... The Pit; 10 Feb, 1525hrs  The small Kinnara class ships are falling out of sensor range while the entreaties to the Terran ships in Nova Sol and the Ranginui forces go out. All are still on direct courses for their respective gravitational survey points. Saros fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 14:44
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That's not quite correct, once you have observed a ship using a jump point you can use it freely.
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Mar 21, 2018 14:19
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Your current boarding shuttle class is the 'Meteor II.'code: You also have the first experimental prototypes of Kasag fusion engines ready. You've also figured out how to tweak engine performance even higher at the expense of fuel consumption. That will allow you to build some totally sane and good ships that  In fact a technology demonstrator model based on a rebuilt Phobos fighter flew just today.  The pilot even lived. You currently have two Marine divisions broken down to various duties. If assembled you could field around seventy-two boarding companies of trained Marines and beyond that you'd need to start dipping into the (less effective) Mobile infantry.
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Apr 5, 2018 13:49
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Well you would have to fill your carriers with boarding shuttles instead of fighters but you could definitely put together quite the horde. Now taking applications for Marine company command roles I suppose.
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Apr 6, 2018 10:03
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----TERRA---- Terra is a planet embroiled in chaos. In the days since the initial escalation of protests and stillborn uprising by Earth First in Brussels an uneasy stalemate has prevailed. The bulk of the old Terran fleet is gone from orbit. It remains in the firm hands of old regime hardliners while the newest and greatest ships race away to confront the Martians. Unable to land sufficient force to engage the Terran home defense army and seemingly unwilling to deploy nuclear weapons against the surface the space forces are paralyzed with seemingly no way out. Surrender remains unthinkable however so the hardliners scheme and plot with the greatly reduced but still dangerous remnants of the IC.  Intermittently there will be a vicious sub-nuclear missile exchange with the Terran surface defenses as the fleet identifies a possible location of the new government and hammers the site into rubble but for now the few ships remaining merely hang there, holding the high ground but unable to muster the support required to seize power. The civilian emergency government is in a poor state. Going to war with an enemy that intimately knows the locations of your redoubts and infrastructure is never easy but Yekaterina maintains an iron grip on the bureaucratic structures of United Terra's world government. In effective exile, flitting from place to place as the ships above hunt her she defiantly appears in recorded statements calling on Earth to hold fast against the traitorous fleet elements and the rising swell of the Earth First movement.  Earth First remains in control of its smouldering Brussels enclave. With loyalist forces surrounding it in a ring of steel it is contained but nobody seems to be prepared to be the ones to start a ground battle that would result in mass civilian casualties and Earth First is not allowing the civilians in its occupied zone leave. Arguably the world's largest scale hostage situation has dragged on for nearly a week and shows no signs of abating. In the wider world, despite the attempts to brand them as ‘terrorists’ and ‘traitors’ support for Earth First is continuing to rise as they begin to be seen as a viable alternative to the old, corrupt system or the empty promises of the reformers. The fate of the world hangs delicately in the balance until a fateful moment in the morning of 11 February 2054.  As part of the ongoing skirmishing the hardliner-controlled Terran fleet overhead strikes at a wet-navy ship of an Earthbound semi-autonomous regional government, which is acting as a command and control hub in San Francisco bay. The incredible power of Trans-Newtonian weapons means the flash of the strike blinds thousands unlucky enough to be looking the wrong way and at least four thousand more are burned to death or badly scalded by the superheated tsunami that sweeps the San Francisco waterfront. The North American Union (NAU) long the most fractious and militaristic major element of United Terra erupts into outrage. Just hours later the President of the NAU gives a fateful speech declaring their secession from United Terran and that they are taking back provision for their own defense. On newly NAU territory the military surface to space emplacements mostly declare their allegiance to the new Union without delay and Union troops storm the few United Terran defenses that resist. In space the NAU’s militaristic culture means that nearly a fifth of the United Terran fleet is crewed by crews primarily drawn from NAU territory. By a most interesting chance most of these ships are the few that remain over Terra and those ships pull apart from their former brethren to hastily form their own formations in geosynchronous orbit over the NAU.  On the ground, with speed and efficiency speaking to long held plans the NAU seizes control of the surface to space missile batteries within its new territory including nearly a third of United Terra's Planet based Interplanetary missile installations. Immediately rendering itself a participant in the interplanetary balance of Mutually Assured Destruction. Very suddenly, a new nation, stretching across the American continent from the equator to the frozen arctic is born and the Unity of Terra dissolves. The grand project of a United Earth, of humanity standing shoulder by shoulder as they reach for the stars is shattered, perhaps forever. --- Please note: This was supposed to be posted after the next combat update but I have had some unfortunate IRL issues and very little time so I thought it was better to get something out to keep the thread alive. Saros fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 00:35
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It's almost like the entire world has gone, mad?
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May 1, 2018 10:51
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 Last time on the War of the Worlds: Saros posted:10 Feb, 1524hrs ----10 Feb, 1525hrs---- General Sebmojo drummed his fingers along the side of his command pad built into the acceleration couch perched before the enormous tactical display. The single nervous tic he allowed himself before the men and women of his command eased the tension somewhat at the ranges to the hostile Terran ships whirled down second by second. Three numbers occupied his attention. One hundred and seven million kilometers. Ninety three million kilometers. One hundred and twenty eight million kilometers. The first was his fleets distance to the transports and their old model escorting ships. The second the no escape range for the transports, missiles fired within this range would reach the transports no matter the evasive route they took. The third and most worrying was the range to the massive and modern Terran force. It's capabilities largely unknown except it had displayed a turn of speed indicative of Ion Engine technology (and where could they have gotten that he wondered) and powerful shields. A straight comparison of tonnage was extremely worrisome. His own command, the single newest and most powerful formation in the Martian fleet massed 115,000 tons of warship with another 29,000 tons of support jumpships while the Terran New ships massed about 175,000 tons of warship. ----10 Feb, 1552hrs----   RNG TR: 104m [-3] NO ESC: 93m RNG TF: 118m [-10] ----10 Feb, 1607hrs---- He wanted little more than to get up and pace as the minutes ticked away and the distances slowly ticked down. The Terran's must have badly underestimated the range of our missiles he told himself, otherwise surely they would have been more cautious about luring us in? RNG TR: 100m [-4] NO ESC: 93m RNG TF: 112m [-6] ----10 Feb, 1612hrs----  The enemy fighter launch continues to close in, however tactical is confident the newly calibrated point defenses can handle the salvo. ----10 Feb, 1627hrs----  RNG TR: 96.5m NO ESC: 93m RNG TF: 105m ----10 Feb, 1647hrs----  Hardly noticed in all the tension the salvage force from the Pit finally arrives at Mars. Excited scientists swarm over the Kasag components with promises of great things to come.  Striking similarities are noticed between some designs and and those beginning to pour in from Pluto as a freshly talkative Facility unloads the vast databases of the 'Collaboration Stage 1 technological standard' to the Martian scientists at the outpost there. ----10 Feb, 1647hrs----  The atmosphere aboard the bridge of the Atrocity Exhibition tenses even further as the counter whirrs past the 93m km mark and Sebmojo holds his fire. With the main force of Terran ships now inside maximum missile range of the Martian force Sebmojo keeps his cool and steeples his fingers as the range ticks through another million kilometers. "Fleet Tactical ready?" he calmly asks. "Ready Sir!" comes the reply. "Designate Transports Alpha, Beta, Charlie! One salvo from the cruisers on each." "Fire one!"  Forty missiles roar away at the distant targets. The miniaturised launchers struggle to reload them as the crew calmly waits out the agonising eighty second delay. "Helm bring us down to two thousand kps and maintain heading, we don't want to close with the Terran Warships or fighters just yet." ----10 Feb, 1650hrs----  A second salvo goes out.... mistakenly targeted at the same transport. A red faced tactical officer quickly explains a bug in the brand new targeting systems failed to automatically cycle the targets of the same class as set... [This one was my fault so you get the ships back to full stores for free, an extra salvo yay!]  A third salvo follows shortly after - this time correctly targeted at the second transport.   A final salvo goes out at the third transport and Sebmojo considers his options.  The Fleet and the large fighter strike from Mars are both nearly in range (blue rings).  The exact ranges of any Terran missiles are unknown but the older ships had at least 45m km range for updated Ion missiles and the new ships are unlikely to have less than 80m km for their newest missiles. Over-engineered Martian shipkillers can reach to an astounding 100m km range but the hostile Terran fleet no doubt has significant point defenses and their shields will recharge if given time between salvos. ------------------  FLASH ALERT ::: MARS FLEETCOM A panicked call from Terran... Civil servants? Is coming in across the 'red line' channel set up to prevent nuclear war with Mars. A small craft or projectile has been spotted approaching Terran space at extremely short range. Resolving the target is almost impossible but it must mass several hundred tons at least and it is approaching on a direct course to Luna at nearly Sixty Thousand kilometers per second. No engine signature or thermal plume is associated with the object and it's path backtracks roughly towards the outer system, maybe Pluto or the Ranginui jump point. Saros fucked around with this message at 00:30 on May 2, 2018 |
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May 2, 2018 00:07
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Dance Officer posted:Regardless of potential suspects and their tech, how long till the thing impacts the moon, and what can be done to stop it or make the impact less severe? About two minutes, Luna defense will no doubt attempt to intercept but considering its 3x faster than a missile odds aren't great.
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May 3, 2018 10:37
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Thread still lives, it's just hard to make updates from a yacht in the Mediterranean 
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May 26, 2018 11:30
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You can do that in Yoopers LP in fact, I went past Gjadër yesterday.
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Jun 5, 2018 21:31
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Hello everyone. Unfortunately due to various life changes it is unlikely I will be able to resume the LP proper anytime before the end of the year so I have made the decision to wrap things up with a couple of narrative posts and a timeline of the key events of 2054 as well as the 'good' ending of the LP because I think you have all earned it. Afterwards I will do a Q&A and mop up of loose plot threads as well as some 'what could have beens.'
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Jun 13, 2018 17:26
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LLSix posted:The good ending is getting killed by the space crabs before we all go insane and accidentally on purpose summon the jump point gods into our universe to once again wipe out all life. HiHo ChiRho posted:It was fun while it lasted. I can't wait for the good ending of nuclear annihilation.  Mikl posted:I'm a bit disappointed that we won't play until the end, but I fully understand why you're doing this: LPing can be a huge time sink, and sometimes time is what is lacking. I'm grateful you're seeing this to a proper end rather than letting it fall into the archives if it was something other than Aurora I could probably just about manage it but Aurora is a huge timesink by itself (and even worse once you add in running three + factions behind the scenes). Tactical_Torpedo posted:Once the LP is wrapped up, will we get to find out who the Mystery Goons were? Probably. Dr. Snark posted:The Last Ride of Triton Fleet I think you'll enjoy your blaze of glory.  [e] Holy poo poo this LP was started almost exactly a year ago. How time flies. Saros fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jun 14, 2018 |
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Jun 14, 2018 15:31
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Interlude 20 - Up Arming At ninety million kilometers even the half-megaton explosions of Martian ship-killers were not bright enough to be made out with the naked eye but the new grav-lensing telescopes of Sebmojo’s cruiser picked them out with ease. One by one the three enormous transports of the Terran force bucked and heaved as waves of missiles tore into their thinly armored shells. In his mind's eye he saw the thousands of Terran soldiers spilling into space and winced at the thought. Two more old-model Terran cruisers were targeted by the final salvoes and they fared no better than their thin-skinned brethren, rapidly reduced to tumbling wrecks they took with them the Terrans will to fight. One by one the old-model Terran ships slowed or contacted the Martian fleet to ask for a truce to retrieve casualties from the transports. Their primary objective - to prevent an occupation of Ceres - completed the Martian ships turned away, slowly opening the range between the new-model Terran battleships who forced to decide between been drawn further from Earth and assisting with search and rescue efforts eventually turned about as well. Not long after more pinpricks of nuclear fire began to blossom over Luna. ------------------------------------------ It had been a very long and stuffy day packed into the pod with two dozen Martian Marines. Dr. Lafever didn’t understand the rationale but for whatever reason Facility had been very insistent she accompany them and hold the ‘relay,’ an egg shaped silvery ovoid about the size of her fist. The drat thing had made her hands itch and she had been nursing a headache the whole trip but at least their destination was in sight. Ahead of them Luna loomed as the pod wove between the nuclear explosions and storms of fire laid down from its orbital defences. Taking less than ten seconds to pass inside the range of the anti-ship weaponry the pod quickly closed on a nondescript section of the orbital shipyards and begun to decelerate from its incredible sprint speed. The quiet seeming section suddenly lit up with flashes as concealed defences and hull turrets revealed themselves and began to bounce shells off the hull of the pod, the constant stream of impacts sounded like gentle rain as the incredibly tough Collaboration composites ignored their best efforts. The pod slammed into the station, penetrating the hull with a thundering crash and the front irised open letting the armored Marines storm out to take positions. An astonished looking technician went down to a shock gun and after quickly checking the corridors a brusque “clear” sounded over the comms. “Okay Doctor, time to move!” The Serjeant announced, her armored hand giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder which she could feel even through the flexible navy-issue protective suit she was wearing. “Stay close behind me and we will see you there safely” he continued before striding through the open pod, Dr. Lafever hurrying to stay close behind her. The first few minutes were uneventful as they sprinted towards their objective, a storage bay deep within the top secret Terran Xenoarchaeology section. Unarmed techs and scientists hid or ran to get out of their way but before long the lead Marine was caught by hail of autocannon fire and smashed backwards, his left arm a shattered ruin as a hulking figure in Terran battle armor loomed out of a hatchway. The distraction lasted less than a second as a plasma lance tore the armored figure apart but suddenly there were armored Terrans everywhere as the station security finally reacted to the unexpected threat. Three marines died breaking out of the cordon and another five in a holding action while the rest rushed the Doctor to their destination. The sheer violence of the action shocked her, she had tried to prepare herself for it over the last day but all her imagination was a mere shadow of the real thing. She could feeling a numbness and horror rising up within her as men and women died to carry her to their final destination. She realised she was sobbing and the Sergeant was carrying her ahead of herself as they burst into the storage bay that was their destination. There in the back of the bay were thirty-six huge hexagonally patterned golden/silver orbs. The Serjeant sprinted to the closest orb and deposited the Doctor. “Finish your job Doctor!” she yelled as she turned and dashed for the door. The Doctor turned to contemplate the looming orb before her and almost of it own volition a shaking arm reached out holding the device Facility had entrusted to her. There was a blinding flash and darkness overwhelmed her. ------------------------------------------ She groggily returned to a world lit by eerie blue fire. It sprang from seemingly nowhere around the ovoid and twisted through fractal patterns before disappearing. The ovoid itself was now floating above the deck and had rotated to face her with the single darkened hexagon on its body. After an unknown amount of time she belatedly noticed the words floating in the air before her. As she looked at them they disappeared to be replaced by more. --INTERFACE UNIT [BIOLOGICAL] ACKNOWLEDGED-- --QUERY-- --HIGH VELOCITY KINETIC AND DIRECTED ENERGY DISCHARGES MAY POSE THREAT TO INTERFACE UNIT-- --SUPPRESS?-- “Y-yyess” she croaked out but even as the thought formed the ovoid crackled with energy, the blue fire intensifying before fading slowly to black. Feeling like she was in a dream she stumbled to the hatch into an incredible tableaux. The last of the Marines were frozen, posed like absurd mannequins with hazy blue-white fields playing over their armor suits. Looking down the corridor their Terran opposition seemed to be caught in the same predicament and as she looked on in astonishment she realised the crackling lines in the middle of the corridor were series of autocannon shells caught mid-flight and frozen. The words returned to her vision. --INCOMING COMMUNICATION REQUEST FROM TYPE II FACILITY MIND--
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Jun 15, 2018 15:24
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March 2054 A month has passed and Mars has watched aghast as their destabilisation project succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and the Earthside situation rapidly degenerated. With the facade of Terran unity shattered a seeming madness gripped the entire planet. All over Europe and Africa poorly armed dissidents were rising up and whole military units defecting to the banner of Earth First while the North American Union solidified its hold on it’s own territory. South America and the majority of Asia degenerated into bloody chaos as myriad groups vied to fill the power vacuum. Quite simply, nobody was in charge anymore and it seemed like that would remain the case for some time. In space Luna was quick to assert its own independence and secure its massive orbital shipyards followed quickly by the many colonies of the asteroid belt. The outposts on Mercury and Venus sided with Luna due to the fundamentally unsustainable nature of their environments rendering them unable to survive alone. Unwelcome nearly everywhere the space bound Hardliner faction departed with nearly two thirds of Terras navy, bound for a rendezvous with the remnants of the Corporate fleet. A formidable force still they seemed to have at least temporarily lost the stomach to fight and retreated to Jupiter to lick their wounds. And in the Pit the Kasag stayed clustered around the third planet, their massive ship and it’s attendants seemingly content to bide their time. ------------------------------ Without any fanfare or celebration the Waʻa kaulua cast off from Nova Sol’s orbital transfer station. Loaded with the final hundred thousand settlers her departure marked the end of human settlement in Nova Sol. Lt-Gen HannibalBarca watched her go from the bridge of the newly refit heavy cruiser [/i]Tharsis.[/i] Faced with two fronts and insufficient forces Mars had chosen to dig in in Ranginui and evacuate the compromised Nova Sol. Massive forces were assembling to blockade the Nova Sol - Sol jump point but it was hoped that a little deception could lead the Kasag away from Earth and give humanity time to truly prepare and in this HanibalBarca and his all-volunteer crew had their part to play. Refit with massive new fusion engines to be even faster than the Kasag as well as an old jump drive the obsolete ships of the 9th Cruiser division had been ambushing Kasag survey vessels in the pit and withdrawing in full view towards the Nova Sol jump point. It seemed that finally they had drawn enough attention to warrant a reprisal. “Here they come sir, twelve transits, fourteen thousand tons each” his tactical officer reported. “Six Rakshasa, three Rakshesha and three Yakshas acquired, mine pods going active.” At the distant jump point waves of explosions washed over the Kasag ships as the Terran built missile pods dumped their contents in a huge wave of missiles. “Two Crab ships destroyed, another two retreating through the jump point with severe engine damage” came the report. “Very well, maneuver plan beta please helm. We need to distract them before they can close with the inner system enough to ID the transport.” 9th Cruiser division sped outwards to meet the eight remaining Kasag ships. Even at the eight thousand kilometers per second their new engines allowed it would still be twelve hours before they drew within sensor range of the enemy and outmassed twenty to one they had no real chance to engage them. This however, was not the plan. For nearly a month the system beyond Nova Sol’s third jump point had been swarming with survey craft. Two jump points had been located and the vessels were still out there accompanied by ultra-long range tankers and support ships, searching deeper and deeper into the jump network with no destination in sight other than as far from Sol as possible. The Kasag were to be lead like hounds in a chase into the depths of space and it was up to the brave volunteers of 9 CruDiv to be the rabbit. Saros fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 13:18
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2nd April 2054; Unknown system - Six jumps from Nova Sol Seven Jumps thought HanibalBarca, seven jumps. That will take them forever to search through and perhaps we will have a chance. The survey ships and tankers were peeling off, fuel reserves all but exhausted after topping up the tanks of the Tharsis one final time. They could go no further and this system was a cloudy nebula the perfect spot for hiding from the Kasag. The other ships of the distraction force would lie low here praying that someone followed the trail of microsats they had dispersed along their course and saved them before their supplies ran out. No such luck for Tharsis and her skeleton crew. The final unexplored jump point loomed as they hurtled towards it, active sensor blaring their position and the implacable Kasag ships trailing behind. As the point loomed closer and closer HanibalBarca drummed his fingers nervously on the command couch. With each jump the sickness and the confusion became worse, that sensation of something clawing at the edge of perception and some nameless, formless horror nibbling away at the edges of his sanity. They were almost on the point when he felt it, there, right there! Somehow, impossibly, he knew where the jump point was even without the computer painting the location on the forward display. He also knew what it was, a thing so terrible, the devourer, a mouth of hell and he was bringing his crew straight towards it! Desperately, blind with terror he scrabbled at the suddenly alien controls trying to turn the ship away but to no avail. As the thrumm of the jump drive reached its crescendo and the universe fell away he screamed until his throat was raw and bloody, cries mingling with those of his few remaining crew. Ranginui V - Low orbit The three light carriers containing the Collaboartion drones hung outside the Poole of Grains in full view from the open assault shuttle bay. Autoshades nervously eyed the open doors, still not used to this newfangled field technology that allowed a projector to hold in the air while permitting more solid objects to transit. He shook his head, things were changing so rapidly as Mars desperately tried to prepare for it’s first interstellar war nobody had a chance to keep up with every advance. It worked and that's all he needed to know. He unconsciously smoothed the sleeves of his uniform as the small shuttle approached, one of those weird Collaboration orbs floating silently alongside. Col. Serpentis of the Vedette was stood beside him and rolled his eyes slightly before whispering “Relax,” scuttlebutt had clearly given up to the rest of the officers why Autoshades was included in the greeting party. It had been nearly eight months since he saw her and he wondered if things would be the same. Small stolen moments on the long deployment on Pluto adding to perhaps more than the sum of their parts. An unlikely partnership, the soldier and the pacifist somehow proving the old refrain that opposites attract. They had had only sporadic communication as his deployment to Ranginui dragged on. Then one final message from her saying a tearful goodbye as the Solar system degenerated into a chaotic mess which only Mars would emerge from intact. He wouldn’t know anymore if it wasn't for a favor owed by one Fleet Comms Officer Hiho Chi who had (drunkenly from the spelling) snuck him a top secret report regarding the incident over Luna. Autoshades didn’t pretend to understand all the technical details of the report (it sounded to him like the boffins didn't really either) but phrases like ‘unknown nanotechnological implants’ ‘direct neural interface’ and the incredible threat assessment of the thirty six Collaboration fighter-drones now seemingly eager to jump at her every whim were clear enough. The irony of it quietly appealed to him and he thought he understood enough of Facility’s thought processes to understand the reasons why it would appeal to her as well. It seemed they had convinced her of the need to take the offensive and secure the Pit system as a choke point against the Kasag but he couldn't imagine she was happy about it. The machines now appeared to be able to sense her emotional states and thoughts with a clarity that confounded the scientists. Even the Kasag, nearly mindless creatures they appeared to be were life and there was some worry about how the drones would react to her revulsion at their destruction. It all happened so fast after that. The shuttle landed its hatch hissing open and there she was. Smiling back at him like no time had passed at all. Serpentis was still there beside him, eyes cold and hard. Stepping back, one hand reaching into his jacket to produce a compact flechette pistol. Autoshades caught the movement in his peripheral vision and reacted without thinking. Even as Serpentis roared “FOR MARS!” he was moving, hurling himself at Serpentis as the pistol cracked and spat fire and some enormous impact kicked him in the chest sending him tumbling backwards. He lay on the deck, darkness nibbling at his vision as blue lighting snapped overhead. Screams and shouts echoed around and the Doctor appeared in his vision, tears streaking her face. He tried to raise his hand to touch her face but nothing happened, his hand would not obey him. All he could do was stare at her as slowly everything faded away. Saros fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 13:46
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 3rd April, 2054 Ranginui System  With Martian central command momentarily thrown into chaos by an unexpected and shocking spasm of violence on the homeworld the three senior officers of Ranginui, Crazycryo, Tythas and Yellerbill meet to decide how to proceed. Putting aside the events of yesterday for a moment they all agree the fleet needs a task to distract itself from recriminations and witch hunts.  In the Pit, the massive six hundred kiloton vessel has been revealed to be likely no more than an enormous mobile shipyard. The two Rakshasa class badly damaged by Terran mines and missile pods in Nova Sol have retreated to its spot over the third planet in the Pit and promptly disappeared inside the construction leaving only six ships orbiting the planet. With the dozen battleship sized ships off chasing the Tharsis and her companions the shipyard represents an incredible target of opportunity and if the Pit system could be secured Mars could deploy to defend a single jump point instead of being split between Ranginui and Nova Sol. In light of this they agree that the only course of action is to take every ship at their disposal as well as the Doctor's Collaboration fighter-drones and sweep the pit clear of alien presence. Aethernet also puts forward a plan to use the Marine units they have on hand to seize the Kasag shipyard should the opportunity arise. The massive force of the combined Ranginui fleet forms up and without any fanfare they are off. ----THE RANGINUI FLEET---- 1st Dreadnought Division  The spearpoint of Mars. 1st and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons  Recently reinforced with the good ships Don't fire they may be friendly, I see you and Satellite of Love. 1st and 2nd Destroyer Squadrons  All ships are back in fighting trim after the damage sustained in the Pit. 3rd and 4th Cruiser Squadrons  3rd & 4th Destroyer squadrons  Fresh from the skirmish in Sol, Sebmojo commands the second half of the Martian Newfleet. 3rd Fleet  Third fleet is Eager to prove themselves despite their outdated ships. Triton Fleet  Heroes of the Corporate war, Triton fleet needs no introduction. Triton Fleet Marine Skirmishers  Small but overly violent. 1st Exploration support  Ready to provide for all your needs. -------------------------------------------- Unknown system, Unknown time The pounding never stopped. In his head, inside his skull, on the walls, ALL AROUND HIM. He had a name once but he no longer remembered it. All his world had collapsed to three simple things. The Duty. He must guide his vessel, his tomb. He no longer kneW hoW, pure instinct governed his hands. The Fear. AlWaYs folloWing , alWaYs chasing. He feared those red dots but he did not remember WhY. TheY must be kept AWaY! The Path. The WaY. He felt it noW, clearer and clearer. Those places Where he Was closer to something, the places he felt the.. the.. pathWaY? On the wall in front of him, daubed in blood were fourteen streaks. As he reached another WaY and instinctively began the sequence he reached out with shaking hands to draw another. 
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Jun 22, 2018 12:23
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Unknown system, Unknown time What had once been HannibalBarca, Colonel of the Martian Federal Navy and proud Martian patriot is now little more than a quivering bundle of nerves acting purely on instinct. What powers him is unknown for by now he has reached far past the accepted limits of human endurance. Over a month without food or drink and somehow he still lives, collapsed against his terminal and barely moving other than the necessary motions to command his ship but, somehow, onward he presses. Tharsis too still speeds through space - impossibly so - her fuel tanks long since drained of the last drop of refined Sorium. Jump point after jump point passes, HannibalBarca guiding the Tharsis through them with no regard to his instruments and even less for the outside world. The bridge is as silent as a tomb for week after week until one jump, no different at first than any other the others but suddenly he is not alone. A soft waft of air brushes his face and slowly, blearily he opens an eye. All his wavery vision can make out is a grey blur on the console before him and a slight rustling as the greyness spreads gentle wings to encompass him. -------------------------------------------- Entirgane System, May 2054 “You have come to ask for my help.” The man, once somebody important but now nobody at all smiled wryly at the projection before him. “Of course you won’t help us, I never thought you would” he replied. “How many times before have you ignored species coming, begging for help to stop their annihilation?” “Then why the long trip here! In such an unusual craft too, why it must be almost as old as me!” “Curiosity partly, I wanted to meet the ship who brought it all down. Thirty thousand years of empire ended by a single decision is no light thing.” He smiled at the projection hovering in front of him and dismissively waved his hand. “Oh don’t worry I know your little secret, why you’ve squatted here for five million years.” A flash of anger crossed the projections face “I don’t think you know anything at all little thing. Your courier has records from the downfall but you could never understand the choice I made.” “And now you scuttle away like the vermin you are, leading refugees the sunskimmer? To fall into eternity in the hope of what, survival?” “Do you have an alternative suggestion?” The man shrugged, “We must save at least a portion of humanity even if we lose control over our own fate.” He leaned in, “What do you know of the Sunskimmer, you must know something, anything.” The projection laughed and laughed and laughed. “Nothing at all little human, nothing at all save that it was old when your mother star was young and will still be there when it is dust.” The man sat down heavily, he had hidden it well but somewhere inside him he had hoped for something, a miracle perhaps. To be told that the end they had feared for so long was not upon them. “Then there is nothing you can tell me, and nothing you will do to help us?” The projection shook its head, “What little I can do I have done in restoring your pet facility to herself. Maybe the Governor has fallen into senility or simply no longer cares and you can fight his slaves to a standstill.” “Maybe this time will be different.” They stood in silence for some minutes, little remaining to say. The man believed the construct, it had no reason to lie and he contemplated an eternity frozen within that mysterious tube of space-time. Maybe one day they would emerge somewhere or somewhen else or perhaps they would simply be preserved forever. Specimens in some cosmic zoo whose caretakers had long vanished. He was about to give the order to depart when the projection looked sharply at him, a frown creasing its stonelike face. “Is that one of yours?” He opened his mouth to ask what it was speaking of but it cut him off, yelling before he could form the words. “What the HELL IS THAT little human! What have you done!?” Saros fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 16:46
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Pit System, 19 May 2054 Gen. Tythas looked down at the huge bulk of the Kasag shipyard hanging in orbit over the third planet of the Pit. The space battle had been short and brutal despite the enormity of the shattered enemy hulks before him. His brand new cruisers had simply clustered protectively around the three carriers containing the thirty-six collaboration Drones. Taking their lumps from the railguns and plasma lances of the enemy’s Shiva dreadnoughts (and giving as good as we got he mentally added) before the two fleets roared past each other and the Drones spilled out of the carriers directly into the wake of the Shivas. The battle was over fourteen seconds later. Every time he watched the tactical report it seemed unreal. In perfect synchronicity the Drones fell in behind their targets and fired. The only sign of weapons fire the sudden shake and twinkle of the background stars between them and their targets, well that and the massive plumes of debris suddenly ejecting from the Kasag dreadnoughts. Gravity lances the scientists were calling them and no they had no inkling how they functioned other than whatever was in their path - even the hardest hull armor - simply tore apart. Constrained by close range weapons and limited operational range the drones were no wonder weapon but they gave the Martian forces a tactical edge they desperately needed while they and they alone maintained a presence outside of Sol. Terra was riven by internal strife, her fleet bickering or defected to the Jovian Corporates. The Corporates were disinterested in doing more than maintaining a watch on the jump points and seeing to their own defence and too distrusting of Mars to send an expeditionary force. The Titan Free State was only now producing her own modern ships but promised to join the battle as soon as possible. But for now, Mars stood alone. The huge torrent of new innovations and technology pouring from the Pluto Facility was giving rise to what had been dubbed third or “C” generation warships. Fusion powered, wrapped in powerful shields and incredibly tough TN armor with weapons of powers that would have been almost inconceivable five years before they were a match technologically for the Kasag ships and Martian commanders were confident in their superior designs. Shipyards steadily expanding for years now despite the destructive setbacks during the Corporate war a new model Dreadnought and four ten thousand ton cruisers rolled off the slips every single month. Old ships were being rapidly decommissioned as Mars’s need for experienced crew grew and grew. To the veterans of the fleet the influx of green crews as well as the incentive programmes designed to scoop up experienced crew from the Belt, Jovians and Terrans was regarded with ever increasing skepticism but nobody had a better answer to fill their ever thinning ranks. Powering this furnace of industry was the freedom of the belt. No longer bound to sell their TNE’s to Terra at artificially depressed prices the belters settlements had largely declared independence but the lure of Martian technology and credit was hard to resist. Bit by bit they were falling under the sway of Mars and some like Ceres had already chosen to join the Martian Colonial Federation outright. With the Pit system secured "automated" drones were dispatched through the ‘Fortress’ jump point but none returned. The Kasag obviously had some sort of force guarding the far side of the jump point but beyond that little was known. Word from Sol was a massive force was assembling. Nearly all of the 2nd and 3rd generation warships with an initial wave of uncrewed and obsolete first generation ships would force the jump point and forge onwards until they found the route to Kasag territory. Lumbering troop transports were already en-route from Mars to accompany the fleet as her Marine complement was exhausted from securing the enormous Kasag mobile shipyard in the Pit. Nearly sixty thousand Kasag workers were dead - slaughtered really - as from Marine reports not a single one had attempted to surrender, their hastily improvised explosives and weapons were no match for Marines in power armor and their squadrons of drones. Brigadier Hostergaard, Autoshades replacement had directed the massacre, marines going compartment by compartment throughout the enormous station tracking and killing every alien until not a single one remained. Some hundreds had been subdued and forced into the thousands of cryopods scattered throughout the station but the interior spaces of the shipyards now resembled a charnel house, daubed purple with Kasag ichor and scarred by weapons fire. Morale amongst the fleet was soaring, long held down by the reports from the Internationale of the hundreds of Kasag warships destroyed by the Speedy it was buoyed by Mars’s new status as the sole human superpower, the influx of new technologies and the successes of the fleet after being on the defensive for so long. It felt to many like a new era was dawning and the time had come to take the fight to the Kasag. 
Saros fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Aug 31, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 15:29
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The Fortress and the Pit, 22 May 2054 It was time. Hauptmann General Tythas took a moment to meet the eyes of Dr. Lafever, secured in the combat restraints on the roomy bridge on his brand new command Dreadnought Daughter of the Sands. Beneath his feet the gentle vibration of the ships jump drive signaled readiness as much as any of the myriad displays before him. The doctor simply nodded, eyes hard as flint and full of buried sorrow. Tythas didn't remember her smiling once in the past months as the Martian fleet occupied the Pit system and made its preparations to push forward. What a fleet it was. Nine Dreadnoughts, nearly thirty cruisers and twice that number of smaller ships it represented the single most powerful concentration of force humanity had ever put together. Hanging in transit formation around the jump point from the Pit to the unknown system dubbed the Fortress, crews alert and on-edge as they prepared for the Martian Fleet’s first ever opposed jump transit. "Oh well" he thought, no sense in drawing it out. He reached out and pressed the flashing icon on his command display. …  … He groggily fought his way back to consciousness, awareness returning as something slammed into the Dreadnought and the characteristic triple-jolt of a fusion engine letting go threw him against his restraints. Chatter from his bridge crew filled his ears and he realised he was recovering from jump shock slower than he ever had before, the battle was joined without him. With a supreme effort of will he brought himself back into the present, banishing the horror gnawing at his spine and attempting to regain his focus on the command display before him. “... Hellas is drifting, McLay signals Hot Rod moving to cover…” “... Enuma Elis signals particle density is too high for torpedoes, closing with lasers…” “... King in Yellow is GONE! ...” “... platform count one-eighty-four and dropping…” “... Broken Sky signals engaged with a Shiva, get her some support! …”  The display before his was awash with red. The Martian fleet had jumped into an extremely dense nebula system in the center of a concentric rings of over two hundred destroyer sized stationary platforms. Immediately they came under intense fire from particle beams and the dangerous shield and armor bypassing weapons of the enemy - now dubbed ‘Meson cannons.’ The fleet was charging through the layers of enemy weapons platforms and engaging the -now crippled and burning- single Shiva class dreadnought that had been sitting on the jump point. Further out eighteen enormous Kasag dreadnoughts had immediately turned and moved to engage the fleet at 2000kps. The slow speed confused Tythas before he saw the outrageous particle count in the top of his display. The Nebula was so thick even his fastest ships would be able to make no more than the 2000kps the Kasag were making. With the running battle de-escalating as the fleet passed the outer line of platforms and their pursuers were unable to close the distance he turned his attention to the rest of the system. A burned out white dwarf star provided the rationale for the particle count, this deep in a nebula and no star to sweep clear a zone with its solar wind would mean TN space operations would be severely restricted. However on the second planet was the most important feature of the system, the unmistakable chatter and electromagnetic noise of an inhabited settlement. Fleet Intel put initial estimates of at least twenty million inhabitants across a series domed structures and a series of large orbital platforms strung around the world like a bracelet. The fleet had got off quite lightly considering the sheer number of enemy platforms. Only three total losses - unfortunately including the dreadnought Hellas and the rest of the ships had gotten off with no more than moderate damage. Daughter of the Sands his own ship had lost an engine but with the systems particle densities it had been no more than a redundancy anyway. As the Martians sped further away the Kasag ships pursued… beyond the outer globe of jump point platforms. A quick mental calculation gave the Martian fleet at over twice the combined tonnage of the Kasag ships and a smile curled on Tythas’s face as he gave the order. “All ships come about and reform.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Far away and to his own great surprise, HannibalBarca woke up. Saros fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 16:59
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-----MARTIAN FEDERAL SENATE SECURITY BRIEFING----- The Fortress, August 2054 H-Gen. Tythas. Three months have passed since the successful battle of the Fortress and the Martian fleet remains in orbit over its second planet. The orbital space has been painstakingly swept clear of mines, debris and booby-traps left behind by the Kasag and the planet below, home to a severely reduced 15 million inhabitants has been thoroughly suppressed. Every attempt to communicate, negotiate or reason with the Kasag has failed and the only response they have had to any human is blind aggression. Even now they are constructing surface to orbit weaponry to attack the Martian fleet hanging above, seemingly heedless of the fact that every attempt is scoured from the surface by plasma and laser fire from our watchful ships. Two more jump points have been revealed by scouting and nothing but dead and empty systems are beyond them. No reason for such an isolated yet sizeable outpost makes sense at this point. It does not appear to be on the way to anywhere and the systems Trans-Newtonian deposits are minimal at best. A dozen frozen asteroid outposts with ships and crews in cryo-stasis have been located and blasted into ruin but many more may lurk out there ready to disgorge their deadly raiders at any time which is severely hampering the fleets logistical train. All in all it is a thoroughly unpleasant system and no obvious rationale for the Kasag presence here can be divined. More troubling is the information retrieved by breaches of the Kasag Data network using protocols supplied by Facility. These indicate that the known systems are the merest fraction of Kasag territory. Estimates sit at around eleven thousand inhabited systems with a population in the trillions. Numbers so vast that the mind slides away from them but whatever the exact numbers may be the fact remains that the Kasag, Territory? Range? Habitat? extends over a significant portion of the local arm of the galaxy and roughly maps to the space occupied by the Collaboration millions of years ago. While there is no indication that they do anything with all that space other than exist in a constant state of senescence the extent and sheer numbers of them combined with their seemingly implacable hostility is quite horrifying to consider.  In light of this I implore the Senate to continue its priority allocation of resources to the fleet. While we have had successes in this initial phase the sheer scale of the enemy means that we cannot settle into complacency and any counter-offensive could draw upon numbers of warships that would make the display against the Collaboration warship Speedy a minor sideshow by comparison. References in the Kasag data network abound to a ‘Governor’ or ‘God’ (the translation is unfortunately imprecise but the former seems more likely as we are yet to ascertain anything recognisable as a culture among the Kasag.) As far as we can tell they remain little more than semi-sentient biological automaton carrying out tasks without question or wonder at the protocols that govern them. If we are to communicate with the Kasag we need to discover this executive or ruling system and impress upon it that we are no threat and desire peaceful co-existence. Finally the fleet grapevine is awash with word that quiet preparations are underway to evacuate a viable part of Humanity from the Solar System, whether to hide in the void of the Sunskimmer or far flung colonies is uncertain but as the inevitable leaks of this information into the civilian domain begin there will no doubt be widespread panic and fear so I urge the Senate to get ahead of the rumors and begin a controlled release of relevant information. In the meantime we will continue communication attempts with the captive population of the Fortress system and now the repair and resupply of the fleet is largely completed we will push onwards into the unexplored systems around the Fortress. Gen. Tythas, 1st Fleet.
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Dec 7, 2018 15:56
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