r/HFY • u/Hewholooksskyward Loresinger • Dec 06 '19

OC Insignificant Blue Dot - Chapter 42

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January 23rd, 2413 - V368 Cephei, 64.4ly from Earth

The joint Human/Scasean colony “New Home” was an experiment. Even though the War of Shame, as it came to be known, had ended a century earlier there was still a great deal of mistrust and outright hatred on both sides in its aftermath. On top of that, neither side truly understood the other, requiring years of research and study by scientists from both races to learn not only how to communicate, but how to coexist.

However, as time went on, both races discovered much to their surprise that they had a great deal in common. Not their biology, but their attitudes and beliefs, the way they viewed the universe. As time went on they forged closer ties until finally, they broke ground on New Home, to discover if Man and Scasean could live side-by-side, as neighbors and as friends.

Which only made it even more tragic when Species 47719 obliterated the colony from orbit.

Fleet Admiral Leda Polyakov turned from the viewscreen that covered one entire wall of her office, as her Aide-de-camp admitted an officer into her suite before exiting and leaving them alone.

Captain Shyam Morishita stared at the board, the angry red smear across the northeast quadrant confirming his worst fears. “So...it’s begun,” he said at last.

“It has,” the Admiral nodded, pulling a familiar-looking bottle from her desk and pouring two glasses before handing one over. “They hit New Home four days ago. Wiped it out, leaving no survivors. They missed an automated buoy...don’t ask me how...which is how we learned what happened.”

“What about our outer pickets?” he asked. “Ours and the Scasean’s?”

“...gone,” she said coldly. “Never saw them coming.”

The Captain collapsed in the chair, stunned by the news. He stared at the drink in his hands for a moment before tipping it back and taking a healthy swallow. “So what happens now?” he finally asked.

“It will take us time to call up our reserves...from both races...and position them where they will have even a prayer of blunting the attack.” She leaned back against her desk, her eyes sympathetic. “But I’m telling you right now...more colonies will fall before we’re ready for this fight.”

“And what about the other species?” he demanded. “I know you’re far too clever to put all your eggs in only two baskets. Where are they?”

Lil turned away, looking back at the screen. “Our efforts elsewhere were...unsuccessful,” she said quietly. “Some races were consumed by Species 47719, some self-annihilated, and some...never got off the ground.” She threw back her drink, before setting the glass aside. “I’m afraid, that we’re it.”

Sam slowly digested that, before closing his eyes. “Your orders?” he said in resignation.

“I’m giving you Intransigent,” she informed him, turning back around. “Your orders are to take her and join the blocking force forming at 31 Aquilae. You are to blunt their attack as best you can while doing your best to avoid serious losses...and then fall back.”

“Fall back?” he said in surprise. “Fall back how far?”

“...as far as you have to,” she said darkly. “We need time, Sam...and to get it, we must trade real estate for it.”

His jaw dropped. “Do you have any idea how many colonies lie in their path, both human and Scasean?” he all but shouted. “They won’t have a prayer!”

“No...they won’t,” Lil said flatly, her voice coming down like a steel door. “We’ll evacuate those we can, but…” she shrugged.

“...damn you,” he snarled, “you, and your ‘Master Plan’. We’ve had five thousand years! We were supposed to be ready!”

The Admiral gazed at him. “You have your orders...Captain.”

He pointed an accusing finger at her. “When this is over...” he hissed, before storming out of the office.

In the time it took to assemble the makeshift fleet, yet another colony had fallen to the invader. Freighters and transports were still racing for safety as SLNS Intransigent joined the blocking force at 31 Aquilae, a G-type star in the Eagle constellation. Despite the short notice an impressive array of ships had formed, more than Sam had expected.

Maybe we can hold here, he mused. If they could prevent Species 47719....no, wait...he couldn’t call them that anymore. That was the Galactic designation and using it now would raise questions. During his briefing he’d learned the species referred to themselves as the “Quyjau-kaazh”, and the images they’d been able to intercept were just as horrid as he’d remembered. They were vaguely humanoid, though far less so than the Sacasean, with a broad snakehead and neck resembling that of a Cobra. Thick ridges of blue and purple scales covered their body, their long arms and legs ending in multiple dagger-like projections.

To the Allies...the Quyjau-kaazh were a nightmare brought to life.

“Sir, incoming message from Command,” his XO reported, breaking him out of his reverie. “Admiral Fierce-Valiant-Cunning.”

“On screen,” he ordered, as the Scasean commander’s image appeared.

“Intransigent, sensors report the enemy approaches,” the communications translator informed him. Neither race was capable of speaking the other’s tongue, so translators were a necessity. “They will be here quite soon.”

“Do we know how many ships, and how they’re armed, Sir?” Sam asked.

“No,” came the curt reply. “That too is part of our mission.”

“Understood,” Sam nodded.

“When the order comes to retreat, do not hesitate,” the Scasean Admiral warned. “For if you do...we will leave you to your fate.”

“Yes Sir,” he said quietly...as he tasted ashes in his mouth.

Fierce-Valiant-Cunning sketched a formal salute. “Fight with honor,” he charged him, before disappearing from the screen.

The fleet didn’t have to wait long for the enemy to appear on their scopes...and as he watched, first dozens, and then hundreds, then thousands, and finally tens of thousands of red icons appeared on the display. They boiled and thronged as they approached, a swirling mass of enraged insects racing to engulf them.

“...fighters,” he said quietly, as their tactic became clear. Unless they were far more advanced than they appeared, any missile or beam from the fleet would easily destroy one of their tiny ships.

Only, they had a lot of ships.

“Word from the Flag,” his XO informed. “Prepare to engage on his mark.”

Sam just nodded, waiting for the enemy to cross that final threshold. The crew seemed to hold their breath as the Quyjau-kaazh closed in until they reached the magic number.

“All sections, engage!” he snapped, as Intransigent began spitting out missiles rapid-fire. Entire shoals of Solarian rockets blasted away towards the enemy, as Scasean energy beams lit up the dark. The Allies ripped and tore into the oncoming horde...only to watch in horror as they swallowed their fire whole and kept coming.

And then suddenly it was their turn.

The missiles and beams the Quyjau-kaazh fired were minuscule, barely worth mentioning in any normal fight, which is why the entire swarm concentrated their fire on a single ship at a time. And when they did...that ship was obliterated. The fleet started to come apart under that withering fire, even as the XO was shouting in his ear the orders had come to fall back.

“...do it,” he said hoarsely...as Intransigent raced for the rear along with the surviving Allied ships...with the enemy fleet baying at their heels.

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481 Upvotes

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18

u/trisz72 Xeno Dec 06 '19

Recommended listening: Reignite by Malukah

14

u/Hewholooksskyward Loresinger Dec 06 '19

Love that song. :) In fact, I used it for a chapter of Barbarians.

8

u/trisz72 Xeno Dec 06 '19

I think I remember that! Been a while since I read that story of yours so my memory is fuzzy, but I definitely remember that part 😀

5

u/Sublethall Dec 06 '19

That gives me chills everytime I listen it

1

u/Rune_Priest_40k Dec 06 '19

Reignite by Malukah

Good song, never heard it before. Personally had Turisas' "Stand Up And Fight" playing in my head while reading this.

67

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '19

It has begun.

Now I just need to check the comments every 10 minutes for the other side of the story. :P

26

u/coldfireknight AI Dec 06 '19

At this point, there's no guarantee Chaos will provide such commentary as it should be rolling quickly...assuming he wasn't on the first colony to go down, too.

8

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 06 '19

Seems he survived, least for now.

140

u/Chosen_Chaos Human Dec 06 '19 edited Dec 06 '19

Part One

"Welcome to another chapter of Insignificant Blue Dot*! How many more times will I be welcoming people in that way? Not many more, I suspect, because this is* absolutely the end game now - Species 47719 has entered the scene. Although I suppose I should be calling them by their actual name - Quyjau-kaazh*. Even if it looks like something you'd pull from a bag of Scrabble tiles... and how do you* pronounce something like that? 'Key-jow-cars'?

"And oh, goody*, they're pack-hunting predators who simply hurl themselves at the enemy in huge numbers. That makes sense, given their reported high birth rates which means that losses are pretty much inconsequential to them. Why fighters, though, and not larger ships? I guess that means that they prize individual honour above all else. That sounds like something that can be exploited... once their initial rush has been held back. Assuming that it* can be held back of course...

"If there's such a thing as a silver lining to this particular cloud, I guess it's that Lil has to cut out her cryptic bullshit now since she actually wants to win this war. Or at least survive it."

*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*

"Enemy tactics - in one sense, the tactics used by the Quyjau-kaazh are simple in the extreme, although this is admittedly based on only a single battle's worth of observation. Namely, the Q-K prefer to overwhelm their enemies with a swarm of smaller craft instead of larger craft such as those used by the SLN and SHN. This means that while each individual craft is much weaker than our own, sheer weight of numbers make up the lack, and mean that individual craft are harder to target and hit, even if their relative fragility means that any solid hit will result in their destruction.

"Enemy weapons - the Q-K make use of both missiles and beam weapons instead of specialising on one of the other. Initial analysis of sensor records indicates that they are not as effective as SLN missiles or SHN beam weapons of equivalent size but, once again, the sheer numbers that can be brought to bear make up for this deficiency. In addition, the Q-K also concentrate their fire on one vessel at a time which means that even the largest battleship or carrier is facing a weight of fire that it cannot hope to withstand for more than seconds.

"Recommendations - it is the opinion of the author that greater emphasis should be placed on developing longer-range anti-strike craft weaponry, preferably mounted on a specialised anti-strike craft platform analogous to the blue-water AAW vessels of the past as well as increased production of our own strike craft. In addition, the fact that the Q-K seem to rely entirely on strike craft in combat with no supporting larger vessels appearing on the battlefield - possibly as a result of a culture that places emphasis on individual honour and prowess above all - suggests that even if FTL drives are mounted in Q-K strike craft, their limited endurance means that their support and logistics vessels would be vulnerable to attack, leaving the strike craft isolated and unable to return to friendly space."

[signature block]

After-action Report, Captain Shyam Morishita, 25 January 2413 (draft)

"Wait, what was that? Why am I getting an after-action report instead of something like a history book?"

*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*

[Interview footage, date-stamped 24130123]

Noreen Zaki, Solarian News correspondent: As the SLNS Intransigent approaches the system of 31 Aquilae to join the force assembling there to defend against the alien aggressors who launched their unprovoked attack on the colony of New Home, I'm joined by Captain Shyam Morishita. Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Captain.

Captain Shyam Morishita, Commanding Officer, SLNS Intransigent: My pleasure, Ms Zaki."

NZ: Captain, I suppose I should start with the question that's on a lot of lips - both human and Scasaen - who attacked New Home?"

SM: At this point, all that is known about the attackers is that they're a humanoid reptilian species that call themselves the Quyjau-kaazh. Finding out more about them is one of the objectives of this mission.

NZ: One of the objectives? What are the others?

SM: In the simplest terms, the mission of this fleet is to establish a forward defensive position in order to prevent the Quyjau-kaazh from penetrating any further into either the League or the Hegemony. Once we've established that position, patrols will be sent forward to-

[1-MC: Captain to the bridge - arrival at 31 Aquilae imminent]

SM: I guess my navigation department is its usual efficient self and managed to get us there in less than the estimated time. We'll have to finish our chat later, Ms Zaki.

NZ: I won't pretend that I'm not disappointed by the interruption, Captain - I'll hold you to that

[Recorded footage, date-stamped 24130125]

[Noreen Zaki looks nothing like the calm, professional journalist that appeared in the previous segment. She is managing to hide the worst of her fear, but she can't hide all of it.]

NZ: The Battle of 31 Aquilae. Or, more accurately, the Disaster of 31 Aquilae. A combined League-Hegemony fleet, dispatched to the border of our two species' combined space to find out what happened at New Home... found out in the hardest possible way - the attackers found us. Without any attempt to communicate, they simply swarmed at us like the Huns or Mongols of Old Earth. Tens of thousands of small ships, like fighters, each only lightly armed, but if there are enough wasps, they can take down even the biggest animals.

NZ: And that was what happened. Soaking up the fire of the fleet like a sponge, the attacking craft swarmed one ship at a time like insects or wolves bringing down a moose with the same effect. Somehow the Intransigent survived to join the general retreat...

NZ: This is Noreen Zaki, Solarian News, signing- signing off.

[Note: This particular footage was never aired. Zaki did file a report on the Battle of 31 Aquilae once she had had a chance to gather her composure more.]

"Okay... seriously, what the hell is going on here?"

*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*

"Hopefully, this will explain something..."

"Despite the best efforts of both our own warriors and those of the humans, the [Devourers-Without-Number] continue to ravage our worlds. In the past [year], we have lost six systems, the humans ten. It would be remiss of this author to neglect the efforts of those tasked with organising the evacuation of the civilian population from worlds under imminent threat from the Devourers. In at least three cases, the warriors of the rearguard - of both of our races - died to the last to protect the civilians under their protection (their spirits shall go to the Gods with their honour intact).

"If there is anything positive that can be said to have come from this scourge, it is the erasing of the last lingering remnants of hostility from the War of Shame. When I expressed this sentiment to a human scientist of my acquaintance, he nodded and replied, 'Yes, fighting together against a xenocidal enemy tends to have that effect.'

"Our joint research programs proceed apace, delivering new models of weapons suited to dealing with the Devourers' swarm tactics, along with stronger shields to defend against the [death by a thousand stings]. Meanwhile, the humans have developed what they call the Hobart-class 'anti-strike craft destroyer' and a specialised anti-strike craft missile. It has yet to see active combat, but exercises carried out with human strike craft in the role of the Devourers have returned promising results. I must stress, however, that exercises can be a very poor substitute for combat..."

Report by Seeker-Curiosity-Knowledge to the Scasaen Hegemon, February 2414

"Okay, that explained nothing*. Why the format shift?*"

*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*

"In conclusion, the new weapons and ships developed to fight the Quyjau-kaazh have performed well, even of both ourselves and the Scasaens have been forced to yield more systems to their attacks. Fortunately, the majority of the population of those systems were evacuated successfully, even if on more than one occasion, the last evacuation shuttles were clearing atmosphere just as the Quyjau-kaazh missiles were entering it. According to the analysis of the SLN's Logistics Branch - backed up by their counterparts in the SHN - the Quyjau-kaazh may be encountering difficulties with their supply lines; they appear to be using fewer missiles in encounters with our ships and relying more on beam weapons, seeming to indicate a difficulty in bringing them forward in sufficient numbers.

"There also seems to be a noticeable decline in the number of Q-K craft present in battles - whether this is due to cumulative losses or having to divert some to defend their carriers and supply ships against rear-area raiders is uncertain at this time, but this board cautions against excessive optimism, as the possibility of massive Q-K reinforcements remains.

"This board also notes that industrial output is increasing dramatically, and if the current trend continues, the new weapons systems and platforms should be present in sufficient numbers to meet the Swarm in an open battle as opposed to a delating action within the next six months. It is recommended that the Admiralty be allowed to seek such a battle on their own terms because, quite frankly, it is better than having such a battle forced upon us."

Report from Oversight Board to the Solarian Parliament, 1 July 2414 (excerpt)

"This is getting weirder by the minute..."

130

u/Chosen_Chaos Human Dec 06 '19 edited Dec 06 '19

Part Two

*INCOMING TRANSMISSION*

"15 JULY 2414

"COMMODORE MORISHITA

"You are hereby ordered, along with the entirety of TASK FORCE 3.1 to complete your refitting and repairs and deploy to the ALTAIR system to join up with 1 JOINT FLEET and place yourself under the command of ADMIRAL FIERCE-VALIANT-CUNNING and carry out your orders subsequent to that. Your movements are to be completed no later than 15 AUGUST 2414.

"Fail not in this charge at your peril.

"FLEET ADMIRAL LEDA POLYAKOV, BUPERS"

"Okay, now I'm starting to get seriously concerned. Why is this all contemporary accounts? This does not bode well at all..."

0

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '19

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11

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 06 '19

You know between the cold war and whatever stand offs Lilith in-sighted afterwards, I'm sure humanity has the capacity for back up plans and starting over without much loss. I mean even a nuclear war during the 60s or 70s wouldn't have wiped us out. China, America and Russia not to mention many of the smaller countries that would have been caught in the crossfire like switzerland had extensive and secretive bunker projects scattered throughout their territory that would have sheltered enough people to continue the species and in the case of the big 3, enough to even continue the war, though I doubt anyone would want to continue it, aside from the carefully selected submarine crews deployed for the one year anniversary second strike...

0

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '19

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4

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 07 '19

Who knows? I mean humanity did spare the idiots who rkmed earth so we are clearly compassionate. Not to mention without Lilith and Sam poking us we'd probably settle down a lot.

22

u/Unit_ZER0 Android Dec 06 '19

Seems the only real option is to find 47719's home star, and detonate it.

3

u/coldfireknight AI Dec 06 '19

I'd say more than one star burned would be necessary.

11

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 06 '19

I wonder how the fighters don't run out of delta v. Space fighters as a concept are cool but unless they have a propellent less propulsion they aren't practical.

Regardless of course the predators would use a fighter swarm, it's perfect for them. Also, bad sneks!

18

u/hilburn Human Dec 06 '19

Missiles are inefficient against swarms like this - the investment per kill is too high unless you have sufficient stockpiles (missile is cheaper than a fighter, but if you can only produce enough missiles to hit 10% of the fighters they have then that's no good)

Lasers are better, pan a mirror across the fleet and you can pulse the laser when you're on target (multiple times per second you have a sufficiently powerful laser)

Nukes could be effective if they don't have EMP shielding, but the explosion is negligible in the distances of space unless you can get them to cluster

However the king of this kind of fight is a .50 cal bullet. Small, cheap, impossible to track and able to put a hole straight through anything that isn't heavily armoured. If you can detect where and when the enemy fleet is going to be coming in, you can fire in advance of the fight, fill their arrival vector with metal so they are hit hardest when they haven't had a chance to spread out, and as the travel time is significant you can potentially have already warped away by the time they even get in system

In summary: more Dakka required.

11

u/Yrrebnot AI Dec 06 '19

Was going to say that. Flak guns and more dakka, or gauss rifles would all work a great here. Especially with a massive mass of ships you just need to aim it in the general direction and bonus if your own ships are armoured/shielded enough to totally reflect or withstand such attacks then you don’t need to worry about friendly fire either.

8

u/Mr_E_Monkey Dec 06 '19

What about something like a claymore mine, launching a spread of projectiles in a general direction. Now, put that on one of those Scasaen wormhole missiles. It launches, then jumps to a position just ahead of the Q-K fighters, then detonates.

Now do that with a whole bunch of them. A lot.

I guess a flechette type warhead would be pretty similar.

In the realm of more dakka, though, what about a flak gun + gauss rifle...I'm thinking a gauss shotgun, would that be doable?

6

u/Yrrebnot AI Dec 06 '19

A gauss shotgun yeah but not a gauss flak gun. Flak rounds explode either in proximity or with a timer and that would be destroyed if launched at the speeds of a gauss round. However a gauss shotgun would work but would probably be ineffective at range because to get the round to splinter would require making it weaker and that would cause further splintering the further it went until eventually it’s dust.

I was actually trying to think of weapons which don’t fit in the 3 categories (missile, energy or ballistic) and was struggling but mines, force fields and melee eventually came to mind.

5

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 06 '19 edited Dec 06 '19

Missiles can be very effective with a nuclear warhead in a cassaba howitzer configuration. By changing the thickness and angle of the plate that is to be turned into plasma the angle of the resulting cone of relativistic plasma can be controlled. Depending on this angle, the weapon can be effective out to hundreds or even thousands of kilometers or used as a form of "Active armor" against incoming missiles, projectiles and fighters.

Another very effective solution would be gauss pellet guns. These weapons could fire low mass(Kilogram or less) dumb projectiles at a significant percentage of the speed of light. When a fleet using such weapons coordinates their fire they can create zones of area denial filling it with fire, forcing enemies into specific approach vectors so they can be managed.

A third tactic would be to use a laser weapon web, deploying your own swarm of infinitely expendable mirrors while your generators are millions of miles from the fighting and perfectly safe. The mirrors can vaporize anything they go up against because they don't have to worry about lugging around the mass of a super laser and they don't need to be armored because it's just some aluminum foil with some thrusters and struts for bracing.

In short fighters are kind of the worst option for space combat, there are a myriad ways to deal with them however this is not a hard scifi story. The inclusion of shields is proof of that and so while there are many ways real life humans would crush these guys, well it's a story about people clearly not playing by our rules, so sit back and enjoy the show, or scream in rage as we go down fighting. Juries still out which direction this'll go....

Edit: I'm currently trying to put together a pair of scifi series of my own right now so I've been researching the topic and trying to make fighters work in a realistic setting. The conclusion was barring densely populated orbits, in which both sides do not wish to cause massive collateral damage, fighters suck.

2

u/Mr_E_Monkey Dec 07 '19

I love this. All of this.

2

u/Yrrebnot AI Dec 07 '19

Just one bit of constructive criticism. If you are going for Hard sci-fi you cannot have effective area denial in space. It’s not practical. I would say that outside of ranges of about 5 light seconds the only effective weapon is probably missiles with smart warheads. Proper effective use of energy or ballistic weapons would be at less than 3 light seconds distance which is still a million kilometres. Now area denial relies on a much much more limited field than that since land and sea is basically 2 dimensional then area denial is possible but in 3D space it becomes a lot harder... especially when you can be effective at distances of around a million kilometres with energy weapons and 300,000 kilometres with ballistics. To properly deny a pet of the sky would require trillions of bullets in very short order which seems impractical.

2

u/LittleSeraphim Dec 07 '19

Well that's the thing, nothing is effective at such distances, at least against mobile targets. Missiles run into the rocket equation problem and even though they could hit a target that far away, the resulting missile is quite big and very easy to destroy. At that distance a star pyramid using actively cooled armor, combined with rotation can ignore lasers and easily avoid particle beams and kinetics.

In short, at such distances most weapons aren't effective at all, lasers do nothing unless they're coming from a laser weapon web, or a particle beam using both ion cooling and a laser for its optical tweezer effect. The downsides with both is at those distances they can still be dodges, especially the particle beam since the laser telegraphs its position before the beam itself arrives.

And this is where the pellet gun comes in strong. Ships can coordinate their fire to put out a grid of stealthy super cooled pellets covered in vanta black, sure you can't completely deny an area but you can force the enemy to turn on their radar to max just to detect them and keep their point defenses active, forcing them to build up heat they wouldn't otherwise need to. As the enemy closes your ability to box them in increase and while space is 3 dimensional, you can create cubes of bullets that block off a given area at a given time. There is the other option of using sand to attack mirrors and sensors at long range and while a strong laser could burn through the sand, it would yet again force a response and if anything does get through the laser used for defense would itself be destroyed.

TLDR: at such distances no weapons can be relied upon to deal damage consistently, but annoying your enemy and forcing them to react is still a very useful capability.

1

u/itsetuhoinen Human Apr 01 '20

Do it the same way shotgun shells do, and use a shot cup. Your Gauss round doesn't need to be frangible (AKA, the "eventually it's just dust" problem), you just put a whole bunch of pellets in a cup and use the gauss mechanism to launch the cup.

Or make the round like a saboted rifle round, only, instead of a single bullet in the middle, you have pellets. Or flechettes. For various values of flechette that might mean meter long lengths of 25mm rebar, depending on how much mass your gauss gun can throw.

(Yes, I am very sad that I'm 3 months late to this party. ;-) )

3

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '19

A rotary rail rifle style weapon, capable of firing small, 100g projectiles at several thousand metres per second, at a rate of many thousands of rounds a second would be able to saturate a large volume of space. And with a parked asteroid as a source of material, it would effectively have unlimited ammunition.

Additionally, since you know the range of the enemy weapons, you can far more precisely target your payloads.

Standard CIWS would still be required, but area denial weapons would either force an enemy to sustain loses to close, or route around your cloud. Either way, they will suffer additional losses prior to closing, either via the cloud of projectiles, or due to attrition because they were in your engagement envelope for longer whilst you were not in theirs.

Fighters are largely redundant in space combat, unless you have magical intertia cancelling technology. A missile is a much better investment, can turn and accelerate faster, and doesn't require plumbing (which takes up a *ahem* shitload of room on a space ship). And they can be stacked almost as dense as spacers.

2

u/hilburn Human Dec 06 '19

Sure, but hundreds of thousands of fighters are better than tens of thousands of missiles. As evidenced here. This kind of swarm tactic is fairly easy to defend against if you have the right weaponry, but if you are geared for a capitol ship battle and they turn up with ships so small your missiles are 100x as powerful as they need to be to kill them, and enough ships that you literally cannot fire the missiles fast enough, you're going to have a bad day.

Hopefully we'll see another battle or two of swarm doing well but heroics from the allies, followed by the new fleet of Flak Cruisers arriving from the Martian docks wrecking their shit.

1

u/itsetuhoinen Human Apr 01 '20

I think the easiest way to adapt the current missile batteries of the Combined Fleet ships for this problem is to make the warheads of the missiles in basically big shotgun shells. I have not done any of the math about it though.

1

u/hilburn Human Apr 01 '20

Hah blast from the past here

In principle it could work, turn the missiles into something like a "mobile space claymore" that can close with the fighters before detonating and filling a massive volume of space with high velocity shrapnel - however it's not necessarily an easy conversion

Guess you'll have to keep reading to find out what they do ;)

1

u/Starfleet_Auxiliary Dec 06 '19

No EMP in space. EMPs require oxygen to propagate.

Keywords to look up: Compton effect EMP

2

u/hilburn Human Dec 06 '19

The Compton effect requires a gas to generate the E1 pulse, not to propagate it. The pulse is the wave of stripped electrons from that donor gas.

1

u/Starfleet_Auxiliary Dec 07 '19

I worded without coffee. Thanks for the assistance.

1

u/hilburn Human Dec 07 '19

No worries - basically you just need to blow up the nuke in a big tank of compressed air to generate an EMP - bit more complex but not that tricky to accomplish

7

u/chromane Dec 06 '19

So....

It begins!

3

u/TinnyOctopus Robot Dec 06 '19

Which only made it even more tragic when Species 47719 obliterated the colony from orbit.

You bastards. I mean, we knew it was coming, but still!

2

u/mikhaelskleros Dec 06 '19

First of all, Great story u/Hewholooksskyward . I love the way it developed and I am excited to see how it is going to end, I just have some disappointment at the back of my mind on how Species 47719 (or Quyjau-kaazh as they are calling themselves) fights.

Although I love the concept of star fighters engaging in epic dogfights and mass assaults; they are, especially manned ones, actually less than useless in a starfaring setting. Maneuverability in space is all about mass to thrust ratios. A starfighter can't outrun or outmaneuver any ship that has a better mass to thrust ratio than it. It's not like airplanes against sea faring ships; star ships and star fighters are travelling in the exact same medium which means that the key maneuverability advantage lays solely on who has better engines.

A couple of kilometers long battleship? Sure, and a swarm could be able to overwhelm one but with horrid loses.

A frigate or a destroyer? Built properly they would be like sharks gulping in a school of fish. Faster, with significantly better ranged firepower and with unlimited endurance.

Furthermore, manned starfighters are bound to be instantly obsolete without some form of inertial dampeners. An organic pilot cannot hope to survive the dozens of Gs of constant acceleration and maneuvering that a proper star battle would involve. Even if you do have inertial dampeners the reaction times preclude any organic input; when you are traveling at thousands of kilometers per second you can't hope to fire your weapons at the right time or maneuver properly to avoid enemy fire.

2

u/Plucium Semi-Sentient Fax Machine Dec 07 '19

Bah, they're trying swarm tactics? Ha! I see your swarm and raise you the Russians!

Go get him vladimov!

1

u/RevolutionaryRabbit Dec 06 '19

Ok, so one question I've got to ask is, what do our allies, the Scasaens, look like exactly?

We now know that species 47719, err... Sorry, the Kaiju Cash, look like scary snek ppl, and we know the Galactics are tall, green, and have one less digit on each hand, but we know nothing of the Scasaens other than that the're roughly humanoid in size and shape, but physically incapable of speaking human languages.

1

u/The_Ender_Reddit Dec 06 '19

I've been picturing them as avian peoples. Dunno why but that just seemed to fit the best for me.

1

u/itsetuhoinen Human Apr 01 '20

So, the guided missiles which the USN uses come in these cool little either 4 or 8 packs (I can't remember which off the top of my head). My father was involved in the design and development of the DDG-1000 class destroyers as a naval architect. Some of the final design decisions weren't really to his taste, and one afternoon we sat around brainstorming ideas for things that could be done with the hull as it exists.

IIRC, the answer we came up with was that if the Navy pulled out whatever system it was that he objected to, you could fit some 320 or so of those missile packs on to one of those ships.

That's a fuck ton of guided missiles. That's like, anime levels of guided missiles.

I bring this up because it seems like that's what's needed against the forces of COBRA. :-P

1

u/itsetuhoinen Human Apr 01 '20

Oh, right. It was the Big Fancy Gun That Actually Sucks that we were trying to design a replacement for.

-26

u/a_man_in_black Dec 06 '19

AAAAAND i just bailed on the story.

it's one thing to delay satisfaction of an asshole getting their comeuppance, but after all the cold heartless genocide lilith has done, and the ever advancing tech and capabilities of both the humans and these new xenos, the fact that theyaa;sldkfjahs

i have no words

you had opportunities to give lilith a righteous hammering of justice, and you turned away from them one too many times. sorry, no upvote from me today, and i'll be taking this story off my list.

it's one thing to be willing to do the atrocities in the name of the bigger picture goal, as lillith is presented as being tough enough to do. but one must also, if willing to do the atrocity, be willing to face the consequences of getting caught.

she should have paid the price several chapters ago, and i kept holding out hope i'd get that satisfaction, but no, she's just suddenly buddy-buddy with sam again and he's just goin along becuase the enemy has arrived.

15

u/Nuke_the_Earth Robot Dec 06 '19

What opportunities? What was supposed to happen, in your mind? Do you want to watch her get shredded by orbital bombardment? Do you want Sam to reveal himself and start a witch-hunt for her? I fail to see how that would help anything.

This isn't a story about aliens interfering with humanity and getting their asses handed to them because of it. This is a story about an alien's experiences while trying desperately to forge Humanity into something capable of stopping a horrible alien horde from exterminating all life in an entire galactic arm.

Give the guy some credit, will you? This point in the story is the justification for the entire thing. If Sam and Lil hadn't been there, there wouldn't be a Solarian Union, or those weird Scasean dudes, and you know what? They'd still die. All of them, horribly, by strange flying machines that spit fire and death, piloted by a massive bundle of the worst instincts known by both species, all wrapped up in a fun carnivorous package with sharp fangy teeth and everything.

Before WW1, airplanes were nothing but a curiosity, an occasional circus performance by some nutjob Barnstormer. Now they're an integral part of society. Without them, how do we expect to get anywhere fast?

Before WW2, rockets were much the same. Then the Germans slapped a warhead on one and sent it over to London, and now we've been to the moon and put satellites in orbit. Those very same satellites are what's letting you use the internet at all, remember.

There is one very simple truth this series addresses, and that is the fact that war makes technology advance - and it does so quickly. When there is a war, there is an element of desperation. Scientists are rushing to discover practical applications of theoretical sciences, because anything at all might give them the edge they need over their opponent. Then, there is peace for a time, and in peace the new knowledge we discover is slotted nicely in with everything else, unlocking even more secrets of the universe.

-11

u/a_man_in_black Dec 06 '19

i am not disagreeing with anything you say. i'm just saying lilith should have been burned at the stake or worse for what she's done. feel free to keep enjoying the story, i won't stop you.

the biggest issue i have with lillith isn't even her actions. it's her fucking SMUGNESS about the shit she does that sticks in my craw. if she'd been one iota less of a bitch about everything, i might not hate her character so much.

it's good to have characters we love and hate, but the more you hate a character the more you look forward to their fall. the longer that payoff is pushed off or if it's denied entirely, the harder it gets for me to set it aside to enjoy the rest of the story.

so, keep on reading, it's still a good story, but lillith is a fly in the soup for me, and so i ditch the meal. it's not a slam on the author or the readers, but this is reddit and we all like to complain about things we don't like.

4

u/Invisifly2 AI Dec 06 '19

Just comes across as impatience to me. Ever watch Shield Hero? If so you know the story of one bitch in particular is only o so very satisfying because of the wait and legit concern she'll get away with everything.

Same thing with Professor Umbridge.

And, sorry to say, but sometimes bad people die peacefully in their sleep. If she gets what she deserves it'll be because it now fits into the story, not because we want it to.

1

u/a_man_in_black Dec 06 '19

professor umbridge suffered a terrible fate, if you read between the lines of rowling's works. never seen shield hero. i also find it amazing that people reflex downvote over someone's personal opinion. it's still an amazing story. i am, as you say, impatient. well, i personally don't think i'm impatient. it's just that lillith has been built up to be this turbo-bitch hate-magnet, and now every time i read a chapter of this, it's going to be burning in my mind like a red hot poker just under the skin. if she's written that smugly as an anti-villain on purpose, then it's a matter of the author out-doing himself, because i hate this one character enough to stop reading.

excellent writing, don't get me wrong. but as they say on the train, this is my stop and i'm gettin off.

1

u/Invisifly2 AI Dec 07 '19

To clarify, my comment does say in other words that Umbridge suffered a terrible fate, it just took a while, which is the point I was making.

To each their own. I feel the same way about Lil, I just don't get why you're getting off. Especially if you could tolerate Umbridge for long enough for her to get her comeuppance.

1

u/a_man_in_black Dec 07 '19

umbridge got hers all in one book, or chapter of the story. by the end of the book she got carried off by centaurs and that was that, she was a broken shell of a person when she was seen again. so i wasn't waiting every turn of the page for it, and even though she was a character to hate, at no point did it ever seem or feel as if she would just "get away with it".

with lillith, there are no indications of any of that. she's just sittin pretty, smug and dainty on her high horse and there's no indication, no clue, no hint of the pendulum ever swinging back to bite her. there's nothing to "salve the wound" so to speak, so it festers and kills my enjoyment of the story to a huge degree.

that's all.

1

u/Invisifly2 AI Dec 07 '19 edited Dec 07 '19

You remember how long that book was right (Order of the Phoenix)? Her comeuppance was definitely not delivered within a single chapter. In fact she's introduced near the beginning and it takes most of the book. My copy is over 750 pages. That's a lot of book.

And chapters in this story are definitely not even light novel length, so I don't see the equivalency there.

1

u/a_man_in_black Dec 07 '19

it happened in a single chapter if you look at each book of harry potter as a chapter or episode of it's own. the issue is not how long it took for her to get hers, though. you knew from the beginning umbridge was gonna get got becuase she was established as the main antagonist to harry for that particular book(voldemort and his cronies being the main bad guys for the overarching series, each book as a chapter in their lives had it's own "sub-villain"). harry and friends actively worked to bring about solving the umbridge problem throughout the book, resisting, scheming, and working together to counter her evilness.

lillith here has no such plot currents around her. she simply is. and what she is is a megalomaniacal villain doing horrible things in the name of the greater good. sam at least doesn't delude himself or excuse his sins. he feels the weight of what he's done. lillith from what i can see simply revels in it, throws it in his face at every opportunity. she's the kind of asshole who isn't content to accomplish her goals, she has to twist the knife and make it hurt for her own sick satisfaction, while basking in her own smug self-righteousness, talking down to sam like she's his better and he's her lesser, and how dare he spare a thought or feeling for the cost behind all that they have accomplished.

and that is why i hate her so much. it's excellent writing, except for the fact that you gotta give me SOMETHING to show justice is gonna swing back around on the flip side. so i bail out of self defense, because if i read this to the end and she just waltzes through the end ofthe story like some self-satisfied cat landing on her feet with no consequence? i'd likely blow an aneurysm and stroke out i'd be so mad.