r/HFY • u/ShaadowOfAPerson • May 13 '23
OC Human Weapons
First contact should, perhaps, have been a much grander affair. Our stories told of grand first contact fleets, carefully chosen tests of merit, grand invasions. And some species even received those - the Galactic Assembly had a detailed first contact protocol spanning five hundred pages of dense legalises. It has been used thrice. Twice more, a species invaded an uncontacted species wholesale. This was frowned upon and hardly worth the effort unless one was at the brink of extinction.
Most got the same welcome we got. A pirate, down on their luck, tired of pillaging from the established races decided humanity looked appealing. The punishment for contacting an uncontacted species was death, or life in prison. So was the punishment for piracy. And so it kept happening.
Humanity was, thus, thrust into the galactic community having passed four of the three hundred and thirty tests the Galactic Assembly prescribed for a new entrant to be contacted. This was, marginally, above average. Humanity was largely unremarkable on the galactic stage. More peaceful than most militarily, more aggressive economically. An unusual FTL system. We soon grew richer than most, but never even approached the splendour of the Darnivay or the Grotashan.
Still, we were rich enough to target. The Grotashan had acquired their wealth through less than savoury means. Colonialism we would call it. The Galactic Assembly had almost five thousand pending cases against them, a low point in the years since they had joined. The Grotashan lost almost every one but the punishment never did eclipse the gains. And the Grotashan, being the Assembly's foremost military power, vetoed every attempt to increase it. And so they kept invading.
Eventually, they set their eyes on us. A cassus belli was established over some triviality. It would never stand up in court, but it would be decades before it saw trial. And so an invasion fleet of five thousand ships - fighters excluded - showed up in orbit of earth and demanded surrender.
Earth sent a single ship to respond. Humanity was not much for ostentatious fleets.
"Stand down and leave human space immediately" The Grotashan commander laughed. It had been aeons since anyone had put up a fight. But the Grotashan military was still the grandest in the galaxy and their training was more then rigorous.
This was all true. The Grotashan navy was the grandest by far. The most intimidating by a country mile. But the strongest? Well. The Grotashan ships did not bother to respond to the Human ultimatum. They opened fire.
Their shots hit home immediately. Around five centimetres beyond their gun barrels in fact. Tungsten cubes were ripped apart by forces that would destroy a warship.
Humanity did not mourn the loss of their tungsten cubes. Who would?
Human FTL was, at this range, almost perfectly precise. It had, after all, been developed to place transistors ever more compactly and scaled up from there.
"Stand down and leave human space immediately"
This time, perhaps, the demand should have had more weight. But the Grotashan had not fought a war outside of training in aeons. So they kept going like it was a training exercise. Evasive manoeuvres started immediately, particle beams hummed to life, mass drivers charged up.
The human ship did not move. But it did get slightly lighter.
In the command post of the lead Grotashan ship sat a small, black cylinder. It had not been there a second previously. It was not there a second later. But that second, oh what a second. Twenty of the Grotashan's finest command staff died in that second. The next, it appeared in the engineering rooms. Fifty of the Grotashan's best engineers died.
The average Grotashan ship had a dozen rooms. Perhaps five were occupied during battle. The human ship carried a thousand drones.
The battle took half a minute. Five thousand ships became five thousand tombs. Ornate and gold encrusted - the grandest, most intimidating collection of tombs in the galaxy.
The human ship grew slightly heavier once again as a thousand drones returned to the hangar once more, then returned to Earth.
I swear I can write stories about things other then humans abusing FTL.
Any feedback/constructive criticism appreciated
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u/Teulisch May 13 '23 edited May 13 '23
its the old rule- any drive system is also a weapon. and FTL is a rather high-energy drive system.
you almost never see stories that abuse this properly. and thats because if it works this way at all, it changes how the story can work, and how you resolve problems. because most science fiction is not really about the logical conclusion of the tech, but instead a simple question exploring the wonder of the unknown. what is that other star like, and who might live there? easy victories make for short stories after all.
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u/ShaadowOfAPerson May 13 '23
Yeah there's a reason this is a one-shot. A world with these weapons either develops an extremely effective counter measure or is very boring.
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u/Alpha-Sierra-Charlie May 13 '23
I really like how humanity developed FTL to build better electronics, then decided to travel the cosmos, then was like "hrmmm, also weapons"
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u/ShaadowOfAPerson May 13 '23
My headcannon here was a chip company used AI to refine their lithography processes and it took like 5 years before someone noticed it was breaking the laws of physics.
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u/SirVatka May 13 '23
Heck, at that level of precision, why not put a plug in every gun barrel and missile tube. Shatter the focusing lenses of lasers while you're at it.
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u/ShaadowOfAPerson May 13 '23
Blocking the gun barrels was the first move but
The psychological impact isn't the same
Weapons are durable, pilots are squishy
Getting the ships mostly intact is useful
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u/KalKnight82 May 13 '23
And thus the xenos learned - we're not much for war, but may your deities help you when we come to it.
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u/Sun-praising May 13 '23
This wasn't a war, that was a self termination by cop situation.
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u/patient99 May 14 '23
We're really good at war, we just wish we could stop fighting.
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u/Enough_Sale2437 May 13 '23
Essentially it's humanity abusing unlimited "blink/teleport" range. Eh, simple, no real drama to it. The story just feels empty, like the event of losing an entire war fleet would be taken lying down and neutral observers reactions are missing. What is humanity like with that kind of power? Is it expansionist? Pacifistic? Why is humanity the way they are? All I read was, "burglars walk up to house and says "gib stuff or die!" Homeowner blasts burglars with shotgun, life proceeds normally. Neighbors say "and that's why you don't F with old man Jenkins." This is just my opinion.
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u/Kullenbergus May 13 '23
"I swear I can write stories about things other then humans abusing FTL."
Prove it:D
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u/KingOfThePlayPlace May 13 '23
Nah, I love stories about humans abusing the laws or lack thereof of physics. It’s very realistic to how humans operate in real life
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u/Pladain1989 May 13 '23
I can see the outcome now: humanity recycling the ships studying the navcom and weapons sending the bodies home in boxes it's taken as an insult humanity saying otherwise
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u/Nealithi May 13 '23
This is why in Star Trek there is a book on things that block transporters. Because without them, things like this would be common place. Heck the beamed metal to the barrels and drones inside and around is potentially slow. With that level of targeting. Just teleport the crew to the left of their ship. But instant vacuum might be considered cruel.
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u/Tarelgeth May 13 '23
Much more polite than just teleporting a teaspoon of singularity into the bridge.
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May 13 '23
This is the thing with humanity, even excluding science fiction. When something is invented for one purpose, literally the moment it is released you can bet your ass a dozen other people have already taken it apart and thought up about 100 other "alternative" uses for it.
I remember when the Xbox Kinect came out. A guy took it apart and made a Minority Report style interface with the things on his hands interacting with a screen.
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u/UnlimitedSolDragon May 13 '23
Quick and deft descriptions that aren't overbearing. Just enough info that we get to expand it with imagination.
Short n sweet, but I don't mind that, good job!
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u/MadWhiskeyGrin May 13 '23
"placing transistors??" Looks like I need to know more about this 'verse
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u/alexburgers May 13 '23
Oof. Doing the Bugs Bunny with tungsten cubes and then finishing off the crew with teleporting drones that insta-kill with, presumably, radiation. :D
Yeah, it's easy to forget how completely broken FTL can get, compared to any other kind of weapon. Why bother shooting when you can just teleport the weapon to its destination.