The Strug civilization was largely peaceful and had, from the first, been interested in astronomy and space travel. How could it be otherwise, when their planet was actually one of sixteen moons of a gas planet? Fifteen moons, including their huge gas giant primary, hung in their night skies. Some of the moons came closer in their orbits than the Luna ever came to the Earth, and all of this visible real estate stimulated the Strug to focus their efforts on studying their neighboring moons. Perhaps for this reason the history of the Strug was relatively unmarked by war or large scale conflicts. It wasn?t that they were angels, of course, it was just that they had better things to do.
The Strug evolved from heavily armored crab-like animals, and it was their heavy external armor that helped them function in what humans would consider an extreme environment. Their world was one of the larger moons orbiting their primary, which in turn orbited the dim central star, a class M0-V star, at a bare 78 million kilometers. The Strug home world has a gravity field 31% that of Earth, a very thin nitrogen/argon/oxygen atmosphere, and an average temperature of -81.4 degrees Celsius.
The Strug had long called the gas giant planet their home world orbited ?The Eye of God?, because of the distinctive storm formations that appeared, to the primitive Strug observers, to be remarkably like a Strug eye. Later, after the time of superstition and fear passed, the name for the giant planet was shortened to ?The Eye?, and so it remained. Each of the other moons had Strug names, of course, but the Strug had a special feeling for the planet they called ?The Sister?. The Sister slightly farther out from The Eye than Strug Home, and although it was much larger than the Strug home world, and different in almost every way, it had one important similarity ? it had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a biosphere. From the earliest days of recorded history the Strug had been fascinated by The Sister, and as Strug technology evolved much of their efforts and attention was focused on learning more about The Sister.
Everything changed for the Strug in the 846th Year of the Modern Calendar. Late in the year the many astronomers and astrophysicists studying the other moons of The Eye observed an obviously artificial object entering The Eye?s intricate network of moons. It soon became clear that the object, clearly a ship of some sort, was visiting each of the moons in turn, in what appeared to be a survey effort.
The Strug were overjoyed. Here, finally, was proof that they weren?t alone. The Strug world government wasted no time and tried everything it could think of to make contact with the alien ship. Radio messages were sent out in every format they could think of. The Strug people joined in and tried every known form of communication, including things little more sophisticated than smoke signals. The alien ship ignored everything and continued its enigmatic efforts. Strug communication attempts reached a crescendo when the alien ship reached their planet, but in spite of their strenuous attempts the alien ship moved on a few days later without any sign that it had detected their communications attempts.
A few days later the ship left The Eye and sped out of the system. The dismay of the Strug was acute. The Strug were proud of their accomplishments, and to be completely ignored was galling. Ultimately, though, their scientists decided that the alien ship was most likely an automated probe of some sort, and as such it probably wasn?t programmed for first contact. This idea did much to alleviate the Strug populace?s anger over being ignored, and restored their interest in space and science. Once the probe reported back, went the popular reasoning, its builders would be eager to make contact.
They were wrong, though, another fifteen years went by before another ship visited the Eye and its moons, and this time it wasn?t just a ship, it was an entire squadron. During this period of time the Strug had advanced quickly, and just prior to the next sighting of aliens the Strug had even managed to launch an advanced, for them, automated probe that surveyed several of the other moons orbiting the Eye.
Once again there was joy throughout the Strug population. The aliens were back, in force, surely to make contact. As before, the Strug were disappointed. In spite of every effort the Strug made to contact them the aliens headed straight for The Sister, without deviating. The nine ships went into orbit and began activities that looked suspiciously like offloading heavy cargo. In a matter of days six of the nine ships lifted out of orbit and sped away. Throughout the entire operation the Strug attempts at communication went completely ignored.
Over the next several years the alien activity on The Sister intensified. Soon after the first ships unloaded the Strug were able to see the towns and cities that the aliens were setting up on The Sister, and, as their communications attempts continued to be ignored the Strug people?s anger increased. The Strug people saw the aliens as arrogant and as unwanted visitors to their solar system, and increasingly, as more and more alien ships came and left, the thoughts of the Strug people turned to defense. The aliens had done nothing hostile, but surely the fact that the aliens continued to ignore them couldn?t be a friendly act. Unfortunately for the Strug, their technology wasn?t up to interfering with or defending against the aliens, and they knew it. The alien ships were capable of instantaneous acceleration to several thousand kps, while Strug interplanetary craft were limited to chemical engines with barely enough thrust to escape their own gravity well.
For the next fifteen years the Strug were forced to watch as the aliens built their colony on the Sister, after the first five years the number of ship entering the system dropped way off, and after the tenth year the number of ships entering and leaving dropped to nothing. Only the three ships that had orbited the colony from the first were left. Still, the colony on The Sister was apparently thriving, and the colonists appeared to be busily expanding their cities, factories, and mines. Then, almost fifteen years after the first colony ships appeared, everything changed yet again.
In Year 876 of the Modern Calendar the Strug detected a group of nine ships closing on The Eye and its attendant moons. The colonists on The Sister obviously detected the incoming ships as well, as several large orbital constructs began emitting what Strug scientists believed were analogous to search radar substantially before the limited Strug sensors detected the new ships. While the Strug watched, the alien colonists began what could only be a fight to the death with the intruding ships.
The intruders closed to just over three million kilometers from The Sister and opened fire with missiles that traveled so fast that the Strug thought that their sensors were malfunctioning. The three ships orbiting The Sister had taken up position between the colony and the intruders, and shortly after the intruders opened fire, several previously unsuspected missile bases on the surface of The Sister opened fire in return. The Strug were amazed at the capabilities thus revealed. It was soon clear that all of the time and effort they had spent preparing to defend their planet was, if not wasted, at the very least was going to be ineffective. Nothing they had would touch missiles traveling at 25,000 kps. They could barely see the missiles, much less shoot at them. The colonists on The Sister had no such problems, though. Counter-missiles launched from the ground and from the orbiting bases intercepted the oncoming missiles, and the three defending ships shot down many of the missiles as the closed. Still, some got through, and before long two of the defending ships and one of the five bases had been destroyed. The attacking ships had been damaged by the defender?s missiles, but to the watching Strug the attacking ships appeared to be very tough, tougher than the defenders. Still, as tough as they were they weren?t invulnerable, and one by one they were damaged and then destroyed as the battle went on. By the time the attackers were down to four ships all of the defending ships and bases were gone, and missiles were impacting directly on The Sister, aimed at both the defending bases and the colonist?s cities. The battle raged while the Strug watched, fascinated and appalled, as nuclear explosions marched across the surface of The Sister.
Finally, twenty-five minutes after the battle began, the attackers were down to one damaged ship, while the defenders were reduced to a few scattered missile launches from the surface of their battered colony. The last attacking ship began accelerating away from The Sister, and then began wildly swerving, as if out of control. Finally it drove for the Strug home world as if to find refuge, but the last salvoes from The Sister caught it before it could reach any imagined safety at the Strug home world. The missiles slammed into the fleeing ship, which appeared to lose power just as it entered orbit over the Strug home world. What happened next horrified the Strug.
Five missiles were still in flight towards the attacking ship when it lost power in orbit around the Strug home world. The Strug watched in horror as the missiles apparently lost their target lock on the now powerless ship and began tracking on Strug cities. Before the Strug defenses could react, five of their largest cities were all but destroyed.
The destruction of the Strug cities marked the end of the battle. The invaders were all disabled or destroyed, and the alien colony on the Sister was heavily damaged. The Strug had suffered grievously in a fight that wasn?t theirs, but they were compensated. Weeks after the battle, when they finally put a mission together to explore the wreck of the attacking ship that still orbited their planet, they found a treasure-trove of technology. The ship was heavily damaged, but enough remained to revolutionize Strug technology. In particular, analysis of the wreckage gave the Strug the insight they needed to decipher the missing link they had been looking for fruitlessly for so many years while they studied the aliens operating at The Sister. Finally, trans-uranic materials science, with all of the capabilities that implied, became a reality for the Strug.
It took the Strug many years to build up their science and technology to the point where they could effectively utilize everything they learned from the wreckage of the orbiting ship. During this period of time the Strug observed the aliens rebuilding their colony on The Sister, and so the Strug concentrated most of their efforts on building up their defenses. They had not forgotten that the missiles that devastated their cities came from The Sister, and many thought that they had been deliberately launched against their planet, to prevent them from getting ahead of the alien colonists.
By the Year 895 of the Modern Calendar, the Strug were ready to begin exploring their system. They had recovered from the bombardment of their world, and had gone on to build a defense network of ground and orbital bases. The network was complete, and their first geo-survey ship had just left the docks. There had been no contact with the alien colonists on The Sister, in spite of repeated attempts. The Strug had done everything they could think of to avoid anything that their neighbors might construe as a provocation, even to the point of not doing any crewed experimental flights to test their new drives. Now, though, they were ready to begin a new era, and they didn?t intend to let the aliens keep them from what they saw as their destiny.
Strug Population Stats:
January 1st, Year 895
Population: 500 million
Shipyards: 2/3
CF: 500
Ord. Fac: 100
Fuel Ref: 300
Mines: 600
A. Mines: 100
RL: 15
GFTF: 3
Nav. Academy: 1
DSTS: 5
Military: 5xSyria Planum PDC, 10xOlympus Mons BS
Survey Command: 1xValles Marineris (5,900 ton GeoSurvey ship)
Strug Ship Designs:
Olympus Mons class Base 5250 tons 483 Crew 872 BP TCS 105 TH 0 EM 900
1 km/s Armour 1 Shields 30-400 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 27
Replacement Parts 5
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range N/A
Gamma R400/16 Shields (15) Total Fuel Cost 240 Litres per day
Twin 10cm C3 Visible Light Laser Turret (3x2) Range 60,000km TS: 12800 km/s Power 6-6 RM 2 ROF 5 3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
PD Fire Control (3) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 12800 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Pebble Bed Reactor (2) Total Power Output 18 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Missile Sensor, Large (1) GPS 38.4 Range 384k km Resolution 0.2
Syria Planum class Planetary Defence Centre 15750 tons 1375 Crew 2641.2 BP TCS 63 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 7 Sensors 96/192 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 100
Magazine 2000
PDC Missile Launcher 20-100 (5) Missile Size 20 Rate of Fire 100
PDC Missile Fire Control (1) Range: 1200k km
Ship Sensor, Large (1) GPS 7680 Range 76.8m km Resolution 40
Missile Sensor, Large (1) GPS 38.4 Range 384k km Resolution 0.2
Thermal Sensor, Large (1) Sensitivity 96 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 96m km
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre
Valles Marineris class Geosurvey Ship 5900 tons 559 Crew 1144 BP TCS 118 TH 240 EM 300
2033 km/s Armour 1 Shields 10-400 Sensors 32/0/0/4 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 9
Replacement Parts 15
Nuclear Pulse Engine (6) Power 40 Efficiency 0.80 Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 137.2 billion km (781 days at full power)
Gamma R400/16 Shields (5) Total Fuel Cost 80 Litres per day
Twin 10cm C3 Visible Light Laser Turret (1x2) Range 60,000km TS: 12800 km/s Power 6-6 RM 2 ROF 5 3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
PD Fire Control (1) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 12800 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Pebble Bed Reactor (1) Total Power Output 9 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Missile Sensor, Small (1) GPS 12.8 Range 128k km Resolution 0.2
Ship Sensor, Small (1) GPS 2560 Range 25.6m km Resolution 40
Thermal Sensor, Small (1) Sensitivity 32 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 32m km
Geological Survey Sensors (4) 4 Survey Points
Kurt
