The Official Chronicle of the Duranium Legion

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

Year 4006

After the tense encounter at Eta Cassiopeiae (which, in the case of Warden 6, had yet to be resolved), an eerie calm fell over the Duranium Legion. On 6 January, the survey frigate Archon traversed the only unexplored jump point in the AX Microscopii system, which was found to link back to a previously dormant jump point in the famous Olympia system. This completed the first loop in the galactic jump network which was known to the Duranium Legion, and was a source of mild fanfare in the news media organizations for some days following. With this, Warden 3 which had been monitoring the known jump point between AX Microscopii and AD Leonis was recalled to Sol, likely pending reassignment to the Adamantine sector. Archon was also sent to Earth for the time being, as she would soon need to refuel anyways.



The eeriness of this period would prove more prophetic than the calm. On 13 January, the survey frigate Ars Magica detected a sensor signature in orbit of the third planet of the LHS 3508 system, clearly matching that of the Yuan-class contact first seen in Eta Cassiopeiae - another Mongolican fleet was lying in wait. Ars Magica immediately turned around and made for the jump point at full speed, not wishing to repeat the fate of Ardent Knight nor to invite the curse of being first in her class which had been visited upon Bellerophon, Charybdis, and Defiant three years ago. Unfortunately, the curse would claim another victim, as three salvos of Mongolican missiles were soon detected streaking toward Ars Magica. Her demise was as swift as it was certain. News of this shocking event would be carried back to the Legion high command by Gatekeeper 5 which had remained at the entry jump point; news of the first-in-class curse would be carried throughout the Legion Navy by word of mouth. Before leaving the system to deliver her report, however, Gatekeeper 5 remained at the jump point long enough to witness the expiration of Ars Magica’s life pods; the Mongolicans had not taken captives, a marked departure from their behavior in Eta Cassiopeiae, which suggested that there may only be orbital battle stations in this system - valuable information for the Legion’s battle planners.

Orders were issued: Frigate Squadron 3 was directed to relocate from its current position on the Eta Cassiopeiae jump point, which by now the Legion high command was quite certain the Mongolicans had no interest in breaching, to conduct reconnaissance of the LHS 3508 system, most importantly to confirm that the only forces present were orbital battle stations which could be engaged and defeated with fairly minimal effort - in relative terms, of course. As this would test the limits of the frigates’ fuel range, a tanker would be dispatched from Duratus after taking some time to load sufficient fuel to support the squadron. Gatekeeper 5 was ordered to remain in-system, at the entry jump point, and to observe any potential approach of hostile forces to the jump point before fleeing. Finally, as the existing designation of the system was rather tedious, the battle planning department recommended that the system be redesignated. Claiming that their reasoning was entirely due to an interesting parallel with mathematical shorthand, the department suggested the designation “Devils’ Hand”, which was grudgingly accepted by the Legion admirals when no alternative was suggested.

Frigate Squadron 3 arrived in Devil’s Hand early on 15 February. Not willing to risk his entire squadron on an excursion away from the jump point, Commander Agon Reza detached his own vessel, Bad Omen, and ordered her to approach within 83 million km of the third planet in the system. Having made this approach by 09:37 on 17 February, Bad Omen was able to resolve the Yuan-class contact as displacing 17,734 tons - nearly the same displacement as the Genghis and Khan stations previously engaged. At this range, the long-range sensor array aboard Bad Omen could resolve any vessel larger than 7,500 tons, smaller than every Mongolican ship detected to that point. With the primary mission accomplished, Commander Reza considered approaching closer to the target, knowing from the previous encounter that the Mongolican missiles had a maximum range of at least 76 million km. However, at this distance hardly anything smaller than 7,500 tons would be resolvable anyways, thus Commander Reza decided against this risky course of action. After remaining on station for an hour or so, in hopes of detecting some response from the enemy, Bad Omen set course back to the jump point.



The opportunity for the Legion Navy was blatantly obvious, with the only potential catch being that any fleet assets temporarily diverted to Devil’s Hand would be unavailable should the business with the Belaire go poorly. After ordering the railgun counters in the battle planning department to triple-check the point defense calculations, the Legion high command devised a two-component battle plan. On one hand, Cruiser Squadron 3 would depart for the Adamantine Base ahead of schedule, in hopes that this would provide some additional incentive for the Belaire to keep a fair distance and avoid any breakout of hostilities. Meanwhile, Second Fleet which had recently finished a set of overhauls would detach its frigate squadron, sail to Devil’s Hand with all haste, and take on Frigate Squadron 3 as its sensor wing. As the Yuan-class missile base had been observed to fire, at most, two salvos of eleven large missiles each in a single volley, and based on comparisons with the weapons of the Genghis station this was likely to be the full armament of the Yuan. It was expected that a single destroyer squadron would provide more than enough point defense for the fleet; however, in case the Yuan had been careful to hide its true strength the second destroyer squadron would be available. Second Fleet would arrive at Devil’s Hand in twenty-four days.

At 16:39 on 14 March, Second Fleet rendezvoused with Frigate Squadron 3 and transited to Devil’s Hand. Immediately, Captain Ceto Echetus aboard the light cruiser Defenestrator ordered the fleet to approach within 83 million km of the planet, as Bad Omen had done previously. This being done, active sensor arrays confirmed that the situation around the third planet was unchanged, and two minutes past midnight on 16 March, Second Fleet began their attack run against the Mongolicans.

Second Fleet
Captain Ceto Echetus commanding aboard CL Defenestrator
Cruiser Squadron 2: Dauntless, Defenestrator, Disruptor, Gothic, 4x R-56
Destroyer Squadron 3: Catharsis, Centaur, Crushing Blow, Final Blow
Destroyer Squadron 4: Champion, Covenanter, Cry, Ye Wicked, Final Judgement
Frigate Squadron 3 (attached): Bad Omen, Broken Wind, Brutal Legend, Endless Night



Second Fleet preparing for the approach to Devil’s Hand III.

Captain Echetus ordered the fleet to first close to 42 million km, within range of the high-resolution arrays of the frigates. For the approach, only the destroyers would initially be ordered to participate in point defense final fire; Legion battle planners had assured Captain Echetus that one destroyer squadron’s worth of battery fire would be sufficient, and while the Captain certainly intended to test this theory she would have the second destroyer squadron ready to issue any empirically-determined corrections. The eager gunners of Second Fleet would however be disappointed, as the fleet closed to 42 million km without detecting any sign of even one missile launched in their direction. Irritated, Captain Echetus ordered the fleet to close to 15 million km, just within the maximum range of the missile warning arrays of Frigate Squadron 3. Again the break point was reached, and no enemy missiles had been detected. Now quite perplexed, the Captain ordered the fleet to close to two-and-a-quarter million km, just beyond the range of the fast missiles encountered by First Fleet in Mongolica. She did not expect the Yuan battle station to be armed with these, given that it was already known to be armed with enough launchers for the larger missiles as to constitute a full loadout, but Captain Echetus knew better than to rely on her expectations.

As Second Fleet continued to close in, small signatures appeared on the passive detection arrays of the frigates, corresponding to some kind of planetary structures and the waste heat emissions from the Yuan itself. Still, no missile launches had yet been detected. Now thoroughly annoyed at the complete waste of her time, Captain Echetus ordered the fleet to commence its final attack run. Finally, as Second Fleet closed to under 450,000 km, the Yuan finally seemed to take notice and began launching its missiles. Despite a handful of gunners aboard the destroyers having dozed off, the point defense work was fully effective, with all twenty-two incoming missiles destroyed easily, in fact only two destroyers even had the chance to fire their weapons before the interception was over. This would have been an excellent trap, Captain Echetus would later comment during a debriefing session, if only it had any chance of working at all. Instead, this would stand as yet another example proving that cowardly, poorly-programmed automatons ought never be used to do a real soldiers job.



Finally, something interesting happens.

Second Fleet continued to close, fending off another half-dozen impotent waves of missiles. Aside from some mild communications hiccups, the approach was perfectly smooth, and two volleys from the weapons batteries of Cruiser Squadron 2 were enough to reduce the Yuan to space rubble. Defenestrator, the flagship of Captain Ceto Echetus, claimed the kill. As Second Fleet entered orbit of the planet, active scans confirmed that there were no Mongolican ground forces present on the surface. With that, Captain Echetus declared the Battle of Devil’s Hand finished, claiming total victory for the Duranium Legion, and ordered Second Fleet to depart the system at once. The fleet would briefly rendezvous with the tanker en-route and then return to Duratus with all due haste, aiming to return before the Belaire might try anything untoward. The small Mongolican outpost would be left until some undetermined date in the future when a survey ship might get around to studying the planet.

With the brief interruption of Devil’s Hand out of the way, the attentions of the Lords Admiral returned to the situation in Eta Cassiopeiae, specifically the recovery of Warden 6 if she had indeed survived the past three months alone in a hostile system. Still on station at the jump point to Eta Cassiopeiae, the light jump cruiser Grand Cross launched her R-56 recon fighter into the jump point on 21 March, hoping the small craft would be small enough to evade detection and counting on the revolution of the Mongolican planet to have carried it out of range to detect the transit. Unfortunately, these hopes would prove unfounded; the R-56 would scarcely have the chance to send a panicked communication through the jump point before being eviscerated in a hail of gunfire. Clearly, the Mongolicans had positioned a substantial defense force at the jump point; thus, any chance of rescue for Warden 6, should she even have survived to this point, was minimal and most likely would require discovery of a second jump point leading into the system. Meanwhile, Grand Cross would return to Duratus empty-handed, leaving Gatekeeper 7 behind to monitor the jump point just in case the Mongolicans suddenly developed an urge to take the offensive.

After this, several months passed without serious incident. On 15 June, the first new naval ship class to be commissioned since the year 4000 came off the slipway, albeit as a refit rather than an entirely new class. The survey frigate Archon had been refitted to a Mk II modernization of the Ars Magica class, which was somewhat enlarged in order to fit a more powerful engine and a small active scanner to supplement the passive scanners; recent experiences had convinced the Lords Admiral that the survey fleet required a minimal active scanning capability to carry out reconnaissance missions, notably the ability to pulse an active scanner during the Belaire encounter would have provided valuable intelligence. Detractors of the modernized design criticized the reduced maintenance life and complained that the sensor suite had not been upgraded to match the increase in straight-line speed.

Ars Magica Mk II class Survey Frigate      8,500 tons       141 Crew       899.7 BP       TCS 170    TH 375    EM 0
2205 km/s    JR 1-25(C)      Armour 2-37       Shields 0-0       HTK 41      Sensors 8/8/2/2      DCR 8      PPV 0
Maint Life 7.04 Years     MSP 1,049    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 37    5YR 556    Max Repair 100 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 2   BRG   SCI   
Intended Deployment Time: 84 months    Morale Check Required   

Legion Gravitic Corps LG-170 Gravity Drive 'Hermes'     Max Ship Size 8500 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 1

Hyperion Drive Yards HC-375 Deep Space Engine 'Cyclops' (1)    Power 375    Fuel Use 5.77%    Signature 375    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 401,000 Litres    Range 147 billion km (771 days at full power)

Scamander Corporation Series XVI Onboard Targeting System (1)     GPS 16     Range 6.4m km    MCR 574.5k km    Resolution 1
Scamander Corporation Series VIII Infrared Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series VIII RF Wave Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Further good news came out the survey corps not long after this, with the announcement that the Legion’s first Xenoarcheology Brigade had been activated and would be deployed to Mongolica II. The brigade followed the same pattern as the Geosurvey Brigade, consisting of three xenoarcheology companies escorted by a mechanized infantry battalion with the brigade headquarters attached. The Legion high command expected this new brigade to make the next steps in understanding their mysterious Mongolican foes.



Styx Mk I XAV
Transport Size (tons) 218     Cost 8.72     Armour 16     Hit Points 32
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.1     Resupply Cost 0
Xenoarchaeology Equipment:      Xenoarchaeology Points 0.5
Xenoarchaeology Equipment:      Xenoarchaeology Points 0.5
Non-Combat Class

A parallel development was the commissioning of the Legion’s first salvage vessel. The Accatran-class salvager, soon to be accompanied by her sister Eyrie, would investigate the wrecks of the Genghis and Khan, to be followed in the near future by a study of the Yuan debris in Devil’s Hand. In addition to shedding further light on the origins of the Mongolicans, a wealth of minerals and technology was anticipated from the salvaging operations.

Accatran class Salvager      79,344 tons       423 Crew       1,395.5 BP       TCS 1,587    TH 2,400    EM 0
1512 km/s      Armour 1-164       Shields 0-0       HTK 93      Sensors 8/8/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 10    Max Repair 200 MSP
Cargo 30,000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 5   
Subcommander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   
Salvager: 2 module(s) capable of salvaging 1000 tons per day

Hyperion Drive Yards HC-300 Auxiliary Engine 'Charon' (    Power 2400    Fuel Use 3.30%    Signature 300    Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 68.6 billion km (525 days at full power)

Scamander Corporation Series VIII RF Wave Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series VIII Infrared Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

On 3 September, the newly-refitted Archon transmitted an intriguing report to Legion high command. As expected, another alien ruin had been detected during the survey of Devil’s Hand III, although this one was quite small and likely no more than an outpost of the civilization which had built them. More intriguing, however, was the discovery of a mysterious structure, or “construct” as Captain Thalia Skythes described it in her report to the Legion high command. The structure was clearly distinct from the ruined outpost, and in fact seemed to be in remarkably better condition, but its purpose was completely unclear from its shape and size. Captain Skythes recommended that the Xenoarcheology Brigade arrive to investigate the structure at the earliest possible time; she also noted that the planet would not be too difficult to terraform although it would take some time to be made fully habitable as there was no water present on the surface; if the construct turned out to be of interest, it would not be too difficult to establish a naval base on the planet. Intrigued by this possibility, the Legion high command took the somewhat risky step of ordering the stabilization fleet to create a jump gate network reaching to Devil’s Hand once the entire stabilization fleet had returned from their previous tasks.

“The earliest possible time” was not too long in coming, as by 28 October the Xenoarcheology Brigade had completed their study of the Mongolica II ruins. The ruins had been constructed by an ancient race whose name was best translated as the Khorramabad. While it was difficult to make out many details from the scraps of surviving record, the Khorramabad appeared to have constructed the automatons which the Legion had fought as a defense against a powerful foe. Judging from the lack of living Khorramabad, the Legion xenoarcheologists judged that they had probably been defeated by this foe - a chilling thought, considering the level of technology the Khorramabad had possessed. As best any member of the Brigade could tell, the automatons had been programmed to aggressively combat any ship or ground soldier which was not identified as a Khorramabad ship or soldier, which in large part explained the behavior of the automatons. Records on the design and construction or the automatons could not be found, nor could any information about the powerful foe. Most concerningly, the Legion xenoarchelogists could locate no records indicating how many programmers had been sacked for the obvious deficiencies in the combat routines of the automatons. However, despite their poor record-keeping the Khorramabad did appear to be excellent architects, as many of the buildings in the ruined colony had stood for an estimated 30 to 50 million years. Of these, the brigade had identified some three-and-a-half dozen or so which might be of some use to the Legion should they be excavated and reactivated by a well-equipped construction or engineering formation. The work of the xenoarcheologists, however, was completed, and therefore they were immediately reassigned to study the ruins and strange construct in Devil’s Hand.

Year 4007

The Xenoarcheology Brigade set foot on Devil’s Hand III on 4 May, finding no automated ground forces as expected and capturing a small listening post with a stock of anti-ship missiles. Setting a detachment from the escorting infantry battalion to the duty of scrapping the Mongolican ordnance, the xenoarcheologists eagerly turned to the ruins and more interestingly the unusual construct nearby. While the construct drew the most attention - and competition for assignments - those relegated to studying the ruins themselves made a finding that some at least in the Legion high command considered far more significant. The ruins themselves did not share many features in common with those in the Mongolica system, not least the writing found throughout was in a completely different language. After a month of perplexed puzzling, the researchers translated the language of the ruins to find that the builders were not Khorramabad at all, but in fact another race whose name translated, curiously enough, as the Actinium Commune. Unfortunately, these ruins were about one-third the size of the ones in Mongolica, thus even fewer records existed and none were found explaining the link between the Khorramabad and Actinium races. As at Mongolica, a few of the ruined structures seemed recoverable, and the brigade called back to Duratus to request engineering support once such formations were activated. Meanwhile, the Xenoarcheology Brigade continued to study the mysterious construct, hoping that it might contain the answers to these questions.

Back on Duratus, the Legion high command was tirelessly working to develop their answer to the dangerous Belaire fleet. Thus far, relations had been chilly but nonconfrontational, with neither side willing to make explicit concessions but both generally respecting each others’ territory. Unfortunately for the Belaire, the Duranium Legion was not a race characterized by respect for other sentient species, and as June turned to July the Legion Navy prepared to deploy their latest answer to the Belaire fleet.

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Shipbuilding

3x Defiant class Light Cruiser: Damnation, Devourer, Direct Fire
2x Charybdis class Destroyer: Crusader, Chronomancer
2x Ars Magica class Survey Frigate: Aeryn Sun, Argumentative
2x Ars Magica II class Survey Frigate: Archon (refit), Aeryn Sun (refit), Aether Net (refit)
4x Phaeton class Freighter
2x Typhon class Colony Ship
2x Accatran class Salvager
2x Achelous Mk II Terraforming Station
2x Obsidian class Orbital Mining Platform
4x Gatekeeper class Traffic Monitor
2x Olympia class Cargo Shuttle

Research

Alien Autopsy = Mongolican
Capacitor Recharge Rate 4
Electronic Intelligence and Analysis Module - Strength 5
Maintenance Support per Facility: 1600 Tons
Particle Beam Range 200,000 km
Particle Beam Strength 4

Systems Discovered

LHS 3508 (Devil’s Hand): FS Ars Magica, 2 January 4006
EG 452: FS Athena, 11 January 4006
HIP 80436: FS Apollo, 16 May 4006
HIP 113296: FS Ariadne, 23 May 4006
DEN 0255-4700: FS Archrival, 7 June 4006
DEN 1048-3956: FS Adjudicator, 20 August 4006
Gliese 687: FS Aether Net, 29 August 4006
WISE 0359-5401: FS Amalgam of the Void, 13 December 4006
WISE 1405+5534: FS Archrival, 24 December 4006
WISE 1741+2553: FS Amalgam of the Void, 25 March 4007
GI 399.1: FS Aeryn Sun, 6 June 4007
LHS 288: FS Adamant, 13 June 4007
Kapteyn’s Star: FS Adamant, 14 June 4007
DEN 0817-6155: FS Adamant, 29 June 4007

The Galaxy According to the Duranium Legion: 1 July 4007



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OOC: Second page, hooray!! 

Next post should be a break from the usual updates, much fluffier and hopefully a good change of pace after 7 1/2 years of game time.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

Spotlight #1: Development of particle beam weapons and the Hellfire-class frigate

Following the encounter with Belaire, in March 4005 the Duranium Legion high command rapidly issued an open design specification for a long-range shipborne weapon and a ship to carry it. While the initial design specification for the latter was for a cruiser-sized warship, logistical limits - namely the I/J-class cruiser project - as well as the need to deploy the new weapons quickly, more so than effectively, led to downward revision of the specification so that a frigate-sized ship design was called for instead. The final result would turn out to be a trademark combination: on one hand, the ingenuity and engineering skill of the Legion’s finest scientific minds would be on display; on the other hand, the confusing whims of the Legion high command’s procurement process along with the demand for urgency more than efficiency would lead to a ship design with glaring weaknesses, albeit these could be rectified in the not too distant future.


Procuring the beam weapons of the future: A case study on physics and politics

Initially when the long-range shipborne weapon specification was issued, three principal candidate weapon types were considered to meet the requirements. Missiles were perhaps the most obvious candidate weapon, owing to their respectable performance in combat against the Legion previously. However these were fairly immediately eliminated from serious consideration, and even the early series of proposals from the Legion Navy’s design bureaus showed a compelling lack of volume of missile-based submissions compared to other weapon types. The key problem with missiles was one of an entirely different sort of volume, namely volume of fire. Simply put, the experience of the Legion had shown that massed missile fire could be devastating against an underprepared fleet, but an opposing fleet led by twenty battlecruisers could hardly be described as underprepared relative to the state of the Legion fleet at the time. The Republic of Belaire could be expected to put out an insurmountable volume of point defense fire even with relatively lower weapons tech compared to the Legion’s own vessels. To deploy an effective missile-based arm of the Navy would not only require such a volume of fire as could only be produced over several years, but to produce such a volume in any timely fashion could only be accomplished by cutting back production of the railgun-armed vessels which formed the core of the Legion Navy. This being quite unacceptable, the Legion high command turned their consideration to long-range beam weapons which could provide a suitable striking power even with relatively low total mass of fire, sufficient to win a battle of evasion and attrition against a larger Belaire fleet as long as the point defense vessels held up.

Thus initially the frontrunner for the open design specification was some form of laser weapon. In terms of fundamental physics, laser weapons posed an attractive option to supplement the close-range firepower of the Legion’s railguns, notably the ease of generating a lightspeed impact with high energy and rapid cycling was quite attractive for a fleet which needed to rapidly engineer a weapon rather than becoming bogged down in technical studies. A typical design study submitted to meet the specification would outline a laser with a 203 mm lens size focusing ultraviolet light tightly enough to target effectively at the upper limits of Legion fire control technology, beyond which empirical testing was not possible although theoretical calculations indicated maximum ranges on the order of 400,000 km. However, the numerous design studies submitted on laser weapons also revealed numerous flaws in the weapon. Chiefly, while limited in range by fire control technology, most designs were considered to show unacceptable damage falloff at longer ranges due to limitations in focal lens technology - limitations which would only be exacerbated by imperfect optics manufacturing processes of the era. While in theory any damage would be fine as long as range was kept open, Legion battle planners had no guarantee that the Belaire fire control technology was any more limited in range than existing Legion technology, which due to the reliance of the Navy on railgun batteries had not progressed as much as some would have hoped in recent years. There existed therefore a potential that damage outputs at maximum range between the two fleets would be roughly equal on a per-ship basis - a losing proposition for a navy with a marked inferiority in raw numbers. Less objectively, the idea of laser-based ships also met significant political opposition from the Legion Navy establishment, simply put many of the Lords Admiral saw potential for laser weapons to supplant their preferred railguns given sufficient investments, or at least to draw equal in overall capability and potentially cause a split between the Legion’s fleets. Thus internal political pressure pushed the Legion high command to prefer a weapon type which was more specialized than the lasers for long-range action, in addition to addressing the perceived key weaknesses of the laser-based approach.

This left the third option, and ultimately the one chosen, which was of course the particle beam concept. In the abstract, this would be an option comparable to laser weapons although with considerably more complex physics and engineering required to address the core problem of accelerating a dense flux of massive particles to nearly lightspeed. In practice, the engineering challenges would ultimately produce severe limitations, most pressingly the necessary energy density would be obtained only with a significantly reduced rate of fire compared to laser weapons. Given the superior propulsion technology of the Legion Navy against their probable opponents, this was considered to be an acceptable trade-off as an attrition-based strategy was not heavily reliant on rates of fire. Not noted in the official documentation produced by Legion Naval procurement offices was the fact that such a reduced rate of fire ensured that particle weapons would not be able to replace railgun batteries totally, and would remain a purely specialized weapon in the Legion arsenal. From among the various particle beam weapon design proposals, the Legion high command ultimately chose the submission by the famous Priapus Energetics Laboratory (PEL), headed by the esteemed Geryon Priapus. This selection was made less on purely technical grounds, though the technology of the proposal was in fairness found to be quite sound on initial review, but rather was largely based on the fact that the PEL had already been engaged in beam weapon development under highly-classified research and development contracts since the year 4000. In other words, the technology which PEL proposed to deliver to the Legion Navy was in relative terms a mature one. Critically, this should have meant a rapid time from acceptance to deployment on which the Legion high command placed a significant value out of pure pragmatism.

Out of the miscellaneous other weapons proposals submitted in response to the open design specification, a disturbing number of distinct proposals to weaponize asteroid-based mass drivers are recorded as having been officially rejected, though unofficially they were distributed to the Legion’s special operations departments. The ultimate fate of these proposals remains unknown to the present day.


Design and development of the Priapus particle beam

In principle, a particle beam weapon is a simple if expensive design, consisting of an ion source, a high-power particle accelerator, and a neutralizer at the muzzle to eliminate beam spreading. In practice, however, each of these components presented significant design hurdles which ultimately could only be fully resolved by the introduction of TNEs.



High-level schematic of an early Priapus particle beam design incorporating basic TNE technology upgrades. While the upgrade to use TNE-based technology was critical and in fact was what enabled the design to function as a weapon at all, the design itself adhered closely to pre-TNE engineering concepts and thus served the primary purpose in practice of highlighting the numerous design inadequacies which the staff at Priapus were tasked with overcoming.

The initial proposal submitted by Priapus in mid-4005 was based on the same compact bilinear accelerator design as used on the early PX-200 series of prototypes. This design featured two 50-meter linear accelerators driven by ultraconducting corundium coils, a significant upgrade over conventional superconducting materials, connected by  a 180-degree bend. While radiative losses through the bend connector meant the entire system was modestly less-powerful than a single 100-meter linear accelerator, this design was significantly more compact which was critical for spaceborne mounting. Even so, under optimal lab testing conditions the PX-200 series were able to deliver 2 TJ to test targets per neon beam pulse. In his submitted proposal, Geryon Priapus presented these results along with a guarantee that his research staff would be able to quickly double the damage delivery to 4 TJ. However, Dr. Priapus was quite vague about how exactly he proposed to accomplish this, and this vagueness would come back to haunt him as the Legion high command ultimately approved the proposal with a stipulation that the paired 50-meter accelerator geometry must be preserved, this being deemed necessary to allow the ship design bureaus to accommodate the weapons in their own plans. This stipulation was received with no small amount of consternation by the researchers at Priapus Energetics Laboratory, who had planned to simply double the length of the accelerators and pop off to the pub for pints. Rather, they found themselves in the unenviable position of having to do actual work.

In order to fulfill their promises and meet their deadline, the Priapus researchers were forced to use highly experimental technology to augment the EM fields of the accelerators. Specifically, having reached the limits of TN-boosted acceleration the researchers turned to the almost purely theoretical field of directed aether waves. This naturally meant that a partnership - with resulting reduction in share of profits, much to the chagrin of Geryon Priapus - with the Scamander Corporation research directorate had to be formed. While the Scamander engineers had a wealth of experience in both generation and detection of aether waves, the Legion Navy’s active scanners exclusively used isotropic rather than directed waves, and these while excellent for active scanning and targeting would be worse than useless for particle acceleration. Ultimately, fully one-half of the budget provided by the Legion high command would be dedicated to developing the first boronide-corundium aether wave directors, and while these were not nearly refined enough a technology to provide sole driving of a particle beam as initially hoped, resonance between EM and aether waves did allow tripling the net acceleration power. While the Priapus engineers were initially overjoyed to have exceeded their design goal so dramatically, their joy was soon tempered as they turned to the second problem, that of obtaining the long range necessary for a viable shipborne beam weapon.

Very early experiments with charged particle beams, initially an offshoot from a series of short-lived in-house plasma weapon projects, had shown that any charged beam would have a critically-limited range due to massive dispersion. Thus, all Priapus prototypes in the 2 TJ series included a capture module for the electron “exhaust” from the initial ionization chamber, which was injected into the muzzle to neutralize the beam. On one hand this proved sufficient to allow damage delivery up to 60,000 km ranges, however the muzzle recombination rate was extremely low and only increases in beam density provided sufficient neutralization to maintain 2 TJ damage energy after firing. With the development of the aether wave-enhanced accelerator column, the ion energies became so great that muzzle recombination could no longer appreciably neutralize the beam. The solution was simple enough; introduce a parallel accelerator setup in place of the PX-200 bilinear design to produce a high-energy electron beam which would merge with the ion beam to reach serviceable neutralization rates. While a simple solution, this did have the sad effect of reducing the raw power output of the particle beam by half; thus while the PX-300 series achieved triple efficiency over the PX-200 series, the resulting beam damage delivered was only 3 TJ, albeit at a far more impressive 150,000 km range.



High-level schematic of the PX-407 neon beam cannon design, which would be accepted by the Legion high command and redesignated as the PEL-4. In addition to the reconfiguration to parallel accelerators, the aether wave directors are clearly visible including the gravitic reactor which generates aether waves and the wave injectors placed to create resonance with the accelerator field. The modified neutralizing muzzle can also be seen, reconfigured to accept a 3 TeV neutralizing electron flux at 15° inclination.

With the basic design settled, unfortunately small refinements of the technology could only accomplish so much, thus Priapus requested that the Legion high command increase the maximum length permitted for the final weapon, a request grudgingly assented to by the admirals over vociferous protests from the ship design bureau. Contrary to expectations, this was not done with the aim of adding more accelerator cells to reach the 4 TJ mark but rather in order to merge the ion and electron beams at a milder 15° inclination rather than crosswise as in the PX-300 series designs. This improved neutralization efficiency sufficiently to close the gap on the 200,000 km range target, while the added caliber allowed for an increase in the number of accelerator cells to bring the damage yield up to 4 TJ, thus meeting both targets specified by the Legion high command whilst almost remaining on-brief - and, much to the delight of the Legion Navy’s budget department, on-budget. After several prototypes had been designed to work out the final odds and ends of the design, the PX-407 prototype was demonstrated and formally submitted to the Legion high command on 12 February 4007, and was shortly accepted for service as the PEL-4 neon beam cannon.


Design and development of the Hellfire-class beam frigate

The development history of the Hellfire-class frigate was, to phrase it kindly, plagued with confusion and contradiction. To begin with, the initial design specification for the Project H class of March 4005 had in fact called for a 15,000-ton beam cruiser design which was expected to mount a substantially larger weapon. While proposal submissions proceeded quite anemically compared to those for the new long-range weapon systems, several dozen proposals had been received by the Legion high command before a high-level decision was made in September of that year to reserve the first 15,000-ton slipways for the Project I and J class cruisers instead of the Project H class. The original project H specification was withdrawn and reissued as a 7,500-ton frigate design instead. By this time the Legion Navy procurement offices were deep in the selection process for the long-range weapon specification, thus the revised Project H specification was issued once again without a particular weapon type selected. Predictably, design submissions were extremely few, not helped by fatigue after the first round of proposals had been nullified.

By mid-December the Navy had settled on the Priapus proposal for a 4 TJ particle beam cannon, thus the Project H proposal was updated. At the time of this revision, the Legion high command had insisted to Geryon Priapus that the 50-meter length be strictly maintained, the complications this would cause being as of yet unknown. As the submissions were narrowed down to the most viable candidates, a proposal by Hyperion Drive Yards emerged as the clear front runner despite accusations of favoritism from some sore losers. However, as by this time Priapus had partnered with the Scamander Corporation to develop the directed aether wave technology, the Legion high command required that Hyperion bring in Scamander engineers to consult on aspects of the design which were relevant to this technology. In spite of initial outrage from the Hyperion executives over having to share the profits, this proved fortuitous when in October 4006 the Legion high command reluctantly approved the longer 80-meter dimension for the beam cannon. As Hyperion scrambled to adapt the design for the new dimensions, the Scamander consultants proved invaluable in providing technical details prior to the final acceptance and publication of the PEL-4 schematics, ultimately allowing Hyperion to begin retooling slipways even as the first PEL-4 rolled off the assembly line and was shipped to Duratus orbit for final fit adjustments. This rapid adjustment meant that the Hellfire design was accepted by the Legion high command on 7 February 4007, amusingly five days before the weapon to be mounted was similarly approved.



High-level schematic of the Hellfire-class beam frigate, the end result of the Project H class as accepted for service by the Legion high command. Despite being classed as a frigate, the Hellfire class shares the three-segment body style with the larger Charybdis class of destroyers rather than the two-segment body style seen on the Bellerophon and Excelsior frigate classes. This led some Legion Navy crewmen to refer to the Hellfire class as a “pocket destroyer”, while many in the officer cadre and admiralty expected this to herald a shift away from lightly-armed sensor frigates in the Legion Navy of the future.

The resulting design was, on paper, a complete success in that it had met the requirements of the original solicitation, and in fact had exceeded the originally-expected weapon loadout - the Legion high command had expected only four large weapons to be mounted on such a small hull, but Hyperion had managed to cram six into their final design for a 50% increase in firepower. Otherwise, the Hellfire class met the fleet speed requirement and was equipped with the standard set of scanners just as any larger warship would be, meanwhile no compromise was made in performance aside from a planned reduction in engineering spaces compared to the Bellerophon class due to the lack of large, breakdown-prone sensor arrays. Accordingly, the Hellfire class was hailed as a brilliant success in a rambunctious commissioning ceremony for the eponymous first ship in the class on 1 July 4007.

However, detractors of the design found no shortage of criticisms, the majority of which centered on two quite salient weaknesses in the design. The first of these was the armor scheme, as despite being intended for line-of-battle combat the Hellfire class would in fact be more lightly-armored than the Bellerophons which had never been intended as front-line combat vessels. This design choice turned out to be due to the increase in beam cannon length from 50 to 80 meters, which Hyperion engineers had chosen to accommodate principally by lengthening the middle segment of the body, in the process reducing armor thickness by a third in order to come in under the required displacement of 7,500 tons. The second, and arguably more critical flaw noted by critics was the fire control. The Hellfire class would use the same director systems as the rest of the Legion Navy, however while the 192,000 km range of these systems was more than adequate for railgun fire it was in fact a shorter range than the 200,000 km maximum range of the PEL-4, greatly reducing the combat-effective range of these new weapons. Given that the primary impetus for the Hellfire class to be built was a need to outrange potential laser weapons of the Belaire fleet, this was seen by the detractors as a critical flaw that rendered the class essentially obsolete before the first member had yet come off her slip. While post-construction refits were not out of the question, these would represent even further delays in deploying effective weapons against the Republic of Belaire.

While these weaknesses were quickly noted, and in fact the limitations of the fire control systems had been known to the Legion high command well before the design had been accepted for service, ultimately the need to get any ship into space today was taken as more critical than the need to get a perfect ship into space in the unknown future. Whether this decision would prove prescient or foolish would only ever be known in hindsight.


Hellfire class Frigate      7,500 tons       258 Crew       1,192.1 BP       TCS 150    TH 750    EM 0
5000 km/s      Armour 2-34       Shields 0-0       HTK 55      Sensors 8/8/0/0      DCR 4      PPV 42
Maint Life 2.74 Years     MSP 577    AFR 112%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 111    5YR 1,659    Max Repair 187.5 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Hyperion Drive Yards H-375 Frigate Engine 'Gryphon' (2)    Power 750    Fuel Use 46.19%    Signature 375    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 385,000 Litres    Range 20 billion km (46 days at full power)

Priapus Energetics Laboratory PEL-4 Neon Beam Cannon (6)    Range 192,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 10-4    ROF 15       
Arcadia Weapons Systems Medium Battery Director Mk III (2)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 5,100 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Chryson Dynamics 12 TW Induction Drive Cell Mk VI (2)     Total Power Output 24.2    Exp 5%

Scamander Corporation Series XVI Onboard Targeting System (1)     GPS 16     Range 6.4m km    MCR 574.5k km    Resolution 1
Scamander Corporation Series VIII RF Wave Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
Scamander Corporation Series VIII Infrared Scanner (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Warer]

Hole shab that is some of the best sci fi i have ever read.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

Hole shab that is some of the best sci fi i have ever read.

Well, shucks! Thanks for such high praise - you certainly know how to warm this writer's heart, friend. 

[liveware]

I'm seriously enjoying this. It just so happens that my current game is utilizing a very similar tech structure to yours and I find it interesting how our ship designs differ. I guess I like small ships better... I should probably post an update to the Oblivion corvette thread.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

I'm seriously enjoying this. It just so happens that my current game is utilizing a very similar tech structure to yours and I find it interesting how our ship designs differ. I guess I like small ships better... I should probably post an update to the Oblivion corvette thread.

Glad you like it! I often feel like my ship designs aren't anything terribly original by themselves, particularly since using railguns feels a bit cheap in some ways since they are a "do it all" weapon type, but it really tends to be the doctrine that distinguishes one navy from the next. In my case, I usually like to start with a CL/DD/FF class selection and grow in size over time both within classes and adding new high-end classes - CA, CVL, BC, BB, CV... to me it makes the growth of the navy feel more organic and evolutionary, where starting by spawning in 100,000-ton monstrosities makes for quick action but often rather iterative ship designs.

Part of me overarching plan for this campaign has been to integrate new tech systems over time, starting as you see here with the particle beams, and later adding at least missiles and potentially shields, cloaking tech, etc. in addition to new hulltypes. I'm not sure I'll go to quite the same lengths in terms of effort-posting as I just did with the Hellfire, but it was good fun to put together so if I can keep up a healthy posting buffer I just might.

I'd look forward to an update in your Oblivion thread especially if you've got some cool evolutionary design to show off! 

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

1 July 4007

To much pomp and circumstance, the beam frigate Hellfire was commissioned and immediately sent off with orders to join Cruiser Squadron 3 in the Adamantine system. As the first in her class of warships intended specifically to counter the expected capabilities of the Belaire fleet, all present at her commissioning held high hopes, disproportionate for a mere 7,500-ton vessel. Whether Hellfire and her sisters would prove able to fulfill these hopes would remain to be seen.

The morning of 7 July saw the Legion high command thrown into a tizzy by panicked reports arriving through the jump point network. Gatekeeper 3, on station in the Luyten 302-89 system at the Kuiper 79 jump point, had sent a frantic communication indicating that a large Belaire fleet of roughly 20 ships had approached her position and were not responding to hails. This was the last message heard from Gatekeeper 3, and as far as the Legion high command was concerned there was only one possible explanation. The Duranium Legion was now at war.

Immediately, orders were given. Cruiser Squadron 3, which was stationed in the Adamantine system, was immediately sent to intercept the Krivak scout which had been holding position off of the jump point to Kuiper 79, on the chance that its commander might not be in communication with his superiors and was yet unaware that hostilities had commenced. Meanwhile, First and Second Fleets would both be dispatched to the Adamantine system, with First Fleet assigned to secure the jump point while Second Fleet would take up station at the naval base in that system. Unfortunately, Adamantine Base was nowhere near prepared to support a defensive campaign of such magnitude, but the planetary governor, Europa Medusa, assured the Legion high command that her undersized facilities would give their very best effort to serve the Legion in any way possible.

Interception of the Krivak in Adamantine proved successful, as the Belaire scout stubbornly refused to approach the jump point until Cruiser Squadron 3 was nearly upon it - perhaps taking the Gatekeeper monitoring that jump point to be a warship. Whatever the reason, the captain of the Krivak certainly was aware that hostilities had commenced, as his crew attempted to execute evasive maneuvers while Cruiser Squadron 3 drew closer. This proved to be fruitless, and at 12:10 on 8 July the light cruiser Deadly Poison claimed the Duranium Legion’s first kill of the Belaire War. The deed done, Cruiser Squadron 3 retired to the jump point to await the arrival of First Fleet. While waiting, the light jump cruiser Garrote dispatched her R-56 recon fighter through the jump point, an ill-fated venture which yielded only panicked screams as the R-56 sent its final communication through the jump point before being brutally silenced. This was not taken as a good sign.

At 13:33 on 19 July, with First fleet still more than nineteen hours away from the Kuiper 79 jump point, Cruiser Squadron 3 was suddenly confronted by a substantial Belaire fleet which had jumped into the system. The Belaire assault force outmatched Cruiser Squadron 3 substantially, displacing more than five times the mass of the cruisers; however, the Belaire ships had emerged in a tight formation directly on the jump point, indicating that they had not performed a squadron jump and might be vulnerable for a nontrivial length of time. Captain Absolus Criasus was therefore determined to give as good an account as possible before the Belaire fleet opened fire, although as the enemy was expected to be armed partially with missiles there was rather less point in retreating than the superior speed of the Legion’s cruisers would suggest.

Cruiser Squadron 3
Captain Absolus Criasus commanding aboard CL Deadly Poison
3x Defiant class Light Cruiser: Deadly Poison, Domination, Double Edge
1x Grand Cross class Light Jump Cruiser: Garrote
3x R-56 class Recon Fighter

Republic of Belaire Assault Force
Designation and commander unknown
4x Kirov class Battlecruiser
3x Sovremenny class Cruiser
3x Kiev class Cruiser
4x Slava class Escort Cruiser (1 attached)
1x Skory class Destroyer Escort
5x Osa class Destroyer Escort (1 attached)
1x Svobodny class Stabilisation Ship (attached)

Cruiser Squadron 3’s first volley struck home, as despite fire control problems aboard Double Edge both Deadly Poison and  Domination scored a full broadside on one of the exposed Belaire Sovremenny cruisers, penetrating it 25 times and likely crippling it. Double Edge soon sorted out her difficulties, delivering the killing blow to the crippled Sovremenny. Fifteen seconds later, a second Sovremenny shared the fate of its comrade, and after another fifteen seconds the third and final ship of that class was similarly torn to shreds. The Belaire fleet had yet to so much as move away from the jump point let alone return fire, indicating a clear and crippling effect from jump shock.



Having already destroyed nearly his squadron’s displacement without a scratch, Captain Criasus ordered his squadron to bring weapons to bear on the nearest Kirov-class battlecruiser, hoping to at least heavily damage if not cripple the one or more of the behemoths before First Fleet arrived. The first volley clearly had an effect, shredding the Kirov’s armor and scoring 25 penetrations, and a second volley tore it to shreds. Domination, finding its target in the process of explosive decompression, took the lead in firing on the next-nearest Kirov, failing to penetrate but scoring her target badly enough for Deadly Poison to score a direct hit on the Kirov’s internal reactors, causing a massive secondary explosion. As this had likely crippled the battlecruiser, the cruisers changed targets again taking the third Kirov under their sights, which took only a single volley before brilliantly detonating in a spectacular double engine explosion. The fourth and final Kirov did at least manage to outperform its comrade, weathering an entire volley with “only” severe engine damage, but like its surviving sister was clearly crippled. Affecting an air of contempt, Captain Criasus ordered his squadron to divide its fire between the two surviving Kirovs, not intending to allow either of them a chance to conduct repairs or bring any intact weapons online. This contempt was well-founded, as in short order the entire Belaire Kirov force had been reduced to burning plasma and shredded duranium. Two minutes after jumping into the Adamantine system, the Belaire fleet still had yet to even respond to the presence of the Legion cruisers. Candidly, Captain Criasus suggested to his bridge crew that the Belaire must not have yet developed communications technology which could operate immediately following a jump transit, further proof of their inferiority to the far more advanced Duranium Legion.

Confident now in his superiority, and frankly half expecting the Belaire fleet to surrender the moment they restored communications, Captain Criasus ordered the cruisers to target the Kiev-class cruisers. Each of these did not even require a full volley, and the trio of Kievs were reduced to nothing in less than 30 seconds. The four Slava-class cruisers, believed to be anti-missile escorts, fared only slightly better, with one of their number being merely crippled after 34 penetrating hits rather than outright destroyed - a fate slightly better than that of its three comrades. Not even four minutes after jumping in, the Belaire assault force had been reduced to a half-dozen destroyers, a crippled Slava cruiser, and a 68,000-ton unarmed vessel believed to be a jump point stabilization vessel. The crews of the Legion cruisers eagerly looked forward to someday reaching the Belaire home system to discover how many thousands of battle planners would be fired for this complete and utter debacle.

Forty-five seconds later, not one Belaire combat vessel remained in the Adamantine system. Disgusted by the lack of effort displayed by his enemies - not least because his flawless victory was much less likely to be celebrated having been gained against such a hapless foe - Captain Criasus ordered all guns to turn on the Svobodny-class stabilization ship. Fifteen seconds later, the Great Adamantine Turkey Shoot was officially over.



Good Lord.

With the dirty business dispensed with, Captain Criasus ordered the nearby Warden 2 to collect the Belaire life pods and return to Sol with the prisoners, along with a request to dispatch the Salvage Flotilla to Adamantine to clean up the mess. While none among the crew of Cruiser Squadron 3 expected the salvage to be terribly educational, such was their low opinion of the enemy they had just “fought”, the TNEs to be collected would certainly bolster the struggling Duratus economy. Interestingly, Warden 2 reported that a few of the survivors had been more willing than others to talk, revealing the existence of a system designated by the Belaire as Arleux, identified on Legion star charts as the YZ Ceti system. Another group of survivors seemed to be scientifically-minded, and after relatively little interrogation gave up technological data which could improve ordnance transfer rates should the Legion Navy ever decide to add missile capability to its arsenal.

By 0900 on 20 July, First Fleet had arrived at the jump point, and given the previous day’s events the Legion commanders in Adamantine were fairly confident in declaring the system secure for the time being. Later that evening, the reconnaissance fighters which had been ordered to evacuate the jump point on detecting the Belaire fleet were safely recovered, and Captain Criasus decided to send another one through the jump point as he suspected that the fleet which had previously been in place there had been defending the stabilization ship rather than carrying out a picketing mission. Thankfully, this was indeed the case, and the R-56 was able to recover surviving crew from the fighter previously lost, who would be returned to Adamantine for a much-needed vacation.

Captain Criasus, now having merged his cruisers with and assumed command of First Fleet, ordered another R-56 fighter to maintain watch in Kuiper 79, and at 20:48 on 21 July a message was sent through the jump point from Subcommander Aion Palacios commanding the fighter, indicating that signatures of at least two more Belaire cruisers had been spotted inbound to the jump point. Captain Criasus ordered First Fleet’s frigate squadron to jump into Kuiper 79 with their active arrays at full power, aiming to discover the composition of the incoming enemy force. Frigate Squadron 1 reported back through the jump point that the Belaire force consisted of two cruiser-sized and three destroyer-sized vessels, all of different classes. Captain Criasus debated jumping into the system in hopes of gaining intelligence about the enemy weapons systems, which had yet to be observed in open combat. This could be risky if the enemy vessels were equipped with long-ranged beam weapons, but with only five enemy ships and a significant speed advantage Captain Criasus decided that the rewards outweighed the risk, not least the reward of boldly sallying forth to partially make up for the disappointing shooting gallery of the two days prior.

First Fleet (reinforced)
Captain Absolus Criasus commanding aboard CL Deadly Poison
Cruiser Squadron 1: Denouement, Devastator, Dissolution, Grand Cross, 4x R-56
Cruiser Squadron 3 (attached): Deadly Poison, Domination, Double Edge, Garrote, 2x R-56
Destroyer Squadron 1: Chainsaw, Char, Charon, Furious
Destroyer Squadron 5: Calamitous, Caliban, Creeping Death, Flayer
Frigate Squadron 1: Barbette, Bloodsucker, Braggart, Excelsior

Republic of Belaire Cruiser Squadron 1
Designation and commander unknown
1x Kiev class Cruiser
1x Slava class Escort Cruiser
1x Sverdlov class Destroyer
1x Kresta class Destroyer Escort
1x Skory class Destroyer Escort

Republic of Belaire Cruiser Squadron 2
Designation and commander unknown
4x Sovremenny class Cruiser
2x Slava class Escort Cruiser
1x Osa class Destroyer Escort



Despite running active sensors on all five vessels, thus being clearly aware of the Legion fleet, the Belaire squadron continued to approach First Fleet, not yet having even fired missiles. At 22:03, as the initial group of contacts approached to within 6.1 million km, the frigates of First Fleet reported two active sensor contacts at 188 million km corresponding to a pair of Sovremenny-class cruisers, likely to be leading a second squadron including destroyer escorts. As these were completely out of range to affect the coming battle, Captain Criasus ordered that his frigates should continue to observe these contacts, but hold any further reports until the battle at hand had been decided. Finally, at 22:28 with the Belaire squadron closed to one million km, Captain Criasus ordered First Fleet to execute a full burn towards the targets, intending to intercept them before they could potentially reach their own range and begin sniping at his vessels. As range closed to under double the range of the 152 mm railgun batteries, the gunners of First Fleet began acquiring targets, planning to split their initial volleys between the two Belaire cruisers.



The cruisers opened fire first at 53,000 km range, scoring a total of 140 hits but few penetrations. This did achieve the desired impact of softening up the enemy armor, as Destroyer Squadron 5 had no difficulty destroying the Slava in their followup volley, although the Kiev had taken engine damage and not yet come into range of Destroyer Squadron 1. Willing to let the Kiev go for the moment, Captain Criasus ordered First Fleet to first eliminate the three Belaire destroyers, with the Skory immediately falling to concentrated fire from the Legion destroyers. The Sverdlov suffered the same fate five seconds later, succumbing to a powerful volley from the light cruiser Devastator. The surviving Kresta desperately continued to flee, inexplicably towards the jump point rather than away, and was unceremoniously cut to pieces by the destroyer Chainsaw. With its escorts in shambles and its engines shot out, the Kiev could only await helplessly as Devastator lined up the killing salvo, claiming her second kill of the engagement. In less than a minute, the Belaire squadron had been reduced to ashes, yet once again they had declined to fire on the Legion fleet - this time without the excuse of jump shock to explain their tactical failures. Captain Criasus, along with his crew, was deeply confused by this turn of events, but was happy to add another five kills to the total scored under his command.

With the shooting finished, Frigate Squadron 1 reported that the pair of Sovremenny-class contacts continued to approach with their active sensors on, now at 181 million km and with no escorting vessels yet spotted. Captain Criasus ordered the fleet back to the jump point, content to await the next wave of foes while perhaps grabbing a short nap. Shortly after this, the two cruisers disappeared from the fleet’s passive arrays, though it could not be determined if they had retreated or simply turned off their active sensors.

At 0638, now on 22 July, this pressing question was conclusively answered, as a group of not two but four Sovremenny-class cruisers were detected on active arrays 82 million km out, flanked by two more of the Slava-class escort cruisers and an Osa-class destroyer escort. Clearly, whatever the Belaire had been attempting to do - poorly - so far, they had no intentions of giving up easily. Out of a combination of eagerness and desire not to let this larger Belaire squadron reach the jump point, Captain Criasus ordered First Fleet to make for the Belaire squadron at full speed. As the two battle groups approached, Captain Criasus ordered his cruisers to target the Sovremennys while the destroyers would engage the Slavas - a new tactic to be tried.



The cruisers opened fire at their maximum range, scoring 84 hits on a Sovremenny but only one penetration, which was somehow enough to reduce its speed to zero; as it was known from recent experience that a second full broadside was hardly needed, Captain Criasus ordered the majority of his cruisers to change targets while Denouement would attempt to claim the kill with her next salvo. Some stragglers among the cruisers had not yet fired due to fire control glitches; these were able to immediately fire at a new target, disabling a second Sovremenny with ease. The first kill, however, would go to the destroyers, as the jump destroyer Flayer lived up to her unlikely name by scoring the final blow against a Slava. Once again, however, this brilliant opening volley was tainted by a complete and confounding lack of return fire from the beleaguered Belaire ships.

Five seconds later, he destroyers again opened fire against the other Belaire Slava, though failing to destroy it this time due to a plague of fire control difficulties. Meanwhile, Devastator claimed her third kill of the campaign by obliterating the second crippled Sovremenny with a blinding broadside. By this point, the Belaire squadron was in complete disarray, and in the chaotic melee the destroyers of First Fleet claimed two more kills in a hail of 102 mm railgun fire. The last intact Sovremenny soon suffered the same fate, leaving only the light Osa destroyer escort to flee in a panic towards the Adamantine jump point. It would not survive, with the kill being claimed by the frigate Barbette in a mad race to open fire. Immediately after this, the light cruiser Denouement reported her first kill of the engagement, having been dispatched to wipe out the first Sovremenny to be fired upon. At this, the guns fell silent, and for the third time in four days the Legion stood victorious against a Belaire force which had refused to fire a single shot in retaliation. Even the top admirals of the Legion high command would be confused by this behavior for some time to come. In the meantime, with no other contacts appearing on the frigate squadron’s sensor arrays, Captain Criasus ordered First Fleet to regroup and once again return to the jump point. Cruiser Squadron 1 would be detached for a brief time to collect the Belaire survivors and return them to Sol for questioning.

A few of the recovered Belaire survivors proved susceptible to questioning, revealing gravitational survey data of the Belaire home system, but the survivors largely remained quiet and notably would not indicate why they had failed to open fire against the Legion forces. While there was always some hope that Legion intelligence officers on Duratus could gain more information, few officers among the command staff of First Fleet held out any serious expectations. The mysterious Belaire behavior would remain a mystery for some time yet.

----

Shipbuilding

1x Hellfire class Frigate: Hellfire
1x Ars Magica Mk III class Survey Frigate: Argumentative (refit)

Systems Discovered

YZ Ceti (ex. Arleux): Belaire interrogations, 20 July 4007

----

OOC: #AuroraWoes strikes again!

As best as I can tell, it looks like what happened was that the Belaire decided to shoot a few of my monitors, and then on a construction cycle tick not too much later revised their diplomatic opinion of the Legion to "neutral" (presumably relations had gone back over -100 after I shot up their scout ship), which I received an event notification about. This seems to be why for the five days following they refused to fire back at my ships despite being fired upon with wild abandon - clearly the Aurora AI has not yet learned that being shot at trumps however they may have felt about me two days ago.    In any case, whatever the mechanical explanation, this will at a future date be resolved in-universe...somehow.

In any case, on the next construction tick this situation was resolved, and thankfully future encounters will prove much more exciting. I do apologize to the readers for the travesty that is this update; unfortunately, those responsible have not been shot. 

[Warer]

That is freking hillarious.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

OOC: While some might perhaps be aghast at this unusual, if brief, uptick in the rate of updatery, it is in the judgment of the author a good thing to wash out the taste of the previous bug-ridden update with all due haste, and what better way to accomplish this than with some right proper battling? Read on...

----

1 August 4007

A Krivak-class Belaire scout was detected approaching the position of First Fleet in the evening of 1 August. Not thinking too highly of the unarmed ship as a threat, Captain Criasus dispatched the light cruiser Double Edge to eliminate the enemy observer, which turned to flee on detecting the incoming threat. Six minutes after the Krivak had turned tail, Frigate Squadron 1 reported incoming active sensor signatures matching the Sovremenny-class cruisers. Not willing to take any chances even against such an anemic opposition, Double Edge was ordered to break off pursuit and rejoin the fleet. Five hours later, now in the earliest hours of 2 August, the incoming Belaire squadron was detected, formed with the same composition as the previous group. Captain Criasus expected them to meet the same fate as well, and ordered First Fleet to sally forth to meet and destroy the opposition, just as before. There was one small change to the plan: Frigate Squadron 1 was detached and ordered to hold position at the jump point, being both unnecessary in terms of combat ability and too valuable a fleet asset to be risked in battle yet again - the Belaire fleet would surely return fire at some point.

First Fleet
Captain Absolus Criasus commanding aboard CL Deadly Poison
Cruiser Squadron 3: Deadly Poison, Domination, Double Edge, Garrote, 3x R-56
Destroyer Squadron 1: Chainsaw, Char, Charon, Furious
Destroyer Squadron 5: Calamitous, Caliban, Creeping Death, Flayer
Frigate Squadron 1 (detached): Barbette, Bloodsucker, Braggart, Excelsior

Republic of Belaire Cruiser Squadron 3
Designation and commander unknown
4x Sovremenny class Cruiser
2x Slava class Escort Cruiser
1x Osa class Destroyer Escort



Fleet dispositions prior to contact.

In fact, even better than returning fire, the Belaire squadron opened the proceedings, taking a clearly different approach by launching eight salvos of five missiles each. First detected on thermal scanners, the missiles were no larger than 3 tons in displacement and approached the Legion fleet at 35,000 km/s. At such a high speed these would be a challenge to deal with, but Captain Criasus was confident in the ability of his destroyer squadrons to defend the cruisers, removing the 152 mm batteries of the latter from point defense duties for the moment as a test of his expectations. Ten seconds later, a second barrage was detected as the first came into active scanning range, followed by a third after ten further seconds. First Fleet was in for a harrowing experience.



Pictured: a harrowing experience.

The harrowing nature of the experience was significantly thwarted as the first Belaire volley broke against the rock-solid destroyer squadrons of the Legion Navy. Every missile in the first wave was blown to bits before closing with their targets, with the destroyers of First Fleet not even having fired a full salvo from their collective railgun batteries. Filled with confidence, Captain Criasus ordered a revision of tactics; First Fleet would close to within 550,000 km of the Belaire squadron and hold that distance, aiming to keep the Belaire within the range at which their missiles could be resolved by active scanners while remaining safely out of range from any lasers or other long-ranged beam weapons until the enemy magazines had been expended. The Legion would thus exploit their considerable speed advantage over the Belaire fleet to effect divide-and-conquer tactics. The crews of First Fleet executed this change in orders with great zeal, eager for their first real battle against the hated foe.

Unfortunately for Captain Criasus, the hated foe was not as inept as initial encounters had led him to believe. After three ineffective volleys, the missile launchers of the Belaire squadron fell silent; apparently they had decided that firing additional missiles would be a waste against such a superior opponent. Even as First Fleet reached their designated holding range, the Belaire refused to continue firing. This presented Captain Criasus with a dilemma: on one hand, he had the option to close the range against an enemy which was likely to be heavily armed with beam weapons that outranged his railgun batteries; on the other hand, he had the option of retreating through the jump point to Adamantine, giving the best odds against the Belaire who would suffer jump shock to pursue First Fleet, but allowing the Belaire to instead occupy the Kuiper side of the jump lane and fortify it against the Legion. Notably factoring into the Captain’s assessment was that minus the frigate squadron, First Fleet massed only 30% greater displacement than their opponent, offering little margin for error should the enemy beam weapons prove particularly devastating.

Ultimately, Captain Criasus determined that a middle ground approach would prove most advantageous, issuing his orders at 0423. The bulk of First Fleet would fall back toward the jump point, while the frigate squadron would send a communication through to Adamantine before burning toward First Fleet. Second Fleet, currently based at Adamantine Base, would make for the Jump point to serve as backup in case the Belaire squadron emerged victorious - while they would not be able to arrive nearly in time to interdict a transit, they would be in position if the Belaire stopped to regroup before pressing into Adamantine.Once First Fleet had recovered the frigates, they would turn about and press the attack against the Belaire with their full advantage. Implicit, but for obvious reasons unspoken, in this plan was the fact that the frigates were essentially being used as ablative armor for the larger vessels, should they succeed in distracting the Belaire gunners. By 0545 the frigate squadron had rejoined First Fleet, which turned to once again confront their foe, and by 0602 the fleet again held the range at 550,000 km as Captain Criasus gave the order to charge boldly forward.

Not ten seconds later, as First Fleet had closed within 500,000 km of the Belaire, missile launches were again detected, now clearly identified as originating from the Slava-class escort cruisers. Taken aback, Captain Criasus gave the emergency order to hold the range at 400,000 km, hoping that the Belaire had changed their tactics and might again empty their magazines before First Fleet closed in. This seemed to in fact be the case, as another missile barrage was fired ten seconds after the previous just as before. Holding the range open, over the next eleven minutes the destroyers of First Fleet effortlessly shot down another 68 waves of the Belaire missiles, the final wave proving that the Belaire had exhausted their stocks as only 33 missiles were fired. While tactically the missile onslaught had been worse than useless for the Belaire, Captain Criasus did note that the aliens had managed to buy some precious time to get closer to the jump point. It thus became imperative that First Fleet mount a charge sooner than later, and the Captain gave the order at 0613 to resume the offensive accordingly.

As First Fleet closed to 190,000 km, the first energy weapons fire from the Belaire squadron was detected, in the form of one laser blast from each of the four Sovremenny-class cruisers, confirming that these were indeed beam combatants. As range was further closed to 150,000 km, each Sovremenny fired an additional seventeen lasers which were presumed to be of a smaller type judging by the shorter range, fifteen of which scored mild armor damage against Deadly Poison. Knowing that the lasers would only gain power at close range, Captain Criasus hoped to close the range for his own railguns before the Belaire lasers would recharge. With the primary enemy beam combatants clearly confirmed, each combat squadron of First Fleet was ordered to target a single Sovremenny, while Frigate Squadron 1 would harass the Osa-class escort. As First Fleet closed under 64,000 km, the cruisers holding their fire until nearly point-blank range, the Belaire heavy lasers fired again, this time scoring a single hit delivering an estimated 4 TJ to the armor of the frigate Barbette, enough to burn a hole through her armor but not to reach any internal components.

Five seconds later, all Hell broke loose.



Pictured: All Hell, having broken loose.

The four Sovremennys had split their fire between two of the Bellerophons, viciously shredding both Barbette and Bloodsucker. The Osa destroyer escort had fired ten shots of a light laser weapon type at Braggart, scoring through her armor with five hits but failing to deal internal damage. In exchange, First Fleet had given better than they received, with Cruiser Squadron 3 succeeding in obliterating the first of the four Sovremennys with Double Edge claiming the kill. The destroyer squadrons had fired on two other Sovremennys, failing to kill either but scoring a handful of penetrations against each; given the high rate of fire the 102 mm batteries could put out it was doubtful that these two Sovremennys would survive a second volley. Cruiser Squadron 3 took aim at the fourth and final Sovremenny as the gunners reloaded for a second salvo, though they would likely not fire in time to prevent their opponent from dealing further damage.

Five seconds later, the two opposing fleets had closed to point-blank range. Destroyer Squadron 5 succeeded in destroying their target, with Caliban claiming the fill. However Destroyer Squadron 1 amazingly failed to take out their own target, leaving one Sovremenny limping onward albeit at half speed, and they were thus temporarily detached from the main fleet formation to eliminate their target before its laser battery could be brought to bear. Destroyer Squadron 5 would turn their guns against the Osa, hoping to take out its fast-firing light lasers which were harassing the remnants of Frigate Squadron 1.

Destroyer Squadron 1 wasted no time finishing their task, shredding the Sovremenny with a third salvo even as it fired its heavy laser at the frigate Braggart. Braggart in turn suffered hits from the heavy lasers of both Sovremennys as well as a half-dozen strikes from the Osa, suffering significant internal damage including losing both of her engines and dropping out of formation with First Fleet. The Osa at least was made to suffer for its sins by concentrated fire from Destroyer Squadron 5, which scored several penetrations but did not appear to damage any vital components. Five seconds later, Cruiser Squadron 3 fired once again on the fourth and final Sovremenny, taking out the last of the Belaire beam cruisers. Unfortunately, this came half a second too late, as the villainous Belaire warship was able to fire off one last round of medium lasers against Braggart and eliminate the last sensor frigate of Frigate Squadron 1. The severity of this loss was only partially compensated, in the eyes of Captain Criasus, by the simultaneous destruction of the Osa as she succumbed to a hail of 102 mm railgun fire from the destroyers of First Fleet.

This left only the two now-disarmed Slavas, which were dispatched as a matter of course by the vengeful destroyer squadrons. The furious firefight had lasted scarcely a minute and a half, and had seen 100,000 tons of Belaire military vessels destroyed for the loss of only 22,500 tons of Legion vessels, albeit these being the valuable sensor frigates without which continuing to defend the jump point would be considerably more challenging. In any case, however, while the need for long-range firepower such as provided by the new Hellfire-class frigates had been dramatically reinforced, the battle was nevertheless a convincing Legion victory. As the cherry on top of this, Captain Criasus ordered the Double Edge detached to carry out its original mission: the destruction of the annoying Krivak scout which had been detected at the outset of the encounter. This was done with aplomb, and by 1015 no Belaire vessels remained within the admittedly reduced detection range of First Fleet.

In the aftermath of the battle, Cruiser Squadron 3 was detached to recover both friendly and enemy life pods and shuttle these to Duratus. As usual, the preliminary intake interrogations provided little of real value, notably as the surviving Belaire officers refused to comment on the earlier tactical malfeasance of their comrades in arms. However, a terrified science officer from one of the Slavas was persuaded to divulge the name and astrographic data of a system known to the Belaire as Alder Lake, adjacent to the Belaire system itself. Based on this data, Legion astrographers were able to identify the system as Giclas 9-38 according to Legion star charts. The reduced First Fleet, now consisting only of two destroyer squadrons and the jump frigate Excelsior, would remain at the jump point until relieved by Second Fleet to provide at least passable monitoring in the absence of a proper frigate squadron.



In addition to the Belaire Campaign Ribbon already commissioned after the outbreak of hostilities on 7 July, the Kuiper Encounter Ribbon was commissioned to commemorate the first true battle of the conflict, though it was expected to see some reuse as the Belaire would not give up on their attempts to force the Kuiper 79-Adamantine jump point so easily.

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Systems Discovered

Giclas 9-38: Belaire interrogations, 2 August 4007

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OOC: Much better. 

[Foxxonius Augustus]

I am absolutely loving this! I love how you are mixing and blending different themes to create a really interesting story.  Some Roman undertones and some 40k vibes on top, really puts me in mind of Caesar's Legion from Fallout New Vegas.  Really hoping to see how your veteran officers develop and build their stories, and yours!

[Black]

I am enjoying this very much. Good story telling and interesting background for player race.

How do you identify original names of the systems from interrogations? Do you check the database?

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

I am absolutely loving this! I love how you are mixing and blending different themes to create a really interesting story.  Some Roman undertones and some 40k vibes on top, really puts me in mind of Caesar's Legion from Fallout New Vegas.  Really hoping to see how your veteran officers develop and build their stories, and yours!

Thanks mate! Glad you're enjoying. I definitely try to mix influences - you've got the obvious Greek, Roman, WH40K vibes (and props to Steve for the excellent Battlestar Greek naming theme which is absolutely buckets of fun to play with), as well as various influences in the writing style mixed in from other AARs from Aurora and some of the older Paradox games before they went new wave. 

I'm going to have to think about how to develop my officers as characters since they eventually promote out of fleet commands into the horrible nightmares hallowed halls of the Legion high command bureaucracy. Plenty of options here though, flag bridges for starters but also eventually there can be admin commands in different systems and sectors which would give my best admirals important things to be in charge of. I might even have some of them take charge of a special project like the particle beams were, I'm sure Captain Criasus for example will come up with some great ideas in the coming months...

I am enjoying this very much. Good story telling and interesting background for player race.

How do you identify original names of the systems from interrogations? Do you check the database?

Glad to hear, thanks!

I do check the database for these discovered AI systems. It's not too hard as you only have to trace through 3 tables once you have the system name the AI assigned. Honestly I would prefer to keep the AI-assigned names for systems (probably with a DB edit to use a more flavorful naming scheme), but since the names are chosen alphabetically and I anticipate carrying out many more interrogations, discovering a dozen systems that all start with 'A' would annoy me more than it would add flavor to the game world... Thank Steve for 1.13 when it comes!

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

3 August 4007

Second Fleet arrived in the Adamantine system at 0417 on 3 August. However, by this time new orders had come in from the Legion high command which was now apprised of the situation, and had recommended that First Fleet should transfer its destroyer squadrons to Second Fleet to act as a reserve in case the Belaire tried to send a heavier missile fleet to retake the system. Cruiser Squadron 3 and the remaining frigate Excelsior would be relieved and proceed to Adamantine Base to offload prisoners and undergo a short overhaul before things heated up too much more in the Kuiper 79 system.

Second Fleet would not have to wait long for things to heat up a bit, as Frigate Squadron 2 reported active sensor emissions from a pair of Kirov-class Belaire battlecruisers on 9 August. Captain Jocasta Gelanor, now commanding Second Fleet since the promotion of Lord Captain Ceto Echetus, received this report with some trepidation, knowing that while the Legion had previously destroyed four Kirovs in battle, these had been using the inexplicable tactic of not returning fire, which the Belaire had now learned was a poor strategy. The prospect of facing off against 23,000-ton flagships which actually fired their weapons was daunting, to say the least. Nevertheless, as Second Fleet was reinforced by two additional destroyer squadrons Captain Gelanor was confident in her fleet’s ability to defeat whatever the Belaire could throw at them.

Interestingly, however, the sensor contact from the Kirovs disappeared, only to reappear in the same position eight hours later, apparently holding position 123 million km from the jump point. As this was nearly double the suspected range of the active sensors carried by the Kirov class, Captain Gelanor suspected that the Belaire were sensing the active sensor emissions from her frigate squadron and maintaining a healthy distance. This appeared to be the case, as the pattern repeated again eight hours later and for some time thereafter. For now, Second Fleet would tolerate this state of affairs, as the Kirovs were completely out of range to detect anything but the frigates and thus could not gather any useful intel at their present position. In the meantime, while Captain Gelanor did consider mounting an offensive, ultimately it would be best to wait for Cruiser Squadron 1 to return to the zone of operations to ensure that the Legion had ample forces on hand to deal with any unexpected surprises.

However, the Captain was more than a little anxious to do something besides watching a blip on her radar, and thus authorized a small reconnaissance maneuver to try and ascertain the composition of the enemy formation. Quietly, the frigate Battery powered down her active sensors and advanced at one-eighth speed to a waypoint 42 million km from the jump point, directly between Second Fleet and the position of the Belaire battlecruisers. This would put her just inside of the range for her active arrays to detect the Kirovs and their presumed escorts, allowing Second Fleet to at least be aware of the force opposing them. This went off without a hitch, and Battery reported a Belaire fleet composition very similar to the one which had previously “attacked” Adamantine on 19 July while escorting a stabilization ship - four Kirovs, three each of three cruiser classes, and five destroyer escorts of two types, all totaling in excess of 260,000 tons of warships. Despite being detected by what was obviously a very loud sensor, the Belaire fleet made no move to retreat out of active sensor range, apparently no longer interested in trying to conceal their true strength from the prying eyes of the Legion. Doubling down on the advanced monitoring position, Captain Gelanor ordered the remaining “reserve” of Second Fleet forward to rendezvous with Battery, expecting the two destroyer squadrons to provide sufficient defense against any long-range missiles the Belaire might decide to throw at the annoying frigates. As this hardly qualified as a “reserve” mission, these ships were redesignated as the Second Fleet scouting force for the duration of the operation. Second Fleet itself, the bulk of the force by a slim margin, would remain at the jump point for the time being.

Cruiser Squadron 1 reentered the area of operations on 17 August, attaching to Second Fleet which remained under the overall command of Captain Gelanor. After this, an uneasy stalemate descended upon the Kuiper 79 system.

26 September saw the arrival of a new tool in the Legion Navy’s arsenal, albeit not a well-heralded one, as the first flight of four AR-56 recon fighters transited the jump point to Kuiper 79. The AR-56 had been, in blunt terms, a hack job, having been rapidly designed on the basis of the R-56 hull for compatibility with the existing boat bays on the Legion’s cruisers. The infrared and RF scanners of the R-56 were torn out and replaced: the former with various essentials to extend the mission range of the fighter, and the latter with the Series XVI traffic scanner usually found in the Gatekeeper-class vessels. The result was a rather slapdash long-range active reconnaissance fighter - crew complaints regarding the externally-mounted auxiliary fuel tanks, where once the thermal scanner had been mounted, were frequently countered by superior officers with insinuations that the AR-56 had not nearly enough armor to worry about such trifles. Crew attitudes aside, the AR-56 would serve well enough to cover the gap in small craft reconnaissance left by the short-range, passive-only configuration of the R-56.

AR-56 class Recon Fighter      250 tons       6 Crew       39.5 BP       TCS 5    TH 25    EM 0
5008 km/s      Armour 1-3       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 18.15 Years     MSP 24    AFR 2%    IFR 0.0%    1YR 0    5YR 2    Max Repair 16 MSP
Subcommander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Hyperion Drive Yards HF-25 Fighter Engine 'Erinys' (1)    Power 25    Fuel Use 178.89%    Signature 25    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 20.2 billion km (46 days at full power)

Scamander Corporation Series XVI Traffic Scanner (1)     GPS 2400     Range 33.9m km    Resolution 150

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

To accommodate the new arrivals, four of Second Fleet’s older R-56 craft were dispatched to Adamantine Base to take up station there. After sorting out hangar assignments and refuelling, the first two of the AR-56 fighters were deployed on a mission considered by the Legion high command to be of vital importance.



Legion star chart of the systems beyond Adamantine, dated 26 September 4007. Belaire presence had been previously detected in each of the marked systems, which now presented an existential threat to two survey frigates and their associated Warden and Gatekeeper traffic monitors, the status of which at this time was unknown.

The first AR-56, designated “Eagle” and commanded by five-year Navy veteran Subcommander Cassiopeia Zephyrus, would plot a course around the sensor range of the Belaire fleet and make a stealth approach into the Kuiper 79 system to check the planets of each star for evidence of a Belaire fleet base. After this, Recon Fighter Eagle would probe the gated jump point to Luyten 302-89, hoping to discover a clear path to recover the survey frigate Apollo if it still survived. Simultaneously, a second AR-56, designated “Osprey” and commanded by six-year veteran Subcommander Thetis Hyperion, would evade the Belaire fleet and make for the gated jump point to WISE 0350-5658, hoping to find a similar escape route for the far-afield Adamant. This latter mission was privately considered the highest priority by the Lords Admiral, given the great prestige and propaganda value attached to Adamant.

Recon Fighter Eagle was the first to reach her designated target, approaching within 25 million km of Kuiper 79-B II on 8 October. Pulsing her active sensors for a full minute and finding nothing, Eagle resumed stealth operation and proceeded towards Kuiper 79-A II to repeat the procedure. In the intervening period, Recon Fighter Osprey approached within 25 million km of the WISE 0350-5658 jump point at 0134 on 9 October, executing the same active scanning procedure as her sister ship had done. Also like her sister ship, Osprey detected no Belaire vessels within 34 million km, and with this assurance began to approach the jump point for transit. Ninety-one minutes later, Subcommander Hyperion bid Second Fleet farewell and disappeared through the gated jump point. Her fate would not be known for some time following - indeed, if ever.

Ten and a half hours later, Recon Fighter Eagle reported no detectable Belaire presence around Kuiper 79-A II, either. It thus appeared that the Belaire had yet to attempt to colonize the system, a positive result for the Legion which would therefore not be required to conduct operations against planetside forces in this system. With the first phase of her mission complete, Eagle set a course for the jump point to the Luyton 302-89 system, with a similar if less fraught mission description to that of the recently-departed Osprey. For the third time, Eagle pulsed her active scanner and detected no Belaire signatures in range. This constituted an all-clear signal, and Subcommander Hyperion reluctantly gave the order for her crew to approach the jump gate. At 0732 hours on 10 October, Recon Fighter Eagle transited the jump gate into Luyten 302-89.

Recon Fighter Eagle would never be heard from again.

Meanwhile, under the persistent specter of cold war the various operations of the Legion continued as ever. On 1 November, the Salvage Flotilla transmitted a mildly interesting report to the Legion high command. Having arrived in the Adamantine system some week prior, the salvagers had begun to process the numerous wrecks littering the Adamantine side of the jump point to Kuiper 79, beginning with the 70,000-ton Svobodny-class jump stabilization ship. Inspection of the salvage indicated that the Republic of Belaire ships were in fact equipped with improved nuclear pulse drive technology, this raised a few eyebrows at the Legion high command which had taken the low fleet speed of the Belaire units to indicate a rather more basic level of that technology.

3 November proved to be a slightly auspicious day for the Legion. Most relevant to the military situation in Kuiper 79 of course was the commissioning of the frigate Harrier, second in the Hellfire class of beamships. After a brief working up she would join her older sister in Adamantine, where Legion battle planners would begin plotting for a potential attack against the Belaire fleet guarding the Kuiper 79 jump point. As important as the Harrier would likely prove, it was the official activation of the Legion’s new Combat Engineers Brigade which drew the most attention on this date. Composed of three newly-raised engineering companies brigaded with and escorted by a mechanized infantry battalion in following the tradition of the previous special brigades, this newest brigade was equipped with the heavy, military-grade construction equipment necessary to begin excavating the alien ruins in Mongolica and Devil’s Hand. Finally, Legion observers hoped, the mystery of the aggressive combat mechs and their missile-armed battle stations would be solved. In service of this aim, the Combat Engineers Brigade was immediately shipped to the Mongolica system, a process which would require approximately three months before the excavations could begin in earnest.



Approved organization for the Legion Ground Forces combat engineering company. By this time, others in the Legion high command had begun to tire of the uncreative organizations by the Legion Orders of Battle Directorate, however the latter continued to tout the “benefits of modular organizations” as their primary, if not sole, counterargument. In spite of this ongoing row between the administrative commands, there were some differences from the similar Geosurvey and Xenoarcheology companies, notably both the headquarters unit and the combat engineer vehicles (CEVs) themselves were more heavily armed than those of the previous special company types as the engineering companies were expected to see battlefield service.

Mammoth Mk I CEV
Transport Size (tons) 208     Cost 16.64     Armour 32     Hit Points 32
Annual Maintenance Cost 2.1     Resupply Cost 8
Construction Equipment:      Construction Factory Equivalent 0.05
Medium Anti-Aircraft:      Shots 1      Penetration 16      Damage 32      AA Value 4
Non-Combat Class

Salvage operations in Adamantine continued at a rapid pace. Processing of the first Sovremenny wreck indicated, much to the dismay if not surprise of the Legion admirals, that the Belaire fire control technology was on par with that of the Legion, if lacking in accuracy due to the relative difference in fleet speeds between the two navies. This would in theory have thrown a severe wrench into emergent plans to use the new Hellfire-class frigates against the Belaire fleet; in practice, however, the weapons range of the Belaire fleet was already known from the previous engagement, and Legion battle planners had been working on solutions to this problem for some months by this point in time.

On 19 November, Frigate Squadron 4 consisting of Hellfire and Harrier transited into Kuiper 79, taking up positions alongside Second Fleet and awaiting the arrival of Cruiser Squadron 3, carrying the flag of First Fleet, which followed on 20 November. By now, the Legion was beginning to tire of the persistent Belaire presence in what was clearly Legion territory, and had constructed a reconnaissance-in-force type of operation to test the capabilities of the new Hellfire class. Accordingly, First Fleet under the command of Captain Absolus Criasus would sally forth once again, this time representing the largest concentration of Legion Navy firepower in a single engagement to date. As First Fleet formed up at the position of the Second Fleet’s scouting detachment, the infrared signature of the Belaire fleet suddenly flared up. The Belaire forces having discerned the Legion's movements were now moving to engage the Legion Navy in what was unexpectedly shaping up to be a titanic clash.



The battlefield situation in Kuiper 79 at 1003 on 20 November 4007.

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Shipbuilding

1x Charybdis class Destroyer: Cobalt
1x Hellfire class Frigate: Harrier
8x AR-56 class Recon Fighter
2x JR-1014 Jump Scout
2x Phaeton class Freighter
1x Bastion class Barracks Station

Research

20cm Railgun
Improved Command and Control

Systems Discovered

EQ Pegasi: FS Adjudicator, 28 August 4007
WISE 1804+3117: FS Amalgam of the Void, 6 September 4007
NN 3667: FS Athena, 20 November 4007

[El Pip]

Well this is clearly magnificent and I am glad you shared the link to tempt me back over here. The pacing is terrifying of course, but I suppose allowances must be made

I would say Spotlight #1 on weapon development was a particular highlight, some might even say it was an excessively baroque level of detail and all the better for it. That said every update has been scattered with wonderful little gems and nice turns of phrase, it was indeed a treat to read.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

Well this is clearly magnificent and I am glad you shared the link to tempt me back over here. The pacing is terrifying of course, but I suppose allowances must be made

I would say Spotlight #1 on weapon development was a particular highlight, some might even say it was an excessively baroque level of detail and all the better for it. That said every update has been scattered with wonderful little gems and nice turns of phrase, it was indeed a treat to read.

I am similarly glad that you found your way back over here, and I do hope you stick around. Any worries about being tempted to play again are unfounded, as the terrifying new pace of the high-performance C# version, certainly it is faster than real time even, should scare you away quite effectively.

Spotlight #1 was certainly a favorite and not entirely uninspired by Butterfly Effect, to those who would characterize it as "excessively baroque" I would say that one out of two is not bad.    Perhaps my other personal favorite is Chapter IV, which clearly reflects my character as a Man of Tanks.

To make the terrifying pacing even worse the next chapter shall be the longest yet, aside from the obligatory introductory materials, although it shall not be posted for a couple more days so yourself and the rest have ample time to brace yourselves. Further comfort can be found in the fact that time shall be advanced by less than 24 hours thus we shall briefly lapse into slower-than-real time and enjoy the majesty of such a pace.