Quote from: Pedroig on November 24, 2022, 06:20:14 PM

The 24th checks in... 

Well, I didn't say the 12th of which month.

This is the way. 

The 24th checks in... 

Well, I didn't say the 12th of which month.

I just wanted to drop a quick post to say that there won't be an update this week. I'm doing some travelling and expect to have the next chapter ready around the 12th. I'll then go straight into the second decade. I'd hoped the "break" would fall between parts and line up nicely with the trip but then Victoria 3 happened.

Oof. In principal, a lot of people should be cashiered for that stunt - as it basically constituted a mutiny. The question is, who lead it (probably the Crown Prince), and how much of a political embarrassment is the Royal Family willing to put up with?

I'm betting that this all gets quietly swept under the rug, but it does raise questions of what will happen when he takes the throne as he's obviously a military hardliner.

21 December 1591

“Your food is certainly much better than ours,” Korvettenkapitän Fiedler said, folding his napkin and placing it beside his empty plate. “You must have resupplied recently.”

Lieutenant Commander Ernestine Alexander took another sip of the rich Potsdam red her guest had presented as a gift, while she thought about her answer. “Wanderer is large enough to host an extensive hydroponics suite.”

“Of course,” Fiedler said. “Brilliant. Führung-2 is a good ship, but the Empire values minimalism and efficiency.”

“You’ve been out here awhile?” Alexander asked. Her head was starting to hurt from the subtle intrigues. Or maybe that was the wine.

Fiedler seemed all but oblivious to the game they were playing. Which she suspected meant he was very good at it. The Andermani flashed his easy smile and answered without hesitation. “Four years.”

“Four years!?” Alexander choked out before she could stop herself.

“Minimalism and efficiency.” Fiedler shrugged. “Expanding the Empire’s knowledge of wormholes is a crucial mission. My crew and I understand this. Sometimes personal sacrifice is necessary for the long-term good of the Empire. You are certain the Star Kingdom will not object to us working in this system?”

“We don’t have any permanent presence here. I can’t promise that won’t change in the future.” Hyperion was only three transits from Manticore. “And your government won’t object to us poking around Sachsen?”

“Poking around? No. Provided you do not settle or mine there. I must warn you that a gang of pirates has holed up in the mountains of Sachsen B-II. Our Schlachtgeschwader defeated their mobile forces, but they have surface to orbit weapons and will not hesitate to fire on your ship if it gets too close.”

 “Human pirates?”

Fiedler’s brow furrowed. “What else? Little gray men?”

Alexander smiled and sat her wineglass down. “Perhaps I should go easy on this.”

She would bet the entire White Haven estate the Andermani had contact with aliens based on that deflection alone.

“It is an excellent vintage,” Fiedler said, pouring more into his own glass. “If you choose to explore beyond Sachsen, the Empire will not protest. However, we would consider bringing armed ships through a stabilized wormhole a violation of Andermani territory and respond in force.”

Alexander blinked at him. “A what?”

“You do not have this?” Fiedler asked, sounding surprised. “A stabilized wormhole is permanently open. Any ship can pass through without a transit device. You will recognize it when you see one.”

“That sounds useful. Can you tell me more? So that we know what to avoid?”

“Of course.”

***

Ernestine Alexander escorted Korvettenkapitän Fiedler to his shuttle and then headed straight for the bridge. She watched the Andermani survey frigate crawl away at a meager 2000 km/s until it vanished from HMS Wanderer’s sensors. Then, ordered her navigator to transit the wormhole to Sachsen.

She found the system exactly as he described it, a wide binary of hot white stars orbited by massive super earths and gas giants. Sachsen B-II, the only world suited for habitation, had higher gravity than Sphinx and a mountainous terrain covered in dense jungle foliage. The wrecks of ten LACs floated near the planet. At the range of twelve light hours, her sensors couldn’t confirm whether those were of human or alien origin.

HMS Wanderer spent about half an hour collecting sensor data, then transited back to Hyperion and set off on a least time course for Manticore. She did not detect Führung-2 sitting just five million kilometers off the wormhole terminus. Nor did she see the frigate transit into Sachsen and race away towards New Berlin.



As usual, the Star Kingdom’s political establishment struggled to reach a consensus on the new species in Hyperion. The Conservatives advocated for an isolationist policy. Ignoring the system would prevent another alien entanglement the Kingdom couldn’t afford. Progressives wanted to send a diplomatic mission. Friendly contact with an interstellar civilization could bring fantastic benefits. The Liberals, entrenched in the business community, had an eye for the planet’s mineral wealth and potential as a trading hub.

An Andermani presence posed unexpected complications, but the plan was already in motion before that news arrived. The Diplomatic Corps would send a team, accompanied by experts in xenolinguistics and xenoanthropology, to contact and negotiate with the new species. While they did that, the 3rd and 4th Geosurvey Companies would undertake a quiet search for additional mineral deposits.

HMS Wanderer’s return was fortuitous because it meant the Admiralty didn’t need to shake loose another survey cruiser for the mission. She took the diplomatic team aboard and headed back to Hyperion. The marine corps transport Monte Cassino accompanied her, as did the transit tender RMAS Arrowhead, HMS Amphitrite and HMS Ariadne. The slow commercial ships would require months to make the journey.

Meanwhile, the Admiralty settled on a refit plan for the remaining Triumph-class battlecruisers. The RMN needed powerful close range energy weapons platforms, so the R92 specification sacrificed missile cells for increased endurance and a battery of 20cm Energy Torpedo generators. A minor upgrade, it should take about a month per ship and BuShips planned to have them converted mid-year.



The Geosurvey Companies found fourteen million tons of Gallicite on Basilisk II, but the deposit’s low accessibility made it unprofitable for mining. The marines moved to Medusa to wait for a future expedition.


14 June 1592

“My Lords. My Lords, please.” Prime Minister Winter Mount mumbled, wringing his wrinkled hands in frustration.

Prince Richard Winton-Serisburg wondered yet again why his mother picked someone with so little backbone for the Kingdom’s most important political role. Unless utter dysfunction in the Lords was her goal. Still, he couldn’t blame the man for staying out of this shouting match. Michael was in rare form today, even by the standards of the infamous Winton temper.

“I didn’t know there were so many gutless cowards in the whole Star Kingdom!” The Crown Prince roared. “And yet here you all sit. On the Royal Council. Grandfather is turning over in his grave.”

“Your Highness,” Baron Tweenriver, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a tight voice. “We all grieve for the lives lost on Hyperion II…”

“Do you!? Because all I hear are platitudes and excuses! Those monsters butchered two hundred of our people. Worse than animals. How can you, any of you, look at those images and then sit here talking about their rights?”

“It is their planet,” Countess Fairburn, Secretary of BioScience, said. “We should never have been there.”

“That makes it okay? It’s our fault? Because we tried talking to them?”

“And exploiting their minerals.”

Michael’s nostrils flared. “I don’t have to listen to this.” He shoved his chair away from the table and stood, glowering at everyone before biting out “Good day, My Lords” and stormed from the chamber.

Long minutes passed before anyone spoke again.

“Much of the military agrees with him,” New Dijon said, breaking the silence. “Especially the Marines. It was mostly their people who were… killed.”

“I’m not sure that I disagree with him,” Winter Mount said, wringing his hands. “What happened was horrible. Truly. But the precedent! He’s talking about a genocide. We can’t just purge a whole species from a planet! No matter what they did. The voters won’t stand for it. They’ll claim it was always about the minerals. The optics would be terrible.”

“Your voters, maybe.” Richard said. “I think if we released more of the details. Perhaps some images. Heavily censored, of course. The public might support at least a limited intervention. The settlement is a military outpost. It’s not like we would be killing alien civilians or children.”

“A military outpost,” Tweenriver said. “Which implies a much larger military somewhere else. You want to start a full-blown war with these people?”

“The Andermani won’t hesitate to remove a hostile force,” New Dijon said. “They will take the planet and it’ll give them a foothold that much closer to Manticore. Having a forward base of our own in the region to block their expansion towards us would be expedient.”

“There’s a quote for the history books.” Countess Fairburn said, in a voice that dripped acid. “‘The genocide was expedient.’ - Suzanne Descroix, Defense Minister, Star Empire of Manticore.”

New Dijon shot her fellow Progressive a dark look across the table.

“In my mind, the Andermani presence is more reason to stay out.” Tweenriver said. “We don’t need more trouble with the Emperor. Not after our Conservative colleagues’ fiasco a few years ago. ”

The Council debate continued long into the evening, with no resolution in sight.

***

The government had to announce the massacre to the media, but provided few details. Public opinion split with some groups condemning the expedition to an inhabited planet and others condemning the lack of response to the murders. Crown Prince Michael fanned the flames of the latter with several appearances on popular talk programs where he presented images from HMS Wayfarer and Hyperion II as evidence of the threat posed by aliens and castigated the Liberals for being too soft in their approach to the problem.

In September, Survey Squadron 1, which had spent the past year exploring the systems of Nuada, Yalta and Santander, beyond Basilisk, was on the way home to refuel. Twenty million kilometers from the Nuada-Basilisk terminus, HMS Andromeda picked up a gravitic signature shadowing the group. Her computer flagged it as Arbalest 002 with high confidence.

HMS Arete stayed in formation with the survey cruisers, while Andromeda broke off to drive the Arbalest away. The mysterious ship fled and the Manticoran frigate gave chase. With only a few hundred km/s advantage, she would need several days to bring the target into missile range. Just before that happened, the Arbalest vanished, despite being well inside Andromeda’s sensor envelope. The frigate failed to reestablish contact even after a thorough search of the area. Eventually, she left to rejoin her squadron.

The Star Kingdom’s researchers completed several important projects this year: Maintenance Support per Facility: 1600 tons, Salvage Module 500, Fuel Production: 48000 liters, and 25cm Energy Torpedoes.

Late in October, CruRon 2, the six light cruisers led by HMS Donnelly, left Manticore orbit. They had orders to undertake an extensive training exercise in Manticore-B’s Unicorn Asteroid Belt. The squadron proceeded to Manticore-A’s LP1, near the gas giant Roc, and jumped out precisely on schedule.

They did not emerge at Titan’s LP2, as expected. Instead, they appeared at LP3, trailing the rogue planet Fenris. Over six billion kilometers from Gryphon and just over seven billion from the Manticore Wormhole Junction. Waiting for them were five Anzio-class Marine Corps transports.

The entire force moved to the Matapan terminus where it rendezvoused with HMS Trailblazer, whose official orders put her in Hennesy, RMAS Arrowhead and RMAS Osiris. They topped off their tanks from the support vessel and then transited, watched only by the local sensor buoys.

By the time anyone on Manticore noticed they were missing, it was far too late to recall them.

The ad hoc task force arrived above Hyperion on December 10th. Eight full marine regiments, a small army of almost twenty-thousand personnel and five hundred heavy weapons, descended on the alien outpost before the creatures even knew they were in orbit. The lizard-like aliens put up a fierce resistance, but numbers told, and when the shooting stopped four days later not a single one survived.

The remainder of this AAR will be a slightly-above-average rom-com with political elements. That's right, people, we're starting in on the Star Wars prequels now.

Yes, in hindsight, that was certainly a sentence to end the update with.   But, you know, two survey ship commanders from opposing nations on long multi-year deployments, unable to seek companionship among their own crews because regulations, carrying on a clandestine romance over decades whenever their paths should cross at the fringes of explored space. Not saying that's going to happen, but... I'd read that.

Enjoyable as always, rainyday, keep it up, only at a reasonable pace of course. 

I will say the current pace is challenging. I thought updating once a week would be reasonable but there were several long updates in a row including that two-parter, which have made it a real struggle to get them out. Unfortunately, given my tendency to ramble about politics, it's also been challenging to fit more than one year into an update. And since I'd like this to cover a fairly long timespan, it's already going to take forever at one year a week.

I have Chapter Eight (1592) finished, a draft of Interlude Two, and part of Chapter Nine (1593 and maybe 1594, if I'm lucky). The current plan is to complete the decade, then post up a full Overview of both the Manticore and Andermani Empires at the start of 1595 with maps, colony installations, ship totals and fleet deployments.

After that, I may take a short break to recover and actually play the game a bit before starting in on "Book Two" which should have a bit more structured plot and antagonists.

Chapter Seven: New Discoveries (1590-1591)

The Office of Naval Intelligence report on Second Manticore contained nothing but speculation. Why had the enemy sallied forth and given up their strong defensive position? Did they panic? Did they assume the Star Kingdom left its terminus unguarded? Was it possible for humans to comprehend the workings of an alien mind? The only real conclusion it drew was obvious. The creatures didn’t know about Commodore Dunne’s fleet, and its massed firepower overwhelmed them. A decisive, if puzzling, victory for the Royal Manticoran Navy.

On November 30th 1590, HMS Akheron detected multiple gravitic signatures approaching the Hennesy terminus from Aral. This new alien group appeared identical to the one destroyed in Manticore: thirty Brisbanes, eleven Adelaides and four Melbournes. Facing them was Commander His Royal Highness Michael Winton’s force of six light cruisers, three destroyers and two frigates. The Manticoran ships maintained tight emissions control, and the enemy appeared oblivious to their presence.

At eight million kilometers, HMS Donnelly lit up her active sensors, and her consorts launched ninety-four missiles before accelerating away on a perpendicular heading. The aliens reacted by first attempting to flee, then milling about in confusion after the warheads detonated in their midst. The Manticorans held the range open for the next forty minutes, emptying their magazines of three hundred and eighty-eight Mark 4 Light Missiles.



It wasn’t enough. Fifteen Brisbane type creatures survived the onslaught. All bore terrible wounds, but most appeared combat capable. 

To finish the job, HMS Casey led the Mercury-class destroyers in a valiant charge. Together, they destroyed the remaining aliens, but the light cruiser took significant damage in the exchange. She lost an impeller, multiple weapon mounts, and fifty-four members of her crew. Fortunately, she could still limp back to space dock.

This battle left the Hennesy Defense Force severely under strength. Down to only four ships with energy armaments and without a single missile among them. But the RMN refused to fall back from its hard won beachhead unless it had no choice. None of the crews slept easy during the two weeks it took the collier RMAS Apollo to arrive with reloads.

Even the Lords hesitated to call Crown Prince Michael to personally account for his “excessive ordnance expenditures.” Anyway, he was off in Hennesy, while the First Space Lord and Defense Minister were both available and more politically expedient punching bags. The hearings lasted for days and the continued poor performance of the Mark 4 Light Missile became a major sticking point for both sides.

Summervale argued that if Parliament wanted the Navy to use fewer missiles, it should give them more effective ones. The proposed Mark 7 Light Missile offered a fifty percent improvement in hit rate against the fast moving alien targets. This sounded much better in BuShips’ slide deck than in reality, a point raised by several Lords who noted their performance would go from abysmal to merely bad. They questioned whether the money should instead be spent refitting all the Navy’s missile ships with energy weapons. After all, laser beams were free and had a proven track record.

Defense Minister New Dijon responded with a passionate speech about the inherent value of human lives. Replacing missiles was far cheaper than replacing the brave men and women of the RMN. This appealed to her Liberal and Progressive colleagues, who proposed and passed a bill to develop the needed ordnance. Privately, the Conservatives questioned her math skills. The outrageous price tag attached to new missiles could put a lot of peasants through Casey-Rosewood’s bootcamp. Saying that out loud, however, would be political suicide in the Commons.

Most of the Star Kingdom’s media accepted the government narrative on the threat posed by the alien invaders. In the aftermath of the two battles, they ran stories on the mysterious “Swarm” and the brave naval officers who opposed them. However, as the first half of 1591 passed without further attacks, a contrarian viewpoint reemerged, questioning whether the creatures were hostile or even sentient.

A group of pundits got their hands on several heavily redacted ONI reports pushing the ‘migratory animal’ theory. They noted the RMN had fired first in every encounter and accused the Navy of provoking the docile space whales by using them for target practice. Particularly damning was Commodore Dunne’s own Parliamentary testimony in which he referred to the poor things as “lemmings.” Few citizens gave this any credence, as two hundred human deaths were too fresh in the public consciousness, but it resonated with a vocal segment of the Liberal base who pressured the government to end the senseless slaughter.

With military usage down, more fuel was available for the cargo fleet. It transported several loads of construction factories to Medusa to enable on-site manufacturing of infrastructure and free up freight capacity for more important industry. This also meant the colony ships could resume shipping settlers.

Meanwhile, the Vega-class bulk freighters busied themselves with replacing the automated mines on Gryphon’s moon Egg with manned ones. The existing equipment was then hauled to the junction for transshipment to the Gallicite rich dwarf planet Basilisk VI. At the moment, that world’s orbit placed it only four days from the Basilisk-Manticore terminus, making it ideal for the purpose.

Drewson Cartel Yard #1 received a contract to build the experimental tug ship Sisyphus, which began construction from prefabricated parts in February. The firm that made them retooled to produce the Admiralty’s new large wormhole transit devices for installation in HMS Swiftsure and HMS Victory.

Sphinx’s small craft factories produced a trial run of four Marathon-class dispatch boats. The Admiralty sent one to each of Medusa, Chimera, Hennesy, and Manticore. For now, they would only carry priority military and government messages. Civilian mail and packages would continue to be delivered by the intermittent freighter traffic.

In March, the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps completed training four Geosurvey Companies. It deployed two to Sphinx and kept the others at Gryphon. The Kingdom had high hopes of finding additional minerals on both worlds. Unfortunately, the ground survey of Sphinx turned up nothing. The team on Gryphon found an unknown deposit of eleven million tons of Mercassium with good accessibility. Manticore’s existing deposits were poor, so this would be beneficial in the long term. After this, the Gryphon team relocated to Basilisk.

Midshipwoman Rebeka Eremenko reported to the Royal Naval Academy in May to begin a rigorous, accelerated officer training program. Because of her previous rating and experience, BuPers put her in the Engineering Track. She had hoped for Tactical, as that was the more likely path to eventual command, but her first weeks dashed those daydreams. The RMN didn’t have many warships, and it surely wasn’t planning to give one to the likes of her.

Some people, even instructors, thought she walked on water. Others seemed scandalized by breathing the same air as a yeoman’s daughter from the Gryphon Highlands. She couldn’t decide which reaction was worse. But she figured if another 20-year-old noble brat turned up his nose when she entered a room, she might break it, and that would ruin everything, promised commission or no. So, she kept her head down, concentrated on her studies, and limited social interactions as much as possible.

In June, the new survey cruisers HMS Traveler and HMS Wanderer passed their acceptance trials. At the moment, Survey Squadron 1 was in Hancock beyond Trevor’s Star, while the rest of the ships were undergoing overhaul or on long-term military deployments. The Admiralty designated the fresh ships Survey Squadron 2 and sent them to Minorca, an unsurveyed system in the Matapan chain.

HMS Wanderer won a friendly competition between their crews by finding the Squadron's first wormhole. Its terminus lay only a few million kilometers from her present position, so she called HMS Amphitrite to perform an immediate probe. The frigate transited into a two planet system with a G2 primary. The outermost world was a Cold Desert with a nitrogen oxygen atmosphere and minimal hydrosphere. It was the most habitable planet discovered to date.

The new government had promoted Vice Admiral Sorbanne to Second Space Lord during its reshuffling of the Admiralty. Although this took him out of Survey Command, they still reported to him through the Bureau of Planning, and the aftermath of the Wayfarer Incident was fresh on everyone’s minds. Unwilling to risk her ship or career, Lieutenant Commander Ernestine Alexander, niece to the current Earl White Haven, sent Amphitrite on ahead to investigate.

On July 4th, the frigate detected a small population signature including 3800 tons of ground forces. With great trepidation, she crept into orbit and her crew breathed a collective sigh of relief when no shots came. They expected pirates or smugglers, but found roughly two thousand bipedal lizard-like aliens in a settlement on the planet’s southern continent. It appeared to be a military force with modern, high-tech weaponry. However, the Manticoran sensors saw no signs of space flight capability and it was unclear how the soldiers had gotten here.

While HMS Amphitrite attempted to communicate with the oblivious natives, HMS Wanderer surveyed the planets. The habitable world held enormous concentrations of Neutronium, Boronide and Corundium, and was also a good candidate for ground survey. Perhaps the alien troops were staking a claim to the minerals? This didn’t seem likely as their settlement was far from the best deposits.

HMS Wanderer popped back into Minorca just long enough for Lieutenant Commander Alexander to send HMS Traveler scurrying home with her report. Then returned to the inhabited system, which she had named Hyperion, to continue communication attempts and search for wormholes. It was imperative for the Star Kingdom to determine where these new aliens originated as soon as possible.

Oblivious to the excitement in Minorca, the Admiralty organized a powerful reconnaissance mission to Hennesy. The new transit capable battlecruiser HMS Swiftsure, escorted by four heavy cruisers, would go looking for the unusually quiet Swarm. If it found nothing, they would proceed to the Aral terminus, investigate it with a wormhole probe and, at Commodore Dunne’s discretion, search that system as well.

The probe detected a powerful Swarm force on the Aral side of the wormhole. It included four heavy cruiser sized aliens of an unknown type designated Sydney, four light cruiser sized Hobarts, nineteen of the more common LAC-sized creatures and seven Perths. The latter had not been seen since Wayfarer’s sensor data. ONI speculated they might belong to the mysterious boarders, although the relationship between those humanoid beings and the large space going ones was still unclear.



The enemy fleet displaced just under 130k tons, slightly more than the reconnaissance squadron. The RMN had more than enough firepower to sweep them aside. Still, several factors made an assault infeasible. First, the Kingdom didn't have enough fuel to send such a large force. Second, there was a non-zero risk of losing both wormhole transit devices and stranding the heavy warships in a remote alien-controlled system. Third, a full-blown invasion against the Swarm’s home would outrage a small portion of the population and likely cause protests just in time for the Commons elections.

Any such operation would have to wait.

The Kingdom’s researchers finished several high-profile projects this year including: Mark 7 Light Missiles, Mark 8 Heavy Missiles, Ordnance Production 12 BP, Planetary Sensor Strength 300, Sorium Harvesters and Xenoarchaeology Equipment.

Now that the long awaited Sorium Harvesters were available, civilian industry constructed two massive refinery platforms, each containing a hundred harvesting modules. RMAS Sisyphus towed them out to the gas giant Draco. Between them, the stations’ annual production was over 2/3rds the entire output of the planet Manticore, which should go far towards easing the fuel crisis.


20 December 1591

“Ma’am,” the young woman at HMS Wanderer’s communications station said into the silence of her bridge. “We’re receiving a tight beam transmission from directly ahead. They’re broadcasting in the clear.”

Lieutenant Commander Ernestine Alexander clamped down the sudden surge of adrenaline and tried to keep her voice steady. “Put it on my display. And signal Amphitrite.”

Were they about to meet the mobile forces of the lizard-like aliens on Hyperion II?

No. The figure who appeared was a human man in his early thirties with clear Old Earth Chinese ancestry. He wore a sharply tailored white uniform with red piping and a tall peaked cap.

“Guten Tag,” he said, sending her confusion into the stratosphere. Then, he switched to English with a heavy German accent. “Manticoran light cruiser, I am Korvettenkapitän Lizhu Fiedler of His Imperial Majesty’s Survey Ship Führung-2. Please forgive our intrusion. My vessel is unarmed. We are on a peaceful exploration mission and just arrived here through a wormhole. If you tell us where we are—for my report—we will leave immediately.”

Andermani. He had to be. And the main plot showed no contacts anywhere. “Is this a bi-directional link? Put me on.”

“Yes ma’am. Hot mic.”

“Korvettenkapitän,” she only stumbled a little over the word. “I am Lieutenant Commander Alexander of Her Majesty’s Ship Wanderer. You’ve arrived in the neutral system of Hyperion.” She mentally counted the seconds until she saw him relax just a little. Twenty! That meant his ship was right on top of her command. But where? Muting the audio, she said, “Active sensors.”

If the Andermani was lying about his vessel being unarmed, he might take exception to the aggressive action and blow her out of space. Still, this was the first contact between Manticoran and Andermani vessels in a decade. Every scrap of information she could glean on their capabilities would be valuable.

“There it is!” Chief Johnson said from the sensor station. “One ship at 3 million kilometers. Computer reads it as four thousand tons.”

Which might still be a battlecruiser given what ONI suspected of these people’s stealth tech. “Actives off.”

The man on her display held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Really, Commander. There is no need for hostility. We are only mapping wormholes.”

Time to toss the dice. She unmuted the microphone. “As are we, Korvettenkapitän. And I would love to see yours.”

Amazing writing and an amazing story.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it.

Dunne is a hot headed officer who is having massive luck so far.

Yeah, the Star Kingdom thinks they're doing so well right now with all these "heroic victories" that Dunne is winning, but he hasn't even been in a real fight yet. The first time they run into a small Precursor base, it's going to be a rude awakening. Not to mention any of the other player races. The ongoing fuel crisis has been limiting offensive operations and expansion quite a bit but expect some exciting developments in the next few chapters.