Re: Warning: an unknown ship is approaching Haven

[Caspoi]

Now having gotten enough of those annoying Little stingers the ship has turned around and charged at the enemy, tentacles ready. More of the smaller ships are dispatched than ever, charging at every enemy in sight, including missiles. If they penetrate an enemy ships hull they are to dispatch their hunters who are to kill everyone onboard.

[Offizier Necro]

((I'm not sure if damage was left unmentioned/implied, but could you please elaborate the damage that was dealt? I'm pretty sure the description of missiles and projectiles as little stingers is for flavor due to the biological theme, but it somewhat implies that no damage was done and that all attacks from the combined might of 12+ ships was merely an annoyance. I don't know if the "massive" ship would be considered a destroyer, cruisder, or even a battleship in Stellaris terms, but I'm fairly certain that there would be some level of damage regardless of what size if it were ganged up on by a dozen corvettes. Regular colony ships are only corvette-sized in Stellaris and lack weaponry and hangars, but this is either a generation ship, a sleeper ship, or some combination of the two, so it's not exactly a standard Stellaris colony ship even without considering the level of armament and armor it seems to have.))

[Caspoi]

[Depends on the Power of the missiles, some hull damage and mayby a few of the outmost corridors probably. however it would not be too bethered by the initial salvo and has since then deployed it's fighters as a kind of living shield, somewhat similar to Point defense systems I suppose. I will try to write more but I have had problems with the internet.]

[The Clans]

(By little stingers, I had thought you meant the strike craft, still do cause I think Necro got confused. Try to write as much as you can, save it in an external file somewhere if you have to like I do so my posts don't get wiped out. That said, the shuttles wouldn't be able to stop or slow solid slugs from colliding into the mothership.  This ship was built before the swarms could travel the stars effectively, right? Hundredsof years ago?  How is it able to shrug off damage meant to kill ships made from alloys that can tank a couple direct hits from nuclear weapons?)

[Caspoi]

[As I said, it depends on the missiles, right now my idea is that the ship can not so much resist the missiles so much as ignore the damage that they cause, of course if the magnitude of their explosions are big enough then this will not work. And while many missiles will still hit the idea is that the amount of ships in the way will hinder them.]

[The Clans]

(Caspoi, my species doesn't use missiles for their ship weaponry. Only the strike craft do, and those missiles are for taking down small shuttles since they're not proper Carrier based strike craft. My ships fire metal slugs of dense metal accelerated to hyper velocities by a series of electromagnets that push the shells down the barrel of the gun. They guns mounted on my ships are coil guns, or massive gauss rifles. The standard kinetic loadout in Stellaris.)

[Caspoi]

[Hm, I was sure that it was written that missiles were used. I will keep this in mind then, such weapons would be able to penetrate deeper into the ship.]

[The Clans]

(The only reference to missiles I made was in reference to the human ships in the battle plan, and to the missiles used by the yuxu strike craft. Every attack coming from the corvettes has been from shells. My empire's starting weaponry are kinetics. Now how what class of ship is this generation ship?)

The corvettes nearest to the alien vessel continue to fire their guns while retreating at a 110 degree angle away from it to get out of range of the shuttles where their own bombards are still effective. The ship part of the joint human/yuxu fleet split off in order to lure the large ship off of its intercept trajectory toward Haven. A transmission is sent to the humans indicating that they should do the same at a steeper angle to put more distance between themselves and the hive ship and still be able to more easily turn around toward Haven if the hostile ship stayed its course and did not alter its trajectory. The ships concentrate their fire as much as their combat computers, and skill of their gunnery chiefs, will allow them focus on weakening a specific, but arbitrary, section of the ship.

When the Yuxu linguists board they greet their human counterparts by giving their version of a salute as a greeting. They hold their upper left arm in a straight line to their left while raising their lower arm to a 45 degree angle with an open palm facing the humans. The right fist that holds their cases is pulled up to their hip as if poised for an uppercut. Once they enter the meeting room, and turn their chairs sideways to accommodate their tails, they open their cases and present their counterparts with culturally significant gifts.

One receives a preserved and framed colored sand painting with relaxing and meditative winding shapes and patterns. Another receives a side arm and a case of ammunition. The weapon's slide was bronzed and engraved with a scene depicting a night time scene of four Yuxu in a semi circle around a fire in a bombed out city with the rough surfaces of their colony worlds in the sky above them. Any initial experimentation would show that every time a finger was placed on the trigger a green laser sight activated and that when a knob toward the front of the gun was turned clockwise it activated an array of LEDs behind a glass casing that acted like a blinding flashlight. Testing at the range would show that the weapon's barrel was an integrated silencer. The last gift was an array of miniature model civilian and military vehicles made from metal and plastic, although the difference between civilian and military was not noticeable due to outsiders from the gun ports, spikes, camouflage, and skull iconography painted onto them. When a button was pressed the little repulsorlift models actually levitated three centimeters off of the ground.

In contrast to the human professionalism, the yuxu linguists and codebreakers behaved like their behind the scenes counterparts, celebrating every minor victory in proper enunciation of the various hisses and grunts of their respective languages. Another thing they take delight in is how the humans have difficulty making the right tongue clicks that are part of some of their words. While the yuxu linguists doggedly repeat syllables over and over until they get the pronunciation correct through their accents, they can't help but snicker at the humans trying to imitate precise clicks with their wide and bulky tongues, noises that are meant to be made by their more slender tongues.

[Caspoi]

[Probably a mix between a cruiser and a colony ship, also due to how Newtons laws work the ship is still heading for Haven, just at a slower speed]

[The Clans]

(According to Newton's laws it would have to turn itself around and blast its thrusters to deaccellerate halfway through its journey to kill its momentum.)

[Caspoi]

[It didn't accelerate throughout the whole first half, having been conserving energy for most of the journey. And it has been deaccelerating ever since it entered the system so as to not crash when it was to land]

[The Clans]

(If it had been deaccelerating then the ship would have had been active since it showed up on on ship sensors with its engines on and obviously occupied. These are details you give people before they decide to board. We shouldn't have more out of character posts than in character posts.)

[Caspoi]

[I did, although after Everything turned on "Outside the ship was slowing down, not hurtling quite so fast towards Haven any more", I apologise for the above statement, it was poorly phrased, but you wouldn't have had any idea as it was when the ship slowed down that all the swarmlings inside it woke up]

[Offizier Necro]

Looking at the screens and the officers who all informed him of the arthropoids' boarding ships returning to the fight and attempting to save their mothership via suicidally charging missiles and the defending lines. While this was a bold maneuver, it was written off as just mindless space wasp behavior since the remains and recordings from the boarding events showed these were bugs and the humans were extrapolating. It didn't help that the Herald had watched Terran films, including those about fictional arthropoid races that were shallow, dehumanizing stand-ins for whatever human enemy the films' creators were fighting at any given time. The reptilians' advised tactic of pulling away from the arthropoids' designated course in an attempt to bait it away from the main area was followed, at least for now. The Herald didn't expect this to work, but it's not like it could get in the way of his ideas in any case. Even if it failed, it would be a good bonding exercise with the aliens.

The humans moved into position and began moving away and slightly off to the side like their reptilian comrades, intending to bait the alien mothership into going after the aggressors instead of the inhabited planet. Meanwhile, the Herald ordered that "these damn Space Bugs" need to be "swatted", and ordered that one-quarter of the missiles be calibrated to target the massive ship and the remaining three-quarters intentionally go after the smaller ships. Rather than because of the attack formation personally threatening his life, it was primarily to disarm the mothership of its living shield and "give Timmy the fate he always wanted for the Winter Solstice". If the ships were gone, it was deemed unlikely that the mothership could build new ones in the middle of combat, so it was considered a war of attrition on home turf. There was still quite some distance between the human ships and the mothership, but some of the reptilians' ships were still threatened by the boarding ships. Again, not the point of the missile attack. "ON YOUR GUARD, SPACE BUGS!"

Meanwhile, the human linguists and other specialists were maintaining their peaceful meeting, including giving a Freeman salute in response to the Yuxu. The informal nature of their alien equivalents made them feel uncomfortable, especially since they couldn't be certain if the random enjoyment at the humans' failures was friendly or a sign of being offended. The gifts were a good sign, though, so things were kept moving in the direction they already were. However, the giving of what was clearly a handgun kept people tense. Was this a sign of camaraderie and trust, or an implied threat? The juxtaposition of the handgun alongside a painting and what seemed to be models seemed to imply it was a gift. However, the painting was almost certainly an abstract piece of art. Was this their flag? Was there a subtle implication of "annexation by our flag or death by our gun"? The details of whatever was going on would have to sorted out after translators were established. Best to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Despite the humans' awe at the seemingly-miraculous nature of the small model vehicles, they did their best to maintain formality even if the reptilians did not. After the gifts were taken back and placed in sealed containers for extremely delicate and careful decontamination, some sterilized gifts were rolled out in return as a token of cooperation via mimicking the behavior. The first gift was a high-quality banner of the Freeman flag made on the finest cloth, a black delta rune filled with yellow on a red background. The second gift was a high-caliber semiautomatic pistol with elaborate engravings of vines and flowers on the sides. The associated ammunition was natural uranium, only slightly more radioactive than depleted uranium, but the humans didn't draw attention to this fact they deemed unimportant due to their ignorance of long-term health. The last gift was a large framed black-and-white photograph of some military vehicles at a military base, including an old propeller-based strategic bomber, a heavy tank, and a then-experimental jet fighter. The Freemen would have given some toy models in return instead of just a photograph, but there were none to be found on the space station due to regulations and the Herald bringing his collection of useless items along with him.

[Caspoi]

The ship made some more attempts at catching up to the aliens, turning around so that it also slowed down on it's course to Haven, however it's old and outdated engines could not catch up to them and it relegated this task to the smaller ones, which countinued to attack the ships in the hope of finally driving them away for good. No quarter was given as they attacked their enemies.

[Once again it would be interesting to know exactly how close we are to Haven as it would be quite important to the decisionmaking]

[The Clans]

(It's also interesting to see the effects of our attacks.)

[Caspoi]

[I am currently waiting on posting on that until the ship draws back, which should be in my next post, however if you are curious the kinetik weapons are doing quite a lot of damage.]

[The Clans]

(It's expected that you respond to every action directed at you.)

[The Clans]

With the swarm of shuttles surrounding the ship, the Corps fleet ignores their human allies since the mother ship was a greater priority and the humans were thinning the swarm outthemselves with their missiles. They exclusively focus their attacks on parts of the ship that they’ve already hit to cripple it further. They avoid targeting the engines so that the ship won’t explode and send debris hurdling toward Haven.

The Corps linguists continue to try and put their counterparts at ease with their playful natures without slacking off on their jobs. When the humans’ gifts are analyzed aboard a science ship the crew collectively freaks out and vents the uranium ammunition into space.

(Alright, let’s wrap this up. A weaponless cruiser can’t hold up to 13 ships that continually bombard it. I’m ready for this thread to be over.)

[Caspoi]

[Yes, the piercing nature of the kinetik weapons would probably have destroyed something important]

[Offizier Necro]

The long-range nature of homing missiles in space allowed the Freeman vessels to take potshots in leisure at the swarm of boarding ships, beyond their reptilian allies' combat range. The Herald was quite surprised at the reptilians' plan actually working and leading the arthrpoid mothership to get distracted, so he abandoned his plan to suicidally ram the mothership through its softened armor and self-destruct the fuel storage and nuclear reactor of the sacrificed ship. The relative safety of the Freeman ships combined with the reptilians' ships' piercing armament led to a further shifting of the missile targets, as the Freeman vessels readjusted their missile salvos to 100% focus on the arthropoids' boarding ships instead of 75%. The reptilians' piercing "cannons" were far better suited for getting at the motherships' vital innards, and the protective exterior of the mothership was already bombarded by thermite missiles, so it was decided that Freeman flotilla would simply cover for their damage-dealing allies by attempting to defang (or at least scare off, if even possible) the only immediate threat. The homing missiles were also likely more suited to taking out the comparatively agile boarding ships, since they would simply be chased down if they dodged the shots. The pride and joy of missile loadouts: Countering evasion.

((I'd say about four days until arrival. Again, we've been inconsistent in our time scales so it's a bit confusing.))

[Caspoi]

The boarding craft, not being enough to keep up the pressure as the ship had not been expected to encounter this kind of resistance were taking far too many losses and while they were still making suicide attacks against the enemy had been severly thinned by now. The ship itself, now drawing back as it could not catch up to the enemy and was only taking damage by it was still functional but had some pretty deep wounds and might rip in two pieces if under countinued pressure. Now it was abandoning all hope of a safe landing and directed itself towards Haven, hoping to survive by landing on the planet and thus making the attackers leave.

[The Clans]

As the ship gets closer a few Corps troop transports filter in one after the other to enter orbit around Haven. While they weren't the full extent that the Corps could field, they were the only ships they could send in on short notice.

Meanwhile the Corps corvetts continue to press their attack and lob shell after shell into the large ship from a distance.

[Offizier Necro]

The Freeman navy kept its focus on exterminating the remaining smaller boarding ships, intent on removing the main means of retaliation despite the mothership's change of course back to Haven. Meanwhile, the Freeman construction ship was behind the front lines but in orbit around Haven, and was instructed to be on guard for any particularly large chunks heading towards Haven if necessary. In spite of common sense, the Herald still was merely considering contacting Haven's planetside people instead of contacting them well in advance for potential evacuation procedures, but even then the consideration was for calling the army rather than avoiding the risk of collateral damage.

[Caspoi]

Taking more and more losses as they were covering the hiveship's retreat the boarding Craft countinue to all try and find an enemy to latch on to. The ship iteslf is retreating and badly damaged.

[The Clans]

The Corps science ships continually update the trajectory of the moving ship, estimating landing areas and crash sites. They transmit their findings to the station in orbit in the form of a geographic map with circles drawn around the estimated impact zones and arrows radiating outward toward roads.

The combat ships continue to attack it from a distance. Any shuttles that manage to latch on to a Corps ship soon finds that its occupants are unable to fit in the tight and cramped hallways and maintenance tunnels that wind into fortified positions with crew ready to shoot disoriented boarders.

[Offizier Necro]

The space station, after silently FTL-communicating with the Herald, confirmed the information with the reptilians by transmitting it back to them. Seeing as his allies seemed to be getting more bold about information (from his perspective), and possibly held information out of his own reach, he finally rang up ground control and gave them the predicted landing areas and crash sites. However, he explicitly told them not to release this information to the public if possible. Upon being questioned about the strange request that he lacked the authority to make on planetbound entities, Addy told a half-truth that it was to avoid a senseless mass panic about a battle that was being won. In any case, planetbound forces began minor mobilization, setting up preliminary base camps to reach the fallen or landed alien scrap or crafts. More finalized locations would be set up as the arthropoids came closer and had more predictable landing/crash site.

Meanwhile, the Freeman navy was still attempting to finish off the remaining boarding ships that hadn't already died, scattered, or boarded the closer allies. However, they had again readjusted their new salvos' missiles' calibration so that half would home in on the shuttles and half were again homing in on the mothership. The missiles aimed at the mothership were this time fired near the rear, trying to damage the fuel lines, heat sinks, or any other important points of interest relating to the thrusters that could potentially be within the missiles' reach. The hope was to inhibit the mothership's movement back to a Haven-bound course by scaring it into disabling sections of thrusters for its own safety, but any extra damage from not disabling systems in time would be a convenient side bonus.

[Caspoi]

Most of the atting ships had been destroyed at this point although the rest still fought on, smaller areas were attacked by the worker caste which are better adapted to small tunnels. The main ship has lost it's left main engine yet still countinued on it's course, hoping to evade it's attackers.

[The Clans]

The smaller working castes that manage to make it to the vents find themselves hunted down by little soldiers with magnetic pistols, eager to get their first kills, their first alien kills, that lure the bugs in as live bait and then ambush them by popping out of hatches, around unseen corners, and from behind murder holes.

Unlike what the bugs may have thought, the Corps ships would not stop firing at the cruiser sized colony ship. Unless they wised up and realized they were dealing with another intelligent sapient race and tried to communicate by radio or psychic powers, or fully redirected itself away from Haven they would press the attack.

[Offizier Necro]

With the motherships's continuing course towards haven, the Freemen navy continued its volleys, now redirecting the mothership-bound missiles to loop to other rear thrusters in the same tactic since it worked the first time. They left any maneuvering thrusters or other thrusters in the front portions of the mothership intact, since crippling its ability to move was meant to defend Haven and the Crucible, even if negligent disregard for civilian casualties was taking place in the background. If the mothership decided to move and probably die elsewhere, that was good for the Freemen. If it simply was destroyed by piercing volleys of the reptilians' kinetic weapons while attempting to correct its course, that was satisfactory all the same. The humans had given up on mercy and empathy after the boarding attempt for what paradoxically seemed like rabid animals operating a complex feat of engineering.

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