The 13th Tribe Book II: A Symphony of War

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well I suppose that's one way of clearing up any Flood outbreak on Installation 04 and 05 then.

Yeah, the interdictor cruiser did work very well, but down to a number of factors:

1. The bad guys didn't know it existed or even if it was possible
2. Only Ba'al attempted to run, the other bad guys didn't try and thus didn't try to figure out the problem. It won't be as effective once word of it spreads.

Also, as seen it does have limitations for the good guys. It basically commits you to an all-in slugging match. No hit-and-run, no jump-shoot-jump for the bombers, no combat jumps to keep the enemy off-guard and draw them out to defeat in detail. No chance for damaged ships to retreat and recharge shields or minimise casualties.

So it worked in this instance. Whether it becomes standard kit for Explorers is unknown at this point. It's proven the concept worthy of further development but that's about it.

Consider it this way; it's basically like a device that stops the wind from blowing in an age-of-sail naval battle. If you're in a good spot to break the enemy that's good but it traps you in place just as well as it traps the bad guys.

[Sky Captain]

That was some serious carnage! Did Baal survive? He had a cloaked Alkesh so it is possible he is alive, but with jump drive blown to bits unable to leave the system. Terran and Tauri missing a cloaked Alkesh in chaotic battle and with all post battle junk littering orbit seems reasonable.

Firepower of both superlasers are quite scary. Even a Covenant supercarrier may not want to find itself ambushed by Nemesis and Phoenix.

If later some other Battlestars are lost it makes sense to build a heavy version with superlaser as a replacement. It is just so damned effective at providing powerful opening punch. It seems that Terrans have no problem building capital ships quickly, Crewing them with competent crews and supporting is a bottleneck.

Tauri battlecruisers looks to be very effective despite their small size. Ton per ton I would say they are far better than Terran destroyers.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Unless the Kobolians, Tau'ri, ONI, or Emperor forbid, the Covies, develop a countermeasure, or steal Ancient/Forerunner tech that lets them control the weather gage.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ba'al is still kicking, but his sanity has escaped completely, so he's currently walking around a cloaked, disabled Al'kesh surrounded by the dismembered bodies of his servants that he thinks are traitors. He'll get a nice public trial and be dealt with permanently.

The Phoenix class are indeed intended as the nest step up from the Lionhearts. As Lionhearts are lost due to combat, retirement or whatever the new, heavier designs will replace them.

incidentally, this is why 2nd Fleet has five battle groups while the others only have 4, 1st and 3rd Fleets are both led by "Heavy" Battlestars so 2nd Fleet get's a fifth battle group to make up the firepower a bit.

As for the 304's, yeah they are powerful little ships. That's because they were designed to be able to take on multiple enemy ships at once and come out on top. They're more effective, tonne for tonne, than the Challenger destroyers because the destroyers were conceived as escorts, not capital ships in their own right like the 304's. The Tau'ri ships do have downsides though; their small size means they have very little endurance. They have no reloads for their missiles, not a huge amount of ammo for their coilgun turrets and life support endurance is very limited. They can handle one major engagement and that's it before they need to RTB for resupply. With a small, limited crew they also can't handle long-duration missions very well, they just don't have enough people on board for sustained combat watches like Battlestars do.

As for the Covvies developing a countermeasure, possible but unlikely, given that whole "imitative not innovative" thing that gets thrown around in the books a lot. Also I haven't decided what, if any, effect the jammers will have on slipspace engines. The Kobolians/Tau'ri developing counermeasures is possible, like I said it's going back to R&D after a successful field test.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And I've already decided that a CSO Supercarrier will be able to tank a full shot from Nemesis (not without consequence though), purely because at 27km they are big ships with power to spare. As far as I'm aware they can essentially no-sell S-MAC hits, and since the big blue beam o' death is equivalent to 20 of those this seems fair.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

That was some serious carnage! Did Baal survive? He had a cloaked Alkesh so it is possible he is alive, but with jump drive blown to bits unable to leave the system. Terran and Tauri missing a cloaked Alkesh in chaotic battle and with all post battle junk littering orbit seems reasonable.

Firepower of both superlasers are quite scary. Even a Covenant supercarrier may not want to find itself ambushed by Nemesis and Phoenix.

If later some other Battlestars are lost it makes sense to build a heavy version with superlaser as a replacement. It is just so damned effective at providing powerful opening punch. It seems that Terrans have no problem building capital ships quickly, Crewing them with competent crews and supporting is a bottleneck.

Tauri battlecruisers looks to be very effective despite their small size. Ton per ton I would say they are far better than Terran destroyers.

The limiting factors for the Terrans are resources and capital, and will affect any future construction of heavy battlestars or another Warstar. So, any new heavy battlestars or Warstar will be a direct replacement for same, not an "upgrade" for a regular battlestar lost in combat.

On the other hand, if the Kobolians and Tau'ri establish permanent relations with the UNSC, they may be able to help build heavier machines for their new allies, given they're already building super heavy cruisers and other large warships and support craft, and will ultimately build Infinity.

And, yeah, the 304s are tough little ships with respectable firepower, if not always adequate for the jobs they get handed. Kind of like UNIT throughout the Classic Who era, up to "Battlefield."

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ha, ninja'd you cinnabar

"Heavy" Battlestars will eventually become the norm, like how super-dreadnoughts supplanted regular dreadnoughts after the Orion-class.

This fits with what we see in the show - Galactica is a first-generation Battlestar, and is out-gunned by Pegasus, what I think of as a 2nd-generation ship, which is in turn outmatched by Eridanus, a 3rd-generation Battlestar.

Same for the Tau'ri - they build Prometheus, which is supplanted by the Daedalus class as newer, more powerful and then becomes the norm.

The TCN isn't going to actively retire Lionhearts early in favour of Phoenixes, but over time the latter will replace the former.

As for building another Warstar, well I did say in Book I they wouldn't be building another one for a few years, and it's been a few years now...

[fnord]

So will the new superheavy battlewagon be called Fury ?

What lessons learned from the class prototype will be incorporated?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Whoa, slow down there, I haven't even decided to have them build another one yet!

IF they do, not sure what lessons they would need to incorporate. Nemesis hasn't met anything she wasn't able to obliterate yet, the only thing that cause any damage at all were a bunch of suicidal cruisers, and about the only thing that can stop that is more turbolasers and/or escorts. Which the Warstar already has.

[Dass.Kapital]

Hello.

Been reading along forever.

Just a question?

How big are the J-J's (Jump Jammers) and their attendant powerplants etc?

A thought is as a 'Detatchable' mounted unit.
Have an enemy you don't want following you?
Drop a J-J pod plus timer/sensors/cloak behind you.
You jump. Enemy (Hopeflly) doesn't see the J-J mine now floating serinely in front of them. It's powered up since you've left.
The enemy tries to follow you and 'K-Zzzzt!' no more J-drives.
Actually... can they effect ships in jump as they fly by? That raises some interesting potentials....

[fnord]

About all we have is "several thousand tonnes of experimental equipment", and fitting without much comment into a standard(?) explorer hull. I suspect, at the moment, the interdiction kit isn't too expendable (as your interdiction mine idea would require).

As for intercepting ships in jump.... I'm not even sure if that's even possible. E_F?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Like Hapan pulse-mass mines. I'm reasonably sure E_F's both got the high-IQ boys back on Earth and Terra working on something similar, and that it won't be ready til Book III: A Disregarded Demand.

Fnord, intercepting ship's in FTL from normal space(as well as tracking them) depends on what interaction, if any, they have with normal space(such as Cherenkov radiation, peacetime distortions, etc.)which would allow them to be picked up on passive sensors.

Alternatively, it would also be dependent upon the development of an active FTL sensor.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oooook....

In order: hyperspace jammer (at present, singular!) is a few thousand tonnes of kit taking up pretty much all of an Explorer's spare internal volume, so the idea of deployable mines is unlikely - though you may see them fitted to Fleet Bases in future.

As for intercepting ships mid-jump...well since Kobolian FTL drives are watered-down versions of the Ancient's Wormhole Drive, which is a different take on Stargate take, and we know Stargate wormholes can be affected by things like solar flares and other high-energy events...hmm. I would say that a ship making an FTL jump through the jammer's distortion field would be affected, but not as badly as a ship trying to make a jump into or out of said distortion field. Throw them off course perhaps, not much else. But it would be a pure chance kinda thing, not something you can plan.

Also, Cinnabaer: "Book III: A Disregarded Demand"? Sabaton's "The Lost Battalion" by any chance?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Since Book II's subtitle was also the last line in " A Soldier's Diary," it seemed appropriate.

Also: Scandinavians seem to do heavy metal better these days than Americans. I stumbled onto their cover of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," after following a link from the Deathstars' "The Last Ammunition" two years ago, and, since then, I've been hooked.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I came across "The Price of a Mile" because 1d4chan linked to it as an anthem of the Imperial Guard, went from there

As for the Symphony of War thing, I'd forgotten it was in there, it's purely a coincidence.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I figured it was.

"Primo Victoria" is my new ringtone, BTW. Also my favorite Sabaton song, along with "The Lost Battalion," and "To Hell And Back."

[Eternal_Freedom]

I figured it was.

"Primo Victoria" is my new ringtone, BTW. Also my favorite Sabaton song, along with "The Lost Battalion," and "To Hell And Back."

I like "Winged Hussars" myself. It was my ringtone, until I saw Ready Player One and got "We're Not Gonna Take It" stuck in my brain.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

"Winged Hussars" is also an excellent song.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Ha, ninja'd you cinnabar

"Heavy" Battlestars will eventually become the norm, like how super-dreadnoughts supplanted regular dreadnoughts after the Orion-class.

This fits with what we see in the show - Galactica is a first-generation Battlestar, and is out-gunned by Pegasus, what I think of as a 2nd-generation ship, which is in turn outmatched by Eridanus, a 3rd-generation Battlestar.

Same for the Tau'ri - they build Prometheus, which is supplanted by the Daedalus class as newer, more powerful and then becomes the norm.

The TCN isn't going to actively retire Lionhearts early in favour of Phoenixes, but over time the latter will replace the former.

As for building another Warstar, well I did say in Book I they wouldn't be building another one for a few years, and it's been a few years now...

Oh, okay. The replacements are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Nice to know I was wrong.

Fury would actually be a good name. Both British and Greek, which should mitigate the RN in space trope you were worried about for the TCN.

Other good names would be Plankwell and Princess Cecile.

[fnord]

I didn't think E_F was cribbing that much from Traveller, to be honest.

Actually, I can think of one lesson learned from Nemesis - better shock isolation for command spaces. Frinstance when the chart table decided it didn't like the look of Davies and had a bang at him.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I didn't think E_F was cribbing that much from Traveller, to be honest.

Actually, I can think of one lesson learned from Nemesis - better shock isolation for command spaces. Frinstance when the chart table decided it didn't like the look of Davies and had a bang at him.

Aw. I wanted to see meson guns, damn it, no matter how scientifically improbable they are.

Command spaces should be buried deeper within the hull, not stuck on top like a wet navy bridge. And, have their own component armor and internal shielding.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fury would be a good name...except I've already got a cruiser called Furious that's running in Fireman's battle group, which could get confusing.

As for shock isolation...again not sure how much they could actually do to improve it, especially since I try to keep those exact details vague. And Kobolian command spaces are buried deep in the hull.

A further bit of number-crunching. The Tau'ri Asgard-designed hyperdrives have a low-end speed observed (in season 8's "Prometheus Unbound" aboard the eponymous 303) of fifty light-years in twenty minutes, or ~1.3 million c. Based on the 304's 18 day flight to Pegasus (stated as "3.5 million light years" the newer ships have a sustained speed of 71 million c, which matches up nicely with the Kobolian FTL drives that can do a 25,000 ly jump every three hours, averaging out as 73 million c (though I would not like to sustain that for an entire year).

The 304 powered by a ZPM, on the other hand, has a speed of ~320 million c. Damn!

But...best observed speed? Asgard Beliskner-class ships, have been seen on three occasions ("Thor's Chariot," "Point of View" and "Small Victories") to be able to make the flight from Othalla to Earth/that Viking planet in about ten minutes or less. Now getting out to Ida took the Odyssey three weeks. For a low end estimate we'll say she wasn't using her ZPM, meaning the distance was a little over 4 million light years. Assuming the Asgard ships did it in 10 minutes that's a speed of...214 billion c.

Considering Covvie slipspace drives have been calculated as running at about 900 light-years per day, the Alliance is going to have a major speed advantage.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Oh, okay. I thought they were stuck on top of the ship like in oBSG. Chalk one up to early senility.

Of course you call the ship the...Star Fury.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Warstar Star Fury? Hell no! Given the existing name it'd probably be something like Retribution or Justice or something like that.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Hecate? Or, perhaps Nike? Both would complement Nemesis.