A Squelch of Empires (crossover)

[Simon_Jester]

Extraordinarily effective, indeed. Probably more than a match for anything even approximately in its weight class, between the modifications, the crew quality, and the intense esprit d'corps. Still no match for a supercapital ship, though. This operation is liable to be short and exciting if the Chaotics have control of the ships' guns, as opposed to long and exciting if not.

[Andras]

Briefly, 721 has twice as many starfighters (and mostly heavy fighters at that) and a refit that includes a 3rd group of main battery turrets at the bow, and the 3 spinal mount turrets are heavy turbolasers (320tt/s each IIRC) that combined effectively form a 4th main battery group. ECR said 721's up around/just over 4 petatons/second, or about 2x a standard ISD-II.

[White Haven]

Between refits and elite crew, it effectively punches in the cruiserweight category. It's the warship equivalent of Tony Jaa, a little fucker who you don't quite take seriously until he breaks your nose from a standing jump. With his knees.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Good grief. Where to begin replying to all the people who have been kind enough to comment?

First of all, Vehrec, you're right, and there's an additional short segment as part of this post that should explain what he's up to.

Simon_jester, not entirely certain about that- the sociological differences are probably more important than the xenological, the citizenry of the GFFA is almost certainly as a body better educated, has a better grasp of the written and unwritten rules of their own civilisation, and access to a galaxy wide free-ish market- which could mean that the gospel (for want of a better term) of Tzeentch falls on extremely fertile soil, or like water off a duck's back. I'm leaning towards the latter interpretation at the moment, myself.


Fractalsponge, the point about the sacrifice- yes, but that has already happened, on the ships of the chaos battle group as they approached the wormhole. You're more or less right about the tactical situation, there is one wild card to play, and there are also two long range conversion Venators with the deep field group- most of the fighter space replaced with fuel cells, they retain full armament though.

Black Prince is heavily upgraded, originally built under license by Corellian Engineering, she's been rebuilt and upgraded more or less to Tector standard, although not configuration.



19a1;

from the diaries of Commissar Cain

Some wishes are best left unanswered. I had wondered about the Imperial Starfleet commanding officer, what he was like among his own, what sort of combat animal he was; I should have realised that I didn't really want to find out.

I had chosen to be here, but now that I was I was still trying to understand why, Jurgen and I were deeply out of place in this maze of light- displays and rapid babble. I didn't know their system and their routine well enough to know how well things were or weren't working, but it was extraordinarily talkative. There was no grim solemnity at all to start with, just a buoyant, breezy confidence.

I had to wonder how much of that was xenological difference, how much individual character, and how much that peculiar species of charlatanry that gets called leadership. I should know, I did enough of it in my time.


The bridge crew seemed to be responding well to it, though; they reminded me more of a scrumball team than anything else, professional and personal at the same time, and perhaps that was it.

On an Imperium Navy ship, even most of the troopships I was on over the decades, the job is bigger than the people who do it. A bridge officer, even a branch commander, was just the latest link in a multi-thousand year sequence, a record of honour and duty stretching back over many lifetimes, and if they did it right would go on for many more after that.

Which is a terrifying thought, when you think about it, and doesn't seem to do the navy all that much good to be honest. There seem to be as many crushed by the weight of expectation as there are supported by it, and I was probably luckier than I deserved with the 597th, a new unit with a reputation to make.


The crew of this ship seemed to be the other way around, larger than their jobs, doing them with almost casual ease. At least, to begin with. I could see them tauten and tense up as the moment drew nearer, and the insouciance started to melt away as they worked up to full concentration and full speed.

Even if I didn't know roughly what the situation was, I would have been able to guess from that that they were a crack unit, but one facing a challenge that was far above even their fighting weight.

I hadn't been able to pick up much more than tone in their language- which I learned they simply called Basic, which counts as a failure of imagination to my mind- but I had it confirmed when their commodore turned to me and said in Gothic 'Well, are you completely baffled yet?'


'Just how much of a forlorn hope was this plan?' I decided to ask him, suspecting that most of his crew at least understood Gothic. I didn't expect him to give me an answer he wouldn't be afraid for them to hear, and I was right. Unfortunately, it wasn't the answer I was expecting.

'By any rational estimation, we're committing suicide.' He said surprisingly cheerfully, showing that he had far greater faith in his people's dedication to duty than I did. It wasn't simple bravado; he looked like a man who fully intended to survive.

'They, the chaos fleet and the 401st, outgun Deep Field Recon something like three hundred and sixty to fifteen, and outdo us in ability to withstand fire by a higher proportion than that, so we're not going to win a straight fight. Even fighting as crookedly as can very well be, it doesn't add up.'


Well, that's not the sort of thing that goes down well of a morning. 'It would have been useful if you had mentioned that earlier.' I said, trying to look nonchalant. Although I couldn't see how it was really going to matter. Too late, and in too deep, now.

'What, your karmic advisor has you on a strict diet, you're only allowed to accept so many suicide missions a year?' He grinned. 'We have done something like this before, although the odds weren't quite as bad, and the opposition not quite as tentacley. I'd like you to confirm something for me- how fast does Chaos usually work?'

'I think I see what you're getting at,' I said, and I could '- there are usually warning signs, usually a seduction and corruption over years, maybe decades. When chaos attacks it can be lightning swift, but building for the attack takes time.'

Which is, regrettably, true enough. When chaos appears “without warning” on an Imperial world, it's almost always because someone ignored the warnings, or because chaos was smart enough to corrupt the arbites first.


'The 401st, entire strangers to the universe, were hit within minutes.' Lennart confirmed. 'Chaos is reacting drastically to this, it's a maximum- effort job on their part.' He was still frighteningly happy about it all; whether it was reacting to a supreme challenge, or just finally getting to blow something up as a stress release after so much fiddly diplomacy, on balance I'd say the former.

'How thorough are they, usually?' He said, and he said it like a man with the seed of an idea.

'As unpredictable as chaos loonies ever are; some occasions, some individuals, they plan every detail, most of the time they seem to be making it up as they go along. What do you want me to do?' I asked, not looking forward to the answer, but the alternative was to sit there like a spare tread-link waiting to be happened to.

'We're trying to tap into the squadron's internal com nets, identify loyalists to support; I think we have a good chance of recapturing one of them, and a chance worth taking on another, you could help with that?' He suggested.

'I'm not sure I could tell the difference between a loyal spacer in your Starfleet, and a demon- possessed crazy pretending to be a loyal spacer. I'll try, if you think it's worth doing.' I said, realising that it would be rather less likely to get me killed immediately than whatever else he had in mind.


I had to ask. Had to find out the worst, and regretted it as I was saying it. 'You've done something like this before?'

'Against one of the class that preceded these in service.' He said. 'Circumstances were a little different, but it worked out for us- basically, we exploited the hit probabilities, managed to tear enough of a hole in the hijacked Procurator's shields to crashland an assault shuttle with a sabotage party.

It was a scratch crew on the target, they couldn't stop the sabotage team before they managed to disable enough of Palmus Viridis' essential systems to bring her down to our level. Before you ask, none of the team came back.' Lennart said, grimly- that weighed on him.

I really should have learned to expect things like that by now. 'I know that's the sort of thing that usually happens to you, but considering the psychic environment, I'll probably be going in with you if it comes to that.' he added.


I couldn't think of a graceful response to that, and I was lucky that he went on 'In the meantime, let's see if psyops have any effect at all. The powers are all essentially rivals, yes? Work the comnets. Taunt them. Mock them. Play on their blind spots. Convince them to deny the prize to each other, fall out over the glory of killing us, you can make up the rest as you go along.'

The rest was an order to his chief of comms and sensors, in rapid-patter Basic, to go with that.

'Try to lie to and deceive the representatives of the Powers of Chaos?' I said, wrapping my head round the idea. It ran contrary to everything we were usually taught, and everything that I had any right to expect would make any difference- but there was a kind of mad poetry to the idea.


'If it's hardly ever attempted because there's no expectation that it might work, then they should be nicely complacent and ripe for a fall. And if a sane man can't out- think a broken minded nutjob, then you aren't doing it properly.

You know their weaknesses, any of their strength they waste on each other isn't available to be used on us. Hm?' He said, with such infectious enthusiasm I actually started to believe it could work.

'Give me that microphone.' I said.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon_jester, not entirely certain about that- the sociological differences are probably more important than the xenological, the citizenry of the GFFA is almost certainly as a body better educated, has a better grasp of the written and unwritten rules of their own civilisation, and access to a galaxy wide free-ish market- which could mean that the gospel (for want of a better term) of Tzeentch falls on extremely fertile soil, or like water off a duck's back. I'm leaning towards the latter interpretation at the moment, myself.

This being Tzeentch we're talking about, I'd guess both... and exactly as planned. Very poor initial penetration, effectively no response to direct, overt appeals, but excellent underground spread as the subtler, more subversive Xanatos Gambits start kicking in.

As someone pointed out on another thread, even a slight dose of Force/Warp-induced good luck could be immensely influential on an urban-dweller who has to put up with a thousand petty nuisances he wasn't evolved to deal with every day. You know, things like traffic lights, sirens, insomnia, annoying people you can't haul off and brain with a rock, that sort of thing.

EDIT: I wonder what a Khornate Dark Jedi would look like. I don't think I want to find out. They might be easy to kill if they forget to parry... not likely. After all, Murphy is a chaos god and not a Chaos god, so he has no particular reason to work against Khorne's chosen champions.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

This isn't everything I had intended to put in, it's clearly the mid phase, and at some point I have to get back to figuring out what Amberley and crew are actually up to- but this is basically the Battle of the Halo Mouth up to the end of the beginning.

A Squelch of Empires ch 20

The opening walls of light reached out for each other, unified identical issue- green from the big battlecruiser and a horde of shades, from nearly ripe lemon to tropic water at midnight, from the ships of Deep Field Recon.

The crews of the pair of Imperium ships and the assembled followers of Chaos could only marvel at the killing energies. These were single ships that matched and out- matched entire sector battlefleets.

Truth was most of the Imperial Starfleet personnel, corrupted and loyalist alike, were boggling too. This was grand fleet level firepower.


On the much- modified ship at the heart of the storm, there were two critical displays hovering by the main tactical tank, over the shoulder holomodels of both ships, dancing twisting destroyer and looming spearhead battle cruiser, both images surrounded and crossed by threads of light.

The lines of light were bolt path predictors, and there was a dense and glittering traffic along them- wave on wave, sliding down the threads, crossing, misses and hits. The displays were the measure of success and failure.

Lennart was giving a rapid stream of helm orders, twisting and weaving his ship through the mesh of fire. He could afford to cut the lighter threads, the seventy-fives and one seventy- fives, the shielding could stand that, barely.

We've done this before in the sims, Lennart thought with as much attention as he had to spare. Trying to convince himself that that meant it was possible.


In fact...Benificent's shooting was random, sporadic, erratic, even to use the word of the moment chaotic. Some individual batteries were just popping off at random into the sky, some were behaving like amateurs chasing the traces, and Lennart didn't need to look down into the pit to know com-scan were trying every trick they could think of to keep it that way.

The numbers, though, it all came down to the numbers that really hammered home the difference between battle cruiser and destroyer. Over their own flashing, twisting image was the number zero zero point eight seven. Over that of the gently yawing Bellator, forty.

To start doing real damage, get local burnthroughs and tear into the metal, Black Prince needed to land forty percent of her fire not merely on target, but on one specific point on the target.

To start overloading the destroyer's ability to dissipate heat, to do real damage- start accumulating the kill- the big ship only needed to score with point eight seven of a percent of her firepower.


At the beginning of the fight, the numbers were good; the opening minute, the opening three minutes, the long range fire was going the veteran destroyer's way, but Lennart had expected that, in fact had every right to expect it.

A crew that had been through that kind of trauma- if 'that kind' was an adequate description, if there had ever been anything of that kind before, it would be extraordinary if an old, well practised ship couldn't outshoot them.

Any advantages would erode, though, as the Khornates shook themselves out, the strong murdered the weak and hammered the less strong into some kind of organised setup.


From the simple existence of chaos- manned and chaos- corrupted warships, Lennart could tell that for the bulk of them, chaos was a matter of motivation rather than a way of life. They couldn't be as insane as they sounded and still function; only the very highest could be as deranged as they seemed.

It had to be possible to operate, Chaos had to compromise with practicality enough to be able to manage something so supremely ordered as a warship. In some ways, that was the most terrifying thought of the lot.

If they were all completely mad, they wouldn't be capable enough to be dangerous. As it was, they were ineffectual, but with time and under pressure they would shake themselves out and sharpen up, integrate the old learning and the new motives.


Still, could be worse, Lennart acknowledged. Centrifugal diversity was already working in the Empire's favour, all four stolen battlecruisers manoeuvring in different directions. Thank whatever forces for justice exist around here, he thought, because together they'd only need point two one percent.

We have a five to ten minute, perhaps psyops can stretch that to fifteen at the most, window of opportunity to do some damage that can slow them down enough to prevent them making easy meat of us and the Imperium cruisers, he thought.


Black Prince, as one of the first thousand Imperator- I destroyers produced, had been seriously overbuilt with a structural lifespan well into the millennia. Lennart could feel the centuries burn off that as he conned his ship through the fire, punishingly abrupt turns and surges of thrust.

Better than the alternative, though. Better than both alternatives, being hit themselves and exposing the rest of Deep Field Recon to this. They were drawing the majority of the fire for a reason- they could dance and dart through the bolt patterns.

Deep Field had been chosen for the task, picked ships with claims to excellence, but good enough to jam and dazzle and fake and blind and bluff and thrust their way through the green hell, good enough to be hit less than point eight seven percent of the time? Doubtful.


Launching anything into the maelstrom, or recovering it, was dubious. All the fighters were already away, and what use could they make of them? Two compound groups, group one the hyperdrive capable fighters including all of Black Prince's complement that could be manoeuvred around the fight, group two the sublight- only types.

'Signal group two to support the squadron against Benificent. Group one strike Bucinator.' Going for the third on the target list, and it was a long shot- they may or may not achieve anything, depended on the stupidity factor of the target. Softening up Blistmok wouldn't help win them back to the Imperial cause- “we're trying to murder you, it's for your own good” never went down well.

He wasn't overly sanguine about using them in this environment at all, thousands of aggressive, assertive individual minds each exposed on their own. He needed the reach though, and there were a few strong wills among them that should help protect the rest.


There were other targets that would produce more military result at less cost- bombing and strafing the indigenous Chaos group for a start- but they weren't the objective. Burning them out would be satisfying, but not overly helpful.

Would Chaos even move to protect their own, was the concept of loyalty and mutual support something that even occurred to them? Could that be used as a lever to get them to react? There were other assets that could deal with that anyway. Well, possibly.

In any case, he would rather they didn't react just right now, but playing on it tactically, trying to confuse, subvert and just maybe deconvert the newly- minted minions of chaos, that was worth doing.


'Ob, I need burnthroughs, signal the rest of the squadron converged sheaf. Two two zero plus two thousand free.' He gave a helm order, avoid a fortuitous convergence of bolts heading for them.'How are they behaving as a target?'

'Sporadic.' The gunnery officer confirmed, snatching glances at the main board away from his gunnery repeater/monitor stations. 'Book- standard evasion routines aborted part way through, long shallow pauses, the occasional unsophisticated outright haul on the yoke that gets stopped when their fire drifts too badly, their ECM routines are all preset option.

At first they weren't even bothering to evade, but we nearly blew their torpedo tubes off. If you ask me, the crew running that ship are in shock and functioning intermittently at best. If we want to torpedo and strafe them, now's the time.'


'Run with it.' Lennart agreed, and was about to turn to the commissar- who was in a cone of silence, because otherwise he would have seriously disturbed the bridge routine, mocking and probing and trying to drive the forces of Chaos even madder, if that was possible.

He was interrupted on the way by one of the secondary holodisplays lighting up. 'Commodore, the escort group are requesting information and instructions.' It was Commander Thanas, who looked at first glance calm and unruffled.

No-one in their right mind in the middle of this would be calm and unruffled, and Lennart looked closely at the hologram to make sure that he did, in fact, grasp how worried he had a right to be and was just maintaining. His ship had collected a little fire so far, stray half- aimed bolts from the maddened gunners on the giant battlecruiser.


'Commander, learn from this- I'm an idiot.' Lennart said. 'I should have got your line command codes and authenticators off you earlier, I know it's not procedure but have you actually been in touch with any of the capital ships? Three two five seventeen hundred sine point five seven four.' Lennart added to the helm team, followed by 'Brenn, take the conn.'

He was a better shiphandler than his navigator was, most of the time, but not while trying to juggle the operations of the squadron and what sounded like it was going to turn into diplomacy.

'Thought you'd never ask- one three five fifteen eighty-four, pitch one eight zero, four one.' Brenn reversed the roll, turning a hard evasive bank into a pump- fake and reopening their main gun arc. 'Be nice to go up against something our own size one of these days, though.'

'If wishes were horses, Coruscant would be spire deep in horseshit- besides, we'd probably just get overconfident and start making mistakes. ' Lennart said pointedly, looking at the threads in the spotting tank.

'Z- spiral twenty left widening fifteen hundred.' Brenn ordered/acknowledged, corkscrewing the destroyer out of the concentration of fire Lennart had seen coming.


Lennart left him to it, and turned back to the holotank in time to catch the acting commander of the Nightblade say 'We made twenty- five separate situation report requests to no effect. External comms must have been one of the first things siezed. From the random nonsense they then started broadcasting the only reasonable solution was that they were in the hands of the enemy.'

'Claws and tentacles, I think.' Lennart said, worrying about the unspecificity of that. 'Did you receive a copy of Deep Field's report- were you told in detail who and what the enemy are?'

'No, and I can conceive of very much better situations in which to be handed a brief.' The legal officer managed to jest.

'Short version, every horror story you've ever heard about the light and darkness war, about what an unscrupulous force user can do, assume it's all true and multiply by two orders of magnitude for ambient power, and probably another one for depths of psychosis. How did the rest of the squadron take it?' Lennart asked, suspiciously.


'You suspect a further layer of trickery?' the legal officer turned acting captain asked. 'This is the logical time for the- uncontaminated?- to rally.'

'I know that, and so do they- and the contaminated, good word that, are all pulling in different directions, one charging us, one moving to crossfire, one hanging back and one moving to join it's co- loonies. If the rest of the escort rally, we'll be at throw- weight odds of two to one against each.

Against brain- fried crews, if we move fast enough, those are winning odds. We can take them on and take them down, one at a time. It's an obvious, even golden road to victory.' Lennart said, meaning to sound a little less determined than he actually did.

'So obvious in fact,' Thanas realised, 'you expect them to have prepared a surprise for us against it? Yes in principle, but do you really expect them to have that much familiarity with the military logic?' He could have said more, broke off to give a sequence of helm and gunnery orders.


'Considering all the real presence of mind that goes into operating a warship I'm not sure how they manage to function at all, how well Chaos squares with the orderly attention to detail and discipline.

We can't afford to assume they're that stupid, but I am damn' sure that a crew without daemonic voices screaming and giggling in their brains can function more adeptly than one with.' Lennart stated, hoping he was right.

'Skipper, our plan for that? We hardly have the time and the numbers to board and take the escorts as well.' Brenn said, cautioning. 'We can do a multi- phase operation if we can track them.'


'Or the landing craft considering they're mostly playing torpedo bomber, and if you have attention to spare now, while we're playing matador with a bloody battle cruiser, then you must be overqualified and you can have her if we take her in one piece.

Ground, QAG-111.' A second's pause for the ground force liaison officer on the bridge to root the comment through. 'Qag, you've been keeping up with the threat estimate? Yes? Good. The troop complement's loyalty is going to be critical, you're the senior surviving officer in the oparea.

Give me thirty seconds to set something else up, then order the marine detachments of the escort element to take stations for the suppression of mutiny. Comms, get me medical, Surgeon- Commander Blei- Korberkk.'


The holo projector he had chosen sparked up with the image of their resident hypersensitive. She had obviously been expecting something of the sort, she was in dress uniform, face ashed and hair tidied, only the black-obsidian force suppressor collar and the hollow, haunted look in her eyes gave away what she was going through.

The ship kicked as it took a hit, she winced- if they had taken casualties from that, she would know, of course. 'Bleedthrough damage just aft of the sesquiary reactor, contained.' Lennart overheard the bridge engineer detail say.

She would have felt the pain. Lennart was sorry for what he was doing to her- although it had been her choice, as the most useful thing she could do under the circumstances.


'I don't have to be psychic to guess- loyalty sniffing.' she stated, forcing herself to come to the point.

Being sorry wouldn't actually help, Lennart realised; probably better to hold her to it, make it so that what she was doing to herself wasn't actually her fault, let her hate him for it if that was the only way, and try to patch it up later, much later after, if, they were out of here.

And he realised, she probably overheard every neural spike of that, and if she wasn't scared of what she's going to have to do then, she damn' well will be now. No wonder psykers around here are unpopular.

'Can I piggyback on you?' she said, forcing bravery out and surprising him. 'Psychically? It'll probably be easier to follow a trail through this maelstrom.'


Glance at the main board again- the battlecruiser was showing an almost leopard like face, charred and sintered patches of marginal bleedthrough decorating its surface where the guns had scored; a few minor antennae and defence mounts ripped off, a few armour plates jarred loose and companionways clouded with spalling.

This is the point, Lennart thought, on exercise, where we cut and run usually. We've forced them to waste time and energy- we might run them out of fuel at this rate, if their sense of time is bent enough to let them hang around that long- inflicted damage far out of proportion to our size, this would be a good time to declare victory and run away.

Not today. Today we have to go through with it to the hilt, and every other bloody trick we can think of. Like this, for a start.


Although the idea...it fitted into no decent definition of the palatable. He did not want to go en rapport with his chief engineer and more importantly closest friend's woman, not at the best of times and certainly not when surfing across a landscape of warped and fouled minds. Some things were just a couples' dance, and this was definitely not one of them.

She picked up on that, naturally. 'You feel as if you would be cheating on Gethrim by doing this, committing some kind of psychic violation? You have extraordinary scruples.' she said.

'Normally I never let them get in the way of doing what's right,' Lennart defended himself with a joke, 'but considering the nature of the enemy, being unusually mentally fastidious is not the worst option.'

Weren't you planning to pressure me into this? Do it. I don't care, why should you? It would be good to be something more than just the rockpool the tide washes in and out of.' she challenged him.


Now that was an ugly image for a woman to use, Lennart thought, and was immediately embarrassed at thinking it, then annoyed at having to be embarrassed, then ashamed of having to be annoyed; and no bloody wonder the Jedi had been so detached and distant, the Sith so oozingly malevolent.

Reading thoughts was, at best, espionage; it could be awkward, libellous even, but in terms of being gut- wrenchingly uncomfortable, terrifyingly, searingly intimate, mere conscious thought meant nothing besides diving into someone else's ego and worst of all libido.

In this space where the force was usurped by the far more powerful warp, many could do it, many more than at home...but Palpatine must be able to do this all the time, he thought, which explains a lot, and he realised a shade too late that she wasn't aware of the full ramifications of that.

She had been too caught up in the biomedical aspects, the causes and whys and wherefores, to grasp the consequences- she, like so many, had not been fully aware that they served a lord of darkness.


'There is a time and a place for this conversation, and this is not it.' Lennart said, hoping he was right. 'Believe in the phrase “lesser evil” and follow me.' he said and, not entirely certain what he was supposed to be doing, thought at them.

Starting with the ship in front of them, to get the measure of their enemies' madness, establish a baseline for the contaminated, and- the sensation of two minds passing through each other's conceptual space was strange enough that it disrupted all calculation. It was like being beaten to death with an antarctic sunset, as she leaped forward past him.

It made more sense for him to push her, steer her, wield her as an instrument than it did for her to be behind him looking over his shoulder- or trying to filter her perceptions through his head.


He saw what she meant about mindspaces, about the shapes of the inside of the head now, and he could understand something of the attraction of chaos; it made things so very simple. No longer balance, juggling, optimisation, changes of nature, growth. Chaos...wasn't chaotic; it pruned away so many of normal life's messy complexities.

At least, the particular power of darkness they were surveying did, and there were gratifyingly few of them, many, even most in a high state of confusion, but surprisingly few genuinely razed, made barren of imagination and bound to the blood god.

There were a few flaringly bright beacons of crimson rage, burning with hatred and the urge to destroy all things up to and including themselves; they've hopelessly tainted the cadre, but it will take time for that taint to spread, this could be done. Some were the direct servants of the blood god, though- and incensed.


He withdrew, pulled her after him, before they could take some kind of counter action he knew not what; but the next obvious thing to do was to look around, make some kind of psychic sky survey.

Moving the mind's eye seemed to be as simple and straightforward as thinking about what he wanted to percieve; although it couldn't possibly actually be that easy, there had to be other considerations- efficiency, this was tiring work- and signature most of all, how easy were they to see coming?

He was aware that he was missing a lot of the tricks, that he wasn't doing this nearly as well as a professional would, but so long as it got done, what of it?

Two things, at once. Two searingly obvious points of interest. The escort group was a patchwork, most of them mostly loyal, a handful tinted, mostly by backlash and sidebands, no systematic threat although there were seeds that might ripen, if not watched. That and a handful of filthy and ferocious minds, strangely exposed.


That would be a good moment to close down the mind's eye and stand next to the Commissar's aide. That and to do some investigating as far as meat and metal went. 'Shandon? Give me a focused scan between the chaos fleet and the battlecruisers, I think they just might have made a mistake.'

He braced himself for the backlash, but nothing came, at least not directly, not yet; a moment to clear his vision, turn away- not at all easy- from the psyscape, concentrate and the physical, on steel and energy, look at the situation- as well as could be expected, and at this point they had probably killed more Khornates with their own rage and fratricidal frustration than they had with gunfire.

Brenn had been putting the ship through her paces, dancing and twisting through the fire, easily outguessing the broken-down gunnery command of the battlecruiser; not flawless, nothing was, but very close to it- and the possessed's sense of fire tactics had gone completely, they were just plastering the sky with bolts.


'Small craft- by their standards- fast moving, bulky, with escorts, moving from the chaos fleet to the 401st- personnel transfer?' Rythanor reported, and interpreted.

'More than that, check my logic here.' Lennart said, quickly and excitedly. This was a break in the clouds, an opportunity. 'Chaos has no sense of duty, no conventional rank and discipline structure. They're feudal, perhaps as far back as being essentially tribal. Leadership-' and he didn't need to go further.

'Rule by personal reputation and intimidation, right? Just like pirate bands, the biggest warlord has to have the biggest warship, and the existing lord- tyrants of the enemy battle fleet wouldn't want to be upstaged by some five-seconds-turned devin-come-lately, skipper are you suggesting that-'


'If there are fouler minds around here anywhere I don't want to meet them, I just wanted you to back me up and confirm I'm not suffering from wishful thinking. I think that is the warlords, and their staff, and whatever sadomasochistic equivalent of the regulatory branch they have.'

'Tautology.' A voice form the pit muttered.

'You wish.' Lennart bounced back. 'If they are the archfiends, witch- doctors and slavemasters of the chaos battle fleet come to take possession- literally- of their new ships, we have the enemy command with their arses hanging out in the breeze.

This, this could make a difference- signal Alpha through Zeta squadrons to break off attack on Benificent and proceed, microjump, to attack this flight swarm.' He ordered, laser- marking it in the map.


'If we have any other friends who could help pin down the local forces of darkness,' Brenn added his opinion, 'now would actually be a really good time.'

'I don't think they trust us enough to jump in feet first, but now that we're committed-' Lennart said, waving a hand at the turbolift cluster at the back of the bridge. Both Astartes sargeants were there, essentially spectating, along with one other; Elissa, the female Eldar farseer, free, and armed- although without her escort.

'As we planned.' Lennart said to her; she smiled, nodded, repeated his words back to him, and sent the message.

The wormhole really was in the middle of nowhere; not sufficiently close to the nearest webway terminal for tactical flight. A short warp hop had been necessary.


While that would normally have been worth avoiding at almost all costs, to prevent the powers of chaos gaining four heavy Imperial Starfleet battlecruisers, the speed and killing ability and perhaps worst of all sensors falling into the hands of Chaos, it was worth the risk.

They had been careful to state that they were not committing out of altruism, to protect the younger races, or allegiance, or for gain, or that they gave a tiny damn about anything other than enlightened self- preservation; which was acceptable to Lennart, as long as they came.

He suspected that they had tailored their message to their audience, but what of it? The scintillating gossamer- wings of an eldar battle fleet merged into existence, a sudden, fully committed lunge into the attack. They could, when they chose to.


Elissa recited the names of each of them as the sensor focus passed across them, hushed reverence- 'Bear in mind,' Lennart advised her, 'that we can see them clearly- and comms, get me the tanker.'

There was another 'native asset' he had a plan for; as the Chaos fleet and the Eldar started to exchange fore, and the mixed fighter force hurled itself on the chaos warlords, it wasn't fuel load he was thinking about. There was a reason why, when selecting the Imperium vessels to be towed along on this trip, he had made sure to include one with a nova cannon.

[Thanas]

Very, very impressive.

[darthdavid]

Another great chapter. This fight is shaping up the be the space equivalent of an agile midget gymnast with a pocket knife vs a couple of abnormally large mental patients with sledge hammers.

[Simon_Jester]

Somewhere between a pocket knife and brass knuckles. I'm not sure which is more applicable in this scenario. Like a midget wearing brass knuckles, Black Prince might honestly fail to do any damage to its vastly larger opponents even on a direct hit, if it doesn't land a good hit. With a pocket knife, you're almost guaranteed to make a scratch if you can land a touch at all.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

David, that may be one of the most overwrought metaphors I've ever had the misfortune to encounter.

This is still technically beyond anything that could be called effective range; Deep Field Recon staged their emergence from hyperspace one light minute up- vector from the Benificent, and planned for a tangential approach passing fifty thousand kilometres off the flagship's beam.

Firepower and vulnerability; I'm assuming that the Bellator's shields' instantaneous surge capacity is on the order of 1.6 petatons- fractionally over that of the largest sub- strategic ship to ship weapon currently in existence. Second by second dissipation is something around 20 petatons, a quarter of it's own output, and total load to erosive failure would be at least ten minutes' worth of that.

In other words, splattering fire at the thing is going to be virtually useless- the entirety of the escort group and deep field can beat twenty petatons a second output, nearer forty in fact, but landing that firepower on target at any range that also gives them a chance to evade return fire- extremely iffy.

Time on target converged sheaf salvos that threaten the surge capacity, on the other hand, seem the obvious way to go. A frigate or a light destroyer couldn't do it, but a line or heavy destroyer could- the theoretical capability exists for most of the loyalist ships.

What Black Prince is primarily doing at the moment is drawing the Benificent's attention away from the rest of deep field, so that they have a chance to line up their shots- landing a few themselves, of course,. but nothing critical. Yet.
Either way, that is.

[fractalsponge1]

Yes, it returns!

ECR, what are you thinking is the single-shot surge capacity of an ISD's shields? Mandator is just under 3.3 petatons, going by the first arc, and I assume Executor would be similar?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Probably not much lower than it's second by second dissipation, actually; much smaller ship, smaller shielding/heatsink grid, fewer elements. The figures I've been using, and plotting on the basis of, are a surge capacity of, depending on variant, three hundred and twenty to four hundred teratons, a second by second dissipation- again, dependent on variant and on manufacturer- of four hundred and eighty to six hundred.

In other words, capable of soaking single hits form the huge majority of destroyer weight weapons and capital secondaries, but there would be some burnthrough from heavy cruiser and battleship weapons, 480s, 560s, 720s and the like.

Tector class, they're not much larger so they have no more absolute room to mount heat sinks, some of the internal space taken up in the Imperator by the ground and flight complements is probably used for that though; I am assuming that the heat sink management systems piggyback on the main power network, surge capacity probably has more to do with that than any other factor- some four hundred and eighty to six hundred teratons instant, dissipation seven-twenty to nine hundred.

I don't see any easy way to slot you in, incidentally- although I did perpetrate what must have been the most obscure shout out of the year in the other thread, referring to a KDY senior designer by the name of Equarrian Julez. Phillip Watts was one of the chief designers of the british KG V class of battleships- the turrets for which were actually used as the models for the octuples of the ISD-II apparently.

[fractalsponge1]

If you're assuming instantaneous surge is related to per second dissipation, shouldn't the bigger ships be able to wave away any single hit, since their per second rates should be a decent proportion of a much higher total output? Seems odd an ISD can soak a hit equal to an eighth of its total output, but a Mandator wouldn't be able take a sixtieth of its output as a single hit.

Minor technical digression, I can continue by PM if you like rather than hijacking the story thread .

And without the KGV, we'd never have the Avenger; so much of the details from that are from KGVs. Or Scharnhorsts, curiously enough...

[Simon_Jester]

If you're assuming instantaneous surge is related to per second dissipation, shouldn't the bigger ships be able to wave away any single hit, since their per second rates should be a decent proportion of a much higher total output? Seems odd an ISD can soak a hit equal to an eighth of its total output, but a Mandator wouldn't be able take a sixtieth of its output as a single hit.

It's a question of area, I think. NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A GUESS; my reasoning may be quite flawed.

The Mandator (and other ships its size, like the Executor) are covered by a very large number of individual shield sectors, rather than by a small number of extremely powerful shields. Essentially, they mount several hundred destroyer-weight shield generators instead of half a dozen gigantic ones. The individual generators can be overloaded by a surge, but against sustained fire they form an interlocking, layered defense that could shrug off a Doc Smith sunbeam.

Against enemy capital ships, this may actually be a good thing, because it means that you can't breach all the shields with a few shots. There is no possibility of uncovering a large fraction of the ship with a single coordinated salvo, because of the sheer number of generators which must be individually targeted and knocked down. Against lighter ships (destroyer-weight) it's a bit of a drawback, because it means that the light ships can crack one of those shield panels at a time with converged sheaf fire, where they could never hope to penetrate a more centralized shielding scheme.

However, even given their ability to penetrate that way, the destroyer can do little more than peck at the battleship; the ship is armored and reinforced by internal force fields to the point where even a destroyer's peak salvo energy will not cause crippling damage with one shot.
_________

Of course, that breaks down if the designers neglect to keep all the critical systems buried deep enough that enemy fire from destroyer-weight vessels can't reach it. Thus, a ship like Executor can lose its bridge deflector shield, still have the vast majority of the ship covered by shielding, and then get knocked out of action when the next shot punches through the unshielded command deck. It's a design flaw, but an understandable one, because in combat against an opponent of equal skill, landing a petaton-range component strike isn't easy. This may be one of the things that earned Admiral Ackbar a reputation as a great naval officer: he managed to coordinate just such a strike from multiple ships.

[Thanas]

I think this is an extremely poor shield design and I do not think the Galactic Empire would use that. If they build their heavy dreadnoughts to be capship killers and to crack planetary shields, they need extremely strong single forceshields.

[Simon_Jester]

True, although that brings us back to the question of how ECR expects a destroyer-weight ship to punch through the shields at all. Black Prince doesn't have much more combined firepower than three or four heavy capital-class guns would; even putting everything on a single point, she shouldn't be able to bring down shields designed to shrug off capital-class firepower.

It also brings back the question of how the Rebels at Endor managed a component strike against Executor's bridge, given that their fleet wasn't all that much larger than the Deep Field Recon force portrayed here.

I'd like to hear ECR's take on this; I'm not clear on what he thinks is going on here.

[Thanas]

The Executor is probably more of a roving capital, the bellators are pure combat ships. Also, remember the Executor was under the concentrated fire of several MonCal heavies, most noticeably Home One, which by itself should have the firepower of six-twelve ISDs. Add several other MonCal cruisers to it plus fighters making point-strikes with shield-breaching torpedoes and you have quite the convenient explanation.

[fractalsponge1]

I could easily see massive single shots being much more effective for burn-through purposes than time-on-target salvoes; the former is always concentrated within the width of a single bolt, whereas it is harder with the latter to achieve such a concentration of energy with so many different aimed bolts. Though that makes it harder to imagine a destroyer can actually achieve burnthrough on much larger ships, since destroyers won't ever really mount huge weapons like a w165, or the hypothetical 1420s on a Mandator...

Also shielding of very large fleet combat ships like a Bellator should do better than keep out a single shot from the most common star dreadnought; what happens if a battery manages to land a hit? A Mandator is supposed to have quite a few batteries, after all.

[Thanas]

Not to mention one of those huge planetary defense guns that manage to destroy ISDs with one or two shots...

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Hm. How to make that consistent with some of the early notes?

First of all, I'm perfectly content with big ships being more vulnerable than they seem- it opens up more dramatic possibilities, it explains one path for small ships to destroy larger craft- that happens often enough that there needs to be some rationale- but it doesn't really touch the fundamental issue of comparative vulnerability.

The best defence of all is, as always, to get them before they get you. The difference in strength isn't the difference in firepower, it's the difference in (offence x defence) versus (offence x defence)- and very uch advantage the larger ship, still.

The superheavy defence guns- depending on bolt duration, and hell, the one illustration of the w-165 shows a very short-barelled weapon, more like a medieval bombard than the proportions of a ship- mounted turbolaser, and very wide- practically large enough to fit a YT down. There's a high chance it wouldn't be hitting a single shielding panel anyway.

Large single shots are far more likely to achieve the concentration in time and space- which I'm assuming is a matter of a few tens of metres at most, and depending on the quality of the shielding probably a number of milliseconds, rough estimate for writing purposes ten to fifty. Very unlikely against a manoeuvring, alert enemy with jammers active- it's inherently a longshot. Considering the inherent probability, in fact, I now regret letting Black Prince's gun crews rely on it as often as I did.

There are problems with large single mounts, recoil, power supply, turret inertia- none of them necessarily insoluble, but all of them awkward, and past a certain point of target size, standard fleet tactic probably is to not bother with the tricky time-on-target shots, but stand off, preserve your own ship, and try to volley down the total erosive load.

I like the many-small-panels explanation, Simon-Jester, and if I had thought of it myself in time I'd probably have used it, but it contradicts a few things- like speculation on the internal anatomy of the Venator- I've already written.
What seems more consistent is to assume that (given a suitably robust generator capable of managing and transferring the load) the surge and load capacity have more to do with the power grid the shield generator is attached to than anything else; the surge capacity being more or less related to that of a single main arm of the grid, the second by second load being related to the total factors of safety of the grid.


On a less technical note, I had a long-car-journey type rambling quasi- argument with a meatspace gaming friend who's read bits of this on the subject of versus and fanfiction in general, and we got round to actors. Considering my lack of flair for visual description of people (I know I need to work on it) a point of reference might be helpful. (Al, incidentally, looks just like Peter Griffin from Family Guy- except picture him wearing a fedora- and I've been told that I resemble a slightly thinner Meatloaf.)

Who could we get to play Jorian Lennart, for instance? We decided on...actually, we didn't. We only really got as far as the bridge team of Black Prince, drew blanks for the most part, decided we'd have to dig up and clone an actress from the forties for Aleph-3, Mirannon the closest we got was Brian Blessed, but...any ideas?

[Simon_Jester]

Let's see. You need someone who doesn't radiate physical toughness (Lennart isn't all that impressive in a fight). They should have a good sense of humor, but still be capable of being serious (which rules out a lot of comedy actors). The guy needs to project inspiring dynamism, one of those guys who can get everyone around them thinking fast because they think fast... in fact, given Lennart's internal train of thought, I can imagine the dynamism needing to verge on mania.

Sorry, I'm drawing a blank too.

Cloning someone for Aleph-3 makes perfect sense; she probably is the clone of some improbably capable actress or something. What actress were you proposing to duplicate?

[Count Chocula]

Lennart's a toughie. The actor that springs to mind is, oddly enough, Roger Moore's 007 persona crossed with Sean Connery's 007 behavior. Connery 007 was a charming but hard-assed, sometimes cruel, motherfucker, but Moore has more of the "aristo" physique and face that I associate with Lennart.

As for Mirannon, I imagine him as the technological equivalent of Harry Potter's Rubius Hagrid, the mysteriously expelled, suspiciously magical, hirsuite giant who aids Harry in his hour of need.

As for Aleph-13, I can't help but imagine her as Voyager's Seven of Nine, with armor.

[fractalsponge1]

What seems more consistent is to assume that (given a suitably robust generator capable of managing and transferring the load) the surge and load capacity have more to do with the power grid the shield generator is attached to than anything else; the surge capacity being more or less related to that of a single main arm of the grid, the second by second load being related to the total factors of safety of the grid.

Hm, wouldn't a given main arm of the power grid necessarily be able to handle the power surge equivalent to a salvo from any gun battery attached to the arm? ...which for a Mandator, might be quite powerful (~6 petatons at minimum)? I quite understand the dramatic implications of toning down big ships a bit, but it seems vaguely ... unsatisfying without a good technical rationale.

And if the many small generators setup is used, what's stopping them from being overlapping to begin with?

Given the amounts of power SW capital ships would have to be able transfer through their power grids to power full broadsides or transition to hyperspace, might it be more likely that momentum transfer is the main issue of shields being able to take surge loads, not heat storage or dissipation? At least the hull structure should be able to take the localized stress of a full gun battery volley, but a time-on-target salvo might be enough to locally overwhelm the tensors holding the shield generators in place and do real damage, rather than saturating the heat dissipation or locally overloading the power grid (both of which are, if the ICSes are correct, quite robust).

[Simon_Jester]

Hm, wouldn't a given main arm of the power grid necessarily be able to handle the power surge equivalent to a salvo from any gun battery attached to the arm? ...which for a Mandator, might be quite powerful (~6 petatons at minimum)?

Not necessarily; the superheavy gun mounts might very well rely on power storage drawn from the main grid over time scales much longer than those of a millisecond or microsecond "surge."

I quite understand the dramatic implications of toning down big ships a bit, but it seems vaguely ... unsatisfying without a good technical rationale.

True, but the converse is that we already have the problem of big ships being less effective against small ones than their tonnage would indicate, which has happened over and over for dramatic reasons. Which, by the kind of reasoning we normally see around here, means that there really ought to be an in-setting explanation that allows star destroyers to damage supercapital ships, even though if we were designing the supercapitals we'd like to think we could make them completely immune to destroyer-range firepower.

And if the many small generators setup is used, what's stopping them from being overlapping to begin with?

Nothing; that's actually how I was visualizing it. The practical limit on how many layers of screen they put out has more to do with net power requirements and hull space than with anything else. This might actually give the time-on-target salvo a minor advantage to go with its obvious disadvantages over a single superheavy gun: it can conceivably overload multiple layered panels, where a single bolt probably can't.

Given the amounts of power SW capital ships would have to be able transfer through their power grids to power full broadsides or transition to hyperspace, might it be more likely that momentum transfer is the main issue of shields being able to take surge loads, not heat storage or dissipation? At least the hull structure should be able to take the localized stress of a full gun battery volley, but a time-on-target salvo might be enough to locally overwhelm the tensors holding the shield generators in place and do real damage, rather than saturating the heat dissipation or locally overloading the power grid (both of which are, if the ICSes are correct, quite robust).

Hmm. Interesting. Momentum transfer for ultrarelativistic particles (the only thing we know of that is even slightly plausible as a delivery vehicle for those kinds of energy levels) is given by p = E/c, so we could be looking at big damned momentum transfers.

Moreover, there's a good explanation for momentum transfer in a surge being more problematic than sustained fire: delivering the same amount of momentum over a shorter period applies more force, and is thus more likely to wrench a shield generator from its mount.

[fractalsponge1]

Hm, wouldn't a given main arm of the power grid necessarily be able to handle the power surge equivalent to a salvo from any gun battery attached to the arm? ...which for a Mandator, might be quite powerful (~6 petatons at minimum)?

Not necessarily; the superheavy gun mounts might very well rely on power storage drawn from the main grid over time scales much longer than those of a millisecond or microsecond "surge."

Hm, good point, but it seems a bit strange to me that a dedicated warship could not take a battery salvo, the most "common" subunit of its armament, without burnthrough.

True, but the converse is that we already have the problem of big ships being less effective against small ones than their tonnage would indicate, which has happened over and over for dramatic reasons. Which, by the kind of reasoning we normally see around here, means that there really ought to be an in-setting explanation that allows star destroyers to damage supercapital ships, even though if we were designing the supercapitals we'd like to think we could make them completely immune to destroyer-range firepower.

I assume you're talking about Executor. Less capable than their tonnage suggests, compared to a destroyer, yes. However, it still took most of the Rebel fleet at point blank range to achieve burnthrough. That, as Thanas said earlier, could easily have been equivalent to two-three dozen or more ISDs worth of firepower, which is close to the average total shield dissipation (assuming 120xISD generation, dissipation of 33% of peak output).

I think the momentum transfer limit idea is a pretty good argument for a more distributed shield grid; but still, it would be logical for armored/shield warships to be able to take fire of their own scale. If a Sector-force destroyer like Fist could manage time-on-target salvoes, a dreadnought like Executor ought to be able to do it routinely too. And another Executor ought to be able to take battery-groups worth of firepower without burnthrough, otherwise it'd be quick battles, every time, more dependent on luck than anything else.

Perhaps it might be time to split this discussion elsewhere, lest we clutter ECR's excellent fiction too much?