The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)

[Eternal_Freedom]

The new class will not incur a huge amount of overheads, simply because they've had a whole bunch of shipwrights (those who designed the original Lionhearts) sitting around with nothing else to to for a good year now. They've spent that time drawing up plans for follow-on classes like this Heavy Battlestar but the Admiralty said "not yet, we need ships as quickly as possible, so just keep building the proven design for now."

Now that the war is over, and they want a replacement, a heavier replacement, they'll be able to start building those bigger ships.

The two Warspites and the Eridanus don't really incur much of an overhead compared to, say, another Lionheart, if only because they're already built and crewed by people who know the ships inside and out already.

The Fleet will stay at 13 Battlestars plus Nemesis as capital ships, but the destroyer production will be expanded to a total of 60. They'll also be building cruisers, mid-sized ships that don't carry fighters but compensate with missiles and heavy point-defence mounts. Planned class size is 30 cruisers, allowing the Fleet to operate thirteen Battlestar Groups (1 Battlestar, 2 Cruisers and 4 Destroyers) plus a Command Group (Nemesis, 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers).

This expansion is possible because there's been a huge boost in recruitment, plenty of people on Terra who want to see the universe and the TCN is the only game in town for that. The limit on capital ships is experienced CO's and pilots, which is why they'll operate as Battlestar Groups rather than independent cruiser/destroyer flotillas.

[fnord]

So cruisers will be scaled-down battlestars, rather than scaled-up destroyers? Ie, shields, more dakka, thermal-supercon armour, more dakka, supercaps + energy dumps, more dakka, and oh bugger we've run out of room for fighters.

I thought the per-class overhead, especially in supporting them long-term, was more significant than it apparently is.

Looks like the Colonial boys (Adama Sr, Jellicoe, Kirov, et al) will definitely have their hands full learning up the new captains and XOs, alongside the Terran veterans (yay Fireman!). Regarding the battlestar group, will the battlewagon in question be embarking a group commodore + staff? (Not sure if you settled whether commodore was a substantive rank in the TCN - like it now is in the RN - or an appointment given to senior captains - like it used to be).

How many of the cruisers and destroyers will be flying the Colonial flag?

[Sky Captain]

So the Terra soon will be most powerful civilization in Milky Way? With Goauld defeated, Tollans dead, I don't recall any other race encountered by SG1 that can match up to Terrans.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok, Fnord: Cruisers will be scaled-up destroyers but with Battlestar elements, no fighters though. So they'll have the superconductive armour (they're big enough to be viable), megalasers, missiles (both anti-ship and anti-fighter) and so on. They're pure ship-to-ship weapons/heavy escorts. Per-class overheads aren't really an issue, since virtually all components are designed to be modular for exactly this reason (a turbolaser mount on, say, the Challenger is no different than one on the Nemesis, same with megalasers, PD mounts and so on.

Four of the Battle Groups will be under the Colonial flag, one per Battlestar, even if the cruisers/destroyers will have largely Terran crews. The Battlestar Commander will be the Group Commander as well, which is how I figure it worked in the Colonial Fleet (they have a full run of ranks up to Colonel (Captain equivalent) and then Commanders as well, I figure that "Commander" is basically the Colonial version of Commodore - case in point, Adama was a full Commander and Galactica belonged to BSG-75, but Roslin states that having more than one Battlestar under your command (I.e. two or more Groups) makes you an Admiral.

Yeah, the Colonial and Terran vets will be training up the up and coming officers, which is why cruisers and destroyers will operate under a Battlestar Commander to give them experience.

Sky Captain: Yes, the United Colonies of Kobol (the official name for the Terran/Colonial Alliance) will be a major power in the Milky Way, but by no means the absolute top dog - remember that by Season 9/10 the Free Jaffa had a potent Ha'tak fleet of their own, and the Lucian Alliance managed to maintain a serious fleet as well. Add in the fact that the Asgard are still around (but won't be fighting the Lucian alliance because they aren't Goa'uld) and the United Colonies are powerful but not supreme. Battles against said Lucian Alliance will be ongoing in the time gap between the epilogue and the sequel.

As for the sequel, I'm beginning to pull ideas together but nothing concrete yet. It boils down to I need a new threat, and I'm reluctant to use the Ori or the Asuran Replicators because it's been done before, but I'm reluctant to bring in something totally of my own creation because that's a lot harder than reinterpreting existing ideas. It may be whatever the Furlings went off to fight, in which case I could, if I want, bring in another faction from a different SF franchise to play with.

[DKeith2011]

A suitable time jump could open up the Icarus Project and Destiny for further exploration.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

The Chig-Silicate alliance from Space:Above And Beyond, along with Aerotech skullduggery. You can set it just before the final two episodes of SAAB, or even after the series finale.

[fnord]

I was talking about the per-class overhead in terms of making sure all the bits fit together/play nice and, say, that Sharpshooter didn't blow the ass end off Nemesis backing it out of the dock - the systems integration, not the components (since, for N components, the integration job scales as N squared). For an on screen reference to integration problems, the original DS9 Defiant trying to shake itself to pieces at full power.

Per Word of Git, that's apparently not a material concern.

So you're going with commodore-as-appointment? Frinstance, Davies, Adama Junior and Stewart. Former solely commands Nemesis and serves as (currently) Jellicoe's flag captain, while the latter two, of equivalent (substantive) rank, will be commanding a battle group as well as the lead battlestar, and thus functionally commodores.

Your Terran Captain - Colonial Colonel equivalency seems inconsistent, both with canonical BSG and with 13T itself - "Jackie" Fischer for example aboard Pegasus is explicitly a Terran commander (as of the post-wtfpwnage drinks) and in the interests of not confusing the piss out of that ship's crew, a colonel. In BSG, we have Old Chrome Dome aboard the eponymous battlewagon, and Belzen aboard Pegasus (at least for a bit), both serving in a role filled in the TCN by commanders.

Speaking of which, what would the Colonial analogue of the Terran commander - major? That seems a little junior.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I thought it was Colonel myself, fnord, going by both GINO and the original series.

[fnord]

You're right - I was actually arguing towards that but was too thick to realise it.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

At least this isn't original series Canon, where, before the Holocaust, thirteen of the battlestar commanders we're the President and his Council of Twelve.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oook.

UP Cinnabar: Chig/Sillicate Alliance is interesting but I don't know Above and Beyond well enough to do it justice. Plus, the story that gave me the idea for the Nemesis already did that, so I'd like something new.

Fnord: You're right Captain=Colonel doesn't really work, looks like Commodore will be a new rank. Though when you mentioned Sharpshooter and Nemesis, you missed the fact that Nemesis will have a Command Group of it's own (4 cruisers + 8 destroyers).

With regards tot he new faction/enemy, I'm leaning towards something from Warhammer 40K at present. Maybe the Necrons, since they're sleeping in tombs in the Milky Way anyways, maybe someone digs too deep and wakes them...or maybe they get woken by the subspace effects of that big ZPM kaboom. Or maybe Tyranids...or possibly the IoM itself, maybe a Crusade Fleet that gets lost in the Warp and thrown back in time. Lots of options.

EDIT: DKeith, Icarus/Destiny was a good few years away from this timeline, and I didn't really like the idea behind it anyways. Why make such a fuss over a truly ancient ship when you've got Atlantis and it's database and the Asgard Data Core sitting around? How much more supertech did Earth need?

[fnord]

So I did miss the group attached to the superheavy battlewagon. That actually tends to make my point about an embarked squadron commodore - it looked like Davies had his hands more than full with Nemesis alone. Said battlewagon might be a special case due to size of its escort group.

Is Fireman considered sufficiently seasoned by Moustache et. al for capital ship command, does he get rotated out to take command of an escort (cruiser, maybe?), or stay where he is as XO for moment?

Looks like you've got a Lensman Arms Race well under way - you opened with enhanced nuclear weapons and finished with nearly frakking up the universe via false-vacuum collapse. What's next, using stars as FTL projectiles delivered through space folds? (urine possibly being taken here).

[Sky Captain]

How well Battlestars will do against Lucian Alliance Hataks? Without point defences Hataks seem to be big missile magnets. Unless Lucian Alliance have dozens of Hataks to throw in a single battle they won't be able to do much.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Davies will be moving up to Commodore of the Flagship Group Fireman will probably take over as Captain of either the Warstar or one of the new Battlestars, haven't decided yet. Terrain custom dictates that when two officers have the same rank, whoever has the biggest ship is the senior. So Davies as Commodore of the Command Group will be senior to Kate Stewart as Commodore of her Battle Group.

Battlestars stack up well against Hataks but not overwhelmingly so. Remember it took three Battlestars to really hurt Baals Hatak at Terrace, and the Lucian were eventually able to upgrade them so that an Asgard - upgraded 304 struggled against them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Epilogue Part One: Death from Above
Battlestar Warspite , One Week Later

The last week had been a curious mix of hectic and boring routine. The list of remaining Wraith ground targets had been divided up between the operational ships of the Task Force and they’d set out after just a day’s rest and repair over Atlantis to hunt them down. This was the fifth and final target on Warspite’s list, it also happened to be the last Wraith position in existence.

Commander Beatty shook his head as the disorientation of the FTL jump washed over him. No matter how many thousands of jumps he’d done, it still felt like he was doing it for the first time, though at least it had only taken the standard fifty jumps in Basic Training for him to stop losing his lunch afterwards. He looked at the sensor displays above the plot table in his CIC and admired the blue-green world below. Garden worlds like this were comparatively rare in the galaxies and it saddened him somewhat that he was here to part a large dent in that garden. But it was vital that he do so.

His XO, Colonel Smythe, looked up from his own status displays to report to David.

“Jump complete, all stations report Condition One is set. Surface scan has confirmed the coordinates of the Wraith shipyard, one Hive Ship and eight cruisers are nearing completion down there.”

“Well then we can’t let them finish their work. Mr Goodenough, put me on the 1-MC.”

The Lieutenant pressed same switches and nodded at David. “Set sir.”

David picked up the handset and began the process that they had already followed four times this week, but for something of this magnitude, they had to do it by the book.

“This is the Commander. Ready enhanced groundstrike missile in Silo Five for immediate launch, target package alpha-five-one, airburst detonation at maximum yield. The release of strategic-level nuclear weapons is now authorised.”

It was an oddity in the Colonial Fleet. Tactical, anti-ship nuclear ordnance could be used solely at the Commander’s discretion without any fanciful protocol. But the Admirals and Presidents in years past had recognised that there was a big difference between a fifty-kiloton anti-shipping warhead and a fifty-megaton weapon intended for orbital bombardment. Since the only worlds Battlestars were expected to fight over were the Colonies themselves, the Admiralty insisted on very strict regulations on strategic weaponry – it required an Admiral’s authorisation, it required the entire crew be informed and it needed the XO to verbally confirm the orders and agree to them with his authenticator key.

David reached into his uniform and pulled out his ID tags, tags which as a Battlestar Commander also contained a distinctive, and unique, key. Across from him Colonel Smythe had done the same thing. On David’s mark they inserted their keys into the locks and after a brief three-count, turned them to position one – armed. Smythe picked up his own handset.

“This is the XO. Ready enhanced groundstrike missile in Silo Five for immediate launch, target package alpha-five-one, airburst detonation at maximum yield. The release of strategic-level nuclear weapons has been authorised.”

The Tactical crews wet to work, even as a siren sounded throughout the ship alerting the crew that a strategic missile launch was underway. This was hardly surprising – it was their fifth orbital strike in as many days after all. But they all knew they had to go by the book; no one wanted to contemplate what these monstrous weapons could do on a human world.

David stood and waited as the missile was made ready, his eyes glued to the sensor screens. His new Tactical Officer, Major Tovey, spoke up.

“New contacts, Wraith target is launching Darts on intercept course, fifty-plus inbounds, firing range in seven minutes.”

Smythe looked at David. “Should we launch a CAP?”

David smiled at his XO. “No need, the big missile will be ready and launched before they’re in firing range and fifty darts is hardly a threat. Arm all PD mounts and make ready to engage.”

Smythe nodded. “ Aye, Sir.”

In any other circumstance David would have been concerned that the inbound darts might shoot the missile down, but the Asgard and the Terran engineers had improved these missiles. In addition to the now-standard naquada enhanced warhead, the engines had been considerably improved, as had the launch systems. The missiles themselves carried a set of shields equivalent to a Scythe gunship, more than enough to get past a single wave of Darts.

Two minutes later, Major Tovey spoke again. “Sir, Missile Control reports enhanced groundstrike missile in Silo Five is armed and ready for target package alpha-five-one, airburst detonation, maximum yield. Silo doors open.”

“Very good Major.” David turned to another officer. “Helm, roll ship one hundred degrees to starboard to unmask Silo Five.”

As the ship began its roll to line up the dorsal missile silos with the target far below, David and Smythe moved back to their launch stations, their hands resting on the keys. David couldn’t help but smirk slightly, something his XO noticed.

“Sir?”

“I was just thinking that this all started with us and a nuke way back in the Colonies. Seems fitting it should all end the same way.”

“This isn’t the end Sir, They’ll always be more bad guys to fight, just a question of how much leave we get before it starts again.”

David had to laugh at that, a very odd emotion indeed given what they were about to unleash. “Frank, you’re a born pessimist, I swear you went to the Saul Tigh School for XO’s.”

“Funny you should say that Commander, but we did spend a fair amount of time together after we made it to Terra. There was this one bar…” The anecdote was cut off by a call from Helm.

“Roll complete Sir, Silo Five is aligned with the target.”

“Very well.” Again he picked up the handset. “All hands, this is the Commander. Enhanced groundstrike missile in Silo Five is cleared for launch. Start the clock.”

Smythe then played his part. “This is the XO. Enhanced groundstrike missile in Silo Five is cleared for launch. Clock is running, launch in ten seconds from mark…mark.”

A timer appeared. David and Frank had their hands on the keys, ready to turn them from position one – armed to position two – enable launch. David gave them the final count.

“…three, two, one, launch!”

The keys were turned and the computers determined that every step had been properly followed, allowing the launch to proceed. The missile would normally have been propelled out of the silo by inert gasses, its engines only igniting once it was clear of the ship. But the Asgard and the Terrans had decided they could do better, so the Silo now bore more resemblance to a crude coilgun. It would only handle one launch, but that was all that was needed.

The huge missile was hurled away from the Battlestar, already moving far faster than it originally could have. Its engines then ignited, driving it even faster and plunging it down the planets gravity well. It flew past the Darts that were still clawing their way to orbit with the Wraith pilots barely able to see such a fast-moving object, never mind target it.

As it hit the upper atmosphere the shields proved necessary, they absorbed the incredible heat generated by such a fast atmospheric entry, protecting the missile until it reached a predetermined altitude.
The shields, now no longer needed, dropped and the nosecone blew away, revealing the eight cone-shaped warheads. The missile’s main engines cut out, there was a moment’s pause and then the eight warheads blew clear of the missile body, propelled by their own small rocket motors, pushing them outwards into a circular pattern, a circle with the Wraith shipyard at its centre.

The Wraith on the ground knew this was the end. Over the last week they had all felt the psychic network continually diminish until only they remained, the last Wraith in the galaxy. Now a human ship had found them. They had known a mere fifty Darts wouldn’t be able to stop one of these monster ships but at least it allowed the warriors to die fighting.

Then they saw the missile launch. One brilliant trail of fire, visible even in the clear blue skies, coming straight towards them. Then a puff and it split into eight smoke trails surrounding them. It was done with geometric precision and for the Wraith watching it was almost beautiful.

The eight warheads reached their preplanned burst heights and detonated. Originally intended for a yield of fifty megatons, the Terran engineers had enhanced them with naquada, boosting their yield to an unprecedented fifty gigatons. No weapons this powerful had even been tested before this week, but they now knew they worked just perfectly.

Each warhead detonated fifty kilometres from the shipyard, The flashes of light blinded and burned any exposed creature for a thousand kilometres in every direction, the expanding fireballs reached almost as far as the shipyard itself. The crushing overpressure did reach the shipyard however, and it reached the Wraith position from all eight warheads simultaneously, crushing the buildings, the growing Hive ship, the cruisers, the workers and the overseers in a nanosecond. Everything in the area was hammered into a thin paste that the coated the ground, before the heat coming from the huge fireballs turned it to glass.

The Darts that had been racing upwards hadn’t managed to get high enough in time, the thermal pulse burned away their engines and the pilots were fatally irradiated, the remains of the darts continued upwards in graceful ballistic arcs before succumbing to gravity and falling back down. As one group they plunged into one of the massive fireballs that still persisted minutes after detonation.

The Wraith were now extinct, their threat eliminated finally and forever. Some might argue against this genocide, but no-one who had ever fought against them would be willing to listen. In orbit, the Warspite disappeared in the flash of an FTL jump. It was time to go back to Atlantis and from there, back home to Terra. It would be a month-long trip, but it promised a much happier arrival than the outward journey had.

=======

So here we are everyone, the end of the line. There will be two more Epilogue posts and that's it. I give you this one as a final tribute to the giant kabooms you all love.

[fnord]

Bit of a step down in scale for the Apocalypse Now, from universal to continental, but... heck with it... the Wraith did have it coming.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

And, so ends the Wraith, with both a bang and a whimper.

With the commander of the Home Fleet to bear witness

[DKeith2011]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[LadyTevar]

Genocide is never the "good" option.
However, the Wraith themselves were a predatory parasitic race that survived solely by feeding on other sentient lifeforms, which caused the genocide of countless humanoid species in the Pegasus Galaxy. They may have thought of themselves as 'good farmers', leaving behind remnant populations to reseed the worlds they devoured, but the Wraith were destroying all that made those worlds unique: culture, history, art. Plus, the remnant population was left at a genetic bottleneck, often with the best and the brightest of their generation removed from the gene pool. We can't imagine how much was lost to the Wraith during their cyclic wake-feed-sleep domination, but we can see by the Travelers and Gensii what might have been.

For the safety of the Pegasus Galaxy, and of the galaxies connected via Atlantis Gate, the Wraith had to be eradicated to the last female.

[fnord]

The Tactical crews wet to work, even as a siren sounded throughout the ship alerting the crew that a strategic missile launch was underway

Shouldn't the first bolded bit be "tactical crews went", and a comma after "throughout the ship", like so:

The tactical crews went to work, even as a siren sounded throughout the ship, alerting the crew that a strategic missile launch was underway

Later on:

but the Asgard and the Terran engineers had improved these missiles

Bolded bit superfluous? With that chopped out, it does read better out loud. I've found that's a good strategy for proofreading stuff - stuff like the above jumps out at me.

The keys were turned and the computers determined that every step had been properly followed, allowing the launch to proceed.

Seems a bit too passive voice here. Maybe something like (probably not the exact verbatim bit I've added):

With the keys turned, and the computers satisfied that every step had been followed, the launch began.

The huge missile was hurled away from the Battlestar, already moving far faster than it originally could have. Its engines then ignited, driving it even faster and plunging it down the planets gravity well. It flew past the Darts that were still clawing their way to orbit with the Wraith pilots barely able to see such a fast-moving object, never mind target it.

Hmm... lemme see...

Hurled clear of the Battlestar, the huge missile was already moving far faster than its designers ever dared dream. Its engines fired, driving it even faster, plunging down the gravity well. It flashed past the Darts still clawing their way to orbit - the Wraith pilots barely able to even see such a fast-moving object, never mind target it.

As it hit the upper atmosphere, the shields proved necessary, they absorbed the incredible heat generated by such a fast atmospheric entry, protecting the missile until it reached a predetermined altitude.

We can haz comma?

The Wraith on the ground knew this was the end. Over the last week, they had all felt the psychic network continually diminish until only they remained, the last Wraith in the galaxy. Now a human ship had found them. They had known a mere fifty Darts wouldn’t be able to stop one of these monster ships, but at least it allowed the warriors to die fighting.

Hug me, drug me, give me a comma... (with apologies to the original, non-drum-and-bass, Pendulum)

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Project A Git?

[fnord]

Git A = Eternal_Freedom
Git B = me

[Eternal_Freedom]

I object to the term "git" on general principles, but thank's for catching those. May not change some of the language-things you suggested, but the couple of typos I'll fix.

[Sky Captain]

Actually it is quite surprising that Wraith had so few ground installations that in one week they were wiped out. Wraith were dominant galactic civilization for thousands of years. You would expect at least hundreds or thousands of planets with bases, cities, and industry taking multi year effort to locate and exterminate.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Wraith seem to be largely fleet-based, which given that their major resource and food source is on other planets makes sense. We very rarely see Wraith ground installations and those are mostly small-ish labs, most of which were used/set up by Michael, who hasn't appeared yet in this timeline (and now never will). The closest we see to large installations are grounded Hive Ships, but those would have all woken up and answered the call to head for Atlantis and were destroyed.

Also remember that they had the Warstar and five Battlestars, plus three Asgard ships, running around dropping/beaming nukes into place. With no remaining fleet, it really is "jump into orbit, acquire target, fire, jump to next target," which is why all the Battlestars and all but one of the Asgard ships are involved - you don't need to be battle-ready to conduct these strikes.