The 13th Tribe Book II: A Symphony of War

[Eternal_Freedom]

Funnily enough I've seen both Hecate and Nike used as heavy Battlestar names before.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Where? One of the BSGO You Tube vids, or one of the other GINO fan vids?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Where? One of the BSGO You Tube vids, or one of the other GINO fan vids?

Nope, the Lady Hecate fanfic. A bloody great epic but quite good nevertheless. Centres on Admiral Seralanna Chase and the Battlestar Hecate, a Nike class ship.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Ah, okay.

[Sky Captain]

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.

Maybe they should fit seat belts. If inertial compensators can't compensate for collisions then seat belts would be good idea.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Except, that wouldn't do the top commanders any good, because they're standing.

E_F: Am almost 200 pages into Lady Hecate, which is basically Kris Longknife translated to the GINO verse. Not bad at all, though it makes me wonder how she'd stack up against Nemesis.

Appreciate the heads up.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hecate as written would die and die very quickly. She's only about one-half to two-thirds the length, carries fewer weapons (projectile weapons to boot), has no shields and nothing to stop the superlaser from blowing her in half (or up completely) from 20000 km away.

Funnily enough, I envision Eridanus as looking something like either Hecate or the Prometheus from the fanfic of that name.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ghetto edit: The Titan would also be a good fit for the size/look of Eridanus.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

So Nemesis wildly outranges her as well.

And, Eridanus is thick and wide, but not long, relative to the other large Colonial battlestars. Okay.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So Nemesis wildly outranges her as well.

And, Eridanus is thick and wide, but not long, relative to the other large Colonial battlestars. Okay.

Nah I think I stated the Eridanus was 2,200 metres compared to 1,790 or so for the Mercury's. Not sure about width, I'm not stating that any of those three are "definitive" versions of the Constellation-class ships, just something to give the idea. The Connies are Mercurys on steroids - add about 1/4 the length, wide, deeper, longer pods, more turrets (a lot more turrets) and so on.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

So you did. Canis D's Titan just looked shorter and fatter. Kinda like my older brother.

Gee, could the author make it any more obvious who Zoe Avalon really is?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually Canis D's Titan is in fact longer, there is a size comparison chart that clocks the Titan in the 2400m mark.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

So, there is. Appearances can be deceiving,

[Sky Captain]

If you think about it superlaser is a huge force multiplier. Say you have 10 heavy Battlestars and enemy forces you are ambushing have 10 comparable capital ships. You jump into position fire and enemy heavy forces are gone. Only escorts if any have to be dealt with. Without superlasers such engagement would turn into a prolonged battle causing you to loose several ships and remaining ships heavily damaged.

[Eternal_Freedom]

This is spot on. This is why in every engagement either superlaser-equipped ship has participated in getting off the first shot has resulted in a major advantage, hell even the wargame I mentioned in chapter one between Phoenix and Temeraire resulted in Fireman's only loss because White Knight one-shotted the other Battlestar.

This engagement was somewhat odd because they hit the shipyard not a capital ship, but as Ba'al points out, with that gone he's effectively lost anyway, no more Basestars and no way to replace losses, all in one shot.

EDIT: Of course, Terran doctrine is to avoid "equal" fights as much as possible. Do everything you can to avoid engaging the enemy on equal terms in gun range. Be that minefields (Atlantis), superlasers (many battles), Scimitar strikes, destroyer strikes, ambushes, concentration of overwhelming force and so on.

This doctrine will naturally have to change once in the Haloverse as they will be substantially outnumbered and can't bring the entire Combined Fleet along.

[LadyTevar]

Why not just name them after the Gods? You already have Prometheus.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's a good thought, but the Tau'ri still have their Prometheus, and all eight Colonial Legend class cruisers are named after the Lords.

Suppose I could have the Jupiter or the Thanatos or the Chronos. Maybe the Triumphant, Unity or Kobol.

Actually, Unity sounds pretty good. Since I've got Nemesis I'm thinking concepts/ideals rather than Gods or Lords. Unity seems quite fitting, what with the fact that the Warstars are built using Kobolian and Asgard technology with help and idea from the Tau'ri.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Why not angels, as Nemesis is one?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Because Terran/Colonial mythology doens't seem to contain "angels" as common in Abrahamic religions, so justifying the name in-universe would be hard.

Unless someone comes up with a better name, Unity it is.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Skoal.

[fnord]

Marathon ?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Boudiccaa ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Nope, nope and nope. Those names work because of Earth history and Terra is not Earth.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Unity it is then. Cool.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, naming ships in a human-but-not-Earth culture is surprisingly difficult.