Turn Seven Combat Phase---------
In Orbit Over Planet DThe three Technate ships, an ITC and two damaged Degrees, flee towards G. They are pursued by all three burned and battered Network warships immediately, with the Network ITC "Cargo Cult" remaining behind to collect troops from the planet's surface before it, too, heads for G.
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In Orbit Over Planet EThe two Chords and one Degree present here depart, heading for Planet F. Network forces below breathe a sigh of relief.
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In Orbit Over Planet FThree Network Logos ships, "Uninvited Guest", "Attitude Adjuster", and "Zero Credibility", depart for Planet G, nearly crossing paths with a massive ship and an ITC coming from Planet G. The Technate knows they're coming. The Network ITC present, "Prime Mover", likewise departs for G.
Two Chords, a Degree, an ITC, and the massive Technate ship arrive late in the season. The new Technate ship, observed during the transfer, is a long armored tube capped with armored spheres, surrounded by cargo blocks, covered in what appear to be armed variants of the standard ITC shuttles. Its maneuvering is sluggish. These vessels stay long enough to deploy something to the planet's surface, before all turning around and proceeding back towards G.
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In Orbit Over Planet GSeven Network ships arrive over the planet just barely behind the survivors of the action at D last turn. The Technate ITC is throwing off shuttles like crazy as it tries to evacuate at least part of its complement to the surface below during its slingshot maneuver. Warned by the large ships that the Network's forces passed by on their way from F, the two Degrees and the ITC haven't even slowed down and are simply continuing away. The ITC even abandons its shuttles, not staying close enough to the planet to pick them back up. They descend to the surface and prepare to act as transport craft until they run out of fuel.
Shortly afterwards the Network ITC begins offloading troops to the surface, the ground offensive begins. Late in the season another Network ITC arrives, and starts moving towards the planet to unload troops.
It is interrupted, however, by alerts from the patrolling fleet of Logoses. Logosi. Y'know what, maybe five Logoseses should spontaneously explode so I only have to talk about one. Or maybe they'll all combine into one mega-Logos with little Logos arms and legs. The Network armada is patrolling the outer edges of the system in pairs, harassing the two damaged Degree missile corvettes and the ITC, which have wisely scattered on several very different distant orbits to force the Network forces to split up, hoping they'll make a mistake that will allow their allies to take them out piecemeal. The six Logeese can't afford to stop covering any of the Technate ships but also can't force a confrontation, because any move they make towards them always gives the Technate forces ample time to shift their orbit and be nowhere near the intended intercept point. There is a reason that, when you want to stay out of a fight, you stay out in a really high-altitude orbit.
The alert, however, ends the game of cat-and-mouse, as more Technate ships come in from the direction of F. Two Chords, another Degree, an ITC, and the massive ship. All six Logeis regroup and prepare to engage the new group before they can meet up with the Technate assets already in high orbit. This does not go well.
All six Logos hurtle towards the new contacts grouped around the massive cylinder with the armed shuttles. Handfuls of missiles start streaking forwards from the lone Degree, then railgun rounds start screaming through the gaps in the formation. As the range comes down, hits are scored on the massive ship, the Logosi clearly aiming for the easiest target while at extreme range. The rounds have minimal effect, the armored tube is resistant to all their fire. The Chords start to reply with lasers, then the handful of shuttles close enough to the front of the new warship start to fire back with their single individual lasers. The Logos begin to heat up, laser fire quickly focusing in on the damaged ones. The damaged ones are also the newest, and it's their advanced fire controls tasked with shooting down the trickle of missiles coming from the Degree. While easy enough to do with so many ships present, it's still a serious reduction in their firepower to be distracted like this, and it shows. Without fear of so many railgun rounds the Chords are not maneuvering as much and several sections of "Gunboat Diplomat" and "No More Mister Nice Guy" are starting to glow red.
They're not entirely without success, however. At least one of the shuttles on the super-ITC is no longer returning fire and the Degree is forced to duck back closer to the trailing ITC to avoid some accurate railgun fire. By and large, though, most shots are hitting the big combatant...and doing very little to it. The shuttles are unarmored but to ask for the Logos to go picking off individual shuttles is more than they're capable of at this range. So they force the issue, and close the range, before the other two Degrees can rendezvous and tilt the odds further. The range comes down to a knife fight and two Logos break off to deal with the Degree, two go for the Chords, and two press the assault on the large ship, the words "Kaden's Bravery" now visible on the hull.
The seven ships in the middle devolve into a furious melee around the bulk of Kaden's Bravery. "Of Course I Still Love You" and "Zero Credibility" face off against the Chords, but rapidly find themselves overmatched by the combined fire of the transport's shuttles and the Chords they were pursuing, and use their barely-superior maneuverability, weighed down by armor they were never meant to carry, to start using Kaden's Bravery as a shield against the two Chords, systematically destroying shuttles or their weapons. With every shuttle destroyed the main ship loses some acceleration, clearly the shuttles must be augmenting its thrust. The two Logose attacking the transport, "Attitude Adjuster" and "Uninvited Guest", find it trivial to slip into its aft arc, where few shuttles' guns can fire at it, and start systematically chewing through the armored sphere protecting the ship's large reactor assembly and main aft reactionless drive array. The ship might be masquerading as a warship but it is still a transport, with all the ungainliness and total lack of maneuverability that implies. What's worse, this one is covered in extremely heavy armor. However, as soon as OCISLY and Zero Credibility go defensive, the two Chords sweep around to the tail of their compatriot and Uninvited Guest & co. rapidly decide that it may be better to invite themselves to some other part of the battle, and likewise start playing a game of heavily armed cat-and-mouse around the transport, demolishing weapons and trying to get through the tough armor with little success.
The Degree and ITC fall back further and further as Gunboat Diplomat and No More Mister Nice Guy try and get past the furious melee between them, eventually succeeding when the Chords are forced to pursue Uninvited Guest and Attitude Adjuster. Laser fire from the many shuttles across Kaden's Bravery's surface scorched the two ships but even with their previous injuries they're still fast enough to escape without being crippled, and they make for the rapidly retreating ITC and Degree. It takes them some time to catch up, but eventually they do...only to discover that it was, in fact, a trap. The two damaged Degrees already in-system had been racing towards the ITC and undamaged Degree, and now the two Legos find themselves under missile attack from a numerically superior foe. Missiles detonate outside ships in flashes of laser fire, punching in pieces of the Logeses without ever breaking through their (Admittedly limited) outer armor, destroying anything not contained within the inner thermal defense citadels and putting massive holes even in that. Even with Artemis asking two ships to fight six incoming missiles with six railguns isn't an even fight, and the fact that the enemies are even willing to use their empty ITC as a sort of makeshift cover between volleys makes it exceedingly difficult to kill them. Degree #2, though, doesn't quite get far enough behind the ITC, and a round goes end-to-end on the ship, disintegrating partway through putting a thousand shrapnel holes in the back of the ship, killing it outright. Gunboat Diplomat and No More Mister Nice Guy suffer terrible internal wounds before eventually giving up, though their return fire has fully Crippled Degree-01 and Badly Damaged Degree-03, which was formerly undamaged. No More Mister Nice Guy is Badly Damaged and Gunboat Diplomat took a Crippling hit to the engines trying to press to close range. All ships involved from this side action retire from the fight, unable to contribute to the vicious action around Kaden's Bravery and not wiling to get into another fight near the planet to try and gain orbital superiority.
Over at the planet, there is a sort of standoff as three, soon to be four, ITCs all just kind of hang around the planet deploying troops and looking at each other funny. The Technate ITC that was hanging around has headed back to the planet to offload the rest of its contingent, and the other Technate ITC is heading there now to help move troops around the surface. Both Network ITCs are now likewise unloading troops or moving them around the surface, while the warships blow each other to bits somewhere else.
Back around Kaden's Bravery, seven ships are trying their best to murder each other while playing cat and mouse across the surface of a ship that functionally can't maneuver on a combat timescale. Kaden's Bravery has been mostly defanged by the continued fighting but its armored core is still nearly undamaged. The Technate's two Chords are both suffering from the badly unequal fight, but Attitude Adjuster has dropped behind, Crippled and unable to keep up with the ships still heading for the planet. Uninvited Guest manages to slip free of the Chords' pursuit, leaving them to batter Of Course I Still Love You and Zero Credibility in the continued fight. Uninvited Guest makes for the Bravery's aft once again, and this time has enough time to put accurate fire into the armored sphere at point-blank range before a pair of angry Chords comes back to evict it once more. This time, Uninvited Guest doesn't fare quite so well and is reduced to a molten wreck before it can attempt escape, the last remaining guns of Kaden's Bravery bringing it down. However, the Bravery is losing what's left of its acceleration after receiving several accurate railgun rounds into its aft drive array, and its reactor power output is a little unstable after the laser arrays suffered shrapnel damage. The battle changes one final time as the remaining Logos disengage, Zero Credibility's TDC fails with a puff of plasma as the atmosphere in its bridge becomes a torch, and the ship breaks apart. Of Course I Still Love You is fleeing, but slowly, having been Badly Damaged and trailing a cloud of slowly cooling spheres of incandescent metal. In return, a parting salvo of railgun shells finally guts Chord #4, while Chord #3 is limping along underneath Kaden's Bravery struggling to maintain atmospheric pressure despite a fifteen meter long gash in its hull caused by a grazing railgun round. Chord #3 has been Badly Damaged but will survive.
Kaden's Bravery, Damaged and still struggling to restore power, misses its window to slow down into a low orbit, and sails past the other ITCs unable to do anything. In total, there are now four ITCs (one of them with superficial damage due to some railgun shots), empty, in low orbit/ The Technate has two Degrees, one Chord, and one Amalogous Carrier (that would be the Kaden's Bravery for anyone wondering) in high orbits, while the Network has four remaining Logos also in high orbits. The surprise of the massive new ship has done much for the Technate, but their crews are just as important, fighting ferociously to the point of destruction to protect their own world.
The Surface of Planet GAbout half the Technate unit aboard the ITC manages to reach the surface in the mad dash before the ITC sails off into interplanetary space. The Network forces a beachhead almost immediately, because the unit that had previously been garrisoning the surface is armed only with basic equipment such as the Technate's machine pistol. The enemy's superior firepower makes their fight much, much harder. The Network again deploys the 'Dozer' magnetic mortar/grenade launcher combination. Capable of firing in indirect or direct modes it launches 40mm explosives at moderate velocities. It is short-ranged for a mortar but extremely deadly. As the first almost-kinda-sorta artillery yet deployed it is capable of turning what would have been an insanely difficult attack into a merely hard-fought assault to establish a minor beachhead. Network reinforcements then arrive, two whole units, also rapidly equipped with the 'Dozer' weapons. Then the rest of the Technate's properly equipped unit is deployed.
The Technate mounts a gruesomely effective defense of their territory at first, ambushes of the soldiers armed with machine pistols bursting from cover and aided by the handfuls of rifle-armed soldiers that reached the surface being commonplace. The defense might have held on throughout the season had the Technate's garrison been equipped better, but as it is every attempt to reach close quarters is a brutal massacre as grenades and railgun rounds pour from Network lines into the advancing machine-pistol-armed masses covered by insufficient numbers of riflemen. Reinforcements alter the equations entirely, with no chance for the now badly outnumbered Technate forces to stem the tide.
Had Network reinforcements arrived earlier or the Network been equipped with CQB weapons other than the launcher, this would have been a true disaster for the Technate. As it is, they've been forced very far backwards and will continue losing ground despite the ever-more-ferocious defense of territory already seen as "theirs".
Control of Planet G: 3 Network - 7 Technate
Notes: Going below 5 Control will result in the loss of the resources provided by the planet. Second, despite the reintroduction of the other half of the Technate unit, they're still badly outnumbered and horribly underequipped, therefore I am not modifying the planetary control.
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"Dark Side" Lore ContestCongratulations to the Network for winning the contest, you get a Design Research Credit. Technate, you receive a Revision Research Credit as recompense for trying. However, the Network's entry, composed by ConscriptFive, has a lot more effort invested into it and details a much more fascinating problem with their society (that it's all built on one or two or three or four largeish lies). However, that's not to say your proposals were bad in any way, they just weren't as great.
I would suggest both sides post their lore in the core thread if they're OK with that, so that everyone can read all of C5's far too many words and BL's very solid pieces.
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Planetary Contents:
1 & 2: Earthlike planets just as you’d expect. Take your opponent’s homeworld to win, lose yours and you die.
A: Riddled with caves and with a mineral-rich crust, this airless world is ideal for the production of spacecraft components. 1 GPP, 3 SPP.
B: A volcanic world with a caustic atmosphere and lava flows on the surface, B is full of minerals that can be easily acquired…if you can deal with the, quite literal, heat. 3 GPP, 1 SPP.
C: Icy, barren, rather flat in most regions. It has rather a lot of those things humans need to live sitting on and under its airless surface. 3 GPP, 3 SPP.
D: A surface-wide ocean is the defining trait of this planet, providing an interesting combat environment and also plenty of interesting life forms that can be studied….if you can build a big enough boat to catch one, anyway. 4 GPP, 2 SPP.
E: Another Earthlike planet, ideal for habitation….or, y’know, fighting a good old fashioned war over! 4 GPP, 4 SPP.
F: A world of highlands and mountains, the lower parts of the planet are filled with most of the planet's already scarce water. However, the mountainous regions have high mineral contents and plenty of good spacecraft launch sites above the majority of the atmosphere. 2 GPP, 4 SPP.
G: Deserts cover the surface of this planet. Deserts made, in fact, of a curious sand with abnormally high metal and mineral contents. It has an atmosphere that serves to stir up the sands into occasional sandstorms. 3 GPP, 3 SPP.
H: An airless, small rock in space, H is heavily cratered and not a great place to live. Good place to build spacecraft, though. 1 GPP, 3 SPP.
I: A world covered in wide stretches of windswept terrain covered in something that we’re going to call grass, I is ideal for large-scale industrial activity. Nobody cares if you do irreparable damage to a huge tract of grasslands here, after all, there are a hundred more huge tracts of pristine grasslands you haven’t ruined
yet. 3 GPP, 1 SPP.
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Well, a little over a week late for the one-year anniversary of this AR. I hope everyone is at least only really displeased with how it's gone and how it's going.
I had been dreading this turn for awhile because of what appeared to be about to happen and then it turned out that there was just no way that much interesting would happen. Oh well. Hahahahahaha that was wrong.