Well shit... One minute my Ach'remoc Dominion Salvager "Ebih 001" is on its way to the wreckage of a Triumvirate-Progenitor death-match in orbit of a recently-reactivated Jump Gate... It arrives on-site with little fanfare and tethers to the hull of an unknown vessel - one of dozens that bear the hallmarks of Progenitor construction. As we breach the airlock and our crew takes its first step inward, the Dominion's first and only Salvager joins the celestial necropolis it so eagerly sought to defile. Akhva'ar's long-range surveillance system immediately detects a series of class-C energy signatures that perforate the Progenitor derelict after running their course through the hulk of our Salvager. Five seconds is all it took for the Dominion's largest-ever ship to disintegrate in a hail of exotic particles launched from an undetected Triumvirate attack squadron.
...So began the interplanetary war between the Ach'remoc Dominion, the Ach'rim Triumvirate, and - unexpectedly enough - the Progenitori.
At first we feared the Progenitors would attack us for poaching their derelict, but instead they launched an invasion of the Triumvirate! A sudden cloud of fighters swiftly overpowered the Triumvirate fleet guarding the Jump Gate into Progenitor Space, before a wicked-looking capital-ship fleet bee-lined straight for the Ach'rim homeworld. The Dominion could do little but sit anxiously and helplessly as tens of thousands of energy weapon impacts echoed through the detection-system's feed, wondering when they'd meet their makers. However, the Progenitor's unique technological and tactical prowess dismantled the Triumvirate's entire battlefleet before it could so much as launch a single projectile against the Dominion. Except for the Salvager that begat the cosmic shitstorm, of course.
The war started in Year 4, Aug 20th, circa 11:35 in the morning. By Aug 21st around 0839 in the morning, the Progenitors had blown up just about everything moving that didn't belong to us. The last action we detected was a series of 115+ strength-16 nuclear detonations and a sudden appearance of 7 Tefnut derelicts. We never even detected their damn battlefleet! All we could see were explosions and energy signatures lighting up the entire system, with dozens upon dozens of wrecks scattered about.
A few hours later, the Dominion grows a pair and decides to pursue a trio of unknown Triumvirate vessels guarding a deactivated Jump Gate due "south" of the quadrant's plane. After witnessing the first Progenitor-Triumvirate battle and noting how the cheaper, faster, and more numerous Progenitor fighters all but annihilated the Triumvir capital ships, we began assembling our own low-tech fighter squadron: composed of 10 high-powered microwave "disablers"; 10 anti-missile fighters carrying a whopping total of 34 size-1 box launchers - great point-defense or death by a thousand cuts - and 10 anti-ship missile fighters with beautiful size-6 monsters that do respectable if bland damage and somewhat terrible maneuverability & seed. Granted, our range sucked, our speed was a joke compared to the Progenitors, and I have no clue which star system(s) a good 30+% of the Triumvirate fleet disappeared off to, but we managed to blind all 3 Uadjet ships via ASM shock damage, then I pepper-boxed one with AMM's until its last engine blew and left it totally stranged, before finishing the other two off with ASM's. One day I'll go back and capture that ship, and have the pleasure of interrogating the bastards on-board. Until then, let them languish in the shadows of a dormant Jump Gate like the subspecies scum their will always be.
...I am SO. FRIGGIN. GLAD. We managed to luck out on my diplomacy team rolls and establish a solid comm channel with the Progenitors. It would have really, REALLY sucked otherwise. Fighting the Ach'rim Triumvirate years before we expected was bad enough, but fighting the Progenitors too? Shiiiiiet... Their FIGHTERS outgun and outrange all my PDC's, capital ships, and fighters combined...
...Never did get to see their capital ships in action... *shudder*
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14949827 times)