Codex Entry: Council Flotillas

Pre-Koprulu, Council fleets utilized the same core set of technologies (Mass effect long-range cannon, Eezo-based barriers, medium-range missiles, GARDIAN laser grids for point defense and close-combat) but applied them in different ways.

Turian units are designed to be general-purpose units with a focus on durability, firepower, and most of all, reliability; they are the most Dominion-like (ironically) of all the Council factions. Mounting effective, low-maintenance, and proven systems, they act as part of a fungible task force.

Although none of the their units are individually as advanced or well equipped as similar Salarian and Asari designs, each one carries sufficient supplies and spare parts for at least three months of operation, tremendously reducing logistical strain on the Hierarchy Fleet Train, enabling a higher percentage of the Hierarchy Fleet to be invested into combat operations.

The simple and dependable design means that breakdowns are rare, and when they do occur, can easily be repaired in-field. This means that Turian fleets can completely forgo Fleet Train logistics support for short durations without ill effect, dramatically expanding strategic flexibility.

Meanwhile, the Salarian armada is composed of huge numbers of specialists, usually designed around high-intensity, short-duration warfare. Specialized logistics repair & resupply vessels. Dedicated EW cruisers with massive sensor and jamming arrays (like armed Science Vessels). And of course, the infamous STG insertion vessels.

In many ways, the Union's vessels are the most advanced of all Council factions; maximizing each unit's capabilities over ease of maintenance or dependability. For example, the average Salarian cruiser's Ultraviolet laser GARDIAN grid has more than six times the range (and three times the stopping power) of a Turian or Asari Infrared laser, hugely increasing both their point-defense power and close-combat capabilities. At knife range, Salarian cruisers are nearly as lethal as the significantly larger Terran battlecruisers, with more mobility but much less durability.

However, this comes at a tremendous logistical and reliability cost; it's estimated that Salarian ships require nearly triple the man-hours of maintenance per hour of operation when compared to similar Turian designs. Furthermore, their complex systems will suffer degradation in less than one-fifth of the operating time that more proven designs will, requiring yet more replacement parts and upkeep.

To prevent heat buildup from their high-energy systems from cooking the crew aboard their ships, Union warships must mount additional heat sinks and radiator elements; as a result Salarian designs have minimal structural framing and reduced armor thickness & coverage compared to Turian and Asari warships.

In short, the Salarian Union's warships are somewhat fragile compared to rival designs, but are tremendously capable at performing their designed task, in exchange for requiring immense logistical support and maintenance work after every major battle.

The Asari Republic Navy was heavily influenced by the abundance of Element Zero their nation possessed; Asari units are more mobile (for their size) and mount far superior Mass Effect barriers; enabling more mass and volume to be devoted to other systems rather than armor. Most of their vessels used this extra shipboard space to mount both utility systems and superior weaponry.

With superior survivability, maneuverability, and firepower when compared to the other race's vessels, their fleet reinforced the Asari's subtle insinuations of superiority. When the Salarian Union first began deployment of UV GARDIAN grids on their vessels, rumors spread that some Asari units could still emerge victorious in close-combat with Salarian vessels. This turned out not to be mere hearsay or gossip, but actual fact when an Asari Councilor revealed the existence of Silaris armor.

Analysis of samples recovered after the Battle of Thessia reveal that it is some sort of hyper-compressed allotrope of carbon, threaded with nanotubes. Silaris armor is not only exceptionally hard but fantastically heat-tolerant, and the carbon nanotubes lend the armor not only extreme tensile strength (and thus, resistance to shattering) but also ideal thermal conductivity. Laser weaponry must heat most of an armor plate to breaking temperatures before the armor will fail, as the nanotubes distribute the heat rapidly. Meanwhile, it's mechanical properties render it remarkably resilient to standard Mass Effect accelerator fire, although direct hits from DN scale guns will crack it.

Silaris armor is one of two known materials that can somewhat withstand (however temporarily) Protoss heavy weaponry and Terran Yamato impacts; a Silaris-plated warship is expected to survive 50% more Yamato impacts when compared to a conventional warship of similar size. Given the current post-Koprulu state of affairs, nearly all the factions are eager to acquire - by any means necessary - the secret method by which Silaris armor is produced.

After the Battle of Thessia, much of the hulked wrecks of the Asari Home Fleet were salvaged by both Salarian and Turian vessels to strip them of their coveted Silaris armor, to the detriment of Asari-Council relations.

Studies show that due to extremely thick ship plating and the heavy laser main battery (which ignore Kinetic Barriers) of Terran capital ships mean that a Council cruiser taskforce would have to outnumber the Battlecruisers at least 3:1 for the Council to win in a slugging match. Attempts to use hit and run tactics on Terran Battlecruisers are even worse, assuming the Battlecruisers in question have been equipped with Yamato devices. The might and range of Yamato fire would allow them to trivially slaughter Council cruisers.

This does not take into account the incredible ease at which Dreadnoughts can shatter Battlecruisers. A 'standard' 1.2km post-Koprulu DN's main gun has an effective range greater than the Mk III Yamato device by a factor of three. Even post-Council Terran battlecruisers with reinforced neosteel frames cannot survive more than four hits from a Dreadnought… And all post-Koprulu Council Dreadnoughts have been designed Asari-style, with twinned main guns! Given that Council Element-Zero based warships are much faster than Terran fusion-torch propelled warships, a Dreadnought can endlessly harass a fleet of Battlecruisers without fear of retaliation.

Plans to use Tactical Jumps to pin down the Council fleet were considered viable… Until Mengsk promised to share the secrets of Warp Drive technology with the Council.

The leader of the Dominion did indeed share the secrets of Warp Drives and powered armor, although he attempted to withhold the secrets of Full-spectrum cloaking once he realized Eezo was not forthcoming from the Council factions. Despite the less than ideal maintenance and logistical demands of the Warp Drive, even the Turian Hierarchy could not dispute the sheer strategic mobility it offered - finally divorcing ships from the Mass Effect Relay network.

Currently, all Council species are undertaking extensive refits on existing fleets to equip Warp Drives and all new designs were modified with the Warp Drive in mind.

The Turian Hierarchy has (predictably) chosen a simple, reliable, and fairly cheap derivative of the standard Terran drive, while Asari engineers, burdened by the need to rebuild their nation, simply duplicated the Terran design.

Inspired by battle reports of Terran captains straining their Warp drives for repeated Tactical Jumps, the Salarians also acquired the Turian derivative (using their STG agents) and proceeded to create a miniaturized version, capable of charging far more rapidly but only capable of short jumps.

Over the last year, all Union dreadnoughts have been equipped with not only a long-distance (standard) Warp drive, but also a secondary, micro-jump drive, greatly enhancing their tactical maneuverability beyond that even of a frigate! The size and expense of not only the micro-warp drive but a dedicated secondary fusion plant has prevented the Salarians from implementing these systems among smaller ships, which must carry crew, life support, weapons systems, barriers and armor.

Nonetheless, basic tactical calculations have showed that a multi-drive Salarian Dreadnought is nearly twice as effective in battle as a Turian design, helping mitigate the immense numerical superiority the Union fleet is facing, and forcing the Hierarchy to assign yet more Dreadnoughts to each of their fleets.

Both the Hierarchy and the Union have taken to full-spectrum cloaking with gusto, with rumors that the Salarians are assembling fully-cloaked fleets for strike purposes, and the Turians leading in cloaked Scout Ship deployment.

Of course, the apex of Terran weapons development, the Yamato wave-motion device, was conspicuously absent from the technology trade agreement Mengsk signed.

Luckily, not even the unadulterated greed of the Kel-Morian Combine has led them into sharing Modern Mk III Yamato technology with the Council factions (although, there are disquieting rumors of Batarian warships refitted with older, Mk II Yamato devices), and Mengsk's response to further technology-sharing requests was too crude to print.

The greed of the KMC, however, is matched by the desire of the Salarian Union for experimentation. Even the Turian Hierarchy could not resist the lure of a technology that might finally give them an equalizer against the nigh-invincible Protoss.

After repeated entreaties, certain groups within the Kel-Morian Combine (perhaps manipulated by or even a front organization of an shadowy covert ops group) sold Dr. Chiba's original Mk I Yamato prototype blueprints (at fantastic cost) to both the Turian Hierarchy and the Salarian Union (while massively raising prices by promising to sell the design to the other if they did not agree to the blatant extortion) without telling them of its history.

After two Turian Cruisers were lost in weapons trials, the Hierarchy immediately shut down all Yamato development projects, and swore bloody revenge against the KMC.

Meanwhile, after the Dreadnought Son of Sur'Kesh (at the time, the Union flagship) was crippled in weapons testing, (requiring over 17 months of drydocked repairs and refits) the Union began using expendable platforms for research instead. Two years and a dozen frigates (all hands lost) later, the Union still has not been able to duplicate the Terran Yamato device.

Furthermore, the appearance of the Daedalus-class (and now, Archangel-class) super-Yamato based Terran Dreadnoughts must be causing significant consternation amongst the Council nations; the 2km Daedalus nearly matches the range of the 2.5km Destiny Ascension; and is far more lethal to boot.

(Additional analysis of the Daedalus and other Yamato-centric Terran Supercapital designs are to follow in another Codex Entry.)

-]|[-

/UED Case Black Clearance Acknowledged

WARNING: EYES ONLY – UNAUTHORIZED PERUSAL OF DATA WITHIN IS PUNISHABLE BY TOTAL FAMILIAL PURGING

To: V. Adm Alexei Stukov

Despite the casualties, Palaven actually considers the effort not to have been wasted; as insight into Terran Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) technology gained through these experiments have inspired Turian researchers upon how to replicate the particle beams fired by Sovereign during the Battle of the Citadel.

While their new Thanix weapons project will not match the destructive capabilities of Yamato devices, they can be fitted to even frigate-sized vessels and will overwhelm smaller Mass Effect barriers within seconds. Larger vessels may mount banks of Thanix turrets for medium & close combat. Estimates show that the Hierarchy could complete the project within the next half-decade.

Best of all (from a Turian perspective) they require less maintenance and are cheaper to produce than the Yamato cannon. Meanwhile, the Salarian Union has come up with an innovative new concept; the Yamato Suicide Drone-Rider.

Rather than attempt to replicate stable Terran MHD systems, the Salarian engineers have decided to reduce power going towards containment in favor of maximizing blast output.

By designing the weapon without consideration towards repeated use or even surviving it's own energies, Salarian engineers have increased system parameters far beyond the tolerance of comparable Terran systems. The single-shot Yamato device exceeds even the performance of the Chiba's new Mk V Yamato system.

These weapons are fitted to drones about the size of a small frigate; which contains little more than data transceivers, fusion thrusters, a plasma capacitor, and the Yamato device. The drone lacks even basic sensors, forced to rely upon Fleet datalinks.

Despite the usage of a plasma capacitor rather than a full fusion core, the drone costs more than a pair of Turian heavy frigates, but the blast has nearly half the range of a standard Dreadnought round… and the drone's emissions match that of a standard, normal escort Frigate being covered by a Salarian EW warship.

Normally, these drones are carried by dedicated fleet carriers (as is the Salarian way) which charge their plasma capacitors before launching them into 'standard' Frigate wolf-pack formations, with a Union EW cruiser in support. When an hapless enemy commander encounters 'a few frigates', he may suddenly lose a Cruiser or even suffer a crippled Dreadnought! The existence of these drones means that emissions signatures of 'crippled' Salarian warships may be boobytraps, and even normal Salarian wolfpacks must be respected and treated as far more dangerous than they really are.

Most disturbingly, the Union has begun designing bigger, heavy frigate-sized Yamato suicide drones with fusion core, Eezo & reaction drive, full sensor suites, Micro-Warp Device and full-spectrum cloaking… Estimates show that the price of a single unit must exceed that of a battlecruiser, but the tactical implications are worrying, to say the least.

Yours truly,

Agent Armand

Director of Special Operations, Koprulu Division


A/N: Well, it's been another week, and we're down to one last more pre-written chapter.

FinweeLoLW:

No, not really. I've gotten acknowledgement in the Ending Credits of Sudden Contact, IIRC. Not surprised, communications with AVTM is... slow, at best.

AdmSaris, Kozokov, RealDeviant:

As you see, I do have quite a bit to state on the Council. However, much of the Council is covered in Canon ME Codexes, while there is no similar tech-paper equivalent for Starcraft; so I've naturally focused more on SC.

Zerg Codexes and relative comparisons of ToEs (Tables of Equipment) will follow later.

Guest:

Please don't use that handle, especially with anonymous reviews. Yes, CMC armor targetting scripts are kinda like Aimbots, lol =D