I have begun the new story I am going to make, Stargate ascension: rise of the tau'ri. Please check it out if you're interested.
Xìngyùn cluster, Dà Líng Sān system,asteroid belt, Dà Líng Sān DAS20497,
19 AU from Dà Líng Sān lays a S type asteroid 50 km tall,30 wide, and 7 long. Within it a small colony of 5,000 miners dwell. They extract silicates from the asteroid and once a month, a transport comes and they sell the resources to be used for construction on the planets. It is a quiet and simple existence that the residence enjoy. But it will not last as a turian flotilla is moving towards the asteroid.
The only thing standing between 11 Turian ships and 5000 lives is 24 obsolete American QF-93 ranger heavy drones, or at least that's what the turians think.
"Sir, ETA for the alien colony is seven minutes." One of Admiral Septimus Velanius staff says to him.
"good," Septimus says while staring at the strategic map. Their are over 3 dozen colony's like this one across the belt alongside the 3 dwarf planets occupied by the aliens. The plan is to split up into 7 groups consisting of the 5 full strength flotillas and the dreadnought squadron with the remnants of the 192nd flotilla attached to the titan acting as escorts to strike at 1 target each and then move on to the next. They will clear out the belt before striking deeper into the system. "Has their been any resistance at the other targets?"
"Sir, 3 of the groups have reached their targets. Of them the 188th flotilla has been engaged by 29 ships, one cruiser, 12 frigates, 16. They lost three frigate and damage to five others and a cruiser being damaged. Besides them only minor to moderate resistance has been faced at the colonies. None of them have a population over 4000 besides ours and one of the dwarf planets which is going to be attacked by the 192nd and the titan, estimates for that population range from 15,000 to 60,000." His staff member tells him.
"Good, I want a list on marine and personal casualty's from the assaults, and a evaluation on the combat capabil-" Septimus is interrupted by the sensor officer
"Contacts! Multiple contacts at starboard 97 by -45,500 km away! 96, 140, 212, 360 contacts, dimensions of 30 x 10 x 15 m each!" Upon the words of the officer, The Bridge Springs to life with everyone moving to their stations.
Xìngyùn cluster, Dà Líng Sān system,asteroid belt, Dà Líng Sān DAS20497,
Virtual intelligence CVMHD-94 is a relatively simplistic computer intelligence designed to pilot a QF-93 ranger heavy drone. Since it's additional during the refit of the QF-93 ranger heavy drone 17 years ago alongside it's mothership, it hadn't seen any action, relegated to close range orbital patrols that it's relatively limited fuel supply compared to patrol drones allowed, and the occasional strike at pirates. Now, it was charging headlong into the first battle against an alien dreadnought, not that it was self-aware enough to understand.
The moment CVMHD-94 and it's companions dropped out of warp, They began accelerating at 150G, five times their acceleration before they were refitted with element zero cores. CVMHD-94 is near the back with its payload meant to finish off the target while most of the other drones carry munitions meant to soften the target up. as it approached, guardian lasers lanced out to meet the swarm of drones. Many drones succumbed to the infrared inferno, but many more past unscathed, too many targets for to few guardians. That is when the 8 massive turrets with three guns, each on the dreadnought turned to face the drones and sung their symphony of death. From the barrels of the massive cannons spewed not a single 240 x 1200 mm shell, but over 100,000 tiny 3 x 60 mm flechettes each, traveling in a way the dreadnoughts targeting computer calculated would bracket and strike as many drones as possible. One of the tiny bolts wouldn't have done much to a drone, but with the numbers, hundreds, or even thousands struck each drone, perforating them multiple times over. Every two seconds these 24 guns sing a symphony of death into the void, and every two seconds many of the drones are turned to wreckage and debris, but it is not enough.
The first targets are the five frigates that were on the side of the Dreadnought that was being attacked, 100 km away from what they are protecting. While the other five escorts try to close the distance and guard the dreadnought from the drones attack, the first wave of drones launch their payloads. Each of these drones carry within them 100 missiles, each only 3 m long and a meter wide. These missiles contain breacher acid that will slowly dissolve all the important components of the ship on the outer hull. Sensor arrays, guardian lasers, ablative armor, heat dissipation systems, RCS, kinetic barrier projectors, all of it will be destroyed in the area of the ship consumed by the acid, crippling the ship without even reaching the internal components under meters of armor. Missiles are fired at both the Dreadnought and the escorts, forcing the frigates to protect both themselves, and the Dreadnought. With all their guardians firing at both swarms of missiles, the ones heading towards them, and the ones that passed them heading towards the dreadnought, heat begins to build up within the weapons and ships, degrading the point defenses capabilities. One by one, missiles make it through the defenses and splash upon the frigates hulls, slowly destroying everything laying upon them. With the closest escorts crippled, and the other escorts still attempting to reach a position to defend the Dreadnought, the second wave deploys its missiles. Thousands of missiles race towards the Dreadnought, with its defense systems already damaged from the first wave, many strike their target. The Dreadnought, with vastly larger surface area , defenses, and time then it's unfortunate escorts, was not crippled by this strike, but it was still damaged.
The final wave prepares to begin, before the final strike on the dreadnought, some drones peel away to deal the death blow to its helpless escorts. From within the Bombays of the drones, 4 60 Mt bombs are released, the momentum from the heavy drones keeping them moving towards their helpless targets. In a moment, each frigate was consumed in 240 megatons of nuclear fire, and hundreds of souls were snuffed out.
As the final wave neared their target, the Dreadnought began to slow, maneuvers attempting to evade it's fate going multiple Gs began going less than a single G. And the secondary guns, those that still remained, became silent. Five seconds after the phenomenon began, and only a few seconds before the dreadnoughts fate would be sealed in nuclear fire, it and its escorts raced away at over 1000 times the speed of light, evading death.
It's objective while not complete entirely, at least partially achieved, CVMHD-94 and the other 236 remaining of the 360 heavy drones went to warp to rejoin their mother ship.
Xìngyùn cluster, Dà Líng Sān system, asteroid belt, 930,000 km away from Dà Líng Sān DAS20497,
"Damage report!" Septimus say, wanting to understand what the hell just happened. No known species has been able to fit a FTL drive into something as small as those drones, and that so far this species hasn't been shown to be significantly more advanced than the other species.
The engineering officer for the bridge response to him "42% of the hull has been covered in whatever material their missiles payload was. Nineteen Guardian lasers, 3 triple 24x120 mass accelerator turrets with a total of 9 cannons, and 33% of the heat dispersal systems has been destroyed or made inoperable. Heat build up is at 73%, 92% for the guardian lasers; around half the guardian lasers are showing signs of damage, I recommend replacing them next chance we get. Overall, moderate to severe damage, but we are combat capable and still have the firepower to take on a cruiser or five at mid range, and a small fleet at long range"
"And the rest of the flotilla?" Septimus asks
"Frigate squadron two was completely destroyed, no survivors. Frigate squadron one followed us and is currently arranging into a defensive position around the ship. They report no damage except for FG-19842 where a reaction control thruster broke while attempting to turn, they are sending a drone out to see if it's salvageable or if we should grab a spare from the supply ships." The communication officer replied.
"How the hell did that happen? Mass Effect engines are not accurate up to more than a few thousand kilometers and no mass effect drive would activate considering all the debris that was surrounding us from the asteroid belt; this entire attack shouldn't have been possible without some serious luck that no admiral would bet a plan on." Septimus says
The center officer says "Sir, the drones were not moving faster than light, only 70% of it actually, though I have no idea how they did that. The sensors picked up what might've been the drones a few minutes before the attack, but due to the speed and space distortions, I believed it was a glitch."
Septimus was shocked. No known technology allowed a ship to move that fast without days, or even weeks of acceleration, at which point considering the amount of energy even the smallest atom would have hitting them, they would've been shredded. These engines could be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, this species is more of a threat than he thought.
None of his contemplation shows on his face, and he says to his bridge officers "Connect with the rest of the fleet, I want status reports, and information on where the drones are now. When the reports come in, move the ship to the support fleet in the Oort cloud for repairs. Transfer first frigate squadron to protect the Titan, if this is what the drones could do to a modern Dreadnought, I don't want to see what it could do to a smaller one like the titan." His subordinates complied.
Xìngyùn cluster, Dà Líng Sān system, Inner system, Shanxi orbit, SSV Montana
Admiral Hawkins smiles as the drones of the Montana drop out of warp alongside their mothership. While the plan has not worked perfectly, they did destroy multiple enemy ships and at least partially damaged the alien Dreadnought. The drone losses were acceptable if a little steep for what they achieved.
The ships flight control operator, a relatively short Italian man named Garibaldi called out to her "ma'am, drones are preparing for landing and rearmament, landing procedures are estimated to take 30 minutes. The air group should be fully rearmed and ready to fly out again in two hours." She wanted to sigh at the long waiting period between when they could attack, but held it in. The newest ships created by the systems alliance not only benefited from being able to fully incorporate new technologies, but also having the best of the best design teams from each country working on them. For the new carriers, that meant being able to conduct the air groups launching, landing, and rearmament operations significantly faster. A Danube class carrier could take as little as a minute to land or launch their drones, while only taking half an hour to rearm and refuel the strike craft. Unfortunately, the Montana is not a new ship. The Montana and it's sister ships are almost 50 years old at this point, and it's starting to show, also being the reason an outer colony got any sort of full carrier.
Not wishing to dwell on what she was given to defend the system, Hawkins begins to plan more operations in an attempt to do as much damage to the aliens before the second fleet arrives.
Codex: Fleet Ideologies, Turians vs Systems Alliance
The differences in fleet composition and tactics between the hierarchy and the alliance are entirely created by the differences in threats they expect to face. The hierarchy's only threats are Pirates and minor warlords from the terminus on the fringes of citadel space. They never expect to fight a peer opponent as pirate ships are usually small and ill equipped, and even the most powerful warlords usually don't have dreadnoughts. Because of this, the hierarchys fleet is disproportionately composed of smaller ships like frigates and Corvettes with cruisers meant to come in if anything too large for the lighter ships to handle appears. Dreadnoughts are only meant to be used to assault major strongholds and act as reinforcements to quell major incursions. Because of this, dreadnoughts of the hierarchy are designed primarily for offensive operations. The alliance on the other hand, due to the armament of civilian ships and centralization of the ship production industry due to it being in its relative infancy compared to citadel ship production, has never had a pirate problem, and is designed to resist potential alien invasion through the relay network. This has led to the alliance fleet being more designed for heavy combat and asymmetrical warfare than patrol like the hierarchy fleet. A systems alliance fleet is outnumbered by a hierarchy fleet, but significantly out masses the hierarchy fleet due to the inclusion of multiple larger ships.
The hierarchys and alliances ideology for system defense also greatly differs. The hierarchy deploys a large numbers of relatively small, but long range, and heavily armed corvettes, so that the hierarchy can have a presence in all populated parts of a system. The alliance on the other hand, deploys vast networks of patrol drones to monitor entire systems, while having a small number of dedicated, strike flotillas, mostly consisting of drones, fast attack craft, and older model ships. In a situation where something is detected, either a single ship, or a flotilla, is sent out via Ftl to intercept it and deal with the situation. The hierarchy system is extremely good at enforcing civil order, but is not good at defending against a large incursions bigger than small numbers of corvettes and frigates. The alliances system is extremely good for defense and the automated 3-D printer equipped outposts that are hidden across their space make it good at asymmetrical warfare after a system has been taken, but is slow to respond to minor situations.
Codex: Warp
The warp engine is a device invented in 2315 after over two decades of research at the jump zero facility. The jump zero facility tested 13 separate theoretical designs for faster than light travel. While intriguing and important data had been collected, no working faster than light, or even near light engines had been produced. This was until the warp engine had been tested. The warp drive was theorized during the 20th century by Miguel Alcubierre and then was revisited and improved on in the 2050s by Alexandria Roberts, then in the 2190s by Jacob Fredericks, then finally in the 2315 Julia Patricks created a working model.
Upon its introduction, the warp drive was a massive leap forward for humanity. While the sub light speeds were depressing to those who wanted extreme ease of travel to other systems, it's still exceptionally fast Sub-light speeds allowed for a extreme decrees in travel times inside of systems and decreased interstellar travel times from multiple decades and centuries to only a few years or decades, allowing for the colonization of the inner systems. The warp drive also facilitated interstellar trades viability, with the first interstellar merchant ships, selling luxury goods, setting sail before the end of the third decade of the 24th century.
While for interstellar travel the warp drive was superseded by element zero engines, it still found uses in many places. In interplanetary trade, where faster than light speeds were unnecessary, and with warp drives being significantly cheaper than element zero cores, warp drives stayed competitive.Warp drives are also significantly more miniaturized than element zero engines, with something as small as a heavy drone or small yacht (which is usually 10 to 30 m long) being able to be equipped with a warp drive.
Author notes : You all probably noticed that the more recent chapters have been shorter than the earlier ones. This is because I have had to juggle trying to write for both of my stories and get a new chapter for each, every week. I originally planned for there to be an entire extra section to this chapter, including a assault on the dwarf planet mentioned earlier in the chapter, but I ran out of time and decided to add it to next chapter. I have decided to alternate between writing a chapter for each story each week.
PS: I noticed there wasn't a long comment dissecting every problem with the new Codex chapter. Either it was somehow without flaws or Naotw (what is the name supposed to mean? ) decided just to not make one for it.