Episode 3: Blizzard Force Deploys
Chapter 1: Skywalker's Basics In Fortification And Sieges!
Quotes of the day:
"To be the best hunter, you have to think like your prey."
"History shows there are no invincible armies and that there never have been."
Intro: This will be a much longer synopsis than the one I had for my previous episodes.
Ten billion years ago, when the multiverse was young, there existed one civilization of sentient beings that surpassed all others in technology, innovation, reach, influence and raw power: The Time Lords.
They developed everything from vehicles that were "bigger on the inside," powered by black holes, which let them travel throughout the entirety of the multiverse, (including parallel universes, going backwards or forwards in time, and getting near the edge of reality itself,) to weapons that could actually destroy entire universes and erase whole timelines, and even portable devices that let them basically rewrite the laws of physics, known or unknown, in addition to storing unlimited amounts of energy.
The Time Lords had all of the cosmos at their command, and could probably bend literally everything in existence to their will. It seemed as if they would rule for eternity.
They did have one significant rival, however.
While the Time Lords were paragons of progress and science, so much so that they felt no need to advance anymore as a species, or intervene in the matters of lesser beings, they certainly weren't loved by all.
In fact, there was one species that sought to destroy them all, and use their secrets to conquer the multiverse, forged by a nameless evil beyond mortal comprehension:
The Daleks, a race of murderous alien cyborgs, and their creator, Lord Zalgo- an ancient, trans-dimensional, shapeshifting evil spirit, just as old as the Time Lords, who is the incarnation of pure tyranny, corruption, hatred and malice.
Remember Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King's IT? And HP Lovecraft's monsters?
I wanted a famous Creepypasta character to be the overarching villain of all my fanfiction productions, and maybe a derivative character for any original projects.
The Daleks had weapons and technology equivalent to those of the Time Lords, thanks to Zalgo's fathomless dark powers. And they waged a war on the enemy they were programmed to destroy, that lasted for 5 billion years... the War in Heaven, as modern historians in the Galactic Republic call it.
This conflict made the present-day calamity that the Milky Way, Andromeda, Double Helix and Triangulum galaxies are trapped in, seem completely insignificant, like a two-year old human throwing a tantrum.
It got so out of hand, that one of the Time Lords' leaders, an individual known only as the Doctor, used a last-resort superweapon that destroyed thousands of galaxies and seemingly killed every other Time Lord, rendering the masters of the multiverse extinct- but this also tremendously weakened the Daleks, making it so just about any interstellar species could fight on equal terms with them.
In other words, the Time Lords all died out, the Daleks are now comparatively trivial in the scheme of all things, and the cosmic damage from the War in Heaven took billions of years to heal, as countless new stars were born to replace the ones that had died, and with them, new sentient species to build kingdoms rising from the ashes.
What became of that ancient civilization? Did anyone survive? None remain who know.
But answers lie in wait.
Although the memory of the Time Lords vanished, their legend survived on the solar wind's breath.
Across the Milky Way and its neighboring galaxies, primordial relics have been unearthed, remnants of the old ones' work. It soon became a race for intergalactic superpowers to unlock the secrets of these treasures left behind, so they could ascend to become economic and military hegemonies.
And on the ice planet of Hoth, the Galactic Republic of the Milky Way has finally gotten its hands on Time Lord remains. General Anakin Skywalker and his fellow Jedi Knights have consolidated a colossal amount of resources to protect this treasure trove, building an entire hive city housing over a billion soldiers and laborers around the excavation site, over the course of 9 Terran months.
The mighty defenses around Hoth are only exceeded by those surrounding the Core systems of the Republic, such as Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridani, Altair, and Vega, (plus Terra/Coruscant, of course,) and the numerous Forge Worlds which maintain production to sustain democracy's arsenal, including Corellia, Kronos Alpha, Mon Calamari, Kuat, Thica, Gordasha, Norrongard, Eberron, Lucius, Graia, and Ryza.
Anakin and his subordinates and allies believe their city fortress, Echo Base, is completely impenetrable. So much so that they've hired two of the greatest tacticians and strategists the Milky Way has to offer, Princess Elsa of Snezhnaya and the Night Lord Brutus Wayne of Nostramo, in order to prove it.
But will the pair approve of General Skywalker's skills in fortification? And, more importantly, will the hive city on Hoth be able to withstand a potential full scale invasion?
STORY STARTS HERE
Location: Aboard the Lupus Rex, Spelljammer Sail Battleship of the Sirius Expeditionary Fleet
Commanded by Throne Warden Elsa Volkoff
Currently approaching the Hoth system
Author's Note: Spelljamming ship crews are exposed to the vacuum of space, because their vessels look like seaborne nautical ones, butnever fear! They can equip portable atmosphere bubbles to protect themselves.
"This place we're going to visit sure reminds you of home, doesn't it?"
Brutus Wayne was talking to an unusual human woman by the name of Elsa, whose eccentric qualities weren't just limited to her snow-white hair- she could bend all kinds of ice and frost to her will, including frozen and liquid carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane and ammonia, as well as all forms of water. She was a cryomancer of the highest degree, and her talents had won the Republic many battles.
Elsa found Night Lord Wayne's question to be very repetitive, for crystal clear reasons. So she wanted to speak about alternative matters.
"Well yes, OBVIOUSLY. But let's talk about why you and I went out of the way to visit this particular frozen wasteland, and why I commissioned a spelljamming battleship and its crew, worth 300 billion credits, to come with us."
"You're referring to the hive fortress that Anakin Skywalker built? Oh yeah, we have to do a survey for him. Find out if the defenses surrounding the primordial artifacts are truly ready to hold the line against any possible invading force."
This task was paramount to the Republic's war effort, because if the enemies of democracy got their hands on stolen Time Lord tech, who knows what terrible things they might be capable of doing? The good news was, neither the Republic nor its foes knew how to restore the functionality of the priceless relics. Yet.
Elsa and Wayne stood on an anti-gravity hovering balcony perched under the canopy of mountain-sized magical sails that helped the Lupus Rex fly through space, in tandem with the wizard navigator who directed its movements. It looked like a nautical ship of the line, (a pirate ship,) and was constructed from alchemically hardened armored wood, but came with the sheer size and girth that space navy combat demanded, at 15 kilometers in length.
The high balcony let the pair oversee everything that was happening on the colossal deck of the ship- millions of power-armored soldiers and their ground vehicles parading back and forth, appearing as little more than a mass of black specks, like a colony of ants, and portside and starboard turbolaser batteries, each 600 meters wide, that could punch through thick vibranium armor, overload the stoutest deflector shields, boil entire oceans, and reduce whole continental surfaces to molten slag.
The heavy artillery on the Lupus Rex in particular benefited greatly from superior Snezhnayan military engineering, and the turbolasers and plasma cleansing beams had a much faster recharge rate than that of their common contemporaries in the Republic's Grand Navy.
These sights would be often be considered mind-boggling and astonishing, especially in the standards of people from backwater planets, but Brutus Wayne and Elsa Volkoff were accustomed to it. City-sized, and even moon-sized ships were not uncommon in modern intergalactic warfare, and Spelljammers were usually meant to be smaller vanguard vessels in charge of exploration and colonization (which meant the Lupus Rex stood out.)
After a few minutes of tense silence, between both Elsa and Bruce and the armies on the upper deck, the ship had arrived at Hoth, in high orbit above the barely habitable ice planet, and to confirm that the Jedi were at work, a squadron of X-Wing, Y-Wing and ARC-170 starfighters made a close flyby of the spelljamming battleship.
The fighter wings were apparently brought there by Mace Windu before he left Anakin Skywalker in charge of the hive city fortress. Not that it mattered much, the majority of the defenses surrounding the eons-old treasure were on the ground. It was worth noting that were no warships of any kind in orbit besides the Lupus Rex. All the cargo haulers had long since left, too.
"And we will find that out soon. Now that we're finally here, did you bring a ride to get us down from high orbit?," Elsa asked. "I know a lot of you billionaires from Nostramo and Coruscant like pimping out your vehicles."
"You wanna see the Darkwing?," Wayne replied. "It's a pretty stealthy and snazzy dropship."
The floating balcony lowered itself down to the main deck level, and Republic Army troopers of all different species were running to board planetary transports bound for Hoth. The most expensive-looking one, which was painted pitch black and blue, belonged to the Night Lords Space Marines.
Elsa and Wayne walked into the enormous, open forward cargo compartment of the Darkwing dropship, which was at least 11 meters tall, big enough to let a Wingfeather Battlemech stride through. After they got on board, the dropship took off from the deck, and made planetfall.
And then it was off to see Master Skywalker, the Jedi Order's "Hero With No Fear."
Meanwhile, in the hive city's central grand conference room:
Anakin Skywalker and his associates were in the middle of a very important conversation. He had hired two very important people to study the defenses of the newly-built Hive Boreas and probe them for any weaknesses.
And he had worked hard in order to impress and satisfy these two individuals, having had to sign contracts with a dozen Forge Worlds to acquire the materials needed to undertake such a massive construction project, and gain the connections and trust of multiple banking organizations to provide adequate payment and services for 1.4 billion workers and soldiers.
In the case of the Forge Worlds, he had offered them military protection and therefore complete safety for their shipyards and factories in exchange for the supply of materials, and he had told the banking companies that reviving Time Lord technology would make the rich even richer, despite the fact that they were now donating money to support over a billion laborers.
So needless to say, these two people were A BIG DEAL.
"Alright folks, let's address the elephant in the room: My fellow Jedi have questioned if Hive Boreas' defenses were satisfactory in the event of an attack by one of our enemies. Nobody really wanted to talk about this, because we're all deep down secretly trying to convince ourselves that this fortress is unbreakable. So now we have to prove that it is."
"I have hired two people that are among the best strategists and tacticians the vast reaches of the Republic has to offer. If I can gain their respect, all our work will have paid off, and we will be able to commit ourselves fully to researching and reactivating the Time Lord heirlooms."
One person in the room raised his scaly, leathery arm- Senin Vant, a Githyanki infantry officer who commanded the 301st "Vey's Lightning" special weapons regiment. The reptilian humanoid wanted to know who Anakin hired for the survey, and everybody around the table recognized his voice, by the way he rolled some of his S's.
"Ssssir Anakin, must I asssk you, who are these individualsss? You treat them as if they deserve your utmossst attention."
"They're on the news a lot," Anakin said back. "Prepare to meet Throne Warden Elsa and Night Lord Brutus Wayne. I'm sure you and everyone else will be quite fond of them."
Back on the Lupus Rex...
One of thousands of hidden compartments on the ship's upper deck opened up, and Tsar Alexei Volkoff popped out, dressed in Sirius Army regimental attire and carrying a blaster rifle. He was in truth, sick and tired of having to accompany his big sister wherever she went, because of her job to protect him and be together with him, and now, a moment had finally came where she had inexplicably forgotten about him for a brief period of time.
Elsa had gotten so caught up in the discussion with the leader of the Night Lords, that she had lost track of her original task, watching over the king.
Now that he was free to do as he pleased, without his strict, overprotective big sister watching, Alexei was going to explore the vast depths of this ship in his spare time, and throw a pub party with all the troopers he had gotten to know on the journey. A king's duty was so boring and tedious, so why not take a break and get drunk?
Back on Hoth (once again)
Githyanki Senin Vant and his diverse footsoldiers of the 301st Infantry Regiment had left the conference room with Anakin, heading towards one of Hive Boreas' many landing pads and aviation facilities, patiently awaiting the arrival of the special guests.
It didn't take a certified genius to figure out which space plane belonged to Elsa Volkoff and Brutus Wayne. It was of course, the biggest one, a monstrous, four-engine, fat-bodied dropship with rotary cannon turret guns, top hatches that could reveal missile launchers, four exit doors for deploying troops, vehicles and cargo, and an accompanying escort of X-Wings and V-Wings.
The Grim Darkwing.
"Holy sssshit!," Vant hissed. "The guests really went all out with their ride."
"And I can't wait to meet the Space Marines," said Beidou, a female Tau Jedi Knight. (Reminder: This isn't Beidou from Genshin Impact, the Tau are from Warhammer 40k.)
"Don't get all excited yet," Anakin told both of them. "We have business to do. Celebrate instead after they tell us how superb we are at our job."
As the Darkwing got closer to the landing pad, the alien infantry were blasted with gusts of wind from its big atmospheric ramjet engines, and they had to fall back to prevent themselves from being sent flying. The engines of the dropship were so powerful, anyone within a mile would feel great warmth utterly out of place on Hoth.
Once the craft had landed and the engines powered down, Beidou and Vant saw the frontal door open, and out came two individuals surrounded by Astartes in black and blue power armor- one of them was a beautiful, pale-skinned, white-haired woman in a dress evoking Scandinavian and Slavic elements (but in space,) and the other one was a grim and serious, abnormally pale, black-haired Space Marine clad in the finest power armor, with a pointy-eared cowl and a spread-out cape that painted the impression of a giant bat.
"Remarkable regalia, isn't it?," commented an eloquent, not-so-clumsy Gungan alchemy professor by the name of Har Har Bunks (the opposite of Jar Jar Binks.)
Anakin ignored Professor Bunks and proceeded to talk to his new audience right away.
"So, you must be the Throne Warden and the Night Haunter. Welcome to Hive Boreas on Hoth, I hope you enjoy your stay... You know what, let's move on from greetings. Please examine the potency and determine the effectiveness of my big fortress project. I spent a good amount of time preparing it, about 9 months, so I hope it impresses you."
Elsa nodded her head accordingly.
"Lord Wayne and I have come here for that exact purpose. Now give us a tour of the defenders' bastion."
And Wayne noticed a noteworthy problem already, by using his scanning device.
"Your landing pads, or at least the one we're standing on, don't have any adamantium or vibranium in their composition. They won't hold up for long against heavy bombings, magic missiles and high-caliber artillery fire."
"Yeah, Master Skywalker, landing pads, fueling stations and runways are kinda important for the operation of aircraft and spacecraft," Beidou said.
"Just great," Anakin grumbled, clearly upset about this detail that he could've easily fixed in the past.
Hopefully the base wouldn't have any more significant weaknesses to be exposed. Right?
In addition, it's only a matter of time before Elsa remembers she left her little brother back on the Spelljammer in orbit.
