Hello, ITalkToSky here.
I had this snippet lying around for years at this point. I decided to touch this up a bit to procrastinate. I will be throwing myself back into my dissertation shortly, or so I keep telling myself. Enjoy?
T. Tectriti: If there is any common thread between the new humanity and Necron, it would be their inability to use the warp and their utter hatred for the Aeldari. While Necron hated fleshy things, it might be possible for them to get their flesh back through magic and Eirin Ex Machina. Oh, wouldn't that be great.
The issue however is…if Eirin gets captured by a Haemonculus. She can't even go crazy even if she tries. Just throwing ideas out. It will be cool to have the War in the Webway. But instead of the Big E against Daemons, it will be humanity and Necron against Commorragh to get back Eirin.
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Epsilon-7 Anti-Orbital Firebase, Demetorius VII, 137.M30
The anti-orbital weapons deployed by the Federation were guided and required no direct line of sight. Therefore, it was often standard protocol to hide them in defensible terrains that could shield them against ground assault, or more importantly, orbital strikes. Lanius Mons was picked for this very reason. Its jagged peaks shielded them from any bombardment not directly above, while being close enough for the battery to cover major populations centers. Unfortunately for the poor men deployed on it, this mountainous region was known for its inhospitable coldness.
Before the blue glow of the translocation matrix faded, Daiyousei and her adjutant were welcomed by the harsh blizzard. A bubble of solidified mana formed and warded away the flensing ice particle and the howling wind. It was at this moment when the noise died down that Daiyousei heard the warning chime in her ears. With a blink, she pulled up the information on her retinal display.
"Patch me to the base commander."
In a heartbeat, an unfamiliar voice answered. "General."
"Report."
"All systems operational. Firebase is at full combat readiness." The gruff sounding man then added. "Finally, some action."
The remark was accompanied by a torrent of compressed data. The fairy general skimmed through the numbers impassively until she came close to the bottom most entry.
"Deploy additional suppression pylons. I want more margin. Transfer from the secondary batteries as necessary."
"The secondary batteries are already operating near maximum tolerance. The immaterium is unusually agitated in the past few days."
"The primary batteries are the highest priority. No matter what, it must be able to keep firing."
"It will be done."
Daiyousei noticed the puzzled look from the sergeant, despite his visible effort to school his expression. Though it was generally above most paygrade to question a venerable fairy general like herself, she valued education. While experience was indeed the best teacher, the tuition was often costly.
"It is not recommended under normal circumstances. But this is a hastily fortified world. The anti-orbital coverage is limited. If the main battery goes down for whatever reason, the orbit over large swath of the planet will be wholly uncontested."
"Understood."
The two made their way deeper into the base buried within the bedrock. Their destination was the command bunker. Daiyousei was stationed on another more built-up based in the southern hemisphere. But with things imminently getting hot, she made do. Despite the limited preparation, the whole planet already had a functional data network set up. With all of it allocated for military usage, it made little difference where she decided to command the battlefield from.
Unfortunately, she was about to be proven wrong.
Hours passed since the long-range sensor arrays detected the incoming anomaly. Before the apprehension grew into annoyance, it was replaced with bowel-clenching terror instead.
"Titan?!" The base commander roared in disbelief.
Peering at the tactical map, Daiyousei morphed into a grim visage. Their problem was more than just a titan. Surrounding the behemoth were multiples contacts. From the scan data sent by GFS Rorona, eight of which were battleships. For reference, the Federation only brought three battlecruisers to the table.
Throughout her grossly long life, Daiyousei pulled many victories from the jaws of defeats, but she knew a hopeless battle when she saw one. They needed the entire 43rd fleet to stand up to this level of firepower. This would be nothing but a massacre.
Objectively, the planet was lost.
Not just the planet, but its population and over one million servicemen protecting it was lost. Nothing could breach the orbit with the enemy possessing overwhelming space superiority. One might call it defeatist, but she could read the writing on the wall. The fact of which started to dawn on the command staff gathering around the holographic table.
With heavy heart, Daiyousei did what needed to be done. "Rear Admiral Rios."
"…"
"Rear Admiral Rios, come in."
"This…this is Rios speaking."
"Retreat."
"Out of question!" An expected answer, one that Daiyousei had no intention of taking.
"Do not be obstinate! You are a rear admiral!" Daiyousei growled. Her wings unfurled at her agitation. "Your ships will be needed in the war to come. You will not throw it away here. Dump whatever munitions you have at them and go!"
There was an uncomfortable silence. Not just the admiral on the other side, the rest of the Epsilon-7 firebase command bunker fell silent too. Daiyousei did not make her conversation private for a reason. They needed to listen too.
"Aye."
Codex Entries:
Sunflower Battery
During planetary defense, the Grand Federation of Sol extensively utilizes anti-orbital emplacements to achieve two primary objectives. The first is to deny direct bombardment from void ships. The second is to deny surface-orbital transits, whether men or materials. These goals necessitate the use of two separate yet very similar weapon systems, colloquially known as Sunflower Battery. The origin of this nickname is to honor the heroic defense by a certain flower Youkai more than twenty millennia ago.
The larger system, known very descriptively as the Big Sunflower Battery, is essentially a terrestrial version of capital grade metastable plasma macrocannon. Like its voidborne cousin, the weapon launches massive bolts of superheated plasma that can reduce even the heaviest armor to slag. However, its intended use on the planet resulted in many different properties.
The presence of atmospheric drag limited the plasma projectile velocity while demanding more power to maintain coherence. As a tradeoff, the more intricate spellwork is embedded in each shot to provide an astonishing degree of guidance. Behaving more like missiles than gun-based artillery, the Big sunflower Battery can be hidden in the most inhospitable terrain and still be able to strike any target within its effective range. Against warships in orbit, the weapon boasted almost 100% hit rate. Its terrestrial nature also allows the Super Hakkero Reactor to supplement its power output with the planet's natural leyline. This drastically improves the rate of fire and endurance. Even ships specialized in planetary assault needed to respect these batteries when massed together.
The Small Sunflower Battery is very similar to its bigger brother but trades raw yield for speed. Rather than warship, it launches hypersonic plasma projectiles to intercept drop pods and dropships. The shots are imbued with proximity detection spell to maximize hit probability on smaller targets.
Unfortunately, both systems relied heavily on magic for its guidance, resulting in abysmal performance during the earlier period of the Twilight War. It was only until after the revision of the spell matrix to better tolerate the prolific usage of psionic energy by the Aeldari did the Sunflower Battery regain its effectiveness. This proved to be a double-edged sword, however.
The Sunflower Battery proved effective in deterring planetary assault by the Aeldari. This went doubly so when the Psyk-Out gas munition was introduced, capable of doing ruinous damage to Eldar's wraithbone warships. This deterrence either resulted in the Aeldari striking harder just to prove a point or them deciding the planet was not worth taken intact.
Codex Entries:
Massacre of Demetorius VII
++Void Combat++
The void combat, if it could even be called that, opened with a plasma fusion torpedo salvo from the legendary GFS Rorona. Weighting the limit of her weapon yield against the value of the target, the ship's captain focused all her munition on one of the battleships (Bleak Soul-class cruiser) instead of the titan (Void Stalker-class battleship).
At this point in the war, the Aeldari were unaware of mana. They possessed no means of detecting mana emission, thus did not realize that GFS Rorona detected them. Owing both to the stealth technology in the torpedo and the Aeldari overconfidence in their Shadowfields and Mimic Engines, the targeted cruiser performed no evasive maneuvers until the last moment. All eight fusion torpedoes struck home and rendered it dead in the water, while GFS Rorona made its exit.
This was the one and only windfall of the battle. Recognizing the overwhelming disadvantage, the Venerable General Daiyousei recommended guided munition strike before withdrawal. The Aeldari's ships were beyond the effective range of the fleet, but Rear Admiral Rios decided to deploy all weapons immediately before burning away. Despite condemnation from the public for cowardice, the Admiralty found no fault with this course of action. The Aeldari laser technology outranged even the most advance system in the Federation. It was likely that no ship would have survived had the Rear Admiral closed in any closer. Even at extreme range, a few ships were lost during the in-system FTL jump.
++Summary++
Attacker(s): Aeldari Empire
Defender(s): Grand Federation of Sol
Other combatant(s): UNKNOWN
Attacking Commander(s): UNKNOWN
Defending Commander(s): Venerable General Daiyousei, Rear Admiral Benson Rios, Captain Rorona
Date: 137.M30
Scale: Planetary Invasion
Theatre: Demetorius VII (agricultural world), Demetorius system, Demetorius sector, Pacificus Quadrant
Strength (attacker):
Naval – 1 battleship, 8 cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 6 escorts
Army – UNKNOWN
Strength (defender):
Naval – 3 cruisers, 6 light cruisers, 8 heavy escorts, 12 escorts [late-war classification]
Army – 3 field armies (~1,200,000 regulars – [650,000 fairies])
Strength (other combatant): UNKNOWN
Casualties (attacker):
Destroyed – 1 cruiser, 2 escorts
Heavy Damage – 2 cruisers, 1 light cruisers, 1 escort
Casualties (defender):
Destroyed – 1 light cruisers, 3 heavy escorts, 3 escorts
Heavy Damage – 2 cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 4 heavy escorts
Casualties (other combatant): UNKNOWN
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And there it is.