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- Jul 6, 2008
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Advent of Space Whaling
Celtais System. 30.09.4033
The moment you arrive at Celtais, you immediately spot that the ragged Third Fleet and its accompanying Legions are in trouble. You order the ships under your command to immediately assist their beleaguered comrades. They are not under attack from the League, however, but something else entirely.
“They appear to be some sort of space… whale?” muses Sekhenun, watching with horror and interest.
Great, white, whale-like things were somehow swimming about in space freely, each rivalling a battleship in size. They lunged straight for the ships; when they managed to slam into a target, humanoid shapes sprouted from the whale-forms and clambered onto the ship. Within a few minutes of contact, the ship would melt and be reduced to goo. They were not invulnerable, however; as the smaller cruisers darted around the space whales and focused their fire upon them, each whale appeared to evaporate in a puff of white smoke, leaving behind the same whitish goo that they turn their victims into.
Even as they kill the whales, the goo begins to gather, melding together. You had a sinking feeling that it would reform into new whales soon enough.
***
“Good to see you, Grand Marshal,” said Grimrock. The both of you were having this meeting aboard the Sword of Ean. He looked terribly weary, having had to abandon his flagship after a whale managed to ram it. From the reports of the survivors, the humanoid boarders facilitated the goo-transformation process. They could be killed, but like the large whales, you would have to bring a lot of heavy firepower to bear before it would work.
“I’m glad to be here, but what’s the status of the fleet?” you reply. From what you saw, things were looking very bad.
Grimrock shakes his head. “It’s bad. We’ve come across these things that you saw just now once on our way here. Before that, Delta and Epsilon had taken more chunks out of us, though we did return the favour. I still have six hundred ships from the Second Fleet, bless Kadowaki’s departed soul, but Third and Seventh are all but depleted. Seventh’s morale is low after I had to arrest Hasting and put her in the brig… but she was on my flagship. I don’t think she made it out. Kadowaki told the League about our black hole generators; they made sure to target the Federation ships after that in order to cripple our ability. The two Legions I have with me, Raven’s Lance and Serpent’s Wing, are both at half strength right now. This detachment was to revolve around Senya’s prototype mech as the spearhead of our forces. That CF alone probably constituted a quarter of our battle strength.” He laughs. “We’re feeling his absence, if you haven’t noticed. It’s a miracle we made it this far.”
“Well, they’ve made it this far thanks to you, Admiral,” you say. “How is the Sword of Ean faring? I don’t want to be staying in this system any longer than I have to. Those things are going to recover, and when they do I don’t want to be here wasting our ammunition on them.”
“The Sword of Ean is structurally holding up alright, but its engines have been crippled. The generators are out. We can only hobble along at sublight speed. Though slipspace travel is still possible, we won’t be doing any wormhole jumps anywhere, anytime soon. One of our engineers, Islington, suggested detaching some of the Jupiter Bomb’s slave triggers and using those in place of our generators, but the process is irreversible.”
“What would happen to the bomb?”
“At best, it would be severely weakened, though they don’t know by how much exactly. At worst, it would fail to explode when we need it to.”
“It won’t blow up on us?” you ask, slightly concerned.
“Well… the techs don’t think so. At least, they muttered something about confidence intervals and then told me it probably wouldn’t blow up when they removed it.”
“Right.” You sigh as you look through the numbers that your staff have given you. Given the crippled status of the Federation ships with Grimrock’s detachment, you would not be able to rely on them to make a wormhole jump. Furthermore, the mass of the Sword of Ean and the Jupiter Bomb ensured that you could only carry it through on a jump if you left most of the Legions behind. The alternative was to repurpose part of the bomb to fix the black hole generators, but that would pose other problems of its own. As you can’t stay in this system for long, thanks to the white space whales, you’re going to have to decide and move on quickly.
***
A. You move on to the next system, Beltais, using the slipspace route. You are certain the Star League will be waiting for you, if not in Beltais, then in Carneus Beta, but you would like the fleet to stay together this time. Splitting up has proven to be rather unwise.
B. Staying together will only allow the enemy to further bleed you to death, now that you are already wounded. After reorganizing the fleet so that the Sword of Ean receives an extra Legion to guard it, you will jump ahead to Carneus Beta to perform a surprise strike while the rest of the fleet will travel normally.
C. You jump ahead with just the Sword of Ean, the Jupiter Bomb, the remaining Federation vessels and one of the Legions. If possible you will attempt to break Carneus Beta, if not, you will carry out Grimrock’s original idea of using the bomb as a threat in order to get your way.
D. You fix the black hole generators at the expense of the bomb’s integrity. This will allow you to make a wormhole jump from Celtais to Carneus Beta immediately, carrying all of your forces through.
***
Note: Any of the wormhole choices will render most, if not all of the black hole generators on the Federation fleets non-functional for the rest of the campaign. Any weapons that use solid ammunition and missiles will be still work, though their movement speed will be significantly reduced due to relying on backup power systems. However, the Sword of Ean's generators will still be functional after the jump if you pick D, since there's still a lot of power to be tapped there.
Celtais System. 30.09.4033
The moment you arrive at Celtais, you immediately spot that the ragged Third Fleet and its accompanying Legions are in trouble. You order the ships under your command to immediately assist their beleaguered comrades. They are not under attack from the League, however, but something else entirely.
“They appear to be some sort of space… whale?” muses Sekhenun, watching with horror and interest.
Great, white, whale-like things were somehow swimming about in space freely, each rivalling a battleship in size. They lunged straight for the ships; when they managed to slam into a target, humanoid shapes sprouted from the whale-forms and clambered onto the ship. Within a few minutes of contact, the ship would melt and be reduced to goo. They were not invulnerable, however; as the smaller cruisers darted around the space whales and focused their fire upon them, each whale appeared to evaporate in a puff of white smoke, leaving behind the same whitish goo that they turn their victims into.
Even as they kill the whales, the goo begins to gather, melding together. You had a sinking feeling that it would reform into new whales soon enough.
***
“Good to see you, Grand Marshal,” said Grimrock. The both of you were having this meeting aboard the Sword of Ean. He looked terribly weary, having had to abandon his flagship after a whale managed to ram it. From the reports of the survivors, the humanoid boarders facilitated the goo-transformation process. They could be killed, but like the large whales, you would have to bring a lot of heavy firepower to bear before it would work.
“I’m glad to be here, but what’s the status of the fleet?” you reply. From what you saw, things were looking very bad.
Grimrock shakes his head. “It’s bad. We’ve come across these things that you saw just now once on our way here. Before that, Delta and Epsilon had taken more chunks out of us, though we did return the favour. I still have six hundred ships from the Second Fleet, bless Kadowaki’s departed soul, but Third and Seventh are all but depleted. Seventh’s morale is low after I had to arrest Hasting and put her in the brig… but she was on my flagship. I don’t think she made it out. Kadowaki told the League about our black hole generators; they made sure to target the Federation ships after that in order to cripple our ability. The two Legions I have with me, Raven’s Lance and Serpent’s Wing, are both at half strength right now. This detachment was to revolve around Senya’s prototype mech as the spearhead of our forces. That CF alone probably constituted a quarter of our battle strength.” He laughs. “We’re feeling his absence, if you haven’t noticed. It’s a miracle we made it this far.”
“Well, they’ve made it this far thanks to you, Admiral,” you say. “How is the Sword of Ean faring? I don’t want to be staying in this system any longer than I have to. Those things are going to recover, and when they do I don’t want to be here wasting our ammunition on them.”
“The Sword of Ean is structurally holding up alright, but its engines have been crippled. The generators are out. We can only hobble along at sublight speed. Though slipspace travel is still possible, we won’t be doing any wormhole jumps anywhere, anytime soon. One of our engineers, Islington, suggested detaching some of the Jupiter Bomb’s slave triggers and using those in place of our generators, but the process is irreversible.”
“What would happen to the bomb?”
“At best, it would be severely weakened, though they don’t know by how much exactly. At worst, it would fail to explode when we need it to.”
“It won’t blow up on us?” you ask, slightly concerned.
“Well… the techs don’t think so. At least, they muttered something about confidence intervals and then told me it probably wouldn’t blow up when they removed it.”
“Right.” You sigh as you look through the numbers that your staff have given you. Given the crippled status of the Federation ships with Grimrock’s detachment, you would not be able to rely on them to make a wormhole jump. Furthermore, the mass of the Sword of Ean and the Jupiter Bomb ensured that you could only carry it through on a jump if you left most of the Legions behind. The alternative was to repurpose part of the bomb to fix the black hole generators, but that would pose other problems of its own. As you can’t stay in this system for long, thanks to the white space whales, you’re going to have to decide and move on quickly.
***
A. You move on to the next system, Beltais, using the slipspace route. You are certain the Star League will be waiting for you, if not in Beltais, then in Carneus Beta, but you would like the fleet to stay together this time. Splitting up has proven to be rather unwise.
B. Staying together will only allow the enemy to further bleed you to death, now that you are already wounded. After reorganizing the fleet so that the Sword of Ean receives an extra Legion to guard it, you will jump ahead to Carneus Beta to perform a surprise strike while the rest of the fleet will travel normally.
C. You jump ahead with just the Sword of Ean, the Jupiter Bomb, the remaining Federation vessels and one of the Legions. If possible you will attempt to break Carneus Beta, if not, you will carry out Grimrock’s original idea of using the bomb as a threat in order to get your way.
D. You fix the black hole generators at the expense of the bomb’s integrity. This will allow you to make a wormhole jump from Celtais to Carneus Beta immediately, carrying all of your forces through.
***
Note: Any of the wormhole choices will render most, if not all of the black hole generators on the Federation fleets non-functional for the rest of the campaign. Any weapons that use solid ammunition and missiles will be still work, though their movement speed will be significantly reduced due to relying on backup power systems. However, the Sword of Ean's generators will still be functional after the jump if you pick D, since there's still a lot of power to be tapped there.
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