[LP CYOA] Epic

[treave]

Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

edit: On a more serious note, splitting up the fleet any further is probably inadvisable. Given the lack of reliable FTL communications between systems and the travel time needed even with slipspace jumps, coordination will become too hard. Travelling to Bainur is not just to convey a message, it's to regroup, plan another strategy and then press the assault from that system. If you find them there. Of course, you might also be better off putting your trust in them and pressing onwards if you don't want to spend more time hanging around the outskirts of the galactic core.

 

[Smashing Axe]

A1 crazy solo mission is the only option that stops our numbers from being thinned. Also in regards to Shulg, while it's true he is a bro, he may not be against the masters. Remember the master who was his lover all those years back. There's no guarantee that his feelings have changed at all.

 

[Baltika9]

That's not what I meant, exactly: yeah, they're expecting us to get there with a full assault force eventually. They most definitely are not expecting us to jump out, solo, just two days after half our Battlefleet was Vajra'd.

Also, take note of all the space-fortresses that departed from Gelmark - I'm pretty sure that more than a few of them went to Carneus Beta. Look dude, I just don't think that we can pull another solo miracle like we did against the Empire given the Star League's doctrine and the defensive ring around the superweapon.

This is a simple hit-and-run, didn't say anything about us dogfighting. Can we plausibly be forced into combat by their local defenses? Yes. Are we obliged to fight all of them? No.

That would be an ideal battlefield for our big gun: zero friendly fire, everyone in there is a hostile. It's not like the weapon can teleport.


And, no, Ean spent a couple hundred years bonding with the fragment. The Masters created it and tore it from him without much difficulty. After which, they had time to adjust it, it's their weapon now. I don't even see the point of getting Vajra for Ean now, at his level of power. What's a third of it going to do?

 

[Esquilax]

This is a simple hit-and-run, didn't say anything about us dogfighting. Can we plausibly be forced into combat by their local defenses? Yes. Are we obliged to fight all of them? No.

It's anything but simple. Remember the fight against Marduk?

Something is wrong here. The black hole stops expanding, at a size far lesser than I had expected.

Then, it begins to shrink. As light begins to return to its normal path, I see what has happened. A dragon – an actual dragon – has the diminishing black hole clutched in its jaws. From this distance, the dragon itself must be a few hundred metres in length. My first thought was that they had been hiding some biological experiment onboard the flagship, but as the dragon somehow gulps down the black hole, shattering all assumptions I had about reality, I instinctively realize that this is the Great Devourer; the Dragon Emperor of the Mushuszu Empire himself.

The dragon swings its long, sleek head towards Anhur-Shu and opens its maw. With no warning, a blinding light pours forth; a beam of pure destruction. This is not something I can block. Rei brings us safely out of the way, but Titania behind us is not so lucky. The beam cores right through the moon, the energy of its impact shattering it into fragments.

Vajra prevented the black hole from simply swallowing him up, don't you think the superweapon will have similar abilities? Then once we're revealed, they'll be able to take aim at us. I don't think that this is as simple as: walk in, fire a black hole, instawin. Even if we get a shot off, that's hardly a guarantee that it'll take the structure out.

Oh, and good point about Ean's relationship with Vajra, you're right. I remember his encounter with the Master after his time in the rift now:

You nod. "You must be a friend of Zeus."

"Not exactly. He was in some ways, my superior. We have... had... a working relationship, but that is no concern of yours." He raises a gloved hand - in it you see the piece of Vajra that you had. You instantly realize that you no longer had any connection to it. It had been ripped away, unsettling your powers, but doing no major harm to your body.

 

[Baltika9]

Uh...

“The attack was launched by Project V… the Vajra Shula. It’s real form is a space weapon that fires faster-than-light blasts. The last I saw it, it had been moved to Carneus Beta. It is probably attacking us from that system. We were supposed to find three artifacts to complete the weapon, but it seems that two of them have been lost for good with the Dragon Emperor. With some tinkering, we have managed to get it operational with one piece. It is not fully functional, lacking the shielding and teleportation abilities that the schematics suggested, and the main gun does not have the range or power that a complete Vajra Shula would. But it is still sufficient to destroy fleets, as you have seen. The specialized drone acts as a targeting module for the cannon and relays the FTL signal. The speed is instantaneous at these distances.”

What shield?

 

[Kayerts]

A few things to think about for this vote:

1. Treave mentioned that Carneus Beta was the League's most fortified system, even more than Gelmark.
2. Since the 20 space fortresses in Gelmark weren't mentioned in the battle, it seems safe to assume they're gone. (Edit: Esquilax already pointed this out.) They probably went toward making Carneus Beta even stronger.

Carneus Beta is really, really well-defended right now. The League's dug in and will be attempting to shell us from there for the duration of the war.

I'd suggest a modified A1, a super-rad stealth mission. We ask for a deity / high-level spirit on loan from our imperial allies, have him cloak us like Adrahasis did with his 10k ships, warp in solo, move into position, and obliterate Carneus B with our Stupidity Cannon. We'll take out their superweapon, their fortresses, Delta, and any other forces they have stationed there.

 

[treave]

Where in the cockpit do you plan on stuffing him?

 

[Smashing Axe]

I can't remember whether shapeshifting powers work on others, but if they do...

Shapeshift the stealth Spirit into a chiwawa for the interim.

 

[Storyfag]

Can't he come with us in a ship of his own and cloack us both?

 

[treave]

Why not just bring the head?

If you want to have enough energy to fire the cannon and escape in such short time you don't want to have to carry the ship with you. And the Federation cruisers need a week to recharge.

 

[Kayerts]

Or, if he's particularly attached to his neck, we could just strap him to the outside of the CF. It's not like he can mess up our aerodynamics or anything.
Sneaking another bro in is the easy part of this plan, I think.

 

[treave]

Having him on the outside of a wormhole jump might not be ideal for the chap. Just saying. At any rate, I'm feeling rather lenient, so I'll hint for you guys to check out the basis for their cloaking powers first.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Well, that’s our last head-in-jar checkpoint.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE MODE!


B1 - Link up with Ean for the warning, then wait and jump the fleet.

Also, this would have been so much easier had we simply surrendered and used the bomb.

edit: You know what, this whole timeline is probably going to result in a loss anyway: A1

 

[TOME]

Well, that’s our last head-in-jar checkpoint.

They have a superweapon, so what? We'll just cloak Grimrock's ship and use it for ramming and take out enemy flagships before the battle begins.

On a more serious note, the league is expecting us to make our way to carneus beta, solo or not. They'll be defending it with all they got. The problem is, if we wait for beta and gamma to arrive, they'll defend the systems leading to carneus beta just like delta did, getting free shot at us in every system. So we need to take out the superweapon as soon as possible. So either A1 or teaming up with Ean and bringing the whole fleet to take out the superweapon.

Because this is anime and we cannot die, A1.

 

[Kayerts]

Treave is being a true bro and hinting that we should rethink my brilliant plan to solo the enemy fortress system like a ninja; I guess this isn't really anime. Still, the flaw in the plan's not leaping out at me. Anyone else want to try to diagnose the problem?

I'm feeling rather lenient, so I'll hint for you guys to check out the basis for their cloaking powers first.

Cloaking powers are implied to be related to invisibility, which is known to be a form of light-bending. Would the problem be that visible light only includes a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and thus a technology that prevents detection through light might leave us exposed to other frequencies (e.g., radio waves)? Although I'm not clear how Adrahasis got the drop on Senya if cloaking is that limited.

 

[Baltika9]

Maybe because the scanners and radars that actually pick up enemy ships and CFs work off of electromagnetic signals/heat signatures/etc and not physical visibility.

If you want a real stealth mission, we'd be better served by masking those signatures.

I don't know why you'd want to do that, though. Once we fire our ridiculously big gun, we wan't to be as far from the shitstorm as possible. Firing it point-blank sounds like a bad idea, bro.

 

[Kayerts]

Agree about wanting to be far away, but if we can cloak, we can maneuver into a position that gives us a perfect shot. (Which will presumably be easier without hundreds of thousands of ships and millions of drones swarming us.) If the enemy doesn't realize they're under attack, they won't be able to attempt countermeasures against our black hole shot until it's too close for countermeasures to matter.

(Maybe the process of charging up a shot emits too much electromagnetic radiation to mask?)

 

[Esquilax]

Baltika9, I forgot about that. I guess the reason that Marduk was able to withstand a hit from a black hole is because he had two pieces? Is that right, treave?

Treave is being a true bro and hinting that we should rethink my brilliant plan to solo the enemy fortress system like a ninja; I guess this isn't really anime. Still, the flaw in the plan's not leaping out at me. Anyone else want to try to diagnose the problem?

Well, a few things could go really badly: (1) we're hitting a wormhole to get to Carneus Beta, so the potential for Master fuckery intercepting us is there - this is how our previous meeting occurred, after all. (2) Alpha Armada might be there, in which case we are royally fucked. If they are still on their way to Carneus Beta, we're golden. I would say that at the very least, that this is a reasonable spot for Epsilon to be and the lack of fortresses here implies that they've been moved to Carneus Beta. (3) If you're really paranoid, Mere could be lying or misinformed about some things. I don't think she is, but there might be more to this.

I don't know, I just find the nature of this mission too high-risk and too greedy. I'm not opposed to taking risks at all, but trying to hit their most well-defended system solo when they are expecting us to arrive there at some point is well... insane. I'd much rather regroup with Ean's force and work around Project V for the time being using our newfound knowledge - there are other ways. They might not be 100% reliable, but we can adjust our tactics accordingly, and we've still got our own superweapon hidden, to boot.

 

[Baltika9]

Guys, don't over-think this. We are a pitch-black, thirty foot tall object in the void of the cosmos. I don't think visual visibility is an issue. Sure, if there are ways to shield us from radars and scanners, I'm all for it.

But a lone, unidentified signature at the edge of their most fortified system is more likely to be treated as an anomaly that warrants investigation and not "OH SHI- FIRE FIRE FIRE!" if these guys are anything at all like a professional army/navy/whatever. For all they know, it may be the friendlies coming in. All we need is time to line up our shot and we're outta there. I don't want to be anywhere near this place when our black holes collide.

 

[Esquilax]

But a lone, unidentified signature at the edge of their most fortified system is more likely to be treated as an anomaly that warrants investigation and not "OH SHI- FIRE FIRE FIRE!" if these guys are anything at all like a professional army/navy/whatever. For all they know, it may be the friendlies coming in. All we need is time to line up our shot and we're outta there. I don't want to be anywhere near this place when our black holes collide.

That makes it worse. They would immediately be suspicious of a lone signal, because if it were friendlies coming in, there would be a whole fleet of them, not a lone signal out on the edge of space. Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov?

Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start

treave even mentioned this before:

If a lone CF that's larger than usual, clearly a custom model, looking totally badass and awesome with gravity wings, is out front alone fiddling with something you don't know, and the battleships are all safely behind trying to shoot down anything that comes near him...

No, I don't think that works out as a distraction for Senya. He'll get focused upon by so many beams that he'll be swimming in particles.

There'll be an way option for the cannon to be used, and it's my job to make that happen in a reasonable way since the choice has been picked, but that definitely isn't it.

We shouldn't immediately be resorting to these insane plans right off the bat. Let's look for alternatives before going on a fool's errand into Carneus Beta on our own.

 

[Baltika9]

Bro, what I'm saying is this: we don't need much time in the system. Identify and acquire target -> charge and shoot and make the shot -> GTFO.

Unless we accidentally teleport into the center of their fortresses, they will need time to: notice the appearance of a small signature on their radar-> notify a patrol/hail us (identify yourself or be fired upon)-> get a response-> aim and fire.

And it's risky, yes, but even then:
Anhur-Shu is specialized for mobility/survivability.
Senya's and Rei's skills at dodging are supernatural.
A target the size of Anhur'Shu will be extremely difficult to hit from a distance.
All we need is one shot.
Senya and Rei are awesome at these things.

I'd be down for consolidating and regrouping, if we weren't sitting ducks. We know about their cannon. But the know that we know, too. They'll be smarter in employing it now, too.
Yes, it's hella risky, but the bottom line is: risk, or the lives of our men are in danger. Ean and Shulgi help us if that cannon nicks our bomb (oh wait, they can't do shit).

And the whole point of declaring the war, instead of taking an elite crew to the Masters' dimension, was to get as big an invasion fleet into their dimension as possible, no?

 

[ScubaV]

A1. A2 and A3 just waste precious time. And I don't like just letting the super weapon go uncontested with any B choice. Once word gets out that we know about the super weapon, the Council will not only make efforts to protect it even more, they also will have nothing stopping them from firing it every cooldown. They don't have to hide it any more. Yes A1 is risky, but it's also the only real choice as I see it. I'd rather have to contend with Alpha alone right now, than Alpha + every other fleet and dwindled numbers on our side from free super weapon pot shots.

treave, what is the rest of our force going to do if we jump in solo?

 

[treave]

Yup, EM manipulation. When we're charging up the Cannon you might as well ask him to hide the sun. From a gravity well perspective, I mean. The amount of energy going into creating those black holes and keeping them under control is rather big. The gravity wings alone is too much tech trickery for him to compensate for. Basically, they can't cloak you at all when you use any of your fancy tech. Any attempt at shifting the EM is overpowered by the black holes.


Since the jump is almost instantaneous for you the fleet is not going to do anything but repair and hope you make it back in one piece.

The reason the Emperor managed to respond to the first hit in time was because of the Vajra shield.

 

[Kayerts]

But assuming we just use our standard propulsion systems upon entry into the system, we can position ourselves ideally before we decloak, no?

 

[treave]

You don't have a standard reactor in the first place, but I can handwave that away. This still means you have to cloak after entering the system because a wormhole is nothing if not fancy tech.

Also, the question arises of whether there is an ideal position in the first place, considering the sheer number of fortifications you're up against. Since you can't cloak while you're charging up the weapon, I don't really see the point. But perhaps there's a plan for that.

Speaking of which, A1 appears to be winning rather handily - and now it has - so you guys can spend the next... 8 hours or so discussing just how you're going to handle Carneus Beta. If something convincing pops up that'd be swell.

I mentioned before that going in and blowing up Gelmark's forts with your super cannon isn't going to be that simple, even with the backing of a fleet. Now we take away the allied fleet and add a lot more defenses. Hm, I'm sure that tactic will be viable now...

It's a pity you don't have a map of the system's fortifications, though since they're movable it would be a bit pointless, don't know the exact number of forces you'll be facing and don't know the full extent of Vajra Shula's capabilities, as Mere admitted she doesn't have the full details. There's no guarantee that you won't come out right on top of their fortifications. The big sensor arrays mounted on fortresses would have better range and accuracy than that of a dinky mech. Also, they're not going to waste time asking that mysterious fellow what just popped out of nowhere to identify themselves. Why would they? You approach Carneus Beta without an IFF, you will be blown up. Any one who's supposed to be here knows the codes to be here.