Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

"SS"? Ok, I agree with you the German Imperial Eagle is a beautiful sign in itself but getting the Nazi elite military police into this.....? I know it's bound to be something military-ish, but still using "SS" as an acronym for a military organization is not considered kosher in most of the Norther Hemisphere..... still, nice story.

edit: [removed]

edit2: Removed the site, as it was superfluous and in German.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

As stated earlier I mean no offense by this what so ever, the "SS" in this story simply stands for "State Security" and is in no way related to the Nazi "SS" which was in fact made up of two branches, one of which was little more then a bunch of criminals Hitler freed and allowed to "serve the fatherland".
The Icaran SS do wear black uniforms but that's mainly because the other colors are taken http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif they are not military forces or the sadistic SOBs that the Nazi SS was, and in fact they are the Icaran police force.
I initially decided to call the SS the SSB "StateSec Brigades" but decided that that may in fact offend some Russian folks who though i based that on the "FSB".

Let's face it there are a LOT of modern organizations with security involved that would probobly involve the initials SS "Secret Service anyone?" and simply going after them based on the letters is a little odd imho, especialy since the Icarans are from a parallel history where the Nazi party was a minor rebellion that was squashed brutally.

Oh and btw there are Stormtroopers involved and I will admit that they are based on their German WWI counterparts, the elite and brave soldiers who charged the trenches and launched special assaults on targets regular units could not.
NOT the pre-WWII "brown shirts" who were little more then thugs and punks and ruined the rather honorable history of the true German Stormtroopers.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2428 was a busy year for the Icaran Empire, as the first carrier ever built by the Royal Space Navy boosted into orbit over Icara her name was HMS Hallice after the Grand Admiral of the RIN as a last parting tribute to the honored hero before he stepped down as Grand Admiral and left the position to Admiral Lady Tanya Bright.
The months went by and the carrier completed her shakedown cruise with flying colors, once she reentered Icara orbit the massive carrier met up with her fighter wing, which consisted of a full wing of the newest Bullshark attack bombers, each one capable of carrying multiple “baby nuke” missiles that could destroy either a ship or planet with equal speed and brutality.
In the meanwhile Yu Lin Ross was promoted to full Rear Admiral status and given supreme command of the Five Swords of Heaven in the name of God and Country, Sandra Fowler found herself on the end of a promotion as well as she was promoted to squadron commander (Commodore) within the home fleet.

Five Swords Strike:
Rear Admiral Lady Yu Lin Ross sat comfortably in her command chair, located in the massive Flag Bridge of the Sword of Icara flagship of the vaunted Five Swords of Heaven fleet, and one of the five most powerful starships ever created by any known empire human or Xeno alike, and those five gods of war were even now closing on their first target of conquest, the Neo-Star colony of Torque IV, the single Neo-Star ship in the system had proven to be a lowly colony ship and unfortunately for their 36 million refugees their crew was to stupid to yield and Sword of Wrath burned through its unarmored hull with ease and destroyed the colony ship with a single I-laser. Lin like most Icaran officers didn’t enjoy killing millions of civilians with such casual violence but they knew their duty and those civilians could have just fled to another world within Icaran territory and built up yet another colony, and that simply could not be allowed.
“Admiral, we are closing on target, 3 LS and falling.” the tactical officer’s voice announced crisply as he watched the master plot in front of him.
“Thank you tactical, inform Sword of Wrath that she will lead the strike on the planet to unload her storm troopers while we cover. Lin yearned to be back aboard Wrath instead of aboard the fleet flagship, even though her current station was far more prestigious and glorious the Wrath had been hers and now she’d watch that same ship go into battle without her.
“Aye Ma’am.” The tac officer’s crisp calm voice jarred Lin away from her train of thoughts, she un-strapped her shock harness and casually walked over to the massive holotank that displayed the entire system, it was something so marvelous and so large a dreadnought’s captain could only dream of it, yet in battle it was rather useless as it was a system wide display and not “local” to within the ranges a battle normally took place. Her expression became more tense as she filed away a mental note that ever other colony in this system belonged to the Sol Coalition, and worse still they had 2 battleships in system, and no doubt they were all watching the Icarans launch their strike against Torque IV with more then a little passive interest. She was certain that her ships could easily overcome any Solaran defenses in system but the truth was that they could possibly get a message out to their coalition as a whole and inform them of Icara’s actions, and no matter how confident the Admiralty was Lin was just not sure that the RIN could handle a war with the Solars, Neos and Anderman, and that was all excluding the fact that Royal Navy ship shad also intercepted and destroyed Remorhazian super monitors in Icaran space since the sealing and God only knew what would happen if the Remorhaz People’s Republic got word of that little tidbit.
“Admiral Wrath reports that she is being engaged by planetary defenses, all are those weird *** energy cannons their ships mount, only a lot bigger.” the tactical officer spoke calmly yet the tension in his voice spoke volumes, and as Lin watched her secondary plot she knew why he was so tense, the amount of fire those Neo weapon platforms were throwing into space would have been enough crush a dreadnought, or even a superdreadnought but the massive Flag monitor’s shields held without even burn through, and Lin felt her breath return for a moment, that was at least until two main cannons aboard Wrath came to life suddenly, their beams lashing out toward the planet like some mystical beast, the impact on the planet was visible even from this far out as the massive dust ring and brilliant flash indicated the destruction of the enemy weapon platforms, the atmospheric eruption that loosely an old Terran tornado signaled the destruction of the surrounding domed city along with millions o lives, Lin felt that familiar lump in her throat even as she watched the display signal the deployment of dozens of dropships carrying the 3,000 storm troopers of the “Death Wings” formation to their targets on the surface, one of which was a single weapon platform that had managed to survive the orbital strike.
As the hours passed Lin listened to the com chatter of the storm trooper forces and found herself shocked at just how quickly they were overpowering the planetary defense forces, even though the neostar PDF wouldn’t have stood a chance against a regular army Regiment it was still humbling to hear just how fast they were swept aside by the storm troopers.
There had still been a lot of armed resistance even after the Planetary Defense force had been wiped out, but with their disorganized “concerned citizens” these pockets of resistance were either forced to surrender or were crushed outright by the brutal efficiency of the advancing Icaran soldiers and in under two hours the world had been totally pacified and claimed in the name of God and country, but Lin knew in her heart that this was just the beginning and that once the “Final Crusade” began her fleet and the normal navy and army units would be deployed against proper military forces in numbers and then it was going to get very very ugly.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

The New Year:
The admiralty building loomed like an ancient fortress in Icara city, it’s ancient looking stone construction lent it a look of authority and majesty that was second only to that of the mini-city that was the Praetorian Palace within the empire. A large formation of soldiers and tanks wearing the symbol of the “Praetor’s Own” oversized regiment ringed the admiralty in as much a show of authority as an actual security force, for any Icaran knew that wherever the Praetor went his elite oversized regiment assigned units to go with him, and today the showing was impressive as 1,000 soldiers and 100 tanks blocked all possible entrances to the building they surrounded, their glittering red, gold and black armor of the elite shining brilliantly in the Icaran sun.
Inside the building another 50 “Praetorians“ stood watch beside their regular army comrades to ensure that absolutely nothing could harm their Praetor while he met with some of the military‘s most prominent officers..

The massive holotank displayed the entire Empire, but two systems in particular flashed a golden hue as Grand Admiral Tanya Bright highlighted the home system and another system near the fringe where there had once been a border warp point to Sol Coalition space. The other officers present included Commandant of the Marines Patrick Harris, Star Admiral Tyson Babcock, Commodore Liza Adair, and General of the Army Lucas Bradly, the Praetor sat quietly with his chief advisor Countess Brandenburg Percilla Torry next to him, unfortunately Ambassador Lord Michael Branch, the leader of the so called “Peace Movement“ sat watching as well. As the systems on the map began to glow and Tanya Bright cleared her throat all eyes in the gigantic room focused on her.
“Praetor, lords ladies, colleagues these are the locations of our two major fleet formations, the 5th fleet under Rear Admiral Patrick Raley and the Home Fleet under Star Admiral Tyson Babcock as you can see the 5th fleet would take about a year to reach home system from it’s current location, unless we open a warp point to it and bring the entire fleet home.” Bright let that thought sink in for a moment before she began speaking again.
“Star Admiral Babcock and I have spoken in depth about the deployment of our forces and their effect on the plans for the Andermanian crusade and we’ve come up with an idea, As his Majesty and My Lordships know when we open the warp point from home system to the targeted enemy system we will not be able to close that warp point again for years due to the spatial disturbances that would be caused by such an action, since the amount of power required to generate such a long distance warp point is tremendous to begin with.” Her slow confident soprano echoed in the empty hall as she highlighted and focused the map onto a single star system, Lacerta the former Rebel Alliance capital system.
“What Babcock and I propose is that instead of us using a single deployment position and committing our entire mobile fleet to one point-specifically home system- we order 5th fleet and Shaman Squadron to rendezvous in Lacerta, where there is already a warp point ship waiting, if we can do this that will put 13 ships of the line together, and with your permission Praetor we were going to detach one of the army regiments from home fleet and instead give it to 5th fleet so that we can….” her sentence was cut off as a far less calm, and far less polite voice boomed over hers.
“That is preposterous! What you suggest is deploying the vast bulk of our military away from the entire Empire and sending them all on some wild goose chase into Anderman space, well My Lady” the title came out bitterly and Bright noticed with some odd amusement that the Marine Commandant tensed visibly as if he was about to pound the man who just spoke into a puddle of slime. “What if they get wise and realize we don’t have any ships left defending our space? Hmmm? What if they dispatch a fleet to attack us we’d be leaving a door wide open to the two most important systems in this empire!” Branch nearly spat his last sentence, but he remained staring at the Grand Admiral defiantly; the “ambassador” and his followers had started popping up about two I-years after the Phong crusades had ended claiming that “God had chosen them to bring peace to the Empire at last.”
And since then have been becoming more and more of a pain in the ***. Bright thought as she saw the rude nasty little man standing, practically demanding she play his game like so many other officers-unfortunately her predecessor among them- would have done, but she simply refused and stood perfectly relaxed as she stared at Branch, watching as his face further reddened.
“Well aren’t you going to say something!” he practically shouted, every eye in the room was now on him and he knew it but what he didn’t seem to ever comprehend was the disgust in those eyes.
“Actually my Lord, I was going to say before I was distracted that this two pronged offensive will ultimately prove safer for us, as it will give our front line forces 2 places to fall back to should there be any unforeseen problems, and it will also give us the ability to put 2 entire branches of our empire’s military production to work and get said units on the lines where the fighting is far faster then if we just used home system and attempted to route every ship here. As my lord may not know but that can take up quite a lot of time.” The Grand Admiral kept her voice calm and cold, as if she were addressing an impatient child rather then a Lord.
“Well there you have it Grand Admiral.” Branch’s voice grew venomous and quiet as if he had just won some sort of victory, he paused a moment to savor the feeling and then turned to the Praetor “My Praetor, as the Admiral has just pointed out, launching an Attack from just the Home System would indeed be too dangerous, but as she also just said we would be opening two of our three major regions of our empire open to invasion, and not just one system my lord but several would likely pay the ultimate price before any reinforcements could be drawn back home, and what if…God forbid of course….something accidentally happened and our warp points were sealed off, our poor military personnel would be trapped on the other side for decades before we could even reopen those warp points, it is my belief we should just remain happy with what we have and not leave to engage others and bring unimportant people‘s into our empire.” The Ambassador bowed politely and returned to his seat, an arrogant smirk on his face, but after a moment Praetor Leonidas simply nodded curtly and turned to face the Grand Admiral again.
“As you were saying My Lady.” he said softly, ignoring the sudden white rage that crossed Branch’s face.
“Well my Lord the ambassador’s arguments would have been valid if it were not for the fact that we will not be sending the warp ships through with the fleet as we first intended, instead we will deploy them to two reserve fall back systems in the event that we absolutely must seal the warp points in Home System and Lacerta, so no matter what we will be able to bring our military forces back home should the need arise.” her smile was outwardly nothing but polite but anyone who knew her realized that it was also a predatory smile, one of satisfaction as she knew one of her enemies had just fallen into his own snare.
“Very well Grand Admiral, but I must ask, what kind of forces are we talking about here? And how do you plan on keeping pace with the Anderman being that they outnumber us 2 or 3 to 1? Especially since we will in fact need additional ships as our operations grow broader, not to mention protecting home system and Lacerta.” The Praetor said softly making sure not to give any hint of giving ground to Branch as Lord only knew how far that man could run with it.
“Well Highness right now we have 97 ships of the line in home fleet plus 6 additional super dreadnoughts coming in under designation Delta an Epsilon groups, we also have 4 army regiments totaling 16,000 ground troops and 1600 tanks stationed with Home Fleet, with permission I would divert 1 regiment to 5th fleet, putting 5th fleet’s strength at 13 ships of the line, 4,000 ground troops, and 400 tanks.” She paused a moment and shrugged “To be honest Highness this operation will take up most of our military strength, but I would also like to recall Hallice carrier group from their assaults behind enemy lines, and of course the Five Swords and bring them in to protect Lacerta and Home System respectively, and when the Nimitz carriers are complete I will assign them to assist Hallice and the Five Swords.” Tanya bright paused once more and allowed the situation to sink in.
“Grand Admiral, that will indeed be a problem in the long term if we can not bring our ship tonnage up, and more importantly localize those forces were we require.” Commodore Liza Adair of NavInt spoke up this time, her tone was soft and respectful as she glared at the holotank. “The way I see it our shipyards with adequate work forces are too few and far between and that will become a major problem for us as our crusade expands.” she frowned again and was more then a bit surprised to see Tanya’s eyes twinkle.
“Commodore you have addressed the one problem I was hoping someone would, thank you, and you are correct presently our shipyards with any quality in manpower and more importantly numbers of workers are too few and far between and though that is changing it will still take far too long for enough of our shipyards to go into full capacity to affect the outcome of our present operation, not to mention travel times between our major yards. Fortunately Tyson Babcock and Bureau of Design were able to come up with something to help us there. Tyson?” She smiled as the younger man rose from his chair and placed a chip into the information feed of the holotank.
“Thank you Grand Admiral.” He said politely as the screen behind him lit with the schematics of a massive space station.
“Highness, Lords, Ladies, Mister Branch, I give you the HMSS Lexington, she is 36 kilometers long, 10 wide, and 3.9 high, and her purpose is to increase our production capacity while simultaneously increasing our stationary defenses, in short she is a heavily armed orbital shipyard and unlike planetary yards she can produce even a super dreadnought in four months, no matter what type of world she orbits or how large it’s populace, the way she is able to do this is because she will not have to worry about boosting the ship from a grav well or the atmosphere she is working in, unlike planetary yards which obviously do.” Tyson Babcock smiled broadly as he observed the stunned expressions on his colleagues faces, and the fuming expression on Branch’s.
“They also are heavily armed with the latest shield grids, point defenses, and I-Laser cannons which will no doubt provide heavy fire support should enemy ships breach our system.”
“How soon can you have them on-line Star Admiral, and when will the first ships be completed?” Liza Adair asked, obviously excited by the prospect of a new way to catch up in numbers to the Anderman and Mantis.
“Well Commodore we can have the first several yards on-line in eight months, most of the others in nine, and the very slowest in a year, the first super dreadnoughts will roll of the lines in twelve months, and as more yards become operational more ships will come off the lines.” Tyson’s smile changed into a grin as he saw the Intelligence officer’s expression turn positively glowing.
“And just how much MONEY is this going to cost the tax payers?! And how much valuable resources?” Branch spoke up again, trying to sound calmer this time but his anger was still apparent.
“Well mister Branch, the initial construction costs will be rather high, at 3.2 trillion Icaran Crowns, and as for resources we haven’t quite compiled that data yet, however we do know that our economy can easily handle both the cost in credits and in resources, our hardest problem will be getting enough trained yard dogs willing to work in orbital conditions.”
“Well then Grand Admiral Bright, Star Admiral Babcock let’s get down to it, put the drafts on my desk by lunchtime today and I will have them approved so you can begin construction immediately, I will also authorize your military plans.” The Praetor said in a surprisingly friendly tone as he rose from his seat and walked up to shake the military officer’s hands in turn, his guards staying just behind him the whole time.
“Thank you Highness, I’m sure we can get the personnel issue worked and initial deployment strategies by then.” Grand Admiral Bright said as she smiled and shook her Praetor’s hand firmly.

An hour Later Liza Adair briefed Praetor Leonidas in private of a top secret NavInt discovery, several Anderman soldiers had been captured alive from the 4 super dreadnoughts that had been found and destroyed by Icaran patrols and something most disturbing had turned up in their physicals, it appeared that the Anderman genetically enhanced their military forces, though for what purpose Icaran scientists still hadn’t discovered.
Even though this discovery was top secret Count 6-11 (Kevin Richards) a powerful man tied to the “Peace Movement” had somehow gotten word of it, and immediately turned the resources of his company “Delta Corp” to the training of a private army, and fleet with which he could launch his own personal assault into the Anderman territories and capture a world or two as laboratories.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Another great chapter. The storyline is becoming quite interesting. I for one, enjoy it a lot and look forward to the next.

Finally someone's building space-based SY's that build faster than planet-based! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And the Anderman line is very curious indeed but what about that snake creature? Or am I getting too far ahead? Anyways, great stuff.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2429.5 The Anderman Crusade (C-Day +4):
Wa’Tor system
It was hard to believe it had only been four days since they opened the warp points back home, leading o the enemy systems of Wa’Tor and Zerrzinbroduch, for Star Admiral Tyson Babcock, commander 1st fleet the first three days had flown by so quickly that it was just a blur of memory, his fleet had slammed into Wa’Tor VI like a Spartan Kraken through a herd of Osalynxes, the defenses had fallen in under an hour and the army regiment took out the planetary defense militia in a single well coordinated strike.
Now the 1st fleet was closing in on it’s second target, Wa’Tor IV the second target on his three planet list for the opening stages of the crusade, the three worlds closest to the warp point were selected not only because of their proximity to the warp point but because it was believed that the system’s governor was on one of them.
“Admiral sir, I’m reading two starships in orbit of target planet.” Tactical Office Manroe’s voice cut into Babcock’s thoughts suddenly, and gave himself a mental shake.
“Say again tactical?” Captain Susevni said as he took a step forward to stand beside his resident tac officer.
“Sir I am reading two unidentified starships in orbit of planet Wa’Tor IV, I don’t recognize their power signatures or their configuration.”
“Admiral Babcock I’m getting a com signal from one of those ships.” The com officer looked up from her station and frowned.
“Put it through.” Babcock fixed his tunic collar and rose calmly from his command chair.
The main screen rippled from the view of the planet ahead to be replaced by the image of a man wearing the uniform of an unknown navy, the man’s face was like cut granite, a deep frown and ice blue eyes completed the intimidating appearance.
“I am Captain Tamerlane Smythe of the ECANS Vulture, I demand in the name of the Earth Corps Alliance that you turn your fleet around and leave this system, failure to comply will result in hostile actions.” The man’s voice was calm and cold, startling Babcock with such a foolish demand two ships against 97 ships of the line, but if that captain was willing to make such a demand could a fleet be hidden somewhere?
Babcock managed to keep his expression completely blank as he looked at the man on his screen.
“Captain, I’ve never even heard of the so called Earth Corps Alliance, nor do I care what you want or believe, there are two of your ships battleships against my dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts, you don’t stand a chance, now get out of our way.” The Icaran Admiral’s tone was subdued and almost respectful. Captain Smythe kept his own expression perfectly blank as he stared back at Babcock, those piercing blue eyes scanning the other man.
“Don’t you think for one moment Icaran that I will yield to you, I’ve studied history, we all have, we know what you were like when you ruled most of Earth, and we’ll be damned before we let you rule over any more worlds then those you have already subjugated.” This time Smythe’s voice held a deep resentment, and Babcock’s curiosity turned to anger, whoever these Earth Corps people were they obviously descended from a nation that Icara had conquered back in the days of old Earth and obviously that hatred had lasted for 400 years, but for a man who commanded two inferior ships to take on almost a hundred enemy ships was either very brave or very stupid, either way it was somewhat frightening.
“Birds in the air!” the shout cut through the air like a knife and barely a split second later the alarms started howling in response to the threat.
“Sir counter missiles responding!” The tac officer whirled around to face Babcock as the holo-tank lit to show a spread of dozens of tiny missiles closing the gap, unlike the incoming enemy missiles the counter missiles the Icarans were launching carried no warheads, but instead relied on inertial force to tear the enemy missiles apart and thus were much smaller then their targets.
As the two lines of dots converged on one another Babcock took a deep breath, those missiles couldn’t much hurt a warship but they could easily kill the troop ship the were closing in on if any of them got through, the two lines that represented the missiles and counter missiles became one for a brief instant on screen and in an instant winked out, Babcock watched his the main screen as several brilliant flashes lit space.
“Fleet, permission to retaliate, open fire!”
“Fleet, this is flag, loose weapons I repeat loose weapons.”
Babcock turned back to face the master plot as a single super dreadnought broke formation with the rest of the fleet and close the range with the two enemy ships, as the Superior‘s scopes zoomed in on the Despoiler closed the range with the two enemy battleships and turned her guns to face the enemy in a broadside, in a split second her port shields dropped and the entire portside arsenal was brought to bare on her targets, the green beams tore into the enemy’s shields and armor like they were nothing, and a split second after that two balls of expanding fire and wreckage were all that remained of two battleships and 4,000 lives.
Wa’Tor IV fell just as quickly, though they put up quite a tougher fight then the two ECA ships in space had, and 40 soldiers of the 1st Icaran regiment would never return home because of it.
Wa’Tor X fell the very next day, however 80 soldiers of the 1st Brandenburg paid the price for their victory, as 100 enemy regulars had joined the fight with their Planetary Militia comrades.

Meanwhile, in the Zerrzinbroduch system:
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley and his fleet had destroyed Zerrzinbroduch VI in their first assault against the enemy system in revenge for the 500 soldiers of the 1st Germania that had been killed when their transport was hit by planetary Weapons systems and even now her skies burned with fire a symbol of Icaran wrath and might to the other worlds of Zerrzinbroduch, including the world that the fleet was currently approaching, designated Z 5 by the command staff of the 2nd fleet, her defenses were far more impressive then VI’s had been which meant that they were being far more careful on this approach, keeping the Patton far to the back of their formation.
“Admiral, we are entering enemy weapons range, in 35 seconds and our own in 60.” Commodore Timothy Marks frowned as he read the report, he was in command of the 4th Dreadnought division, the only dreadnought division presently within the 2nd fleet, Raley had the dreadnought division closing range with the enemy, while the SD division of the 2nd fleet protected the Transport.
“Admiral we are…..” The screen suddenly filled with static, cutting the commodore off mid-sentence.
“Dear lord in heaven!” The whisper sounded almost like a curse as the ship’s scopes suddenly focused in on the Raven as massive purple beams lashed out at her shields, within moments the shields flared out of existence and 5 beams raked across her hull, tearing out gouges of armor, and shields, a 6th beam raked across her unprotected shell, shattering weapons batteries along her with solar grav sail, the scopes zoomed further and Raley felt a twitch of nausea as he saw bodies sucked into the void.
God hopefully they were suited up. Raley thought a silent prayer as he turned to the master plot and saw the other 5 ships of the 4th DD close in to their own weapons range, the five mighty warships unleashed a devastating broadside and wiped the weapons platforms that had injured Raven from the surface with ease.
“Send in the ground troops, and deploy SAR teams to recover whatever personnel were spaced when Raven was hit.”
“Aye Admiral.” The com officer began relaying orders with the quiet professionalism that the Empire demanded from all it’s armed forces.

Three hours later:
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley sat in his day cabin, drinking a cup of coffee as he read various reports from his department heads, trying to ignore the quiet discomfort in his heart as he waited for the casualty lists to come in, the admittance alert buzzed softly and Raley forced himself to sit calmly.
“Come in.” he kept his voice level as he looked up from the flexi pad with the latest engineering reports on it.
Captain Susan Lap walked in slowly, holding the flexi pad in her hand almost as if it was a frail piece of ancient glass, she paused and braced to attention, the look in her eyes made Raley’s gut tense even further.
“What is it Susan?” he was surprised to hear that his voice was level, he had almost expected it to sound as upset as he felt.
“Sir, we have the casualty lists, we have 300 dead from Raven, that brings our total up to 800 so far, and sir…..one of those killed was Captain Martin Fielding.” Her voice cracked as the name forced it’s self from her lips.
Raley knew that Fielding and Lap had gone to the academy together, that they had served together on the destroyer Enterprise and the battle cruiser Midwinter and that they had both received their first commands, him with Raven and her the Terror only three weeks from one another.
“I’m so sorry Susan.” he stood and placed a consoling hand on the younger woman’s shoulder, as he took the casualty list from her.
“Thank you sir, um, I have to go back on watch to oversee the deployment of those work control parties that are going to oversee the construction of that new Shipyard station.” Raley nodded gently and watched her turn around and leave, they had all realized that there would be losses on this crusade, just as there had been on the Phong, Xiati crusades yet Raley despised the fact that he had lost so many to achieve so little, and wondered how many more lives he would lose before the crusade came to an end.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2429.2
“Hello all and welcome to Fleet Live I am Jane Semore reporting for IIN state channel 1 from the flag deck of HMS Raven as we approach Zerrzinbroduch I as the 2nd fleet continues it’s conquest of Anderman territories, this is the third target this month as two other worlds have already fallen to our valiant fleet!” The young reporter who was speaking was wearing the standard navy skintight vac suit with a sealed helmet but even with that it was obvious she was a beautiful woman, even for an era where any wealthy snob could get themselves a face mold done to make them pretty, and her light cheerful voice made even some of the old salt spacers smile as the passed by her. She and her three man crew had just arrived two days prior on an IIN yacht to get interviews with the crew of a “Division flagship” even while another camera crew and reporter team were interviewing members of the fleet flagship’s crew and likely doing the same thing with the 1st fleet.
“Sir three-zero seconds to enemy weapon range, flagship commands all ships to hold line of battle, and prepare a counter attack in three-seven seconds.” The voice came from off camera, causing Jane to turn and look.
“As you can hear we are just now closing on the target world, again for those viewers in the home system and in Lacerta this is a live transmission to be rebroadcast throughout the empire, we are unedited and I ask that you have all children leave the room immediately.” She smiled into the camera with a casual air, but in the privacy of her mind she was terrified as this was her first battlefield coverage ever, though she thought with little humor, at least I’m not the ground cameraman.
“Sir energy spike, we’ve been tagged!” the voice from off camera sounded more urgent causing Jane a visibly startled reaction, even she knew “being tagged” meant that an enemy weapons system was even now pointed at her ship.
“We’ve Got FLARE!” another voice spoke up from behind Jane, the man’s voice an icy eerie calm brought by military training and experience.
The Raven bucked and lurched as beam after beam slammed into her shields the young reporter managed to compose her voice and looked back into the camera.
“What you are seeing ladies and gentlemen is the result of heavy beam fire coming from the target world, I don’t know what kind of weapons they are but even this great dreadnought is being buffeted around under the fire and….”
‘Damn it! Shields gone, brace for impact!” the familiar off screen voice bellowed sharply as a thunder rolled through the ship, followed swiftly by damage alarms and screams.
“Oh God, ladies and gentlemen Raven’s been hit dead on, and….” an explosion tore into the bridge, tearing splinters out of the battle steel hull like it was wood, one such splinter struck the cameraman straight in the head, tearing the top of his head clean off, another splinter tore through Jane’s causing a spray of blood to erupt from the arteries it had struck, her sobbing agony visible as the camera continued to record.
“Abandon ship, all hands get out, someone get that reporter.” a voice commanded, but it was already too late another beam tore the entire port side of the ship open like a tin can, and a hissing sound brought the camera up to high speed, a brief scream was heard but as the camera was sucked clean out of the ship it caught the gruesome glimpse of a body being torn in half as it slammed into the rent hull.
By a fluke of nature the camera was spun around 360 degrees, bringing into full view the burning hulk that had once been an Icaran ship of the line, as well as dozens of bodies floating around it like a grotesque parody of an old earth shark and it’s cleaner fish. The screen quickly reverted back to the view of another woman, one Janet Cranston, the her face was pale and sick, and the sound of crying could easily be heard over the camera’s audio feeds.

“Oh God, Jane can you hear us? Jane please say something.” Janet’s voice cut like a knife, as the sorrow and fear expressed it’s self. “Jane please, say something…” she said once more before pausing and looking down at her folded hands, a tear streaking her face.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it seems…. we have witnessed a tragedy today, I’m sure the navy will do everything it can to recover survivors but from what we just saw…..” she paused once more as this time the tears started flowing openly ‘But as we just saw it looks as if the possibility of any survivors is low, please stay with us as we continue to cover this breaking news story….and please Pray for those souls who may have survived this disaster….I’m Janet Cranston and you are watching IIN state channel 1.” as the screen faded the sound of the popular reporter beginning to sob was heard for a split second, before the commercial break replaced it. Billions of people had just seen an entire starship, and a blossoming young reporter extinguished in a matter of moments and though the news would later come in that the 2nd fleet had conquered the enemy world and that the first fleet had taken three more in the cause of victory, the news was also broken with three stories of tragedy.
HMS Raven flagship of the 4th DN division had been destroyed and all hands had been lost, including one young reporter named Jane Semore who’s body was recovered later by SAR teams, she had been awarded the “Citizens Cross” in recognition of the price she paid to bring the people of Icara the news, her body was cremated and returned to her family, she is survived by her sisters, brother, mother and father who shall never forget their daughter.
Commodore Timothy Marks had also died that day and was posthumously awarded the “Guardian’s Sword for Valor” as were all 5000, other Icaran officers and ratings who had died with him.

HMS Neptune of the 1st fleet had also paid a high price for her efforts in achieving victory at Wa’Tor, she had moved in the way just in time to protect the troopship Rodger Young as several massive beams lashed out, in the process of protecting the troop ship she was rendered practically dead, unfortunately 3,000 of her crew were killed, including her entire bridge crew, and another 1,000 wounded. The dead were all awarded the “Guardian’s Sword’ and buried in space-those who could be found- to make maters worse Neptune was left behind by the 1st fleet as she was no longer capable of fighting, currently she is docked at the Wa’Tor I space yard undergoing repairs as replacement crew are brought through from Icara Home System.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2430.2 Heroes:
Admiral Flynn forced herself to remain calm and appear confident and relaxed as her SD division along with the rest of the main line of battle closed in on the ominous Ulda Frav IV, she as most of the other flag officers in the fleet were concerned over the fact that the atmosphere of this world was so thick and stormy that it was hard to tell what was on the surface, and the thought of leading her SD division into an unknown situation ate at her nerves like acid.
“Ma’am, if you keep worrying like that you’ll give yourself an ulcer.” A cheerful teasing voice said from behind the flag officer, a thin smile crossed Flynn’s face as she turned around to face her Flag captain, Rukia Fujita was part of the first generation born on the colony of Sparta and looked every inch the Spartan girl, she was well muscled yet still enviously built, medium height for the empire and her face bore what had become a traditional tattoo, the teardrop just below her left eye was something everyone in her generation had been branded with upon birth, it symbolized that those who had died in the process of colonizing Sparta and defending the empire in her name would never be forgotten, Fujita also had that rugged Spartan attitude that was unsurprising for a world where just about everything on the surface was trying to kill you, Flynn often wondered if there was anything that would make Fujita nervous beyond men, and forced herself to hide a grin at the thought: Rukia Fujita was only 25 Icaran years old and had been part of the navy since she was 15, in just ten years she had proven herself countless times, and risen through the ranks with astounding speed and competence, her current command was received after a promotion from Sailing master for her heroic actions during the “Valhalla Incident” where the Blackbird had almost been overrun by mutated creatures of some sort, she faced all the dangers of the universe with a grim self assurance that would earn her a place among the best flag officer’s in the navy some day, yet for all that she still blushed and got flustered whenever men paid her good looks and nice figure any attention.
“Well if I do get an ulcer Rukia, I’ll just get Sanders to fix it for me, then I can go right back to worrying.” Flynn smiled at her flag officer for a moment before returning her view to the Flag bridge’s main plot. Technically Rukia should have been on the main bridge but for a reason even Flynn wasn’t sure of she had a gut feeling that made her reassign the captain to the flag deck instead, leaving Commander Orland in command of the main bridge.
“Admiral, we are closing on target, weapons range in 5 minutes.” Tactical officer Han’ cleared his throat in an attempt to hide his own nerves, but Flynn knew him to well and nodded with a reassuring smile.

“Admiral, sir we are closing on target, weapons range for main line of battle, 3 minutes and counting, Admiral Flynn reports that left flank is ready, all other commands report green across the board.” The communications officer reported from the main bridge’s com section.
“Thank you, order main line to accelerate and close the range at 50 gravities.” Babcock’s grim expression hid the fact that his stomach was a ball of raw nerve, he hated the situation, going in on a world who’s defenses were a total unknown, it wasn’t a good situation at all and the memory of the loss of Lord Nelson still haunted him.

“Flag, orders main line to accelerate to five-zero gravities, weapons range on enemy world in one minute at that speed.” Commander Orland relayed the order from the main bridge, as Flynn and Fujita watched the main plot, The only reason Babcock would order the fleet to accelerate is if he was afraid that if they went in at their current 1/3rd speed they’d be under fire for too long, that means he’s worried. Flynn thought to herself as she watched the distances close.
It was only thirty seconds later that it happened, a single light flare was seen on the main plot, before the massive volley of beams lashed out at the Tyrant herself, it had all happened s fast Flynn barely managed to bark out an order to brace before her body was turned into so much bloody wreckage as the flag bridge was shattered by a beam spray. A peace of shrapnel cut Fujita’s left arm clean off, but her scream of agony was cut short as another piece of wreckage slammed into her chest, crushing her ribcage and sending one of her ribs through her left lung, as the flag bridge depressurized Rukia Fujita heard the gurgling screams and brief shouts of agony from other officers who were killed in horrible ways as wreckage flew about the flag bridge like darts, even in her agony Rukia caught a glimpse of Lieutenant cutler being cut in half by a massive splinter as he ran for the bridge doors, the same splinter that killed him hurtled into Spacer 1st class Darwin slicing his throat open with horrible ease.
After what seemed an eternity Rukia felt her body go weightless and noticed that she was being pulled clear of the wreckage, another sharp pain cut through her like fire however as another shard of wreckage severed her right leg at the knee, then darkness took her.

“Dear God!” Someone on the flag deck swore angrily as the brilliant blue flash on Tyrant broke her apart like a toy, a second brilliant flash followed hurling wreckage and bodies away from the once mighty super dreadnought. Cairo too was hit, her shields were brought down in short order and half her armament was turned to wreckage and shrapnel.
“Silence!” someone else barked out, though they had just witnessed a horrible action in real time and at close enough range that they actually saw the ship die instead of just a simple light code winking out on a display, they were still Icaran spacers and discipline must be retained no matter what.
“Report now tactical!” Babcock’s mind raced back to the real world as he recognized the voice that had barked the order, Captain Michael Susevni’s firm baritone cut through the speaker’s in the flag bridge like a cold wind, and for the brief moment he had to think Babcock remembered how grateful he was for having an officer like Susevni on his ship.
“Sir, HMS Rodger Young is almost in position to drop troops, the 14th SD Division is moving to cover her, main line of battle is in weapons range in thirty seconds.” Babcock, heard the other stations replying, as the situation began to organize it’s self, but he still couldn’t shake a sinking feeling that something was still very wrong.
“Firing line achieved, all commands report firing solutions on enemy platforms.”
“Order all commands to open fire!” Babcock barked the order with more feeling then he had intended but that hardly mattered as his screen came to life, two SD Divisions of the 1st fleet’s main line of battle for this operation all opened fire simultaneously, unfortunately the planetary defenses got off another single volley and HMS Cairo vanished in a ball of flame and wreckage which started almost immediately burning up in the atmosphere of the enemy world, HMS Despoiler took several direct hits but her shields managed to hold somehow, barely saving her from the same fate of Cairo.
“Rodger Young is in drop position Admiral!” Captain Susevni’s voice strained over the com line.
“Drop troops, all ships cease fire!” Babcock’s mind raced as his ship’s scopes zoomed in on the troop transport containing the 1st Icara regiment, just as his weapons ceased fire the troop ship accelerated to 150 gravities and hurled loose over 360 drop ships as she raced clear of the planet’s atmosphere to prevent being destroyed like the two far stronger SD’s that had gone before her.

As planetary weapons fire was shifted from the fleet to the dropships, 4 vanished in small balls of flame and wreckage before they were even able to enter the atmosphere, the rest made it to the surface at 12 gee’s and unleashed the wrathful soldiers of the 1st Icaran in a single cohesive wave of destruction, unfortunately 40 more soldiers died as they dome city fell to the army, bringing the total army casualties up to 80 for this operation, but finally the remaining weapons platform fell silent and the warships in orbit were safe, Babcock immediately dispatched SAR teams though he honestly held out no hope of finding any survivors from the disastrous destruction of Cairo and Tyrant.

Ten minutes later however, while Babcock paced the main bridge the com lines buzzed to life as one of the SAR cutters returned to communications range. Babcock’s head whirled around as he all but ran to the com station to listen to the report.
“This is SAR one five, to base we have a survivor in stasis get med teams ready to meet us upon docking, I repeat we have a survivor, but we need medical teams right away.”
“Get medical teams to boat bay one, now, and tell Doctor Harris to prep sickbay for surgery.” Susevni said with a grim smile as he watched the cutter approach, one survivor, out of 12,200 crew, it was pathetic but at least it was something.
“What ship do you suppose the survivor is from Captain?” Babcock’s right eyebrow rose as he saw Susevni’s face turn into a mask of pain.
“Sir, it’s got to be from Tyrant it may sound horrible but if anyone survived Cairo they burned up in the atmosphere with the rest of the wreckage.” Michael looked down at the deck and frowned.

Sickbay:
Admiral Tyson Babcock walked through the doors to sickbay and flinched when he saw the wrecked body of Captain Rukia Fujita laying in a life support bed in the corner of the sickbay, a long black “box” where her left arm, and right leg had once been the bone molder nano-bots reconstructing the skeletal structure that had once been there, Babcock felt a momentary spark of happiness that the boxes were blacked out, he had seen videos of bone molders at work and the following flesh growth process and it always made him sick, he had distinct memories of vomiting on one Sharon Carlson back in the academy and how embarrassed he had been, especially since she happened to be one of the most attractive girls back in the academy.
His thoughts came to an abrupt end when he got close enough to see the real wreckage of Captain Fujita’s body, her chest was flat from the injuries she had sustained, and her face bore the scars of several pieces of glass that had apparently cut through her helmet.
Doctor Harris walked over to him, her face a mix of emotions, she braced to attention politely, more out of courtesy then any real necessity to do so since all medical staff were otherwise outside the chain of command.
“Admiral, I’m surprised to see you down here, are you alright?” Her soothing tone made him relax slightly but he still felt the sickening ache in his stomach at the thought of Rukia’s shattered body, and the 12,280 other lives lost just two hours ago.
“How is she Doc?” he kept his voice steady and calm though the grief he tried to hide showed through to the doctor and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Well Admiral, her left lung was torn open, and her right was filled with stomach acid, we had to use two synthesized lungs to replace them, her stomach was literally knocked lose, which is how the acid got in her lungs, her ribcage was shattered, her heart was nicked by a piece of metal, her right arm was broken clean in half and her skull was fractured in two places, to be honest I’m surprised she made it as long as she did.” She paused as the Admiral flinched in response to hearing the list of serious injuries
“Will she make it doc?” he choked up again, remembering the losses that were so well embodied in the wrecked body of a young girl that was half his age.
“She’ll make it, but it’ll take time, her limbs must be re-grown from scratch, we had to replace her heart, lungs, kidneys and 4 of her ribs, the anti-rejection medicine will keep her body from rejecting the synth organs, but it will also keep her on her back for a few weeks, to be honest my biggest fear right now is for her mind, I’d like to have a psych tech take a look at her as soon as she is able to get out of sickbay.” Harris took her hand off Babcock’s shoulder and walked over to the bed that held Rukia, she pressed a button on the woman’s bed and Rukia’s eyes opened softly as she tried to look around.
“Your safe Rukia, I won’t keep you awake for long, but I think Admiral Babcock would like to talk to you, if you need anything you press this call button okay.” Carla Harris said sweetly as she turned back to Babcock.
“You can talk to her for five minutes Sir, after that I’m going to put her back under so she can get some rest.”
“Alright doctor, thank you.” Babcock forced a parody of a smile at the doctor and stepped closer to Rukia.
“Hi there Captain, how are you doing?” he felt stupid almost immediately upon asking the question, afterall how could she be feeling, her body was torn all to hell and she was the only survivor of a crew of 6,100 people
“I’m okay, sir.” Rukia whispered after a moment, and tried to raise her right arm in a salute, but Babcock gently took her hand in his own and smiled back at her.
“Don’t worry about that Rukia, you’ve earned a little rest I’d think.”
“Sir….my ship…how is?” her body was wracked with a coughing fit, Harris stepped forward to get a closer view of the monitoring equipment but stepped back and nodded at Babcock.
“Rukia, I’m sorry but Tyrant and Cairo were both destroyed, you’re the only survivor out of the two of them, and from what the doc says your damned lucky.” Tyson smiled thinly at her and patted her hand softly.
“Oh, God….it’s….it’s my fault.” Her voice was choked and her breathing became noisy as her body tried to let her cry, but failed.
“Don’t you dare think that Rukia, you listen to me, I ordered the fleet in, I ordered Flynn’s division to the left flank, not you, and don’t you think for one moment it’s your fault that you lived, God only knows how you survived, and it was obvious he didn’t think it was your time yet.” his tone was sterner then he intended so he quickly put his right hand on the young woman’s bandaged forehead.
“Rukia you are a lucky young woman, and your parents will be glad to hear your alive so please don’t feel guilty, as a matter of fact when you recovered I was intending to give you command of Rochester since her Captain has been promoted to Brevet Commodore.”
“Thank….thank you…sir…I.” she struggled to recover her voice but Babcock simply rubbed her forehead gently, and put up his other hand to stop her from speaking.
“It’s okay Rukia, you rest now…..I’ll talk to you again later.” His tone was so gentle that it surprised even him, Babcock had seen war wounded before, had seen men and women turned into twisted wreckage by flying debris and the weapons of war but for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on Rukia Fujita felt to him like he was looking down at his daughter and he couldn’t help but feel sorrow for her.
Harris tabbed a control on the life support bed and Rukia’s eyes slowly closed as her body relaxed back into a dreamless sleep.
“Let me know when she wakes up Doc, I have a lot of letters to sign to the families of those less fortunate then her.” Babcock patted the young woman’s hand once more then turned around and walked back out of the sickbay doors.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

You stoled my ship names! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Great read Starhawk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Well you want other names http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Despoiler
Dictator
Tormentor
Torture
Deathbringer
Hurricane
Typhoon
Harbringer

Yah get the idea of how my ships are named lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Slight notice: when your arm is ripped from your body it is quite painful but not unimaginable agony. It would be more painful if a piece of debris pierced your arm and stuck there than when it knocked your arm off entirely.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Uh...How do I ask this?

Is that something you have personal experience with? Cause if it is...Ouch.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Great new chapter, keep up the good work. Mind you a bit of fair ship to ship combat would be nice rather than planet pounding, stil you can only go where the game takes you.

And Rukia Fujita wouldn't half have a half sister named Honor would she http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

No he doesn't have an arm ripped off, since I know the guy (unless he has more than two and hasn't told me...).....

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yes! Gore! Mayhem! Glorious destruction! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif

Minor nitpick: If the fleet is accelerating at 50G's, officers wouldn't be referring to "speed", which is constantly changing, but to "acceleration", or maybe "accel" for short.

BTW, what in the name of all that's holy were those weapons platforms firing that could slice up a super-dreadnought with one shot???

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

LOL actually I have a few Asiatic characters including Yu Lin Ross, though Yu Lin is based on a chinese girl I know in RL, personality wise and looks wise anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (though that girl's name isn't Lin) heh

Uh actually from what I've heard having your arm torn off is agonizing, though you do swiftly go into shock if your lucky, but what would make that pain worse is that it's not a "clean" cut which means she'd still have nerve endings and other fleshy bits hang out from where her arm used to be, I just didn't want to get into too much gore because there may or may not be children reading this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Especially because if you "read between the lines" she also lost her legs, her chest was ripped apart (guess at what's on a woman's chest that would take surgical reconstruction and be extra painful when torn apart). So I was sort of aiming for the general OUCH of the situation LOL.

Oh hey thanks for the note on accel vs speed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif that is going to prove useful in future chapters!

As to what those weapons were firing that tore my super dreadnoughts apart, they were level 12 AP cannons massive mount, and one WMG lvl 1 massive mount. And came as quite a suprise to me.



Re: Space combat, trust me this next chapter will be full of it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and it's going to be up sometime tomorrow barring internet hickups.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Kerensky you do not know me for as far as I know since we're on opposite sides of the planet (well, same hemisphere then).

Hunpecked, perhaps massive mounted WMGs? Perhaps other mod weapons?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Great read!
Uhh sorry about being nitpickey but what was the time frame of the SAR pickup of Captain Rukia Fujita. The brain can only go 4-6 minutes with no oxygen before permanent brain damage occurs. Of course the tech must be better but if no synth brains...
I am assuming of course that she would go into full arrest with both lungs essentially destroyed, her heart nicked, and her stomache ruptured. Oh and those persnickety limbs that were removed. Not too mention all the nasty things a vacuum would do to open wounds like that. But I suppose you could have a good "techy" work around.
Also just to chime in on the agony thing. Pain is relative. I've seen people with one or more limbs ripped off that could still talk and walk(assuming the the aformentioned limbs were not the legs but I digress)and I've seen people faint due to a minor almost paper cut.
Please keep up the good work on the story.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Cool someone wants to know about background Icaran tech instead of just weapons!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (big smiles)

1. Yeah they are about 1,000 years more medically advanced then us (remember they never went through the dark ages)

2. Vac suits have medical systems built in, basically the second her arm and leg were severed they were "sealed" vac suits and marine combat suits also have life support equipment (I think I did state that somewhere far back there).

3. Her one lung was out of action the other was just acid scorched, not to sound blaze but people can live for a while with a burned lung, as far as I know because I've heard tragic stories of people dying after they've been rescued from a fire, hours later because their lungs were burned to badly for our science to save them.

4. Well your heart being nicked is serious depending upon how badly it was damaged, I.E if the wound only destroys a small part of your heart you can live for quite a long while, people have been stabbed through the heart by knives and lived to tell the tale (though at reduced functionality).

5. Yes she probobly would go into full arrest with the damage done to her body, but that's the beauty of cryo freeze surgery, basically they recover your bashed and broken body "freeze" it and do the surgery while your still cryo. It's not as fancy as Star Trek surgery where there's not even any blood, and Rukai basically needed a full overhaul on her internals so it was a messy and long procedure. And as long as there was still brain activity "I've heard theories that your brain activity can be "suspended" so assuming the Icarans have drugs that can save the brain for a few hours then they can "reboot" her body and brain at the same time after the surgery is completed.
Unfortunately SAR recoveries of seriously injured crew persons are rare on the whole because of the fact that most people would go into full arrest and die rather quickly, but because of her "sequencial" wounds her life support and suspension systems were able to keep her alive. That's why the doctor pointed out what a miracle it is that she lived at all.


If you guys would like me to explain a lot more into the "background tech" of Icara I'd be more then happy to do so I just thought you guys would be bored by medical science of the future.

Yeah pain is relative, and as said also depends on just how the injury occurs and whether you go into shock right away or not.

Oh Kerensky was referring to me he knows me lol, I just think he misread that post.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Shadows in the Void
“Are you sure it’s real, is there no way it’s a phony?” Praetor Leonidas crumpled the paper with anger and threw it away from his desk like it was an explosive, after a moment he looked up at the three members of the military council, the heads of the three “fighting forces” of the military.
“Yes Highness, it’s been confirmed, as of zero six hundred this morning the Mantis Star Nation has declared war on the Icaran Empire, worse still sir I believe they have shared their cloaking technology with the Andermanian Navy, though our operatives say that information is almost a year old now.” Grand Admiral Bright sighed as she frowned at her Praetor.
“Damn them!, damn them to hell their Queen signed a treaty only to break it now!” Leonidas turned red with rage as a much more serious problem hit him..
“My God we can’t warn the fleet admirals for another month!” Leonidas sank bank into his chair heavily as he thought about what that meant for the fleets currently deployed.
“Highness our Admirals are good people and our crews are experienced, if anyone can deal with stumbling into an ambush it’s them.” Commandant Harris sounded confident even though everyone else knew that was just a show for his comrades and Praetor.
“I should have never deployed them straight into Andermanian territory, if they had cloaking devices for a year we don’t know how many ships they have that may be equipped, or for that matter how many ships they have period.” Leonidas sounded almost pleading as he looked at his commanders.
“Highness, we’ve already dispatched the messenger drones, a month, maybe two and they’ll have the news, in the meantime all we can do is pray and continue deploying the cloak detecting satellites we do have.” Tanya Bright frowned, there was nothing else anyone could do, not until messenger drones arrived.
“Alright Grand Admiral, but do me a favor, order our fleets to fall back to the system’s they’ve already pacified until we can deploy additional forces to the region, understood?” Leonidas recovered his composure and folded his hands together in contemplation.
“Yes Highness, and sir I’ve already taken the liberty of dispatching an SD division to reinforce both Home fleet and Lacerta fleets, when our economy recovers from the Mantis treachery I will dispatch 3rd fleet under Admiral Lord Ross to the region to reinforce 1st and 2nd as the need requires….but highness I am afraid I must be about it now to dispatch my orders with your leave of course?” She bowed at the shoulder and turned around at his nod…..and hoped to God that no one ran into an Andermanian or Mantisoran ambush, after all who could have guessed at the Mantisoran treachery?

Meanwhile Nepsis system, 1st fleet, Andermanian Crusade:
It was three weeks into the Nepsis assault and so far the 1st fleet had suffered only minimal losses to ground forces as they took out three enemy bases and added them to the Empire and so far not a single sign of the Andermanian navy.
Sandra Fowler sat comfortably in her day cabin, sipping a cup of chai tea as she read the fifth flexi pad in the past two hours, the one thing she hated about being a division commander-all the damn paperwork-this time it was from Catherine‘s chief gunnery officer, apparently she had been having some issues with her crews after the fall of the first Nepsis target, something about their main guns targeting sensors being off by .05, she was requesting that division command give her permission to deploy 18 mark XIV target drones for a gunner exercise. Fowler placed her thumb print with a sigh of resignation, she had reports from the division heads of almost all six ships in her division and it was giving her a head ache just thinking about all the work left to do. As she reached for another flexi a soft buzzing from her com unit drew her attention away-with some joy at the temporary reprieve- Admiral Babcock’s face appeared, her joy at the break vanished in an instant when she saw the expression on his face.
“Admiral sir what is it?” She recognized the expression on her Admiral’s face, and knew that something was coming down.
“It looks like the uncontested phase of our naval movements has come to an end Sandy, scopes picked up 13 Andermanian ships, looks like 5 carriers and at least 4 SD’s, at our current acceleration we estimate intercept in under an hour.” Babcock looked like a man who’d been beaten with a stick, they all knew that the Andermanian navy would respond eventually, but something didn’t feel right about how small their current response was, sure they’d been battling it out with a few other stat nations but to respond with only 13 ships against 94 Icaran ships of the line seemed foolish.
“Aye sir, I’ll have all hands to beat to quarters…are you concerned Admiral?” her question came out in a whisper as the man on the other end of the screen nodded.
“Something isn’t right Sandy, we know the Andi fleet has to be stretched thin with their battles against other nations but this just seems wrong, especially since the Corrian Commonwealth surrendered to us two months ago, if anything that should have freed up their fleet in that region and allowed them to focus on us.”
“You think it’s an ambush of some kind sir?”
’I don’t know Sandy, they don’t have cloaking devices last we knew but if they acquired them somehow…..” he paused for a moment and shook himself of the grim thoughts that raced into his mind “Just be careful Sandy, I’ve already talked to most of the other Division commanders and will have time to speak to the others before we engage the enemy and I’m telling everyone the same thing….” Sandra fowler nodded at her superior, he nodded back and cut the com circuit.
Sandra quickly tossed on her duty tunic and tabbed the bridge com channel
“Bridge, Commander Harkness here.” A young soprano came over the com as the 22 year old Commander’s face appeared on the screen.
“Harkness, order all division ships at action stations, Beat to quarters.”
“Aye ma’am!” The young woman snapped a salute and cut the com channel, an instant later the loud sounds of klaxons and drums echoed throughout the corridors of the ships of the 2nd SD division as they joined the primary battle line which was already forming up.

[one hour later]

“Admiral enemy fleet in weapons range in two zero seconds, tactical confirms their combat SD’s are in line of battle, the carriers and minesweeper SD’s are pulling back.” The air on the bridge of Superior was so thick with tension Babcock felt as if he could reach up and grab it by the fistful, as he watched the main plot on his flag deck he clenched a fist and turned his head to the main screen which was showing the 13 ships ahead of them.
“Thank you tactical, order all ships of the main line to set a course that will allow our line to meet theirs as quickly as possible, I want those SD’s out of commission before we worry about the fighters from the carriers.”
“Aye sir, new estimate on Weapon range is one five seconds.”
Tyson watched the main plot as if it was a predator standing ready to pounce upon him, he just couldn’t shake that feeling that something was wrong, it just didn’t make any sense until….
“We’ve got new targets!” The tactical officer shouted even as the main plot showed 14 new Super dreadnoughts appear in the middle of his fleet, already in a line of battle.
Damn it intel was wrong, they do have cloaking devices Babcock thought furiously as he turned around to redirect his fleet.
“Reform the line of battle, to engage both groups of hostiles, con order all divisions not in the main line to engage as they can.” Even as he gave the first order of the battle the master display came to life as the enemy line that had just uncloaked opened fire in a single massive broadside.

Blackbird’s bridge:
“[censored]! Enemy ships uncloaking two five thousand klicks off!” the tactical officer aboard the 2nd SD division flagship barely managed to get his sentence out before the enemy line opened fire in a single devastating broadside…..a broadside Fowler realized to her horror was focused entirely upon her division!
“Oh God, Catherine’s gone, and Anasazi!” the tactical officer’s voice strained as the last distress calls of the dying ships came over the speakers.
“Helm turn us about, give them our broadside now!” Fowler’s voice cracked with agony as another light code vanished from her division display, signaling the death of Hawkwing and another leaving Warden a burning wreck in space.
“Aye Commodore turning us to broadside, gunnery crews achieving lock in….” the tactical officer never finished his sentence as two enemy SD’s broadsides slammed into Blackbird simultaneously, tearing chunks out of her hull and turning other portions into massive splinters that spread death among the crew like a scythe. The tactical officer’s face vanished into a bloody pulp of gore as his console erupted in front of him and smashed his vac suit’s visor into his face with a force that shattered bone and tore flesh.
Another shard of wreckage tore the helmsman in half and passed on to slice through another crewman with remarkable ease, a fiery blast sent molten metal straight into the com section killing all four crewman in the blink of an eye.
Fowler screamed as a piece of debris cut into her back, another explosion tore her command chair loose and sent it, and her flying across the bridge like she was nothing but a rag doll. After what seemed like an eternity her chair slammed to the deck, unfortunately it threw her body straight into a spear like piece of wreckage, as she felt the sudden surprising pain in her chest as the wreckage impaled her Fowler’s last thoughts were of her friends, her family, and William Ross, she had never told him….in one blinding flash her pain came to an end, as the Blackbird’s quantum reactor breached and a new star was born in the sky for several minutes as the once proud ship and her noble crew vanished in a fury of fire and light.

Flag Deck Superior:
“The entire division!?” Babcock tried to keep the fury out of his voice as his com officer nodded, tears streaming down his face even through the iron discipline of the navy.
“Yes sir, the entire 2nd SD division is gone, I’m reading life pods and vac suit rescue beacons but the ships themselves are all gone.” his voice cracked in sorrow as he passed on the news.
“Sir we are in firing position all ships of the main line have targets, and independent fire divisions also have the sight, permission to fire?” the tactical officer’s voice cut through the air like a knife as the fury in his voice reared it’s head, an entire division of Icaran super dreadnoughts had been destroyed in less then ten minutes and by all that’s holy the Icarans would have their revenge. “Sir enemy fighters in the air, two five zero bogies and counting, point defenses are acquiring!”
“Permission to fire granted.” Babcock spat the order out like it was a foul taste and turned about to face his main plot.

Two hundred and fifty enemy fighters raced towards the Icaran fleet like angry hornets, but their prey had stingers of their own, as hundreds of point defense missiles raced from the Icarans to meet the incoming threat space it’s self seemed to come to life in a brilliant ballet of lights and colors as missiles honed in on their targets and desperate fighter pilots dodged and weaved in every conceivable pattern in an attempt to shake the Icaran weapons, unfortunately for the Andermanian pilots the sky was too thick with missiles- at least three for every incoming fighter- and hundreds of explosions soon joined the light show as the fighter waves flew into their deaths before even reaching weapon’s range of the Icaran line.
Seconds later the Icaran main line of battle and independent fire divisions turned their wrath on the Andermanian main line crushing ten of the enemy super dreadnoughts in a single hellish minute, as more Icaran divisions came into the firing line even more fire was poured into the Andermanian main line, destroying two of the enemy carriers and shattering the hull of another enemy SD.

“Sir, Sumter‘s been hit in her reactor room, she’s signaling distress to all fleet ships…” the com officer stopped speaking as a brilliant flash within the Icaran main line of battle forced the screen to darken to protect the eyes of the flag deck crew. When the flash cleared all that was left of Sumter was her forward hull and boat bay, everything aft of the main reactor room had burned up when the reactor went critical.
“Enemy survivors are attempting to withdraw from engagement sir, I read four minesweepers, three carriers, three mine layers and four SD combatants turning tail.” The tactical officer kept his voice level and crisp even thought it was clear that he as most of the others wanted to pursue and destroy the last remnants of the enemy fleet that had hurt them so badly.
“Order independent fire divisions to take on those SD combatants, main line of battle is to hunt down the carriers and non-combatants.” Babcock would have loved to chase down the enemy warships and blown them to hell himself but the way they were scattering his divisions of the main line were closest to the carriers and non-combatants.
“One five zero enemy fighters have just launched!” the tactical officer hissed as the Icaran line chased down the carriers.
The enemy fighters died swiftly as Icaran I-lasers and defense missiles swept them from the sky like gnats, two of the enemy mine-layers and one of the carriers joined the fighters in death swiftly as the twelve Icaran SD’s that remained in the main line of battle tore through them with broadside after broadside the other carriers died even faster as they were overtaken by the SD’s.
“Remaining enemy ships are destroyed Admiral, though Hercules reports fires on several decks and heavy losses sustained to enemy fire, other ships throughout the fleet reporting minor damage and losses.” The com officer’s voice shook with a mix of fatigue, sorrow, and victory as the casualty lists came in.
Babcock shook his head as he collapsed back into his command chair, the entire battle and pursuit had lasted less then two hours, that was the way these kinds of battles went, he told himself grimly, tens of thousands of lives lost and dozens of ships blown apart so quickly that it felt almost unreal when it was all over. Those holo drama’s wear main characters never die, and the good guys always win with minimal casualties after facing down overwhelming odds played back in Babcock’s weary mind with disgust, it never went like that in war, people died, “good guys” and “bad guys” were fictions of the media sure there were bastards out there, who deserved to die slowly and painfully, but they were on both sides of the line, but in the end it was just people-usually young people-who paid the price for the game that nations played when they chose to go to war, he never doubted for one minute that the Icaran cause was just but he knew that the Andermanian Admiral who had just led their fleet to death in a desperate attempt to hurt the Icaran fleet obviously felt that his or her own cause was the just one and to them the Icarans were merely invaders who were attempting to destroy their way of life. Babcock hid a faint grimace, as he realized just how the enemies of Icara must see him and his people, and how much they were willing to pay to stop Icara from unifying mankind under a single banner.
His thoughts returned to the losses he had sustained and the personal pain and grief he felt at the loss of Commodore Sandra Fowler, a pain that grew shaper when he remembered that her 31st birthday was only five months away, she was so young, yet still many thousands of other younger men and women died with her.
“Admiral sir, I’m detecting an Icaran Admiralty code messenger pod….”

Icara:
The main hall of Icara’s Imperial palace was filled with thousands of reporters, citizens, and soldiers, all of whom had come to attend the memorial service for the losses sustained in the 1st battle of Nepsis….many people had already spoken including the Praetor, the head of the Church of Icara, and nearly a dozen other politico’s but at this moment the hall was silent as a lone man stepped up to the podium, wearing the brilliant red tunic and black pants of the navy’s mess dress uniform, as he reached the podium a soft voice announced Admiral Lord William Ross, commander 3rd fleet as speaker.
Ross cleared his throat to cover over the fresh wave of grief came on, he cleared his throat again and looked up from the podium, and saw the huge audience and the dozens of cameras, and forced himself to work up the nerve to speak.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have all learned of the recent battle in the Nepsis star system, and we all know of the deaths that resulted from this battle, many of you are hear to grieve friends, family or loved ones who paid the ultimate price to spread the Imperial order Icara has brought to the hundreds of worlds we now control.” Ross paused and looked down again.
“I also know that for many of you that doesn’t mean a damn thing, because you know that no matter how or why your loved ones died, they are gone from you, gone for the rest of your life, I too know the feeling of loss, for a dear friend of mine, a woman who I often thought of as the kid sister I never had was slain that grim terrible day as well, but instead of feeling anger at the cause of her death I feel pride, pride that I knew her, pride that she was willing to put her life on the line for the betterment of mankind, forget about politics, forget who’s right and who’s wrong if you must, and focus on this, your loved ones died to bring not just Icara betterment, but all of mankind, they died so that one day in the future no more would our children, friends and loved ones die in wars far from home, they died so that one day mankind can rise together and say “We are one!” “One nation, one people, and never again shall we raise arms against our brothers!” Ross paused as hundreds of people began to cheer for a moment before returning to a more “respectful” silence.
“Those soldiers who have died should be remembered not with anger, with pain yes, with fondness yes, but not with anger for they died fighting for you, and for me, and for future generations, so please don’t rage at the soldiers that lived, don’t hate the government that sent your loved ones to battle, instead pray for the safety of our fighting men and women that have yet to return home, and pray for those who will soon be deploying to the front lines to join the wars.” The Admiral looked into the crowd and felt his own emotions twist within as he saw mothers and fathers holding each other, weeping for the loss of a child, or parents and children crying for a parent who would never return, he also saw people who wept alone for the loved ones or friends they would never again see in this life. But the feelings had changed, Ross felt it lift from him like a weight, the anger began to subside, yes sorrow and fear remained but the burning anger that so many had felt had given way to the sorrow and pain of loss at long last as the anger they had used as a barrier faded away.
“Ladies and gentlemen it is my sad honor to list now the names of the starships that were destroyed, please bow your heads in a moment of silence for our fallen heroes.” the crowd fell utterly silent except for the occasional noise of a crying person or child.
Ross forced his tone into rigid formality as he began: “Those ships who shall never be forgotten by Icara are:
HMS Anasazi (SD 156) 6,000 died aboard, one hundred survived.
HMS Blackbird (SD 74) 6,100 dead (Ross choked for a moment as he knew that among those 6,100 dead was his dear friend).HMS Catherine (SD 145) 6,100 dead
HMS Hawkwing (SD 144) 6,100 dead
HMS Samson (SD 133) 5,000 dead, 1,100 survivors
HMS Sumter (SD 85) 5,600 dead, 500 survivors
HMS Warden (SD 157) 6,100 dead
We also honor, the other 3,500 spacers and officers who died that day.
Ross folded the piece of paper he had been reading from came to parade ground attention and saluted, on his example every other soldier, uniformed o retired rose to their feet and returned the salute to the dead. Ross turned about smartly and walked off the stage, his head high and his back straight-and his heart throbbing with sorrow- as he left the hall and joined Lin outside.
“Are you alright William?” she asked softly as slid a hand through the crook in his arm and gave a gentle squeeze.
“I will be Lin, it’s just so hard to believe Sandy is really gone.” William turned to face his wife and saw the sorrow in her own eyes “Are you alright my love?”
“As you said, I will be….let’s go home Wil.” she said gently and turned to walk again only to have William gently pull her back.
“Lin, I just wanted to tell you again.” William paused a moment and swallowed “I do love you Lin.” he knew he had told her that on many occasions, but with the loss of Sandra he felt his own mortality, and Lin’s like never before. She just smiled softly and raised her lips to his, their soft warmth felt like a soothing counterbalance to the cold pain in his heart and William pulled her close and savored her presence for just a moment longer before letting her go.
“Yeah, let’s go home.” he said and took her arm in his again as they both walked toward the waiting ground car.

The very next month the first fleet engaged and destroyed 11 Mantis mine layer and mine sweeper ships, 9 of which were super dreadnoughts, 2 were older battleships, 2 Empire of man minelayer super dreadnoughts were also intercepted and destroyed, unfortunately the enemy had deployed mines and three Icaran ships were heavily damaged, 1,000 more Icarans had perished in that engagement but the enemy’s losses were so much higher that even Babcock permitted himself the knowledge that they had struck a blow against their enemies.
After the battle 1st fleet turned around to abandon Nepsis as ordered and return to the more “defensible” position of their previous conquests.

Wall of the Fallen: This list is all those ships who have been lost during the Andermanian Crusade:
HMS Anasazi
HMS Blackbird
HMS Catherine
HMS Cairo
HMS Hawkwing
HMS Raven
HMS Samson
HMS Sumter
HMS Tyrant
HMS Warden[/b]

Total Icaran Losses to date in the Andermanian Crusade: 73,747 dead, 150,000 wounded.

Estimated Andermanian/Allied losses: 5 billion dead

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Very good answers and I like the tech your using.
All very rationale answers and rest of the injuries certainly do emphazise the "ouch" factor.
I for one am more than willing to do that whole willing suspension of disbleif thang!!!
I like the "Wall of the Fallen".
Another solid story.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

So do the "Wall of the Fallen" become the names for the next big flagships or get saved and not used as memorial?

Anyway another great chapter with copious amounts of BLAM! What more could you ask? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

This has everything to do with nerve depth - in the case of s aimple paper cut, a splinter, a pin or whatever, you get pricked/cut/whatever in your finger where the nerves lie close to the surface and are generally more sensitive regardless. This way, if you harm yourself there, the pain signals to the brain will be more powerful then if your arm is cut off at the shoulder where there are less pain nerves and they run deeper.

I know people can experience "pain" in limbs they have lost, "phantom pain" or however it is called in English, but I believe that is just a dull sort of pain, not a sharp pang or a sense of something slicing through your finger.

And NO I have NOT lost ANY BODY PARTS of mine as of yet save for two pieces of toenail, and that was after a localized sedative had been administered.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Well ships listed on the Wall of the Fallen are "reborn" I guess you could say, when another ship is created which takes their name, however no ship is EVER named the exact same again out of honor for the dead, for example:
Blackbird's successor is the Blackbird II and is officially designated as such though she carries the same registry on her hull and has a plaque that lists the battle honors of the first ship of her name and it's last commander.

If a ship is scrapped then it's name is recycled at will and a peice of the hull plating is cut away and added to the next ship to take the name. They do not carry the memorial plaque listing their predecessors battle honours as it is considered bad luck to steal another ship's honors if it did not die in battle, as most likely the crew is still alive and should keep their honors.

Though there are Shipyards right now that I've named after the four flag officers that were killed in the Andermanian crusades http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Oh and BTW Sandra Fowler's 31st birthday was a mis-type I meant 51st which would have made her 20 when she took over the Saber frigate 30 years ago.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2431.4 The 1st Space battle of Sadalmelek:
It was third watch aboard HMS Terror and most of the crew was either asleep or off relaxing or working out in their off time, Lieutenant Jeffery Hellar was commander of the watch on the bridge and was pacing the deck in his boredom, he hated third watch but he was the most junior command officer on board which meant he always got dogwatch.
“Lieutenant sir I’ve got something odd coming in from DNX-N1 system, spyer sat just picked it up on range five minutes ago, but I can’t get a positive lock on what it is yet.” The tac officer of the watch frowned down at his screen for a moment and rubbed his jaw.
“Can you get me a clearer answer then that tac?” Hellar said irritably as he stopped his pacing, dogwatch always got the Officer’s in training or the rooks which made things a royal pain when it came to getting anything done.
Five minutes passed and Hellar resumed his pacing as he considered whether or not to wake the Admiral, until finally the tac officer cleared his throat.
“Sir I’ve got confirmation, I am reading two formations of enemy starships, by drive strengths I’d say most of them are battle cruisers and battleships I can’t tell you who’s they are yet though, but I can tell you they are moving under cloak and at present rate of acceleration will enter firing range of the outer planets in two four hours…..sir I think we should wake the Admiral.” The tac officer frowned again as he noticed the glare shot his way.
“Thank you tac I figured as much, sound general quarters and wake the Admiral.” Hellar growled as the klaxons came on and the sound of drums thundered, if anyone was still asleep Hellar figured they were in a coma.

A few moments later the entire fleet was in battle formation and Rear Admiral Patrick Raley was standing on the bridge of his flagship watching his master plot as the two enemy formations continued on their course oblivious to the fact that he saw them on his scopes and was moving at half acceleration to intercept them. Raley had chosen to “sneak up” on the enemy by setting his course to make it look like the 2nd fleet was moving out system instead of moving to intercept the two formations of cloaked enemy ships. And thus far it seemed to be working as his fleet had been heading towards them for the past eight hours and neither enemy fleet changed course or heading.
“Admiral if they are going to attack us it should be any minute now.” Captain Susan Lap said calmly as she watched the enemy light codes merge with that of the 2nd fleet, as they merged the master plot zoomed in to a much smaller plane and focused on the two forces which were now only light seconds apart from one another.
“Enemy ships uncloaking!” The Senior Tactical officer sang out as an alarm whaled into life signaling the “sudden appearance” of the enemy fleet.
“We’ve got missile launch sir, I count 77 birds in the air!” the STO said calmly as the point defenses came to life.
“Point Defense crews are acquiring locks Admiral, I don’t think these missiles of theirs will be a problem at all.” The Chief weapons officer concealed a grin as the tactical displays showed 77 new light codes dart out from the fleet, each one headed straight for an enemy missile. The main problem with missile warfare was in fact that missiles took time to arrive on target, and while it was true that if the Earth Corps ships had gotten the drop on maybe a lone division of SD’s the battle might be in question, but with the amount of Point defense fire that the Icarans could pour out was simply too accurate and overwhelming for missile warfare to succeed.
“Sir they are closing to energy weapons range, and firing.” The tactical officer winced as the five enemy battleships fired their heavy I-laser cannons, unfortunately for the ECA ships their energy weapons were too weak to cut down the shields of the much larger super dreadnoughts.
The enemy light and heavy cruisers had already turned about to disengage, unfortunately for them they could not build the acceleration required to get away from the more powerful drives of their Icaran enemies.
Patrick Raley arched an eyebrow and turned to Captain Susan Lap “Well Captain I think we’ve given them enough of a chance, order the main battle line to engage the enemy at will, let’s end this quickly.” The Captain nodded, a small smile on her lips as she passed on the order to the rest of the fleet. It was the kind of naval battle every Admiral dreamed of, the Icarans totally outmatched their adversaries, and as the 2nd fleet opened their broadsides to the ECA starships that superiority became amazingly apparent. Only one SD division closed the range with the enemy fleet, but with their Dreadnought class I-lasers they would prove more then enough for the ECA ships.
Three of the enemy battleships exploded almost immediately as the massive energy weapons tore through their shields and hulls like talons.
Two more battleships were torn apart as the Terror unleashed her own broadside on them, the green beams shredded the enemy so quickly that the ECA crews never got a chance to get into their escape pods.
Jupiter closed in on the three heavy cruisers, and one light cruiser and cut a swath of death and fire as she passed through their formation like a lion amongst sheep, ending the battle in a matter of minutes.
“Helm take us right down the throats of that second formation, I don’t want any of these ships getting by us.” Raley smiled at his flag captain for a moment before returning his attention to the master plot.

Barely two hours later the entire second ECA force was destroyed by the Icaran fleet, which brought the enemy death toll into the thousands while not a single Icaran life had been lost in exchange making this the single greatest Icaran space victory in nearly fifteen years, and it had all been thanks to the newly deployed Spier satellites.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Outstanding read. Please post more...... must have more. BTW, what is your word count up too? We figured that it takes about 450 to 500 words to equal one page on a normal paper back book. So far Sachmo holds the high count followed by the OUTS story at nearly 88,000 words.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

My total current word count is 104,270 excluding the various footnotes and technical notes I've posted up, which I'm guessing would only add a few hundred more words.

Glad you enjoyed the read http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Excellent read, Starhawk!

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Thanks Sachmo it means a lot that you like my writing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif afterall to be honest reading your story inspired me to both buy SEIV and write a story of my own.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Sorry Stratagia, I was refering to Starhawk.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

The next "chapter" is coming later today or tonight, however due to it's sheer size I may break it down to two posts to make it "easier on the eyes", so far I think this new chapter is headed towards the 1,000+ word stage so heh two posts seems good.

Anyway in a wait for that here is the breakdown of the command chains of the 1st and 2nd fleets, this may also give you a feel for the sheer size of the Imperial navy and the ships involved in the Andermanian Crusade:

Important Ships an People of the 1st fleet:
HMS Superior, 1st fleet flagship:
Star Admiral Tyson Babcock
Captain Michael Susevni

HMS Jackal
1st Dreadnought Division Flagship
(Brevet Commodore) Sampson Hendricks
Captain: Paul Robins

HMS Neptune
2nd Dreadnought Division Flagship
Commodore Bradley Sharp
Captain John Serinopolese

HMS Bear
1st SuperDreadnought division Flagship
Commadore Carla Sanches
Captain Jeow Lung
(2nd division destroyed)

HMS Crystal
3rd Superdreadnought Division Flagship
Commodore Richard Scott
Captain Tomas Purechskia

HMS Dreadful
4th SD division Flagship
Commodore Luis Martinez
Captain Linda Carstairs

HMS Guardian
5th SD division flagship
Commodore: Chao Hai
Captain Paul Stanza

HMS Hotspur
6th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Horace Fahalad
Captain Leona Parks

HMS Julin
7th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Aaron McPherson
Captain Alexi Numenkov

HMS Nagglefar
8th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Tony White
Captain: Sarah O’Dell

HMS Redoubtable
9th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Linda Grayson
Captain: Emanuel Jackson

HMS Sabertooth
10th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Michael Eddison
Captain: Achmed Feyr

HMS Sato
11th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Theo Mullins
Captain: Agnis O’Leery

HMS Starrider
12 SD Division Flagship
Commodore Hoshi Kuchiki
Captain: David Sandoval

HMS Tiger
13 SD Division Flagship
Rear Admiral Donald Littlefield (2nd in command 1st fleet)
Captain: Julia Gates
HMS Rochester
14th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Tina Larz
Captain: Rukia Fujita

HMS Yu Hing Pe
15th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Paulo Sanches
Captain: Teya Leosan

HMS Rodger Young
General Peter Braun (ground forces commander 1st fleet)


Important Ships and People of the 2nd Fleet:
HMS Terror, 2nd Fleet flagship
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley
Captain Susan Lap

HMS Jupiter
1st Dreadnought Division Flagship
(Brevet Commodore) Lana Fitzgerald
(Brevet Captain): Orson Greer.

HMS Shaman
1st Super Dreadnought Division flagship
Commodore Kara Valerie
Captain: Daniela Thrace

HMS Kirasowa
2nd SD Division Flagship
Commodore Preston Louis
Captain: Sarah Troy

HMS Superator
3rd SD Division Flagship
Commodore Lea Thomas
Captain: Paul Hart

HMS Lysander
4th SD Division Flagship
Commodore Tony Piscotelli
Captain: Martin Sweeny

HMS Patton
Ground Forces
General Edward Marshall


Remember now there is also the Home Fleet which consists of the 5 Swords of Heaven as well as a super dreadnought division, the Lacerta fleet which consists of a super dreadnought division.
And the 3rd fleet which consists of seven SD divisions plus 2 regiments of infantry (800 units) when their training is complete.

Now those numbers don't even include the new "Project Artemis", the warpers the various support ships and the lone patrol dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts. Heck I actually found an old General class HVC floating around lol.

(note)The 1st fleet does not have a 2nd SD division as their entire 2nd SD division was destroyed, along with the death of Commadore Sandra Fowler.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Reverence and Heroes

HMS Reverence had been detached from the 4th SD division 2nd fleet right after the battle of DNX-N1 VII, much to the chagrin of Captain Willard Scott who hated sitting on the sidelines while the 2nd fleet took out two more enemy worlds, but since there were no spier sats in this system Admiral Raley had decided to detach an SD to protect each of his three newest conquests while the 2nd fleet moved on.
Yeah moves on and leaves us here to play babysitter Willard tightened his grip on his coffee mug as his anger rose again, he had been here for a week now and he often scolded himself for what he thought of as a childish anger, Of course your not going to be left here for good idiot! he told himself once again and forced himself to relax and take a sip of coffee, as the liquid touched his tongue Scott let out a noise that loosely resembled a hiss and turned bright red as several of his bridge crew made a concentrated effort not to turn their heads, a chuckle made him turn brighter red as he turned to face his exec.
“Navy coffee eh skip?” Sailing Master Nikki Leung was tall for a Brandenburger, at about 179 centimeters she was a good 15 centimeters taller then the other Brandenburg women Scott had met, though he admitted to himself he hadn’t met all that many and for some odd reason Leung often had an odd effect of making him stare at her, she was pretty yes but it was more the fact that Scott was so used to seeing “Icarans” which after so many years of mixed relationships, it was nearly impossible to tell someone’s heritage just by looking at them. But Brandenburg had been a fluke of warp travel, two of the ESS colony ships that were with the Solar evacuation colony had crashed on Brandenburg’s surface and remained isolated there for over fifty years, which had kept their bloodlines far more “pure” then Icara’s had ever been, though these days Brandenburgers were joining the military in large numbers-with most of their naval recruits being women- they still tended to remain “ethnically proud” and many outright refused any relationship with a non-Brandenburg Icaran, Nikki’s mother and father had been like that and when Scott first found out that his exec was a Brandenburger he prayed like mad that she wasn’t going to be one of the “ethnists” that still plagued her homeworld, and fortunately she hadn’t been, unfortunately she was outspoken and often brazen when it came to her Captain and Scott had resigned himself to the fact that it was just her nature.
“If you can call this syrup coffee Nik.” He grimaced at her as he looked down at the thick liquid in his cup again.
“Well you should try tea more often anyway sir, that’s the problem with you Icara born people after all, your always drinking caffeine, it amazes me you ever get any sleep.” She grinned wickedly at his expression, she had tried introducing him to tea a few months earlier with something called “liquorish root” but that was so rich it made him gag, he was about to say something else when his tactical officer’s voice cut through the air like a siren.
“Enemy ships uncloaking, seven point niner five light seconds out and closing!” Willard quickly laid his coffee mug aside and slammed his palm down on the button which brought up his tactical display.
“Sound actions stations, all hands beat to quarters!” Commander Leung’s voice was smooth professionalism as she brought up her own chair’s tac displays, seconds later klaxons and drums sounded throughout the ship followed swiftly by the sound of running feet, as crewman and marines raced to their battle stations.
“Can you get me a count on the enemy, tac?” Willard turned to face the tactical station and saw the tac officer of the watch going from one of his crewmen to the other, trying to get a definite plot.
“Sir our sensors can’t seem to agree on count, Lscan One detects 5, Lscan Two detects 9 and our lightwave telescopes seem to think there are 8 of them.” the tactical officer reddened with embarrassment as he reported what was supposed to be impossible, they should know easily how many enemy ships there were by drive signals alone but…..but why couldn’t they?
“Alright tac let’s assume it’s 9 can you tell me what size enemy ships we are dealing with?” Willard forced the agitation out of his voice as he watched his own display change count on the enemy ships every few seconds.
“Aye sir, I can tell you that they are some of those small battleships the Earth Corps Alliance uses.” the tac officer’s voice sounded almost relieved as he was able to answer at least one question.
“Sir I can get us a better read of numbers if we get closer.” one of the Lscan operators whispered to her tac officer and blushed as she realized her voice had carried further then she meant it too as Willard’s gaze turned to her or a moment before turning back to the tac officer who simply shrugged and nodded.
“Alright helm, break orbit, navigation plot a soonest intercept course for the enemy ships, tactical….try and get me a clean picture before we get into shooting range please.” Willard paused and turned toward another bridge station “Astrogation plot the enemy ships’ current excel, course and velocity and see if you can tell me where they came from.”
“Aye sir plotting course.” The helmsman sang out
“Aye sir course plotted time to intercept one five niner minutes.” navigation rang out
“Focusing scans on mid range aye.” the tac officer said as he punched in some calculations.
“Plotting enemy drive signature aye.” the chief astrogator replied.
“Well I guess we’re going to be very busy.” Leung said sardonically as she toggled her tac display’s modes, Willard simply grunted a reply with a brief grin of his own.

Two and a half hours later the enemy signature had become all to clear, there were eight enemy Danube class battleships inbound at maximum military power, each one equipped with eleven fusion capital missiles and one heavy mounted I-laser cannon. When Willard heard the numbers his blood ran cold, not a single enemy troop carrier in the mix which meant either they were here to nuke the planet and it’s four hundred million people to keep it out of Icara’s hands or they were here for some other purpose that Willard couldn’t understand, and either way they were probably going to destroy his ship to do whatever it was they were here for.

Bridge: ECANS George Washington:
“What the hell is an Icaran doing here?” Junior Rear Admiral Brian Monteghue said angrily, his tactical section had detected the Icaran’s barely an hour ago which he knew meant they had detected him long before that.
“I don’t know sir but whatever she’s doing here she’s alone.” Commander Alex Stark said grimly as his own readers showed the enemy ship closing, he knew that for his Admiral to cuss in public he was worried, no matter how calm he looked.
The 5th battleship squadron Northern fleet had been ordered to proceed under cloak and maximum power to DNX-N1 VII in order to retrieve the planetary governor and his family before the Icaran StateSec forces “purged” the government officials and their families to ensure compliance. Personally Commander Stark was terrified by the implications of an enemy Superdreadnought holding a parking orbit over an ECA planet, had they already purged the government? Or worse yet did thy know the battleships were coming somehow? The media had broadcast reports of tragedy befalling the 36 ships of the Southern Cross fleet but no one knew for sure how the Icarans had engaged them, if there were any survivors from that battle the Icarans certainly weren’t about to tell anyone and so absolutely no information got out. Stark’s thoughts suddenly became more grim, he had heard from the Anderman reports of the atrocities committed by Icaran Naval and Army forces, entire world’s burned simply because there was no available troopship to secure it, or “no time”, entire governments wiped out because they might insight riots, the billions of Andermanian and Allied lives lost because Icaran warships intercepted and destroyed dozens of colony ships and population transports….wherever the Icarans struck it was as if a shroud engulfed the region, no one ever heard from the conquered worlds again, and even now billions of people were behind that ever growing shroud of darkness and whether or not the Icarans could be stopped was a question that terrified every inhabited world in their path, the mere name Icara brought terror and tears where it was uttered and even though Andermanian newsies had said that their valiant 9th fleet had driven the Icarans out of Nepsis Stark knew the grim fact was that the only reason the Icarans left is because after they destroyed the Andermanian 12th fleet and the combined Alliance minelayer/sweeper task force they were simply too banged up to engage the 9th, and Stark felt with grim certainty that when the Icarans did return to Nepsis the 9th fleet was only going to slow them down.
“Admiral, enemy ship is closing the range with us, she’ll be in our weapons range in two minutes, we’ll be in hers in three.” the tactical officer sounded surprisingly confident considering the enemy ship outstripped their’s by an order of magnitudes but if they could saturate that bastard’s point defense with missiles and keep the range open then maybe they could take her out and get to the planet to retrieve refugees.

HMS Reverence
“I can’t believe those sons’a’*****es are going to nuke their own world just to keep us from getting it.” CPO Anders murmured from his station at Lscan Two, Willard was tempted to chew the Petty Officer out for breaking military discipline but he had just said what they were all thinking, Icaran news services had told them all how the ECA and the Andermanian alliance had destroyed several of their own worlds just to keep them out of Icaran hands, rumor had it that’s what happened in Nepsis when the 1st fleet was forced to pull out the Andermanian 9th had just moved in and laid waste to the planet.
Willard Scott would be damned before he let those hundreds of millions of Icarans die at the hands of that ECA naval task force.
“Captain I have an idea…..though it’s a little risky sir.” Leung whispered as she looked up from her tactical repeaters.
Willard could almost feel her grin as she said “risky” like it really mattered at this moment, he turned around and saw not a grin but a sharkish smile as she returned her attention to he repeaters.
“By all means Commander don’t keep me in the dark.” He managed a light tone even though his nerves were frayed and her habit of sinking into her work so much that she forgot the world at large tended to make that worse.
She looked up from her displays, with that same Sharkish smile “Well sir, I think we should let them fire their missiles off at us, if they do the might just try to get into energy range and bring our shields down before their missiles finish us off, and well as you know sir we could easily win a gun duel with them….” she paused again for a moment in thought before her smile grew broader “Well Captain I think we could actually manage a broadside into their formation before we are forced to break range to keep from getting our asses blown off, but after that broadside we’d be restricted to chase mounts only if we want to keep our range open enough that we have time to get out of the way of their missiles….but if we are off by even one second we’ll have about 88 missiles roaring up our rather large tailpipe.” her smile became a grin as she realized how cocky she herself sounded.
Willard quirked an eyebrow as he thought it over, if he got off a broadside with his full arsenal he could destroy at least two of those battleships, even at maximum range but his XO was certainly correct in her math, if they were off by one second 88 missiles would tear them apart like so much tissue paper.
“Alright Nikki let’s play risky.” He tried to smile back but he knew that she was just as afraid as him, and that her smile was pure nerves, for some reason it reminded him that she had once mentioned that she used to giggle like an idiot whenever she got nervous, and he was glad at least that she had outgrown that. “Helm, cut accel in half, I want to have the velocity to turn a broadside on those targets, but prepare to go back to full military power on my orders.”
“Aye sir.” the bridge suddenly went quiet as the crew focused on the tasks ahead of them, the chief gunnery officer sat on the edge of her seat, her two gunner’s mates were keeping themselves busy checking and rechecking the status of the gunnery crews and their weapons.

George Washington
“Admiral sir they are cutting their accel in half, and it looks they are changing course to bring themselves to a broadside to us.” the tactical officer frowned as he read off the numbers, the Icaran was indeed cutting her acceleration and turning broadside to the task force.
“Thank you tactical…..guns how much longer to range?” Rear Admiral Monteghue said softly as he looked over his shoulder at the gunnery station.
“Thirty seconds to missile envelope, fifty before we reach energy range.”
Monteghue turned to face Commander Alex Stark “They are either overly cocky, or they’ve got a longer range then we suspect Alex.” his voice was quiet enough that only the commander could hear him and his face was expressionless, but his eyes showed he was worried and Alex couldn’t blame him one whit.
“Either she’s got a cocky dumb captain or they’re confident they can stand up to us all….and if it’s the latter we’ve got a lot to worry about Alex.” The Admiral turned back towards the display and saw the lone enemy super dreadnought turning her broadside to his fleet in defiance.
“Missile lock, all tubes firing!” the sudden announcement turned just about everyone’s head, unfortunately for them the tactical display showed a massive “wall” of light lance out from the Icaran towards two battleships as the SD fired it’s broadside….

Reverence:
The two battleships that were hit rocked as their shields flared to life for barely a minute before imploding and the huge energy forces made contact with the hulls of the two battleships, as the beams lashed out the green beams slashed through decks and hull plating with ease, it wasn’t quite accurate to say the two battleships exploded, it was more like they just broke apart spilling wreckage and bodies into space.

“Incoming missiles, I count sixty six birds!” The tactical officer said coldly as the Reverence’s own tactical displays came to life with the light codes of the enemy capital missiles.
“Helm hard about…now!” Captain Scott clenched his right hand into a fist at his side as he saw the enemy battleships closing to within their own energy range, seconds passed and almost imperceptivity a light streak glowed to life on the displays as the ECA beams lashed out from their battleships, out of the six beams only two struck home but it was enough to reduce the shield power of the SD.
The massive warship spun about with surprising ease and grace as her main engine burst to life sending her at the full 500 gees of military acceleration back towards the planet she was fighting to protect.
The enemy battleships continued to close however, and even though the were slower to accelerate they would eventually gain on their prey.
“Gunner crews, aft chase mounts pick a target and open fire!” Scott barked the order out like a curse.

George Washington
“Holy mother!” The tactical officer blurted angrily as the Icaran’s aft chase batteries came to life burning through the Valley Forge‘s shields with amazing ease.
The battleship’s hull plating collapsed before the wrath of the beam fire and within moments all that remained of the once mighty battleship was an expanding ball of fire, and wreckage.
“Admiral, no one could have survived that….”Alex Stark said grimly as he watched the last flare of light die out.
“Alright keep the remaining ships together in a tight formation, if we’re going to take that bastard down we’ve got to focus our own fire.” Monteghue forced his voice to sound unemotional, even as his own heart was aching as the realization of what was happening to his command struck home, 3 battleships were blown out of the sky before they had even reduced their enemy’s shields, there were at least a thousand survivors out there floating in escape pods or vac suits but that still left almost five thousand of his people dead or dying.
The three remaining ECA battleships returned to energy weapon range and fired again, this time all three of their shots hit the enemy SD and it’s shields weakened even further, barely a minute later 66 more missiles rippled from the battleships and the closest 11 actually managed to strike home but her acceleration took her away from the remainders.
“Their shields can’t have much power left sir, we might just have…..bastard!” Alex swore louder then he intended as he saw the enemy’s chase mounts unleash another volley, this time James Madison was torn open from bow to stern like an old tin can, hull plating and atmosphere formed an icy cloud as they spilled free from the sliced hull, her power systems flickered for a moment and then stopped as she slowly drifted away from the fight, escape pods launched from her in droves as she continued to drift, until finally her hull began to break apart.

Reverence
The two remaining enemy battleships fired their I-laser turrets again and this time it had a dramatic effect as the Reverence rolled up on her starboard with the force of the enemy beams, her shields flared for a moment and then failed outright under the enemy fire, the only thing that saved the Reverence from direct damage was that just as her shields failed the energy pouring into her through the enemy beams faded.
“My God that was close…” Scott whispered to Nikki, and turned to see that she too was pale with the shock, by all rights those two cannons should have sliced into her armor and killed Lord only knew how many crewmen.
“Helm take us in, guns give me a lock on both those ships hold fire until we are point blank, then let’s end this.” Scott winked at his XO and grinned “I said we’d play it risky didn’t I Nikki.” She nodded nervously and his grin faded as he turned back to face the main screen, they both knew just how risky it was to run straight into two enemy ships without any shields, even in a super dreadnought.

George Washington:
“Sir she’s turning about to engage us!” A voice called out from the tactical station, but by then everyone already knew that the enemy ship had turned about and was closing in at maximum military thrust.
“She’s got no energy field around her, she must have lost her shields.” Stark stared at his display even as he spoke, his heart seemed to stop for an instant as he realized what the Icarans were doing, They’re going to try and finish us in one fell swoop they know they can’t keep taking us on with only they’re chase mounts or we’d be guaranteed a lucky shot on her eventually. his mind raced as he saw the enemy ship closing, it seemed an eternity but finally the two ECA battleships fired straight at their massive foe. The commander’s thoughts turned to his family, and his own failure to achieve their mission objective, for unless a miracle happened he knew that these were his last few seconds of life.

Reverence
The one enemy ship’s sensors had targeted one of the many sensor ghosts cost by the ECM generators carried by all Icaran warships and missed by over a kilometer, the second beam however passed barely a meter over the forward hull of the massive Icaran super dreadnought so close that a long streak of paint boiled with the heat. But her fire proved much more accurate as she opened fire on the Lake Superior tearing her apart with a hellish beauty.
George Washington too was struck, and went up in a brilliant flash of light as her reactor breached, there wasn’t even a chance for anyone of her crew to reach the escape pods, the only fortunate thing for those poor souls was that they never even had time to feel pain.
As their last opponent disappeared Scott felt an odd mix of triumph and horror, eight battleships meant 16,000 lives and Scott had been through battles before and had indeed been aboard a super dreadnought that was crippled during the earlier months of the Andermanian crusade, he knew what it was like for the crews of those ships in their last few moments of life.
“Sir I’ve got escape pod and vac suit rescue beacons, from all over the place, should I order out SAR teams.” Nikki’s voice startled him back into the present as he pulled his eyes away from the still sparkling debris of their final victim.
“Yes, deploy cutters and take us around to pick up as many survivors as we can, damned if I’m going to let those people die out here….” Captain Willard Scott’s expression turned pale for a moment as the sheer destruction he had just unleashed, and the luck of his own ship’s survival sank in.

The SAR teams launched by the Reverence picked up 2,018 survivors from the eight enemy battleships, these POWs were then taken by StateSec transports to Icaran POW camps in the home system where they could receive medical care, food, and basic-albeit uncomfortable- living quarters until the war ended.
Neither side ever figured out what the other was doing there, as the survivors the Icaran’s recovered refused to speak of their final mission to their nation, and because not one ECA soldier ever returned home from the 5th battleship squadron their homeland would never know that the governor and his family were all still very much alive, though in political prisoner camps far away from their home world.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Bah! Here I am in the process of formatting this for SEnet, and you write more! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

heheh, just kidding. Keep up the great work!

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

That is what you may think is sheer size, but wait until you have seen my empired navy, hehehe....

Anyways, keep up the good work SH.

Re: From the Begining New Chapter Added (4/2/05)
 

Important Worlds of the Icaran Empire:

[i]Planet Icara:
This world was colonized in the late twenty-first century by the Icara/Empire of the Shining Star evacuation fleet after they were driven from the Sol system by the Sol Coalition forces.
Population: 3,216,000,000
Distinguishing Traits:
Icara's capital city "Venture" is one of the few Icaran cities that kept to the old earth design school.
Icara also boasts one of the most active and friendly ecologies of the Empire.

Planet Brandenburg:
Brandenburg was an accidental co-colony of Icara, after a lone ESS transport crashed to it's surface after being thrown through the same stellar anomoly as the rest of the evac fleet, contact was reestablished during the late twenty second century after an Icaran survey craft overflew the planet.
It was fully rehabilitated into the empire in the year 2400 by Countess Percilla Tory.
Population: 1,553,000,000

Distinguishing traits:
Brandenburg's female population outnumbers it's male populace two to one.

Brandenburg also boasts one of the few "pure bred" populations in the Icaran Empire, as the vast bulk of this world's populace is Asian in origin, and fo the most part due to traditions many of the world's population still refuse to intermingle with others not of their race.

Their largest contribution to the armed forces of Icara is female personnel.


Planet Sparta:
Sparta was colonized early in the expansionist years of Icara and her early years were not easy as nearly every life form on the planet-including many plants-were hostile to human life by either proving non-edible or openly predatory against human life.
However the brave colonists eventually learned to thrive on their homeworld and to this day claim they are the toughest Icara has to offer.
Population: 544,000,000

Unique Traits: Every member of Icara's population born to the "first generation" has had a teardrop tatoo beneath their left eye symbolizing that they will never forget the sacrifice of the first colonists from Icara.

Sparta also boasts a large populace of former Brandenburgers who were drafted by the colonization branch of the Icaran government, these colonists unlike many of their counterparts on Brandenburg have since integrating into the general populace of Sparta in part due to the hostile nature of Sparta.

The Spartan Kraken is the largest and most ferocious predator in the known galaxy, being larger then an old earth elephant and brandishing claws and fangs that can rend battle armor in a single swipe.


Planet New Haven:
The exact colonization date of this world is lost to history, it is the former home world and Capital of the Rebel Alliance which surrendered to the Icaran Empire during the early years of expansion.
Population: 4,000,000,000

Unique Traits: Former homeworld of the Rebel Alliance, this world has the largest non "true blood" Icaran population of the Empire.


Planet Mandow:
Homeworld of the Delta Corporation Mandow rules over the entire 6-11 system like it's own private Empire, StateSec troops that are normally seen on Icaran worlds are instead replaced by Delta Corporate Security and many rumors are flying in the Court that the Delta Corporation is building it's own private military force for some sinister reason.
Currently 6-11 and thus Mandow are being "observed" by Icaran Shadowdagger agents.
Population: 8,000,000,000

Unique Traits: Mandow is a semi-autonomous state within the Empire.
The Solstoy shipyards in orbit are rumored to be producing more then just merchantmen and transports, many people say that they are buidling an entire division of SuperDreadnoughts flying the Delta Corporate flag and crewed by ex-pats from several of the conquered star nations in Icara's borders.


Planet New Brisbane:
Colonized after the destruction of the original Handra colony, New Brisbane served as the jumping off point for the Icaran invasion and subjugation of the Phong Federation.
Population: 697,000,000

Unique Traits: Of the 697 million people on New Brisbane 300 million are military personnel or under military employment aboard the two massive orbital shipyards that float above New Brisbane.

Sphereworld: Phong Isolation
The Phong Isolation was the first sphereworld ever constructed by the Icaran empire, it's sole purpose was to isolate the Xeno population from the rest of the Icaran empire.
This massive sphereworld contains a population of 19 billion Phong, and when fully occupied will contain every last Phong in the empire.
It is a grim dark world used as a massive work camp by the Icaran empire, the Phong who live here have nothing but work in their future.
Population: 19 billion and growing.


Sphereworld New Icara:

This mighty construct is totally unlike the Phong sphereworld, it is a glittering jewel in the Icaran home system of Norvor and currently has a population of 12 billion Icarans, including many Andermanian ex-pats which were captured when their colony ships were seized by the new "light raiders" of the navy's Artemis project.
Population 12 billion

Re: From the Begining New Chapter Added (4/2/05)
 

Ahhh a treachorous evil corporation with diabolical plans for domination. Doesn't eveybody galaxy need at least one of those? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

This segment is rated R for Graphic violence, language, and scenes of gore if you are offended by such material please skip this chapter:

The Goddess of the hunt
To: Grand Admiral’s Office
From: Rear Admiral Alan Hindecker, His Majesty’s Bureau of Ship Design
Re: Project Artemis

Grand Admiral your excellency it is my happy duty to inform you that the Artemis project has finally born fruit, the two Nimitz class carriers are already in my yards being retrofit for the Artemis heavy raider configuration with the extended marine barracks and shield depletion weaponry, fortunately due to the size of the Nimitz carrier’s we’ve also been able to give her more individual firepower and shielding then we originally thought, she can easily destroy an enemy super dreadnought in a single broadside and can take enough punishment on her shields to get within boarding range.
The light raiders designed to capture rather then destroy those colony ships and transports we’ve been having to destroy will begin production shortly after the Artemis heavies have been tested in combat.
Unfortunately the Light raiders will not be able to take on capital ships or any proper heavy warships, so they must operate either in larger groups or with the protection of Royal Navy dreadnought or super dreadnought units.
Your Faithful Servant
Rear Admiral Hindecker

One Month Later:
His Majesty’s Ship Nimitz had once been a mighty carrier for the Royal Navy, however her and her sister ship had been gutted, her flight bays and munitions storage facilities had been removed and replaced with extended marine barracks, small arms armories, briefing rooms and “tubes” carrying the new breaching pods Her personal armaments had been dramatically increased though, with massive mount I-Las cannons and massive shield depleter cannons. Captain Harold Kimmel paced the command deck of his new “raider” configured command, that too was nothing like it’s carrier configuration no air boss, no CAG liaison officer or flight ops stations, now there were marine boarding command stations, armor suite monitors and a lot of other equipment that went with being an independent raider, including the latest and greatest cloak detection and long range scanner systems the navy could offer.
But even with all that High Tech equipment Captain Kimmel felt little better about his situation, they had been dispatched to pursue a lone Neo-Star super dreadnought that had been detected by a system’s spier satellites, but what made this a bad situation in his mind was that his lone little “raider” was now in a frontier system that was 350 light years away from any Naval base or even starship and the warp point which had brought him here had been closed to ensure the enemy ship did not escape him.
They don’t even know we can detect them why the bloody hell would they try to escape us? he thought irritably as the numbers ran down and the distance between his starship and his prey closed.
“Marine boarders to stations, tactical time to intercept.” Kimmel paused his pacing and looked at the officer he had just addressed, the young woman looked at her screen for a long hard second before returning her captain’s gaze levelly.
“Three minutes to intercept, one point five to boarding pod range.” Kimmel nodded at her and returned his gaze to the screen once more, three minutes and we’ll see if this new idea actually works.

Three minutes passed like an eternity as the massive raider closed on her much smaller prey at her maximum available accel until she had closed in with her weapons range, the only sign the enemy commander had that the raider had actually seen him was when the orange beams of massive shield depletes reached out from the raider and reduced his shields to less then half power, the following massive I-laser mount shot tore through his shields with incredible ease, unfortunately for the NeoStar super dreadnought the burn through knocked out two of her engines making her slower then the massive raider that was even now closing on her.
A few pot shots from the SD actually impacted on Nimitz shields but the huge raider shrugged off the blows like a Spartan Kraken shrugged off darter shots, as Nimitz passed broadside to broadside with the enemy starship dozens of strange objects darted from her side at speeds just lower then that of a missile volley, though in many ways their payloads were much deadlier then any missile, as the NSE crew was about to discover.

“Alright marines lock and load five seconds and we’re in!” Sergeant Nick “Sharktooth” Monroe grinned as he smacked a dart magazine into his auto rifle, the other marines in his breaching pod were also smacking their magazines into place, except of course for the one marine who was carrying a breacher gun, corporal Sally Faucet fed the “shells” into her heavy weapon’s hopper with a devlish look on her face, Monroe’s platoon had three heavy weapons operators, two carried the breachers which were the equivalent of a 14th and 15th century shotgun prior to the development of magnetic accelerated weapons, a breacher fired 12 micro explosive darts at a target with gruesome effect, it was a perfect weapon for boarding and breaching actions because of the sheer hell it could unload onto any poor bastard caught in it’s range. The third heavy weapons operator carried a perdition rifle, which fired balls of “energy” hotter then the core of a star, it’s purpose was pure and simple personnel extermination as anyone or anything caught in that energy ball would vaporize rather quickly even though the energy ball only lasted for about three meters before dissipating.
The rest of the marines were equipped with the simple auto rifle- which fired either explosive, incendiary or solid darts at a rate of 300 rounds per minute when at full auto, though most marines preferred firing their weapon in a burst in order to increase accuracy and save ammunition.
After a moment of absolute silence a thundering crash echoed through the breaching pod like the wrath of God, Sergeant Monroe smiled at his marines as the all unhooked from their shock harnesses and move into their positions with silent well practiced discipline.
Monroe counted to 10 silently and then slammed his fist against a green button at the end of the pod, a hissing replied as the pod sliced through the last layer of armor plating between the marines and their target, as the front hatch erupted forward in a sparkling fireball Monroe and his marines charged forward like wild animals leaping upon their prey.
An enemy security detachment was unfortunate enough to be caught by the marines right after the sparkling eruption had dazed their senses, Sally Faucet’s breacher hiccupped twice and turned five enemy soldiers into a cloud of blood and torn flesh as the explosive darts tore them apart, a sixth enemy soldier was reduced to a crying heap of shattered flesh as an explosive dart tore her legs apart.
“Alright marines get moving, we have an engineering section to secure.” Monroe hissed as he watched the crying spasming woman on the deck, he sympathized with her but he couldn’t afford to detach one of his marines to secure her so he simply walked passed her with the rest of his unit as the advanced over the blood slicked deck.
After a moment the sobbing screams died away and Monroe flinched absently at the thought, he shook off the feeling after a second only to hear the whine of darter fire erupt ahead of him, one of his marines went down as a half a dozen darts tore his chest open even with the armor and sent him down as blood geysers erupted from his wounds and the gruesome sewer smell of bowels loosed in death filled the corridor, Monroe switched his helmet to internal oxygen and was grateful as the smell of purified oxygen replaced the death stench that surrounded him, the breaching guns hiccupped several more times as auto-rifles whined, another marine went down, with a solid shot through his throat, his gurgling death throws audible over the din of weapons fire.
Monroe moved up and saw what looked like an entire platoon of enemy security personnel blocking the corridor, a few bodies and blood splattered corridors told Monroe that at least some of the enemy soldiers had been killed, he aimed his rifle at an enemy security soldier and let off a burst of deadly accurate fire, the enemy trooper didn’t even have a chance to scream as three darts tore through his helmeted head with ease, splattering blood and brain material everywhere.
Monroe nodded at the heavy weapon marine carrying the perdition rifle, and as the other marines laid down covering fire the world suddenly turned on it’s head and shook as the amazing sound and vibration caused by the powerful weapon firing momentarily stunned the Icaran marines, the lucky enemy soldiers had been caught full on in the blast and vaporized, other less lucky enemy soldiers could be heard screaming in agony as burnt remains of limbs dangled from their bodies, others could be heard screaming “my eyes” as they clawed at the burning eyes that would never see again.
Monroe’s marines moved up with practiced speed and the quick bursts of auto-fire brought a merciful end to the grotesquely wounded NSE soldiers pain and their shrieks of agony.
Seconds later the platoon was outside of the massive blast doors that sealed off the engineering compartment, however several well placed perdition rifle shots turned the doors into molten slag, just as the doors melted away the whine of a dart pistol from within the compartment split the air, and the ominous crack of bone and armor jerked Monroe around just in time to see another dart slam into the wounded marine, knocking him on his back, the wounded soldier jerked and twitched as the pain overrode shock.
One of the marines carrying a breaching gun fired three times in rapid succession destroying the handful of armed engineers with disgusting ease.
The rest of the marines charged forward into the surviving unarmed engineers, feet and hands flew as the marines struck down their enemies, the sounds of bones breaking and of people screaming in fear and pain echoed through the compartment as the marines advanced, several used their rifle butts with deadly effect on any of the engineers who resisted, and with their suit’s muscle enhancers the rifle butts struck like a grav sled, shattering bones with little work.
In under a minute the engineers who had survived the breaching gun were lying unconscious, or in the case of two younger engineers who panicked and tried to fight back they lay dead, their skulls broken.
The com signal passed over the command channel in less then fifteen minutes, the NSE super dreadnought Roma was officially in Icaran control enemy losses were in the hundreds and the Icarans had lost 23 marines but the first combat test of the new Artemis project heavy raiders had been a success.
Two weeks later the Nimitz had secured two more NSE dreadnoughts, the three enemy ships and the Icaran raider returned to Norvor, the three enemy ships were scrapped shortly after and added considerable resources to the troubled economic situation Icara was currently suffering from.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

OT: Oh btw I am starting college on the 12th of this month so I'll try to keep up with story chapters but lord only knows how much free time I'll have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Nice chapter, lets face it boarding was never going to be easy with the other side rolling over like most SEIV boarding has it. Keep up the good work fella.

OK I am right that US college is much like UK university? If not skip the rest of this post.

So you'll have loads of free time, which is all spent in pubs, bars, clubs and various other non-SEIV things. Especially at the start, really don't miss any of those events, the stuff that happends then is the basis of jokes that will last your entire time their.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Actually the college I'm using is online and is year round the only free time i'll be getting as in no work at all is either if I work my royal butt off and get lucky enough to finish a unit early, or if I manage my time right i'll also get the weekends off.

The only real time off will be the winter holidays where i get ten weeks off.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2433.2
There is no price to high for order, no price not worth paying for unity, and no price worth the value of the dominance of mankind.

It had been months since the 3rd fleet began patrolling the Selene system and Admiral Ross was growing anxious, they had spotted an Empire of Man fleet orbiting a Mantisoran world over a month ago, yet the Admiralty had ordered Ross and the 3rd fleet not to engage the EOM unless they left orbit of the Mantisoran world at least for while the Artemis flight was still in the neighboring system nabbing enemy starships for scrapping back in the home system.
The Navy had decided that protecting the stolen enemy ships was the most important task for the 3rd fleet, so for months they had been sitting on a warp point making sure no enemy ships managed to get through to the rally point where the stolen ships were being corralled for the return trip home, and all that while 21 EOM dreadnoughts were sitting behind Ross’ fleet leaving him wide open for attack which the Admiralty chose to ignore for the past several months, but now finally as the convoy of captured ships entered the Norvor Warp point, along with the 6 Artemis heavy raiders Ross felt his spirits rise and a great weight lift from his back, finally he could strike at the EOM and the Mantisorans in this system and then he could return to Icara for a few weeks anyway.

And so twenty-three hours after the convoy left the 3rd fleet closed in on the enemy fleet base like a juggernaught of ancient mythology, the EOM fleet and the Mantisoran base combined were of little threat to the overall victory of the 3rd fleet, the only question in the mind of Ross and his division commanders was how many ships and men Icara would lose before they achieved victory.
“Admiral we are entering EOM weapons range in three seconds, all commands report battle ready, main line of battle is positioned and ready for strike, PD ships also report in position for the assault.” Tactical officer Muller’s teeth were showing in a weird sort of smile as the anxiety of the moment caught up to him and he tried to look as relaxed as the veterans on the deck.
“Thank you Muller, inform all commands to commence assault, and godspeed.” Ross kept his tone level and friendly, though part of him wanted to laugh as the younger officer tried overly hard to look calm, it was his first combat action Ross knew and that gnawed at anyone, but if they survived it the next time and the time after that all became almost routine.
“Incoming! I count 231 birds in the air!” Muller’s voice cracked as the tactical plots showed 231 new crimson red lights blaze into life and race towards the Icaran battle line.
The counter missiles from the Icarans raced to meet their counterparts, the void of space came to life with hundreds of new stars as the two volleys collided upon one another.
But still more missiles came racing forward to engage the Icarans, only to have the thin blue lines of dozens of laser point defense batteries slice them apart as they closed creating an even more spectacular light show. Only eight missiles made it through and they splashed harmlessly against the Icaran shields.
The EOM fleet would never get off a second volley, as the entire 3rd fleet of Icara fired their broadsides off against their smaller, weaker opponents, a dozen EOM dreadnoughts vanished in a ball of fire as Icaran superdreadnoughts unleashed their broadsides against the inferior vessels, along with those ships thousands of lives also vanished in what seemed the blink of an eye.
Ross Frowned at his display as he saw the slaughter that was being inflicted by his fleet, he looked over at his exec and sighed again “This can’t be called war, it feels like murder.”
Commander Donald Sutherman looked at his commander with an equally grave expression on his face “M’ Lord, the Icaran Empire must rule over all mankind for us to have any hope of survival against whatever Xenos we will eventually encounter, not all of them will be as primitive as the Phong or the Xiati, and look at how much trouble they gave us, almost three decades of warfare, imagine a Xeno race as advanced as us…..no sir this isn’t murder, it’s a necessity and if these EOM soldiers were wise they would have surrendered to us months ago instead of fighting like this.”
Ross’ expression became even more grave as the last lights representing the EOM fleet vanished from the display and with them the last line of resistance between his fleet and the Mantisoran world. “Would we do anything less if we were in their place Don?”
The other man shrugged and then looked toward the main display as the 3rd fleet’s vanguard fired their broadsides into the main population centers of the undefended Mantisoran world.
“Sir to be honest with you I think we would have done nothing less than they had done, if we were in their place, but I also think we would not end up I their place as we would never ally ourselves with the likes of the treacherous Mantisorans or Andermanians.” Sutherman shrugged again and turned away from the main display as the last broadside from the 3rd fleet vanguard signaled the deaths of about 16 million people.
Ross couldn’t help but feel pity for those lives, or the soldiers who had died in a vein attempt to protect them, even now as his SAR cutters were launched he suspected they would not find many survivors, EOM ships were to frail and I-lasers too devastating for that to be possible. Of course in the end what were tens of thousands of lives compared to the 6.3 billion Andermanian alliance citizens and soldiers who had already died in what had started as a simple crusade against the Andermanian core worlds? Ross stood and left his command deck to return to his quarters, with the sudden urge to shower, yes Icara must prevail and yes mankind must be united, but at what price?

Meanwhile the “price” of unity was becoming even more clear as the entire former Corian Commonwealth erupted into a firestorm of riots, protests and full out rebellions, they felt as if their leaders had sold out to the Icarans and on top of that felt the Icarans had betrayed their oath to protect the worlds of the former commonwealth as there were no military or fleet units present in the Coria systems.
Thousands of people across dozens of worlds were dying as the rioters burned entire city blocks to the ground and fought against the local constabularies who tried to regain some semblance of order on their worlds.
When no Icaran military response appeared forthcoming the riots spread as rumors that Icara was losing the war against the Andermanian alliance spread through the Corian worlds like a wildfire, and the fact that Andermanian “liberation forces” had already taken over three former Corian worlds from Icara only helped the rumors of freedom from the Empire and the reformation of the Commonwealth spread.
What these people could not know was that the Icaran empire was not sitting still while over three billion humans rioted and rebelled, they were in fact mobilizing tens of thousands of State Security troopers in the Lacerta system aboard a massive cloaked starbase that belonged entirely to the State Security branch of the department of Justice. And that soon the steel fist of Icaran law and order would come crashing into the Corian Commonwealth like a giant smashing a toy.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

It is tricky the massed slaughter of people you outclass. Still does make for spectacular battle scenes ala Gladiator.
Hmmm sweet sweet Blam!

Good chapter matey, keep up the good work

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

SH, just asking but, what are I-Lasers? Mounted APBs? Modded weapons? Just asking, as they seem to be your SDs main weapon.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

As I recall 13th Generation APBs, a modded weapon for the game.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Ah. One more question tho, do you have more shipsets from this universe? Besides the Icarans?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Check the first post, first page.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Ah, I see.

The reason I asked this was because SH announced he was working on other shipsets (among which the Leon shipset) for this universe, and I wondered if he was using them.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yes the I-Laser is a 13 generation APB weapon with a green beam replacing the purple one, it is far deadlier then the 12th gen and has a longer range.

As far as shipsets goes the Andermanian shipset is completed yes and I actually posted up here, the Empire of the Shining star set is proving a pain in the butt as it's hard to get an "asian" looking design that hasn't been ripped off already.

The Leon are also a bit of a pain but they are coming along.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2433.6 Cataclysm in Sadalmelek
A tearful face appeared on the vid screens as Janet Cranston put the flexi down on her desk.
“Citizens of the Empire, ladies and gentlemen it is my terrible news to report to you that this day is one of the darkest in Icaran history, the Sadalmelek system suffered a Catastrophe the increasing solar flare activity that has had Icaran State scientists worried for the last few months took a sudden turn for the worst last month as the flare activity spiked, evacuation ships were sent to retrieve the former Earth Corps citizens but it was too late…..” she paused and wiped her eyes as she cleared her throat “The Sadalmelek system went nova at 06:30 AM Imperial Standard, on the 3rd of March, estimated casualties are currently at one point six billion, and rising, but worse then these deaths….if there can be such is that the Praetor himself was on an inspection tour of the newest provinces of the Empire……” Cranston’s voice went cold and tears began flowing again “I’m sorry it’s just…..” she broke down into tears and someone came from behind the camera and ran over to embrace the young woman.
An older man with gray hair stepped in front of the camera, his face set in stone yet his eyes also smoldering with tears “Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the Empire it is my terrible duty this day to tell you that Praetor Leonidas the sixteenth chosen by God, was killed in Sadalmelek along with his senior aid and Duke Cromwell….by noon today Crown Prince Rodrick will become Rodrick the 2nd Praetor chosen by God…..please bow your heads and pray for the sake of our Empire in the coming days……” the screen went blank for a moment as the sound of many sobbing people could be heard over the holocam’s audio pickup.

The loss of Sadalmelek would have been but a small tragedy within the Empire had it not been for the fact that Praetor Leonidas had insisted on touring the newest provinces of the Empire, to establish the true power and glory of the Empire to it’s newest citizens, instead now he was dead and his eldest son whom was presently only seventeen was now taking his place as the Praetor of the entire Icaran Empire.

Crowning a Praetor:
The Praetor’s Own regiment was turned out in full on the 3rd day of Solaris in the year, 6433 IY (Imperial Year, 2433.10 AD) in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace on Icara. Millions of Icarans were also present forming a seemingly endless sea of people around the Palace perimeter, banners waved and flapped in the wind as well as people showed their support for their new Praetor.
Inside the perimeter of the Palace a thousand nobles formed two great columns on either side of a long scarlet carpet which ran the length of the courtyard, from the outer gates of the palace to the traditional throne of the Praetor. Each column of nobles had a line of the Praetor’s Own in front of it, the soldiers wore the formal scarlet and gold armor their kind had for centuries whenever carrying out the formal responsibilities their duties required.

As trumpets blared the lines of soldiers drew their long sabers and held them high in salute, the massive palace doors opened loudly as their armored locks unsealed and their mechanisms hummed. The sound of drums beating turned the heads of the nobles toward the doors, it had been seven Praetors since anyone had heard those drums beat, seven Praetors since anyone had seen the regalia of the two drummers who marched in step through the armored doors, followed closely by the Praetor, Rodrick the 2nd himself, he was wearing the golden and engraved armor of an ancient Lord Marshall except in that the Praetor’s helmet bore the crown of his office. The Praetor was flanked by eight guards all dressed in the crimson and gold of the Praetor’s own, and all marching in a smart lockstep.
As the Praetor passed nobles dropped down upon one knee and bowed their heads in salute, the soldiers flanking the carpet all held their sabers high with pride as the new ruler of the Empire passed by them.

Rodrick though only seventeen was already the height of his father, he was well muscled and toned with years of physical exercise in the training yards of the Praetor’s Regiment, he kept his hair close cut much like the male soldiers he enjoyed training with so much, and his right cheek bore a deep scar from where a saber had cut into his face when he was twelve, despite the requests of his father he had refused to have the scar removed and said he would wear it with pride as the soldier who had given him the scar was one of the best commanders and swordsmen in the Praetorian Regiment before his unfortunate death in the latter stages of the Phong crusades.
Rodrick was almost the antithesis of his father and brothers where they were so concerned with politics and statecraft Rodrick was concerned with practicalities and martial training, where his father had been an excellent “tap dancer” of politics, Rodrick was a blunt straight forward young man who would take no disrespect from his peers. But perhaps more importantly Rodrick was unlike his father in that he was a man who would not settle for anything less then absolute victory, though it had never been publicly discussed Praetor Leonidas had actually considered pulling the Icaran military forces out of the new provinces and ordering them sealed off from the Empire for all time.
Rodrick was ambitious yet also cool headed, he knew it may take a century or more but he would not rest until Icara ruled the galaxy, there would be no giving their enemies the chance to eventually build warp point starships and invade Icara it’s self, for if the peace movement had their way Icara would seal it’s self off from the universe and dismantle it’s military.

The trumpets stopped blaring and the drums fell silent as the Praetor and his guards reached the dais that held the thrown of the Praetor, Rodrick swallowed hard as he stepped between the two drummers and took the short walk up the three steps that would forever change his life.
A man wearing white and gold robes stood next to the thrown, Rodrick recognized him as the highest priest of the Church of the Path on Icara and stared for a moment at the short old man who somehow held a calm sort of dignity that required no trumpets, no thunderous roar to be powerful. The young soon to be Praetor Rodrick the 2nd felt as if he should smile or bow to show the old man respect but he forced himself to keep the stone face and rigid back this specific duty required of him. The priest stepped forward and lifted the coronation crown high in the air as he said something in the ancient language that Rodrick couldn’t quite understand.
Then the old priest cleared his throat and looked Rodrick straight in the eyes “Lord Rodrick the second, son of Leonidas the sixteenth, Praetor chosen by God and ruler of the most holy empire of Icara, you stand now before the nobility and people of your Empire, you stand before the eyes of your God and you stand before the eyes of his church, your duty is clear by your blood, you are to be ruler of these people and of your Empire in the service of the almighty.” the Priest lowered the crown and Rodrick removed his helmet with respect.
“Do you swear to fulfill this duty with all your heart and soul, may you be damned if you lie before the eyes of church and empire?” the Priest’s voice had taken on the tone of a challenge as he stared into the eyes of the future Praetor as if he were trying to tear Rodrick’s soul out and examine it.
“I do so swear it before the church and Empire.” Rodrick said, managing to keep his voice calm.
The priests voice rose again “Do you swear to protect and rule your people with mercy and justice, to lead them against their enemies and guard them against treason may you be damned if you lie before the eyes of church and empire?”
“I do so sweat it before the church and empire” Rodrick replied
“And do you swear in turn to answer to the justice of the empire and people should you lead them astray, may you be damned if you lie before the eyes of church and empire?”
Rodrick swallowed hard again, that last sentence had resulted in the execution of three Praetors throughout history and he knew all too well that when they said “may you be damned” they meant it.
“I do so swear it before church and empire.” he managed to keep his voice strong, though his heart raced slightly as the priests gaze once again returned to the coronation crown.
“Then I say to the people of Icara as leader of the most holy church of the path on this world that you are fit to rule, all hail Praetor Rodrick the second, may he rule with wisdom and may his reign be long and glorious!” the Priest’s face wrinkled with a brilliant smile as he placed the coronation crown on the bowed head of Rodrick the second, and ushered in a new era for the Empire of Icara…..