The Crystalline Religion

[Ruatha]

Quite a surprise for them
Seeing mines for the first time can be painful!

[ April 13, 2003, 22:26: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

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The Crystalline Struggle
536714.2 Teracycles since Emergence

Zexlak was shattered, excommunicated and denied to ever have existed by the collective. He had said the Praetorians were a proper ally, and not the infestations that they obviously were. He then went on to actively try to evade pulses of the collective in orders to be his own I.

Kruzk remained, he had championed the cause of armor, which proved useful. The Praetorians had grown too fast to be overwhelmed by planetary weapons. The collective could not grasp the apparent weakness of their weapons.

They kept expecting the missiles to destroy ships as fast as the napalm destroyed planets. One of the oddest things of all, of the nature of the Cryslonite, was that they could depopulate a planet much faster then they could weaken an enemy ship.

Even in the first campaign, they had struggled against enemy ships. The victory over the Xi only happened because of their lack of ships. It led to extensive development in that area, leaving the Cryslonite outclassed in anti-ship weapons.

This was being corrected, slowly. Crystalline weaponry was really time consuming to explore and research and ineffective, so the collective thought at least.

Kruzk contemplated the latest developments of the new struggle. The fleet was avoiding all ships and trying to break the enemy homeworld.

Weapon platforms failed miserably against the Praetorian might on a colonial emergence world that was rioting.

The death of all the rioters was vaguely pleasing. "They showed themselves as worth only the name infestation," was the thoughtwave.

A new "ambassador" to foreign nations was picked, and he refused to have a name. He vowed to abide strictly by the old code. He refused to conduct his work anywhere but the loyal emergence worlds.

The greatest chance the collective had, was to make a charge straight into close range of the Praetorian homeworld and ignore the losses from ten enemy bases and anything else. The collective felt it be the greatest honor to itself to succeed, despite any losses.

The Imperium had planetary ships that could destroy the weapon platforms, but the fighters were a great peril, despite the presense of great battleships.

To describe the relationship between the ships and the collective, it is best to give them names such as Supremacy, Superiority and Victory for the capital ships. The most revered ships were the planetary depopulaters, the Supremacy ships. The newest were battleship sized juggernauts of destructive power that were thrice as deadly as those who had attacked Xi.

The collective also several types of specialty ships. Despite several refueling ships, supply remains a large problem.

Point Defense, the new DeMine group and the old standard containers, one of which was in service for six hundred teracycles already. This container carried passengers to the Last point before the pilgrimage and the plunge into the SunWorld. This container was already legendary among the Cryslonite, and it made trips every 4 teracycles.

The collective also had 10 megatons of planetary defense platforms.

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The Cleansing War
Battle of Praetorian Homeworld
Battle of Praetorian Stations

This date is of such epic importance to the new Cryslonite collective that is forms the basis of an entirely new Cryslonite Calendar that has this as day 0.

The intensity of the thought waves on this day were so tiring as to require a complete stand down of the emergence worlds' production, research and construction for an entire Teracycle.

The desperation on the part of the Cryslonite reflected the fact that weakness in war would be devestating to the collective. The determination and overwhelming will to power of the Cryslonite led to stories of a crystal race that echoed across the galaxy, to places where no one knew the real Cryslonite, but they knew the legends of the Crystal Empire.

The lesson to remember when thinking of the Cryslonite is, victory at any cost. The collective has no thoughtwave for a victory that was too costly.

Missile ships were entirely irrelevant at this point in history for both sides.

First, Fighters from the Praetorian Homeworld overwhelmed the point defenses of the fleet, which was a first sign of difficulty.

The call was made to charge in, losses no object. In retrospect, it is easy to see that if the Cryslonite ships were as weak on defense as the collective thought, it would have been no contest.

The Supremacy ships were placed in position to destroy the planetary defenses. But a barrage of missiles destroyed one, and crippled a second.

The third Supremacy finally got into range for a single barrage, and was taken down by meson fire.

It was around this time that the collective began to panic, but then something happened. The collective had several ships facing an entire armada of planetary munitions, firing off weapons that were pathetically weak, with a Last wounded Supremacy trying to get into range. The shields were lowered with only one barrage of napalms, and a series of shard cannon shots. Two smaller ships were destroyed, but a single Superiority Battleship withstood 40 meson bLasts, and 10 missiles, and remained operational.

While the Superiority BS 0001 faced off that fire, the lowered shields of the planet took on plague. This was when the collective felt they had at least hurt the Praetorians critically.

But the Superiority class vessels continued to draw fire away from the vital and almost destroyed Supremacy.

All point defense ships of the Cryslonite were destroyed. That meant 80 missiles struck targets for every couple of shots by the collectives' fleet. The only chance was to take out the weapon platforms before the rest of the fleet was destroyed.

The collectives' intelligience reports during the battle discovered the homeworld carried mines that could have stopped the fleet had they been launched. Demining ships were still insufficiently deployed to the fleet. Three thousand praetorian infantry were also on planet, helpless to do much of anything. Six satellites remained in docks.

It seems the Praetorian did not expect such a sudden attack, they expected the Cryslonite to feel outclassed against such a force and hold off on any attack.

But the Cryslonite once more proved they are comfortable and unbeatable when orbitting a planet... an infestation planet.

Missile strikes continued, but the crippled Supremacy was untargetted by the Praetorians, and began destroying the weapon platforms. The military doctrine of the Cryslonite matches the goals of avoiding the military and striking the infastructure of other military organizations. Aggression is the only way to win a war, and the only way to win aggression is to destroy or conquer the enemies production basis, the planet. Never again will the value of planetary weapons technologies be questioned by the collective, for they have learned that what losses they did take were due to not enough Supremacy ships.

After the weapon platforms fell, it was time to lessen the danger of the bases. This was a more risky mission for those ships left of the fleet.

Fighters and a single enemy ship also had to be dealt with.

There was a large network of bases with supporting fire on any approach to any of them. But long range fire was too unreliable when you need to get through as much armor as the battleships of the collective have.

Again, a "wise" commander may have decided to back off, but under fire again the fleet cleared the military bases with the battleships bearing the brunt of the fire rather well.

All Supremacy class ships were destroyed. The homeworld was under severe plague warning.

A battle station remained, armed to the teeth, it was the Last great threat to the collective's fleet.

Satellite missile launchers damaged more fleet ships, but it was insignificant, and they came under lethal fire, ending that threat.

Beyond the Last Battle Station was the Last armed resistance of the Praetorian, it was a second Yarkand class space station with meson bLasters. The fourth Superiority battleship was destroyed, Superiority battlecruisers 1, 2 and 3 remained with little damage. Superiority Battleship 1 was very damaged from the battle stations' fire. Superiority Battleship 2 was slightly damaged, and 3 was destroyed.

The poorly named Equalization, built during the Soluk war but upgraded in engine and weapon quality, was modestly damaged and a DeInfester was undamaged, with the plague weapon that gave the fleet the greatest chance to prevent any resistance from the Praetorians.

But away from the homeworld, there were still dozens of ships of the Praetorian, and a counterattack on the collective emergence world was a possibility.

The Cleansing War would still need many years to reach its conclusion, but the battle of Praetorian Homeworld had a great effect on both sides, representing a victory as great as the loss of two thirds of the Cryslonite fleet to mines was to the Praetorian forces.

Later it was determined that armor was an issue on both sides of the battle. The space station and battle stations were heavily armored, as heavily as the Cryslonite fleet, but the shard cannon weaponry of the fleet tore right through the armor, destroying weaponry with ease.

[oleg]

BUMP

Any updates ?

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I'm working on a Last part from the perspective of the Praetorians. After that, there are only one or two empires left in the rest of the galaxy. (After I found 3 empires from exploring only 3 star systems)

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The Invisible Crystalline
Last Log of the Imperial Historian

The Cryslonite fleet was worn down to only a few ships and we still could not totally destroy them. The two ships remaining retreated back across the wormhole, to Cryslonite space.

The righteous battle of Praetoria cost us greatly. The homeworld was in the throes of a dark plague, while millions were buried already from the napalm. Luckily only a few of the enemies' Supremacy class ships were available and the homeworld remained somewhat intact.

The Superiority class of the Cryslonite proved to be endlessly well protected. In short, we were hopelessly beaten technologically, while we had a temporary advantage in momentum.

The emperor was dead from riots on the Last day of the bombing, and the imperial staff was severely disorganized. The so-called grandson of God was claiming the throne, but many including myself rejected his claim. We felt the empire needs to be managed by the military, only then can they operate properly to destroy the Cryslonite. We can not divide our time with a coronation ceremony while Cryslonite are rebuilding Supremacy and Superiority over our heads.

But the power bloc in support of Admiral Hashuko was insufficient, and thus in year two of the Cryslonite invasion, the Grandson of God, Ssroik, picked his wife, appointed a royal guard, appointed a new imperial staff, of which I am not a part, and ordered the military to prepare planetary defenses.

It was over then. As I sit here with my notes, a powerless outcast once of the imperial court, I can see that no planetary defense will ever save us. Only ships can fight the Cryslonite on any terms. Ssroik is so stupid.

Ten million missile platforms would not be enough to stop the Cryslonite once they got into orbit again. All the platforms would be destroyed, and all the Cryslonite would lose is time.

Where millions of missile platforms would fail, a fleet of ten warships could easily succeed. The Cryslonite had little aptitude in space combat, having learned the art of war from planetary orbital battles and wars. We learned this so many times, the Admiral considered it his first order of duty to engage the enemy in space.

It could not matter much longer, the plague would get us all, in the end. We should be building ships and training medical researchers, but the coronation and its excess continued, and mere weapon platforms were constructed, the grandson of God proclaiming that nothing could stop them. He was a fool, and we will all die for it.

It was nearly three years before we saw the Cryslonite again. They had regrouped for a long time, and they returned with a fleet of ten ships bigger than the biggest ever used before, dreadnoughts.

Meanwhile, God's minions had built a few colony ships, which helped us none at all when the battle came once more.

Now they orbit us, closing in, while God promises his mere twenty weapon platforms will save us. But perhaps I will pray to the Cryslonite god instead, he is the one with true power, it seems.

I faced the sun and prayed to it, hoping that I could get away while the silly emperor-as-god here would die. I felt the warmth of the sun, cheering me in the final moments, and then finally I felt a streak of searing heat.

It must be the sun, the sun.
But it was napalm.
blackness forever...

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Illuminated Transitions
541763 Teracycles since Convergence

There was something about the Crystal Luminostra, something different, but this time this one different did not worry the collective so much as excite them.

Luminostra kept encountering contradictions in reconciling its' brainwaves with the collectives'. By a freak chance in the process of reproductive crystalline distortion, Luminostra did not have his current thoughts pushed out at each cycle.

Memory for an individual crystal was minimal, they only diverged slightly between syncs, before the collective came back. Each cycle the entirety of the crystals' mindstate was overwritten. But Luminostra found that each pulse merely accretted the same information of the collective on top of its current knowledge. As a consequence, information spilled over much later than when it was consumed. Luminostra found he could willfully disgorge the repetition of the collectives' thoughts, only keeping condensed summaries.

But before he discovered this, the multiple copies of the same information from the Crystalline collective made him into the canonical collective member. The disparities found in each Crystal from the lesser impact of more distant Crystals' thoughts distorted each of them, such that they more highly reflected their closest neighbors' thoughts, creating communities that dispersed and reformed in circular waves at the speed of thought.

Luminostra was able to hold off the immediate thoughts of his neighbors combining them in equal proportions with the entire collective. He did this because the collective desired it, and he had the collectives' desires as his own, only intensified many times over.

Everything the collective desired, he went after with great intensity. Before long the collective began to admire Luminostra... This was a dangerous precedent. The collectives' admiration caused Luminostra to admire himself even more intensely. He became an utter egomaniac by a completely collective process.

His egomania led him to learn about how to discard extraneous knowledge, which in turn lessened the intensity of his egomania. Luminostra became a Cache of most valued knowledge by means of memory filtration.

By the time he perfected his memory filtering, and thus made the rest of the collective dimly aware of it, a fervor was sweeping through the collective, that Luminostra must be the one who would finally be accepted by SunWorld.

When Luminostra became aware of the collectives' urge that he should take the pilgrimage, he spent a million cycles searching the collective brainwave for ideas of how to suceed.

Finally, the teracycle came, when Luminostra was to take the pilgrimage. He found a method to save himself, but the collective must not recognize it, or they would disbarr him from the pilgrimage and shatter him instantly. He had spent many cycles creating a device. To fool them all, he found reason to believe that it would be a good totem of the SunWorld, but he had known and discarded for an instant the knowledge that it would absorb all the energy that could destroy him on the SunWorld.

With his mind safely disgorged of such thoughts when the collective was focussed on him alone, he fell free from the escape door of the pilgrimage container. Now he had less than ten thousand cycles to search the collective, gathering information until he discovered again how to use the totem he carried...