The Crystalline Religion

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My PC crashed pretty fiercely, and wasn't exactly working, so I had to used the recovery CD to get it working again (I also have a mac, but can't play SE on that), so my save game was lost. But I didn't want to quit on this story, so I came up with this idea.

I started another game in Proportions playing as a different race that I'm working on. (The Robotia Foundation), and then I realized the crystalline were in the game, so I decided to take them over and have the SunGod try to fix the crappy AI induced situation they were in when I took over and assert their proper dominance over everyone again.

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Wrath of the SunGod
88th month since the Atheistic Cryslonite Reformation
12rd month of the SunGod Luminostra

"I am Luminostra, do not forget my name. You have shamed the Cryslonite name, and now the collective shall follow an individual, Luminostra, the SunGod," the thought echoed through the pathetic collective over and over and over.

All remnants and materials of the atheists were destroyed, shredded into fine dust, not to be mentioned by a Crystal again. The speed and power of Luminostra's thoughtwaves forced the collective into perfect lockstep with his every command and wish.

The collective learned many things about proper weaponry, the art of napalm was rediscovered, the space stations were scrapped in favor of a large fleet to be built.

The Transform class destroyers were armed with Shard cannons and upgraded with Napalm soon after it was rediscovered. The Piundon's satellite defenses were destroyed in a few salvos, and a minor Piundon planet was in the SunGod's path, to be destroyed quickly, he hoped.

The mighty wall of doom of the Cryslonite was back. Nine Transform ships carried something, the Piundons' had no clue that the Cryslonite had gained some of their other-universely Imperial demeanor and power.

The Piundon colony was well armed, but its defenses were knocked out quickly, leaving millions of infantry who found themselves the main target of the Cryslonite fleet. The infantry was much better trained to evade napalm weaponry than the general populace.

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Encyclopedia Galactica
War-History-Cryslonite-Post2408.8

As it was later known, the outsider Luminostra gained control of the Cryslonite Imperium with his forceful brainwaves, and after reinstituting an old religion, he turned to war doctrine.

Luminostra instituted a strict prioritization of placement prior to battle that reflected both Cryslonite weaponry and Luminostra's biases.

The best battle was over the enemies' most important world, regardless of the defenses there, because in that case, a suicidal rush of his ships could destroy a significant part of the planetary capabilities, if they were equipped with napalm.

Battles over colonial worlds were next best, followed by battles in enemy territory and Lastly, any battle in friendly territory.

Luminostra was an incredibly aggressive war planner, preferring to sacrifice hundreds of ships to put the enemy on the defensive, over any sort of defense.

In the war against the Piundon from 2408.8 onwards, there are many battles that illustrate the idiosyncracies of the Cryslonite.

In the first and second salvos' Luminostra destroyed two colonial worlds of the Piundon, but Piundon ships were on the move in great numbers, and Luminostra had to retreat his fleet, especially to upgrade his napalm weapons for the difficult fight on the Piundon homeworld.

But the Piundon had many ships and many shipyards, and the fleet could barely fight off them all and send the damaged for repairs before another group of ships warped in.

Luminostra's fleet struggled tactically, his weapons were weak, and the enemy ships were outfitted with more of the same crystal shard cannonry, but with shields, taking the place of the napalm and point defense that Luminostra's ships had.

It wasn't until 2410 that Luminostra finally targetted the Piundon homeworld, which had many space stations and transports in orbit.

Luminostra's fleet always came into battle in a formation roughly resembling a concrete block. He believed strongly in keeping ships together for supporting fire.

At the Piundon homeworld, most of the space stations were missile armed, which posed little threat to the fleet. Only a single space station, and a single destroyer, as well as the homeworld itself, had real damaging potential. The Piundon seemed to share the same aggressive stance as Luminostra.

But, the homeworld was extremely well armed, with dozens of long range shard cannon installations.

The manuever most well known of the Cryslonite throughout the galaxy was the planetary charge, and this charge would be the Imperiums' first in the long record of our galaxy...

Excerpt from the Encyclopedia Multiversia

The Cryslonite are one of the few races to rise to power in two seperate universes. In one of them, their rise to power was uncontested and they quickly overwhelmed their home galaxy. In the other, they were weak until a Crystal passed from the first into the second universe, acquiring great powers and converting the populous to the religion practiced in first universe.

Multiverse historians have labelled these two Cryslonite empires as the Ascendant and Transcendant Cryslonite civilizations. The early struggles of the Transcendant Cryslonite caused even Luminostra, the SunGod, to change his views. Even with his dominance, he still changed gradually towards the views of collective.

The struggle created a second element of their religion dedicated to sacrifice and veneration of the great sacrificial war charges of the Imperium.

The war charge at Piundon was the first for the Transcendant collective, it demonstrated the great power of a goal that transcending all other considerations.

For the Cryslonite, that goal was to crush all other civilizations, to crush them, leaving the Last sights of the infestations to be only the Sun illuminated form of a Crystal ship.

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Loss and Gain
2412.5 years since the Great Emperor Sieth-sith
Wargaming and Analysis Log of General Moro-kel

"We ran a wargame of an assault on the Cryslonite Imperium well before they attacked us. We have substantially similar weaponry to the Cryslonite, as they also use a form of the shard cannon.

Before the political turmoil and reformation of the Cryslonites' that led to war, they used many diverse types of ships, and seemed rather docile. Their ships freely passed through our space, wandering aimlessly.

From what our intelligence analysts' say, some sort of extremist took over the Imperium with some sort of extra strong weapon. This extremist is known as Luminostra. When they declared war, the announcement gave us many clues as to his identity.

Luminostra believes that all other races are a scourge to be quickly destroyed. 'The Cryslonite have tired of being puppets to a lesser scourge such as the Piundon. Fear the wrath of Luminostra.'

As soon as we got that message, we found that Luminostra had reformed all of his ships to new designs and doctrines.

His fleet destroyed several of our colony worlds before attacking our homeworld with a clearly inadequate force.

I am still analyzing the results of the battle, but it seems Luminostra did not care what losses his fleet would incurr. He managed to destroy many of our space stations, but our planetary weapons annihilated his fleet quickly when he tried to reach close weapons range. The planet took no damage, and the remnants of his fleet could only slightly lessen our shield strength.

He was severely outclassed, but the ships showed no trepidation in charging into overwhelming fire.

Since then, our recon sorties have started to encounter a new type of weapon, and ships that can withstand a lot more attacks. Our captains are in dire need of training, as we have noticed the Cryslonite are now equal to us in weapons accuracy and evasive manuevers.

But the Cryslonite have little economic strength while we have access to the rest of the galaxy. They may know how to traverse warp points, but they are trapped as effectively as if they did not. We only need to hold them off until we consolidate our control over the rest of the galaxy.

But, the Praetor orders that we destroy the puny menace..."
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It would be easy to claim that the Cryslonite are the most underrated force in the Transcendant universe, and the most overrated force in the Ascendant one...

[Unknown_Enemy]

doumga-BUMP !

Still there ?
Check mail !

[dogscoff]

Wow... this is fantasitc. I hadn't even seen this story until today. I love the way you take us into the mind of the Crysonite, it's really alien and effective.

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Incursion
72rd month of the SunGod Luminostra

Luminostra was furious, pushing the collective into a tornado of anger and a drizzle of despair. The Piundon homeworld was so well armed that only a desperate retreat left any of the fleet intact.

Outranged, outgunned and not enough napalm, Luminostra thought.

To make the problem worse, the enemy had streamed into the Collective home system when the all out attack began, now only a few minelayers were active in trying to parry the counterattack.

It was becoming obvious that the Piundon had supply and production centers outside of their home system.

The greatest difficulty was an internal one, something no other empire could ever know about. Luminostras' power was slowly easing from the overwhelming despair that circulated the collective. Wait long enough and Luminostra would become a high-powered broadcaster of the average collective thought. It was much harder to purge thoughts with a large memory.

This point made Luminostra hate the unworthy subjects on this side of the multiverse. The Ascendant collective was his proper home, here he was mostly a nurse correcting the problems of wimps.

One thing that provided a small streak of powermania was the newest ship classes. They were armed with Quantum Torpedos' Crystalline Armor and shielding, making the battle against the Piudon a bit more even.

73rd month of the SunGod Luminostra

The Piundon invasion force pulled back, unexpectedly, but with the result that the wounded battle fleet was trapped momentarily. Supremacy fleet was left with only two battle ships, one of them crippled, and many support ships for supply and mine sweeping.

74th month of the SunGod Luminostra

Luminostra knew that a victory over the enemy in the collectives' territory would give the collective a boost of warpride. And all but one of the Piundon ships had returned to their home system.

The Piundon were not trapped, they could afford to simply defend against the collective, he thought. We are the ones who have no chance, except through the destruction of the Piundon, we are trapped, cocooned by a force that should fall, but will not.

All we can do is build the insurmountable force. Spend two decades building it. Destroy their star, destroy the planet from afar, those were the two ways that seemed possible. Napalm was not effective to the collective mind, not anymore...

Victory over a heavily damaged Piundon vessel raised no cheers, it was not a worthy victory to celebrate.