From the Begining New Chapter Added (9/12/06)

[Hunpecked]

When your buddy gets hit, it's "light casualties."

When YOU get hit, it's a "meatgrinder!"

[Starhawk]

What future for the Children?:

The morning came dim and rainy on Brandenburg, much as it always did in the fall, but today the rain some how seemed colder and darker then usual as Countess Percilla Torri watched from her office window. It had been six months now since the invasion of the Caitia system saw the 1st Brandenburg regiment, enter battle as well as a large number of Brandenburg manning the warships of the 108th Super Dreadnought division which was providing escort for the Brandenburg’s transport.

Word had just arrived this very wet and grey morning that during the final four months of the Caitia invasion the 1st Brandenburg and the 108th SD division had been tasked with invading Caitia VI which was believed to be the final military stronghold of the People’s Republic of Remorhaz. Countess Torri steepled her hands as she remembered reading the report from Admiral Lord William Ross.

“To the brave and loyal citizens of Brandenburg it is my grim task this day to inform you that two ships of the 108th SD division were destroyed while valiantly protecting the unarmed regimental transport from hostile ground fire, 12,200 brave men and women perished.

However thanks to their valiant sacrifice the 1st Brandenburg regiment was able to accomplish it’s mission and capture the final hold out of the PRR but in doing so 750 infantry soldiers and 1,120 support staff were killed in action.

Because of these losses the 1st Brandenburg regiment is reduced to half strength and its tasked Escort division is down to 2/3 strength, however due to military pressures on the front we can not remove them from line service this day.

Know this your sons and daughters have lived up to the highest standards of his Majesty’s armed forces and their sacrifice will never be forgotten by me or those under my command.

Admiral Lord William Ross
Commander 1st Fleet.


Torri knew enough of the situation at the front lines to know that two other super dreadnoughts from another division had been destroyed and that all told some sixteen thousand other Icaran soldiers and spacers had perished in the battle for Caitia, a number that seemed so huge but when compared to the billions of Anderman, Mantisoran and Icaran citizens that had already died during the decades of war.

The countess looked out of her office window up at the night sky and stared at the massive shipyard in orbit, its outline clearly visible in the night sky as it orbited Brandenburg. Every time she saw that shipyard Percy couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the Empire and the universe its self, that huge shipyard was one of many in the Empire and wasn’t even the largest space station the Icaran Navy had built, that distinctive honor went to the gargantuan Fortresses that guarded the warp points into the galaxy beyond the Empire.
Torri sighed as she remembered the first days of the expansion, when she had left the warmth and safety of Icara and colonize Brandenburg, back then it all seemed so simple, the ships so small and the universe so vast and fascinating. Now all there seemed to be in the galaxy was warfare and even now in orbit of Brandenburg and several other classified worlds the largest ship class ever conceived was under construction, a ship that made even the Five Swords of Heaven seem small.

This ship class was officially the Holy Crusade class Battlemoon and it was supposed to be the weapon that won the wars and brought peace to the galaxy, with a crew of one hundred thousand and more firepower then entire divisions of super dreadnoughts and with a diameter of 25 kilometers it was the largest most powerful design ever conceived of, but in the end Torri only sighed again and remembered how the navy had said the same thing about the Super Dreadnoughts and the Five Swords, all were “Going to end the wars and bring peace.” But all had only been countered by enemy designs and as the ships grew in power the only thing that changed was the number of lives lost in each battle

The countess of the Norvor system spent hours thinking over the situation in the galaxy and felt her heart ache, her oldest son had already been assigned to the 5th fleet and her youngest son and 16 year old daughter were getting ready to leave the naval academy in a few months and each would be assigned to warships on the frontlines. She wondered with another stab of heartache if she would ever see them again as the battles grew more deadly and the war dragged on; a war that had been raging since before her children had even been born, and a war that might very well take them all from her if it did not end soon, as she drifted off to sleep Countess Torri, the first ruler of an offworld Icaran province and the once young girl who had left Icara with wide eyed enthusiasm wondered how many generations would be consumed by a war Icara hadn’t wanted in the first place and how many children had nothing in their future but war.

[Starhawk]

2439.9-2440.1 A brief Historic report
The Delta Corporation dispatched its private navy and fleet to seize the Anderman world of Horod V and began conducting biological and genetic experiments upon the civilian population in an attempt to better understand the Anderman soldiers who were engineered to survive in almost any planetary environment with only a minimum of life support equipment.
This action was unsanctioned by the Icaran government and has in fact caused the delta corporation to come under investigation, however because of the fact that the financial records of the Delta corporation “security department” was mysteriously destroyed when the archive building burned to the ground the day before Naval investigators were able to arrive.
Having spent nearly all of it’s financial assets on forming the private fleet with which to launch the attack on Horod V the Delta Corporation began selling several patents on the open market creating havoc in the Medical and Chemical markets of the Empire.

The 5th fleet under Admiral White invaded Glakka I and suffered heavy casualties as seven Super Dreadnoughts were destroyed with another being crippled with the majority of it’s crew dead, the invasion cost the Empire 41,820 of it’s young men and women, however the planet was seized and valuable resources were brought into the Empire, the seven destroyed ships names have been added to the Wall of the Fallen to honor their heroism in service of the Empire.

On a much more important note to modern historians the Celestian republic was absorbed into the Empire on Tellus 3rd 2440 bringing in several systems and worlds into the folds of the Icaran Empire.

What no one could have suspected was that the Mantisoran government though claiming alliance to the Anderman and flying under the Anderman Alliance banner was secretly planting agents throughout the other members of the Anderman Alliance and creating disorder and instability in their governments in order to bring them into the Mantisoran fold.

[Starhawk]

2440.1 Born in Fire
The 6th fleet had been formed little more than a month ago when Admiral Chester Hancock received his orders to ship out to the Asterion system and intercept the Sol Coalition’s 10th fleet which had been sited by an Icaran spy.

And now after traveling through an artificially created warp point and then having said warp point sealed again the 6th fleet was entering combat range with the veteran crews of the Sol Coalition’s 10th fleet which consisted of destroyers, cruisers and super dreadnoughts with varying levels of technology.

“Admiral enemy fleet advancing at high gee, enemy destroyers are leading their formation.” Spacer Martin Hargrove’s cold soprano voice sounded surprisingly confident for a boy of 16 who was going into his first battle

Hancock felt his own anxiety gnawing at him and tried to force himself to stop thinking about the fact that he was on a ship with an untested crew, for that matter he was in an untested fleet and found his only comfort in the knowledge that the enemy fleet though battle hardened veterans were on mainly outdated ships with only a small core group of modern Super Dreadnoughts.

The first shots were traded between the vanguard of the Icaran fleet and the Sol destroyer formation with surprising swiftness as the destroyers raced into the ranks of the Icaran fleet at full speed trying to avoid the Icaran fire. Unfortunately for most of the destroyers their evasive patterns did them little good as Icaran guns tore through their shields and hull as if they were not even there, in a single volley five of the eight destroyers had been vaporized.

“Admiral enemy destroyers are virtually gone, but….hold on….” Hargrove didn’t get the chance to finish his statement as a blinding flash filled the bridge monitors; the purpose of the destroyers’ suicidal charge quickly became apparent as Sol Super dreadnoughts having used their smaller destroyer comrades as a shield from Icaran fire now brought their guns to bare on the first Icaran warships with lethal effect.

As the screens cleared Hancock suppressed a wince as he saw a cloud of debris drifting away from what had once been the HMS Herodotus; a three kilometer long warship and six thousand human beings had vanished in a ball of fire and even to a veteran like Hancock was astonished at how fast such a powerful and magnificent starship with a crew the size of a small town could just vanish in a matter of seconds as I-Laser weaponry shredded them.

The Herodotus was unfortunately not alone, the Tangu was adrift after powerful beams raked her from stem to stern, and the Sullivans, or rather the third of it that was left burned furiously as plasma fires consumed the remaining wreckage and bodies.

Though the speed of the Sol SDs had come as a shock the Icaran navy’s discipline won out and in short order the massive Icaran warships were firing back into the enemy capital ships.

“Holy God!” the helms woman screamed as she slammed the control yoke of the flagship forward and down and slammed on emergency thrust to avoid colliding with an enemy Super Dreadnought that had just blown apart the HMS TigerClaw and had come charging straight at the Fortitude as if to ram.

“All batteries, open fire, take that son of a ***** out of my sky.” Hancock shouted as he saw green beams lance out from the enemy warship as it raced forward, only two shots struck upon the Icaran’s shields and Hancock muttered a brief prayer of thanks.

The Fortitude’s own gunners had achieved lock on the Sol SD and as it swung around to fire at them again both ships unleashed their full armaments at almost the same instant, and for a moment time seemed to freeze.
Beams from both ships passed each other by meters and two beams collided with one another creating an amazing light show as energy streams arced away from the collision of almost unimaginable amounts of energy.
Icaran beams danced across the shields of the Solar SD for several seconds before contacting the metal hull with a force that actually tore clean through from as beams entered through the port side and exited through the starboard.
There was no material in the universe that could hold up to 2 terawatts of power for very long and the Sol Coalition had chosen not to put reactive armor on their warships, and even now the folly of that decision was apparent as two kilometers of ship simply seemed to start coming apart as the I-lasers tore through bulkheads. There was no massive explosion from the Sol warship; it simply broke apart in a series of small fiery chunks, one of which probably contained its primary reactor which had some how not gone critical as the ship was destroyed.

“Alright let’s pick out another target people we aren’t done yet.” Hancock barked as his some of his crew stared in aw at the still glowing wreckage. A Sol cruiser was next to fall to the Fortitude as it tried to get under another Super dreadnought and fire at it’s unarmed underbelly.

The battle lasted barely twenty minutes as Icaran and Sol Coalition forces both fought fiercely, and though the 6th fleet emerged victorious from its first battle, it had paid dearly for that victory, leaving eight Icaran super dreadnoughts destroyed and two crippled hulks, a total of 57,900 Icarans died in the twenty minute battle and though 38 enemy ships were destroyed only 5 were of equivalent class to the Icaran warships lost.

6th Fleet under Admiral Chester Hancock engages 38 enemy ships
Icaran Losses:
HMS Prince Consort (SD) (98% Destroyed- 5,900 dead)
HMS Tangu (SD) (77% destroyed 3,200 dead)
HMS Herodotus (SD) (Destroyed – 6,100 dead)
HMS Sullivans (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
HMS Junaeu (SD) (Destroyed -6,100 dead)
HMS Lightning (SD) (Destroyed – 6,100 dead)
HMS TigerClaw (SD) (Destroyed -6,100 dead)
HMS Agitator (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
HMS Tsun-Tsu (SD) (Destroyed- 6,100 dead)
HMS Italia (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
Icaran Dead: 57,900
Total Anderman Crusade Losses: 632,307

2440.4 Change in the Balance
Three months after the battle of Asterion the entire Anderman alliance was thrown into upheaval as pre arranged forces under Mantisoran control seized government officials, and vital centers of commerce, defense and communication bringing the Anderman Federation, the Empire of Man and the Sol Coalition to their knees in a matter of hours.

Thanks to Mantisoran economic efforts and public relations operations the bulk of the Alliance worlds fell under Mantisoran control without a shot being fired as the people saw the Mantisorans as heroes come to save them from an ever growing state of economic collapse and sense of fear as whole worlds were abandoned by their former governments in order to protect the “more important” worlds of their respective nations.

Two weeks into the month of Pájaro in the year 2440.4 a new nation was born as the last political holdouts of the alliance “disappeared” or were otherwise forced into recognizing the Mantisoran crown as the only legitimate government in the former Alliance controlled space, from this change in political, economic and military power the Mantis United Kingdom was forged, a nation with nearly a thousand ships under it’s control and several hundred more planets then the Icaran Empire.

The new threat posed by this nation caused even the staunchest of Icaran expansionists to pause and rethink the new balance of power in the Galaxy, the Anderman, Empire of Man, and Sol coalition had all ceased to exist and from their chaotic political infighting came a strong government with an economic might greater than that of Icara and with As Mantisoran Admirals took over the fleets and Mantisoran Generals took over the armies of the former alliance, a new corps of deadly efficient and disciplined officers took the reigns of a once disunited and in some cases down right incompetent military and from it they would create a war machine to rival the power and discipline of the Icaran Royal Forces.

[Starhawk]

(none story) In order to create a much more enjoyable and challenging foe, as well as to add some spice to the game story I took control of the EOM, the Anderman and the Sol Coaltion and had them all surrender to the Mantisorans.

I also put several battle moons under construction at mantisoran worlds so this story is likely to get a lot more interesting very soon

[Atrocities]

The hard thing about writing is simply writing after a while. It seems like no one really cares and no one reads what you post so its easy to call it quites after a bit. The thing is most poeple read what you post but post nothing about it, that is unless its bad in which case they point that out.

I do miss a lot of the fan fiction that was always being posted here but what the hell, easy come easy go. Your still posting so that I have something to look forward to when I log onto Shrapnel.

[Zaamon]

I always read this. Want to see what happens next.

Only hoping that can play same mod.

[Starhawk]

Heh my biggest problem in writing so far is that so many of my main characters were either killed (Fowler, Yu Hing Pe, and others) or have been seperated by assignments so it's hard to keep telling the story from the perspective of the people that once formed the core of my story

LOL Hell Ross and Linn are Married and yet they are about 800 lightyears apart that sort of puts a crimp in that relationship heh.

[Atrocities]

Keep notes. I found that I would build more ships than I could track, and often one would simply disappear on me. That is why I am a big fan of getting a Ship tracking sheet in SEV. Fingers crossed anyways.

[Hunpecked]

Starhawk writes:

"LOL Hell Ross and Linn are Married and yet they are about 800 lightyears apart that sort of puts a crimp in that relationship heh."

Phone sex?