Admiral Adjun Somtaaw studied the sensor display in front of him, ensuring everything was in...
-
Are you wanting to become part of a growing team on Spacebattles? We are seeking out advisers and amicus for Vs. Debates, Creative Writing, Roleplaying and Quests, and Non Sci-Fi Debates. We have information on your potential job duties in a sticky thread located in each of the respective subforums, leading to our application. Please considering putting an application in today!
-
There's been a slight change in how we're handling the pronoun field. Further details can be found here.
-
Buy our stuff, go here to find out more: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/spacebattles-merchandise.398032/
The Age of S`jet [Homeworld/Mass Effect]
- Thread starter QuickDeath007
- Start date
The Age of S`jet [Homeworld/Mass Effect]
- Created at
- Index progress
- Incomplete
- Watchers
- 721
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 18
Threadmarks Sidestory Informational
-
Statistics (15 threadmarks, 21k words)
User Total QuickDeath007 14 Durabys 1 Threadmarks
-
Loading…
-
Loading…
Prologue
Admiral Adjun Somtaaw studied the sensor display in front of him, ensuring everything was in order. The discovery of the Eye of Arran several years ago had sparked an unprecedented clamor for exploration and research. The Galactic Council had been prepared to throw open the floodgates and activate each and every last one of the ancient FTL gates. Then, Karan S`jet gave the Council a simple, short reminder. "As we set to explore the universe, let us take a moment to remember the tragedy of the Naggarok. For all the ceaseless wonders of our universe... it is not safe. Learn from the Naggarok. Be prepared."
Just like that, the drive to explore and discover ground to a halt, wiser minds quickly taking the reigns to prepare. The Beast War was not the most destructive war in the history of the Galaxy... but certainly the most dangerous. The Beast could have easily spiraled beyond any hope of control until the entire galaxy had been consumed. Even with the "vaccination," a series of passive and active defenses built into all ships by law to fight off infection, small fleets of that nightmare still cropped up from time to time. The result of either isolated infections slowly mustering resources to launch attacks, or the result of an infected ship stumbling across some fool succumbing to greed and "cutting corners" to save money on building his ships. Had even a single cell reached a populated planet during that conflict...
So the Galactic Council heeded S`jet's warning. No gate was opened without a carefully prepared expedition and defense force to ensure both ends were safe. No expense was spared for this task. No gate was opened to civilian traffic before at least three months had passed, to ensure that travelling that gate wouldn't pick up any extra-dimensional "hitchhikers" like the Naggarok had.
Admiral Adjun Somtaaw the head of such an expeditionary force. He had been selected for the honor of leading an expedition through the first of the larger intergalactic gates. None of them had yet been opened, the Galactic Council had first decided to explore the entirety of the intragalactic network. Hardly a good idea to invite problems from other galaxies when you hadn't even secured your own, after all. There were many reasons he had been selected. First, obviously, was his own individual merits. The war against the Vagyr had been vicious, while Karan S`Jet had ultimately defeated the Vagyr hordes... it was a close thing for Hiigara. The endless legions of the Vagyr had overwhelmed Hiigara's fleets, while Hiigaran ships were vastly superior to their Vagyr counterparts, often able to beat 3 to 1 odds, the Vagyr had hundreds of ships for each Hiigaran ship. Adjun had the distinction of being one of the few admirals to survive without ultimately retreating to Hiigara and abandoning the rest of the empire to the hordes. And not for a lack of heroic last stands, either.
Then, of course, was Kiith Somtaaw's heritage. The Beast-Slayers. Somtaaw knew better than anyone of the dangers of the void. They lived it, every day of their lives. Though the Beast Wars had made them famous as warriors, they were explorers at heart, their fleets often spent decades in isolation, only returning to civilization when their vast cargo holds could contain no more. In theory, a properly managed Explorer-class mothership could operate independently forever. The original Kuun-Lan was still in service, still able to go toe-to-toe with modern ships thanks to it's ability to self-upgrade.
This also made Somtaaw's Explorer-Class the perfect ship to send through an untested, intergalactic gate. If something went wrong, the ship would not be doomed by being unable to return. Somtaaw was well suited to operating independent of planet-based infrastructure, only the Vagyr were more suited to a nomadic lifestyle.
As such, today Admiral Adjun would take the newly christened Saan-Gral through the great gate. Assuming all went well, a fleet from the Taidan Republic would follow and begin fortifying the other side, using the expertise gained from enduring over a century of attacks and raids from Imperial Remnants. During Adjun's early career, one of his CO's had creatively phrased it, "The first phase of any assault on a Republican Siegestation should be immediately offering your unconditional surrender. Retreat is not an option. They won't let you."
-------
"Saan-Gral to all ships, the gate is active. Prepare for Phase Jump. The fleet will follow the Command Ship."
"All crew, this is the Bridge, we are entering condition-blue, prepare Counter-Infection protocols. I may not know what's on the other side of the gate, but I'll be damned if we pick up any unwanted passengers in transit."
The Saan-Gral's engines roared to life, and the bulky Pocket-Mothership made it's way to the Great Gate. The Gate slowly hummed to life, blue streaks of light surrounding the Saan-Gral as it transmitted an activation code to the Gate. With a blinding pulse of light, the Saan-Gral was gone.
------
The various species of the Whirlpool Galaxy had been using Hyperspace for countless millennia. While people like the Bentusi tended to show there was still much to be learned, it was a fairly well understood science. The Progenitor Gates, however, did not use Hyperspace. It was a phenomenon completely alien to current science, tentatively called "Phase Gate FTL." The most accepted hypothesis stated the Gates converted matter to energy, then somehow transmitted said energy to the gate on the other end, which converted the energy back to matter. To the frustration of the scientific community, the few remaining Bentusi tradeships had, when asked, had replied "The Gates... object to our methods of investigation. The Bentusi have mastered artificial wormholes instead. We eagerly anticipate your findings."
It would be millennia before the Galaxy learned that the Progenitors developed the technology specifically to counter the tendency for outsiders to latch on to ships in hyperspace during intergalactic travel. The technology was originally intended to be used only to make intergalactic travel safe, outsiders for some reason were not a risk with intragalactic travel. It was only after the technology was developed that the Progenitors determined building extensive gate networks was far cheaper than mass producing hyperspace drives for civilian use.
Historians would dryly note that this knowledge would have been far more useful had it been discovered before the Saan-Gral's expedition had left.
-----
The Saan-Gral exploded into existence, a bright, blue orb slamming into the end-Gate, activating it and rematerializing the ship. As the Saan-Gral's engines warmed up, several more orbs impacted the gate, the energy being stored until the gate was clear and the Somtaaw ships could be rematerialized.
Admiral Adjun's primary concern was the sensor data coming it. "Helm, get us clear of the Gate. Tactical, what am I looking at?"
He was answered through the Bridge's loudspeakers, the cool, focused voice of an older woman sounding out. "Standby... primarily empty space. The Gate is in stable orbit of what appears to be a Black Hole. No other objects in orbit. This is... incredible. We're really in another Galaxy."
Adjun's lips twitched. "I presume there's no stowaways aboard?"
"Nothing. Continue monitoring internal security, but so far, not a trace. Might as well send the message back home, tell the Taidan they can set up shop on this end. Beast-Slayers or not, I'd feel a lot safer with one of their Siegestations as a fallback point."
Adjun nodded, watching his displays. Somtaaw ships steadily filed out of the Gate, taking up Parade Formation with the Saan-Gral. His mind raced with visions of potential threats and enemies... and yet, he felt excited. They said if one gazes too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back. Adjun was a proud member of Kiith Somtaaw, a Beast Slayer. He glared at the abyss, and dared it to try something.
Just like that, the drive to explore and discover ground to a halt, wiser minds quickly taking the reigns to prepare. The Beast War was not the most destructive war in the history of the Galaxy... but certainly the most dangerous. The Beast could have easily spiraled beyond any hope of control until the entire galaxy had been consumed. Even with the "vaccination," a series of passive and active defenses built into all ships by law to fight off infection, small fleets of that nightmare still cropped up from time to time. The result of either isolated infections slowly mustering resources to launch attacks, or the result of an infected ship stumbling across some fool succumbing to greed and "cutting corners" to save money on building his ships. Had even a single cell reached a populated planet during that conflict...
So the Galactic Council heeded S`jet's warning. No gate was opened without a carefully prepared expedition and defense force to ensure both ends were safe. No expense was spared for this task. No gate was opened to civilian traffic before at least three months had passed, to ensure that travelling that gate wouldn't pick up any extra-dimensional "hitchhikers" like the Naggarok had.
Admiral Adjun Somtaaw the head of such an expeditionary force. He had been selected for the honor of leading an expedition through the first of the larger intergalactic gates. None of them had yet been opened, the Galactic Council had first decided to explore the entirety of the intragalactic network. Hardly a good idea to invite problems from other galaxies when you hadn't even secured your own, after all. There were many reasons he had been selected. First, obviously, was his own individual merits. The war against the Vagyr had been vicious, while Karan S`Jet had ultimately defeated the Vagyr hordes... it was a close thing for Hiigara. The endless legions of the Vagyr had overwhelmed Hiigara's fleets, while Hiigaran ships were vastly superior to their Vagyr counterparts, often able to beat 3 to 1 odds, the Vagyr had hundreds of ships for each Hiigaran ship. Adjun had the distinction of being one of the few admirals to survive without ultimately retreating to Hiigara and abandoning the rest of the empire to the hordes. And not for a lack of heroic last stands, either.
Then, of course, was Kiith Somtaaw's heritage. The Beast-Slayers. Somtaaw knew better than anyone of the dangers of the void. They lived it, every day of their lives. Though the Beast Wars had made them famous as warriors, they were explorers at heart, their fleets often spent decades in isolation, only returning to civilization when their vast cargo holds could contain no more. In theory, a properly managed Explorer-class mothership could operate independently forever. The original Kuun-Lan was still in service, still able to go toe-to-toe with modern ships thanks to it's ability to self-upgrade.
This also made Somtaaw's Explorer-Class the perfect ship to send through an untested, intergalactic gate. If something went wrong, the ship would not be doomed by being unable to return. Somtaaw was well suited to operating independent of planet-based infrastructure, only the Vagyr were more suited to a nomadic lifestyle.
As such, today Admiral Adjun would take the newly christened Saan-Gral through the great gate. Assuming all went well, a fleet from the Taidan Republic would follow and begin fortifying the other side, using the expertise gained from enduring over a century of attacks and raids from Imperial Remnants. During Adjun's early career, one of his CO's had creatively phrased it, "The first phase of any assault on a Republican Siegestation should be immediately offering your unconditional surrender. Retreat is not an option. They won't let you."
-------
"Saan-Gral to all ships, the gate is active. Prepare for Phase Jump. The fleet will follow the Command Ship."
"All crew, this is the Bridge, we are entering condition-blue, prepare Counter-Infection protocols. I may not know what's on the other side of the gate, but I'll be damned if we pick up any unwanted passengers in transit."
The Saan-Gral's engines roared to life, and the bulky Pocket-Mothership made it's way to the Great Gate. The Gate slowly hummed to life, blue streaks of light surrounding the Saan-Gral as it transmitted an activation code to the Gate. With a blinding pulse of light, the Saan-Gral was gone.
------
The various species of the Whirlpool Galaxy had been using Hyperspace for countless millennia. While people like the Bentusi tended to show there was still much to be learned, it was a fairly well understood science. The Progenitor Gates, however, did not use Hyperspace. It was a phenomenon completely alien to current science, tentatively called "Phase Gate FTL." The most accepted hypothesis stated the Gates converted matter to energy, then somehow transmitted said energy to the gate on the other end, which converted the energy back to matter. To the frustration of the scientific community, the few remaining Bentusi tradeships had, when asked, had replied "The Gates... object to our methods of investigation. The Bentusi have mastered artificial wormholes instead. We eagerly anticipate your findings."
It would be millennia before the Galaxy learned that the Progenitors developed the technology specifically to counter the tendency for outsiders to latch on to ships in hyperspace during intergalactic travel. The technology was originally intended to be used only to make intergalactic travel safe, outsiders for some reason were not a risk with intragalactic travel. It was only after the technology was developed that the Progenitors determined building extensive gate networks was far cheaper than mass producing hyperspace drives for civilian use.
Historians would dryly note that this knowledge would have been far more useful had it been discovered before the Saan-Gral's expedition had left.
-----
The Saan-Gral exploded into existence, a bright, blue orb slamming into the end-Gate, activating it and rematerializing the ship. As the Saan-Gral's engines warmed up, several more orbs impacted the gate, the energy being stored until the gate was clear and the Somtaaw ships could be rematerialized.
Admiral Adjun's primary concern was the sensor data coming it. "Helm, get us clear of the Gate. Tactical, what am I looking at?"
He was answered through the Bridge's loudspeakers, the cool, focused voice of an older woman sounding out. "Standby... primarily empty space. The Gate is in stable orbit of what appears to be a Black Hole. No other objects in orbit. This is... incredible. We're really in another Galaxy."
Adjun's lips twitched. "I presume there's no stowaways aboard?"
"Nothing. Continue monitoring internal security, but so far, not a trace. Might as well send the message back home, tell the Taidan they can set up shop on this end. Beast-Slayers or not, I'd feel a lot safer with one of their Siegestations as a fallback point."
Adjun nodded, watching his displays. Somtaaw ships steadily filed out of the Gate, taking up Parade Formation with the Saan-Gral. His mind raced with visions of potential threats and enemies... and yet, he felt excited. They said if one gazes too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back. Adjun was a proud member of Kiith Somtaaw, a Beast Slayer. He glared at the abyss, and dared it to try something.
Interesting. Curious as to where you will take this. Do love me some Homeworld.
Last edited:
Is that your cellphone's crappy autocorrect, or praise for me doing research on lore?
You had my curiosity… but now you have my attention.
Hiigaran technology (including that sweet tech form Cataclysm and HW 2) vs ME tech.
Lets see:
- Beam Weapons (Ion cannons, Pulsar, Phased Cannon, Pulsar Beam, Nannite Cannon)
- Energy Cannons
- Plasma Bombs
- Cloak
- Far/Short Jump
- Fusion Drive/Hyperdrive
- Gravity Generators
- Repulsors
Ability to salvage and reverse engineering new technology, strip mining asteroids for resources, replication /rapid 3D printing of entire ships...
And Hiigaran look like humans (could be human or post human) and this will further confuse ME races...
Hiigaran technology (including that sweet tech form Cataclysm and HW 2) vs ME tech.
Lets see:
- Beam Weapons (Ion cannons, Pulsar, Phased Cannon, Pulsar Beam, Nannite Cannon)
- Energy Cannons
- Plasma Bombs
- Cloak
- Far/Short Jump
- Fusion Drive/Hyperdrive
- Gravity Generators
- Repulsors
Ability to salvage and reverse engineering new technology, strip mining asteroids for resources, replication /rapid 3D printing of entire ships...
And Hiigaran look like humans (could be human or post human) and this will further confuse ME races...
Last edited:
Ooh Homeworld! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this.
:sigh: Cellphone's crappy autocorrect. :\
To be fair, a portion of that is simply extrapolating from tactical resourcing and construction times, assuming that that is what it is rather than an abstraction for gameplay reasons.
Chapter One
"Hyperspace Jump complete. All ships, standby for sensor sweep."
The Somtaaw fleet entered the system with the distinct rectangular portals of a Hyperspace jump. The Saan-Gral stood proudly at the center, accompanied by the time tested designs of Kiith Somtaaw. None of these ships would have looked out of place alongside the Kuun-lan in it's battle against the Beast. For all that Somtaaw was known for eagerly incorporating exotic, often untested technologies into their systems, Somtaaw preferred to work with existing blueprints whenever possible. It made sense in a way, their designs had proven time and time again that they were adaptable, they could be upgraded to modern standards with ease, and incorporate new technologies with little hassle. Somtaaw ships were meant to be capable of staying in service indefinitely.
Case in point, one of the multi-beam frigates acting as an escort for the Saan-Gral had protected Republic Taidian assault frigates from Beast cruise missiles as the Kuun-Lan's workers repaired their failing hyperdrives. Two of the Hive frigates had provided covering fire for the Kuun-Lan at the subverted Caal-Shto as deployed infected Hiigaran strike craft against the fleet. The single Dreadnaught in the fleet had fired it's guns against the Naggarok itself. They were old, venerated ships. Sending them was a symbol of Somtaaw's history, a tribute to their traditions of exploration and endurance, and their ability to overcome the things left laying in the void. And yes, perhaps a bit of superstition was guiding Somtaaw's council when they assigned the old ships to the expedition force.
As was Somtaaw's way, the venerable ships had been steadily updated, overhauled, and maintained over the years. Where many nations had discarded their plasma weaponry in favor of a series of breakthroughs in kinetic railguns, Somtaaw had instead found a way to apply the breakthrough in magnetic acceleration to plasma weapons. The result was devastating. The galaxy had noted the new plasma cannons as an interesting divergence, but ultimately decided the increase in firepower wasn't worth the increased expense.
The shit eating grin on the Somtaaw representative to the Hiigaran war council when analysts were announcing the devastating effect Vagyr plasma cannons had on Hiigaran ships had become a thing of legend on the Hypernet.
The Dervish-class's ion turrets had been supplemented by a single, oversized rotary cannon mounting on the bow. This gun allowed it to engage other frigates without hampering the utility of the ion turrets, and in a pinch, could be loaded with flak rounds to engage strike craft that were too far for the ion turrets. To the surprise of many, this technology was acquired from the Turanic Raiders, who often mounted it as the main weapons of unexpectedly dangerous frigates. While they were by no means technologically advanced, the resourceful pirates often came up with novel uses of common knowledge. They couldn't match the high velocities of other people's kinetic weapons, so they compensated with overwhelming volume. Update the gun with modern magnetics, and you had a horrifyingly dangerous close range brawler. One which tended to fight in packs.
The Turanic Raiders had harbored a very grudging respect for Kiith Somtaaw ever since. Being who they were, this expressed as a tendency to attack Somtaaw fleets with in force, usually involving multiple attack carriers. Frequently.
The Acolyte-class Fighter had seen change as well. The missile launchers had been replaced with oversized plasma launchers, dwarfing even the launchers of dedicated bombers. Granted, this gave them a very long recharge time, but it was marginally faster than returning to a carrier to reload. And they could still engage targets while waiting, instead of falling back.
The rest of Somtaaw's voidborne arsenal remained mostly unchanged, mostly applying gradual updates to armament as technology advanced.
"Sensor sweep is picking up unusual readings from a planetoid on the outer fringes of the system. Analyzing... the Planetoid seems to mostly be ice and the occasional mineral deposit, no sign of any activity on the surface. Recommend dispatching a group to investigate."
Adjun frowned as he began dispatching orders. "Command to Vel-Mar, go take a look at the Planetoid. Attention fleet, begin resourcing operations, be on alert, I don't want to be caught off guard here." The Vel-Mar, a smaller carrier, broke off from the fleet steadily heading over to the Planetoid on conventional engines, escorted by a pair of Destroyers.
The Saan-Gral had been charting star systems for nearly a year, working with a slowly increasing number of expeditionary forces from various Galactic nations. It was slow work, this new Galaxy was larger than the Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Galaxy was... odd. It was expected that they would not encounter intelligent life for a great deal of time. A Galaxy was a big place, and the Galactic Council didn't have thousands of years of exploration to tell them where to start looking. Not having run into anyone by now was well within predictions.
The problem was there wasn't anything. The spacefaring people of the Whirlpool galaxy had been exploring the stars for tens of thousands of years, and they still ran into ancient ruins, derelict spacecraft of unknown origin, ancient battlefields... but here? Nothing. No sign anyone had ever inhabited this Galaxy. No ancient, abandoned battlefields, star systems filled with the debris of countless starships, no planets with abandoned, lifeless outposts, to say nothing of the more exotic remains of ancient civilizations, such as the infamous Ghost Ship. Hell, there weren't even any spaceborne macro-life forms. He'd seen that a few times, massive lifeforms that dwarfed even the Saan-Gral in size, idly and peacefully drifting through the stars, surrounded by smaller, flitting organisms that squabbled and lived and depended on the ecosystem the titan's body provided.
There was none of that here, and it was making a lot of people nervous. Exploration had initially been planned to be faster than this, wide swaths of space, entire systems skipped in order to first get a broad, generalized map of the galaxy. But the lack of... well, anything had postponed that. This Galaxy was larger, it should have produced at least one sentient species, something to leave behind debris and waste. The higher ups were concerned that something terrible had happened here, and the evidence was purposely removed. So, they were searching each and every last damned star system until they found something. Who proposed that theory, Adjun didn't know, but as ridiculous as it sounded, he couldn't completely dismiss it. Whispers were drifting through the enlisted, the more superstitious were starting to believe this Galaxy was damned by Sajuuk, that living mortals were not supposed to be here. That they should leave, before the lost and damned evict them.
As nervous as the strange readings were, they also gave Adjun a vague sense of relief. The universe was a dangerous place. It wasn't supposed to be this quiet. It wasn't natural. This relief kept him calm for the days it took for the Vel-Mar to reach the planetoid.
"Vel-Mar to fleet, we've reached the planetoid, beginning scans. Definitely something here, just give us a moment to figure it out."
"Acknowledged Vel-Mar, take your time."
"Too late for that Fleet... ah... there's something buried in the core. Looks pretty big, definitely artificial, no idea how it- what was that? What kind of- shit- Fleet, we're getting a massive energy spike, I-"
Without warning, the planetoid exploded, ice flung in all directions as the ancient device suddenly activated. The Vel-Mar, orbiting the object, began firing it's point defense guns at shards as it's gunners panicked, trying to prevent getting hit. Fortunately, their fears proved unfounded as the ice shattered harmlessly against armor designed to take impacts from nuclear weaponry. Of far greater important was the object spinning to life in place of the planetoid, arcs of bluish light slowly flaring to life inside a set of rings, set inside what looking like a lopsided turing fork.
"Vel-Mar, come in! What the hell am I looking at?"
The comm station was silent for some time, and Adjun's worry increased with every passing moment.
"Vel-Mar here... uhhh... Sir... I have no idea."
Even as his muscles tensed and his mind raced, a small piece of Adjun was overjoyed. This Galaxy wasn't so dead after all.
-----
Of course, since the Admiral was the one who discovered it, Kiith Somtaaw had the right to be the first ones to benefit from whatever secrets it had. As such, Adjun was stuck in the system until he figured out what the thing was. And he had! Adjun was decidedly unimpressed.
True, the device had been strangely resistant to scans, and it was twice the size of the command ship, but once that hurdle had been overcome through the tried and true method of landing a shuttle on it... a lot of effort to protect pretty mundane knowledge. Element Zero. Through some trick of nature, an exceedingly rare material in the Whirlpool Galaxy was startlingly common here. The substance had a minor, innate ability to manipulate gravity with the application of an electric charge, often described as the "lodestones that manipulated gravity instead of magnetism." And much like lodestones were pathetically weak compared to electromagnets, it was pathetically weak compared to a proper gravity field generator.
The alien object an Element Zero-based FTL gate. It was well known Element Zero could, on paper, be used to propel a ship to FTL speeds. In practice, it wasn't worth it. It was far slower than hyperspace based travel. Even worse, the amount of Element Zero required to propel a ship was exponential relative to mass. A Somtaaw Frigate would require a core larger than the ship itself! Unacceptable.
Admittedly, it was an impressive application, and it neatly sidestepped many of the problems with Element-Zero FTL. If your ship was too large to use an Element Zero drive, build one of these instead! This way, you could build a core bigger than the ship it was propelling. And it was much, much faster as well. In fact, it was actually somewhat faster than Hyperspace FTL. There were, however, still significant problems. First, like any gate, it needed an end point. Which meant that unless the Gate was going exactly where you wanted to go, the decreased travel time was negated by the simple fact a hyperspace drive could go to your destination directly, and the speed difference was small enough that even a single detour made a difference.
Second, simple safety. If something went wrong with a Hyperspace drive, automated systems would bring you out. If something went wrong with a hyperspace gate, for instance, the destination gate being blown up, your hyperspace drive would bring you out. To be fair, this could be a problem shared by the progenitor phase games. Nobody knew how they worked yet, hopefully they had some sort of failsafe, the progenitors were certainly advanced enough to try, but it was possible that if something went wrong, you died, and there was no safety net. The Element Zero gates, however, not only had no safety net in case of an endpoint failure, they couldn't have one. They propelled you through realspace, the entry gate hurling you at incredible speed, the exit catching you and bringing you to a stop. If the endpoint failed to catch you, however... that's it. You'd just keep on going forever, until you hit something or... or nothing really. Conventional drives couldn't slow you down. The speed of light was a universal constant, you could go slower than it, you could go faster than it, but you couldn't pass it. Element Zero functioned by giving you negative mass, conventional drives couldn't restore your mass. Hyperspace was... unrelated to the problem. Even if you had an Element Zero core... it could stop you given enough time, but by the time you stopped, you'd be immeasurably far from the galaxy, unable to ever return, doomed to slowly waste away in the void between Galaxies.
This was leaving aside the fact that even a Hyperspace Gate was far cheaper, faster, and easier to use. To say nothing of the Progenitor Phase Gates.
Still, Adjun was dedicated to his task. The novelty was reported home, and he decided to investigate what was on the other end. A volunteer force, made up of two hive frigates, was sent through to ensure the device functioned as intended, then the Saan-Gral attempted to traverse the gate. Keyword: Attempted. Upon transmitting the Saan-Gral's mass to the gate, for the first time since it's discovery, it transmitted a message. One that, if the broken format of the message was any clue, it was never intended to have to send. It took the science teams some time to figure out the problem. It was an error message, summed up as "Maximum mass exceeded."
A novelty. Nothing more.
-----
"Commodore!"
Commodore Sevitus blinked at the unexpected interruption. His patrol fleet was deep within Citadel space, in the Aethon Cluster. They'd just left after resupplying at the Volus's homeworld of Irune, and had arrived in a nearby star system. There was simply wasn't anything here that could possibly cause the urgency he heard in the sensor technician's voice.
"Ensign?" He asked warily.
"Sir... the relay! It's active! Two ships, unknown profile, no IFFs, roughly the size of heavy cruisers!"
Sevitus felt his blood run cold. Relay 197 had the dubious distinction of technically being the first relay to have been locked down as a result the Rachni war, it had been scheduled to be the next relay to be opened and explored after the Rachni Relay had been mapped, before the official Citadel law banning Relay activations had even been discussed. It had been determined that the risk of something coming through the relay, right next to the economic powerhouse keeping the galaxy going, was unacceptable.
If those fucking idiots unleashed another Rachni swarm, their first target would be Irune. In the burning rage of his racing mind, there was only one possible response.
"All ships, unknown ships just illegally opened a relay! Ready weapons, engage at will! Await my order to fire!"
The bridge exploded into controlled chaos, Turian discipline overriding any sense of shock or confusion. A low hum was heard through the ship as the main cannon began powering up. The unknown ships had violated one of the highest laws of the Citadel. Not even the Terminus Warlords were willing to open relays, not after the insectoid plague that brought ruin to the Galaxy.
"Attention, unidentified ships! This is Commodore Sevitus of the Turian Navy! I don't know what water-logged abyss you crawled out of, but if you don't power down and prepare to be boarded right the hell now, by the spirits I will reign fury on those junkheaps you call ships if I have to ram my cruiser down your fucking throats!" He said, burning rage exploding violently.
While no Turian would disagree with the sentiment, and the Commodore was perfectly competent, there was a reason Sevitus had been assigned so far from any problem areas.
"S-sir... I'm not reading any response... getting something that looks like active scanning."
"Unidentified ships, you have ten seconds before I come down on those scrapheaps like the wrath of the fucking Spirits!"
The damning silence made Sevitus's mandibles twitch, a rarely seen expression of anger in Turian's. Very few non-Turians were aware that a Turian's mandibles would scrape against the face-plates to create a loud, metallic grinding noise as a sign of anger. It was a widely frowned upon action in Turian culture, viewed much in the same light as humans throwing glass cups or bowls against the wall in a fit of rage, and it took about the same amount of self control to prevent.
That not a single Turian on the bridge so much as twitched at the sound was a sign of the tense atmosphere.
"Damn them, all ships, open fire! Comms, send a message back to Palavan, inform them of the situation and get me some reinforcements, preferably before something comes out that gates and plunges us into another fucking Rachni War!"
The comms officer barked an affirmative. A few moments later, the Age of the Citadel ended with a thunderous bang.
The Somtaaw fleet entered the system with the distinct rectangular portals of a Hyperspace jump. The Saan-Gral stood proudly at the center, accompanied by the time tested designs of Kiith Somtaaw. None of these ships would have looked out of place alongside the Kuun-lan in it's battle against the Beast. For all that Somtaaw was known for eagerly incorporating exotic, often untested technologies into their systems, Somtaaw preferred to work with existing blueprints whenever possible. It made sense in a way, their designs had proven time and time again that they were adaptable, they could be upgraded to modern standards with ease, and incorporate new technologies with little hassle. Somtaaw ships were meant to be capable of staying in service indefinitely.
Case in point, one of the multi-beam frigates acting as an escort for the Saan-Gral had protected Republic Taidian assault frigates from Beast cruise missiles as the Kuun-Lan's workers repaired their failing hyperdrives. Two of the Hive frigates had provided covering fire for the Kuun-Lan at the subverted Caal-Shto as deployed infected Hiigaran strike craft against the fleet. The single Dreadnaught in the fleet had fired it's guns against the Naggarok itself. They were old, venerated ships. Sending them was a symbol of Somtaaw's history, a tribute to their traditions of exploration and endurance, and their ability to overcome the things left laying in the void. And yes, perhaps a bit of superstition was guiding Somtaaw's council when they assigned the old ships to the expedition force.
As was Somtaaw's way, the venerable ships had been steadily updated, overhauled, and maintained over the years. Where many nations had discarded their plasma weaponry in favor of a series of breakthroughs in kinetic railguns, Somtaaw had instead found a way to apply the breakthrough in magnetic acceleration to plasma weapons. The result was devastating. The galaxy had noted the new plasma cannons as an interesting divergence, but ultimately decided the increase in firepower wasn't worth the increased expense.
The shit eating grin on the Somtaaw representative to the Hiigaran war council when analysts were announcing the devastating effect Vagyr plasma cannons had on Hiigaran ships had become a thing of legend on the Hypernet.
The Dervish-class's ion turrets had been supplemented by a single, oversized rotary cannon mounting on the bow. This gun allowed it to engage other frigates without hampering the utility of the ion turrets, and in a pinch, could be loaded with flak rounds to engage strike craft that were too far for the ion turrets. To the surprise of many, this technology was acquired from the Turanic Raiders, who often mounted it as the main weapons of unexpectedly dangerous frigates. While they were by no means technologically advanced, the resourceful pirates often came up with novel uses of common knowledge. They couldn't match the high velocities of other people's kinetic weapons, so they compensated with overwhelming volume. Update the gun with modern magnetics, and you had a horrifyingly dangerous close range brawler. One which tended to fight in packs.
The Turanic Raiders had harbored a very grudging respect for Kiith Somtaaw ever since. Being who they were, this expressed as a tendency to attack Somtaaw fleets with in force, usually involving multiple attack carriers. Frequently.
The Acolyte-class Fighter had seen change as well. The missile launchers had been replaced with oversized plasma launchers, dwarfing even the launchers of dedicated bombers. Granted, this gave them a very long recharge time, but it was marginally faster than returning to a carrier to reload. And they could still engage targets while waiting, instead of falling back.
The rest of Somtaaw's voidborne arsenal remained mostly unchanged, mostly applying gradual updates to armament as technology advanced.
"Sensor sweep is picking up unusual readings from a planetoid on the outer fringes of the system. Analyzing... the Planetoid seems to mostly be ice and the occasional mineral deposit, no sign of any activity on the surface. Recommend dispatching a group to investigate."
Adjun frowned as he began dispatching orders. "Command to Vel-Mar, go take a look at the Planetoid. Attention fleet, begin resourcing operations, be on alert, I don't want to be caught off guard here." The Vel-Mar, a smaller carrier, broke off from the fleet steadily heading over to the Planetoid on conventional engines, escorted by a pair of Destroyers.
The Saan-Gral had been charting star systems for nearly a year, working with a slowly increasing number of expeditionary forces from various Galactic nations. It was slow work, this new Galaxy was larger than the Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Galaxy was... odd. It was expected that they would not encounter intelligent life for a great deal of time. A Galaxy was a big place, and the Galactic Council didn't have thousands of years of exploration to tell them where to start looking. Not having run into anyone by now was well within predictions.
The problem was there wasn't anything. The spacefaring people of the Whirlpool galaxy had been exploring the stars for tens of thousands of years, and they still ran into ancient ruins, derelict spacecraft of unknown origin, ancient battlefields... but here? Nothing. No sign anyone had ever inhabited this Galaxy. No ancient, abandoned battlefields, star systems filled with the debris of countless starships, no planets with abandoned, lifeless outposts, to say nothing of the more exotic remains of ancient civilizations, such as the infamous Ghost Ship. Hell, there weren't even any spaceborne macro-life forms. He'd seen that a few times, massive lifeforms that dwarfed even the Saan-Gral in size, idly and peacefully drifting through the stars, surrounded by smaller, flitting organisms that squabbled and lived and depended on the ecosystem the titan's body provided.
There was none of that here, and it was making a lot of people nervous. Exploration had initially been planned to be faster than this, wide swaths of space, entire systems skipped in order to first get a broad, generalized map of the galaxy. But the lack of... well, anything had postponed that. This Galaxy was larger, it should have produced at least one sentient species, something to leave behind debris and waste. The higher ups were concerned that something terrible had happened here, and the evidence was purposely removed. So, they were searching each and every last damned star system until they found something. Who proposed that theory, Adjun didn't know, but as ridiculous as it sounded, he couldn't completely dismiss it. Whispers were drifting through the enlisted, the more superstitious were starting to believe this Galaxy was damned by Sajuuk, that living mortals were not supposed to be here. That they should leave, before the lost and damned evict them.
As nervous as the strange readings were, they also gave Adjun a vague sense of relief. The universe was a dangerous place. It wasn't supposed to be this quiet. It wasn't natural. This relief kept him calm for the days it took for the Vel-Mar to reach the planetoid.
"Vel-Mar to fleet, we've reached the planetoid, beginning scans. Definitely something here, just give us a moment to figure it out."
"Acknowledged Vel-Mar, take your time."
"Too late for that Fleet... ah... there's something buried in the core. Looks pretty big, definitely artificial, no idea how it- what was that? What kind of- shit- Fleet, we're getting a massive energy spike, I-"
Without warning, the planetoid exploded, ice flung in all directions as the ancient device suddenly activated. The Vel-Mar, orbiting the object, began firing it's point defense guns at shards as it's gunners panicked, trying to prevent getting hit. Fortunately, their fears proved unfounded as the ice shattered harmlessly against armor designed to take impacts from nuclear weaponry. Of far greater important was the object spinning to life in place of the planetoid, arcs of bluish light slowly flaring to life inside a set of rings, set inside what looking like a lopsided turing fork.
"Vel-Mar, come in! What the hell am I looking at?"
The comm station was silent for some time, and Adjun's worry increased with every passing moment.
"Vel-Mar here... uhhh... Sir... I have no idea."
Even as his muscles tensed and his mind raced, a small piece of Adjun was overjoyed. This Galaxy wasn't so dead after all.
-----
Of course, since the Admiral was the one who discovered it, Kiith Somtaaw had the right to be the first ones to benefit from whatever secrets it had. As such, Adjun was stuck in the system until he figured out what the thing was. And he had! Adjun was decidedly unimpressed.
True, the device had been strangely resistant to scans, and it was twice the size of the command ship, but once that hurdle had been overcome through the tried and true method of landing a shuttle on it... a lot of effort to protect pretty mundane knowledge. Element Zero. Through some trick of nature, an exceedingly rare material in the Whirlpool Galaxy was startlingly common here. The substance had a minor, innate ability to manipulate gravity with the application of an electric charge, often described as the "lodestones that manipulated gravity instead of magnetism." And much like lodestones were pathetically weak compared to electromagnets, it was pathetically weak compared to a proper gravity field generator.
The alien object an Element Zero-based FTL gate. It was well known Element Zero could, on paper, be used to propel a ship to FTL speeds. In practice, it wasn't worth it. It was far slower than hyperspace based travel. Even worse, the amount of Element Zero required to propel a ship was exponential relative to mass. A Somtaaw Frigate would require a core larger than the ship itself! Unacceptable.
Admittedly, it was an impressive application, and it neatly sidestepped many of the problems with Element-Zero FTL. If your ship was too large to use an Element Zero drive, build one of these instead! This way, you could build a core bigger than the ship it was propelling. And it was much, much faster as well. In fact, it was actually somewhat faster than Hyperspace FTL. There were, however, still significant problems. First, like any gate, it needed an end point. Which meant that unless the Gate was going exactly where you wanted to go, the decreased travel time was negated by the simple fact a hyperspace drive could go to your destination directly, and the speed difference was small enough that even a single detour made a difference.
Second, simple safety. If something went wrong with a Hyperspace drive, automated systems would bring you out. If something went wrong with a hyperspace gate, for instance, the destination gate being blown up, your hyperspace drive would bring you out. To be fair, this could be a problem shared by the progenitor phase games. Nobody knew how they worked yet, hopefully they had some sort of failsafe, the progenitors were certainly advanced enough to try, but it was possible that if something went wrong, you died, and there was no safety net. The Element Zero gates, however, not only had no safety net in case of an endpoint failure, they couldn't have one. They propelled you through realspace, the entry gate hurling you at incredible speed, the exit catching you and bringing you to a stop. If the endpoint failed to catch you, however... that's it. You'd just keep on going forever, until you hit something or... or nothing really. Conventional drives couldn't slow you down. The speed of light was a universal constant, you could go slower than it, you could go faster than it, but you couldn't pass it. Element Zero functioned by giving you negative mass, conventional drives couldn't restore your mass. Hyperspace was... unrelated to the problem. Even if you had an Element Zero core... it could stop you given enough time, but by the time you stopped, you'd be immeasurably far from the galaxy, unable to ever return, doomed to slowly waste away in the void between Galaxies.
This was leaving aside the fact that even a Hyperspace Gate was far cheaper, faster, and easier to use. To say nothing of the Progenitor Phase Gates.
Still, Adjun was dedicated to his task. The novelty was reported home, and he decided to investigate what was on the other end. A volunteer force, made up of two hive frigates, was sent through to ensure the device functioned as intended, then the Saan-Gral attempted to traverse the gate. Keyword: Attempted. Upon transmitting the Saan-Gral's mass to the gate, for the first time since it's discovery, it transmitted a message. One that, if the broken format of the message was any clue, it was never intended to have to send. It took the science teams some time to figure out the problem. It was an error message, summed up as "Maximum mass exceeded."
A novelty. Nothing more.
-----
"Commodore!"
Commodore Sevitus blinked at the unexpected interruption. His patrol fleet was deep within Citadel space, in the Aethon Cluster. They'd just left after resupplying at the Volus's homeworld of Irune, and had arrived in a nearby star system. There was simply wasn't anything here that could possibly cause the urgency he heard in the sensor technician's voice.
"Ensign?" He asked warily.
"Sir... the relay! It's active! Two ships, unknown profile, no IFFs, roughly the size of heavy cruisers!"
Sevitus felt his blood run cold. Relay 197 had the dubious distinction of technically being the first relay to have been locked down as a result the Rachni war, it had been scheduled to be the next relay to be opened and explored after the Rachni Relay had been mapped, before the official Citadel law banning Relay activations had even been discussed. It had been determined that the risk of something coming through the relay, right next to the economic powerhouse keeping the galaxy going, was unacceptable.
If those fucking idiots unleashed another Rachni swarm, their first target would be Irune. In the burning rage of his racing mind, there was only one possible response.
"All ships, unknown ships just illegally opened a relay! Ready weapons, engage at will! Await my order to fire!"
The bridge exploded into controlled chaos, Turian discipline overriding any sense of shock or confusion. A low hum was heard through the ship as the main cannon began powering up. The unknown ships had violated one of the highest laws of the Citadel. Not even the Terminus Warlords were willing to open relays, not after the insectoid plague that brought ruin to the Galaxy.
"Attention, unidentified ships! This is Commodore Sevitus of the Turian Navy! I don't know what water-logged abyss you crawled out of, but if you don't power down and prepare to be boarded right the hell now, by the spirits I will reign fury on those junkheaps you call ships if I have to ram my cruiser down your fucking throats!" He said, burning rage exploding violently.
While no Turian would disagree with the sentiment, and the Commodore was perfectly competent, there was a reason Sevitus had been assigned so far from any problem areas.
"S-sir... I'm not reading any response... getting something that looks like active scanning."
"Unidentified ships, you have ten seconds before I come down on those scrapheaps like the wrath of the fucking Spirits!"
The damning silence made Sevitus's mandibles twitch, a rarely seen expression of anger in Turian's. Very few non-Turians were aware that a Turian's mandibles would scrape against the face-plates to create a loud, metallic grinding noise as a sign of anger. It was a widely frowned upon action in Turian culture, viewed much in the same light as humans throwing glass cups or bowls against the wall in a fit of rage, and it took about the same amount of self control to prevent.
That not a single Turian on the bridge so much as twitched at the sound was a sign of the tense atmosphere.
"Damn them, all ships, open fire! Comms, send a message back to Palavan, inform them of the situation and get me some reinforcements, preferably before something comes out that gates and plunges us into another fucking Rachni War!"
The comms officer barked an affirmative. A few moments later, the Age of the Citadel ended with a thunderous bang.
It's official. Homeworld is now a college course. I don't know how many homework jokes we can make, or how many autocorrect jabs we can throw, but by god we will try.
Ah, the sound of 'klong' in the morning. It sounds like world-views shattering.
Anti-cliche argument: if it's an alien or simply unknown design, you don't simply spaz out like that. First, because you don't know how they fight, second because they might become your friends in the future.
Well, it's the Somtaaw. I'm not entirely certain they'll notice all that much.
There is the genuine fear that these ships are about to unleash the Rachni, given how that turned out for them the last time around I could potentially see how the Turians would decide to shoot rather than wait for any response.
jwolfe
Never dead, merely sleeping
Yeah considering how Homeworld vessels are being portrayed here, I doubt that the Turian's guns will do much more then chip the paint.
In the comics it was revealed that the First Contact War/ Relay 314 Incident was caused by Reaper tech that had infected some Turians to explain that the incident was uncommon on the Turians part.
More Cliche than the Turians attacking an underdeveloped colony with minimal infrastructure, small population and few major populations, and assuming this was the homeworld of a species that had achieved spaceflight? Followed by the assumption that since this underdeveloped, barely established colony was a Homeworld, that meant this newly encountered species could not possibly bring more forces to bear, and that there would be no reinforcements from outside the system?
More cliche than Turians believing that bombing civilian population centers from orbit, causing massive collateral damage and loss of life, merely to take out a single fireteam, despite knowing nothing about the species they're attacking, is a good idea?
More Cliche than a human general surrendering after sustaining massive loss of life, both military and civilian, and after putting up major resistance against an opponent with overwhelming tactical and strategic superiority, results in said general being disgraced and blacklisted for "cowardice," even his children being punished and disgraced for it?
More Cliche than the Turians being more than happy to continue escalating, the only reason they stopped being the Council stepped in and told them "Stop that, you're beating up a new species because of a stupid fucking misunderstanding, go sit in the corner?"
Oh wait. This is all canon.
jwolfe
Never dead, merely sleeping
Whereas here it's probably going to be more:
"Face the wrath of the invincible Turian navy you suicidal Relay-opening fools!"
DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA
-gentle pings as the ME gun rounds bounce off of Somtaaw armor like raindrops-
"Alright this is getting annoying and they aren't responding to basic hyper-radio signals. Fire a warning shot, lowest yield."
BANG
".........Umm sir, we broke their ship."
"What? How? That wouldn't have done more then knock a Recon fighter around. Do they make their ships out of tissue paper and bubblewrap over here?"
What happens later in the 'Contact War' will depend on how irritated the Somtaaw get at these locals who keep trying to kill them for no apparent reason.
Jonnoda
One step at a time.
I find it hilarious he's trying to prevent a war by attacking unidentified ships going out of a relay. Seems very unprofessional imo, he should have checked to see who opened the gate and move to arrest them.
The fact that there was no response would have made identification even more important, because, surprise surprise, attacking unknown parties tend to start wars, and the Turians should know that.
The fact that there was no response would have made identification even more important, because, surprise surprise, attacking unknown parties tend to start wars, and the Turians should know that.
Can i ask a question if you wanted the Turian to attack the homeward ships why not use the canon reason for the attack on Shanxi . By that i mean have the expedition find a reaper artifact on the planet shanxi and have Desolas arterius order the fleet to attack in order to retrieve the artifact and use it in conjunction with the reaper artifact on palaven to indoctrinate the hole planet. Before you come plane its canon