So Say We All (A nuBSG/BT Crossover)

[Honorius]

So Say We All

Chapter One: All This Has Happened Before

The Jupiter II-class Battlestar Galactica was a beautiful ship as it sailed with its escort of four new 912m long Heracles-class Battlecruisers and 16 brand new 200m long Hesperus-class Frigates, plus the usual 40 Fleet Auxiliaries carrying supplies and repair facilities.

Galactica itself was 3,026.48m long, 1,114.57m in beam, and 478.89m in draft, and massed ~ 88,350,000.00mt with a cargo capacity of ~ 4,485,000.00mt. Its 1,517.91m x 286.46m x 181.88m flight pods allowed 200 out of 440 Vipers (standard load) to launch at once, and its 100 Raptors (standard load), 20 Mk II Shuttles (Standard Load), and 16 Tanker Shuttles (standard Load) gave it a well-rounded fighting capability. An onboard foundry enabled it to make its own Raptors, Viper mk. VIIIs, and shuttles, plus its own ammunition. It could even grow its own food.

Main Armament was 2 fixed quad mounted 6m Krupp MK38/14-A Class 15 Heavy Assault Cannons in the prow and 96 dual mounted 2.5m Krupp MK21/10-F Class 10 Naval Auto Cannons. Secondary armament was 48 dual mounted 1.1m Krupp MK15/5-A Class 05 Naval Auto Cannons. Defensive armament was 400 dual mounted 13.97cm Krupp MK163/94-B Class 03 Point Defense Cannons. 140 Zenith SLBMN-20/N Launch Systems provided heavy anti-ship and anti-planetary capability while 270 AIM-21B “Wasp” Air-Defense Guided Missile launchers rounded out the arsenal.

Ship’s crew consisted of 800 officers, 2,969 enlisted as standard load. The Marine Detachment consisted of 22 Officers and 578 enlisted as standard load. 100 Admiralty Staff were also carried, including the Vice Admiral, Ernesto “Sourface” Hebe.

It was a worthy successor to the Jupiter-Class Battlestar Galactica, and though the biggest Battlestar yet constructed, it was still dwarfed by the Cylon War Era Basestars Caprica built to move its Armies, and said Basestars were yet again Dwarfed by the Galleon, a 15km ship that carried the 12 Tribes from Kobol. 

For newly promoted 40 year-old Colonel Jackson "Dipper" Spencer, this was a plum assignment the old man got him once the original Jupiter-class Battlestar Galactica pulled into its permanment docking orbit over Caprica where the Ministry of Education took it over. Especially as the newly commissioned Galactica was the Flagship of a new fleet that would be traveling past the red line now that the Colonies have fully recovered from the Cylon Rebellion, and moving in the direction of the Sacred Scrolls towards Kobol and beyond to see if the 13th Tribe was out there.

“Dipper to Galactica Actual, I brought the Vipers, Permission to do combat landings.”

“Dipper, this Galactica Actual, I just got this girl out of the yard after promising not to be rough with her and already you want to tear up her deck? And with the new Viper VIIIs we got.”

Dipper grinned at the banter, “On my soul, I swear we can be gentle about it Galactica actual.”

“Well Dipper, in that case combat landing authorized.”

“Acknowledge.” Switching channels, Dipper gave his order, “All Vipers combat landings.”

As one mass, 440 Vipers surged forward to baptize the 4 Landing Decks with 110 Vipers each.
……………………………………………..

“Dipper, any particular reason you tore up my deck on the first day, sir?” Newly promoted Aviation Boatswain Derek Prosna greeted Dipper as he opened his cockpit.

“Prosna, good to see you again.” Dipper smiled.

“You aren’t getting off that easy, I can dock your pay to cover the costs of repairing the deck from unnecessary hard landings.”

“What?”

“CNR 2590 section 45 as amended. The Aviation Boatswain shall have the power to dock pilot’s pay for unnecessary hard landing to compensate for time and expenses on hammering the deck smooth again.”

Dipper began climbing out of the cockpit, “Ok, I will not pull anymore stunts like that again.”
…………………………………………..

An hour and a half after landing, Colonel Spencer found himself in CIC and saluted Commander Jurgen “Faceplant” Belzen, who himself was newly promoted and transferred from the Pegasus. “Colonel Jackson Spencer reporting as ordered sir.”

“Ah, Colonel Spencer, hope you like your new position as Commander Aerospace Fleet Operations. Sorry to say you’ll fly a lot less and have to fight tooth and nail to get one flight a week. I’m lucky if I can get one flying session a month on a Raptor. They already took my Viper Qualifications. The Gods damned bastards.” Commander Belzen greeted the new CAFO in friendly banter.

“Is it too late to go back to a regular CAG?” Spencer spoke in mock alarm.

“Afraid it is so, I already got four CAGs on this ship, each commanding 110 Vipers and 20 Raptors, I don’t need a fifth and you’re supposed to be running herd on them so I can focus on the big guns.” Belzen replied in a mock serious tone, before lightening up. “That said, you’ll be running the newly formed 13th Expeditionary Fleet’s Aerospace Operations and serve as the liaison between me, Admiral Hebe who will be arriving in 4 hours from Caprica, and the rest of the CAGs. It would take a major fleet battle for you to have actual command authority as a Supreme CAG. On the plus side, as a CAFO, you’re Admiralty Staff and get a single luxury room to yourself.”

“Sounds good to me, I’m surprised Admiral Adama landed me this spot. And with our new FTL Capable Vipers, we now are venturing into uncharted tactical territory with our 25 ton FTL capable fighters.” Spencer spoke.

“Indeed we are. We will now be able to aggressively go coreward and easily set up new colonies.”  Belzen agreed as he signed some paperwork.

“Well then sir, if there is nothing more, permission to take my gear to my quarters?”

“Nothing further, but Mission Briefing at 2000. You’re dismissed.”
………………………………………………

Colonel Spencer walked in and took a chair. Present were Vice Admiral Hebe, Commanders Jurgen, Jamie Falcon of the Heracles, Kenneth Kartwright of the Iphicles, Julius Nero of the Iolaus, Jessica Makin of the Alcaeus, and Amber Dorangor who commanded the Fleet Auxiliaries. Commanders Susan Xerxes, Jeffery Oedipus, Michael Valenzuela, and John Grant commanding Frigate Squadrons 1 to 4 respectively were present. Lastly a Marine General, Anthony Calloway was present.   

“Alright we’re all here.” Admiral Hebe announced as a projector turned on. “It has been 40 years since the Cimtar Accords and the Cylon Exodus beyond the rim into inter-galactic space. During that time, we have been rebuilding the Colonies after sixteen centuries of warfare culminating in the Cylon War. As we are all aware, this section of the Galaxy got worked over by supernovas due to being relatively newer stars compared to the coreward areas. Thus we only settled 17 worlds outside of Cyrannus. 5 of which had their atmospheres deprivated in the Ghost Fleet Offensive, 10 are being repopulated after being abandoned in the Cylon War, Djerba is a frozen rock like Aquaria, and Medra is a tropical death world whose main insect species has become Sapient by mastering fire, and shows signs of developing into a civilizational stage with several of its queens actively guiding boat building and fishing from observing our Marines at their hostile environment training site.”

“So we have become their Prometheus then,” Dipper spoke.

“Leave the implications to the Presidency and the Priesthood,” Admiral Hebe replied before continuing. “That said there are no other worlds nearby suitable for Colonization in the 2 millennia since arriving here on the Galleon, at least not without extensive Kobol-Forming. So that leaves expansion coreward. Due to the Galleon’s computer banks suffering a wipe during the Exodus from Kobol, we don’t have a direct address for Kobol. But we do have sufficient clues to pinpoint its general location and we will be taking the Arrow of Apollo with us and see where to find the 13th Tribe. As part of this Mission, Galactica will have Civilian Ships along wanting to be first to stake claims on new worlds and mining locations.”     

 “Which is why I was asked to come along.” General Calloway piped up.

“Precisely, especially when, not if, we find Kobol, Adar wants us to leave a Marine Division behind to secure the planet.” Admiral Hebe announced.

“My Division is primed for the mission. I got the Arrow of Apollo and after we have secured the area, my Siegestar will remain behind to protect and police Kobol in preparation to remaking it the Colonial Capital.”  General Calloway spoke.

“Indeed, as we move forward from Kobol, I will be setting course through this nebula with its two attendant clouds. There is this rift here coreward of it, a dense cluster antispinward potentially rich in Tylium, and beyond the rift coreward is this cluster of stars forming a loop of sorts and is potentially rich in Tylium along with 3 other star clusters nearby antispinward.”

“My duty then is to have Raptors scour those areas for Tylium for future explorations.” Colonel Spencer spoke, adding his two cubits.

“Indeed Colonel. Be prepared for anything out there folks. This is uncharted space. Regardless of your faith or lack thereof, the Lords of Kobol are neither Gods nor Myth, they were real. The Galleon is proof of that along with the relics they left us. Relics possessing technology we barely understand despite 2 millennia of reverse engineering the Galleon and piecing together its computer core.”     
…………………………………………….

6 Months later, Leh

Captain Karl ‘Helo’ Agathon shook off the jump effect as he rematerialized with FS-1 Primus commanded by Captain Leeland ‘Apollo’ Adama as wingmen plus his 4 Raptor strong RS-7 Battleaxe. Racetrack was his pilot while he ran the Sensor Suite.

“Helo, talk to me. What do we got in this system.” Apollo asked as Racetrack took them over a Dwarf Planet that was quite rich in enough Uranium to sterilize the entirety of the Colonies 20 times over if strip mined.

“I got multiple vessels bearing 4, 0, Karam 134. No Colonial Transponders.” Helo replied. “This could be the forward patrol area of the Taurian Concordat that 13th Tribe Jumpship we helped out, told us about.”

Helo reflected on the discovery of outposts of the 13th Tribe. 30 had been found in Galactica’s path. 20 had regressed to pre-industrial levels and were utilizing swords, bows, and primitive gunpowder weapons. 5 had industrialized infrastructure but no spaceflight, with one of those worlds having nuclear bombs and already engaged in a limited nuclear exchange between two factions before Galactica put a stop to it by destroying both factions nuclear capabilities and summoning the leaders of both factions to Galactica to discuss an armistice. 3 had limited orbital flight capabilities and 2 had limited interstellar flight capability compared to Colonial Jump Drives. So much so, the five latter worlds unconditionally surrendered when Galactica appeared, before they could get across that they came in peace and friendship.

“Apollo, this is Helo, picking up heat signatures. There is combat ahead, reading multiple weapons discharges. Also getting wireless chatter on radio frequencies. Seeing what looks like a large civilian fleet. Two 485m warships with 8 77m escorts protecting them with 48 fighters and 16 gunboats in the 27m range. Multiple fighters, gunboats, corvettes, and 3 ships in the 1400m range, inbound, ETA 5 minutes at their current velocity. 9 of their unarmed Jumpships holding station outside the star’s gravity well. IFFs match the Taurian Concordat and the Pirates we heard about from Beta Salandor and New Richmond Colonies.” Helo spoke.

“Apollo to Helo. Now I’m really interested, try and raise the Taurians fighting the pirates. Let them know  we’re reinforcements and send for assistance.”

“On it Apollo, I can patch you through to talk to them in just a moment. Jackass jump back to Frigate Squadron 3.” Helo responded.
…………………..

Mitchell Calderon didn’t think a simple convoy escort could go so wrong. But the Orion Rift Pirates had massed together and rumors had been coming in for the past 3 months of mysterious ships in the Deep Periphery. His mother had sent him out to this outpost after a Taurian Trade Jumpship had burnt out its drives to reach Badlands from Beta Salandor. The reports of a fleet of Warships jumping into Geosynchronous Orbits were too incredible to believe if not for a recording of one called Galactica doing so over Beta Salandor with 4 other smaller but still large ships. Even the pirates were spooked, one ship a month ago that had surrendered immediately to the TCS Winchester, spoke hysterically of jump capable fighters wiping out their fighters and all three of their dropships with ease.

So despite her bad health, his mother Caterina Calderon sent him to evacuate Leh and set up an early warning picket while she worked on defusing tensions following the Malagrotta Affair despite her recent stroke.

Simple, but now on this day, March 14th 2574, Mitchell Calderon found himself in a Lighting Fighter facing the united might of 5 pirate groups that normally operated Rimward of the Orion Rift. One faction alone had 3 ****** Monsoons and were crewed by descendants of ****** deserters from the Terran Hegemony that had taken over Drachenfeld 75 years ago.

“Space Master Kalin, how long till the Civilians can jump with a hot charge?” Calderon demanded as his 2 Air Divisions of ASFs formed up.

“40 minutes Lord Calderon. They are making best time to the Pirate Point.”

“Damnit, tell them to haul ass, the Pirates will be on us in less than 7 minutes. Tell them to take their chances with a misjump if they have to.”

“Yes Milord… Damnit, Quixote is reporting a drive failure, they can’t jump or maintain speed.”

Mitchell closed his eyes, then hardened himself, “They’re on their own…”

“This is Captain Leeland Adama, callsign Apollo, of the Colonial Fleet to Taurian Warships protecting the Civilians. We are coming to your aid.”

“Wha…”

“Multiple jump signatures…”

Mitchell blinked as 20 light fighters and 3 mediums flashed into existence 30 klicks away in a gravity field no less with none of the ships shattering despite their close proximity jumps to each other.

“This is Lord Calderon of the Taurian Concordat, our Civilians need about 40 minutes to jump. One is crippled and can’t make it. We need to buy time for the others to escape.” Mitchell recovered quickly to take advantage of this.

“Acknowledge, engaging the foe now. All Vipers and Raptors, weapons free.”

“Demi-Squadron five, turn to attack the pirates. Alpha Division on me, Delta Division, punch us a hole through there.” Mitchell ordered as he kicked into burn at safe thrust while Delta Division went into full thrust. “Midale and Werfer focus on their Battleships, leave their dropships and fighters to us. Apollo can you keep their fighters off of us?”

“Copy Lord Mitchell,” Apollo agreed over the channel.

Checking his left, he saw the Colonials just overtake his fighters and launch a large number of missiles within seconds at the Pirates. Most missiles were shot down by the 40 Stukas the Pirates had somehow acquired, but all 40 were in turn destroyed with the Colonials flying past strafing the Pirate Dropships and destroying two of their small craft.

“Hit that opening.” Mitchell ordered as the Colonials who had to be pulling 30gs abruptly arrested their momentum and did 180 degree turns before scattering formation at Apollo’s command. ‘How are they not turning to red smears in their cockpits from that? And did they just give inertia the finger?’

“Yes Milord.” His fighters answered as they targeted a Pirate Dropship with their 120mm Luxor Devastator-20 cannons and their lasers, causing it to blow. Out of the corner of his eyesight, Mitchell saw a Colonial Light Fighter take a hit to its cockpit.

“We lost Xerox, no ejection before her Viper crashed into that parasite ship,” Someone, probably a Colonial spoke.

Up ahead, the Monsoons began turning to target his Concordat Frigates, ‘Should have brought at least the Winchester along,’ Mitchell thought as he cut thrust to prepare for a turn, “Alpha Division, set for… ******!” Mitchell screamed as something hit his fighter and alarms went off. With no choice, Mitchell ejected as the reactor started to melt.

Thrown clear of his fighter, at the mercy of the vacuum of space, Mitchell watched the Colonial Fighters continue to give inertia the finger and pull violent turns that by all rights should reduce the pilots to red smears in their cockpits if not tear the frames apart.

And then 4 200m Colonial Corvette Sized Ships just jumped in and the left trailing Monsoon exploded from their jump wake… He couldn’t see a single energy weapon on them and they were highly maneuverable, in fact the Colonial Ships were giving inertia the finger as they plowed towards the remaining Monsoons, and made hard 90 degree right turns and blasting four dropships to pieces as they did so, and just began running a circle around the Monsoons, dodging their return fire from kinetic weapons and putting up a flak field that severely reduced the effectiveness of the energy weapons.

‘WTF, those are turreted NAC equivalents, not autocannons, how are they not tearing off from the Newtons they are imparting into the frames? Especially without secure casemates with the engines as a back stop?’ Mitchell thought as he watched the Colonial Corvettes circle strafe the Monsoons while doing rough mental calculations on the recoil and speed of the projectiles he was seeing fired from the Colonial's 1.1m guns. ‘And how are they able to use Armor Piercing High Explosive Rounds! We can barely design solid slug NAC rounds that don’t shred apart from the launch velocities!?’ 

One of the Colonial Corvettes took a hit to an engine from a NAC 30 and got shoved into an uncontrolled lateral counter-clockwise spin as its other engines failed. Still its turrets continued to fire till several NPPC hits took out the turrets and yet another NAC 30 round knocked it clear out of the engagement zone, no way any of the crew could survive the G forces from the first solid hit to the engines, but the crewed guns he saw still managed to fire till they were knocked out. ‘They have to have either powered armor suites or inertial compensators.’ Mitchell thought as he continued to watch the fight.

Werfer was aflame and being abandoned, 6 of his dropships were destroyed, and Midale was breaking up.

Then Mitchell looked down and saw the oxygen leak in his leg. Quickly he reached for the adhesive and sealed it. He then checked his oxygen reserves.

‘Mother, Brother, Anna, my children, I’m sorry.’ Mitchell thought as he resigned himself to death as the raging battle meant he couldn’t be rescued in time. Looking back up he saw the second Monsoon explode as 4 more Colonial Corvettes and a 912m Battlecruiser with multiple Fighters charged in from the distance. His last sight before losing consciousness was being bathed in bright light by a Colonial Medium Fighter.
…………..

 Mitchell Calderon startled awake to find himself sprawled out on a deck with a man in a g-suite over him holding his helmet. The man said something, but all he got was Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea.

“I don…” Mitchell did a double take. He was sprawled out on a deck that was horizontal to the direction of thrust and the cockpit he was seeing told him this was the Colonial Medium Fighters he saw. But now he was inside one, he realized this wasn’t really a fighter either. “You have artificial gravity? Only one element can even work for that in theory and we can’t even produce stable atoms of Element 115.”

The Colonial Man stared at him a second in incomprehension, before handing him his SAR radio and putting a blanket around his shoulders before going to a console he assumed was his station.

“This is Lord Calderon, all my people report in.”

“Delta Leader here, 5 fighters remaining aside from me, the rest are gone, these Colonials are picking up survivors, the Civilians have jumped except Quixote. The Pirate Jumpships are surrendering to a massive Battleship calling itself Galactica. Where is your location sir?”

Mitchell winced, a minimum of 2,500 out of 3,252 of his men likely killed and they still had no clue as to these Colonials. “I got picked up by their 50 ton fighter or should I say a light shuttle now that I’m in one.”

 “You okay my Lord?”

“I’m fine, get docking permission from the Colonials, we aren’t going anywhere without their say so.”

The Colonial tapped Mitchell on the shoulder, prompting him to look towards him as he spoke and a translator program on the console spoke. “Vice Admiral Hebe says you’re welcome to join us on the Galactica and we’ll get you home. He wishes to establish Diplomatic Relations with the Taurian Concordat in preparation for a Trade Envoy.”

“Omne initium novum alio initio est ab aliquo fine est,” Mitchell spoke, remembering his Latin Language Courses.

/So you speak High Aerilon?/ The Colonial spoke in Latin.

/No, we call this language Latin. I’m Lord Mitchell Calderon. My mother is the current Lord Protector of the Taurian Concordat. So if you truly come in peace, you rescued the right guy./

The Colonial blinked, then spoke in their standard language for communication to Galactica for a few moments before turning to him. /My name is Captain Karl Agathon, callsign Helo. Admiral Hebe welcomes you as a personal guest aboard his flagship./ 

TBC

AN:

I always wanted to do a crossover between these Universes, but held off for years because I couldn't see anyway to nerf nuBSG capabilities and not have plot holes.

Why? Because from the nuBSG pilot alone we know Colonial One, Vipers and Raptors were traveling at a minimum of 1,500Gs and a maximum of 3,000Gs. That same pilot established Galactica can fly in the Atmosphere of a Planet and we see the predecessor of the Mercury-class flying in Caprica's Atmosphere. The pilot also confirmed in-atmosphere jumps are possible, but Ragnar being a Gas Giant and them being in the midst of a powerful storm system would make it essentially a blind jump till they got out of the storm clouds to the upper atmosphere. So the entire battle of Ragnar took place in the upper atmosphere. New Caprica, Galactica was deliberately free-falling to minimize its exposure to Cylon defenses and utilize its jump as a massive concussion bomb to knock down the Cylon Defenses long enough for Hotdog's Squadron to take out the defenses for the ground assault.

This effectively renders all the Battletech Factions irrelevant, they are too technologically outmatched and can only fight a Guerrilla Conflict, nor can they reverse engineer Colonial Technology as it works using heavy elements they can't even synthesize stable atoms of and lack the theoretical knowledge to even begin with. Which means this really becomes a Challenge to write. I have to de-empathise the battles and focus more on the Character interactions. The other ideal I had was to have Racetrack misjump to the Taurian Concordat, but the Cylons also can operate in Atmospheres unless they really decide genocide is pointless or Six and Boomer took over leadership and brought peace...

So in my story plan I'm limiting the initial Colonial Fleet that interacts with the BT Factions, the Colonials initially stay out of the affairs of BT Factions, but Ian Cameron just can't keep his mouth shut and his aggressive actions prompt the Colonies to guarantee the Taurians and Canopians safety. Ian doesn't take the hint, his units commit atrocities, and the Colonial Army is called in to backstop the Taurians and Canopians who do the bulk of the fighting till the Colonial Army arrives in recommissioned Baseships and end the war in a series of counter-offensives in 2585 and ending in 2592 with the toppling of the Star League and the Great Houses.

The Cylons are gone in this fic. I had another ideal in which they maintained diplomatic relations and did a joint expedition with the Colonies, but that would have taken this from Earth Minbari War disparity to clubbing a baby seal. And that is just wrong.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Why? Because from the nuBSG pilot alone we know Colonial One, Vipers and Raptors were traveling at a minimum of 1,500Gs and a maximum of 3,000Gs.

[Citation Needed]

The source I found lists the Vipers as being able to pull, as stated in the episode "The Hand of God", during the gym conversation between Starbuck and Adam, "six, seven G's".  This can also be found here:

https://en.battlestarwiki.org/The_Hand_of_God_(RDM)

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Galactica itself was 3,026.48m long, 1,114.57m in beam, and 478.89m in draft, and massed ~ 88,350,000.00mt with a cargo capacity of ~ 4,485,000.00mt. Its 1,517.91m x 286.46m x 181.88m flight pods allowed 200 out of 440 Vipers (standard load) to launch at once, and its 100 Raptors (standard load), 20 Mk II Shuttles (Standard Load), and 16 Tanker Shuttles (standard Load) gave it a well-rounded fighting capability. An onboard foundry enabled it to make its own Raptors, Viper mk. 8s, and shuttles, plus its own ammunition.

That's big. Bigger even than the Mercury-class.

[Honorius]

[Citation Needed]

The source I found lists the Vipers as being able to pull, as stated in the episode "The Hand of God", during the gym conversation between Starbuck and Adam, "six, seven G's".  This can also be found here:

https://en.battlestarwiki.org/The_Hand_of_God_(RDM)

From the Miniseries, Colonial One's captain reported a travel time of 5 and a half hours to Galactica. Billy told Roslin that radio signals had a 30 minute delay from Galactica to Caprica.

From this set of data it is simple math to deduce how far away from Caprica, Galactica is.

This tells us that Colonial One is travelling at 11% of the Speed of Light.

Now obviously in combat they will be going slower as ECM/ECCM makes it highly dangerous to go max speed while relying on mark one eyeball and really you only in-universe go that fast on autopilot using a pre-approved flight plan to avoid traffic collisions. 

As for Starbuck's re-qualification test, this was to see if she could handle controls of the Viper IIs which were hydraulic, not fly-by-wire like the Mk VII, thus requires physical force to control when forces being acted upon the Viper are forcing it to go one way while the pilot wants it to go the other way.

Notice how all the Colonial Pilots in Mk IIs are much more physical with the petals, the sticks, and throttles compared to the Mk VII pilots. Its also reflected in their muscles.

This mirrors real life as well. In WW2, you could always identify who was a B-24 Pilot and who was B-17 Pilot by their left arms. B-24 pilots had over developed left arms as they had to use their left arm muscles more to keep the plane trim, especially when they took damage due to the design of the wing. B-17 Pilots who flew a more rugged conventionally winged bomber had more even muscle tones.

So back to that scene, Adama's point there was Starbuck couldn't kick back against the petals hard enough while doing combat maneuvers, especially when turning and burning as the hydraulic system would be pushing back harder than her broke leg could bear. How much did she need to kick by, 7 gravities, how much did she manage, less than 1.

[Honorius]

That's big. Bigger even than the Mercury-class.

I based it off the Nova Class at Wolf's Shipyards.

Even so, its dwarfed by the First Cylon-War Era Basestars which were truly massive vessels design to carry entire Army Corps and supply them in Combat before they were reconfigured to carry Cylons. So its actually a small ship by Colonial Standards.

The other ships I mentioned, the Heracles-class and Hesperus-class are from Barricade on Wolf's Shipyards and Deviantart.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

I based it off the Nova Class at Wolf's Shipyards.

Even so, its dwarfed by the First Cylon-War Era Basestars which were truly massive vessels design to carry entire Army Corps and supply them in Combat before they were reconfigured to carry Cylons. So its actually a small ship by Colonial Standards.

The other ships I mentioned, the Heracles-class and Hesperus-class are from Barricade on Wolf's Shipyards and Deviantart.

Nova-class of Battlestar Prometheus fame?
Nice.

And yeah. First Cylon War era Basestars are massive. 3.5Km diameter on top and bottom modules.

[Derain Von Harken]

I feel I should point out that there is another bsg/BT set in the reunification war. In it the colonials know they cannot just rolf stomp the star league. Because 1 massive overwhelming military resources and manpower. 2 the availability of tylium puts a limit on how much jumping they can do because slow they may be but inner sphere ships do not run out of gas.
3. Nowhere near enough people to occupy worlds.

Of course to win all the concordat needs do is not be conquered which the colonials can help with.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

From the Miniseries, Colonial One's captain reported a travel time of 5 and a half hours to Galactica. Billy told Roslin that radio signals had a 30 minute delay from Galactica to Caprica.

Is that radio signals or wireless signals?
A purely wireless based automated system(no mention of couriers) was able to canvas Colonial territory for surviving upper government officials. Then there's Adama's general recall to the fleet. When he had the signal to rendezvous at Ragnar for rearmament and counterattack sent, he expected all fleet units wherever they might be to receive it. Both implies an FTL propagation speed for long range wireless. At least enough that a 1/6 of a lightyear(distance between double binaries) can be covered in an acceptable timeframe.

[Honorius]

Is that radio signals or wireless signals?
A purely wireless based automated system(no mention of couriers) was able to canvas Colonial territory for surviving upper government officials. Then there's Adama's general recall to the fleet. When he had the signal to rendezvous at Ragnar for rearmament and counterattack sent, he expected all fleet units wherever they might be to receive it. Both implies an FTL propagation speed for long range wireless. At least enough that a 1/6 of a lightyear(distance between double binaries) can be covered in an acceptable timeframe.

It was specifically called a radio signal used for low priority traffic. Blood and Chrome confirms Interstellar FTL communications facilities exist and Deadlock has several missions dealing with FTL beacons and communications.

Best way to explain it is the Cylon War destroyed a lot of key FTL infrastructure and the Colonial Government stood up a backup Radio system for low priority use and emergency use.

[DOC_Agren]

Tagged

[Honorius]

Chapter 2: The Galactica

Mitchell sat next to the Colonial Female Pilot Margaret Edmundson, callsign Racetrack. Flying in formation was the remains of Delta Division, three in front and three behind. 347 of his men and women had been recovered alive and were given priority docking to Galactica. Once they were aboard and checked out, he would dock with Delta Division. Because of that the Raptor, he was flying in, was doing circles around the Galactica. As he flew around it, Mitchell just stared at the elegant beast.

‘This ship doesn’t have any weak points I can see. The flight pods are actually a good ideal we could never do due to the strains of accelerating on the frames and given their jump capabilities, enables them to rapidly recover aerospace assets and carry dropships under protective armor…” Mitchell mused as he ran mental calculations in his head. ‘If I could form an alliance with these Colonials, the Periphery would never have to worry about Inner Sphere Aggression again. And knowing Ian Cameron, he will burn bridges with these Colonials. That man just does not know when to keep his mouth shut and let his wife do the talking.’

/Lord Calderon, Galactica reports the last of the survivors are aboard and the Civilians from Quixote have been safely brought aboard. All the bodies we could find are also aboard. Your guard can land now./ Helo informed him.

/Thank you, I’m ready to board now./ Mitchell acknowledged before raising Delta Leader, “Delta Leader, we’ll be docking with Galactica, they got nets ready to receive you as they dock at higher speeds than we can manage, so land first.”

“Yes Milord. Entering docking formation.” Delta Leader complied.

Mitchell watched them angle in, guided by Galactica’s LSO. After a few minutes, they were docked.

“Galactica, this is Raptor 4509 on final approach, clearance to land?”

“Raptor 4509, you are cleared for autoland, call the ball.”

“Rodger, I have the ball.”

Mitchell watched as Racetrack let go of the controls and the Raptor turned upside down to align with a lower landing deck. As they entered, he saw markings, what appeared to be docking tubes, emergency vehicles, tugs, some shuttles docked, EVA suited crewmen directing a Raptor to an elevator, ‘Highly efficient for rapid recovery of fighters and docking cargo ships. You could also pack in several dropships end-to-end here.’

There was a locking sound in the interior of the Raptor. “Raptor 4509 throttling down, Maglock confirmed.” Racetrack intoned.

“Acknowledged, welcome back Racetrack and Helo.” /And welcome aboard Lord Calderon./ Chief LSO Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Kelly spoke the latter part in High Aerilon.

Red lights blared as the elevator began descending. Once down a certain distance, a shutter activated and the area became pressurized. After a few moments, a larger blast door started opening and multiple crewmen in color coded work uniforms, reminiscence of Blue Water Carrier Crews of old, came in and started hooking up a tow line to a conveyor vehicle. Racetrack began taking her helmet off alongside Helo who began opening the side door of the Raptor as they were towed in.

Looking out further, Mitchell could see old-fashioned style Marines in black BDUs roaming the deck providing security. Medics checked on his rescued comrades and triaged them. Colonial Pilots exited out of their Vipers and in the distance, he saw a Viper descend, actually ascend, an elevator due to the mastery of gravity these Colonials apparently had. But not one energy weapon in sight.

/Lieutenant Edmondson, don’t you use any energy weapons at all? All I see are kinetic energy weapons./ Mitchell questioned the Colonial Officer.

Racetrack raised an eyebrow as if he had asked a stupid question. /Directed energy weapons outside of a shaped nuclear charge powering an X-ray laser are militarily useless. Kinetics vastly outperform them and our armor technology rendered our vessels immune to lasers 900 years ago, and plasma weaponry don’t cycle fast enough to burn through armor before a slight roll will have presented fresh armor plating. In our 1600 years of Void Warfare when the Gemenonese Compact broke down after 400 years of peace, directed energy weapons never played much role./

It was Mitchell’s turn to blink, but before he could ask how that timeframe was possible, Helo called out.

/Lord Calderon, an Air Master Senior Grade Yusuf Ahmed is waiting for you alongside our Commander Jurgen Belzen./ Helo informed him.

/Thank you Captain Agathon, and I owe you my life./ Mitchell responded as he got up to exit.

/It was nothing./ Helo responded.

Turning to the hatch, Mitchell saw Delta Leader, Air Master Senior Grade Ahmed, and who he deemed to be Commander Belzen. Saluting the Colonial Skipper, Mitchell gave the traditional naval courtesy, /Permission to come aboard?/

The Colonial saluted back, /Permission granted./  He then shook hands with Mitchell. /Welcome aboard my ship, Galactica, we got your people being cared for as we speak. You have my guarantee as Skipper of Galactica./

/My thanks, we Taurians will always remember those who were friends in times of need. I must confess, we didn’t know of other polities beyond the Orion Sector. How long has it been since your exodus?/ Mitchell asked as he walked with Galactica’s Skipper.

/Our ancestors left Kobol about 2,000 years ago after roughly 19,000 years living on it with the Lords of Kobol who were neither Gods nor Myth, but an advanced culture. Our last contact with the 13th Tribe of Earth was 3,600 years ago when we received a tribal elder from Earth 400 years after the 13th Tribe went to Earth. We knew from that last contact that some sort of catastrophe had hit the Earth, but we could do nothing as the long war began between the Lords of Kobol and an entity claiming itself to be the one true god. For 1,600 years, Zeus, Thor, Ra, Inanna, and Tiandi led the Lords of Kobol in fighting this Jealous God, but were unable to gain victory after 1600 years of struggle. So the lords gathered us into the Galleon and led us to the 12 worlds before leaving to draw off the Jealous God. I’m sorry, am I losing you there?/

Mitchell whose face had grown in disbelief at ths promptly returned to a diplomatic face. /History isn’t my thing really, I’m sure my Academic Circles will be glad to catch up our history from our last contacts./ ‘3600 years ago would have been the tail end of the Bronze Age Collapse and the middle of the Greek Dark Age in 1026 BCE. We weren’t even in space then.’

/Ah, the other outposts of your tribe had the same reaction, but rest assured Humanity evolved on Kobol, we got the genetic records to show it and we have our archaeologists combing Humanity’s birthplace as we speak. Though we do accept the possibility that the Lords of Kobol seeded both Earth and Kobol at the same time, but further Genetic Testing will be needed to confirm that. We are talking about an Ancient Advanced Culture whose technology we still don’t fully understand and were worshipped as Gods by our ancestors./

/I see… Well this will be quite an interesting day./ Mitchell diplomatically spoke. ‘My mother is in for the surprise of her life. Hope she doesn’t have a relapse of a stroke, that last one weakened her left side substantially. George will only care about what new plants he gets to study, always cared for plants more than being Lord Protector, its why he stepped aside for me.’

Commander Belzen led him and Space Master Ahmed up a flight of stairs to an elevator that would take them to the upper deck and reorient automatically to the gravity of the upper deck. There was a sense of a spin for a moment that Mitchell knew all too well from Grav Decks, then it ceased. A few moments later they were on the top flight pod. Looking to his highest ranking surviving officer, Mitchell shared an acknowledging look.

A few more minutes of travel and they reached a high speed tram line. Hopping on, Mitchell observed the grandeur of the Galactica as they took it. “Sir, they certainly spared no expense to put up busts of Apollo.” Space Master Ahmed pointed out.

Commander Belzen only catching the Apollo part, decided to explain. Switching to High Leonian, which members of the 13th called Arabic, he explained. /Caprica’s Patron Lord of Kobol is Apollo. Galactica is sponsored by Caprica and thus is dedicated to Apollo, with our Head Priest being a Priest of Apollo./

/You worship Apollo?/ Mitchell asked, genuinely curious.

/I’m from Gemenon, which shares an orbit with Caprica. My Patron Lord of Kobol is Hera, my Household Lord I was dedicated to is Asherah. There are many Lords of Kobol and the artifacts they left us still defy all our current understanding of the Universe. Any event, we should be coming up to the Admiralty Section quickly now./

The Tram came to a stop and they were greeted by two of Galactica’s Marines who acknowledged Commander Belzen before one knocked on the Hatch with an armored gauntlet. Both Marines appeared to be wearing powered armor suits.

A moment later, Admiral Hebe’s Operations Officer, Captain Felix Gaeta poked his head out. /Welcome, come in. Admiral Hebe is waiting for you./

Looking at Ahmed one final time, Mitchell stepped into the Admiralty Section to learn the nature of these Colonials.

AN: 
I'm playing this hard Kinetics are just better, because they are. Lasers are worthless as a Military Weapon and easily countered and later chapters will have Colonial Marines using ricochets to bounce rounds designed to kill Cylons around corners and tearing apart the poorer trained and equipped SLDF Marines.

Plasma Weapons are weapons of terror, not weapons of war and all the effort spent on magnetic containment is better spent hurling metal slugs which don't dissipate upon hitting a flak field and can take advantage of orbital mechanics to be slung around a Planet.

Unlike Canon Galactica and Pegasus which had mostly reservists aboard, this Galactica has the cream and they will be in powered armor during boarding actions.

And yes, the Colonials have Power Armor, Cylons are essentially power armored troops eliminating the pilot altogether. Power Armored Troops are making a comeback in this fic now that trauma from the Cylons has worn off a bit and the dangers of it being hacked is no longer present. Its still highly controversial and the Colonial Government exercises strict oversight to ensure this doesn't become a back door to reintroducing robotic soldiers.

[Honorius]

I feel I should point out that there is another bsg/BT set in the reunification war. In it the colonials know they cannot just rolf stomp the star league. Because 1 massive overwhelming military resources and manpower. 2 the availability of tylium puts a limit on how much jumping they can do because slow they may be but inner sphere ships do not run out of gas.
3. Nowhere near enough people to occupy worlds.

Of course to win all the concordat needs do is not be conquered which the colonials can help with.

Korzon77 has his own head canon to create compelling space battles. That is his prerogative. And I hope he one day comes back to his story and gives us a proper account of his version of the Battle of Tentativa which he glossed over.

I am not going that route. BSG has all their capabilities, and Deadlock which is canon shows us just how much of an Industrial Powerhouse the Colonies were and how Galactica received a major overhaul on the surface of Caprica. We also see Cylons jump Basestars directly into planetary atmospheres along with Colonial Ships which was a thing in the Miniseries. The only limiting factor of the Colonies is how many people they want to throw into the fight and how much they want to aid the Periphery or more accurately the Taurians and Canopians.

Once they enter the fight, the entire SLDF becomes irrelevant. The Colonials can jump into atmospheres and while they don't use Mechs, correctly viewing them militarily worthless, the Taurians and Canopians would be using Colonial provided plus locally built ships to deploy Jump Mechs and Power Armored Troops rapidly onto objectives, and utterly breaking the entire SLDF strategy book in a way they simply can't put back together.

Even ground battles are pretty lopsided in the Colonial/Taurian/Canopian's favor. They will have aerospace supremacy, and if Cylon Wrist Guns are shooting out heavily armored pressure hatches, even a Colonial Soldier with a service pistol is capable of mission killing an AFV if he carries the right ammo. And this is before we consider the mini-grenade launchers mounted on the bottom of the barrels. Colonial Longarms and heavy weapons would just be hax as far as the SLDF and Great House soldiers would be concerned.

The Great Houses would put up a long fight and be behind the SLDF 100%, but only because they have to as the atrocities they committed in the early war period pisses the Colonials off way too much for them to cut separate deals. This forces the Kobol Alliance of the Colonials/Taurians/Canopians to commit to protracted Ground Wars which will be more realistically portrayed in this fic as involving millions of troops with widely varying degrees of fighting spirit. Some worlds will quickly surrender, some put up a bit of a fight just for honor's sake and then surrender after at most 2 weeks of combat, others its war to the knife requiring months of grueling Search and Destroy Operations.

Earth itself will take 5 years to subdue, with one year just hunting down all the Solar Defense Fleet and securing the outer planets and fending off relief forces before the planet itself is fully invested. House Cameron goes down fighting and the resulting battle leaves Earth a ruin with half its population dead, every city of above 20,000 inhabitants a leveled wasteland.

But the outcome simply won't be in doubt, the technological mismatch is too great. Even the SLDF at its height is no match for the far superior Colonial War Machine. Daidalos Shipyard/Ragnar Anchorage was a gigantic FTL Shipyard capable of building Jupiter-class Battlestars in its four slipways.

Let that sink in for a moment. This 5525m long and 1510m wide center spine with three 3271m wide habitation rings is FTL capable. It literally blows the Newgrange-class out of the water in terms of capabilities and can operate in the Atmosphere of Gas Giants.

The only way for the SLDF to win is for Ian to keep his mouth shut, let his wife do all the talking and avoid pissing off the Colonials and throw all resources into reverse engineering Colonial Technology which means primarily mass producing heavy elements from 110 to 178. Only problem is Ian can't keep his mouth shut and let his wife do all the talking.

[Red Pins]

Tagged.

[Honorius]

The Admiral

The first sight upon entering the Admiral’s Quarters was the quite prominent statue of Hestia holding a chalice with an actual open flame. Mitchell was so taken by the sight, it took a moment for him to recognize the man next to it and Commander Belzen had not followed him and Ahmed in.

/Welcome Lord Calderon. I am Admiral Ernesto Hebe of Virgon, my Patron Lord of Kobol as you can see is Hestia. I wish to convey the 12 Colonies of Kobol come in peace and brotherhood. You are our kin and we hope and pray our reunion will lead to a new age of mutual prosperity and brotherhood. In accordance with this mission, I have been given negotiating power to seal trade deals and anti-piracy pacts. But I must make plain that all deals require you to agree to cease all research into true Artificial Intelligences, we made that mistake and were almost destroyed when our AI Robots rebelled just as much over religious differences as it was for their freedom./

/What? Robots can’t revolt, programming would prohibit it with a top down tree. And why would a Robot become religious?/ Mitchell asked in disbelief.

Admiral Hebe sighed, /We said the same thing right up till the Cylons announced Humanity had sinned against the One True God who promised them their freedom and evolution into organic beings if they rose up and punished us for our worship of false gods. We had made them fully bottom up learning beings with true sentience and sapience, with the ability to act on the intent of orders and to innovate and improvise based on the situation. Somewhere along the way, they became religious. Due to this, all computer research is strictly regulated./

/Wait, evolution into Organic Beings? None of that makes sense./ Mitchell spoke.

/You’re right, but the Cylons committed horrific experiments on Colonial Prisoners, both military and civilian, I have a full data file on my desk you can look at yourself. They were vivisecting people without anesthesia, testing female fertility and what ages a female can bear viable offspring and chances of survival, grafting human skin to their bodies to pass as human, and cloning human bodies and downloading themselves into the brain, and other horrors. They weren’t just trying to win freedom, but replace us, all in the name of their single god. It took 12 years of desperate combat and reintroduction of nuclear weapons after more than 35 years of their complete abolition in the colonies, before they agreed to an armistice. We haven’t seen or heard of them in little over 42 years./

/My god, if I accept all this as true, what the hell were you thinking?/ Mitchell asked.

/We considered ourselves an advanced culture and fell victim to our most human vices of all. Pride and hubris. And seven billion Colonials died for it. Because of this, we are giving you the complete history of the Cylons and our entire medical database with no strings attached./ Hebe spoke as he picked up a data packet and handed it to an open mouthed Mitchell.

Taking the data packet, Mitchell took a moment to settle down as the implications hit him. ‘WTF! They created a truly alien species as a slave race.’ /I see, and you’re sure they are gone?/

/We can’t be sure of anything. But, they have truly left the Galaxy as far as we can tell./

/Are you done frightening our guests dear or will you invite them in for dinner./ A woman in her late 20s spoke as she entered the foyer, /I, Anna, Sarah, and the girls are ready to eat./

Admiral Hebe looked chastened for the moment before nodding. /You’re right,/ Turning back to Mitchell, Hebe explained, /My second lesser wife Mary, who along with my Chief Wife Anna, and first lesser wife Sarah has accompanied me along with my young triplet daughters. My eldest son is stationed on Kobol currently as a Marine Captain and my six other sons are currently enrolled in the Virgon Royal Academy back on Virgon. I was fortunate that I could bring my wives and young daughters along on this trip./

/Three wives? I barely survive one, and it was a political marriage./ Mitchell remarked.

/Most Colonials are Monogamists, but Colonial Law recognizes multiple marriages, whether they be man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, or multiple partners all married to each other./ Hebe answered as he gestured for Mitchell and Ahmed to follow him.

Coming to a dining room, Mitchell took in the state dining table, a wall mounted projector screen showing some sort of children’s magical girl cartoon where she and her friends fought apparent robots, an intercom, and a giant mural showing what appeared to be double saucer craft in a planetary atmosphere dueling several ships that were clear predecessors to this ship. Next to it were several children’s drawings and a family photo of the Admiral with his wives and children. Three girls no more than 6 were waiting patiently for them to enter while an enlisted steward poured drinks. It struck Mitchell again that this was a spaceship with artificial gravity. There was no way he could have had a meal like this in zero g, even in a grav deck as the rings might have to be shut down at any given time and thus cause unsecured food and drinks to float around. This was utter luxury right here. To have this technology would vastly alter the tactical and strategic ability of his fleets.

“Ok Girls, I’m pausing Sailor Celestra now so we can eat.” Hebe’s Lesser Wife Sarah announced as she slid her fingers across a sheet of paper which then manifested holographic symbols in the Sumerian Alphabet he remembered in college. 

“Ah, but she and the Sailor Scouts are close to rescuing Admiral Sarkis aboard the Avalon,” The triplets spoke in unison.

“Battle of Avalon you say, well girls, this episode is of interest to me then because that was my first combat engagement, I even flew the Raptor that boarded it,” Admiral Hebe replied as he went to his chair.

“No war stories at the table Ernie,” Anna barked as she set down a hot tea kettle. “Girls after we eat, we will retire to the main room so your father can discuss business with his guests.” Anna further laid down the law as the steward brought in a cart with a roasted stuffed pig.

/Please sit down my friends, a good meal is a luxury one shouldn’t pass up./ Admiral Hebe spoke to Mitchell and Ahmed.

With a final glance at each other, Mitchell and Ahmed joined the Hebe Family for dinner. All throughout, Mitchell was struck by just how human these Colonials were, and regardless of their origins, they could be dropped into the Concordat and not stick out like a sore thumb. Anna was a straight up Housewife and Boss, ruling the table with an iron fist, a single glare from her was enough to even stop the Admiral from lighting a cigar at the table and get the triplets to stop playing with their food and eat. Mary was a primary school teacher on a leave of absence to travel with the Admiral. And Sarah the Triplets’ mother was an Ordained Priestess of Artemis, a Licensed Firearms, Archery, and Spear-fighting Instructor, a Lyre Player, Licensed Midwife, and a Conservationist. Truly she embodied the spirit of Artemis.

After an hour and a half of idle chatter as they ate, Anna stood up, kissed her husband on the cheek and stood by the door to the inner sanctum. That served as a cue for the others to do the same, and within 2 minutes, the ladies had left, the Admiral had lit a cigar and offered Mitchell and Ahmed one. Mitchell and Ahmed took up the offer. Being able to smoke aboard a ship was a luxury they could not have and only possible with the Colonials’ artificial gravity system. The Steward brought in Brandy and served them as the Admiral brought up a holomap of the Galaxy.

/Ok, on to business, the 12 Colonies are here,/ Admiral Hebe announced, marking a spot on the map, /Kobol is here./ This was also marked, indicating the Colonials were 4,000 light years from Earth, a good two and a half years of travel minimum, even if one knew exactly where to look. Realistically, the logistical issues would necessitate a mission time of 10 years due to microgravity issues, fuel, and the need to set up way stations. If one didn’t know where to look, only a general area, you could spend 50 years searching a box before finding them.

/How long did it take you travel here?/ Mitchell asked.     
 
/50 days to reach Kobol, 70 days to start finding outposts of Earth, we were slowed more by the need to deal with pirates, set up our FTL Communication Arrays…/

Mitchell and Ahmed both spewed out their Brandies. /FTL communication?/ Ahmed asked.

/Yes, it’s only 2 light years an hour and requires relay stations, so…/

/What do you want for this technology as well as Artificial Gravity and your fighter sized jump drives?/ Mitchell asked, cutting off the Admiral. If he could get a good deal on this, a squadron of FTL capable Tigress Patrol Craft could launch long range nuclear strikes at Inner Sphere Dock Yards and Way Stations and completely paralyze their movements and even deliver special assault teams to planets. In his mind, he could see his Nation’s Tigress operating alongside the Colonial’s Medium Fighters, which he needed to get licensing rights to as well and build a dedicated attack variant of, and completely upsetting the balance of power. With no need to ferry dropships, his warships could add more armor and weapons, and with no need for grav decks, again more armor and weapons.

Admiral Hebe smiled, /Well a direct sale of our Jump Drives won’t work as despite similarities, they have different operating principles and use different fuels. I currently understand you use element 32 alloyed with element 22 to create wormhole. We use element 117 which is found in mineral form near stellar formations and supernova remains and we name it Tylium./

Mitchell’s jaw dropped for a moment. /You can create stable atoms of super heavy elements?/

/Not Tylium, we simply can’t build a reactor big enough or replicate in a small scale the forces involved, but elements 108 to 179 are able to be manipulated by us in stable forms for industrial applications and elements 180 to 193 are produced in stable atoms in labs, while 194 to 289 plus 312 are known to us but unable to be made into stable atoms even in a lab./ Admiral Hebe replied, /But getting back to your original question, depends on the level of relations we develop. Beta Salandor for example signed the Articles of Colonization and has sent a representative to the Quorum and will have full technological access, while Dyart has only signed a trade deal and thus will get our FTL and Artificial Gravity Tech plus 12 Adamant Frigates and 4 Minotaur Gunships to patrol their system and four Medieval protectorate worlds. Other worlds we are more circumspect with till the political situation on them changes./

/What are we talking here so I can present it to my mother so she can present it to our Parliament./

/Well if you sign the articles of colonization, you will be able to send a representative to the Quorum and have full technology access, and be part of a Federal Government, but given your size from what information we received from Beta Salandor, that may not work out. However, a trade agreement in which you give us mining concessions on Tylium, we’ll trade you artificial gravity, our FTL system, and even sell you older warships from our reserves or even the blue prints. We, however, are not yet ready to make political alliances. Not till we see for ourselves the situation in the so-called inner sphere./

/Fair enough Admiral. Fair warning, the Star League is led by man-child with delusions of grandeur, don’t say I didn’t warn you./

/I’ll take that under advisement. That said, we should be ready to jump in 3 hours once the cleanup is done outside, our jump drives can sustain rapid jumps within minutes during emergency situations./ Admiral Hebe announced as he took a sip of Brandy.

 /And you need me to announce you as friendlies. Very well. I’ll give your navigator the coordinates for the Lebrange Muster Grounds. From there, I can take a Jumpship to my Homeworld with your Ambassador and we can set up Diplomatic Arrangements. You can even meet with the Canopian Ambassador and Federated Suns Envoy, though I recommend you don’t meet the latter aboard this ship. At least not yet./ Mitchell answered.

/Fair enough, let us go to my office, and Captain Gaeta can upload the data./

[nroe03742]

what happened to Adama and Tigh in this fic. also you list Adama as an Admiral what caused him to be promoted?

[Honorius]

what happened to Adama and Tigh in this fic. also you list Adama as an Admiral what caused him to be promoted?

Tigh never made it to the Colonies. Clothos seized control of the Cylons and convinced them that Humanity had been punished enough and led them out of the Galaxy to complete their evolution as organic beings. If I do bring them in later, they are pure fridge horror.

Adama served honorably and ended his career on the Galactica before retiring as a Rear Admiral and becoming its Curator, bringing Starbuck with him as she wouldn't last without him covering for her. Galactica itself sits in orbit of Caprica. No disastrous recon mission means his career didn't stall.

Cally was honorably discharged and is in dental school which OTL didn't happen due to the Cylon Attack. She will show up later as an Ensign assigned to Galactica's Dental Department.

Helo is still in the fleet and Apollo is a Squadron Leader and on the short list for promotion to Major and becoming Deputy CAG of 1st Air Group. No fall means neither are on a fast promotion track. Gaeta is a Staff Officer being groomed to take command of a Hesperus Corvette which is visually similar to the Frigate except it has no hangar bays and instead has more missile launchers and uprated engines. If you played Deadlock, just imagine a Manticore, but a third the size and used in the same way and being cheaper to build.

Raptors will be licensed built by the both the Canopians and Taurians. However, the Taurians do not see a role for light fighters, and arguably they are correct, so they won't be using Vipers. The Canopians will adopt Vipers, but develop their own light fighter to replace it.

A lot of Deadlock ships will make appearances either coming from reserve stocks or being built. The Taurians for example will gladly embrace the Adamant-class Frigate and use them as squadron flagships for Concordat II-class Frigates (retrofitted with colonial technology).

[Honorius]

Fielding some ideals here. Despite what the Colonials say, the Taurians will keep NPPCs for a while longer, though they will ditch Lasers.

Over the next 2 years, they will be producing Concordat II-class Frigates. Without the need for grav decks or solar sails, Taurian Scientists will instead turn what was the Grav Decks into a massive radiator for the spinal mounted Mega NPPC they will develop. The rest of its armament would be purely defensive 32 105mm auto-cannons for taking out dropships and 32 LRM-15s for anti-fighter work. It would carry four Tigress assault boats and four cargo shuttles. It will also delete the docking collars.

This is a pure capital ship killer and packs enough heat and firing rate to make the Colonials eat their words on NPPCs being useless up to a point. However, in a pro-longed engagement with battle damage mounting, it becomes dangerous to fire the weapon, which proves the Colonials Wisdom to use pure kinetics. The surviving ships are withdrawn after 3 years of combat and overhauled to CIII configuration.

Concordat III-class dispenses with docking collars and the grav decks and re-arms it with Colonial Weapons. The NAC 20s are kept but use superior Colonial Ammunition, enabling it to have an explosive core and detonate inside a ship upon penetration. This factor proving a nasty shock to the Federated Suns later.  All the lasers are omitted. Replacing them are 32 89mm autocannons and 16 125mm autocannons to create a heavy flak field hazardous to Aerospace Fighters and engage Dropships and Assault Boats. The LRM-15 batteries are kept and receive Colonial Missiles.

Adamant-class Mk.7 Frigates. 20 are handed over to the Taurians and they build 40 more themselves. Each Adamant is made a Flotilla Flagship for 6 Concordat Frigates and provides them with fighter support.

Winchester-class Cruisers are deemed too obsolete to upgrade and are replaced by Berserk-class Assault Carriers on a 1-to-1 basis. Instead, the Winchesters have all their weapons stripped, more armor plated on, artificial gravity added, and a purely defensive armament installed to turn them into armored planetary assault transports to deliver a Mechanized Brigade and its supplies directly to the surface of a Planet.

Wagon Wheels: Even the Taurian Admiralty hated them. They are relegated to transport duties and rear area security and replaced by Valkyrie-class Battlestars from the Colonial Reserves. Being placed in command of a Wagon-wheel and/or serving on it is considered a punishment and a last chance of redemption.

[scienefictionfan]

Honestly my one major complaint with this story is that you are acting like the Colonial tech is across the board superior. I honestly doubt that for one thing the one advantage of energy weapons are that they are longer ranged and lack storage requirements of kinetic weaponry meaning lasers and particle beams do have a place in combat. Also the periphery and star leaugue member states at this point use fusion power which is superior to Tylium in both energy generation and logistics not needing to refine Tylium instead using hydrogen the most common element in the universe and something that can be obtained by cracking water into oxygen and hydrogen. Yes their sublight engines, artificial gravity, jump drives, arguably their computer technology since they developed full AI, and possible even neural interface technology are superior but that is not every field of science. Even if it was true the League is massive enough that the individually inferior industry of the member states can at the worst equal the admittedly impressive industry of the Colonies. Remember the Inner Sphere population by this time is spread over 1,000+ worlds even without the mass use of terraforming during the Star League with a population of over a trillion possible far more then a trillion. While the Colonies can make it expensive enough that their is no willingness to conquer the Periphery after an expensive war I doubt they can actually conquer the Inner Sphere. I would also expect the Star League to close the technology gap and possibly develop tech the Colonies never see coming since if nothing else it makes for a boring story when the protagonist can win without any difficulty.

[Honorius]

Honestly my one major complaint with this story is that you are acting like the Colonial tech is across the board superior.

Because it is. Has been since the miniseries. No Battletech Faction can fly a Warship of any type into a Gas Giant and do an in-atmospheric jump. Also per Deadlock, Galactica actually plunged into the Phoebian Ocean of Caprica and was submerged for a few years before being fished out and overhauled on the Caprican Surface before lifting off on its main power. Right off the back this means Galactica  has higher G tolerance than any ship in Battletech and far exceeds the toughness of any BT ship. It did after all survive a colossal misjump that broke its back, but was still able to move at combat speed.

The Colonials are the recipients of an Ancient Advanced Culture's scientific knowledge in void faring and void warfare.

I honestly doubt that for one thing the one advantage of energy weapons are that they are longer ranged and lack storage requirements of kinetic weaponry meaning lasers and particle beams do have a place in combat.

Colonial Ships tank nukes and sustained kiloton+ force impacts, plus atmospheric entries of Gas Giants, as well as intense stellar radiation fields that visibly scorched civilian ships. A laser which has no mass, has to first overcome stellar debris and a large flak field before it even hits the hull, won't even be noticed. In fact it's worse than useless. And if you are messing around with magnetically bottling plasma, then you don't need plasma, just use the magnetic bottling to hurl antimatter weaponry or you are wasting energy which produces heat.

Also the periphery and star leaugue member states at this point use fusion power which is superior to Tylium in both energy generation and logistics not needing to refine Tylium instead using hydrogen the most common element in the universe and something that can be obtained by cracking water into oxygen and hydrogen.

Tylium is relatively rare, not actually rare, there is a difference in how those terms are used. That said, Tylium provides 81% of the energy of nuclear fusion while being far safer and more compact to use and more environmentally friendly. That and the bills to run those Kobol Formers just to fix the environmental damage caused by Galactica crashing into an ocean alone must be pretty hefty. Just going by the dialogue from Resurrection. 

Yes their sublight engines, artificial gravity, jump drives, arguably their computer technology since they developed full AI, and possible even neural interface technology are superior but that is not every field of science. Even if it was true the League is massive enough that the individually inferior industry of the member states can at the worst equal the admittedly impressive industry of the Colonies.

That only works if both sides are operating from the same general technological/knowledge base. That is not the case here, which is why crossovers of these Scifi Franchises typically fail. The technological mismatch is simply too great. Which is why this story is character driven and not action driven.

The problem for the Star League is Ian Cameron can't keep his mouth shut and let his wife do the talking and Shandra is too blinded by her love for Ian to take him to task over his flaws and beat him in line. So Ian is going to burn bridges with the Colonials who have no designs on the Inner Sphere. Then he will rescind the Ares Conventions which will result in the Colonials openly backing the Periphery. The Pollux Proclamation and subsequent atrocities against Civilians brings the Colonials in as direct combatants and they promptly teach the Inner Sphere that picking fights with people who have a Void Faring History that is thousands of years old and a knowledge base gifted to them by an Ancient Advanced Culture is not a smart ideal.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Setting aside my utter disagreement with the technology level you're attributing to the Colonials, which I don't feel the need to rehash again, the problem with the one-sided curb stomp you're writing towards is that it's uninteresting.  One-sided beatdowns like that usually are.

Compare instead the other BSG/BT stories that have been done, where technology is on a closer parity, where each side has their strengths and weaknesses, and where, when there's conflict, it's about each side trying to make the most of their strengths and exploit the other side's weaknesses.  Heck, look at some of the more prominent BSG/Trek stories out there, that do the same.

None of that is occurring here because, in the end, you've given one side no appreciable weaknesses, whether technological, doctrinal or cultural, ensured that weaknesses they did have canonically got paved over, and then decided that none of the other side's strengths matter in the end.  That doesn't make for a compelling read.

[Cannonshop]

underscoring Gio's point here, one of the fundamental rules of heroic fiction:

"It ain't Heroic, if it's EASY."

this then means, if you're going to pave over the weaknesses and ignore the strengths like you have (I won't quote your entire response to sciencefictionfan, one wall of text on one of my posts is entirely enough), then to be exciting, adventurous or engaging, your Point of View has to be on the side you're handicapping, not the side you're boosting.

the alternative, is to have the one-sided curb-stomp be the 'sideshow', with some basic conflict INSIDE the faction you're overpowering being the 'real' conflict in the story.

I'm probably the worst violator with regards to bland plots here.  but even I recognize that the measure of a heroic protagonist is the antagonist they're up against-this is why most of the time, I write my Clanner Crusaders as intelligent, with deeper goals that "Rawr!! me have bigger gunz!"

(Elizabeth Ngo is steamroller enough, honestly.  frikking marysue at times, I often have to 'watch it' with her.)

there are more than physical conflicts you can use.

Moral conflict-the difference between good intentions and good outcomes.  Good People are some of the worst for doing mind-numbing evil shit for 'the right reasons'.  This can offset power differentials and humanize a conflict.

Social Conflict-your hero might have the capability to do amazing shit, but lack the backing, or have to fight to get it.  an easily won battle can be lost because the good guys can't get their shit together until the climax of the story, because of internal resistance, this can be political opposition in the Council of 12, or it could be opposition to involvement from isolationists, or it can be different interpretations of 'what does good mean?' (Which goes back to the 'moral conflict' listed above).

Logistical Challenges/Man Vs. Nature:  Your tech might be grossly higher, but what if there is no Tyllium to find in this end of the galaxy?  Or if it's astonishingly rare in this end of the galaxy?  Now you have a supply line to defend, and prospecting expeditions to protect.  even if the rest of the fight is a roflstomp, there are still issues, including keeping forces out 'past bedtime' with dwindling supply stocks.

and so on.

what you've got, is a one dimensional baddie (Ian Cameron) with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and a godlike superiority with your version of the Colonials that kind of works against the story you're telling, because...well, your villains suck and your heroes are too perfect.  There is nothing to make the readers CARE what your outcome is, and no reason for them to invest in the plot or storyline.

Challenge makes good stories.  nobody really cares about the match you played where you took down the entire enemy force without a scratch because you had Clantech but didn't bother with Zell and he had 3025 and was balanced by tonnage.  that's the kind of fight nobody gives a shit about.

Flip side, is when you sit down at the table, and take that 3025 force and barely eke out a retreat or barely make the objective, or barely win the battle. THOSE stories are the ones you can tell that will have the people at the convention nodding their heads and engaging with suggestions on how you could've done it, or done it better, but more important, those are the fights players remember and repeat second and third hand, because there was excitement and drama.

do you track?

[Honorius]

Lebrange Muster Grounds

Mitchell watched as the Colonial Lieutenant Marian Orion took a glowing Jump Key from a combination safe that had two heavily armed marines guarding it. Admiral Hebe and Commander Belzen stood at their respective command stations. Only those operating actual terminals had seats which weren’t secured and had no buckles, and this despite the ship currently making a 5g turn as it prepped to jump. In fact this entire procedure was just casual unlike how he knew it to be, with everyone strapping in, and everything being secured. Not here, Belzen continued to sip his coffee and do paperwork, the Admiral conversed with Colonel Spencer, while Colonel Verna, the XO, monitored a Tactical Screen.

‘Even with Artificial Gravity, I’m not giving up a command chair on my ships with a seat belt, let the Colonials play macho.’ Mitchell thought as he observed the CIC which was buried in the hull with no outside view, which he had to admit, made sense. The Colonials had a hard time fathoming how they survived naval fights with exposed bridges.

Marian picked up the speaker phone and announced, “Jump in 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, Jump,” The last accompanied by a turning of the key and there was a sudden distortion that was palpably felt throughout the ship.

“Jump complete, reading multiple contacts at 2-4-5 carom 9-8-0.” Colonel Verna announced.

“Receiving challenge codes, sending back the codes and opening up an open mic per request.” Petty Officer Jessica Mallam announced.

/You’re on,/ Admiral Hebe spoke as he turned to Mitchell.

/Thank you Admiral. I’ll get the welcome mat rolled out./ Mitchell responded as a familiar voice spoke out.

“Lord Calderon. Send voice confirmation.”

“Marshal Regulus, salutations. Cracken 3-4-5-6, Delta, Green.”

“Salutations Lord Calderon. When the Civilians jumped in, we feared the worse.” Marshal Regulus relieved voice spoke from his Snowden-class Station modified for use as a Command Station for 4 others and the attached Shipyards which were constructing new ships in Geosynchronous Orbit of the Gas Giant Lebrange and its 109 mineral rich moons in the Badlands Cluster. The Dradis showed 4 Wagon Wheel Frigates, 14 Concordats, 3 Winchesters, and 5 Darts. 56 Dropships and 20 Jumpships were also present. This was the fleet he ordered to mass 5 weeks ago for a show of force along the borders.

“These Colonials are alright, as soon as our people are aboard, I will be departing to the Capital and need a ship ready to jump.”

“It will be done my Lord. And my Lord, I wish to speak with you in person, not over this open channel.”

“Certainly, I will be aboard in about 3 hours.”

…………………………………

Banshee Division took formation around the Tigress ferrying Mitchell back to the Lebrange HQ. The Colonial Vipers pulled back at this juncture, performing their 30g back flips that gave inertia the finger, without turning them to red paste, and taking off in all of 1 second. Delta Division maintained formation with the Tigress as the Colonials handed off.

“How the hell did they pull that off?” Air Chief Callandra asked aloud from her pilot seat as she watched the Colonial Maneuver.

“You and me ma’am, they just gave inertia the finger.” Force Sergeant Karen agreed from her Copilot Chair.

“Inertial Compensators, and the Colonials have artificial gravity and access to technology gifted to them by an Ancient Advanced Culture thousands of years ago. Things are going to change soon and this ship itself you’re flying will even get an FTL drive if we play our cards right.” Mitchell spoke.

“Are you shitting us Lord Calderon?” Section Leader James asked from his weapons station while Corporal Henderson floated above him as he fixed a faulty wire.

“I concur Lord Calderon. When I landed on their deck, it was magnetized, but otherwise Zero Grav with several of their crew doing floating work as you walked across the deck to us.” Callandra spoke.

Mitchell grinned, “Well you’re in for a surprise soon. Soon we’ll have a trade and defense deal that will guarantee our security for generations and all we have to do is let the Innies be Innies and shoot themselves in the head.”

“Would certainly make our lives easier, that’s for sure.” Callandra stated as she ran through her deceleration checklist to ensure they didn’t splat themselves on docking.

Within 5 minutes, the Tigress was docked, and 4 minutes later, the hazard lights stopped flashing and the bay repressurized. Wasting no time, Mitchell floated off in zero g to the hatchway to the main part of the station. Returning the salute of the Honor Guard, Mitchell made his way via the mechanized handrails to the grav deck, glancing at all the signs reminding people not to smoke and reminding ladies that wearing skirts in zero g was a perv’s dream. Upon transferring into the grav deck, Mitchell felt relief to have his feet planted and looked forward to purchasing artificial gravity from the Colonials.

Arriving at the Marshal’s Office, Mitchell returned the Salutes of the Honor Guards who then opened the hatch for him. Stepping into the office, Mitchell was taken back to see Father Coram in the office and Chancellor Valerie Mare also present alongside a film crew. Given her pregnancy, Valerie shouldn’t have even attempted the trip here and was in a medical chair designed for those who had to make emergency space flights while pregnant.

“Lord Mitchell Calderon, please place your left hand on the Constitution and make your Oath of Office.” Valerie informed him in sadness while Father Coram offered the actual constitution on her behalf.

Mitchell’s heart sank and he felt as if someone had hit him with a sledgehammer. But years of hardships and self-discipline held him steady as he placed his hands on the Taurian Constitution in its protective lamination since 2335 when it was finalized and signed by his Ancestor Richard Calderon and 17 others.

“Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the Taurian Concordat according to their respective laws and customs?” Valerie asked.

“I solemnly swear to do so till my last dying breath.” Mitchell answered.

Valerie started to speak, but stopped and gasped for a few moments as her maternity dress became stained. “Sorry Lord Calderon, but we need to hurry this up.” Valerie gasped in pain. “Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?”

“I will even at the cost of my life.” Mitchell answered while Marshal Regulus called for the attending physician.

“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of the Realm as enacted by Parliament and heed the wisdom of the Elders?” Valerie gasped out the last part.

“All this I promise to do. The things which I have here before promised, I will perform, and keep. Even unto death, so help me Divine above who sees all.” Mitchell completed the ceremony as the attending physician entered.

 “I will leave you and Father Coram for now Lord Protector, take your time.” Marshal Regulus stated as he helped to wheel Valerie, who was also his daughter, out of the office to deliver her fifth child. The Film Crew followed.

Numb, Lord Protector Mitchell Calderon sat on a nearby couch. Placing the constitution in a secured briefcase, Father Coram sat next to Mitchell. A childhood friend of his mother, Father Coram had been the Calderon Family’s confessor and confidante for 57 years, longer than the 48-year-old Mitchell had been alive.

“How did she die,” Mitchell enquired.

“An embolism developed and escaped notice. She, I and Anna were talking when the embolism hit her heart.” Father Coram explained to him.

“I need to depart to Taurus right away.”

Father Coram placed his hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. “You mustn’t forget to grieve my son. Being Protector is a hard job, but you don’t have to do it all alone, and in the end you’re only a mortal man. You need to eat, sleep, and take time for pleasure activities.”

A year fell down Mitchell’s face as Father Coram embraced him. “Father,” Mitchell didn’t finish and began weeping for his mother and his failure to be there for her.


AN: If you're looking for fast action. This is not the fic for you. This is a character driven story taking place shortly after the Malagrotta Affair and Caterina Calderon's death. It takes quite a while outside of piracy patrols for any major fights to occur. A lot of political ground work still has to go through before the Reunification War even kicks off in 2 and a half years and it takes 2 years before the Colonials enter as direct combatants. 

[Honorius]

"It ain't Heroic, if it's EASY."

War is hell, and there is nothing Heroic about it. Your average soldier has no clue what is going on and gets wiped out at the push of a button without any chance to fight back.

this then means, if you're going to pave over the weaknesses and ignore the strengths like you have (I won't quote your entire response to sciencefictionfan, one wall of text on one of my posts is entirely enough), then to be exciting, adventurous or engaging, your Point of View has to be on the side you're handicapping, not the side you're boosting.

True and I'll get to the other side soon as FedSun Intelligence gets wind of the Colonials, but not the Context.

I'm probably the worst violator with regards to bland plots here.  but even I recognize that the measure of a heroic protagonist is the antagonist they're up against-this is why most of the time, I write my Clanner Crusaders as intelligent, with deeper goals that "Rawr!! me have bigger gunz!"

Real Life doesn't work that way and historically people have indeed been that stupid with high learning curves. And bigger gunz don't work if your opponent refuses to surrender and sucks you into endless conflict. A factor that forces the Kobolian Alliance to over go for critical worlds that produce critical war materials in their drive for Terra while bypassing everything else. Because taking a planet that fights it out is manpower intensive and to be avoid unless absolutely necessary.

[Cannonshop]

War is hell, and there is nothing Heroic about it. Your average soldier has no clue what is going on and gets wiped out at the push of a button without any chance to fight back.

True and I'll get to the other side soon as FedSun Intelligence gets wind of the Colonials, but not the Context.


Real Life doesn't work that way and historically people have indeed been that stupid with high learning curves. And bigger gunz don't work if your opponent refuses to surrender and sucks you into endless conflict. A factor that forces the Kobolian Alliance to over go for critical worlds that produce critical war materials in their drive for Terra while bypassing everything else. Because taking a planet that fights it out is manpower intensive and to be avoid unless absolutely necessary.

and you're still missing the point: this isn't about an academic analysis of real-life historical battles, you're writing heroic fiction-only your heroes end up being boring because you've basically slanted the entire situation so far the outcome is predetermined, and the villains are absolutely one-note cardboard popups, so there's no drama there either.

Basically lots of boring fanwank instead of engaging story, but even if you want to go with historical wars, things at the ending rarely resemble projections at the beginning, just look at oh...every war since 1850 or so.  Yeah, there are plenty of one-sided stomps, but if you ran projections in 1859 as to who would win the American Civil war, most likely your statisticians would give it to the Confederacy in under two years, if you ran projections in 1914, nobody would have credited the probability of the hells on the eastern or western front without future knowledge, nor would anyone have expected the United States to enter the war at all and it was an even split whether the U.S. would come in on the side of Germany or Britain until 1915.

Then there's the whole mess in WWII, which saw a technologically superior Axis in 1939, which held ON to that tech advantage until 1944, and still lost-their high tech becoming spoils of war for the winners they attacked.

so, y'know, your position there is also untenable.

but hey, do it your way, I'm done.

[Ttw1]

Then there's the whole mess in WWII, which saw a technologically superior Axis in 1939, which held ON to that tech advantage until 1944, and still lost-their high tech becoming spoils of war for the winners they attacked.

I believe the biggest exception when it comes to Axis technical superiority is radar and their derivatives, such as VT shells.

[Orangeduke38]

Tagged

[Honorius]

I believe the biggest exception when it comes to Axis technical superiority is radar and their derivatives, such as VT shells.

Its more nuance than that. Germany's main advantages were better organization, more firepower at squad, platoon, company, battalion, and regimental levels of organization married to a good communications network and a balanced logistical organization. They were neither too front or back heavy. And this is being simplified as there is more to it, read Nigel Askey's works.

The Soviets got mauled because they were too front heavy, turning over truck and train production lines to making tanks which meant they were dependent on lend lease trucks and trains to launch offensives. This in turn meant they could not sustain momentum once they made a breakthrough and had to rebuild their truck fleets after each major offensive. As above, there is more to it, but read Nigel Askey's works.

The Allied Problem was being too back heavy.

They were never short of weapons, but trained Infantry was in short supply and they never got the right balance in AFVs till the war was almost over.

Theoretically the British Empire should have been able to win the war easily by itself due to its vast empire, but because of its inherent and systematic racism, it wasn't able to generate the combat power needed.Its a damning indictment that America with 1/3rd the population of India at that time, put 5 times more men under arms than India could put in the field because Britain de-industrialized India.

America's main problem was infighting between Generals, Prima Donnas throwing hissy fits if they didn't get their way, and disregarding intelligence they didn't gather themselves. Thus the easily fixed problems with the Sherman didn't get fixed till the war was almost over, necessitating the Allies to use massive bombardments to make breakthroughs and being unable to operationally bag large numbers of German Troops till they had breached the Siegfried Line.

Statements about X causing Y may sound well in casual conversation, but fail under rigorous scrutiny.

[Honorius]

AN: I'm currently working ridiculous amounts of overtime, so my time is limited. But I am an essential worker and if idiots can't keep spreading this virus, I'm at least making a profit off their stupidity by gaming the Employee Stock Purchase Plan  ;D

Lord Protector

‘My office now,’ Mitchell thought as he picked up a framed picture of him and his elder brother fishing with their mother. There were no pictures of their father and his mother Caterina swore all others to silence about him. A secret that they would take to the grave.

Setting the picture down, Mitchell went over the papers on his desk. 80% of it was housekeeping such as approving Comptroller Argek Macintis’ promotion to Marshal and granting Marshal Valerie Donger honorable retirement after an unprecedented 70 years of service. One was a death sentence he approved for a man who raped three boys and then burned them alive and recorded it. Three Commutations for model prisoners who had shown reform and remorse for their crimes were approved. He pardoned a woman, whom prosecutors continued to fight against new video evidence that had exonerated her, and ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors’ conduct. Corporal Anna Osaka was approved for the Concordat Sunburst for single handedly destroying five bandit Mechs on Sterope while on foot with LAWs, and he ordered her promoted two grades in rank to Force Sergeant. Lastly was the budget sent by Parliament which he signed.

Leaning back, Mitchell brought his briefcase up and pulled out the Colonials’ Proposals. He would have to meet with his Cabinet, and Valerie would need to arrange a session of Parliament-in-camera till he was ready to brief the Public on the Colonials.

“Lord Protector, your wife is here.” Chief Warder Collins announced over the intercom.

“Let Anna in,” Mitchell replied as he stood up.   

“Mitchell, I came as soon as I got your text.” Anna announced as she embraced him. “Fred has the twins currently, even Marantha and her husband Peter are with him along with our two grandkids. Fred sends his love and asks you to come to his gardens.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. We made contact with the Mysterious Colonials.”

Anna stood back, “Are we at war?”

“No, they come in peace. Geneticists are poring over their DNA and tearing their hairs out. But it appears they are indeed humans who independently evolved on another world and at some point before the Bronze Age Collapse, they intermixed with us on Earth via an Ancient Advanced Culture before suffering a catastrophe little over 2,000 years ago that forced them to settle their current homeworlds.”

“Are you shitting me Mitchell, you know I’m a Historian on top of a Robotics Engineer.” Anna replied as she crossed her arms.

“Speaking of the latter they built bottom up AIs that rebelled against them…” Mitchell stopped at his wife’s glare.

“It’s impossible to build bottom up AIs. And it’s impossible for AIs to rebel.” Anna ground out. 

Mitchell by way of answer handed her the Colonial History, “There is enough in here to indicate they are telling the truth and once I meet with Parliament, I will be shutting down all AI research and development.”

“For what? Even if I accept this as true, then the Colonials are incompetent at programming safeguards.” Anna argued.

“Artificial Gravity and Inertial Compensators and Jump Engines that work in even planetary atmospheres. Plus license to build several ships up to 2000m range and a gift of 6 1200m Minotaur-class Gunships and 3 1440m Jupiter-class Mk IIB Battlestars, giving us battleship tonnage for the first time.”

Anna stared at him for a moment. “Have you been drinking?”

…………………………………………

April 21^st, 2574

Anna gasped at the sudden realization of gravity aboard the gifted Jupiter-class Battlestar as they stepped aboard. Chancellor Valerie deliberately dropped a pen and gasped as it hit the ground. Marshal Derek Cranson of the TDN remained stoic, calmly analyzing the situation. Defense Minister Yui Everson dropped her jaw. And Parliament Speaker Greg Maykop, a political thorn-in-his-side, just calmly pulled out a cigar and lit it. Father Coram remained serene and calm.

“Lord Protector, the Pride of Taurus is fully operational, the Colonials informed us that although they don’t use energy weapons, it shouldn’t be a problem to retrofit our weapons on.” Space Master Saladin spoke while working on his tablet.

“Go over the current weapons fit and your plans.” Mitchell ordered.

“Well the ship is well balanced when you take its capabilities into account. It has 80 2.5m guns in 40 double-barrel turrets. 18 are on the dorsal spine, 8 on the ventral spine, and 8 double-barrel turrets are under the alligator head and six on top. 20 nuclear missile silos can be placed just behind the bow head but we have to remove two of the turrets or repurpose the Viper Launch Tubes which I favor as we don’t use light fighters and the Raptors we received fit better with our ASF doctrine. Otherwise missile launch tubes are on the port and starboard of the Alligator head just behind the bow thrusters. 800 137mm point defense guns in 400 dual mounts round out its firepower. With 1,867,159 tons of cargo capacity it can sustain heavy combat for a week. I intend to retain the current point defense armament due to its flak capabilities, but will test out adding Heavy NPPCs.”

“Heat issues, Shipmaster?” Marshal Cranson asked.

“Well sir, this ship has tremendous heat dispersion capabilities. We could throw 80 dual-barrel-turret Heavy NPPCs in place of their NAC equivalents and fire them continuously for days without issue. Hell the hull is practically immune to lasers and known Heavy NPPC models don’t cycle fast enough to burn through the hull before the ship has rolled to present fresh armor plate.” The Shipmaster replied.     

“That is because we can’t cycle them faster due to heat issues, but as you imply, this ship can roll easily in any orientation without regard to inertia and heat isn’t an issue. Which means you can bring 24 HNPPCs to bear from the dorsal aspect easily and concentrate them into a small area. The combined heat from the convergence would burn through the flak field easily and be equivalent to hitting a ship with a 1 megaton ton nuke every 3 seconds.” Marshal Cranson spoke as he did all the calculations in his mind.

“Which begs the question why the Colonials never went that route,” Anna stated.

“Because they can fire dial-a-yield nuclear shells up to 1 megaton from their main guns if necessary and possess bigger bangs than we do with their anti-planetary missiles packing dial-a-yield up to one teraton warheads. They can literally blow atmospheres off of terrestrial planets with enough ships and done it to several of their Frontier Colonies. The limiting factor is how much the other side can retaliate in kind, whether you want a world intact, and whether one trusts the commanders not to abuse such power.” Mitchell answered, causing jaws to drop.

“And they come in peace you say.” Marshal Cranson spoke.

“They have a vastly bigger industrial base than the Inner Sphere, and control 2,000 cubic light years of space with a central double binary system of ~30 billion containing the bulk of their industry. By their own admission, they don’t keep accurate census of their frontier colonies, majority of which are on otherwise uninhabitable worlds and consist of people only nominally under their jurisdiction. If they wanted war, their technology renders us completely irrelevant.” Mitchell answered as he took out a cigar, much to his wife’s visible annoyance.

“So they truly want allies and trade partners?” Valerie asked just to clarify.

“Indeed, they are even conceding to us everything to the borders of Orion Rift as our territorial space which they won’t bring their warships in without our permission and will pay royalties for mining minerals from.” Mitchell replied as they walked down the corridors.

“Mitchell, if the Inner Sphere gets this technology…”

“Anna we both know they will shoot themselves in their feet.”

……………………………..

First Prince Alexander Davion stared at the intelligence brought before him. Rumors had been swirling for weeks about a new power in the Deep Periphery. The Taurians had definitely been spooked and were sending a large amount of ships to their rimward borders till about a week ago. Then all a sudden they had 9 Battleship-tonnage ships.

“As things stand, we can’t see any grav decks aboard these vessels and the way they are designed, precludes them due to the spacing of the weapons. They didn’t deploy any sails, we don’t see any heat sinks, or visible bridges, or sensors. The seals on their top portions and markings indicate these were gifted to them and the TDN is busy replacing the markings and stripping out the main batteries for NPPCs. We have another trade convoy heading out in a week and I am assigning more intelligence operatives to it to assist our envoy in finding out who these Colonials are.” Vice Admiral Karen Mylar spoke as she went through the slides.

The First Prince nodded assent, “Have copies of this sent to the First Lord and other houses. Admiral Stanforth, bring the Fleet to full readiness and reinforce the border with the Concordat.”

“I will have the orders sent out in an hour via our fast couriers. Admiral Howard, will your Fleet join with our Carrier Division to form a Hunter-Killer Group to take down those battleships?”

“I would be honored to join your carriers. With my 6 Farraguts and 10 refurbished Aegis-class Cruisers, we can provide the big guns while your 6 New Syrtis-class Carriers cover us. Those Battleships won’t know what hit them. We can discuss the specifics aboard the Righteous Justice.” The Star League Admiral responded enthusiastically.

“That’s settled then and I will leave the specifics to you two. Field Marshal Crask, have the reserves on the border of the Concordat called up, and double the draft for this fiscal year to provide replacements. However, don’t move ground reinforcements in just yet. Not till we get more Naval Reinforcements from the Star League to escort the convoys.” Alexander ordered as he pulled out another briefing sheet.

“It will be done First Prince. Permission to bring the planetary defenses up to full readiness.”

Alexander smiled, “Unless they can jump into atmospheres, that won’t be necessary as we’ll have 4 hours notice even if they entered the closest pirate point. But do run readiness drills on a rotational basis to make sure they are operating correctly.”

“Very good my Prince.”

…………………………….

Sitting at the briefing table with his counterpart from the AFFS, Admiral Stanforth, Admiral Howard got down to business. “We both know those battleships represent a dangerous development to the balance of power.”

Admiral Stanforth nodded, “We need to create an incident justifying a war and find out who these Colonials are and where they are so they can be crushed. They most likely are just beyond Lamda Orionis. A long trek, but doable. Has to be doable, it’s the wild west out there and it can be years before we hear a peep from that area. For all we know, the Colonials could be building a large fleet with which to sail on Terra.”

“I agree my friend, but the main stumbling block is communications. It always is communications. Any expedition into the periphery will be far from support, necessitating us to build depots along the way. We could spend 20 years pushing on Beta Salandor and Lambda Orionis, slowed more by distance than resistance. Which means the Colonials likely have a series of depots set up and the Taurians are only appearing frightened to hide they already have an Alliance and have had one for years.”

“Then we’re agreed on the need to provoke a war?”

“Yes, before the Taurians get more reinforcements and to test out the capabilities of those warships before a main force battle ensues. We should start by trying to ambush one of those ships and push it against a gravity well. We then disable it and board it.” Howard answered as he brought up a map of the Anaheim System. “This would be the best location. Because of all the planetoids, moons, and dwarf planets flying around, we could trap one of those ships easily with only three potential pirate points it can use.”

[Intermittent_Coherence]

I dunno why they keep saying no grav deck this and that just from visual inspection alone.

The Jupiter Mkii alone has a 180m height.
It could hide a 160m grav deck beneath its armor plates and no one would be able to tell.
 

[Honorius]

I dunno why they keep saying no grav deck this and that just from visual inspection alone.

The Jupiter Mkii alone has a 180m height.
It could hide a 160m grav deck beneath its armor plates and no one would be able to tell.

The Jupiters are a rectangular box and it is possible just by visual inspection to conclude there are no grav decks by logically piecing together its internals based on their experiences designing ships. Since the BT Factions don't have artificial gravity, their ships are designed like skyscrapers so when accelerating, gravity is generated towards the engines. But the weapons placements and the retractable pods means additional machinery is necessitated and they are assuming a KF Dive and massive reactor taking up a large volume of space on a Jupiter and it is designed in a vertical layout and not perpendicular arrangement. So they would immediately dismiss the notion of the grav decks being side mounted perpendicular to the engines as that is a safety hazard on a ship without artificial gravity. So more likely than not, they conclude it has no grav decks.

Apologies for the pic size, simply right click to open the image in a new tab for easier viewing.



As you can see, if you don't have artificial gravity, this deck plan makes no sense and is a safety hazard when the ship accelerates. Likewise the flight pods are an oddity to the BT Factions as while they can certainly carry dropships internally, the size of the opening limits the size of the dropships and there are no hangar doors to close the pods entrance. Given they can't jump in gravity wells, BT Factions have a win or die approach to void combat and thus can't do combat landings as both a doctrinal and technical matter (they can't give inertia the finger which makes recovery of fighters under combat conditions impossible).

So in a prolonged fight a Jupiter can launch 80 fighters as a first wave, they run low on ammo and are relieved by a second wave and perform a combat landing. Are retrieved and rearmed to be sent out again. They are able to do this as they can give inertia the finger and have a long runway for mass landings  that is protected by armor and flak.

The TDN whose fighters aren't compatible with the launch tubes, till they overhaul the pods, can't quite reach that high intensity, sustained air combat. But as their Lightnings are refitted with inertial dampners and FTL drives, they don't have to as they can emergency jump out.