2406: (Special thanks to Lagrange for writing this)In the year 2406, the Terran Hegemony sent their Second Fleet on a well-advertised tour of their borderworlds showing off their revamped fleet with excellent anti-fighter weapons and generally reassuring unsettled worlds of the Hegemony that all is well. If this enormous fleet reminded other nations of the economic and military might of the Terran Hegemony, that was a fine outcome as well.
In the Lyran Commonwealth contradictory intelligence reports suggested this was (or was not) a ruse for the invasion an unspecified realm. These reports were viewed with significant alarm, resulting in Marsden ordering some "naval exercises" around Skye when 2nd fleet passed nearby.
Unbeknownst to the Lyran intelligence community, the reports were poisoned by suborned agents working on behalf of the Draconis Combine. The Combine successfully acquired secret route plans in advance, discovering that the Lyran portion of the border was the last visited. Sensing an opportunity, they injected false intelligence into the Lyran pipeline suggesting that one of the houses was in for a "demonstration" from Second Fleet. As the tour progressed, the tension in the Commonwealth steadily ratcheted up with attention heavily focused on the large renewed warship fleet at the Terran Hegemony border.
In the meantime, with almost a year's advance warning of where the Lyran fleet was going to be, the Combine operated a planetary conquest plan focused on the worlds of Lovinac, Rodigo, and Unzmarkt. The plan avoided any overt movement of the Combine warfleet while marshaling a total of 23 regiments from all corners of the Combine. No more than a single regiment from any world was used to avoid notice. These regimental movements were all timed to converge on New Oslo in a single week.
Upon discovering a fleet of 50 jumpships marshalling near their border, the Lyran planetary governors immediately realized they had a serious problem - their planets could be invaded before a message even reached the Lyran warfleet. Relief from that quarter was clearly months away. What to do?
Each border governor immediately invoked mutual protection clauses, but naturally nearby systems were reluctant to strip significant supporting garrison forces in the face of an imminent invasion.
The governor of Lovinac, Pieter Kurzen, the wealthy scion of a merchant family, new exactly what to do: hire help. He immediately offered enormous bounties backed by his family fortune for the capture or destruction of Draconis forces in Lyran systems.
The Combine's mustering process faced some unpleasant delays due to the extremely diverse set of starting locations and several Onsen waystations becoming overloaded by the scale of the transiting forces. Altogether, commander Nagoya Abe tolerated only an extra month's delay before moving ahead with the 20 regiments that were assembled. Splitting his forces into 7, 7, and 6 regiments, a jump invasion was launched.
At Unzmarkt, the invasion fleet jumped en masse into the nadir jump point and DropShips immediately embarked for the planet. The planetary governor was an aerospace fighter fan and had assembled a small fleet of 36 fighters aboard 3 cargo DropShips with a JumpShip at the zenith. Finding themselves misplaced, the JumpShip made an intra-system transit a day later to the Nadir. Without their DropShip escorts (which were headed in-system) the conscripted JumpShip captains were forced to surrender to the (very slowly deployed) fighter fleet. The Combine DropShips turned around, presenting an overwhelming force against the Lyrans 4 days later. While the Combine could easily destroy the Lyrans, the Lyrans could easily destroy the JumpShips leading to a tense standoff. After a week of tense negotiations individual JumpShips loaded with DropShips were allowed to depart the system one at a time for scattered locations.
At Rodigo, the single garrison regiment was reinforced by another regiment's worth of armor from deeper worlds. They dug in, and fought hard, but it was only a matter of time against the 7 incoming regiments.
At Lovinac, Pieter's call was heard with forces scrambling from all over the near sector, including even forces from Black Nebulae industries of the Rim Worlds Republic. Using pirate jump points 4 regiments of governmental and mercenary units were assembled by the time 6 regiments of Combine armor attacked what was assumed to be the least defended world. Given the homeworld advantage this was a fair fight that went steadily downhill for the Combine as each week another regiment of mercenaries arrived. This clearly wasn't working, so Abe pulled out after 3 weeks with only half of his original forces in fighting order.
Several of the mercenary regiments hadn't managed much bounty, so 3 of them promptly re-boarded DropShips. A brilliant astrogator by the name of David Snee managed to find a direct pirate-to-pirate jump solution which all JumpShips used in a 20 minute window. The last forces to board DropShips were on Rodigo about 6 hours later, leading to more than one joke about the commute.
The governmental forces on Rodigo, down to 2 Battalions, were in their final redoubt when the mercenary regiments executed a hot drop on the Combine staging areas led by the Black Nebulae industries security group. This was overenthusiastic given their training, but amongst the 20 units that turned into a fireball, 3 of them directly struck and destroyed DropShips. With the Combine staging area overrun, the Combine fighting forces racing to counter, and the pyrotechnics of failed drops all around a grand melee resulted in massive destruction to all sides. When the dust settled it was clear the Combine could no longer exert effective control over the world leading inevitably to a decision to retreat.
In the ensuing year Pieter tried to avoid payment for all combat on Rodigo, claiming that "the contract was only for Lovinac in context". However, the courts upheld the claims, bankrupting the Kurzen family.
2407: This was intended to be a background fluff event for the UHC. Unfortunately, Marcus has apparently been ill and unable to write this. I'll bump it to next turn so he has time to recover.
2408: (Special thanks to Kiviar for writing this)PreludeOn November 8th 2407 the cargo-DropShip ‘Occurrence Border’ flying under the flag of the Lyran Commonwealth experienced a catastrophic drive failure en route to the Free Worlds League world Amity. Despite the best efforts of its crew, the ship’s engines were too damaged to be repaired, and no League ships were close enough to either rescue or deflect the out of control DropShip. The captain of the Occurrence Border, Cassandra Mayweather, decided that any further risk to her crew was unwarranted and that after contacting the planetary government, the ship would be abandoned to burn up in Amity's atmosphere.
The government quickly agreed to the captain’s assessment of the situation and began an evacuation of the suspected crash zone. Unfortunately what the crew had not told the planetary government was that they were hauling a significant amount of illegal radioactive material, and, when the Occurrence Border’s hull ruptured and the ship exploded as it deorbited, it spread radioactive fallout across much of Amity's major continent.
In the aftermath of what the media was now calling “The Amity Incident”, Mayweather and her crew were arrested and held on numerous charges including illegal transportation of a hazardous material, falsifying cargo manifests, lying to a government official and illegal dumping. However the people of the FWL were not satisfied at the prospect of mere jail-time, and violent protests erupted across League space demanding the government force the Lyrans to pay.
The Commonwealth refused any discussion without the immediate and unconditional return of Captain Mayweather and her crew to Lyran Space. This proved to further enrage the FWL population who continued to demand “justice for Amity”, and in a closed session of Parliament, the FWL government decided that in the absence of any hint of cooperation from the Lyran government that the League would be forced to take matters into its own hands.
It was decided that the Navy would launch a series of patrols in to the border region of the Lyran Commonwealth which would stop and inspect every LC flagged drop and jumpship they encountered. On December 29th of 2407 the FWLN’s 4th fleet under the command of Admiral Tomasi crossed the border into Lyran Commonwealth territory.
Battle over FordAfter struggling in vain to intercept the League patrols harassing their citizens for over three months, on March 27 2408 a squadron under the command of Leutnant-Kommodore Weir finally managed to arrive in the Ford system in time to find the Heracles-class battlecruiser
Hector and Phalanx-class corvette
Spatha still 1 day out from the jump point her squadron had just arrived in.
While Weir's squadron of the Tyr-class cruiser
Asgard and Heimdaller II-class escort-carrier
Bifrost, was roughly equal to the FWL force in terms of tonnage and firepower, it was at a significant disadvantage in terms of speed and had little chance of bringing the League force to battle, meaning it would have to settle on a single high-speed pass before the enemy was able to flee the system. With this in mind Weir dispensed with the usual fighter screen for such a maneuver and had every aerospace fighter under her commanded loaded with as many anti-ship missiles as they could carry, and formed up in close proximity to her two warships.
The following battle was brutal and short. The League commander, suspecting his opponent would try to shelter her aerospace assets for one massive strike, took advantage of the lack of proper fighter cover and launched a devastating fighter strike of his own before the warships arrived. Within 10 seconds, 46 of the lyran fighters were either destroyed or crippled, and despite a staggering amount of return fire from the 120 barracuda tubes of the two Lyran warships, only 17 League fighters were lost.
Despite such heavy losses to her fighter wing, Leutnant-Kommodore Weir was unphased. While the League’s fighters had just bloodied her fleet and escaped nearly unscathed, they had also taken themselves out of the battle entirely. At a full-burn pass, it would be minutes before they could turn around and accelerate back to combat range, and by then the battle would be long over.
With both warship forces now entering the extreme ranges of their armament it was the Lyran’s turn to respond. Hoping to get at least two volleys in before the fleets passed Weir ordered her warships to open fire at the very edge of their effective range. Within seconds a blizzard of 200 anti-ship missiles was hurtling off towards the two rapidly growing stars in the distance. Unlike the previous volley, this one found its mark and both of the Hector’s escort DropShips were destroyed and significant damage was dealt to the Spatha. With the League fleet’s anti-missile defenses crippled, the next volley, combined with the killer-whales from the aerospace wing and naval autocannon fire wrecked even more havoc to the League ships. The Nose of the Spatha was in ruins, and she was venting atmosphere from several major breaches along her starboard side, and the Hector had received significant damage both its nose and port gun-batteries. The League’s reply however was equally deadly, and despite their superior anti-missile cover, heavy damage was dealt to the
Asgard while the (Heimdaller II) was raked badly by the Hector’s class-30 autocannons.
Despite the savaging both fleets received, neither managed to inflict any critical damage. Like knights of old they charged with absolute ferocity, but only succeeded in shattering their lances on each other’s shield.
Red FridayWith the savaging Commodore Munroe's squadron received at the battle of Ford the FWLM command decided that any further adventurism on the Lyran border would only prove a drain on the Navy. The 4th fleet was recalled to League space and Parliament hoped that now negotiations could start.
The Commonwealth instead viewed this as an opportunity to capitalize on their success in the Ford system, and launched a series of raids in to FWL space. With the 4th fleet preocupied with reorganizing and resuppling after their retreat from Lyran space, in an ironic reversal the navy was forced to spread the 2nd fleet across the coreward border in hopes of intercepting the Lyran raiders.
Unlike the lyrans, the League met with success far earlier, and on April 24th reports from a fleeing merchant-class jumpship reached he FWLS
Oedipus commanded by Captain Mercutio Princip. The merchantman claimed that a lone Tyr-class cruiser had just jumped in system and was currently burning towards the system’s sole habitable planet. Hoping to cut the lyrans off before they reached the planet and destroyed its valuable orbital installations captain Princip ordered his ship to jump immediately.
Upon entering the (system Z) system, to their horror it turned out that the merchantman’s report had been incorrect and not only was the Tyr-class cruiser not burning sunward, it was also accompanied by 2 Heimdaller II-class escort carriers. As Captain Princip scrambled to turn his ship and escape certain destruction the first waves of lyran fighters arrived pelting the
Oedipus with capital-class missiles as she desperately tried to flee sunward to whatever help (planet Z) could muster. Unfortunately the Lyran’s opening salvo had damaged the
Oedipus's engines and she was unable to open any significant distance from the Lyran fleet as she fled sunward. After 24 hours of constant skirmishes the
Oedipus was at the breaking point. The ship’s aerospace wing had lost nearly half its of its strength, and significant damage and been dealt to the ship’s stern and port. The final blow came at T+26h31m when a killer-whale missile managed to slip through the
Oedipus's defensive fire and impacted the ship’s Number 3 nozzle further crippling her engines.
It was then that Captain Princip decided that whatever honour there was in continuing the battle was not worth the lives of his men and offered his ship’s surrender.
No reply came from the Lyran fleet.
Fearing the Lyrans didn’t hear his first offer, the captain ordered the transmission rebroadcast on all channels, but, once again there was no response from the Lyran fleet. As the crew of the
Oedipus scrambled to figure out why the enemy was not responding to their surrender a fresh wave of lyran fighters and the three enemy warships moved in for the kill.
As the ship shuddered under fury of the Tyr’s tremendous missile barrage, the CIC of the
Oedipus was in a state of pandemonium and Captain Princip had come to a horrifying realization. His ship was dying around him, and he and his crew would soon be dead. If the Lyrans were ignoring his surrender they would most likely fire on escape pods, which left the captain with one last horrifying option. Like most FWLN ships the
Oedipus was equipped with a limited number of nuclear-armed missiles, which, by the strictest rules of the Navy were only to be used with the explicit permission of Parliament in times of war.
With no other options left to him, and in the face of such utter barbarism, Captain Princip ordered the launch of the ship’s entire complement of nuclear-tipped Barracuda missiles. Despite their own misgivings that their lives might not be worth the heavy price the galaxy will pay for this, the crew carried out the Captain’s orders without complaint, and with the flip of a few buttons the missiles were away.
The violence of the impact was as brutal as it was sudden, and within the blink of an eye the Lyran fleet erupted in blinding light. When the fireballs faded and electromagnetic interference subsided the crew of the
Oedipus saw their grim handiwork. One of the carriers had entirely vanished, and the other was drifting dead in space. The Tyr appeared undamaged by the onslaught, but was rotating to begin braking maneuvers. With her work done, and the Lyran fleet ending their pursuit the FWLS
Oedipus limped sunward to safety.
When reinforcements from the 2nd Fleet arrived two weeks later and learned the horrendous story of the battle, Admiral Burlew ordered Captain Princip arrested. Unfortunately the remains of the Lyran fleet had long since fled the system and brought news of their foe’s depravity.
The Solaris CatastropheThe actions of Captain Princip had escalated the conflict far beyond what either side had anticipated. The League refused to accept the Commonwealth’s claims that they never received any offer of surrender, and the Lyrans were unwilling to believe any evidence that Captain Princip did in fact send the message. With room for neither negotiation nor compromise both nations were now teetering on the precipice of all out war, and, with the nearly the entire might of both nation’s navies hurtling towards the border it appeared that, like Kentares IV and Echohawk’s rebellion, the Inner Sphere would once again see a new and terrifying expansion of violence.
However, no one could have possibly imagined what would happen when the two grand fleets did finally meet.
In retrospect it was obvious that the strategically vital world of Solaris would be be both the primary staging point for the FWLN as well as primary target of the LCN, and it should have been no surprise then when the Lyran Commonwealth’s high-space fleet jumped in system on the 28th of June, 2408. However it was quite the surprise when the massive fleet of 7 carriers, 5 cruisers, and 4 escort-carriers jumped in, mostly because the FWLN’s Grand Fleet had, at the same jump point, only arrived moments before.
The ensuing catastrophe erupted immediately as the Walkurie-class carrier
LCN Sigrun phased in on top of the Phalanx-class
FWLS Pilum rupturing her fusion reactor and annihilating both ships without a shot fired. Lyran commander Admiral Thurston Gibbons died instantly. Seconds later the Tyr-class cruiser LCN
Asgard phased in within meters of the FWLN DropShip Danube, which subsequently exploded savaging both the
Asgard and nearby Heracles-class battlecruiser
Lycurgus. As panic began to grip the FWL fleet, the battlecruiser
Jason attempted to extricate herself from the growing melee and fired up her engines for an emergency burn. Seconds later when her engines had spooled up to their full 2.5g the ship collided with the newly materialized escort-carrier
LCN Vindler, hitting directly amidships and snapping the diminutive ship’s spine.
As every subsequent Lyran ship jumped in, the chaos of the battle grew. Admiral Tomasi tried his best to organize his fleet in the growing melee, but his attempt to put forth some sort of coherent counterattack was cut short when a class-20 naval autocannon shell ripped through the CIC of the
FSN Theseus. With both fleets leaderless, confused and terrified that the other side would resort to using nuclear weapons at any moment, a call retreat was issued by both fleets nearly simultaneously.
And so, within 15 minutes of joining battle, the fleets of two of the most powerful nations to ever exist limped away from each other, bloodied and battered, neither willing to continue the senseless slaughter.
The catastrophe at Solaris had cooled both nation’s bloodlust considerably and with their fleets battered and other, more pressing, threats demanding their attention, an uneasy calm settled over the League/Commonwealth border. Neither nation was willing to let the transgressions of the past seven months go, but, neither were they willing to step back to the precipice of mutual annihilation.
Ultimately, the League tried and convicted Captain Mayweather and her crew, Captain Princip was stripped of his commission and dishonourably discharged from the Navy. Conversely, the Lyran Commonwealth never apologized or offered any reparations for the Amity Incident, and never offered any credible evidence that they had not received Princip’s surrender.
“If the galaxy can find it in their hearts to forgive the Federated Suns when that bastion of justice and nobility decides to bomb her own citizens for disagreeing with their wonderful little princelings, then what right does it have to question the lengths I take to ensure the lives of my men. What perversions of justice do they believe in when I cannot use whatever tools I have to defend my brothers and sisters from the same barbarism they claim to oppose?”
-Mercutio Princip
Losses:Free Worlds League: 1x Heracles 2x Phalanx 12x lt DropShip, 398x Fighter - 4b in repairsLyran Commonwealth: 1x Heimdaller II 1x Walkurie 1240x Fighters - 9b in repairs2409:After the madness of the recent battles, and the terrifying re-introduction of high-yield nuclear weaponry to active warfare, many leaders seemed to hold their breath for a moment. The first to react openly was Aleisha Liao. Worried by the fact that it had been the FWL who first used nuclear weapons - the same FWL her nation had so often been at war with - but not suffering from the same public-relations disaster as the Lyrans, she decided to advance a potential set of new laws of war, designed to reduce the barbarism of combat. While she was willing to campaign hard to bring her dream to fruition, the nuclear genie being released was enough to open doors. Within two months, word had come back from every foreign capital agreeing to hear out her terms at a conference to be held at the luxurious New Olympia resort on the planet of Ares. The conference was scheduled for early 2410, and capitals across the Inner Sphere were abuzz with strategy sessions and meetings with military leaders over what would be acceptable.
Action Item: The
Ares Conventions are being debated. On the agenda are a variety of civilian protection laws, rules for parley and proper treatment of prisoners of war, proper conduct of espionage, and the centerpiece, a ban on nuclear weapons in warfare. Your task is to advise your leadership on what you want from the Conventions and what you don't want. As with the jointly-owned worlds proposal, you don't have final say here, but you do have influence. However, in this case, there will be direct communication between military representatives, so feel free to have in-character negotiations. (I might chime in for the NPC nations here and there, depending how it goes). If everyone agrees to a treaty, it'll be implemented as-is, and if not I'll find a compromise and see who signs. Canonically, most nations signed - the two exceptions were the UHC, who stayed out for fear that it'd legitimize war, and the TC, who felt that the Capellans were being grossly hypocritical given some of their own atrocities.
ResearchDC: $2,032m
FS: $116m
CC: $50m
TC: $130m
TH: $3,706m
FWL: $854m
RWR: $714m
UHC: $839m
TOTAL: $8,441m
The winner is the Draconis Combine, getting Mech-sized lasers (small, medium, and large). All nations now have access to LRMs.
Important Change: We'll be switching to the tech system outlined above, with slight modifications:
- All past techs, and this turn's discovery of lasers, still operate under the old system.
- Technologies beyond the present level are split into three fields: miniaturization, strengthening, and advancement.
- Each billion dollars spent on a tech field gives a 1/4 chance to discover a tech in that field. Any of the next three techs you haven't yet discovered are available, with an equal chance of each.
- If you get multiple successes, you'll get the least advanced tech you roll, to avoid the TH jumping too far ahead.
- A tech possessed by one or more neighbours has a 1/4 chance of spreading to you each turn. This process does not cost money - think of it as being funded by the intelligence agency and civilian interests. Heck, even those fools in the Army might stumble across something once in a while.
- Clarification: In addition to the obvious borders between the TH and the big five, the following pairs of nations are considered adjacent: FS-UHC, FS-TC, UHC-TC, CC-TC, FWL-MH, LC-RWR, and MH-RWR. (The MH-RWR adjacency is a bit of a stretch, but it gives each of them a second neighbour.)
- If you salvage examples of a technology in combat, you will get an extra 1/4 chance to discover it by spread. This is again free.
BudgetsInstead of coming up with a Periphery bonus on tech, I decided to just give them more money. The TC, MH, and RWR all get +10B/turn to increase their capacity to build interesting designs, and help them adjust to the new tech system. The UHC does not, as they don't really need it given their lack of a Navy.
CC: $98B
DC: $117B
FS: $103B
LC: $112B, as post-Marsden growth slows down
MH: $24B, due to Periphery rebalance
TC: $23B, due to Periphery rebalance
TH: $775B
FWL: $107B
UHC: $26B
RWR: $38B, due to Periphery rebalance