The small platoon sat, waiting, like a coiled spring, watching the Insectoid line a quarter of a hectounit away. They sat, waiting, counting second by second, until the telltale whine of incoming missiles filled the air.
They impacted precisely, shaking the ground even at Titan scale. A wall of flame filled their field of vision; they waited but two seconds before Antero roared, “Forward!”
Ignoring every instinct, Tig raised her rifle and ran as fast as she possibly could. The acrid smell of the explosives mixed with the heavy black smoke, which mixed with a charred, meaty smell of roasted bugs. She kept her head on a swivel, pushing through the newly-created crater as fast as her legs would carry her.
She saw a flicker of motion to her right, and fired her weapon, then swung forward, and fired again. A shot rang out from her hip, and then two more; Riab had her soldiers firing as well. They weren’t as powerful as a blaster, of course, but Tig wondered if this might be a way to improve the effectiveness of….
Whang! A phase cannon blast struck the ground near her, sending charred rubble flying, impacting her armor so hard that the carbon fibers rang out loud. Tig stumbled, and went down to one knee before righting herself. She took just that moment to look up, through the slowly-clearing haze.
The warriors were filing in the gap at full speed from both sides. They had dropped onto all six legs, and were skittering in a mass from their left and right. They’d made it two-thirds of the way through the line, but Tig realized to her horror that there was no way they would make it the rest of the way; the line had already closed on the side they’d breached; they would overrun them in mere moments.
“Go go go!” Antero shouted, as Tig pushed herself up and onward. She fired indiscriminately left and right, trying to take out as many bugs as she could. She kept pushing on, faster, faster, but they were almost upon them….
Antero looked at Decanus Tralus, who was sprinting alongside him. “Decanus, take the right flank,” he said, tossing the soldier a thermal detonator. Toss this into the crowd, that should hold them off a moment.”
“Yes, sir, where are….”
Antero veered off to the left flank. He’d had only one thermal detonator left. He would have to be creative.
Portable phase rifles are extremely powerful and, like all weapons, dangerous to their operator if not used correctly. Every soldier’s weapons training started with an explanation of things that you should never, ever do, lest your gun explode and kill you.
Of course, later training would note that in a desperate situation, those things might be your only option.
Antero pulled the power unit out of the weapon. He looked for his spot; he would have to be very careful, and time it right….
He stopped dead, and knelt. He already had his multitool out, and he removed four screws, and pulled part of the casing off of the power unit, and looked up.
He would have to hold as long as he could.
He grabbed the partially-disassembled power unit, and jammed it into its housing with its polarity reversed. He locked safeties into place, and switched the unit to single-fire mode; it wouldn’t actually fire, but it would start a chain reaction.
The first warrior reached him just a second later, tearing into his shoulder. He cradled the rifle, and struck the warrior, just as another tackled him. He was armoured, but the Insectoids knew how to remove it, and he was soon swarmed under, as they removed each piece of his protective shell, and sunk mandibles and spiny legs into his flesh.
Antero howled in agony, but despite it all, he held the weapon firm, feeling its heat rise precipitously. It burned to the point where it hurt even worse than his leg, which was by now nearly completely stripped of flesh, but he held on. He was the descendant of a long line of Emperors and Empresses, he had been born to serve this Empire.
And he would die serving it.
The power cell hit critical mass, and exploded with the same force as the detonator had moments before. The Insectoids were blasted back again, causing those onrushing to career wildly as they stumbled over and around the bodies of their siblings.
Tig vectored for a partially-collapsed apartment, seeking shelter with the others who had made it through.
They’d lost Amisag; Tralus made it, but was shaking and in shock from shrapnel wounds that were bleeding profusely.
“Where’s Centrurium ColVanos?” Tig said, looking out at the line, which the Insectoids were rebuilding again; they appeared to be searching for them, and they could not stay here long, but she wanted to wait for the Prince before they moved toward the goal.
“He died gloriously!” Klwrrkgh said, baring her teeth in respect. “He made his rifle detonate, and lured in the vile Insectoids! A truly brave and noble end, there will be songs celebrating his glory!”
Tig blinked. “Gorram right there will,” she said. She looked over her shoulder. “Lokagos Riab, any word?”
“Nothing since last report. I’m praying they haven’t taken off.”
“They haven’t, I have visual,” Malor said. “Range dot-six hectaunits.”
“Any cover near there?”
“Low ridge nearby, ma’am.”
Tig nodded. “All right, it’s basically rubble between here and the target. Fire team, wedge formation,” she said, hoping she remembered her combat training correctly. “Move out.”
****
The ISS Gyfjon shuddered as it peformed an emergency combat brake.
“Drop us under the bow of the Troji crewmate.” Captain Gwenn ordered.
“Lemmer! Have the Omicron move into close formation on the ventral side of the Troji. We need to get that ship and its guns to the Hive ship in one piece!” Bass shouted.
“Orders issued. All fighters recalled.” Lemm Tam replied.
Aertimus Bass flicked his attention back and forth between his readouts and the viewscreen. The readouts made for grim reading. The Xifos was getting casualty reports from across the fleet. He’d hoped there would have been some survivors from the ISS Jev Croumanea but it looked like losses were total. They still had no reports from the ISS Melanda Tenal. The ship was totally without power and the rescue teams were trying to manually override the airlocks. There was still the hope of survivors provided the airtight compartments were holding.
The fact that Aerti considered that good news showed just how bad things were going for Gama fleet.
“Another wave of Insectoid fighters inbound.” Captain Gwenn said.
“Heading?” Aerti replied.
Lauryna paused as she projected the trajectory of the inbound ships. The Xifos had turned its long range flak guns on them so they were weaving but once their course was extrapolated it was clear.
“They’re heading for the Troji sir.” Lauryna said.
“Frak!” Aerti said and slammed his fist into the arm of his chair. “What else do we have to cover them?”
“All available units are committed to defending the Troji already sir.” Lemm Tam responded.
“Bring the fleet to a complete stop and focus all available fire on covering that ship!” He ordered.
Aertimus watched the viewscreen as his ships got into position around the embattled ship. The Troji was one of the most powerful ships in the Imperial fleet. The heavy cannons it carried under its hull were some of the most advanced and devastating weapons in the known galaxy. And it was currently helpless to defend itself against thousands of unshielded fighters that were currently picking it to death, piece by piece.
Streaks of red coloured, low-level anti-fighter fire flew from the remainder of the fleet that was now circling the mighty battleship. Small pockets of gas were visible on the ventral tower of the ship. The dorsal side was heavily armoured and almost impossible for fighter craft to breach. But the ventral side was less heavily armoured to allow for the main cannons to be targeted and cooled.
It was a weakness, which is why when operating in fleet combat the Talanis-class battleships were usually escorted by Magilna-class frigates or the newer Tuaut-class. But most of Gama fleet’s support ships had been pulled to the Federation expeditionary force or had been destroyed by the Insectoids.
And the weakness was starting to show.
“Sir!” A young crewmate shouted. “I’m detecting further ships leaving the Hive ship. Not fighters. Looks like capital ships.”
“Lemm, can you verify?” Bass asked.
She nodded and examined a display in the Xifos CIC. “Confirmed. Seeing launches of carrier, battleship and destroyer class vessels.”
“They’re making a screen, preparing to cover their escape and leave us fighting over Tau Ceti while they go for Earth.” He said.
An alarm sounded and Aerti looked to the Troji. Explosions snaked up the ventral tower until they reached the starboard plasma cannon and it exploded in a ball of blue flame. The fireball lasted moments and left behind an enormous burning hole in the side of the Troji which was somehow not only still intact, but firing.
“Captain Dermish is hailing.” Izzy said.
“On-screen.” Aertimus replied. This was not the time for the usual flag officer deference for the ship’s captain.
“Jono, what’s your status?” Aerti said as the face of Jono Dermish appeared on the viewer. The picture alone spoke volumes. The bridge of the Troji was lit only by flame and was covered in debris and bodies. Captain Dermish had blood running down his face and was covered in dirt.
“We’re done Aerti. Main guns are out, we’re about to lose primary power and half the crew are dead or incapacitated. Leave us! Stop that ship!” Dermish said, the desperation visible on his face.
“Negative Jono.” Aertimus replied. Without the Troji there was no way they could stop that ship. “Focus on getting your remaining plasma cannon online. We’ll tow you if we have to!”
Jono half smiled. He’d known Aertimus Bass for a long time and he knew he wasn’t one to give up but even this was insane for him.
“Alright. We’ll see what…”
Klaxons sounded on the bridge of the Troji and alerts flashed on screen of the Gyfjon.
“Crewmate report!” Dermish yelled.
“All ship emergency acceleration!” Aertimus shouted as he saw the readout from the Troji and the screen went dead. The Gyfjon shuddered once more as its engines kicked in. He watched on the main viewscreen as the massive hole in the side of the stricken battleship ignited in flame which then set off a chain reactions of explosions through the main superstructure of the ship.
It culminated with one massive, blue explosion that sent a shockwave out destroying all of the fighter craft in proximity to the Troji and battering the remnants of Gama fleet.
Klaxons sounded on the Gyfjon, wall panels exploded, lighting fell from the ceiling and shattered atop the floor and crewmates. Captain Gwenn rushed to put out a fire that had started where the secondary power conduit came into the bridge. The ceiling above the Navarchos groaned and Aerti threw himself forward as a support beam came crashing down.
As the ship steadied and the main lights flickered back to life Aertimus Bass sat up groggily and looked around at the bridge of his old ship. It was battered, bruised and on fire. Men and women of his fleet were lying wounded on the floor, either unconscious or trying to pull themselves back to their stations. People shouted damage reports from across the ship. Lemm Tam was on the viewscreen relaying reports of severe damage from across the remains of Gama fleet.
He looked to his wife, and she looked back at him, tears welling in her eyes. She held in her hands half of the Human delegation from Earth who had been thrown from their console as the Troji exploded. She knew what the loss of the Troji meant. It didn’t just mean the loss off the one thousand souls aboard, but it meant the loss of this battle. It meant the loss of Earth.
Aertimus thought back to the lessons in the academy about Sperikos and how he had tried to fathom back then how anyone could be so desperate that they would burn the atmosphere from an entire world. He was now starting to understand. There were only two choices left. Retreat or fight to the end.
He pushed himself to his feet and rushed over to Lauryna Gwenn who was finishing sealing off the burning conduit.
“Lauryna,” He said and looked her in the eyes. “I need to talk with you. Alone.”
“A bit busy, sir….”
“Lauryna…now.”
Lauryna looked away from the conduit and at her fleet commander. She’d served with Aertimus Bass for twenty-five years and she knew his crazy face well. That wasn’t what was bothering her. It was that it was mixed with fear and desperation.
“My ready room,” Lauryna said. “Rovlan, you have the bridge.”
****
Ryan came back to consciousness with a ringing in his ears. His eyes opened slowly and a groan escaped his mouth. He looked around blearily for a moment, not quite comprehending where he was. There were alarms going off around him, and there was smoke and… something was sizzling. Static.
“Ac…three… c-come… acolyte… h- me?”
And suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch in his brain, Ryan was back. His head still swam, and his vision was blurry and there was a disjointed sense of pain somewhere in his body, but he knew where he was.
They’d been caught up in an explosion.
He cursed himself, as he undid the crash restraints that covered his body and cut away the ones that wouldn’t move. He’d allowed the insectoid fighter to get too close to him, his crew…
He looked behind him. Both the women who made up his flight crew were out cold. But Ryan could still smell burning; he had to get them out.
He made his way to the back of the ship, stepping over twisted bit of metal. He knelt by Sachini Ranatunga, his engineer. She had a large gash on her forehead, but it looked like she was still breathing.
“Sachi!” Ryan said urgently as he hauled her over his shoulders into a fireman’s carry. “Come on Sachi, let’s get you out of here…”
The Sri Lankan woman muttered something indistinct and Ryan picked his way to the gaping hole that had been torn in the side of his ship. Smoke burned his eyes and lungs, and the sudden wave of heat told Ryan that something had caught fire. He moved as fast as he could, coughing from the chemical fumes and smoke, before stumbling out into the rainstorm that battered the world of Tau Ceti.
“You stay here, Lieutenant…” Ryan mumbled to the woman as he set her as gently as possible onto the ground. “I gotta go get Lokagos Kumyaneksis.”
Despite the racking pain in his whole body, and the desperate desire to just lay down and sleep, Ryan turned resolutely back to the fractured corpse of his vessel.
“Vani!” Ryan yelled as he dashed back into the smoke, which was much thicker than it had been before. “Can you hear me?”
“Stay back!” The young woman’s voice coughed. “There’s fire everywhere and I can’t move!”
“That’s not going to happen!” Ryan yelled back as he ignored the protests of every cell in his body and shoved his way back into the smoke and heat.
“Damn it Ryan!” The woman yelled back. “Don’t be a frakking hero!”
“Pryvani Illeyeta Kumyaneksis, shut the hell up and that’s an order!” Archon Carey growled as he shoved aside the warped piece of machinery that had once been the gunnery station and saw the young Lokagos laying on the floor. Her leg was twisted at an odd angle and her dark brown hair was singed almost to the scalp.
“Easy, I’ll get you out.” Ryan muttered, although he wasn’t quite sure which of them he was actually trying to reassure.
“Okay.” Lokagos Kumyaneksis sighed, all the bravado having apparently deserted her. Ryan quickly bent down to carry her out the same way he’d done with Lieutenant Ranatunga. He stopped short when she let out a cry of pain.
“Keep going, it’s just my leg.” The young woman shouted.
“Right.” Ryan replied. “On three. One, t-”
The console beside them exploded. Flames shot out at them and whipped across Ryan’s neck and side. The acrid smell of burning hair assaulted his nostrils and the fabric of his flight suit melted onto his flesh. He let out a scream of pain and stumbled, almost dropping his gunner in the process.
Ryan gritted his teeth and powered back to his feet. He shunted the pain to the back of his mind, ready to be dealt with after they were out of danger.
“You still with me Vani?”
“Y-yeah.” The Avalonian woman muttered vaguely. “We gotta leave…”
“Yeah we do.” Ryan concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, his vision dominated by the tear in the hull that was their only available exit.
The ground burned the soles of his feet and flying sparks and waves of heat harried his face and smoke and fumes assaulted his eyes, mouth and nose.
It felt like an eternity, like the hole in the ship was constantly moving just beyond his reach. But then, a sudden wave of cold washed over him as the spray of the rainstorm replaced the heat of the fire. Ryan gasped at the sudden change and quickly stumbled back to where he’d left his engineer, who was slowly beginning to come around.
“Put me down Archon.” Vani mumbled. Ryan was only too happy to oblige. He had just enough strength to gently set her on the soaking wet grass before he collapsed down beside her. He stared up at the sky for a moment before her face, peering down at him, suddenly blocked his vision. He saw her eyes grow wide and her mouth opened in shock.
But Ryan couldn’t worry about that. With his last conscious thought, he activated the alert beacon on his belt and then slipped away into darkness.
——————————————————————————————————
Author’s note: Thanks to D.X and Johnny Scribe for their contributions.
Nice work. Thank you
My original criticism of the Titan military has led to a tangent about complacency after a long period of peace. (Though it’s not like they haven’t had skirmishes on both boarders recently) It’s the way they move the pieces they have.
Let say they have 100 cap ships total across 5 fleets. The Feds have what, 3-5? So they comitted at least two and a half fleets to take the provence. Even 2 fleets would have been overkill, they didn’t need to gut Gama. When the bugs attack they pull everything again, including yanking the fleet on the opposite boarder.
The titans appear to have the military sense of lemmings. In terms of the board game Risk, it’s like leaving only 10 units on your Asian boarder while you amass most of your army to take the small defense of Greenland, then having to pull everything back to Asia including the remaining units guarding the south. Your Empire’s going to get eaten alive reacting like this, literally in this case.
Axis and Allies is a pretty great board game. Especially the giant global version.
Ah but it’s not about fleet action though is it?
We’re talking about securing an entire province. 70 million people over multiple star systems and worlds. Worlds with orbital installations and defenses that will need to be systematically destroyed before you can even think about landing a ground invasion. That’s arguably an even bigger challenge. Multiple planetary invasions against an enemy fighting for what it sees as its freedom. An enemy that knows the land and has had a chance to dig in likely has a numerical advantage.
The Titans aren’t the type to bomb from orbit (anymore).
The space campaign wouldn’t last long provided they went in quick. What would be a problem would be capturing each world. Land mass by land mass, city by city. And then occupying and controlling those worlds.
I agree there is a bit of overkill, though the Titans are naturally much more cautious than we are. We considered that. But it’s not as much overkill as you’d think.
There’s a good reason to do that.
The rule of thumb for infantry is that attacker needs 3x the strength of the defender to have a reasonable chance of winning the battle. I guess in space this would apply less (no ducking behind cover in space), but any rational commander will surrender or withdraw immediately when confronted with a force 5x stronger than his or her own.
Since the titans didn’t realize that the whole thing was a ruse, it made sense to send in overwhelming force so that the campaign could be won with little or no loss of life and ships. That would be a good way to end a civil war.
How much of that debris will rain down on Tau Ceti E?
How much of that debris will rain down on Tau Ceti E?
Not much as the Hive ship is currently in Tau Ceti Eb’s gravity well and head out away from Tau Ceti.
I’ve yet to hear real any speculation on what Bass is planning with Gwenn. Might be trying to get a shuttle around the Hiveship and into its flight path projecting a holograph of an Imperial warship with hopes of slowing the Insectoids.
RIP Antero, one of the really good guys in the series.
Ryan looks to have lived, but may have picked up some nasty scarring in the process. Either way it looks like he’s out of the rest of this fight.
I’m afraid Aerti is going to do something stupidly heroic and suicidal coming up. 🙁
Im surprised Antero died at the start of the chapter, not at the end but it was coming. Hope his sacrifice will not be in vain.
“but Tig wondered if this might be a way to improve the effectiveness of….”
And suddenly we harken AAAaaallll the way back to when Pryvanni was shoving random strangers into her clothing to wear people as a fashion accessory, and realize the full military applications that arise when you can have people smaller than your thumb wield lethal weapons. Mimic the giants from some of Ginbugs old stories and install human-sized weapon mounts and storage compartments into the standard battle dress, or at least places to latch onto and ride.
Suddenly every Titan becomes a mobile weapons platform holding a gun and grenade of their own, while wearing five other people who can aim guns in all directions from a covered location on her hips, shoulders, and head. The massed, concentrated fire from an individual soldier has a whole new meaning. MORE interesting, deploy some concepts from Hetzer’s similar stories and equip those human soldiers with medical training and drug injections, so they have a chance at reviving (or at least immediately stabilizing) their Titan mount if the larger soldier drops.
That kind of cooperation would be a very satisfying way to end the series.
I was actually thinking if they ever fully realize the power equation, you could make a single seater scaled down fighter with folder wings and articulated landing struts to perch on a titan shoulder. Personal shield projector and the human bodyguard business is a go in the Empire. Only issue, how to wear a guardian robotic raven mech without looking like a super villain.
Hetzer who? Know Ginbug’s stories
Hetzer is an author who has written a series about giant alien and human integration into their military forces. I rather enjoy it, no human giants though.
Well… This is going to be painfully awkward when we cut back to Rixie’s wedding.
If Antero’s parents survive. I expect them to be on a massive manhunt for every Insectoid lover and Federation traitor and strip them of everything and than let them suffer for the rest of their lives.
Gamma Fleet is totally not built for this kind of fight with so many small targets. But I expect massive losses of Insectoid soldiers/dropships/fighters as well. The losses they suffered were far more than they expected at Tau Ceti. They also lost precious time.
Prince Antero Colvanos, you will be missed.
Are Titans not good military strategists? Surious question, because it seems to me you don’t pull most of your fleets, including to the bulk of the fleet patrolling the boarder with your deadliest enemy, to take on one impoverished successionist provence. From the sound of it they had barely any ships left for this fight and only one of the Troji’s class which is supposed to be the most numerous class, and a common ship of the frontier. Were they planning to bring to bear 50+ of these against the Federation. Really?
About the only trick they have is the suicide play. (RIP Antero) I can guess what Artie has planned. Well at least Ryan is alive for now. Hopefully Tig can pull through and save some humans too.
I have to admit that I’ve been wondering much the same thing. Sure, it’s been established that the insectoids are attacking with a much larger force than the Empire anticipated, but still. Gama fleet is supposedly one of five fleets of an Empire of 49 billion people, yet ten ships (and that’s counting the medical ship) represents the bulk of Gama fleet? Hell, Gama’s efforts so far give the impression that it’s doing so poorly that the insectoids can barely be bothered to even deploy capital ships; their fighters alone have already destroyed/disabled three of Gama’s ships.
Make me wonder what the titans were doing for the last thousand of their years after the whole Sperikos thing. One would think they will think of better ships, weapons and tact’s to used on the Insectoids incase they made a move like this again.
Humans would have not sat around for a thousand years they would have start work on the biggest most powerful weapons they could so something like this would not happen again if they were at the level the titans were back then till now.
And what happened to the other races that live with in the empire don’t they have their own fleet of ships to join in and help stop this or did the titans tell them not to build any.
It doesn’t seem like any of the races within the empire are very smart when it comes to things like this, they all should be planning even in times of peace.
So far it seems the ones that made the most dent when fighting the Insectoids are the humans and the two hybrids so far and now a prince is dead and his death seemed to make no big change in the fight to save the humans from within the ship.
It’s almost as if the Empire has underestimated every one of the species on its borders and has grown complacent of its own dominance.
Hope you’re feeling better.
I’m feeling much better, thanks.
While it was pretty obvious that the Empire had grown complacent, I’m still a little baffled at just how much the Empire appears to have underestimated the insectoids. I hope that after the insectoids are defeated there will be some in-story acknowledgement of how ill-prepared the Empire was.
Part of it seems to be the fact all of their weapons appear to be based on fighting Titan warships employing Titan strategies. Single fire energy blast, aim a shot, take out one ship for each gun, move on to the next. It should be child’s-play to alter their weapon designs with the goal of area-effect mass-slaughter with indiscriminate, wide-beam weapons you aim in the general direction of a thing and watch ten things die to it at once. Wider laser fire, massed laser fire, dropping small drones with guns on every side that are just strong enough to punch through an unshielded target while an AI control system makes each drone fire only on insectoid designed ships.
Go old-school and lob a massed sheet of dead material, iron balls or actual rocks that make a near invisible, deadly minefield for things that don’t have any active shielding and have to worry about even minor impacts. Make and lob forward mines, small drones with a heavy payload that explode on proximity, even a low yield nuclear explosive would wreck havoc on these tight swarms and fry the electronics of everything caught inside. A human designed nuke is small enough for a Titan to hold in their hand and toss like a grenade, it shouldn’t be too hard to mass-produce these things and jam a grav-propulsion on the back of them with a cheap AI telling it to fly forward and detonate after a set time.
All of their current strategies are built around single fights, taking down the one enemy, while going up against something that expressly does not care if it looses one of it’s number.
Thats an assumption…..
Ooooh
@ FH
I’m feeling much better, thanks.
While it was pretty obvious that the Empire had grown complacent, I’m still a little baffled at just how much the Empire appears to have underestimated the insectoids. I hope that after the insectoids are defeated there will be some in-story acknowledgement of how ill-prepared the Empire was.
________
Well you know there IS a bug going around… *nyuck nyuck* 🙂
Underestimation is the hallmark of this series along with a near silly level of unconsciousness of the society in question..Complacency is also an attribute of an empire..its nature of the beast. Its also why all empires eventually fall. Now an interesting question to ponder; what will take its place? – after its fall
@OHH
It’s almost like an analogy of Western Europe and increasingly the US that after overcoming the big bad a couple of generations ago it now has grown complacent, spends next to nothing on its military, and the average person cant fathom a real war even as new enemies begin to rise.
After Napoleon’s defeat Europe did not have a major conflict for 100 years until the start of the Great War. 100 years is a long time in which to forget tactics and also not recognize advancements in weaponry. In 1914 Soldiers went into combat without armored helmets, cavalrymen were issued swords. All this against machine guns which could fire 500 rounds per minute. I suppose the Titans are the same in those respects, unprepared for the realities of war after so many years of peace.
We thought after the fall of communism and the expansion of the European Union that we were done with war and that we were entering an unprecedented era of peace.
Sadly that’s not the case. With Russia determined to batter the EU and extremism using the freedoms we have striven for against us we need to ready ourselves for whatever could be thrown at us.
Today is a sad reminder of that once more. All the best to the people of Belgium.
I’d say the Crimean War 1853 and Franco-Prussian War 1870 were major conflicts.
@OHHHHH HHHhhhh….. *stupid stuck key*
“eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”
attributed to Jefferson but most likely this guy came up with it;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philpot_Curran
The Titans really haven’t fought a major war since the first Insectoid War. The real failing here is one of intelligence. No one puzzled out that the Bugs have spent half a Titan century building and loading the biggest Hive Ship ever assembled and the evidence is it’s an all-or-nothing gambol on the Bugs’ part. The Titan’s are arrogant enough to think the Insectoids couldn’t think they’d win and while individual Bugs can be suicidal collectively the Hive has never demonstrated that sort of desperation. The same thinking that lead Solis & friends to fear Earth should have caused them to realize the Insectoids might draw the same conclusion. There was never a serious plan to defend the vacant Tau Ceti or really any of the outer systems against a massed surprise attack. If nothing else the 2102 Tol-Bot Scenario should have sent alarm bells ringing in the Dodecahedron that all the border systems were vulnerable to a defense that relied on rallying the fleet. Heck they prpobably did study this scenario and decided it was cost prohibitive to prevent.
To be fair, these are Titans we’re talking about. That seems perfectly in line with every other aspect of their society. We’re talking about a species who see’s a pet compete and win in their grandest sport, the same as if we found a parrot who was a star linebacker or could beat the greatest chess-masters, and rather than do the obvious (study, learn, test if other pets can do the same) they were enraged and wanted it to stop because of the disgrace.
The only reason human-craft fighters are faring so much better to an almost ridiculous degree (ignoring the fact ships built for humans can take all of the space that was meant for life support systems and instead shove more guns in there) is because physicists who discovered that equation for near unlimited energy actively chose to suppress that knowledge and avoid making any use of it. Deliberately crippling their economic and military function based on the (theoretically correct) awareness that they’d destroy themselves if they were aware of the possibilities.
How many dangerous, continent busting space-bound cannons would a society of conservative, slow thinking, endlessly patient people who obsess over safety actually make?
With all of that said, its been several generations since the last time Insectoids and Titan military have come to blows on any grand scale, and I rather suspect up until now the small forces and handful of bordering ships they’ve deployed thus far has easily been enough to hold the line. This wasn’t supposed to be a major front, this was a small contingent just bordering on a scouting party, meant to blunt the initial advance. Fall back to the main force and report their encounter.
Standard protocol was to withdraw with their much too few number and meet up with everyone else at a designated point, then counter-attack with a larger bulk of their actual army. The fact swarms of fighters are causing this much trouble is an example of WHY that course of action was Standard.
“To be fair, these are Titans we’re talking about. That seems perfectly in line with every other aspect of their society. We’re talking about a species who see’s a pet compete and win in their grandest sport, the same as if we found a parrot who was a star linebacker or could beat the greatest chess-masters”
Agreed. It’s like if we had some kind of intelligence here that could beat humans at our most intellectual games like chess, go and Jeopardy, and we said “Meh, they’re just machines”
The irony of course, at least with human tech, is that while it’s not too difficult to make an AI capable of beating humans at Chess or mathematics or similar rules-based systems with a rigid and defined structure, trying to make one correctly identify an apple has proven nightmarish. Terrifying and interesting. And made all the more important given the fact even in 2016 its already perfectly legal to marry a hologram in certain parts of the world.
http://allday.com/post/4370-take-a-peek-into-the-psychedelic-subconscious-of-artificial-intelligence/
“However, things get weird when you ask the network to create images based on what it’s learned. In one case, when asked to create images of “dumbbells,” the network produced an amalgamation of metal and human arms, likely because every image of dumbbells it’d seen included an arm lifting it. “
It’s kind of funny that way about being complacent, Look at the US, downsizing it’s military currently, whilst North Korea, China, Iran, And ISIS are still very real threats. I wish I could say that America has a more experienced military full of Veterans after 13 years of war, but the sad fact that I’ve seen is that most of these people on their first or second enlistment (aka the people who actually work and fight) are out or getting out. We maintain a lot of experience and lessons learned but the people who had gained that experience are gone.
Now I can’t say much about the history or wars that the Titan empire has been through but I’m pretty sure it has been a good while since they’ve had a good fight, I know there has been struggles and here and there but for most of the fact, the Titan military is mostly fresh, high-fade rockin, boots with very little actual combat experience, put that alongside 100’s of years without war and you’d see why they were definitely not ready for a full on fight
Wow..
Well Antero died a hero so that leaves Pierce as the ruling royal.. Some turn of fate, eh
Glad to see that Ryan is still alive..Things are becoming grim…
More interestingly he died using one of the only effective weapon types, something with a wide area of effect meant to clear the room. A bit sad to see him go given he had clear intelligence and notable dedication, especially in comparison to the average Titan. But at the same time, if he hadn’t sacrificed himself there’s have been no way to succeed. And I can’t picture him asking someone else to play bait and suicide bomb the enemy.
This makes me wonder how effective meat-sacks shaped to look like giant humans and filled with explosives could actually be here.
Ryan is alive, but something happened to him that shocked Vani.