The elder races can be quite single-minded at times. The choice of targets makes perfect sense. I only hope that when the League presidency passes on the League fleet is not thrown away.
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Always nice to see naval updates. 
This is a war of attrition; costly both in military and civilian sense. But the rewards in case of victory could be enormous. Can we hope to see the Baviir Galactic Empire?
This is a war of attrition; costly both in military and civilian sense. But the rewards in case of victory could be enormous. Can we hope to see the Baviir Galactic Empire?
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Chapter Twenty Four: The War in Heaven, Victories & Setbacks (2427 to 2430)
The damaged RSS Impossible Hatchling pictured moments before her destruction at the Battle of Eissam, August 2427.
Chapter Twenty Four: The War in Heaven, Victories & Setbacks (2427 to 2430)
The Ekwynian front remained the main focus of the war for the Meta-Baviiri, at least until the Fall of Snotalitvish in November 2428. The Ekwynian national fleet, such as it was, remained far from the frontier but their Triech mercenaries and armoured space stations continued to prove dangerous and it was one of the latter that gave the Stellar Kingdom it's worst shock of the early war.
RSS Impossible Hatchling was a Royal Navy S'Tirani-class titan, the most recently built of her kind. Like her sisters Glorious Hatchling and Illustrious Hatchling (and their half-sister Magnificent Hatchling built for the League Navy) Impossible Hatchling was a mile long behemoth with a crew of ten thousand. In early 2427 she was operating on the south western frontier, close to Triech space. In August of that year she jumped to the Eissam system, home to a major Ekwynian naval base. Impossible Hatchling had seen a few easy battles against frontier outposts which may have given her commander Rear Admiral Skraak a streak of overconfidence. A younger grey-blue feathered officer from K'Karaal Skraak was anxious to make his name against the senior admirals and drunk with pride at the great warship at his disposal. Rashly he attacked the Eissam starhold.
The result was a disaster for the Meta-Baviiri. Impossible Hatchling did do major damage to station, disabling a few of her defence platforms. Unfortunately the Ekwynians had invested heavily in missiles and with no other targets to distract them the titan was hit by repeated salvos, slipping through her shields and hitting the weak points in her armour. At some point a missile seems to have set off an internal explosion that reached the great ship's reactor and tore her apart from the inside out. A few - a very few - made it to the escape pods on time. Skraak was among the many thousands who did not.
The loss of a titan in battle was a terrific blow to morale and raised questions about the way the Royal Navy was running the war but most of the blame seems to have lain with Skraak, and he had already paid the price for overconfidence. In the ruthless calculus of war the loss Impossible Hatchling did have a slight silver lining, in that eased the pressure on the strained naval logistics. Titans were horribly expensive to run. It had also served as a grim but valuable lesson that for all their size and power the titans remained individual ships that could not automatically win battles unaided.
Fortunately the sting of defeat would fade later that same year with victory in the largest battle of the war so far (at least the largest that involved the Meta-Baviiri.) The Perched Star Flock had been campaigning in the True Otaga Horde for months, recovering systems for the Pouz-Joks. In October Admiral Munin Wakesu led his ships into battle against the Otaga fleet at Unuk, where his cruisers faced off against the massive star galleon Yehm-Guulyeg a craft at least as big a Meta-Baviir titan. Prior to Unuk no Meta-Baviir had ever seen a star galleon in battle and none present in the Royal Navy that they could forget the sight of the barbarian vessel, aglow from bow to stern with internal fires, adrift in a nimbus of vented atmosphere before her final explosion.
The Battle of Unuk, September-October 2427. The gargantuan Yehm-Guulyeg is on the extreme left.
More important was Admiral Reebik the Younger's invasion of the Snotalitvish-Qa system in the final weeks of 2427. The Ekwynian home system had a substantial defensive station, if not to the quality seen at Eissam but the two titans and six battleships in the U'Ruusu Star Flock quickly brushed any spaceborne defeces aside. Then the planetary bombardment began.
Snotalitvish proper was a large world in close orbit of her star; indeed she fell almost exactly and the minimum range needed to enter the habitable zone around a red star. Her climate tended towards the warm and dry with brief yet torrential rainy seasons. An equatorial band of dense jungle girdled the planet, snowcapped mountains marched across the continents, and there were several mostly shallow seas but the primary terrain were endless plains, both overflowing with tough, tall grass or intensively farmed by the unfortunate helots who made up so much of the Ekwynian population even now. The biggest Ekwynian cities were clustered in the second largest continent by the shores of a small ocean. This was it, the place the old enemy had come from, the people who had once been the most feared in the galaxy.
Conquering Snotalitvish would not be easy. Previously the largest planetary invasions the Meta-Baviiri had taken part in were Vrinn (in the Second Baviir-Ekwynian War) and Tavkaleba in the current conflict. Neither campaign had been simple but in the former the native populace had been sympathetic to the 'invaders' while in the latter the world had been more of a military base on a planetary scale. That may not sound a positive - it had certainly made things bloody - but it had one crucial advantage. Baviir war philosophy shrank from the orbital bombardment of purely civilian targets, which had still left plenty to fire upon at Tavkaleba, a planet pockmarked with fortresses, strongholds, barracks, training grounds, munitions factories and so forth. Snotlitvish had all of those too but it was mainly a civilian world inhabited by all castes of Ekwyinan society. Reebik and General R'Tanik who commanded the invasion force would have to be cautious.
Happily the Ekwynians themselves had provided a chance. The previous July the U'Ruusu Star Flock had captured the Waiphrid system, immediately to the galactic north of Snotalitvish-Qa. Few in the Stellar Kingdom public had recognised the significance; Waiphrid was a blue white star without any habitable planets and not much in the way of resources on her uninhabited ones. However the Navy had been ecstatic. Waiphrid had been the largest shipyard in the entire Ekwynian Bloc capable, in theory, of building twice as many ships as Etan Stela [1]. With her loss the the Ekwynians simply could not win the war on their own. The Archon must have realised this as he and his staff abandoned Snotalitvish days later, long before Reebik reached the Bloc's capital. The impact on morale can only be imagined.
General R'Tanik's invasion of Snotalitvish, August 2428.
The invasion proper finally began in August 2428, just after the secondary rainy season in the tropics. The RIS had confirmed that the Ekwynians had no one strong leader on-planet to marshal the defences and the bombardment, even with all the restrictions, softened up the target. For once everything went right: the landing sites were well chosen and caught the defenders off guard, the Ekwynian response was disorganised and half hearted and the enemy soldiers seemed almost too willing to surrender. By the middle of November resistance had crumbled and the last regular military officers had surrendered. After three moths of ground slogging the home planet of the great rival was in Meta-Baviiri hands.
The celebrations on Skanaa were the largest in history, and even they were exceeded by the spectacles on Vrinn. Billions cheered and wept at the sight of the royal banner flying from the fire gutted grey hulk of the Archon's Command or the 2nd Spaceborne on parade in the Plaza of Ten Thousand Overseers, or Skanaa-class strikecraft cruising lesuirely above in the clouds a half mile above the Great Face of Pathir. All these images and more appeared on tri-vid, broadcast across the cosmos.
Naturally the question was immediately asked: why had the Ekwynian defence collapsed quite so easily? The Ekwynians were a martial people defending the very soil of their birth, yet less than a year passed between the start of Reebik's blockade and utter surrender. The implications for those who had to think about such things, such as the Admiralty, the Two Hundred and the High King were disturbing. By any standard measure of war the Bloc should have come to terms after the Battle of Waiphrid. The war was irretrievably lost at that point. Yet the Ekwynians had fought on; maybe not fought well but they had remained in the war.
The obvious answer was that the Ekwynians stayed because they were either confident their ancient masters would win in the end or were too afraid of the Juvans to leave. If so the implications of that were even starker; if the Ekwynians were not able or willing to seek a separate peace even with their own capital under enemy control would any of the 'secondary' powers feel differently? The Yibraki, the Korinths and the Hytheans had all poured their resources into the conflict, taking part in great battles in the galactic south of which the League knew little.
With the conquest of Snotalitvish and no apparent end to the fighting in sight the High King created an interim 'sector' to control what had been Bloc space. The viceroy appointed was himself a Neo-Ekwynian, born in the Stellar Kingdom, one Jargim den Vagors. The hope was that Governor den Vagors would be able to shepherd his reluctant subjects, at least until a more long term solution could be found.
The 'Snotalitvish Sector' established at the end of 2428, consisting entirely of territory conquered from the Bloc.
At this point the Stellar Kingdom could probably have completely conquered the remains of the Bloc by mid-2432. However the Admirality had never sought such a goal; the entire strike against the Ekwynians had been to destroy a potential threat. Beyond that a continued investment on this frontier drew away resources that were desperately needed elsewhere. The threat of the Juvans pushing against the Hierarchy or the Reshethi diverting fleets to save the True Otaga Horde were very real. Quite apart from this the Stellar Kingdom was operating at the extreme end of their logistics as is; technically they lacked the trained officers and men to operate all the newly captured space stations. A retrenchment in the heart of the Stellar Kingdom was an attractive prospect for the Royal Navy. Time to rest, recover and plan.
The populace of Stellar Kingdom had weathered the war well to this point, certainly when compared with the unfortunate Knatzans, or even the Pouz-Joks whose situation was improving but still meant living in a warzone. For most Meta-Baviiri, Till'Lnesi Illustrum or Vrinns the war was far away unless they had friends and relatives in the Royal Navy or the Army. The worst crisis in 2428 was an epidemic on the young colony of T'Valdra but despite the fears of the government T'Valdran Ornithosis proved a natural, if deeply unpleasant, disease rather than a sinister biological weapon. Though the timing could not have been worse exhaustive work by scientists managed to come up with a cure before it spiraled out of control. The general equanimity in the Stellar Kingdom may have been why the civilians were a lot more optimistic than the monarch, the Princes and the military leaders.
The greatest concern remained the scarcity of minerals, the lack of which was causing severe shortages with shipbuilding. By April 2430 the reserves were all but gone. A report delivered to the High King and the Two Hundred reported that at current rate of mining the Stellar Kingdom could build one corvette a month and enjoy a small surplus - but larger vessels (or an attempt to build multiple corvettes) meant a time when all the shipyards were sitting idle. Purchasing the services of a mercenary Triech fleet made the picture slightly less gloomy but the realisation was dawning the Stellar Kingdom would have to do more with what they had - a war of attrition did not favour them.
The galaxy in April 2430.
Footnotes:
[1] Where Etan Stela came out ahead was her famous naval academy and her titan building yards, neither of which her Ekwynian counterpart possessed.
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Bored Student1414: I think that's true, though the balance appears to be shifting and I have noticed distressingly large fleets in the Reshethi and Juvan home systems. My hope is that they will fling their ships at each other. My fear is that I have been just successful enough to be noticed.
Specialist290: Again I think that is quite fair (unfortunately!) It does feel like the war is about to enter a very different phase.
stnylan: The mantle will pass to the Pouz-Joks in 2433, which seems both very close and very far away from this standpoint!
TheWhiteKnight02: Thanks, I love the navy stuff too. As for empire well I guess it is possible.
Nikolai: As unlikely as it is I admit seeing the Baviiri emerrge as the dominant power after this war would be satisfying!
Specialist290: Again I think that is quite fair (unfortunately!) It does feel like the war is about to enter a very different phase.
stnylan: The mantle will pass to the Pouz-Joks in 2433, which seems both very close and very far away from this standpoint!
TheWhiteKnight02: Thanks, I love the navy stuff too. As for empire well I guess it is possible.
Nikolai: As unlikely as it is I admit seeing the Baviiri emerrge as the dominant power after this war would be satisfying!
Time to dig in for the long haul, and hunt out minerals wherever they may be.
The victories against the Bloc are useful, but ultimately only a step along a path. The ancient powers await.
The victories against the Bloc are useful, but ultimately only a step along a path. The ancient powers await.
Declassified audio from a comm link between the Impossible Hatchling and the Royal Navy High Command during the "Eissam Incident", accompanied by a dramatic virtual-space reenactment.
As for economic woes: Do the Baviiri have any resource gluts in other areas? It might be worthwhile to temporarily halt ship construction (if that's at all feasible), hunker down behind a good defensive line / chokepoint, and replace a few superfluous farms and whatnot with mines (or Resource Replicators, if you have the tech and a decent Energy surplus).
As for economic woes: Do the Baviiri have any resource gluts in other areas? It might be worthwhile to temporarily halt ship construction (if that's at all feasible), hunker down behind a good defensive line / chokepoint, and replace a few superfluous farms and whatnot with mines (or Resource Replicators, if you have the tech and a decent Energy surplus).
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It was Impossible Hatching that was foolishly destroyed I think.
At the beginning of the battle.
Admiral Skraak: I will not be denied the glory of this kill. Move into range and prepare the perdition beam to fire!
At the end of the battle.
Computer: Reactor core breached. Detonation imminent.
Admiral Skraak: I didn't think we could lose.
The war effort will live or die on logistics and the war economy. The economy must be reorganized for the war. Citizens and loyal subjects. Donate to the war effort. One ship a month is a dangerously low rate of production. Can you trade energy for minerals from the trader enclaves? Obviously you must conserve the fleets as they are currently irreplaceable.
At the beginning of the battle.
Admiral Skraak: I will not be denied the glory of this kill. Move into range and prepare the perdition beam to fire!
At the end of the battle.
Computer: Reactor core breached. Detonation imminent.
Admiral Skraak: I didn't think we could lose.
The war effort will live or die on logistics and the war economy. The economy must be reorganized for the war. Citizens and loyal subjects. Donate to the war effort. One ship a month is a dangerously low rate of production. Can you trade energy for minerals from the trader enclaves? Obviously you must conserve the fleets as they are currently irreplaceable.
Chapter Twenty Four: The War in Heaven, the Juvans First Policy (2430 to 2453)
The Juvan response to the Meta-Baviir 'peace note' of January 2439.
Chapter Twenty Four: The War in Heaven, the Juvans First Policy (2430 to 2453)
The 2430s and 2440s were the decades when the War in Heaven erupted into a full scale fight to the death between the Juvans and the League. Fighting continued in the Reshethi 'corridor' in Knatza space and the galactic south still simmered with clashes along the Korinth/Hythean border but the greatest bloodshed and the most desperate clashes were in the north, where Meta-Baviir, Till'Lynesi, Pouz-Jok, Otaga and Juvan territory met in a messing tangle of contested territory.
At the beginning of the 2430s the government on Skanaa, aware that leadership of the League was soon to pass to the Pouz-Joks began considering a 'Juvans First' policy, of defeating or at least containing the ancient avians before turning towards the Reshethi. There were various plausible arguments in favour of focusing on the Juvans from the fact that they were perceived as more brutal in combat, to faint hopes the Reshethi might be convinced to talk peace but the real reason was brutally stark and spelled out by Admiral Munin Wakesu; the League could not afford to fight both ancient empires at the same time. It was very debatable whether they could fight one, but at least officially focusing on the Juvans made the decision appear strong and decisive.
Of course the 'Juvans First' policy could just as easily be called the Non-Aligned First policy from the Juvan perspective. The Juvans had also begun to shift their military against the League, with the deep sweep of the Royal Navy into Ekwynian territory having made a strong impression on them.
Broadly, this phase of the war can be divided into four unequal stages; from 2430 to 2433 when the Stellar Kingdom launched their first offensive against the Juvans with the combined strength of the League Navy and the Royal Navy. This was followed by a long and desperate stretch to the end of the decade where the League Navy passed to the Pouz-Joks, the war policy of the League became less coordinated and the Juvans made a serious comeback. The third stage, beginning in 2440 saw a lull in the extremely 'hot' phase of the war with grand naval battles sharply declining. The war began to pick up steam again the middle of the decade but didn't quite reach the carnage of previous years as both weary parties sought other plans than throwing vast fleets of metal at each other.
It is almost impossible to cover in depth all the battles that took place during these two decades, largely confined to a wedge of a dozen or so systems, many of which were the site of more than one battle and changed hands multiple times. Instead an attempt will be made to cover the general scope of the campaigns.
In May 2430 the Juvans struck at Cezuetov. The Meta-Baviir station there was powerful in its day but it had been built to withstand the Otagans, not five battlecruisers and twenty two escort vessels all armed and equipped with arcane and advanced weaponry, armour and shields. Cezuetov did not resist long and neither did the station at Mira when it was attacked in the December of the same year. The only small mercy was that the Juvans lacked the troops to attempt an invasion of S'Kerin Vak the major colony in the system and home to eighteen billion Meta-Baviiri and Till'Lynesi Illustratum. 2431 saw the Stellar Kingdom retake the Mira system but it would not be until the following year that the first full scale clash took place at Prothon. This system, at the very western edge of Till'Lynesi space was perhaps the most strategically important of the entire war as it contained the gateway that had allowed the Juvans to reach the south without doing to the Meta-Baviiri what the Reshethi were doing to the Pouz-Joks. It was suspected (though not actually confirmed until after the battle) that the Prothon gateway had its exit in the Waiphrid system, recently conquered by the Royal Navy. If the League controlled both gateways they'd have a great advantage - and shatter the ability of the Juvans to coordinate with their thralls.
The First Battle of Prothon in September 2432 was the largest clash of warships in known galactic history. A combined total of three titans, seven battleships, six carriers, five battlecruisers, one hundred and twenty seven smaller warships and hundreds of strike craft took part. There in the weaving combat in the sullen red glow of the star Admiral Yefa tel Gun triumphed. It came at immense cost; twenty seven Royal Navy or League warships were destroyed against only ten of the enemy - yet the Juvans had quit the field of battle and their ships were, in the hard calculus of war more important vessel for vessel. In the wreckage of the battle strewn across airless rocks and icy asteroids the Meta-Baviir scientists would gain their first understandings of the Juvan technology. And of course they now controlled the gateway.
Unfortunately First Prothon was a false dawn. The victory itself was real and the capture of the gateway genuinely important but a serious of setbacks whittled away the ships and men the Meta-Baviiri had to hand. Another battle in the Alvyrra system in March 2433 was a victory but at such a cost it was almost a defeat . Only a few months later the Sacred Pouz-Jok Council assumed leadership of the League much to the fears of the Admirality of the Royal Navy who suspected that the Pouz-Joks, pacifist by culture and having never fully recovered from the time of the Great Khan would not fully understand the weapon they had been handed. So it proved and though the Second Battle of Alvyrra in October was another bloody success the League Navy suffered badly in later years [1].
Bizarre reports began to circulate of mental powers manifesting in Pouz-Joks in 2434.
Perhaps the Pouz-Jok distraction was understandable. Mysterious reports from Pouzjok Prime (and observations of the three billion Pouz-Joks in Meta-Baviir space) revealed something very strange was happening to some of the mammalians. The RIS, stretched to the limit with the war effort was unable to follow up on any of this despite their burning curiosity.
Regardless of events elsewhere the Royal Navy still had to fight the war but by 2435 the strain was telling with too many ships lost or badly damaged and the Juvans launching the build up raids to their great offensive the following year. Many famous vessels were destroyed in the countless battles and skirmishes. At Third Alvyrra the instantly recognisable 'shield ship' cruiser RSS Supercilious Hatchling followed her long lost twin sister into the afterlife for warships. Less iconic but far greater a loss was RSS Illustrious Hatchling, the second titan ever built. She also met her doom at Third Alvyrra when a lucky (or unlucky) shot from an enemy battlecruiser set off a chain reaction that turned the ship and her crew of ten thousand into a second sun of expanding radioactive vapour. So complete was the destruction of Illustrious Hatchling that after the battle it proved impossible to determine exactly what had transpired inside her hull in those last fatal moments. The most intact surviving fragments of the mile long warship was the size of a personal tri-vid pocket comm.
The nadir of the Royal Navy came in 2437 when the titan RSS Glorious Hatchling and four battleships were lost at the Third Battle of Teytera along with many support ships; a Juvan task force had arrived unexpectedly just as a diminished and already damaged Stellar Kingdom fleet had taken a station. Unlike her sister Glorious Hatchling died slowly enough for most of her crew to evacuate but she broke apart all the same. Fourth Teytera in November was almost as bad and saw the loss of a battleship and the only two carriers in Meta-Baviir service.
The explosion of RSS Illustrious Hatchling at the Third Battle of Alvyrra, May 2435. Her sister Glorious Hatchling, to the left, was lost two years later.
During all this time the Juvans used two main kinds of warship. Supremacy-class battlecruisers were peculiar 'tall' craft with a vaguely 'H' shape. Save for pure sublight speed they outmatched a K'Tanek-class battleship in every way while still finding room for strike craft. Their companion Glory-class escorts so outshone any League destroyer that the Admirality simply called them 'light cruisers'. The Juvans favoured kinetic artillery, gauss cannons and the horrifying giga cannons. Faced with such potent technologies it is a testament to the courage and training of the Royal Navy that they won more battles than they lost, even if winning can be defined as trading roughly three ships for every one of the enemy.
However the technology gap was slowly closing. Though the Royal Navy mostly stuck with their trusty focused arc emitters, phased disruptors, neutron launchers and plasma cannons they were quick to adopt anything that could be reverse engineered from destroyed enemy ships such as better shields or engines. The holy grail was to manage to recreate the dark matter reactors that powered the Juvan fleets; this was finally achieved in the late 2440s.
Unlike the Juvans the Meta-Baviiri used ships of every class and size from the corvette to the titan [2]. One class grew more famous and more symbolic of the war than any other. The K'Tanek-class battleship had been hatched before the war; by the early 2440s it was already half a century old. With upgrades the K'Tanek-class ships of the mid-war period were a little tougher and faster than their predecessors but the basic design changed little. This can be attributed to the quality of those original ideas. The battleship was a fearsome looking vessel perhaps not exactly beautiful like some other ships designed on Skanaa but too majestic to be truly called ugly. She could not equal the enemy battlecruisers but short of a titan no other one ship could and the combination of ruggedness and firepower made her more survivable than anything else. So successful was the K'Tanek-class that the Meta-Baviiri abandoned the construction of carriers outright and it was not until 2438 that the Royal Navy ordered another titan to replace those lost - and even then they had a battleship building at Landeen while Etan Stela focused on the titan. A nearly identical battleship class, the R'Tarak was designed in 2446 with the secondary armament switched from neutron launchers to gauss cannons reverse engineered from Juvan wrecks. The idea was that a K'Tanek and a R'Tarak could form a mated pair with the former blazing away at the armour while the latter hammered the shields.
The tone of the war began to shift in 2439. Though the Juvan offensive of the proceeding eighteen months had been a big success, reaching as far Sanach they had not succeeded in breaking the Royal Navy. The reptilians had suffered critical losses of their own. Eighteen battlecruisers had been lost in less than a decade and the Juvan fleets were nearly as exhausted as their opposition. Other than a few minor engagements things grew quieter that year before falling almost silent. What fighting there was consisted of the Ekwynian Navy raiding on the southern front, taking advantage of the local absence of the Royal Navy [3]. It was irritating and eventually forced the Admirality to send a fleet to destroy them but it bore no comparison with the life or death struggle that had been going on mere months before. The High King and the Two Hundred even sounded out the Juvans for peace talks - though the Juvans only reacted with disdain at the idea.
The respite, whether temporary or not allowed the Royal Navy to recover a little. The mineral situation had improved since the crisis of the early war with trade deals with the Xuri and new mines opened up on the young colony of T'Valdra so warship construction began to replace the many losses. At this point the Admirality began to advocate a more ambitious strategy than trying to defend against Juvan incursions piecemeal. The gateway connecting Waiphrid and Prothon was the key. The Royal Navy could base itself at Pouz-Jok controlled Prothon very close to the Juvan border while simultaneously being within easy access of the great shipyards of Waiphrid hundreds of light years away. The Stellar Kingdom warships would watch carefully for opportunistic targets. So long as they had local numerical superiority - and Wakesu, Yefa tel Gun and Reebik the Younger all agreed that no battle should be fought without local superiority - the Juvans could be whittled away.
It wasn't as easy in practice. The Cidar system in Juvan space fell to a massive attack in March 2444 as the the S'Sarona and Y'Ysonni Star Flocks combined under Admiral Yel tal Oln, but this success did not last. When the S'Sarona Star Flock went east to recover the Till'Lynesi system of Crescim in April 2446 the remaining fleet was too weak to keep out a Juvan counter-offensive. Still the Royal Navy retreated in good order and the morale impact on the Juvans having Cidar I, one of their own worlds, under orbital bombardment was deeply satisfying.
That same year Wakesu became Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy. There was a flicker of politics here; Wakesu had been hatched in the Stellar Kingdom but he was a Till'Lynesi Illustratum and the Till'Lynesi Hierarchy was since 2443 the leader of the League of Non-Aligned Powers. After the failure of the Royal Navy and the League Navy to work together under Pouz-Jok authority perhaps more could be expected now. Still Wakesu would not have gained his rank without being an exceptionally skilled officer and the charcoal plumed admiral believed the Prothon based plan still had merit. The failure at Cidar had been in waiting around to besiege Cidar I rather than departing after the damage was done. The enemy would be defeated in space - or not at all.
In early 2450 the Royal Navy again took the Juvan station in the Cidar system, only to depart almost at once. Wakesu's raid was designed to rattle the Juvan nerves and force them into making a fatal mistake. He knew the foe well. Under personal orders from Emperor Titru Umloti the Juvan fleet would strike once and for all at the relentless Stellar Kingdom gadfly. Wakesu believed that the Juvans, both enraged and overconfident would throw their vessels at his as soon as they became available rather than husband their forces, which when combined, were still far stronger than the Royal Navy. On such a gamble he bet the whole war.
The Juvans, having already taken shocking losses, desperately try to escape the trap at the Third Battle of Prothon, August 2452.
In July and August 2452 the Second and Third Battles of Prothon were fought. Almost the entire Royal Navy was present - the two titans RSS Regal Hatchling and Aggrived Hatchling, seventeen battleships and ninety six smaller warships. Wakesu commanded the left wing from Regal Hatchling, Yel tal Oln on the right had his flag on Aggrived Hatchling and Reebik the Younger leading a cruiser fleet. The Meta-Baviir admiral's titan-sized ego had been bruised that she had not been offered command but her vanity was tickled at being the 'bait' to lure the enraged Juvans into the trap.
The Second Battle saw seven Juvan escorts blunder into the Royal Navy trap where they were torn apart. Very foolishly the Juvan admiral, Mell Amato disregarded the urgent signals coming from Prothon and went to hyperspace long before his reserves where ready. The result was the Third Battle of Prothon and a disaster for the Juvans. His four battlecruisers and twenty escorts (perhaps a third of the entire Juvan navy) melted under the barrage from the Royal Navy. Amato's reserves never even left the Cidar system before the very small number of surviving Juvan ships turned tale. The Stellar Kingdom had sacrificed a cruiser, four destroyers and six corvettes. An unbelievable bargain for shattering the Juvan navy.
The war did not end instantly. In fact it would not be until August 2453 that the Juvans agreed to a truce that left the borders 'as is' [4]. Nevertheless there were no major battles in the ten months after Third Prothon. The Royal Navy could have resumed the offensive but Wakesu strongly advised the High King not to do so. The Juvans had not entirely lost their resources and a land campaign to take their homeworlds by force promised whole new vistas of horrors. Better to seek a limited peace now to focus on the other enemy.
On Skanaa and the other worlds of the Stellar Kingdom there was rejoicing, but also awareness the fighting was only half done. The Reshethi remained strong.
The galaxy in August 2453, after the 'status-quo' peace between the Juvans and their thralls and the Non-Aligned Powers.
Footnotes:
[1] The League Navy was still in 2433 quite small - despite the best efforts of the Meta-Baviiri there just hadn't been time or the resources to build it to optimal size. Under the Pouz-Joks it was too limited to take part in most active battles, especially after taking severe losses. Under the Till'Lynesi it began to recover slightly though even in 2453 it was still smaller than it had been twenty years before.
[2] The Juvans did have one other 'ship'. The Reaper-class Last Breath was a 'Colossus' - an unfathomably large spaceborne weapon mobile weapon platform. Last Breath did not see action against the League, perhaps out of overconfidence, but her 'world cracker' weapon did destroy the Hythean colony of Maggrim in August 2450. Civilians and politicians everywhere were stunned but military officers in the Non-Aligned navies and armies regarded such weapons as misguided strategically as well as morally - immense resources that could have gone into a much more flexible fleet of battleships or grand army that could conquer a planet rather than reduce it to a useless cinder.
[3] The Ekwynian Navy enjoyed a minor revival in the 2440s. Though never a significant threat their raids were an irritant and delayed several warships being sent north at crucial times.
[4] During these months the Royal Navy recovered a few minor systems that had been taken in Juvan (or in a few cases Ekwynian) raids.
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Sorry for the slight delay but I decided to keep on playing to the logical ending point. Now I still have to face the Reshethi (*gulp*)
Surt: The mineral shortage eased up a little, partly via buying on the intergalactic market and partly via new mines opening. I'd still need more to have a safety net but it isn't critical now.
stnylan: indeed they did! I knew they would be tough - and I still have to face the Reshethi - but that was brutal. I am stronger than I was thanks to reverse engineered tech and that anti-awakened empire tech but I was seriously on the ropes there for a while.
Specialist290: Hah!
As I noted the situation is a little less serious now. I do have replicator tech but not the preponderance of energy to invest in them, at least until I repair the ruined Dyson sphere at Darep - which of course requires minerals I have to spend on ships.
Bored Student1414: Very true. Third and Fourth Prothon were serious gambles (brought about because I realised the Juvans were following a cruiser fleet I'd temporarily detatched) but otherwise I've tried to play cautiously.
Also like the bridge scene.
Viden: Yes. In peacetime I keep my fleets in stations with crew quarters so I was a bit shocked to see how much they guzzle on a war footing.
Surt: The mineral shortage eased up a little, partly via buying on the intergalactic market and partly via new mines opening. I'd still need more to have a safety net but it isn't critical now.
stnylan: indeed they did!
I knew they would be tough - and I still have to face the Reshethi - but that was brutal. I am stronger than I was thanks to reverse engineered tech and that anti-awakened empire tech but I was seriously on the ropes there for a while.Specialist290: Hah!
As I noted the situation is a little less serious now. I do have replicator tech but not the preponderance of energy to invest in them, at least until I repair the ruined Dyson sphere at Darep - which of course requires minerals I have to spend on ships.
Bored Student1414: Very true. Third and Fourth Prothon were serious gambles (brought about because I realised the Juvans were following a cruiser fleet I'd temporarily detatched) but otherwise I've tried to play cautiously.
Also like the bridge scene.
Viden: Yes. In peacetime I keep my fleets in stations with crew quarters so I was a bit shocked to see how much they guzzle on a war footing.
Talk about a slog, and yet perhaps this is just the first course of yet a longer and harder one. Yet even so, a moment to be proud of - the first forerunner fought to a standstill.
A hard-fought triumph for the Baviiri and their fellow League members. They may still be light-years away from being able to overpower the Elder Races in a one-to-one confrontation, but they have pricked the proverbial god and drawn blood -- no matter how advanced and powerful these "Awakened Empires" are, they can still be hurt, and hurt badly enough to make the cost of conquest unappealing.
The desperate efforts by the Baviiri to reverse-engineer the Juvan's tech and retrofit it to their own designs puts me in mind of Stargate or Lensman -- particularly the latter, given the sheer scale of the conflict itself.
The desperate efforts by the Baviiri to reverse-engineer the Juvan's tech and retrofit it to their own designs puts me in mind of Stargate or Lensman -- particularly the latter, given the sheer scale of the conflict itself.
Oh, good, good! Hopefully that didn't come as a Pyrrhic victory that cost you the other war, though.
A hard fought and costly victory. Still, even though only half is done, a victory is a victory. One only must hope the Juvians don't come back for more...
Good work (defeating is too strong a word) beating back the Juvans. But the effort is only half done and ruinous defeat is still possible.
I see the Baviiri Admiralty favor the Thrawn and Tagge's camp of more basic warships over the Tarkin and Vader's camp of fear mongering planetkilling superweapons. Still, do you plan to build superweapons at some point or are they too wasteful to use?
The War in Heaven is so big that planetkiller superweapons are reduced to literal footnotes.
I see the Baviiri Admiralty favor the Thrawn and Tagge's camp of more basic warships over the Tarkin and Vader's camp of fear mongering planetkilling superweapons. Still, do you plan to build superweapons at some point or are they too wasteful to use?
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Chapter Twenty Five: The War in Heaven, A New Kind of War (2453 to 2461)
The territory the 'Western Expedition' would pass through, 2453.
Chapter Twenty Five: The War in Heaven, A New Kind of War (2453 to 2461)
The Stellar Kingdom was weary after fighting the Juvans but there could be no rest given the resiliency of the Reshethi. Almost at once a 'Western Expedition' was mounted to cross the hundreds of light years separating the Meta-Baviiri from reptilian controlled space. The route would take the two Royal Navy fleets through territory controlled by the True Otaga Horde, the puppet Otaga statelet controlled by the Reshethi.
There was an alternative way to cross the galaxy. The same gateway in the Waiphrid system that had shaved months off travel time for the fighting against the Juvans also allowed access to a gateway in the Ambor system in free Knatza space near the Yibrak border. A task force, indeed the whole Royal Navy could be sent to a point 'behind' Reshethi lines. It was an intriguing idea and several admirals argued strongly for such a gambit. Ultimately the Admiralty declined to try such a strategy; the 'northern route' that traversed the galaxy the long way was more arduous and take far longer but it would allow the Royal Navy to strike at the True Otagans, helping both the pro-Baviiri Otagans of the Successor Khanate and the Pouz-Joks. The great mammalians in particular needed aid. Pouzjok Prime had been under interdiction for years now. The True Otagans lacked the 'man' power to invade the Pouz-Joks homeworld but they did control the solar system it was located in.
The other reason the gateway route was not selected was that there was still some unease about the gates themselves [1].
Initially, the Western Expedition enjoyed some success. The space above Pouzjok Prime was recovered, a True Otaga fleet defeated (though not destroyed) and the enemy borders pushed back. Even when the Royal Navy reached the fringe of free Knatza space, and thus came up against the Reshethi proper the results were encouraging. At the Battle of Ubliea (March 2456) the Royal Navy shattered a Reshethi task force, destroying twenty three escorts. Unfortunately the Battle Of Troidom in November proved a disaster. Admiral Yel tal Oln, hoping to catch another Reshithi fleet instead found himself facing two enemy forces. The Meta-Baviiri were mauled, losing five battleships and thirty four smaller vessel and though tal Oln managed to destroy a Reshethi battlecruiser and eleven escorts (and badly damage many more) he was forced to order an emergency retreat to hyperspace. Two thirds of the Royal Navy survived to make the withdrawal, including both priceless titans but it would take many months of lonely wandering through the hyperlanes before the battered vessels dropped out into realspace at Etan Stela.
The 'Western Expedition' had ended in failure, but it could have gone far worse. The Reshethi had lost more than thirty warships, the True Otagans had been shaken and the Pouz-Jok situation greatly improved. Even as tal Oln's fleets traversed the cosmos debates were raging on Skanaa as to whether to mount a renewed attack across the west in 2458 or to try the backdoor and strike through Ambor. The Admirality was keeping an eye on the galactic south where the Juvans and the Korinths were pushing deeper into Hythean space. The hope was the Reshethi would be forced to send help to defend their nominal allies the Hytheans, especially with the Juvans destroying two worlds in 2455 - the moon of Miigurus and the planet of Glugguld, both Hythean. Surely the reptilians would have to send their fleets to respond leaving an opportunity for the Royal Navy to strike?
In the end it didn't matter at least to the Meta-Baviiri. There would be no offensive of any kind in 2458 as by then the Royal Navy would be fighting for it's survival in its home territories.
The Unbidden enter the galaxy, September 2457.
The 'Great Surge' of August 2457 unnerved many but it gave no indication of just what was about to happen.
Jump drives had been the preserve of the ancient empires until the fourth decade of the Twenty Fifth Century when the Meta-Baviiri managed to reverse engineer them, technology which quickly spread to the other powers. As with so much else during this period they were not completely understood, being adopted as an emergency measure in wartime. It is possible their use attracted the bizarre extradimensional entities known as the Unbidden.
An alternate theory, advanced by several theologians and philosophers was that the immense death toll of the War in Heaven drew the Unbidden to this reality like moths to a flame. In this reasoning the invaders were less scientifically explicable aliens and more akin to demons, inflicting their revenge on a universe that had inflicted so much suffering on itself. Taken literally the tear in space/time that the Unbidden flowed through was a portal to hell itself.
Whatever the truth the Unbidden entered the galaxy abruptly in September 2557. They arrived in the western rim system of Betria in Yibrak space. It is unknown whether the target was deliberately chosen for reasons of strategy. The Yibrak Commonwealth was certainly incapable of adequate response. It had spent the last decade in a state of gradual collapse - including no less than three secessionist states, one of them controlling the original Yibrak homeworld. Within days the invaders had destroyed the Yibrak mines in the Betria system and were beginning to look further afield. Unfortunately, one of the places they looked was on the other side of the galaxy.
The Huntur system had long been known as the location of a wormhole. Neither the Ekwynians who originally controlled the system, nor the Meta-Bavirri who took it over early in the war had much interest in the wormhole, distrusting its unreliability. It was not realised until far too late that the wormhole had its end point in the Betria system. Suddenly the government on Skanaa realised that the Unbidden - an unsettling but distant threat hundreds of light years distant were, thanks to the Betria-Huntur wormhole on the doorstep of both the Stellar Kingdom and the Ekwynian Bloc.
First contact with the bizarre extradimensional beings known only as the 'Unbidden'.
There would never have been a good time for the Unbidden to arrive, but late 2457 was positively disastorous. The bulk of the Royal Navy was still limping back from across the other side of the galaxy and would be in no condition to fight once it arrived. There was a reserve force at Waiphrid, immediately to the north of Huntur. However this fleet composed of the battleships RSS Triumphant Hatchling, Masterful Hatchling and Watchful Hatchling and twenty six smaller vessels were hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered by the oncoming horde. Assembled at Waiphrid - there could be no hope of even reaching Huntur in time - they had the thankless role of facing nine enemy 'battleships', twelve 'cruisers' and twenty 'corvettes'. So little was known about the Unbidden that the Royal Navy could only tentatively assign ship classes to the enemy based on visual size.
Only the most garbled and frightened messages were transmitted from the stations in the Huntur system before contact was lost in January 2458 but there was time to evacuate Waiphrid of all non-vital civilian personal. The vast shipyards, the largest in the galaxy capable of building four warships at the same time were kept busy until the last moment, hastily building torpedo corvettes to add to the meager defence fleet. The trouble was that Waiphrid, incredibly valuable as it was was simply not desigined with defence as a priority. For most of its existence the starport had been deep in the heart of the Ekwynian Bloc, close to Snotalitivish and far from the frontiers. Even its shift to Stellar Kingdom control and the opening up of the in the system gateway had not made it much more vulnerable. The gateway opened up to the Pouz-Jok naval base at Prothon and Waiphrid's surrounding systems were friendly. It was never considered that at very short notice she would be on the front line.
Defence at the First Battle of Waiphrid in May 2458 was in the hands of the venerable Admiral Munin Wakesu. Living legend or no Wakesu should not have been present at all. He was over a century old, which even in the medically advanced climate of the period was in deep old age for a Till'Lynesi and had been all but retired until the first word of the Unbidden arrived and he was hastily brought back into service. Flying his flag on Triumphant Hatchling - incidentally the ship which fired the last shot of the Royal Navy's war against the Juvans - the ancient officer did his best against the Unbidden with their uncanny, near-see through 'ghostships' and lurid green disintergrators. The result was a slaughter and the loss of nearly all the smaller ships of the fleet along with Watchful Hatchling before Wakesu was forced to retreat. The fabled shipyards and the intergalactic gateway were abandoned to their fate and in the case of the former disintegration.
The Third Battle of Waiphrid, August 2460 - a battle that was both too late and too early for the Royal Navy.
The Unbidden ships and weapons were powerful but the Royal Navy had faced powerful ships before and if anything the invader vessels, though formidable and unsettlling were less potent than those of the Juvans and Reshethi. Again What made them so difficult to deal with was that they arrived at a time when the Royal Navy was so weak and spread out that the Admirality had almost nothing to strike back with during the crucial early period. Even when the Western Expedition finally returned and underwent emergency repairs at Etan Stela it was clear the initiative was slipping away. Only in February 2459 Wakesu led the combined Stellar Kingdom fleet into combat at the Second Battle of Waiphrid. It was a victory and the enemy suffered badly but Wakesu's forces were only a little less battered and he had fewer vessels to begin with.
Wakesu did not have long to 'enjoy' his 'victory'. Already ill and exhausted the war hero's health went into rapid decline and he died in November. His successor was Admiral Yel tal Oln, who was as his name might suggest a Vrinn. At the time few thought much of it but it would become an important point of debate later. Tal Oln, like Wakesu before him, was convinced that the battered Royal Navy was simply too weak to resume the offensive for at least another year, but he was pressured into doing something but the Two Hundred. The enemy, still pouring ships into local space through the Betria-Huntur wormhole was beginning to push into Ekwynian space and potentially brushing up against the Triech Freeholders. They had also, to the deep despair of the Meta-Baviiri re-occupied the Waiphrid system and were in a position to attack Snotalitivish. The Two Hundred and the High King desperately needed to do something. Hence the Third Battle of Waiphrid in August 2460 - and a predictably heavy defeat.
The destruction of Snotalitivish, July 2461.
By the end of the year the enemy would turn towards the much more tempting target of Snotalitivish. This savanna dominated world orbiting the red star of Snotalitivish-Qa was the biological and cultural home of the Ekwynian people and prior to its conquest in 2428 it had been the capital of the Bloc. During the tense few years after peace with the Juvans the borders had remained sufficiently open to allow back and forth travel from Bloc space to the Stellar Kingdom. It was also very important for the Neo-Ekwynians of the 'old' Stellar Kingdom, those who ancestors had lived in the Stellar Kingdom since the Second Baviir War a century before.
However Snotalitivish's importance was not simply symbolic to those of Ekwynian ancestry. It was a world of twenty billion and the capital of a sector, a vital economic and industrial cog in the Stellar Kingdom. The millennia old Great Face of Pathir carved into and out of an immense mesa was perhaps the most famous tourist attraction in hundreds of lightyears. Native animals abounded including the long necked flying varks and the spine backed and ferocious looking but actually herbivorous tengars who trampled in great herds across oceans of tough, tall grass. It was, even with centuries of utilitarian and military rule a beautiful and unique biosphere.
It took the Unbidden less than four months to reduce it to a lifeless rock, stripping and consuming everything organic from the surface, soil and seas. By July 2461 it was all over.
Snotalitivish was not the first planet to perish in recent memory [2]. The Juvans had destroyed three over the past decade. The difference was that the Juvans invoked terror to draw surrender to their military might. They were the worst of tyrants but they and their allies could be reasoned with, even forced to the peace table. The Unbidden had no such concepts of politics or diplomacy, or even traditional conquest. They were out to devour everything, and with the Royal Navy in dissarray it was not clear anyone could stop them.
The Unbidden infestation immediately after the destruction of Snotlativish. Snotalitivish-Qa is marked with a red box, Waiphrid with a yellow box and Huntur with a green box.
Footnotes:
[1] The gateway system remained very poorly understood in the mid-Twenty Fifth Century. The 'gates' themselves were massive structures, clearly the product of a spectacularly advanced civilisation. Prior to the War in Heaven they were mostly believed ruined but the Juvans, who either built the gates in the first place or (more plausibly) understood how they worked and put them into action.
[2] Even by the Unbidden. A little before the destruction of Snotlativish the Unbidden fleets operating in Yibrak space wiped out the capital of the tiny 'Yibrak Systems' rebel state , causing it to vanish from the history books.
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