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Prologue

CBR JGWRR

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Aug 22, 2021
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It was the 22nd Century. Mankind's darkest hour.

Humanity reached out from Earth, spreading throughout the Sol system. By the mid-22nd century, the first sublight space-warping drives were taking ships on decades-long journeys to the nearest stars, where new outposts of Humanity would be founded.

Such huge vessels - multi-kilometre long arks that carried examples of the bounty of Earth out to the stars, alongside hundreds of thousands of Humans - were the first ships. After all, it was decades there and back, and that meant they went out to stay; immense, star-travelling city-ships, that ultimately wouldn't need to settle on a planet.

Unfortunately, it turned out that they were the lucky ones.

Blasting through the void beyond the trans-Neptunians came the destroyers of all Man had made, and the blackest peace in Human history was came from the scaled claw crushing the throat of Earth's last defenders.

Much was left to ash, fire and wasteland; the raptors spared few, less than a tenth of the thirteen billion individuals alive in 2150 lived to see 2170.

But this is not how the story ends.
 
Raptors? Dinosaurs? Intriguing.
 
Prologue, 2.
So...

Been away for quite some time - having a new job does that. As does having the hard drive fail. Which means starting over. This probably isn't going to be updated as often as the previous AARs, and there won't be screenshots; I simply don't have the time, and I have to make cuts somewhere...

But, anyway:

---------------------------------------------------------

It was decided that Humanity had to unify; former divisions had partly been responsible for why the raptors had been so successful, and in any event what was the point in fealty to nations that were dust?

The new paradigm was simple; a united Humanity that would rebuild, and would prosper, and would never allow the mistakes of before. The new government therefore, was a stratocracy - at it's founding in 2172, it was decided that front line service in the armed forces or in the diplomatic corps would be the means of becoming a citizen.

The stupidity of xenophobia had to be guarded against just as much as the naivety of pacifism; the former would make possible allies hostile, while the latter was what made Humanity weak. And the Phoenix Republic would neither be weak, nor stand alone.

The return to space was not easy; rebuilding from an Earth that was now desert largely pole to pole was hard. But, it was also necessary. Fortunately, the raptors could destroy artefacts, but not ideas, and the Phoenix soon spread out. Less than thirty years after the destruction of Earth, a rapidly growing Humanity - people after all, were the most important asset to Humanity, and the Phoenix Republic made it a policy to encourage population growth in as many ways as possible, including ones that would have been too controversial to implement before the raptors, like mass-manufacturing of mechanoids, mass-utilisation of cloning, uplifting near-sapient animals, the 2176 decision to offer citizenship to couples who successfully raised five children to adulthood, recovering survivors who had successfully evaded the raptors and recontact with some of the arks - meant the population had tripled by 2200.

And 2200 was when the hyperlanes that led the raptors straight into the Sol system were discovered.
 
This looks very interesting. Cynical, martial, and xenophilic humans launching their first interstellar journeys? Count me in.

I love AARs with good backstories.
 
The First Twenty Years
A lot happened for Humanity in the first twenty years since the discovery of the hyperlanes; colonies in Sirus and Alpha Centauri were re-established, as well as on Mars and Venus. The Fleet was only forced into action once, when an asteroid was on a collision course with Venus. But most importantly in 2219 was first contact with an alien race - the Falleen.

It was quickly realised that they must have visited Earth long before; these green-skinned humanoids looked like orcs. Fortunately, they were friendly orcs, and embassies were established as soon as ships could travel the distance between them. They too had encountered the Raptors, and had themselves been attacked, and the potential of a Falleen-Human alliance was immediately obvious to both.

A few years later the reason why the Raptors had fled was discovered; an AI intelligence of far greater technological ability had intervened and forced the Raptors to withdraw.

If the Falleen could be characterised as enthusiastic about Humanity, the Oudabot Grid were characterised as tolerant; organics were a danger, and Humanity were a new variable. But, they were open to diplomacy, and embassies were exchanged.

Humanity enjoyed the relief of knowing that, for now at least, they were secure from being attacked, and efforts were now directed into making friends. The velvet glove would suffice for now, which was just as well, for the warships of Humanity were no match for the aliens - Humanity was late, and had to race to catch up.
 
Advanced AI starts, I take it?
 
Ah. Tight. And scary. :p
 
Hopefully humanity can catch up - being trapped in the past would be a very bad thing... especially if it's trapped in the past technologically.

Sticks can rarely beat guns.
 
2052
Humanity continued to progress, eventually making contact with all near civilisations by the 2230s, including the Raptors; who were blocked off by the Oduabot Grid. Research Agreements were signed to aid the catching up process, and peace was prevalent; apart from the Falleen attacking and losing to a MegaCorp, there were no wars involving Humanity until 2252.

The Falleen had long had advanced robotics, had them before space travel, so when the uprising came it largely crippled them. Humanity had just finished the first multi-kilometre scale warships powered by Casmir Effect zero-point reactors on the drawing board, and had the uprising been a year later, Humanity could have dealt with the uprising very easily.

But, it wasn't.

Instead, three alien battleships had been repaired and outfitted with the new technologies during development, joined by two Human built prototypes that were made combat ready in response to the uprising. Combined with the patrol Corvette fleet this was enough firepower to not quite match the overkill the robots had been stockpiling.

Humanity was now in a difficult place - they were obligated both legally and pragmatically to stop the exterminator-uprising, but they just didn't have the Alloy available to make offensive and defensive fleets, and the distances involved meant that the robots would be able to attack Humanity with the fleet away.

They gambled that the robots wouldn't figure that out.

They were wrong.
 
Well, that ending is ominous. I suppose that the humans are in for a great conflict that will test their resolve?
 
The Hunt For Fleet 2
The tensions peaked during what became known as "The hunt for Fleet 2".

The Shazarak Assimilators as they called themselves dispatched Fleet 2 and an Army Transport group into Human territories while the Human navy was attempting to recapture Falleen losses, which immediately forced the Humans to withdraw, fearing for an invasion of the Sol system, only two hyperlane jumps from the former border.

Fleet 2 consisted of a mixed force of 11 Destroyers, 26 Corvettes and 9 Cruisers, and was the Assimilators' strongest fleet, totalling 19.8k Fleet Power. By contrast, Humanity had 30 Corvettes totalling 15k Fleet Power, and 6 Battleships totalling 8.6k Fleet Power at the time of Fleet 2's attack. If they arrived in time, then Humanity expected to win.

The race was on.

Fortunately for Humanity, the Assimilators were not clever with managing their attacks, with Fleet 2 capturing 3 systems, none of which having notable population centres; the only Starbase lost was a partially developed research Starbase. This badly conducted offensive gave time for Humanity to put another 12 Corvettes into service to give support to the existing fleets; EZ Aquarii was the system in which the battle took place.

The two Corvette fleets assembled at the Outpost while awaiting the Battleships. The Assimilators decided to send Fleet 2 to engage the Corvettes before they were reinforced, with the plan almost succeeding; 7 Human Corvettes had been destroyed, and the two Corvette forces were verging on Emergency FTL activation when the big guns finally arrived and rescued the situation.

The defeat of Fleet 2 led to jubilant celebrations for Human and Falleen alike, but it was only the start - the war had to be won.
 
It is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
 
The war looks to be going well so far...
 
Widening of the Theatre
While the Assimilators were beaten back with the loss of their fleet, the reality was the Falleen and Humanity alike were overstretched. And others took notice. Rivalries were declared against the Phoenix Republic, including by the Raptors, and making matters worse were the Oudabot's losing territory themselves following a disastrous war across another wormhole network.

Kienrozud Industries had previously fought with the Falleen, so the resumption of war was not exactly a surprise, particularly not now they had another ally in the Kingdom of Dnit Chidisau.

Alloys production was a major issue for Humanity, and a large part of the new ships being commissioned were actually purchased from scrap dealers - it was much cheaper to buy in the hulls and put Human components into them than building the hulls directly. In the case of a batch of 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer and 7 Corvettes, the Alloy cost to refit was about the purchase price of one battleship of Human make.

And well, because Humanity was so far behind the advanced alien races, the casualty losses were high; too high. Pretty soon, Humanity faced the third alien invasion in a century as a Dnit Chidisau fleet attacked through the Mirach wormhole.
 
Put simply, this is going terribly.

The Kienzorud are terrible; barely 20k across their whole navy. But the Dnit Chidisau are well over 100k+, and we've only just hit 2260s. If it was just the Kienzorud it would be over very quickly.

But, it isn't.

Instead, the Falleen did have 70k, but the Dnit Chidisau have such an advantage that a 33k fleet of theirs defeated a 37k Falleen fleet, then 29k and 10k fleets I sent in too late to cover them. And it was a disaster, as they still had half their fleet going while nearly all my navy and half the Falleen navy got destroyed because the timing didn't work out and the Dnit Chidisau fleet was able to engage one by one.

And this is a very rare example of wormholes ending up truly strategic; the Dnit Chidisau control three wormhole ends of relevance in their territory, all of which are essentially next to each other, and these three are connected to the front to one just outside Falleen space on their furthest border, one in Kienzorud space out of reach, and the other in Human space but far from the Falleen and therefore, far from where the fleet is.

One of their fleets would be a major problem under these circumstances, but they have three and each one has sufficient strength to defeat the Falleen-Human navies.
 
Humanity isn't doing so well...
 
Fatahid to the rescue
In 2270, one century since the founding of the Phoenix Republic in response to the attack by the Raptors, Humanity was still under attack, locked in a desperate war.

However, the xenophobic element of mankind suffered another rebuke as the diplomatic corps secured the aid of the Fatahid Consciousness; with the Kingdom of Dnit Chidisau and Kienzorud Industries attacking them, it was only logical that the Falleen, Human and the Fatahid would join up.

The Fatahid were highly advanced, with a capital ship so huge it could manufacture ships itself, and they had access to the Falleen's far border wormhole through which they went on the offensive.

Now, the Falleen and Human forces faced just one opponent, and the weaker of the two.
 
Domestically however, Humanity was progressing despite the fact that practically every Alloy was going on the navy; into the 2280s, the project of terraforming all the worlds Humanity had colonised to Gaia standard was completed. Several terraforming candidates in Sirius and Centauri had been restored to Gaia standards as well.

Humanity had suffered a truly tough start to the interstellar era, but if the war would end, the prospects looked bright.