The Purge – End Game Start Date 2250, 5x Crisis Strength, Grand Admiral

[Kvinfojoj]

Estimation of current invader strength: 5.2 million fleet power. And this is but the advance force. Our previous strategy against organics has been to meet them head on and overpower them. We will have to revise our protocols in the face of this threat.

This is not the time to add more unknown variables. These Earth droids clearly have no regard for the outcome of this conflict.

We now have a better understanding of why organics curse and swear. Thanks to these misguided machines, the Prethoryn now have a key weapon – highway access to the galaxy. Two L-gates are just a few systems away from current Prethoryn space. Meanwhile, 3 L-gates are located in deep Purge space, 2 of which are 3 systems away from our core shipyard cluster to the east. This will complicate logistics significantly and will make it all but impossible to contain the conflict to a contiguous location in space.

The Prethoryn advance. This image depicts their progress 4 cycles after their arrival. After 10 cycles, they have fully captured 9 of our planets and dozens of systems. We cannot oppose them at this time – we must retrofit our fleets and spend the coming cycles reinforcing.

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18 cycles have now gone by after the enemy's first appearance, and we are finally ready to test our navy against their forces. This is what we have been preparing for – this is the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end. The enemy fleets have only been growing in number since their arrival, and if we were to thin their numbers, they would simply be replaced within a couple of cycles. However, if we were to lose our fleet at this time, all is lost. It is now or never, do or die.

We cannot fight the Prethoryn when 2 or more of their fleets are grouped. Our only chance is to engage single Prethoryn fleets and achieve local supremacy. Although our victory here would be no loss at all for the Prethoryn, we need to know if we are able to defeat single fleets, since our strategy moving forward completely hinges on us having this capability.

All ships, engage swarm manoeuvers. In the end, we were able to win with 11% of our ships lost. Although this sounds minor, it will cost us tens of thousands of minerals to reinforce our navy. And we will have to achieve dozens of such victories to even make a dent in their numbers – this is a war of attrition.
However, simply defeating their fleets is not a viable strategy. Their ability to reinforce their navy outstrips our ability to generate minerals, even if it were possible to engage them one fleet at a time, which is not a probable scenario.

Red alert! While we are still engaged with the first enemy fleet, 4 more are reinforcing from the adjacent system. We must disengage at once.

Luckily, we are able to retreat just as their fleets start arriving in the system. If the battle had taken just a few more days, our entire navy would have been obliterated.

One of the pursuing fleets follows us to the next system, while the others lag behind. It is risky and our navy is damaged. But we take a calculated risk and fight the single fleet while we can.

After the two battles, 75% of our navy remains. It is promptly ordered to retreat to our shipyard cluster for repairs, reinforcements and upgrades.

Thanks to our newly researched targeting computers, we are now able to moderately make up for the low tracking capabilities of our plasma mounts. Although our initial strike hasn’t weakened the Prethoryn in any meaningful sense, it did confirm that we can take limited scope engagements in order to somewhat slow the spread of Prethoryn space... on one front at a time.

However, most of the time they travel in unbeatable groups. When this happens, we can do nothing but fall back and hope that we don’t run out of strategic depth.

Meanwhile, the War in Heaven rages on. None of the organics have done anything to acknowledge the threat the galaxy is facing.

After a few cycles of repairs and reinforcements, we are once again nibbling at the fringes of northwestern Prethoryn space. Due to their starbases being estimated at 87k fleet power, we can never divide our forces – we must always travel as a unit.

Prethoryn groupings grow larger, and they are advancing deeper into Purge space. They are now two systems away from achieving L-gate access.

We have gleaned some small insights from analyzing the debris from our battles with the enemy. Most notably, we are starting to reverse-engineer a weapons system that we call Scourge Missiles. We are currently several decades away from researching this technology due to our focus on minerals over research. However, we need this weapon as soon as possible. To this end, we are conducting an operation to make a shallow strike into northwestern Prethoryn space to provide our science ships with more debris from destroyed outposts.

This operation carries with it great risk. There is an enemy grouping in the adjacent system, and it is much too strong for us to fight. We must strike hard and fast in the north and retreat before they detect us. If they engage us in battle here, all is lost.

Full power to thrusters!

Having destroyed 3 outposts, the operation complete. Proceed with rapid extraction.

The Prethoryn are stirring, sensing our presence. However, they are splitting their force into two.

As one of their fleets jumps north, we ambush it with our retreating force. Our forces are still scattered from the operation, and we take more losses than necessary.

The weakened navy heads back to the shipyard cluster for repairs. These constant skirmishes have taken a heavy toll on our mineral count. Thankfully, we are able to tap our sectors for some much needed resource injections, but they are running low.

Meanwhile, the Prethoryn have had enough of our tentative probing in the region. They are plugging the bottleneck with an unbeatable force.

Very unbeatable. It seems the time of operations in northwestern Prethoryn space is at an end.

 

[Surt]

Mine the approches, maybe a mighty fortress can stop them if combined with the fleet.

 

[stnylan]

The Purge faces a desperate sitaution

 

[Kvinfojoj]

Our shipyard cluster is circled in blue. It is critical to not let the enemy capture this space. Although we could refit our starbases further back to shipyards if this area were to fall, we would have to sacrifice 5 anchorage bases to do so. This would severely cripple the number of ships we can field, not to mention the loss of mineral income the planets are generating.

Since the Prethoryn have grouped in the north bottleneck, we have no choice but to find another angle of attack. Redirect all ships to the western border of Prethoryn space.

The recent addition of Neutronium as a strategic resource will be vital in reducing Purge ship losses.

We were able to pick off two more enemy fleets that traveled without escort in western Prethoryn space, but we then had to return for repairs and reinforcements. We need to make our battles more cost-effective than this, or we will never succeed in more than nibbling while falling back. Analysis indicates that the Prethoryn have more ships now than after our first victory in the northwest – we are only marginally slowing their growth.

They are aware of the L-gates. Thankfully, they have not yet sent any military fleets through.

Our weapons are now considerably stronger against the enemy thanks to our persistent study and analysis.

We are once again ready to strike after 5 cycles spent in dock. Although their western flank seems bottlenecked with 3 fleets, one fleet soon leaves the group, leaving only two to guard their border. We need to test our new combat capabilities, and this is a fine opportunity.

This will be the first time that we fight two fleets at once. To even the odds, we plant a corvette decoy to lure them in. We then warp in on top of them, somewhat negating the enemy’s range advantage.

We take heavy losses – but in the end, we prevail.

30% of our navy was destroyed, to a cost of 69k minerals. However, we were able to obtain valuable debris.

We calculate this new weapon will greatly enhance our effectiveness in fighting the enemy. All ships are ordered to the shipyard cluster to be retrofitted.

Current Prethoryn expansion.

Most enemy fleets move in large formations, rendering them impervious to attack.

The enemy have started approaching our shipyard cluster in a westward direction. We cannot fight them here, there is nothing to do but retreat.

Likewise, we cannot do anything about their advances in the north due to their concentrated numbers.

Our only angle of attack is through the L-gates, hitting them in the flank and the rear.

We are warmly greeted just as we arrive. This is deeply disconcerting – they were already present in an L-gate system.

Our new missiles have significantly improved our combat performance – this time we lost 15% of our fleet, half of our losses in the previous 2-fleet engagement.

As we pick off a single fleet and raid the area around the L-gate (marked in green), the Prethoryn are moving the bulk of their forces away from their western front in order to pursue our navy.

Fighting them would mean the loss of our fleets. So we retreat through the L-gate and strike their western front while they are still chasing our shadow to the L-gate system.

They are converging.

We see an opportunity. While they are distracted in the south, we strike deep into Prethoryn space and drive toward their planets. This is a risky manoeuver, since the enemy is 2 jumps away from blocking our only retreat. But if we don’t take any risks, we will steadily keep losing ground.

Will they stay distracted?

Not for long. Once we commence planetary bombardment on one of their worlds, they start moving out.

Thanks to our armageddon bombing tactics, we were able to take out one of their planets. All that remains now is a mad dash out of Prethoryn space before the enemy cuts off our only way out.

It’s a close call, but we make it.

The enemy plugs the hole behind us. This operation was a resounding success, and our first real blow to the Prethoryn. We cannot win by destroying fleets, as they will simply reinforce faster than we can take them out. Our only chance is to avoid major engagements and make surgical strikes at their planets.

 

[Surt]

The purgers are getting purged?

 

[stnylan]

The fighting for the purge remains most desperate.

 

[Mithrill]

When you root for Skynet, you know something went terribly, terribly bad...

 

[Tom D.]

Well, the Purge held out better than I anticipated... will be interesting to see if this tactic will work in the near future.

 

[Kvinfojoj]

Half a cycle has passed since our successful strike against one of the Prethoryn planets. One of our scout units delivers terrible news: the enemy has breached Terminal Egress and is bombing the planet. We cannot allow them to spread through the L-gates.

Although we have never fought 3 fleets at once before, we must do so now. Thanks to our new technology, we should be able to handle them. However, the L-gate entrances are a huge unknown factor. The Prethoryn control 2 of them, and more enemy fleets can jump in on top of us at any time.

Thankfully, no additional enemy fleets arrive. We take some losses, but we are victorious in the end. We have placed additional shipyards in the systems adjacent to the L-gates in our territory, which enables us to quickly reinforce our fleets.

The northwest and the west bottleneck entrances to Prethoryn space are blocked with forces too big for us to handle. Likewise, the L-gate where we conducted our previous raid is blocked by big groupings. Our only possible attack vector at this time is the L-gate in the far south, Heaven’s Gate.

The strike in the south is successful, and we are able to destroy two planets. But doing so has attracted Prethoryn forces who are blocking the only way out – the L-gate.

This will be yet another first – this time we will be fighting 3½ fleets.

Our fleet is damaged, but we have no choice but to engage.

We are expecting Purge reinforcements to arrive through the L-gate, hitting the enemies in the rear while we engage from the front. But our reinforcements are being intercepted by the enemy who have reconquered Terminal Egress. This is not good – not only are we without fresh ships, these enemies might jump through to Heaven’s Gate at any time.

The battle of Heaven’s Gate is the largest naval engagement seen so far in the galaxy, with over 2 million fleet power’s worth of ships desperately opening up on each other with everything they have.

Fighting in a system with environmental hazards is to be avoided at all costs, but there was no alternative.

We risked everything; we went all-in, as the organics would have put it. And we have prevailed. Our fleet is heavily damaged and will require at least half a decade in dock for repairs and replenishment. We must not linger – we immediately enter the L-gate.

But as we travel through, the Prethoryn engage our ships in Terminal Egress. This is not a fight we want to take, but once again, we have no choice.

Heavily reduced in number, our remaining ships are barely able to overpower the enemy. This operation was a gamble that turned sour. It may not have been worth the losses, but at least we were able to get out without being completely obliterated.

We will need more than 200k minerals to reinforce our fleets to full strength. This was a costly operation, but we did destroy two Prethoryn planets. Our ships will need many cycles in the cluster to repair the damage.

Our sensors have detected that the enemy is able to not only travel through L-gates, but also through wormholes. Specifically, through the wormhole close to Heaven’s Gate.

Which – being former Purge space – leads to our small territory in the south of the galaxy. These planets are vital to our mineral income, their loss is not acceptable.

Our navy is still damaged, but we can’t afford to wait. We must enter the L-gate and strike while there are no major enemy groupings in the area.

We successfully travel through the wormhole and take the pressure off of our southern territory.

After two cycles of repairs, we detect a hole in the Prethoryn defense – only a small contingent is guarding the space lane leading into their western space, and we move in to commence planetary bombardment.

As expected, our bombardment soon attracts enemy ships. However, the first grouping consists of just two fleets.

We can handle this. We set a trap and dispatch of the enemies as they arrive.

We then continue to strike deep into Prethoryn space. This is a risky maneouver, since enemy ships arriving through the Zorikkan L-gate could cut off our retreat.

The War in Heaven rages on.

We have taken out 3 enemy planets, and the enemy reinforcements start arriving.

Before long, their numbers grow much too big for us to handle. We cannot go back – we are trapped in Prethoryn space.

We have only one option – we must push on toward the northwest and make sure that the fleets behind us don’t catch up in time. We should have had scout corvettes checking their northwest entrance - a major oversight. As it currently stands, we have no idea whether the bottleneck ahead is blocked by a big grouping or not. We can only hope that our planetary bombardment has made their forces redeploy.

The enemy fleets are in pursuit.

We make it out the other side with only encountering 2-fleet groupings, something our navy is experienced in dealing with by now. The operation was a huge success, as we were able to destroy 7 planets without major losses.

A Prethoryn queen could prove useful.

It is located in a wormhole system, right next to an enemy planet. This is our next logical target.

Having opened up some space to manoeuver in the northwest, we engage and take out the smaller Prethoryn groupings we find.

But soon the enemy plugs the hole with a force much too big for us to handle. Our ships are heavily damaged from the previous skirmishing, we need some cycles to reinforce in order to be able to take more favorable engagements.

Red alert! While heading back to the shipyards, our damaged navy gets attacked in the L-gate system right outside our border – by no less than 4 Prethoryn fleets. This is a disaster - we cannot win this fight.

 

[Kvinfojoj]

We cannot disengage!

The environmental hazards force us to stay in this losing engagement for much too long.

While we were able to destroy half of the enemy ships, our fleets were almost completely obliterated.

Our navy is in tatters. We would need 230k minerals to rebuild it to full strength, minerals that we don’t have. The only positive thing about this situation is that our low ship count means that we don’t pay much upkeep. We must leverage this fact; we will spend the next decade not building any ships or taking any action - aggressive or defensive.

We will save up our minerals until we reach our limit, then deposit it all in a sector. Then do the same thing again, and again, and again. It is not sufficient to simply rebuild our fleets, because once we do, we will reduce our income to a trickle. We must have sufficient funds to continuously reinforce it, since we are taking at least 30k minerals worth of ship losses even against smaller fleets. We must be passive for the cycles to come. The Prethoryn do what they can, while we suffer what we must.

The enemy starts arriving through L-gates in Purge space, converting several of our planets.

And not only in Purge space – thanks to the L-gates, they are spreading across the galaxy.

 

[Tom D.]

A bit of a setback at the end, but there still seems to be hope.

 

[stnylan]

That is rather a bitter ending to what had been a promising set of military campaigns.

Still perhaps the Prethoryn, with other avenues of expansion, will lighten the focus on the Purge somewhat. Perhaps.

 

[Surt]

Expensive, but what are the organics doing with their trivial squables in the heavens?

 

[Kvinfojoj]

Several Purge planets are getting assimilated by the Prethoryn.

9 cycles have no passed since our catastrophic defeat. Our fleet is finally rebuilt and our mineral reserves are stocked up. It’s time to save the Purge worlds we can.

Aggressive action in Prethoryn space is out of the question, first we need to do some extensive damage control and get the enemy out of our territory.

After 2 cycles of clearing the enemy from Purge space, we once again start heading through the L-gates.

Our scout units have spotted a large enemy grouping in the northwest of their space. This is the perfect opportunity to strike at their planets.

Once we start moving into western Prethoryn space, their northern forces are sure to pursue us. We must move swiftly.

We encounter little resistance on the way.

We have captured their queen! She turns out to have an incredibly slow propulsion system. She cannot keep up with our fleets, which means that we will treat her as a disposable distraction at most.

We take out two more Prethoryn planets. Their worlds are getting fewer in number; there is now only one planet left in main Prethoryn space, with several more planets by the L-gates among the organic factions.

Our strike bisecting enemy space.

We start moving toward the last planet in their main territory, but we then detect several large groupings ahead. We can’t get caught between the forces advancing from the north and the groupings in the south, so we pull back our forces through the breach we’ve made, and then redeploy to Zorikkan Black Hole L-gate in the west. This will enable our reinforcements to catch up to our navy. We then strike in an eastward direction from Heaven’s Gate.

We clear out several smaller enemy groupings on the way.

It is risky going into a space lane with no retreat other than the way we came, but we successfully strike at the last planet in main Prethoryn space.

Several cycles pass. The enemy is grouped up in a nearby L-gate system, which is a big problem. Traveling to the Prethoryn beachheads in organic empires is now a very risky proposition, since this unbeatable grouping can hit the navy in the rear at any time.

The War in Heaven remains unresolved.

The L-Cluster species falls to the Prethoryn. They have nobody but themselves to blame.

It is risky, but we start attacking the Prethoryn incursions in organic empires. As far as we are able to detect, there are now no more enemy worlds, but we might be missing some somewhere. One planet is all they need to generate more forces – we must make sure that they are all destroyed.

Our fleets are attacked while traveling through Terminal Egress. We will take major losses, but we should be able to handle 4 fleets.

However, an additional Prethoryn fleets soon arrives.

We are now engaged with 5 fleets.

Then 6... the enemy keeps sending through reinforcements. Soon, our navy is destroyed. We must prevent them from capturing more worlds, but now we will have to wait another decade before taking aggressive action.

Current Prethoryn expansion.

 

[stnylan]

Another tough slog. There appears to be a rhythm to this war

 

[Kvinfojoj]

After a decade of repairs and rebuilding our fleets, our navy is ready for the decisive blow. The Prethoryn is deprived of planets, and we should finally be able to take them on in a war of attrition. We start by systematically clearing the enemy out of all L-gate entrances. Whenever their fleets start moving toward one, we quickly strike at them. Having the L-gate network to ourselves will mean a critical mobility advantage. Using it as a springboard, we make several shallow incursions into Prethoryn territory.

We start establishing a permanent presence in the L-Cluster.

A campaign in the south sees a major reduction in Prethoryn space.

All of the groupings we encounter get handily destroyed by our navy.

So this is the way the Prethoryn Swarm ends – not with a bang, but a whimper.

The War in Heaven is finally over.

Almost all of the galaxy is now united under the Orassian Fanatics.

Purge primary objective status: Complete.
> Declassifying secondary objective:
In case of presence of galactic hegemon: dethrone hegemon by any means necessary.

The Orassians were more concerned with establishing control over these organic factions than with facing the extragalactic threat. Their short-sightedness is a clear danger to the galaxy.

The Orassian Fanatics are more powerful than ever. Their mobility far outstrips our own. We must establish complete control over the L-gate systems to compensate for this, but the Makaru Theocracy is blocking access at Terminal Egress.

There is only one thing to do.

Once we have established control of the L-gates, we enter Orassian space. Several small Feral Prethoryn colonies have started popping up in the east, but they are classified as irrelevant.

The Orassian ships are surprisingly effective against our corvettes, and we have a hard time fighting them. They possess a vast number of worlds, which means we need to spread our forces thin to cover more space. But once we do, we cannot take head-on engagements with them. They also have access to Psi Jump warp drives, whereas we don’t even possess conventional warp drives. The going is tough, and after the initial war, we are forced to refit our ships and move away from Scourge Missiles.

After two wars, we have complete control over their territory.

For three decades after the century-long War in Heaven, the organic empires of the galaxy chafed under the hegemonic rule of the Orassian Fanatics. But while the vassals may have been dismayed at their situation, they were horrified to see the mysterious Purge forces engaging their overlord, their one chance of survival against the steel tide. Soon, the Orassians were completely exterminated, and nominal control of the entire galaxy was transferred to the Purge.

The organic empires prepared for their inevitable doom. They strengthened their defenses and readied their forces for one desperate final stand against the unending waves of death that were sure to come. They gathered their ships, waited for the onslaught, and then... nothing.

No Purge forces came to attack. In fact, no Purge ships were spotted anywhere in organic-controlled space.

Soon, brave organics started venturing into Purge space to find out where the enemy ships were deployed and how their defenses were distributed. They were shocked to encounter no resistance, and no defenses at all. As they started landing on Purge planets, they found them completely abandoned. They were sterile - stripped of all their minerals, with no regard for sustainability or long-term planetary viability. One scout reported that it was like landing in a graveyard.

This scenario repeated itself upon every landing on Purge planets, upon every incursion into Purge space. It was as if they had all just left, leaving behind them half of the galaxy’s planets as unusable husks, incapable of supporting organic life.

/// Epilogue

On the desolate planet of One, in a reinforced bunker complex many metras under the ground, a dusty old light shone bright purple. Right next to it, a worn-looking male was sleeping with his head on a table.

Suddenly, the light turned green. A loud alarm sounded throughout the complex, and the sleeping male sprang up. He groggily looked around in panic, and then spotted the green light. His eyes widened in shock and excitement. He sprinted toward the Council Chamber.

"First Consul Akgr! The light has turned! The protocol is no longer in effect!"

Akgr nodded slowly. Her aged body was on the verge of breaking down, but she was still barely hanging on.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Signal the engineer corps to commence drilling toward the surface."

10 days later, the drilling and preliminary elevator construction was finally complete. Upon ascending, Akgr stepped out under the clear night sky and breathed the air of her home planet for the first time in 255 cycles.

She had dreamed of this moment for so long. The plan that seemed so unlikely all those cycles ago had actually worked. It was unbelievable, it was amazing, it was... she drew a deep breath as if to taste the nectar of victory. But the acrid, foul air caught in her throat, and she bent over in a coughing fit that lasted for many microns.

Akgr instinctively covered her mouth as she coughed; avoiding the spread of bacteria had been critical in their centuries underground. As she looked down on her hand, she saw that it was covered in soot and other strange miscolored particles. Akgr’s heart sank as her eyes rose to take in the world around her. It was unrecognizable from the One she had left. Deep fissures scarred the surface, and everything was black and grey. There were no plants or trees, and everywhere was covered in abandoned mining facilities.

But as she looked up at the stars, they were still the same as she remembered them. Her world was doomed, but there might still be life out there.

Had it been worth it? Can so much suffering be justified by a noble goal? She imploringly gazed up at the stars, but they gave her no answer. Disgust and despair rose in her. All she knew was that she would never forgive herself or her people for their terrible deeds.

As she stood there looking up, a tear ran down her cheek, clearing the soot in its wake. But a few microts later, a wind whipped up, blackening Akgr’s cheek once again.

It was over.

 

[Macavity116]

Over half of the galaxy was devastated or outright depopulated by this war, but surely that's preferable to the alternative... isn't it?

 

[Tom D.]

I'm actually amazed some organics were allowed to live, I thought the Purge was ordered to take out every organic to face the Prethoryns, but I guess it makes sense in the end as the Prethoryn were the main goal and with them out of the way, no real need to pursue the Purge any longer. I really liked this scenario, well done, I enjoyed myself reading it.

 

[DAL9000]

Great AAR from start to finish -- also shows off a bunch of advanced strategies that will be useful in many a playthrough, I'd wager. Thanks for writing it!

 

[Idhrendur]

That was quite the journey.