Terran Wars, Executions and Plans

[Chaser617]

Grossadmiral Jorge Petarch frowned as he watched the ‘pageant’ playing out below him. Four furs were marched out, wearing tattered Union of Allied Worlds Navy ship-board jumpsuits. The other members of the League Council watched almost hungrily as the four were lead in front of the holo-cams. At their lead, was a rather stately looking snow-leopardess who’s shoulders possessed the single starburst of a Union Commodore, wreathed in laurels of a starship commander. She stood her brown eyes cold as she looked up at where Petarch watched from.

“Elise Jenkins,” a harsh voice called out, not even bothering to deam her with her proper rank, after all, the Hegemony League had already announced that there was no Union of Allied Worlds Navy, only terrorists against the proper Terran Government. “You and your fellow terrorists are charged and found guilty of treason against the Hegemony League. A sentence of death is demand, and shall be carried out.”

The snow leopardess said nothing, at least nothing to her executioner as he stepped up with a charge-pistol. She heard the sniffles from the youngest member of her entourage. She felt sorry that young Ensign Vanessa Depree would have come to this… “Ships Company!” the snow leopardess barked in her best command voice her executioner stepping up and put the pistol to her forehead. “Au-tention!”

The four officers that had survived the ambush of UNS Viscount snapped to attention, Commodore Jenkins included as the ‘whine-snap!’ of a charge shot echoed across the courtyard, the three remaining officers saluting their fallen commander as her lifeless body slumped, and the executioner turned to Lieutenant Peter Inse, the Doberman pinscher staring straight ahead at rigid attention. “Peter Inse, you and your fellow terrorist are charged and found guilty of treason against the Hegemony League. A sentence of death is demanded, and shall be carried out.”

The younger officer did not die with the dignity of his commanding officer Petarch thought, as he stayed at that stiff attention, but decided to make a statement. “I am an Officer of the Union of Allied Worlds Navy, and this execution is in violation of the Kilsigie Treaty, we are legal combatants not…” his words were cut off by another charge shot, and his body fell limp as well.

Twice more the sentence was announced, the last, the tiny Shetland sheepdog native of Hardin tried to put up as brave a face as her commodore had. The Viscount had been her first assignment out of the academy, and she had been Elise Jinken’s flag lieutenant, a term used for anyone that was basically a flag officers staff ‘gopher.’ Petarch could see the tears streaming down the girl’s face as she felt the pistol being placed to her forehead. The executioner was being especially cruel with this one Petarch thought with disgust. He wanted to make the girl wail, and would enjoy it when she did. Petarch’s belly turned at that, granted, these executions were not his responsibility he thought as he looked over at the beaver that had a cruel, appreciative smile as the executioner took his time. They were the authority of Councilor Girrade Tepenes, head of League Public Safety. He had been the one to insist that prisoners where his fair, even ‘military prisoners’ (“Why Grossadmiral, these are terrorist, there are no military prisoners”). The LPS Councilor always took express glee in watching Terrans who dared to stand up before the Hegemony League die in this way. It sickened Petarch, only because he knew the Unies would never stoop so low, they believed in the Kilsigie Treaty, the only treaty in recent memory that both the League and the Union where signatories to. The only reason that the League had not amended the treaty was the fact that the Imperium of Wiest and the Principalities where signatories as well.

Petarch’s musings where broken as the girl finally let out a wail of despair and that was her last act as the whine-snap! of the pistol went of and her body fell to the ground. His stomach turned but Tepenes gave a gleeful laugh. “Yes! Yes that was perfect, just as I told him to!”

Petarch looked at the beaver, he towered over most the council members, nearly seven feet tall and nearly as broad, his polar bear heritage from Old Earth’s Nordic territories gave him an impressive physique. “You ordered him to do that?”

“Why yes Grossadmiral,” his eyes gleamed as if to ask if he dared question him. The Hegemony Navy and LPS had been antagonist against each other for as long as there had been a Navy and LPS. However no LPS councilor had ever dared tread so close to the Navy’s prevue as Tepenes had, and had never done it with such a gleeful abandon. “I will send that off right away to Councilor Deveroux’s League Information Network. Of coarse we’ll edit out that untidy bit about that Doberman proclaiming he was a legal combatant, such a silly lie to sprout. But that little Hardinite wench’s wail? Perfect for a repentant terrorist who knew she was going to die.”

Petarch opened his muzzle to snarl at the short, stout councilor when Council Head Madaline Mansrat held up an elegant paw. Anyone who thought less of the fur that was the height of the League government was soft because of her stellar good looks and charming smile was committing a blunder of galactic proportions Petarch thought, just as his predecessor, the late Grossadmiral Henrie Mansrat, the Council Head’s own brother, had made when he had arrogantly committed the League to the Battle of Quinten.

Granted Petarch had never been a fan of Henrie Mansrat, and had not liked the shear arrogance of his attitude towards the UAWN. However, he was a product of the Hegemony League tradition of always fighting ‘colonists’ or ‘guerrilla navies.’ The Hegemony League had never once faced a Terran star nation with not only a sizable military arm, but one that held firm its tradition of being a top-rate armed forces. Petarch had actually paid attention to League Intelligence when they reported the cohesion, competence, and sheer pride the UAWN had in its roll in its society, Mansrat had assumed that the UAWN would crumble like so much dried leaves. Mansrat had seen the UAWN is nothing more than a bunch of rabble, especially with so many ‘luddites’ from Hardin in its command structure and that its exercises and constant training was nothing more than show-piece units, not the majority of its forces. The attack on the Quinten Naval Facilities had been the height of its arrogance. He had assumed that like all the other ‘navies’ they had gobbled up in the first few months before the attack on Quinten, that there would be no pickets, none of those other navies had had the force to deep-picket their systems. They had also attacked on ‘Navy Day’ for the Union. Mansrat had thought it quite fitting to destroy the UAWN on the anniversary of its founding.

Unfortunately, the UAWN Fleet Command had had deep-pickets, and Union doctrine was different than League. League used corvettes, units it had always considered expendable, as deep-pickets, to them a picket was simply a tripwire, who’s death would announce that an enemy was about. The UAWN used its heavy destroyers often times as pickets in heavily defended systems. Mansrat had come out of hyperlight right atop a Unie heavy destroyer squadron. Again, in sheer gal and arrogance, Mansrat had ordered the HEVDESGRU to strike their turrets and surrender immediately to their new lords and masters. The reply had been a simple one, one that Jorge upon seeing the data-chips from the battle gave Petarch a look at how most Uni officers would perform in this war.

The captain commanding the squadron had done three things, first was transmit a warning to his Fleet Command in the opening in com-jamming that Mansrat had given him to announce his surrender, second he had transmitted a single word to the League ships under Mansrat’s direct command: ‘no.’ Third, his squadron formed into battle formation and charged straight for a force that it had no hope of surviving against. The HEVDESGRU had died, but it had died hard and took equal its tonnage and more so out of the League assault force. The League Navy had always scoffed the Unie’s use of cruiser shields and weapons on compact destroyer hulls as being wasteful and ‘over powered.’ However, the twelve brand new Hermes-class heavy destroyers had given their lives to take down near enough three heavy battlecruisers, damaging the fourth of a whole battle squadron and an entire League destroyer squadron acting as their screening unit. That, and they had delayed Mansrat long enough to allow every ship the Unies could man to be brought into a cohesive defense of the naval base.

Mansrat should have healed about and gone for hyperlight as soon as he realized that. Quinten was the Unies’ biggest base along the boarder with the League, and had berthed the majority of that fighting force. Add that to the naval review that had been commencing because of Navy Day, well, the Unies had a force that had outnumbered Mansrat by a fair margin. Instead, Mansrat in all his arrogance drove his remaining battlecruisers and screening elements straight into the guns of a solid Unie defense. Mansrat up until the moment his flagship, the LWS Scharnhorst had exploded, had continued to broadcast a demand for surrender as his forces pounded Unie battlecruisers one at a time. Not something one did while trying to batter through a defense, what Mansrat had done was an aggorant attempt to force the ‘week willed’ Unies to surrender their base to him.

Losses where high on both sides, the Unies lost at least three battle squadrons, and it was thought at least five heavy cruiser squadrons as well. The league however, lost all but three battlecriusers and the ragged remains lighter units that totaled maybe three taskforces, not concentrated type squadrons like they had been when they entered the system. It had been the single worst defeat for the League Navy since its inception, though the propagandists had never let on that it had been as bad as it actually was. League information services subscribed to the ‘lying truth’ theory, where every propaganda announcement contained a little truth in it. It made it harder for anyone to claim they were lying when they did tell the truth, especially when they admitted that their attack on Quinten had been routed, though, they only admitted with ‘minimal losses’ and that the attack had been made after the Unies’ declaration of war.

That was the biggest lie out there. For the League had not bothered with the niceties of a declaration of war, they had simply attacked Quinten in a time of peace. The propagandist had turned it around nicely to make it seem to the public that it was the Unies that where the aggressor and the fur on the streat on New Bremen, the capital of the League, believed and support the war, not a bad turn Petarch thought.

The problem was, all that had left Petarch with a navy that was still reeling from the loss of its previous leader, however horribly arrogant and inept he had been and one that still held an institutional arrogance when it came to their opponents. Another Mansrat, DeLorean I thought, the previous Grossadmiral’s youngest brother if he got the family relations straight, proved it when he had reported all too eagerly that he had blown a Unie corvette out of space over Edo. Edo of all places! He knew that the neutrality treaty had been amended to give Unies no safe haven, but DeLorean took such priede in destroying that little ship. One that had it even been ready to fight back, would have survived at most, three minutes under the Parelnce’s guns. He was half surprised Admiral Koga of the Edo Naval Forces had not sent some if their ships after Mansrat. However, he was sure Mansrat would have done just as his brother had done, and that would have made things even worse where Edo was concerned.

He was sure that the planet had leanings towards the Union, and how Councilor Peytro Delando, the head of League Foreign Affairs, and most his fellow councilors treated any Terran world that had declared its neutrality made it even worse. Worse still, Edo was the only neutral world of any value that Grossadmiral Mansrat had not taken before the battle of Quinten, and it just happened, in Petarch’s mind, to be the most important of them all.

He shook that out of his mind as he looked at Madaline Mansrat. She was eying Tepenes rather harshly but she also spared some of that gaze for him. “Our policies are clear Grossadmiral, Councilor. However, I will remind you that from now on, I want such…. Command performances cleared through me first.”

Tepenese gritted his teeth, Petarch simply made a small bow. He had no intent on angering Madaline Mansrat, those that did came to very nasty ends. The wolf simply nodded then turned her attention to other things. “How goes the planning for the offensive Grossadmiral?”

“Mostly complete,” Petarch responded being weary of Tepenes, who was one who thought Petarch was moving far too slowly building another offensive force. He didn’t realize just how much the League had lost at the Battle of Quinten. “I’m not exactly confident of making the deadline that was originally announced to you but in all things military,” he announced with a variation of the classic axiom. “One never has anything go as planned.”

Tepenes snorted. “So, if we plan for victory your saying we should expect defeat?” The badger often used little comments like that to make it seem Petarch was defeatist, it hadn’t worked yet but the polar bear kept a mental log of how many times he was insulted by the scrawny beaver, and made note to collect somewhere down the line.

“I did not say that Copuncilor,” Patarch returned softly, as softly has his voice allowed. “However, one can never predict everything that will happen.”

Madaline Mansrat nodded, expecting as much of an answer from the military officer. “Very well, however, I expect results from this offensive Grossadmiral, and I want the first result to be the fall of Edo.”

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Ahem, Clark's Law of Evil Empires. "Sufficently advanced arrogance is indisguishable from room tempature IQ stupidity." For this move I'd measure the apparnt room tempature IQ on the Celsius scale.

Trying to take Edo seems guarenteed to bring the Imperium of Wiest and the Principalities into the war, on the Union side. Frankly I can't see the upside to this, unless the League is having a 'Britain won't go to war over Poland' moment.

[Chaser617]

Ah yes but if they can fabricate an incident that makes the treaties null for the Principalities and the Imperium...

*Heavy Hand Forshadowing*

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Assuming that the two buy said incident, given what the League just did in their ally's space. And this assumes the Union doesn't get wind of it (or Edo does and calls for Union help) and decides their best bet is to forward base out of Edo. And how close to read are that new class of Edo cruiser?

[Chaser617]

Edo isn't the PRincipalities or the Imperium's allies, they are neutral, period, they are not on anyones side, so they have treaties with everyone to make sure they're neutral. the two alien governments might beleive it because they don't know the intracacies of Terrans that well.

And the Ise-class is comming along, and edo has another trick or two up its kimono....

[Earl McClaw]

Give 'em sub-surface planetary defense meson cannons. (A rather nasty idea. Basically a high-powered particle accelerator that gets short-lived mesons up to relativistic speeds and directs them to a target. Controlling the speed allows the mesons to decay at a predetermined range from the cannon. In other words, it generates a radiation burst at a selected point. And since mesons pass through matter with little or no effect, you've got to be specially shielded against it.)

"Sir, there's some sort of energy discharge coming from the planet."
<snap, crackle, pop!>

[Chaser617]

Beleive it or not, ground based defenses against orbitals are not that fesable, atmosphere defraction and all, now missile weaponry might work, but no one wants to devote land to massive 'missile farms' like what we saw during the CW.

Orbital defenses are stationary and easy to kill relatively speaking, but they ARE of great help.

[Kerry Skydancer]

Give 'em sub-surface planetary defense meson cannons. (A rather nasty idea. Basically a high-powered particle accelerator that gets short-lived mesons up to relativistic speeds and directs them to a target. Controlling the speed allows the mesons to decay at a predetermined range from the cannon. In other words, it generates a radiation burst at a selected point. And since mesons pass through matter with little or no effect, you've got to be specially shielded against it.)

"Sir, there's some sort of energy discharge coming from the planet."
<snap, crackle, pop!>

Misconception on the 'decay range' idea - a half-life doesn't come due all at once. The faster the beam, the further it can get before it runs through the usual ten-half-lives-to-effective-zero range. The damage occurs when the little varmints start interacting with nuclei, not when the mesons themselves decay.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

And the Ise-class is comming along, and edo has another trick or two up its kimono....

What, they're building a Gun Buster? Or a high speed/long range 'Long Lance' Torpedo?

The Leauge navy seems rather Tuetonic. Wonderful planners, but The Plan is All, even when the situation pulls the wheels off of it.

[Chaser617]

Edo's military philosphies are rather close to the Unions beleive it or not. Neither military beleives that the 'super weapon' is worth the mony poured into them. After all, what happens if your super weapon fails? Or it gets taken out before you have a chance to use it?

[Earl McClaw]

Give 'em sub-surface planetary defense meson cannons.

Misconception on the 'decay range' idea - a half-life doesn't come due all at once. The faster the beam, the further it can get before it runs through the usual ten-half-lives-to-effective-zero range. The damage occurs when the little varmints start interacting with nuclei, not when the mesons themselves decay.

Thank you for the clarification. (And another classic Traveller concept bites the big one.)

The key requirements for a planet-based defense system might be:

• Will not cause too much harm to the planet.
• Not affected by the atmostphere / magnetosphere. (Ideally, able to penetrate a significant amount of mass without effect as well, so that installations can be buried deep underground.)
• An equivalent weapon can't be mounted on a ship. (Otherwise all that lovely penetration means you're as defenseless as the enemy is.)
• A lot of range. (Waiting until they're in orbit is suicidal.)

Super-weapons? One big problem is their limited numbers. If your enemy can absorb the damage, they can ignore your "strongpoint" SWs and hit your more vulnerable conventional resources.

[Chaser617]

In this universe, a ground-based missile defense system would look similar to modern ICBMs. Massive weapons with the needed punch not only to get from ground to orbit, to actually get to high orbitals and even some trans-orbital ranges. Most do not beleive a defense system is viable unless it has some trans-orbital engagement ability(IE the ability to hit something farther out than then an established gyo-synch orbit). The deployment of these weapons would also look like ICBM deployments. Massive missile farms that take up lots of space on the world. In Fact, New Bremen has such a system, and it is one of the very few Terran worlds that do.

Most worlds have what are known as 'G.O.D.' or Global Orbital Defense sattalites that mount standard missiles and cruiser-class energy guns. This aleiviates the probelm of engaging from the bottom of a gravety well. However it also meens the the missile ammunition is limited, and once it is gon, the sattalines are dependent on their energy weapon.

Still the most important defense of a system is the naval assets actually stationed at it.

[StrangeWulf13]

*cough*DeathStar*cough*

[Chaser617]

Nope, no Deathstars here.

Besides, that would be infringement on intellectual prorperty

[Kerry Skydancer]

Nope, no Deathstars here.

Besides, that would be infringement on intellectual prorperty

/sarcasm on

For certain values of 'intellectual', at least...

/sarcasm off

[StrangeWulf13]

I posted that before I knew anything else had been posted, back when we were on the topic of super weapons. Serves me right for not reloading the thread before replying...

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Edo's military philosphies are rather close to the Unions beleive it or not. Neither military beleives that the 'super weapon' is worth the mony poured into them. After all, what happens if your super weapon fails? Or it gets taken out before you have a chance to use it?

The Gunbuster refernce was a joke (The Superman of Japanese Mecha), but OTOH Edo better have something good on the quality side, because the implied quantiative (im)balanace of forces suggests that if both fleets are equal quality of ships and leadership, then Edo gets steamrolled. Like the German General complained to the American Seargent, "I know how you beat us! You Amis built up a mountain of supplies, then tipped it over on us!"

[BrockthePaine]

Like the German General complained to the American Seargent, "I know how you beat us! You Amis built up a mountain of supplies, then tipped it over on us!"

That was SO true...