1# Summit of the Liga Design Directorate

[Enkidu]

Union Tower - Syndic Sanctum

Transcript of the Strategic Threat Analysis Meeting of the Naval Development Board for the Development of advanced threat response assets.

Representatives

Admiral E.R. Abendroth, Officer Commanding, Syndicflotte.

Admiral Arno Shultszky, Officer Commanding, Battleship Sirene.

Severin Vulkan, Pacifica Shipwright Directorate Contact.

Corin Frei, Labour advocacy board.

Abendroth: “Gentlemen.”

Schultszky: “Sir.”

Vulkan: “It’s an honour to have us all together. Considering the present tactical imperatives, This is a rare privilege. The subject of discussion, expanding the capabilities and patching vulnerabilities in the Union’s largest spacefaring assets; the Bayern retrofit Battleships Westfalen and Germania, and the Spyglass Antisystems warfare battleship Siren, as employed by the General Exingency for Informed Stellar Tactics board. Gentlemen, we have a problem. Physically, our ships are either antiquated, or damaged. We do not have the industry of scale, afforded by house economies, to adequately replace obscelescent celestial components. Each spaceframe suffers from varying degrees of Metal fatigue, and all spaceframes have outlived their service lives dramatically, some, by centuries.”

Abendroth: “They represent the continuity of the movement.”

Vulkan: “Of which fact, we have no doubt. Entire generations of engineers have burgeoned within the crawlspaces of the Westfalen. Even without their strategic value, their use as both moral building vessels, mobile pressurized volume


Corin Frei: Admiral. You are a household name. How is the Morale aboard your new command?

Schultszky: Poor, Comrade Arbeiter. The Ships’ surgeon has revised entire medical textbooks regarding electromagnetic sensitivity effects. The Ship needs persistent maintenance runs to remain in operational order. She shorts several kilometres of cable on every core startup cycle, although the crew appear to be happier when they are delegated to an assignment than when they aren’t. The outboard fighterbays are still being cleared of detritus. It is difficult to deduce which systems are extraneous modifications and which are native to the vessel.

Vulkan: We must provide the ship with additional shielding. More plastic, more polymer along the wiring harnesses. It is unfortunate that the Jammers have very little to shield.

Abendroth: We cannot afford funnelling the Siren into drydock for mere morale. Non-essential crew can be rotated between commands. We have the rare luxury of a focused threat.

Corin Frei: Nevertheless, we cannot have a pariah ship in the fleet. Especially not our most capable vessel – at least in the eyes of the people. The Union is nervous. Dissent will always ferment when there is no clear figurehead to rally behind when all are threatened together.

Abendroth: The same overriding issues apply to all of our heavy assets. Pacifica, whilst always contested, is now under threat by an organisation with comprehensive military training and insight. Two Bayerns arrayed at Pacifica, with Pacifica’s accompanying airwings and several strike packs of heavy and light cruisers, will see the end of the Seperatist campaign, without significant strategic risk. However we cannot commit any more than half of the required numbers without draining our defensive lines elsewhere. We are forced to choose between a non-optimal compromise everywhere, for certain victory and certain defeat. We have ships, we have crews. Training them adequately is impossible.

Corin Frei: It is the Unioner spirit. We are civilians at our roots. Adept engineers, we will follow life as if it were a blueprint, using initiative where we can. All traits useful in a soldier. But Soldiers are not crafty enough to wage a guerrilla war. Guerrillas do not make for the crews of gigantic warships. We are suited to smaller organisms. Shipyards and habitats are compartmentalised commands, warships are not.

Abendroth: Too many teams, too many independent officers.

Schultszky: What they lack in discipline they make up for in maintenance. It is as if each and every Unioner is their own maintainence team. Gunnery crews aren’t just weapon operators, they know how to strip and re-assemble the gun in even combat scenarios, It’s remarkable.

Corin Frei: Just as well, or maintaining our heavy assets would be impossible. Well then. It appears our problem is one of mobility. We cannot fly our heaviest assets from star system to star system adequately. Correct?

Abendroth: Correct. Bayerns nor Spyglasses are designed for asteroid field operations. Which is precisely where they are operated. Meteoric impacts ablate hull, cannons, comm antennae. This is controllable when immobile relative to the plane of the asteroid or debris field. When at cruise, flotilla movement is halved.

Schultszky: What about the Jump Drive Program?

Vulkan: The Jump units as recovered from The Hyperspace League, taken with our research from the emergence of Cult of Technology Vaults into the Hudson system in the spring of 814, have massively accelerated the program. The Lorentz, our largest jump vessel, has recorded a number of total flotilla jumps under Abendroth’s command, reaching as far as the Gallic sector on occasion.

Abendroth: Including to the edge of the local cluster. One notorious incident stranded the vessel on the border of Maltese space before the capacitators could be drained.

Schultzsky: Yes, I read as such in the transfer log. Made for some hilarious leading. Well handled.

Abendroth: The range experiments might make for interesting academia, if tactically irrelevant. We require a drive that can mounted to MOX battleship reactor models, and can bridge the eighty five point three lightyears between Omicron Xi and Bering instantaneously whilst carrying an escort. No more.

Vulkan: Our turret architectures already stretch the capabilities of our remaining imperial powercores. We would have to create a drive an order of efficiency more capable to extrude the jump bubble beyond the mere battleship to the vessels around. The Lorentz is an adaptive vessel. Ships of the line are not. Any drive unit which would said requirements would transcend efficiency thresholds for any known drive. There is significant risk to the operators. It is not beyond the capabilities of the Union, most certainly not. The question is if the risk of failure is acceptable.

Schultzsky: Is the Sirene not an adaptive vessel?

Corin: Comrade?

Schultzsky: The ship has proven remarkably resilient to post construction plug-in adaptions to the powergrid. Theoretically, the reactor and the fusion stellarators are functionally incompatible drive systems, yet the vessel thrusts no less aggressively than the Bayerns. The ECM grid, the source of much of my crew’s trauma, is as inefficient as a Gas miner breaking wind into a trumpet, yet the vessel remains functional.

Abendroth: I am sceptical of wonderweapons. They drain wartime resources for theoretical gain. Any modifications would have to be rapid, and improvised.


Corin: If we have to melt the heart out of one of our war galleons to save the others, it would be a worthy martyrdom. At least in the eyes of the power-brokers.

Vulkan: The Sirene certainly has enough unused energy to channel into any theoretical drive. Curious.

Corin Frei: Speak your mind, Comrade shipwright.

Vulkan: Jump drives are vulnerable to electromagnetic disturbances to the drive bottle, just as cruise engines are. Any drive that is resilliant enough to operate within the Sirene’s EM well may be tolerant enough to survive interdictive disruption.

Abendroth: A tactical drive? It’s been the choice future of military planners since the innovation of the Jump engine. It combines the precision of cloaking technology with the possibility to pick engagements with raised shields. The most unwieldy battleships as dextrous assassins.

Vulkan: I am as aware of the allure as you are, Comrade Admiral. However the ability to rapidly scan precise hyperspatial coordinates is decades, perhaps centuries, from the Union. Even I do not have the answers to such questions, nor do we have the resources for such a research program. I propose instead the concept of a hardened drive. One which would allow the vessel to use the drive to escape the combat area, when conventionally it would be intercepted. Such a drive would carry constraints, of course. We could expect, viably, an increased charge time, during which the ship would be vulnerable to gunfire. Expanding the bubble to accommodate escorts is questionable. It is possible that, whilst an armoured drive is possible, the mothership would be forced to leave without its escorts.

Abendroth: A pyrrhic retreat.

Vulkan: Exactly, Comrade Admiral, but not a fatal one.

Schultzsky: The Sirene will arrive at Pacifica in the coming weeks. Assuming optimal development time and the assistance of the League, how fast can such a module be created?

Vulkan: It would require ideal conditions, yes. Even external logistical support. Obviously Harmony can no longer be counted upon. Perhaps a year until fleetwide models can be produced.

Corin Frei: We do not have a year. Minimal time until prototype deployment, Comrade Shipwright.

Vulkan: If resources are reallocated from other projects and reserve assets deployed, no earlier than one month, comrade Arbeiter.

Abendroth: The Syndicflotte consents. On the proviso that all updates are forwarded to fleet command, including detailing future potential weaponizations of the device.

Corin Frei: Lattke will negotiate with the League. They know a benign deal when they see one. Be warned, if they bake the pie, they will want to eat from it.

Abendroth: The League is not a strategic threat.

Vulkan: Equally it will prove our positive faith in their own shared shipyard project.

Schultzsky: Decisive, Sir.

Abendroth: In the dearth of other options. Comrades, Admiral, this meeting is ajourned. Vulkan, forward all preliminaries to my neuralnet ID. Schultzsky, immediately start making readiness updates for the reception of the device. Dump any deckspace obstructing detritus out the airlock if you have to. You'll do your father's name proud.

Schultzsky: Sir, Yessir.


End of file.

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