2413: The second battle for Esper commences! This time, the enemy is screened off the planet long enough for us to destroy them completely, at the cost of just five Talons and one of the new Farcries. And then a spy calls in on the emergency channel from a Sakkra lab! He's broken an encryption sequence, and can convince the laboratory server that he's a member of the Sakkra research team; no cross-over is allowed for their scientists, but he'll be able to emulate anyone but a Planetologist as far is the machine is concerned! It's a tough choice, but Sauron is the only one in the galaxy whose ships move above warp 2, so we're going to pretend we're a propulsion specialist! The download sequence runs, our spy decrypts the data, and ... I'm repudiated with Irridium Fuel Cells, almost a complete waste. Oh, well. One less useless thing to steal in the future, I suppose. May we have many opportunities! We colonize Willow and Crypto in spite of the fact that the Sakkra will destroy the first in short order, and might well go after the second too ... and ... somehow, at Firma, 168 Talons only managed to shoot down seven transports as they were coming in. I ... I ... .........
The good news is, the techs they steal - NPGs and IIT8 - won't give them much of a strategic edge. The bad news is ... um ... fairly obvious. This makes the Sakkra the official runaway race according to GNN, with 17 worlds to their name. By the time we get transports to Firma, it will be maxed out on population by their lizard growth rate and Warp 4 transports that are apparently all but immune to our fighters. That's the second world we've lost in this war already, and it won't be the last ... but 55 million lizards died to take Firma, and dozens of their cruisers have burned in our skies. They may grind us down - their empire is immensely more powerful than our own - but we will fight to the end, we will never give up, and if we do go down, we'll make them pay! Already, in spite of the long odds against us and the hopeless speed of our transports, millions of Alkari soldiers are heading out to reclaim Firma for Yreet Kree!
Besides, there's more news this year, and it's hopeful news, at that! Our new Crypto colony has put us back in touch with the Darloks, this time perhaps permanently - or as long as we survive, at least! And while they were away, the 'Loks ended their war with the bears, turned it into an alliance, and declared war on Sauron instead, finally recognizing the threat he represents to the entire galaxy! The only people with whom the lizards are not at war are the Psilons, and that's no fault of theirs: Zygot hasn't met anyone but me! Still, don't expect any of this to work in my favor if, as Kestrel's family legend holds it someday must, a Galactic High Council ever meets: The Sakkra control enough of the galaxy to hold an absolute veto on any possible council resolution, and are drawing ever closer to conquering the galaxy outright, depending on the size of the Meklar empire, which we have yet to meet.
2414: More Sakkra cruisers die over Esper, at the cost of a single Talon. A Sakkra colony ship attacks Vega as well, but we destroy it and all two million of its people, losing one Talon there too. Especially after Firma, you can bet I didn't leave our most important world without a defensive fleet! At the same time, our scientists develop shields that everyone else in the galaxy considers completely out of date, and will work on Class IV Deflector Shields next since they can't think of anything else to make - for instance, how to make planetaries like the Darloks are using. (OOC: This might be the worst tech tree I have ever seen in a game of Orion. Yes, it could be worse - especially in Weapons - but the probability against it is overwhelming! The potential strengths and challenges this galaxy offers the player are simply incredible.) I also notice that the Sakkra have a simply ridiculous number of Titan dreadnoughts - which, when not escorted, move at or above Warp 3! If they have decent combat speed, and their primary weapons are fusion beams or bombs or death spores, we may as well coat ourselves in bread crumbs and honey, to save Sauron the trouble. If they don't have decent combat speed ... well, we'll just have to see!
2415: Another battle at Esper, but this time it's a forgone conclusion; we destroy two Colossus cruisers at the cost of a single Talon. And with the formation of a Sakkra colony at Misha, the High Council finally meets! As expected, I am nominated to face Sauron. He turns out to have (just) less than half the votes to himself, with 16 of 34, while Krungo (4), the Meklar (1 - uh-oh...), Zygot (2), and Darquan (4) all vote for me.
This is pretty ugly news, as on the one hand, I'm nowhere near a veto, with only 7 votes of my own, but on the other hand, I can't vote for Sauron in hopes of achieving peace, as it would make him emperor of the galaxy. Sadly, that's pretty much what I expected going in however; the only surprising thing is the terrible Meklar showing. I had hoped that the mighty cyborgs could be an effective distraction at least, but now they're more likely to be exterminated and contribute more stars to the Sakkra empire than to do any damage to our enemies. If we're going to win this war - and somehow, somehow, we must! - we'll have to do it virtually on our own. As Kestrel reminds me, however, we've done it before, and we may yet manage it again!
I said, virtually on our own. Krungo at least can help out by giving me Ion Rifle for our Controlled Toxic Environment. I'm not at all happy about giving that tech away, especially to an erratic ruler, but at this point, nothing matters except defeating the Sakkra, and Ion Rifle will not only improve my odds in ground battles, it immediately becomes my state of the art weapons technology, which should allow significant and desperately-needed miniaturization. I also give him our IIT8 for Hyper-V Rockets for yet more miniaturization. This still isn't enough to make a difference for our fleets, so I approach Zygot and accept Reduced Waste 80% for our new Ion Rifle, yet another move I would probably never have made except in such desperate straits (and with such stunted Psilons) as these. Finally, in the most insane and desperate move of all, I give Zygot our Toxic base technology for Ion Cannon blueprints. Then, in continuing desperation, I scrap the Nest recently and foolishly built at Ajax in favor of an ion fighter, the Cloud 2.0, meant to send charges of lightning through the nebula. Ajax will build fifty, but this is not expected to be enough to deal with the monster fleet - no less than five huge Titans! - expected to arrive next year. I've really been misplaying my defenses badly, I fear - but I'm not sure what more could be done against these enemies. There's a chance of developing scatters by next year, but it's just too small for building an Ajax base to make sense. "We can hope for a miracle," Kestrel reminds me, "...but don't count on one." I must agree.
2416: Our Hawk Eye scans the enemy designs at Selia - everything but the Titan itself - and retreats, allowing Sauron to make the place his nine millionth colony. Then the enemy reaches Ajax. The Titans move at combat speed 1, are fitted with Titanium armor only - thank the heavens and their winds! - and appear to have heavy lasers as their only ship-to-ship weapon, except for a handful of missiles. It must have bombs or spores or something though, because it fires at Ajax itself in preference to our ships with all its weapons as soon as it can in spite of its complete lack of bases, and keeps trying to advance toward the planet's surface. We screen it off as best we can, but only manage to kill two of the five ships before they reach orbit anyway and prove to have both spores and bombs! The enemy cuts the planet's population almost in half before we can kill another Titan, and virtually destroys the planet before we can kill the next-to-last ... but the last one runs out of spores, and retreats without further bombing! Barely - barely! - Ajax is saved ... for now!
The Alkari populace is also terrorized by another GNN special report, but for once it doesn't directly pertain to us: Just the Psilons finding one of our ancient derelicts from the time of the Kree ascendance, several of whose systems they manage to reverse-engineer. (OOC: Apparently, this event can happen before 2450....) In spite of their limited size, especially in light of the techs I've traded to them, they may become a significant threat in their own right now. Even so ... when the message came on, I dreaded I'd learn that Vega nor Vox had mined out the last of their most valuable natural resources, or gone into rebellion, or worse! Compared to what might have been, this news is great!
The news it follows was even beter though: We have finally developed an Improved Space Scanner, simultaneously making our spies competitive and finally allowing us to accurately determine enemy starships' destinations and ETA. I can not overstate the importance of this device for our defenses, especially since our backward missile and shield technologies mean our only hope for protecting our worlds is with our fighter fleets. If not for the brilliance of the Star Wing Clan, the greatest pilots short of Yreet Kree herself in all the galaxy, our worlds would be burning wrecks or Sakkra colonies already, and we would have no hope in this galaxy. But we have them, and now we will know where to deploy them with certainty, and that might be enough to turn the tide! And in case they hadn't done enough for us already, our computer science teams reported that Improved Robotic Controls IV (or another battle computer) was available to advance in the field!
With the miniaturization provided by our new scanners and last year's technology trades, some serious combat designs are finally possible - and between this and the security our scanners offer, I'm ready to mount an offensive for the first time in this war! I explain them all to Kestrel, and at first all she says is, "It'll be a long, long time before they arrive," but it's our best hope to make inroads against the Sakkra - we can never hope to win so long as all we're doing is desperately trying to fend off enemy fleets - and at last, she says, "I trust you, Yref. I trust your judgment. Without you, I'd never have reached this high perch at all. Your words have the ring of truth, and we must act, to reclaim what by rights was ours."
I bow with a full sweep of my wings, and give the orders to our Clan shipyards. We need transports, and in numbers - to reclaim Selia ... and the long-time Sakkra world, poached from us decades ago when a Penguin was already en route, of Rotan!
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Next: The Gathering Storm!
