I mean 15 dreadnoughts and 33 Ajax cruisers, known to carry at least heavy blast cannons - plenty to break through even our new planetary shields, and among the most advanced weapons extant in the galaxy! I've been trying desperately to turn Klystron around ever since we conquered it thirteen years ago - it's been getting all the reserves I can give it every year - and by the time the fleet arrives, I can finish its shield and add four missile bases to the one already there ... but I know very well it won't be even nearly enough, even with a Kodiak to help, and fighters rush-built and shipped over from Rhilus. That's all we can do, with that starfleet due in next year. We're going to lose this battle. Grrrrrrrrrr! Well, if CB-715 wants a fight, it's going to get one ... and I'm going to fight on my terms! Ursa sends transorts down to Incedius to claim the rich world to which the robots beat us decades ago, and we get ready for the real war - as yet a cold war, but no less real for that - to begin.
2440: It's worse than I feared! The Meklar are using death spores! Biotoxins capable of ruining biological samples that had been preserved intact for centuries are fitted aboard every Ajax cruiser! Our fleet does what little it can before the fighters are destroyed and the Kodiak is forced to retreat, and our missile bases take down almost half the cruisers, but by year's end, all five bases are destroyed, along with over a hundred factories, and one hundred million of Klystron's people are killed, all its carefully-preserved bio-artifacts ruined, and its habitable area cut to less than a fourth of what it should be! Its last five million people struggle to put their world back together, with little hope that they can ever succeed! I must rescue these poor, lost souls if I can ... or avenge them if necessary!
The good news is that we're already developing the means! Our new battle computers are ready to go, and so is our cloning technology! ECM Jammer Mark V is the only computer project Arrrt's bears can work on, which is painfully disappointing, and though planetology options include advanced soil, (and something called a doom virus, which is too horrible to even contemplate) we elect to go to work on a Bio Toxin Antidote instead, to help ensure that the atrocities at Klystron are not repeated ... maybe! Another fleet of Meklar dreadnoughts is already mustering!
2441-2: Klystron is lost, and I might have saved it: An unmitigated disaster, with only myself to blame. Our pilots were too scared to fly straight, but it was I who put them in such a position that a little poor maneuvering on their part could cost all their lives, their ships, and the colony. Once the first battle was lost, it was folly, or worse than folly, to try to defend Klystron against that fleet, at least before the second Kodiak could arrive together with a real fleet of fighters from our rich colonies. It was folly, but I tried, and countless innocent bears perished, together with half our star fleet.
True, the Meklar don't control the colony either, having spored it out of existence entirely, but it's only a matter of time until they do. I failed my people at that world, and I'm prepared to resign from my post in the imperial government ... or I would be ... if anyone wanted my job but the stupid politicians who would be even worse than me! Grrrrrrrrumble. Well, I'm not lettng those idiots take my place! It looks like we're stuck with me!
2443-6: I may have failed to save Klystron, but I shall not fail in everything. I must teach these machines to fear me, and so take my revenge. Every armed ship still surviving in our empire is sent to Incedius, to claim the world and its riches that the enemy took more than seven decades ago. And as Yalara's main fleet arrives at Selia, and retreats at once - I order my bases to hold their fire entirely against the poor, confused kitties, none of whose weapons can penetrate the planet's shields - as another massive Meklar death fleet gathers at Vulcan, as CB-715 responds to my people's continued "expansion" with threats of war, as though we weren't at war for all meaningful purposes already, Arrrt comes through with critical new technologies. Our new Warp Dissipators are our best hope of dealing with the Meklar doom fleets, and in addition to an option for more range should it be needed, they open the way toward Impulse Drives for true strategic speed! The new advanced deflectors and Stinger missiles developed soon thereafter will help our worlds defend themselves effectively, and Arrrt is getting to work on the new techs these suggest, a Cloaking Device and Anti-Matter Torpedoes, already! Last but not least, our cleanup costs are sliced in half as our new reduced waste tech comes in, and rather than returning to exoskeletons as planned or trying for advanced IIT, we're going to reach for Andrium Armor to advance the state of the art and improve all our forces' defenses. Still, we might have been better served had we developed those exoskeletons from the start!
Six enemy Scatter bases kill fully two thirds of our forces at Incedius, and outnumbered two to one, in spite of our superior ursine tactics and zortium battle suits to their duralloy shirts, we nearly lose the battle! The enemy has planted autolaser nests at critical archaeological sites, and dug up valuable historical artifacts and fossils to use as de-facto shields! General Grrropo adapts and finds ways to overcome them anyway, but by year's end, only a million bears are left standing, of the 72 million I sent! We're busy rushing to recover and restore the dig sites and cultural artifacts the Meklar treated so harshly, and don't have the time or resources to recover any technology from the world's 148 factories, but fortunately, we've re-taken Klystron as well! The Meklar fleet departed soon after claiming it as their own colony, and we took the planet's orbit, chasing off Mrrshan and Darlok colony fleets with our new fleet of shield-6 fighters, and conquered it easily. Their colony was so new, of course, that in spite of the 204 factories (built by us prior to sporing) that we recaptured, the only technologies present were their factory-design stuff - Improved Industrial Tech 6 and Improved Industrial Tech 7 - plus the obsolete Class III Deflector Shields they were trying to put up as placeholders for more advanced defenses. At least that should clear the rubbish away for future spies and invasions.
OOC Note: Rather bad luck all around in my 2446 invasions, but I figure that's payback for the equally good luck I had with tech recovery at Darlok worlds.
CB-715 makes our war official in response, which at this point is a technicality ... and Narzina - who has rejected my overtures of peace repeatedly since Rhilus was taken - surprises me!
It seems she is prepared to end the strife between us after all, and I accept her offer readily. One war is enough for anybody - especially since it's not going to be a one-front war much longer, especially considering CB-715's alliances, and his allies' refusal to talk to me.
2447-50: The Silicoids join their ally's war against me immediately, and the reinforced Meklar death fleet returns to Klystron; there's nothing we can do to stop all those ships. I do manage to assemble some Warp Dissipator craft, and get them into position, but the enemy ships appear to be all but immune (or we're very unlucky) and our ships are forced to retreat again and again, while wave after wave of Meklar troopers arrives at the planet, faces off against our entrenched forces, and - thanks to our superior technology and General Grrropo's superior tactics - dies without taking our world.
At decade's end, Yalara asks me to join her at the high council again, even though she was refusing to talk to me last I checked. Rather than trying to puzzle out feline logic, I accept. My election opponent this year is Igneus, who gets votes from his own people and allies, while his enemy Narzina votes for me. This is still a stupid exercise, so I abstain in protest, with over 40% of the galaxy's voting power. While everyone's getting ready to go home again, Sauron stops me to say I need to stop becoming so powerful, thereby reminding me that - in spite of his alliances - we aren't at war for some reason. I file his concerns under "complaints" in my wastebasket. Yalara gossips about the other leaders all the way back home, but as soon as we get back to our part of space, she goes back to refusing to talk to me. I don't understand cats at all.
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Next: Taking on the Galaxy!
