Post by drakadorchaos on Dec 6, 2021 9:18:16 GMT
History of destruction and it's practical applications
Qarvaton Mainframe; Inside Network Cyberspace
Qarvaton pondered as he combed through the ‘Ancnet’.
Assisted by a couple hundred dozen subroutines and even more proxy servers, he filtered streams of information incomprehensible to the average mortal being. Whilst the Custodian himself had sent off several copies of himself to missions, he was here, biding his time with this, admittedly, rather curious task until the time he was needed in actual conflict.
‘The viability of superweapon platforms in the Ancerious galaxy, evaluated based on the current history of the galaxy.’
His AI processes saw the necessity and logic behind the question, though his personality matrix was genuinely curious.
The task in itself was actually quite expansive, due to how populous and turbulent this galaxy was. There was plenty of data to look through and due to the existence of a public network, although it logically didn’t contain all the information, it was fairly doable without having to intrude into any other factions' networks.
Logically, this wasn’t the only task currently, hence he had also sent some of his copies off to an event referred to as ‘TRIDEX’, amongst other similar things. A form of technology exposition themed around the various aspects of warfare, starring the most popular participants in this market, such as Triarch and Rangvald, various factions including RANGSI, Carnaith, the Union and others, as well as new players such as the CES.
He wondered what data he would bring back, what the competition and potential threats in this galaxy looked like...
File: Stations
He exported the curiosity to the sub processes and focused on the task at hand. There seemed to be plenty of examples of superweapons and their use, misuse or failure in this galaxy. Looking at the compiled data, one of the if not the most prominent seemed to be the so called ‘Crucible’. A rather infamous construct.
The crucible seemed to have been fielded in a large-scale conflict referred to as the ‘Second Ancerious war’ and was one of the centerpieces of one side's leverage. It had been a colossal installation, a joint project between the factions of the ‘APP’. harnessing the accretion disk of a blackhole in combination with stolen wormhole tech, it was capable of firing a stream of matter which brought a systems star to a supercriticals ate, leading to a supernova and the destruction of the entire system and everything within it.
It was an interesting piece of technology, but also somewhat… barbaric. Then again, they, the Network, had destroyed systems before, inhabited ones as well, so would that make them any better?
Regardless of that, the Crucible had changed the celestial and political landscape of the galaxy forever, an achievement he acknowledged although a grim one.
There were also other weapons of a similar style, large stationary constructs, two more examples would be the ‘Matterweaver’ and the ‘Great Eye’. The Matterweaver was a large spherical construct which apparently used a form of matter manipulation to destroy or alter its targets in a wide radius, making it a quite formidable weapon. The Great Eye on the other hand was essentially a large battlestation, making up for it’s lack of exotic weapon systems with an abundance of firepower.
However, whilst the destructive potential of the ‘Crucible’, the ‘Matterweaver’ and the ‘Great Eye’ was more than sufficient for their purposes, each of these stations had a fatal flaw which led for one to the crucibles destruction by the ‘AGA’ and even the repeated destruction of the ‘Matterweaver’, the first time when fighting the Great Eye, interestingly enough and the second time when attacking the crucible. They were, as the name already denoted, stationary. Large hulking constructs that couldn’t evade or even move in some cases, in case of the ‘Crucible even needing a specific environment to work at all.
Whilst that was less of an issue for a territorial nation, it invalidated the concept for the Network for the time being, given it’s inflexibility and potential to be a massive target, not only when used but also when simply being constructed. Evidently of all these stations the only one still operating was the Great Eye, which was likely because it was simultaneously the stand in for the Eosians homeworld.
There was of course also the more… obscure ‘battle stations’ he had collected info on. There were two constructs referred to as ‘Yog-Narr’ and ‘Yag-Norr’, they were in a class on their own. These ‘stations’ were the size of small celestial bodies, dwarfing any other ship or station of their kind. They had been built from the remnants of Coronan ships and notably also some of their superweapons by an entity referred to as ‘Palm Mirdif’ a crazed degenerate Hivemind which had apparently resorted to destroy any sentient life in existence in it’s madness.
He paused for a moment. This would’ve been one of the occasions where the Network would’ve interfered, if they had been there at the time.
The history of how these weapons were created put the Coronan Bailiffs in an even less favourable light than they were already in. Apparently in an effort to stop the ‘Boreal Jihad’ conducted by Palm Mirdif, they had sent the ships to the frontline without any form of strategic planning, which led to them being shortly cut off from their own reinforcements and resupplies, leading to their immediate destruction.
Though his logic circuits had noted the Networks standpoint on stations already a while ago, he pondered on the thought for a while longer.
File: Portable Weapons
Moving away from station type weapons, there was of course also the opposite end of the spectrum. Portable warheads or missiles, capable of destroying entire fleets or planets with a single strike.
There were… surprisingly few examples of these in the Ancerious Galaxy, the most prominent example in this case was the Unions ‘Plasma Coil Missile’. Looking into the details he understood why this one was rather unpopular.
The ‘Plasma Coil Missile’ seemed to have a form of supercritical plasma warhead with an antimatter catalyst. With several versions there were apparently different categories of magnitude, depending on their intended use. Whilst this form of weapons certainly had its advantages, such as portability and flexibility, as well as being ready more or less at any time, it also came with its own set of downsides.
For example each such weapon, be it Union or otherwise, could only be used once, and then had to be constructed anew, they were also far easier to intercept than most of their superweapon counterparts and mishandling could lead to considerable collateral damage.
The most glaring weakness however, was laying with one of its advantages, portability, which is also where the ‘details’ came back into the picture.
During the ‘First Ancerious War’ there seemed to have been an incident where one of these Plasma Coil Missiles was stolen by Capitol. Whilst that arguably could have been prevented with tighter security or other countermeasures, it is undeniable that a singular warhead is considerably easier to capture than an entire battlestation, weapon platform or warship.
Capitol then used this warhead to destroy a critical target within the Immortal Empire, throwing the nation and likely also the Union into disarray.
At a later point, this time in the second Ancerious War there was another incident regarding the missiles. During the siege of a system referred to as ‘Rubikon’ the ‘AGA’ seemed to have issues dealing with the present fleet resulting in the use of another Plasma Coil missile, whilst the missile did help with dealing with the present fleets, the resulting collateral damage due to using it so close to a planet was immense. Countless people died on the surface resulting in the retirement of the weapon from the Union arsenal.
In conclusion, whilst the flexibility of the warheads was desirable for the Network, the potential political and economical fallout of its downsides was more than enough to deter from the usage of such.
File: Weapon Platforms
As neither portable weapons nor battlestations met the requirements of the Network, the next logical step would be looking at what could by some be considered the midway between them, portable weapon platforms.
Fortunately there were also numerous examples at hand.
The most simple one in design was likely the ‘Strixx Cannon’ a superweapon devised by capitol in the late stages of the second Ancerious war after their ‘Crucible’ had been destroyed. The weapon was at its base nothing more than a considerably up sized railgun, using large rails to accelerate a special projectile to near lightspeed which then proceeded to jump to ftl speeds, leaving ftl at the target destination and essentially turning into an RKKV.
The weapon itself had apparently been captured near the end of the war by a splinter group, firing it before it could be re-captured and proving it’s destructive potential in the Nuclean home system, resulting in billions of dead.
It seems ‘Capitol’ had a rather unfavourable history with superweapons.
Regardless of its use and abuse, the weapon itself, whilst destructive, was apparently rather fragile. Having little in terms of defensive or offensive capabilities outside of its main weapon.
Its mobility was apparently also rather limited, seeing as it had no ftl capabilities on its own.
Considering the lack of mobility and rather fragile nature of a weapon of this type it would not come into question for the Network either.
Another more elaborate example, although already going halfway towards another category, was the ‘MAGNUS Array’. This was another weapon fielded in The second Ancerious war and also in the battle for the crucible. It had been built by RANGSI originally with a main weapon that could fire various different particle streams, which has consequently been damaged in combat and later replaced by something different.
Qarvaton paused for a moment. Interestingly enough the original weapon system was not too different from their own Variable Particle Cannons, although considerably upsized to fit RANGSIs needs. Additionally the secondary weapon systems, referred to as ‘MAGPI’, were not too far off from their own use of Lancers either. A curious detail.
Although it had a variety of secondary and tertiary armaments, the MAGNUS still had to be escorted by a considerable fleet, otherwise it was apparently too vulnerable during the firing process, making it a massive target, if not by its nature then by its sheer size for a ship.
Regardless of that, it was an interesting start, the premise of a warship with superweapon capabilities was something that would fit the Networks needs, bringing him to the last category.
File: Ship Mounted Weapons
Although there were a number of variations of ship mounted superweapons, the deciding factor in this case was not the weapon itself but the ship it was built into. There were a couple examples throughout Ancerious history, such as the T-10 class dreadnought from the Immortal Empire, the Z1 class made by the EPA or even the elusive precursor ship the ‘A’zores’, the most prominent example in this case was likely the Union-class super dreadnought by the similarly named Union of Worlds.
According to the current information the ship was supposedly capable of taking on a fleet on its own, whilst still maintaining the capability of destroying lesser celestial bodies such as moons and planets. Whilst that was a commendable feat, the more interesting part about this for the Network was that it had these capabilities without a need for an escort fleet.
Although it would in all cases be preferable to field a ship into battle with a group, the capability to hold its own is certainly desirable.
The most notable achievements of the ship were apparently in the battle over the Mirach system, apparently the Unions capital as well as in the battle surrounding the Crucible. According to his current information it was still in service to this day, after having fought in both major wars in this Galaxy.
Whilst this ship, as many others, also had its obvious downsides, it is more a matter of ship design rather than the superweapon, in this it was mostly focused around defense but had apparently deficits in speed and maneuverability. A more common issue of this type of superweapon would be essentially using all these resources out on the battlefield, but that was not an uncommon risk to take.
Putting that aside, this type of weapon seemed to be the most likely candidate to be built and used by the Network, powerful without compromising mobility or flexibility too much, independent from most outside factors.
Addendum: Strategic Weapons
There was of course also the possibility of more strategic weaponry, large ECM platforms, support networks and ships, expansive defense networks made up of a multitude of ships or massive sensor arrays assisting combat from over vast distances.
Although the examples were far and few between, they were still there and had notable effects on the battlefields.
However, with the Network already having a number of ships which were filling that role, such as the Command cruisers, making a superweapon dedicated to the task would be abundant.
Addendum: Esoteric Weapons
In an entirely different situation would be the more esoteric examples of superweapons.
The first one at hand was ‘His Hand’ a ship fielded by Eosians which was apparently a type of psionic superweapon, having severe psychological effects on their targets, be it on their or the opponent's side.
However, whilst the effects may be interesting there were two major points in opposition to it.
The first was that since it was psionic, there would always be certain species, nations or enemies which were inherently immune to it, or at least as far as he understood. A psychological weapon had hardly any effect on a machine.
The second point was far more simple, although they originally had vast databanks on various topics, they had been severely damaged in the traverse incident. Adding up to the fact that esoteric powers had a tendency to work differently in every universe they went to it was at the current time near impossible to even construct any kind of such a weapon, let alone at a scale a superweapon would require.
The same point would be made for an approach based on magic. Putting both out of reach and viability for the Network, for the time being.
Conclusion
Having worked through various examples and swathes of history, picking out the data they needed, Qarvaton began compiling an answer to the original question.
‘The viability of superweapon platforms in the Ancerious galaxy, evaluated based on the current history of the galaxy.’
‘Although there were various examples on superweapons and their effects, as well numerous occasions on which their use or mere existence seemed to have led to less than desirable events and outcomes for their owners or creators, it could generally be said that, yes, superweapons are in fact a viable concept within the confines of Ancerious.
However, the Network should be careful about when, where and how they field them and should in the same turn also be careful when acquiring resources for them, to avoid drawing unwanted attention.
Many of the weapons fielded had lasting effects on the galaxy’s political and celestographical landscape, with some changing it’s fate and outcome entirely.
Although the type and platform of weapon should still be discussed amongst the Proxies and the Custodian, according to my calculations a type of weapon with a variable use mounted on a ship as platform, would be the most likely to meet the Networks needs and requirements.
Putting the viability aside, it is unlikely that the Network needs a superweapon at the current time, however, looking at the potential future war, it may be wise to prepare resources and make plans in case it will be needed soon.‘
Qarvaton closed the logs leaving the subprocesses to do the busy work and optimisation.
Hooking up the sensors he looked out at the stars and proverbially ‘catches his breath’.
He was done with his task, for the moment. It was… rather interesting, he would see forward to the Custodians further plans and decisions.
Qarvaton Mainframe; Inside Network Cyberspace
Qarvaton pondered as he combed through the ‘Ancnet’.
Assisted by a couple hundred dozen subroutines and even more proxy servers, he filtered streams of information incomprehensible to the average mortal being. Whilst the Custodian himself had sent off several copies of himself to missions, he was here, biding his time with this, admittedly, rather curious task until the time he was needed in actual conflict.
‘The viability of superweapon platforms in the Ancerious galaxy, evaluated based on the current history of the galaxy.’
His AI processes saw the necessity and logic behind the question, though his personality matrix was genuinely curious.
The task in itself was actually quite expansive, due to how populous and turbulent this galaxy was. There was plenty of data to look through and due to the existence of a public network, although it logically didn’t contain all the information, it was fairly doable without having to intrude into any other factions' networks.
Logically, this wasn’t the only task currently, hence he had also sent some of his copies off to an event referred to as ‘TRIDEX’, amongst other similar things. A form of technology exposition themed around the various aspects of warfare, starring the most popular participants in this market, such as Triarch and Rangvald, various factions including RANGSI, Carnaith, the Union and others, as well as new players such as the CES.
He wondered what data he would bring back, what the competition and potential threats in this galaxy looked like...
File: Stations
He exported the curiosity to the sub processes and focused on the task at hand. There seemed to be plenty of examples of superweapons and their use, misuse or failure in this galaxy. Looking at the compiled data, one of the if not the most prominent seemed to be the so called ‘Crucible’. A rather infamous construct.
The crucible seemed to have been fielded in a large-scale conflict referred to as the ‘Second Ancerious war’ and was one of the centerpieces of one side's leverage. It had been a colossal installation, a joint project between the factions of the ‘APP’. harnessing the accretion disk of a blackhole in combination with stolen wormhole tech, it was capable of firing a stream of matter which brought a systems star to a supercriticals ate, leading to a supernova and the destruction of the entire system and everything within it.
It was an interesting piece of technology, but also somewhat… barbaric. Then again, they, the Network, had destroyed systems before, inhabited ones as well, so would that make them any better?
Regardless of that, the Crucible had changed the celestial and political landscape of the galaxy forever, an achievement he acknowledged although a grim one.
There were also other weapons of a similar style, large stationary constructs, two more examples would be the ‘Matterweaver’ and the ‘Great Eye’. The Matterweaver was a large spherical construct which apparently used a form of matter manipulation to destroy or alter its targets in a wide radius, making it a quite formidable weapon. The Great Eye on the other hand was essentially a large battlestation, making up for it’s lack of exotic weapon systems with an abundance of firepower.
However, whilst the destructive potential of the ‘Crucible’, the ‘Matterweaver’ and the ‘Great Eye’ was more than sufficient for their purposes, each of these stations had a fatal flaw which led for one to the crucibles destruction by the ‘AGA’ and even the repeated destruction of the ‘Matterweaver’, the first time when fighting the Great Eye, interestingly enough and the second time when attacking the crucible. They were, as the name already denoted, stationary. Large hulking constructs that couldn’t evade or even move in some cases, in case of the ‘Crucible even needing a specific environment to work at all.
Whilst that was less of an issue for a territorial nation, it invalidated the concept for the Network for the time being, given it’s inflexibility and potential to be a massive target, not only when used but also when simply being constructed. Evidently of all these stations the only one still operating was the Great Eye, which was likely because it was simultaneously the stand in for the Eosians homeworld.
There was of course also the more… obscure ‘battle stations’ he had collected info on. There were two constructs referred to as ‘Yog-Narr’ and ‘Yag-Norr’, they were in a class on their own. These ‘stations’ were the size of small celestial bodies, dwarfing any other ship or station of their kind. They had been built from the remnants of Coronan ships and notably also some of their superweapons by an entity referred to as ‘Palm Mirdif’ a crazed degenerate Hivemind which had apparently resorted to destroy any sentient life in existence in it’s madness.
He paused for a moment. This would’ve been one of the occasions where the Network would’ve interfered, if they had been there at the time.
The history of how these weapons were created put the Coronan Bailiffs in an even less favourable light than they were already in. Apparently in an effort to stop the ‘Boreal Jihad’ conducted by Palm Mirdif, they had sent the ships to the frontline without any form of strategic planning, which led to them being shortly cut off from their own reinforcements and resupplies, leading to their immediate destruction.
Though his logic circuits had noted the Networks standpoint on stations already a while ago, he pondered on the thought for a while longer.
File: Portable Weapons
Moving away from station type weapons, there was of course also the opposite end of the spectrum. Portable warheads or missiles, capable of destroying entire fleets or planets with a single strike.
There were… surprisingly few examples of these in the Ancerious Galaxy, the most prominent example in this case was the Unions ‘Plasma Coil Missile’. Looking into the details he understood why this one was rather unpopular.
The ‘Plasma Coil Missile’ seemed to have a form of supercritical plasma warhead with an antimatter catalyst. With several versions there were apparently different categories of magnitude, depending on their intended use. Whilst this form of weapons certainly had its advantages, such as portability and flexibility, as well as being ready more or less at any time, it also came with its own set of downsides.
For example each such weapon, be it Union or otherwise, could only be used once, and then had to be constructed anew, they were also far easier to intercept than most of their superweapon counterparts and mishandling could lead to considerable collateral damage.
The most glaring weakness however, was laying with one of its advantages, portability, which is also where the ‘details’ came back into the picture.
During the ‘First Ancerious War’ there seemed to have been an incident where one of these Plasma Coil Missiles was stolen by Capitol. Whilst that arguably could have been prevented with tighter security or other countermeasures, it is undeniable that a singular warhead is considerably easier to capture than an entire battlestation, weapon platform or warship.
Capitol then used this warhead to destroy a critical target within the Immortal Empire, throwing the nation and likely also the Union into disarray.
At a later point, this time in the second Ancerious War there was another incident regarding the missiles. During the siege of a system referred to as ‘Rubikon’ the ‘AGA’ seemed to have issues dealing with the present fleet resulting in the use of another Plasma Coil missile, whilst the missile did help with dealing with the present fleets, the resulting collateral damage due to using it so close to a planet was immense. Countless people died on the surface resulting in the retirement of the weapon from the Union arsenal.
In conclusion, whilst the flexibility of the warheads was desirable for the Network, the potential political and economical fallout of its downsides was more than enough to deter from the usage of such.
File: Weapon Platforms
As neither portable weapons nor battlestations met the requirements of the Network, the next logical step would be looking at what could by some be considered the midway between them, portable weapon platforms.
Fortunately there were also numerous examples at hand.
The most simple one in design was likely the ‘Strixx Cannon’ a superweapon devised by capitol in the late stages of the second Ancerious war after their ‘Crucible’ had been destroyed. The weapon was at its base nothing more than a considerably up sized railgun, using large rails to accelerate a special projectile to near lightspeed which then proceeded to jump to ftl speeds, leaving ftl at the target destination and essentially turning into an RKKV.
The weapon itself had apparently been captured near the end of the war by a splinter group, firing it before it could be re-captured and proving it’s destructive potential in the Nuclean home system, resulting in billions of dead.
It seems ‘Capitol’ had a rather unfavourable history with superweapons.
Regardless of its use and abuse, the weapon itself, whilst destructive, was apparently rather fragile. Having little in terms of defensive or offensive capabilities outside of its main weapon.
Its mobility was apparently also rather limited, seeing as it had no ftl capabilities on its own.
Considering the lack of mobility and rather fragile nature of a weapon of this type it would not come into question for the Network either.
Another more elaborate example, although already going halfway towards another category, was the ‘MAGNUS Array’. This was another weapon fielded in The second Ancerious war and also in the battle for the crucible. It had been built by RANGSI originally with a main weapon that could fire various different particle streams, which has consequently been damaged in combat and later replaced by something different.
Qarvaton paused for a moment. Interestingly enough the original weapon system was not too different from their own Variable Particle Cannons, although considerably upsized to fit RANGSIs needs. Additionally the secondary weapon systems, referred to as ‘MAGPI’, were not too far off from their own use of Lancers either. A curious detail.
Although it had a variety of secondary and tertiary armaments, the MAGNUS still had to be escorted by a considerable fleet, otherwise it was apparently too vulnerable during the firing process, making it a massive target, if not by its nature then by its sheer size for a ship.
Regardless of that, it was an interesting start, the premise of a warship with superweapon capabilities was something that would fit the Networks needs, bringing him to the last category.
File: Ship Mounted Weapons
Although there were a number of variations of ship mounted superweapons, the deciding factor in this case was not the weapon itself but the ship it was built into. There were a couple examples throughout Ancerious history, such as the T-10 class dreadnought from the Immortal Empire, the Z1 class made by the EPA or even the elusive precursor ship the ‘A’zores’, the most prominent example in this case was likely the Union-class super dreadnought by the similarly named Union of Worlds.
According to the current information the ship was supposedly capable of taking on a fleet on its own, whilst still maintaining the capability of destroying lesser celestial bodies such as moons and planets. Whilst that was a commendable feat, the more interesting part about this for the Network was that it had these capabilities without a need for an escort fleet.
Although it would in all cases be preferable to field a ship into battle with a group, the capability to hold its own is certainly desirable.
The most notable achievements of the ship were apparently in the battle over the Mirach system, apparently the Unions capital as well as in the battle surrounding the Crucible. According to his current information it was still in service to this day, after having fought in both major wars in this Galaxy.
Whilst this ship, as many others, also had its obvious downsides, it is more a matter of ship design rather than the superweapon, in this it was mostly focused around defense but had apparently deficits in speed and maneuverability. A more common issue of this type of superweapon would be essentially using all these resources out on the battlefield, but that was not an uncommon risk to take.
Putting that aside, this type of weapon seemed to be the most likely candidate to be built and used by the Network, powerful without compromising mobility or flexibility too much, independent from most outside factors.
Addendum: Strategic Weapons
There was of course also the possibility of more strategic weaponry, large ECM platforms, support networks and ships, expansive defense networks made up of a multitude of ships or massive sensor arrays assisting combat from over vast distances.
Although the examples were far and few between, they were still there and had notable effects on the battlefields.
However, with the Network already having a number of ships which were filling that role, such as the Command cruisers, making a superweapon dedicated to the task would be abundant.
Addendum: Esoteric Weapons
In an entirely different situation would be the more esoteric examples of superweapons.
The first one at hand was ‘His Hand’ a ship fielded by Eosians which was apparently a type of psionic superweapon, having severe psychological effects on their targets, be it on their or the opponent's side.
However, whilst the effects may be interesting there were two major points in opposition to it.
The first was that since it was psionic, there would always be certain species, nations or enemies which were inherently immune to it, or at least as far as he understood. A psychological weapon had hardly any effect on a machine.
The second point was far more simple, although they originally had vast databanks on various topics, they had been severely damaged in the traverse incident. Adding up to the fact that esoteric powers had a tendency to work differently in every universe they went to it was at the current time near impossible to even construct any kind of such a weapon, let alone at a scale a superweapon would require.
The same point would be made for an approach based on magic. Putting both out of reach and viability for the Network, for the time being.
Conclusion
Having worked through various examples and swathes of history, picking out the data they needed, Qarvaton began compiling an answer to the original question.
‘The viability of superweapon platforms in the Ancerious galaxy, evaluated based on the current history of the galaxy.’
‘Although there were various examples on superweapons and their effects, as well numerous occasions on which their use or mere existence seemed to have led to less than desirable events and outcomes for their owners or creators, it could generally be said that, yes, superweapons are in fact a viable concept within the confines of Ancerious.
However, the Network should be careful about when, where and how they field them and should in the same turn also be careful when acquiring resources for them, to avoid drawing unwanted attention.
Many of the weapons fielded had lasting effects on the galaxy’s political and celestographical landscape, with some changing it’s fate and outcome entirely.
Although the type and platform of weapon should still be discussed amongst the Proxies and the Custodian, according to my calculations a type of weapon with a variable use mounted on a ship as platform, would be the most likely to meet the Networks needs and requirements.
Putting the viability aside, it is unlikely that the Network needs a superweapon at the current time, however, looking at the potential future war, it may be wise to prepare resources and make plans in case it will be needed soon.‘
Qarvaton closed the logs leaving the subprocesses to do the busy work and optimisation.
Hooking up the sensors he looked out at the stars and proverbially ‘catches his breath’.
He was done with his task, for the moment. It was… rather interesting, he would see forward to the Custodians further plans and decisions.