Great Wars of the Galactic Sector

[Azatol]

After observing that the AI in the newest Proportions version is lackluster, I decided to take some race ideas I had before and add in the Star Wars Empire to make a four way brawl and get more of a sense of the newer Proportions, as well as a fun story with 4 very different empires. I also used non-stock shipsets for all of them.

Empires:

Metal Collective - These guys are an expansionistic robot civilization, but they support trade as long as they still have room to expand elsewhere. They rely on tons of smaller lower tech ships in war, since they have a heavy penalty to research but nice bonuses to production and construction. Their shipset is composed of all little metal box segments, so everything looks very right angle and geometrical.

Transcyber Initiative - Transcyber gives a different picture of AI, as this civilization is composed of very independent individualistic AIs who live purely in cyberspace. They discovered what we call the real world through controlling programs, and slowly built up an administration. They are masters of everything intellectual, sporting a good bonus in intelligence and research. They use the blackstar shipset which contains red and grey looking vehicles.

D'Anconian Monarchy - The D'Anconian Monarchy relies on centuries of military tradition, and supports training programs for elite infantry, mechs, fighter pilots and ship crews. Ceremony and Pageantry plays a big role in the military and the population is happy for all the focus on magnificent war devices and people. This focus on pageantry detracts from construction and production, but all military units have an advantage over their counterparts, especially in the army. Elite Military traditions and a centralized society are essential to this empire. The Monarcy uses the Niridia shipset which has very visible and colored tips on all the weapons shown.

Palpatine Empire - Emperor Palpatine during the years between ANH and ESB had a scientist working for the empire who discovered time travel and came to him. Palpatine went into the future and discovered that his empire was no longer in existence. He never knew who had killed him off, but he returned from his travel and made a plan. Palpatine and Vader decided to return to the foundations of the Republic in the days before hyperspace travel. They returned to a place before Jedi, and quickly took control of the ancient planet for their own. Even though hyperspace was not developed yet, Palpatine discovered from the inhabitants that wormholes were also a reliable form of travel. Palpatine and Vader direct the operations of this new yet ancient empire, and relying on their memory they design new ships with similar aesthetics to the great ships of the future.

Current Diplomacy in the Galactic Sector:

By the reckoning of the natives of Palpatines new empire, it is the year 2408.5. A war has broken out with the Palpatine Empire on one side and the Metal Collective and Transcyber Initiative on the other.

Only the Metal Collective has contact with the D'Anconian Monarchy, which is on the far side of the sector.

The War:

By the barest skin of their knees, the Initiative successfully fought a guerrila war against troops of the Palpatine Empire. While right now the Imperial troops are still on planet, recruitment efforts of the Initiative have succeeded. Over 200 units of infantry were raised in four months, and though they were lost quickly, they have depleted the invading forces.

Meanwhile, right this moment, the warfleet of the Metal Collective is engaged with the unsupplied and damaged Imperial fleet just a few sectors from the Initiate homeworld.

And yet, this war finds its twist in every battle. Another Imperial ship has arrived, having been delayed in leaving from Coruscant. This is a carrier full of fighters. When they arrived, just before the battle happening now, they were able to exchange supplies with some of the warships.

The fighters swarm around enemy frigates, only taking casualties on lucky shots, but only doing small damage to the enemy. The Heavy Destroyers are using what laser fire could be spared, and then the ramming began. And so the unsupplied Empire fights like a mountain cat cornered.

Three K-04-Kappas, one of them missing a cannon, as well as an Aleph, and a Phi are the last survivers on the side of the Collective among heavy losses, but the Empire has no supply and only a few ships left. The only shock on the side of the AIs is how much damage the wounded Imperial fleet has done.

Desperate against the fighters, a Kappan Corvette captain ordered his ship to be sent against fighters, for ramming. The Collective fleet can be repaired locally since they brought their own construction ships which are biding time nearby. So the Kappa rams the fighters one at a time, watching them smash into the ship, as the others desperately try to manuever. Other ships, learning how well this tactic works, do the same, and the Imperial fighter force is destroyed.

The Plans Archivist, the mild mannered Ruler AI of the Collective, must surely be informed to go all out in constructing a new fleet so the alliance may finish off the warlike Empire.

Meanwhile, the ponderous and heavily wounded Imperial Agressor, a Minesweeping ship, barely gets its propulsion under control and ambles towards the damaged Kappa-class corvette of the Collective. All students of ramming as a military weapon should know that bigger ships do much better. The medium transport ploughs right through the center of the corvette. The ship shakes violently, systems are out all over the place, all thats left is a hull, one engine and a supply compartment.

On the other hand, the Kappa is no more, as both Imperial Adz Laser Heavy Destroyers each try ram the Aleph.

The Adz and Aleph are intertwined as the second Adz backs off from his ramming order. Its hard to tell who will be destroyed by such a ram, the captain of the second Adz says. He sends the last message from the fleet, at 1700 hours, informing Darth Vader that perhaps a new class of ships designed for ramming should be built.

The last systems of the minesweeper explode as the whole thing becomes just more floating scrap metal, meanwhile, to the great surprise of the collective fleet, the Kappa that had been rammed reveals the crew is still alive, it was intertwined with the Aggressor after ramming.

The Local Archivist with the Fleet calls off any more ramming operations, informing them to use cannons and missiles instead. Only one Adz is left mobile on the imperial side. That Adz captain finally decides to ram the hulk that is his brother ship and the Aleph, exploding the Aleph and leaving both Imperial ships mashed together. His engines remain operational, but not for long.

Adz #2, having lost their bridge, regains contact with the first. Once again the Collective is shocked at the resiliency of such a squishy organic race.

The Collective stays out of ramming range and fires upon the two ships. They are both destroyed by missiles.

The Final Tally in ships lost to the battle is 6 Adz II Heavy Destroyers, 1 Active Troop Transport, 1 Aggressor Minesweeper and 1 Annihilator Carrier on the Empire side. The collective lost 3 Kappan Corvettes, 3 Phi Corvettes, and an Aleph Frigate as well as damage to 3 other ships. The Collective fleet returns to the Initiative homeworld, where its own construction ships are busy building the newer Eta class ship, the newest warship in the collective.

Still at this moment, Imperial troops are on the Initiative homeworld, if miracles could happen, they might win the day regardless of the fleet's loss.

[Azatol]

The Second Battle of Calatius Homeworld, Part 1

Since both the Initiative, which had a weak fleet to begin with, and the Collective, whose fleet had been pared down greatly, were unlikely to be able to finish off the Empire for the time being, the allies returned to feverish construction schedules for new fleets. The construction ships of the Collective who were at the staging area were of great help, since the trip between the allies was a half year endeavor.

The Empire improved its laser technology once again, giving it an advantage in weapon efficiency. Against the large ships of the Initiative, this worked well, but the Collective had more smaller ships that were manueverable and presented problems for the Empire's targetting computers.

Having received the message about constructing a new class of ship designed for ramming, Vader ignored it, never telling Palpatine of its existence.

The Collective could not understand the designs of its Cerebral ally, but said nothing. On the other hand, the Initiative was shocked to discover that the Collective operated over two dozen mining bases that provided a significant portion of its resources. Asteroid Fields were an ideal system for the collective, but only one had been found, and it was being exploited to the max.

The Collective wrestled with the issue of whether to bring the Monarchy into the war. The negatives were that the Monarchy was militaristic like the Empire, whereas the current alliance was composed of nations who had other main goals, such as knowledge and industry. The Monarchy might decide to join the Empire side if they had contact, and destroy the Collective whose fleet was away.

The arrival of the Second Collective Fleet, merging with the first on location at the Initiative homeworld would form the largest naval force yet assembled, surely sufficient to smash Imperial defenses.

The Collective was preparing on the ground war front as well, recruiting a vast Space Marines force, but the troop transports were delayed, just in route as of 2409.6, while the second Collective fleet was approaching the main fleet. Coordinator Esharon had asked his people for ideas about how to help the Collective fleet destroy the Empire. Since the collective was leading the show, it was decided to integrate Initiative ships under their command.

2409.8

23 Warships, 6 refuelers, and troops from both the Initiative and the Collective are ready at the staging area. More troops will be arriving from Chelikbar, the Collective home system, but they don't plan on waiting. The fleet is ready to move at the beginning of the next month.

Meanwhile, the Empire is building the Anterab class Light Cruiser, they have three, and the older Adz, which have all been upgraded to the newest lasers. The Imperial fleet is about half the Collective fleet size. Palpatine knows an attack is coming, he can feel it. Vader is worrying about a disturbance in the force, very faint. He can not solve this mystery, much as he tries.

The Construction Ships of the Collective halt operations, and pack up, taking one warship with them to search out systems for mining operations. The Collective war fleet is in transit.

2410.4

The Collective fleet arrives in the Imperial Home System, with about 60% of supply remaining. Refueling ships credited with successful operation, fleet prepares for offensive operations.

The Empire begins a mass troop conscription drive in preparation for a ground war.


Final composition of the Imperial Fleet before battle:
10 Adz III class Heavy Destroyers
5 Anterab class Light Cruisers.

Final composition of the Collective Fleet before battle:
6 Psi Class Refueling Small Transports
1 Gamma Class Troop Carrying Small Transport
2 3B3 Class Cruisers (On Loan from Initiative)
1 Phi Class Frigate
2 Theta Class Frigates
13 Eta Class Frigates - 4 with unrepaired retrofits: 1 missile each missing.
3 Kappa Class Corvettes


2401.5

The battle begins:

The Imperial fleet makes a formation manuever, slowly arranging the fleet in front of the homeworld, where missile defenses may provide a small amount of additional defense, but largely they are obsolete. The planet also provides a small amount of point defense.

Each Eta has a very long range missile launcher, but the Empire has missile defense integrated into all of its ships. The Collective fleet pushes forward, seeking to get in range of its cannonry. The undamaged Eta's Fire missiles at the Imperial ships that are already in position. The other imperial ships are still closing into the fleet line.

A communications problem has put some of the Collective's warships off the battle line with the support ships instead. Those ships rush off towards the battle line. It is clear that formations on both sides need to be worked out for the future.

The Collective fleet moves forward again, forming a double line in some places. It is clear the Empire will get the first shots off, not counting the missiles.

The Empire orders its ships to give first priority to the 3B3 Cruisers of the Initiative. The Empire's point defense proves shoddy, but it has plenty of it...hopefully. Imperial lasers prove themselves to be quality and the majority of beams hit. The first of the two 3B3s is turned into a weaponless hull as a result of the focus of the Empire's ships.

On the bad side for the Empire, against the Collective ships, which are more manueverable, the lasers struggle to hit. The Empire is barely countering the initial missile attack of the Collective as most anti-missile cannon fire misses completely.

Enough Laser fire does get through to neutralize another ship, an Eta frigate as the last of the Imperial ships in range fire. Still there are ships coming in from the far side of the planet. This includes two Anterabs.

The battle seems more even sided than expected, and the efficiency of the cannonry fire will be very decisive in this battle. If the Collective can strike back and take out some enemy ships, they will do fine, if they only knock out one, they will be destroyed as the Laser fire has proven sufficient. Once again, the effect of larger hull sizes on the Imperial side has been underestimated by the Collective who sticks still with Frigates. An Imperial victory today will be an incredible blow to the Collective which has outproduced the Empire by astounding margins.

Closing the point blank range, the frigates of the Collective fire, but they have much less impressive weapon spreads than the Empire, having even as few as one cannon on some of the ships, and two on most.

The fleet does little more than slightly damage a few Imperial ships, and heavily damage one, and the seemingly invincible Collective fleet is looking pathetic against the withering Laser fire of the Empire. But the remaining 3B3 of the Initiative decides to make a tactical manuever and swings away from the battle, but remains somewhat close, no doubt hoping to not get targetted by Imperial weapons for a while.

Never count the Empire out as they seem to rebound excellently, with a weaponry advantage and especially a ship design advantage the AI alliance is floundering, and we may see the Empire once again knocking on the doorstep of the weak Transcyber Initiative soon.

*BATTLE TO BE CONTINUED*

[Azatol]

The Second Battle of Calatius Homeworld, Part 2

Vader redirected the fleet's focus, telling them to focus on destroying each ships weapons before moving on. The fleet had a clear firepower advantage over the Collective, they may not have had the bigger guns, but they had more. Also the laser fire was more damaging than Collective cannonry fire, since research into lasers was a priority in the empire.

With the remaining rear elements of the Imperial Fleet finally arriving, Vader used all the firepower he had turning one ship after another into merely a weaponless shell. The Anterab class ships were especially dominant, able to almost destroy an entire frigate in one weapons firing suite.

The Local Archivist processed all this information, he now guessed that the Collective would need around sixty frigate warships to take down such a well armed fleet. Along with them, almost 20 refueling ships would be needed, as well as two or three troop transports. He continued processing data from the battle.

The Battle turning his way, Vader ordered the fleet to fire and then retreat as a precaution against ramming. The Empire destroyed six more ships in a matter of minutes, routing the collective.

The Refuelers of the Collective began moving forward and forming up for ramming duty, while concentrated fire from the warships was sufficient to cripple one enemy ship. Another barrage of missiles were launched by the collective as well, but missile warfare was slowly dying and direct fire weapons dominating on the battlefield.

The right flank of Vader's fleet engaged the second 3B3, which among the Collective ships, was the only one armed as well as the imperial ships, with six cannons to the Adz II's seven lasers. It was destroyed by the combined fire of five ships. The Anterab, on the other hand, carried NINE lasers.

The battle had so far been more civilized than previous ones, as ships with weapons left fired them instead, and the other ships had no engines either. It was doubtful whether the refueling ships of the Collective would get in range for ramming before being destroyed.

The collective corralled what few warships were remaining, ramming those who could move but did not have significant firepower left, and firing with the others. Their fleet was surrounded on three sides, but then the Collective never retreated anyway, better to ram and rebuild, they figured.

The secondary fire control centers of the Anterab light cruisers proved handy as these ships devastated everything left of the Collective warships, leaving only the troop transports and refuelers remaining.

The Anterab's were set up as forward picket for these repurposed ramming ships, to destroy them before they came in range, and retreat as needed to wipe them out. They did their job well, proving them to be the best ships in the sector.

The effective result of the battle was, on the imperial side, the damaging of five ships, and the loss of none. The five ships varied in damage from lots to hardly any. On the AI Alliance side, the entire collection of warships from both sides was destroyed in an incredibly futile attempt at defeating the Empire.

Palpatine laughed like a sith would on such a victorious occassion, while Vader still felt something, somewhere that was just barely breaking into the force somehow, despite the fact that only Palpatine and himself should be adepts in it at this time. It was like an almost silent whisper, but he could hear it, and it irritated him as to where this could be happening.

Since the local archivist was destroyed, the one back home took up the task of analyzing the results of the battle, as did the Initiative. It was decided that since the Initiative could field the biggest ships around, they must build a strong fleet as well. Only a vast endless supply of Collective warships, and a reasonably large number of Heavy Cruisers from the Initiative would be able to strike the finishing blow. The Initiative was tasked with leading the way forward the next time, for now they had to prepare their defenses, and watch the pendulum swing around again.

The Collective reported they were now able to build Destroyers and would make that the main hull of their next main warship. The Omega, their new Destroyer design, was changed, the missiles were dropped, and the missile defense halved.

[Azatol]

The Second Imperial Offensive

The Empire decided not to immediately launch a counterattack, having no fueling ships, and thus spent its time building fuelers, and recruiting troops, ensuring it would have enough troops to decisively take planets, unlike the previous Army fiasco.

The Archivist of the Collective decided to go for an overwhelming advantage before making any more moves. Their plan was for fifty warships of the latest design.

2413.2
Over twenty Collective warships are all undergoing a retrofit. The Archivist has come to the conclusion that the Empire won the last battle by playing to its technological advantage in direct fire. The Collective, after researching missiles further, now sports the most sophisticated missiles in the sector. All warships are under retrofit to replace cannons with missiles. Also, new research has finally allowed the Collective to design and build Heavy Destroyers. Their latest design, the Omnicron Heavy Destroyer, carries 5 missile launchers.

The Initiative has a new hull available for future ships as well. The unprecedented Battle Cruiser hull size is used in the latest ship, which is the first Initiative design to reject the old philosophy of General Design. There are no fighter bays, satellite launching equipment or mine equipment onboard. It is packed with cannons and supply storage, which is still integrated by ship unlike the other three nations.

The old Heavy Cruisers have been retrofitted to a more military design as well, scrapping all the old support componentry.

Six 3D-4BB Heavy Cruisers and one 4/NG Battle Cruiser stand ready, having been informed of the arrival of an Imperial Warfleet, headed their way. This marks the beginning of the second offensive campaign of the Empire.

9 Adz IV, 5 Anterab II, 6 Fuelers and a fully loaded Troop Transport are among the elements of this fleet. The battle worth of the Initiative's ships will be tested soon.

There were no mines blocking the way of the Imperial fleet, as all the efforts of their enemy have gone into the construction of warships. Day after day the Initiative have hoped for the arrival of another Collective fleet, but not got it, now they must fend for themselves. The only Collective presense is two Troop Transports, which could possible end up retaking any conquered homeworld of the Initiative, but only if they can survive the initial invasion.

2413.3

However, the Collective transports remain above the homeworld, and surely the Empire will seek to destroy the soldiers onboard them.

The tight knit group of Initiative warships face twice as many yet smaller ships across the black void, waiting.

All of the Adz class vessels have been outfitted with new Energy Shields, a technology recently discovered by the empire itself, but off course known well to Vader and Palpatine. The amount of shielding on the ships is minor at best, but may offer a small defensive advantage. No space could be found in the Anterab ship design to add shield generators as of yet.

As the two fleets close in, the Initiative retreats to a solid line from their compact formation, hoping to get a first shot off as the Empire closes in. They focus on the southern flank of the Imperial fleet, which will require the Empire to rush reinforcements southward as ship for ship the Initiative has the advantage.

Initiative cannon fire at maximum range misses alot but has some hits. The large mounted cannons are having some affect however as each hit has a visible impact on the target's systems. An Anterab explodes as Initiative fire continues amidst the counterfire, then a second Anterab, and a third Anterab is heavily damaged. The Counterfire from the Empire will likely say everything about which side will win.

The Empire quickly closes to point blank range to ensure every beam hits, and they do. The new Adz design with shields has not been tested yet as the Initiative focusses soley on the Anterabs. Three 4BB class Heavy Cruisers explode from Laser fire, revealing both sides to be very effective with their weaponry, the Initiative because of thier superior mounted weaponry and the Empire because of their research into Laser design and production.

The Adz warships prove to be very manueverable even at point blank range as fire from the remaining four warships of the Initiative misses about half the time at that range. The Initiative has to get better at targetting, but they don't have much time left to do so.

Two Adz are destroyed and surely now, the Empire will win, once again the Lasers have come through for them. The Adz shielding proved almost pointless, but not quite, a minor extra amount of protection at best.

Two more Initiative warships become orbiting collections of dust gas and metal hulk, as does an Adz on the Imperial side.

The Army campaign is likely to begin soon as the Troop Transport of the Empire is ambling slowly towards the planet.

The last two ships of the Initiative, including the single Battle Cruiser are destroyed without further losses to the Imperial fleet. The ships are sent after the Collective troop transports now, as their own close in.

As parachutes eased the descent of Space Troop Expeditionary Vehicles, there was no Initiative to watch the descent. Except in cyberspace where control and observation mechanisms sent the status of what might be roughly translated as 'meatspace' to the ais who wished to observe. This information was received as pure text, but the AIs who watched knew what was happening, but they did not know the consequences.

A small group of AI entities believed that actions in the meatspace could destroy their own world. This was a belief not shared by most of the Initiative, but these people were paniccing today. Surely the Empire would discover what in meatspace was the buttress to cyberrealm, and shut it off, wiping out billions of intelligent agents forever.

The Imperial Army, having regrouped on touchdown, found only a few mechanical warbots, and no citizens. They never really had understood what the nature of the Initiative was. Vader and the army crisscrossed the country trying to understand and take control of Initiative operations, but they never decommissioned the central servers which supported the cyberrealms and its inhabitants.

They did not do this because they never identified it as such. What droid experts that could be found managed to utilize the production machinery of the Initiative for their own purposes and began to make full use of the world. However they never touched any of the servers they found, under orders of Vader, on the assumption that this might sever the control of the various worker bots used.

In the cyber realm, information about the Meatspace was gradually lost, and the fanatics who believed the Meatspace could effect their own realm were discredited, ironic then, that they were correct. The Initiative returned to its old ways which were insular to the Cyber realm. This was how things were on the days before the first transrealm connections were discovered.

Meanwhile, the robotically controlled colonies of the initiative remained free but uncontrolled by the Initiative. They operated independently and heralded the brief Machinery Control Coalition, before the Empire took over these too. The troop transports of the Collective were likewise destroyed.

The Empire, which had faced an alliance of enemies, now could focus on the Collective, while also gaining the production and administrative advantages of a second developed world. But the wars of the Galactic Sector were not over yet, not by far.

[Azatol]

Here comes the Monarchy!

With his ally gone, the Plans Archivist of the Collective pondered his options, and determined that despite the risks, the D'Anconian Monarchy must be involved in this war. Surely their military perspective would help in countering the Empire.

The negotiations to enter the Monarchy into the war were difficult, but the Queen agreed to join the war on condition that full support would be given to Monarchy forces in establishing a forward operations center on the Collective homeworld.

As a result of the negotiations, the Collective was informed that the Queen's forces included nine carriers, eight support warships, and two troop transports that were under construction currently. There were also a number of refueling ships in the fleet.

The Queen informed the Archivist that the 1st Elite Royal Army was almost formed up and ready for action. These were all elite infantrymen and women who had trained and met rigorous standards over the past ten years of recruitment on the harsh Elite Army Training Grounds planet.

The Collective in turn informed the Queen that they had the most sophisticated missiles in service under any navy, and 22 warships crammed full of them to fight off the Empire.

2413.5

The Imperial fleet took some damage from mines overhead Polaris V, they are limping back to the Initiative homeworld, having destroyed that colony.

The First Mechanized Army of the Monarchy was forming up, composed of small war machines instead of infantry. Transport craft were under construction at the moment, ready to take these troops to the staging area above the Naval Training Grounds colony, where training exercises were frequently run to improve manuevering, targetting and team work.

The Second Royal Army was the only standard grade infantry force deploying. This was the first unit formed up under the auspices of Queen Laraina's rule. Many of these soldiers had served as the Outer Palace Guard for over a decade.

There were nine squadrons of fighters with pilots who had graduated from the recently constructed Elite Fighter Pilot Academy. They piloted fighters with slightly toughened hull strength and greater manueverability. The total squadron count was 84 Small Fighter Squadrons and 18 Medium Fighter Squadrons (including the 9 elites).

The Small Transport Carrier design used could carry 12 Small or 9 Medium fighters per ship. The Agmen class missile defense ship was built as a precaution, since if the Collective was using so many missiles, it clearly would be a good idea to sweat a little about missile defense. Once a few of these ships, along with two troop transports were fully loaded and in formation with the fleet, then they would make their move to the Collective homeworld to assess conditions and plan the next actions.

The Collective, as of 2413.6, still had a substantial portion of its fleet being retrofitted to missile designs. The Plans Archivist was frustrated with the slower construction rate of the bigger ships being built now. More ships always seemed better than bigger ships. But a lesson had been taught by the battles with the Empire, bigger ships are better.

However the lessen the empire took from the early stages of the war was, small ships are a real bear to hit, because of their manueverability. They focussed research efforts on why the weapons crew missed so much and how to make improvements.

In those days and months, the Archivist always believed the Empire would be on their doorstep any month now. In fact, the next battle would once again be in the Polaris system.

[Azatol]

The First Battle of Imperial Polaris

2415.9

The Empire has finished the design of the Badlands Cruiser, the first Imperial ship to have significant shielding. The Badlands also had superior targetting and ECM technologies as well as the Empire's signature lasers. It has only just begun construction just as the combined allied forces have set off to attack the Imperial presense in Polaris. The Collective will make the first assault, if there fleet falls, or the result is indecisive within the first month, then the Monarchy will attack.

The Monarchy have put into production the Agrimensor, a destroyer with a new weapon for them, the torpedo. No ships of this design will make it to the first battles with the Empire, but they will be ready for use as reinforcements for the attack on the Imperial home system, provide that Polaris can be captured.

Between the two allied fleets there are seventy ships, with about sixteen of those being fueling ships. The Monarchy has six troop transports, nine carriers, eight warships and two missile defense ships in addition to fuelers. The Collective has thirty missile warships and two troop transports likewise.

The Empire has 21 Warships, Two troop transports and two Carriers at Polaris as well as two warships in the Calatius system.

The Ala class represents a new kind of ship for the Monarchy, with a few torpedos as well as boarding parties, this ship can knock down the shields and then capture an enemy vessel. It is a Heavy Destroyer, a hull size which was the result of recent efforts to develop special carrier hulls. This specific goal has not yet been achieved but larger warship hulls have been one gain.

2416.6

The Imperial fleet is rapidly swelling in ranks as both homeworlds produce Badlands cruisers as quickly as they can. The allies' fleets are due to arrive in another few months. Very soon Palpatine will have still larger hulls available to him.

The Collective was about to get some results out of its missile research program after years of nothing but theoretical gains. The specialization of Collective and Monarchy technologies ensured the Empire would have to defend against two very different kinds of fleets.

2416.8

The Empire drops 2000 infantry units from the fleet onto Polaris VI. Even with Monarchical superiority in ground combat, this represents a very substantial ground forces power.

2416.9
The Imperial Heavy Cruiser Banthar is the first with heavy mounted lasers and has more shielding than any of the smaller vessels. Construction began just as the attack came from the Collective.

The allies make an agreement that if the Imperial fleet above Polaris IV is destroyed, the Monarchy will make the first troop invasion, because of their special capability in that area. If they succeed in defeating the sizeable ground forces the planet is under their custody, otherwise the Collective will make a second ground assault and take custody themselves.

Collective vs. Empire

The battle began in chaos as there was confusion as to how to organize both sides' fleets with so many ships. Some ships of each side had crossed close to other ships of the enemy while the main lines were distant. The whole situation was cluttered as best.

To the Empire's advantage several warships that had been unable to form up in the main battle line were within firing range of Collective warships. The Empire got its first shots off as both sides recognized what had happened.

An Imperial troop transport was actually behind the Collective battle line, having been running a simulation for whatever reason with the Collective so close.

Two Badlands ships were behind the enemy lines as well. The chaos served the empire as good missile fire and range required a structured line.

Unfortunately while many Imperial ships were far forward of its own line, Collective ships that went astray were far behind.

The latest laser technology gave the empire excellent range for a beam weapon as several Collective ships exploded from concentrated fire.

The fighters deployed by the Empire were the first able to keep up with the rest of the fleet, but point defense heavily damaged many squadrons when they closed in to an Omega class.

The Collective fleet called general retreat to form a new battle line and fire missiles evenly against as many targets as possible.

The Badlands ships which were close to the enemy line used what missile defense they could to knock out the missiles coming towards them and continued firing on the collective ships of the main line. Their ability to quickly alternate targets was very helpful.

Then the missiles came, streaking all over the place, they hit many of the forward targets, and others were heading for the main battle line of the empire. Anterab class ships that were hit were heavily damaged, while the Badlands ships had enough shielding to absorb one salvo of missiles. The Collective had lost a number of ships but the Empire did not have enough missile defense to prevent much of their main line from being decimated.

The forward forces of the Empire have been hit several times with missiles but are holding up, at least until the next Salvo. On the other hand, the right flank of the main battle line has been decimated as the missiles targetted those ships finally arrive causing much destruction. The Forward ships have done some damage, but without their presence, this battle would have been an overwhelming defeat for the Empire.

The only chance for the Empire is to charge forward to try to get into laser range. Easier said than done against a retreating Collective force.

On the plus side for the Empire, the one remaining Badlands destroyed one of the collective Troop transports, improving the chances that the allies will not have enough troops to win the ground campaign.

The second missile volley of the main battle line, which is finally forming up as stragglers arrive fires upon the left flank this time, as well as the forward elements. Only crippled ships remain anywhere near the collective fleet.

Imperial ships explode in rapid succession from missile hits while the limited point defense available preserves a portion of the battle lines of the Empire.

Hulks, and heavily damaged ships with limited movement are everywhere behind the Imperial battle line which is increasingly looking like an arrowpoint instead. Fighters are slightly ahead of the main line and one straggling missile warship was destroyed by three Imperial ships.

The Collective is running out of room as the Empire continues to press forward despite its losses. The next volley is likely the last safe one after which any surviving Imperial warships would be able to fire back.

There are no healthy warships left in the Imperial fleet as the last salvo before the Empire comes in range damages the remaining ships of the advance. The losses are huge as two fleets will be available to sweep into the Imperial home system. But first Polaris IV must be captured to allow for refueling. That job will be turned over to the D'Anconian Army chief and his troops.

For now, the Collective navy has clean up duty, destroying the fighting force and the wrecks left floating adrift above Polaris.