Crossposting from the
Outsider forums:
I have been a fan of the webcomic for years, loving the story and the universe. Arioch has weaved an interesting story that uses the various tropes as intended -like tools- and not as shortcuts. While we've been waiting for Outsider to continue despite the schedule slipping, I see that this universe has a decent-sized fanbase that has created some fanfiction. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring.
In this case, it is a setting of my creation. This setting is a future-history setting, a possible future if you will. It is a setting where the present-day is set in the mid 25th century (aka the 2440s) if you still use the Anno Domini calendar, where conflict is just a fact of life. Much has changed in the intervening centuries before that present-day. The situation stems from the prospect of -in the grand scheme of things- Hobbes is closer to the human condition. The story takes place centuries after the present after SolGov (the UN successor) conquered the rest of humanity and started traveling across the stars.
It is due to this truth that humanity has been at war with itself for centuries. Across the solar system, mind you. When the average military size in Sol as of 2440 (or 0340 in the New World Era calendar) employed some 35% of a faction's population, the ability to wage war gets impressive. So, in this case, both sides will start seeing humanity as an existential threat, especially if they discover how effective humanity's industry is and their technology.
For example, by 0340 NWE (New World Era), the average human is a byproduct of numerous genetic alteration programs leading to a 160kg (average) person, is described as 'the child of Halo's SPARTAN IIs and Battletech's Elementals' by others. The extensively augmented humans, oddly enough, pales in comparison to the anthropomorphic uplifts that humanity has created. Depending on the template, these beings can reach up to an average of 350kg. These uplifts also have similar augmentations to humans, making them incredibly adaptable. While the average body can only last 120 years before having problems, humanity perfected the ability to switch bodies. This ability makes them, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Some can switch bodies like one would switch clothes. While they're (comparatively) rare, these people get hired by intelligence services of various stripes. The most in/famous of these are the UN successor's Special Actions Division. SAD Agents are generally called 'Genocide Wo/men' by their detractors and enemies, which is considered crass by those who work with and are in the same department as the agents. The reason for this 'crass' nickname stems from SAD's immense mandate and the agents' ability to sterilize everything in an area, killing everyone and everything in it. You've got to understand that this ability has tight regulations with AGI entwined with their consciousnesses having the final say in the field with an RTB requirement after its use. Given the horrific things that agents have to keep an eye on, and the sad reality is that this level of freedom is necessary, as I'm going to reveal.
This extensive gene-manipulation ability also leads to something that would make both sides start needing new undergarments: the ability to cook up horrific bioweapons. To give you an idea of how destructive the various powers can make their bioweapons, I have to talk about Rome. The Roman Metropolitan Area became a 'dead zone' or an area where, if you entered without extensive equipment, you die. The Roman Metropolitan Area became sealed within a nanotech-built Teflon-composite biosphere. The reason why? Because an 'Eco-Purist' unleashing similar to a bioweapon -called 'Little Boy' after the nuclear bomb- described in a web forum and this bioweapon is a proposal as a last-resort weapon in that context. The only things that can kill the 'biosphere killer' being either nano-disassembler nanites set on 'disassemble anything carbon-based' mode or bathing in Chlorine Trifluoride. That's right, either something that disassembles anything organic molecule by molecule or you bathe in the substance that is known as the chemical of unquenchable fire can kill this bioweapon. Nothing else works, and that includes radiation treatment.
Another 'fun' weapon in humanity's arsenal is memetic weapons. Such weapons are akin to biological weapons that use information transfer as their vector. Several generations of these weapons exist in the setting, with 'Gen5s' -the last generation of such weapons- completely invalidating the idea of free will (with two previous generations showing this property). By the time this fic starts, all but one generation of memetic weapon (Gen5) are no longer a threat to humanity and its "children" (i.e., uplifts and AGIs). If the story took place in 0340NWE, on the other hand, it would be the first two generations being no longer a threat and the third partially eliminated. Thankfully, memetic weapon research has been illegal by the Sol Accord outside of creating countermeasures. While these accords haven't stopped idiots with more ideology than sense from using them, the human race hasn't self-destructed due to the use of such weapons.
Frightening, is it?
Now, in terms of more conventional weaponry, the setting runs the gambit of the realistic and less realistic. You will see magneto-motive (i.e., railguns, coilguns, and helical coilguns) cannons, various lasers (ranging from visual to x-ray), and particle beams alongside energy pulse weapons, 'quark' guns (basically a poor man's molecular disruptor and 'space shotgun'), missiles with various warheads, and weapons designed to disrupt energy shields. The lightest anti-ship energy weapon in the setting as of 0340 is a 4TW (1GJ per pulse, 16 pulses) UV Pulse Laser with an RoF of 4 that can reach out at 40Mm and has an efficiency of 60%. If you haven't seen the scientific papers on how nasty hard UV lasers are on materials, then let me say that the results are shocking. While the setting does have armor that can withstand such strikes, it doesn't last forever, and it is just incredibly thick.
Another difference between humanity and the portion of the galaxy where the Loroi and Umiak reside is their shields. These shields around a whole different paradigm than what the Loroi and Umiak use, as they (apparently) utilize a dispersion-focused setup. This setup is similar to in-setting Energy Dispersion Web or 'ED-WEB' armor enhancements, which in turn is akin to Babylon 5's E-WEB. Dispersion setups are so-called due to how they mitigate damage, i.e., disperse the energy impact over a far larger area. Humanity's shield system isn't dispersion-focused as it uses a neutralization setup instead. At the basic level, shields act akin to ablative armor. You may have seen this sort of shield in various visual science fiction over the years, and you may get the idea that it's 'massless' ablative armor. The reality is that while the field that a shield generator generates is -effectively- massless, the infrastructure isn't. When I talk about infrastructure, I mean the generator itself, the various capacitors, the emitters, the control systems, and most importantly, the power supply to allow them to function. When operational, the shield is capable of taking a lot of punishment under normal circumstances. You can throw kinetic and energy weapons and only slowly widdle the capacitors down, but this changes when specialty 'shield disruptors' and 'shield piercers' come into play. These weapons -usually termed 'energy shells' or 'energy torpedoes' due to being giant packets of semi-guided energy- are specifically designed to disrupt the field that shield generators create. If one facing goes down, then the entire shield dissipates and thus leaving a ship vulnerable. Shield piercers are different in they are expensive specialty devices designed to penetrate shields and are exclusive to missiles, but this isn't 100% effective due to the difficulties involved.
Humanity's ships are different in that, for their designation, they're far heavier. An example will be the Stiletto VIII class corvette. The Stiletto VIII class corvette is a 288-meter long vessel that weighs in at 450 thousand metric tons (or 450kTons for short) and maneuvering capabilities of 27.2 gravities. A Loroi spaceship of a comparable mission is the Rapier class of escort cruisers, which masses 175kTons and maneuvering capabilities of 30 gravities. What the Stiletto VIII class has are impressive offensive and defensive capabilities alongside its station-keeping. Stiletto VIIIs have lots of missiles for a vessel of their size -216 are of the offensive type- while retaining a blistering array of particle and laser cannons.
What the Rapier class has are its higher maneuverability and superior weapons range. A fun quirk of human spaceship design is their design emphasizes long-term station-keeping. While a Rapier class is likely to return to a logistics hub in a few months, the Stiletto VIII class and its 300+ lives can stay on-station for four years. Something more impressive when you account that time on station is for beings with a 12k calorie diet (or if you want to calculate it out, roughly six times the average human). This immense provision capacity is two-fold: one, human ships took years to cross the solar system with lackluster delta-v with the added requirement to fight with said lackluster delta-v, and two, the solar system used to be a scene of constant warfare, and thus constant unhindered resupply was problematic.
The snippet that you'll see has its beginning with the SFSV
Ulysses Haldymire -a massive exploration vessel- entering the same system that the canonical Bellarmine wound up dying in.
(_________________________________________)
SFSV Ulysses Haldymire -Grand Explorer class Deep Range Explorer- CIC, Naam [Orgus Designation]/PIII-5114-222 [SolForce Designation] - about 150 parsecs from the edge of Earth Space; April 15th, 0920 NWE (3020 AD)
"We've exited Hyperlight, Captain," the navigator stated as the female orca-morph double-checked her data, "We've deviated 0.00005402% from entry. Our escorts will be exiting in point-eight-two milliseconds." Soon enough, the central holo-tank showed the two Stiletto VIII class corvettes exiting FTL some 62 kilometers off either side of the massive ship.
That was when the sensors went off.
"Sensors to CIC; we've got energy signatures on the passives consistent from the data that the Orgus gave us. With what the passives are giving us, we've likely stumbled upon a border skirmish," the CSO stated, "The proplyd is reducing our passive sensor capabilities, sir."
"Can you give us any data on the battle without going active?" I ordered, hoping to keep my flotilla alive. While we've got a panic button that would have the 9th Primary Fleet to come in and save our asses, it'll take time to do so. "I want shields up. I don't want to be caught with our pants down if someone is in the proplyd." The shields quickly switched from standby to active, sheathing the three vessels with a capable defensive energy field. "Begin maneuvers to get away from the proplyd; we don't know if anyone's hiding in there until we start going active."
"Sensors to CIC; what I can give you is limited thanks to the proplyd. From what we can decern, we're looking at at least a dozen Loroi and two dozen Umiak capital ships," the CSO answered, "That is without going active. If we go active now, everyone and their brother are going to know that someone is here. We'll be drowning in Loroi and Umiak anti-ship ordinance in that scenario. So far, their energy readings indicate they're primarily using mid-single-digit gigajoule particle cannons and nuclear warheads."
"That's promising," I commented, "Our shields and E-WEB can take that easily; hell, our shields and E-WEB from the 4th century can take those." That was when one of the vessels in the battle exploded. "Sensors, what sort of detonation was that?"
"Sensors to CIC; passives are indicating that it was a combination of a forcefield-enhanced fusion reactor with an output of the tens of terawatts going off and the detonation of a fusion warhead magazine. Their armor, to be frank, appears to be complete and utter shit. I'm getting energy shield indications, but from the reactions I'm seeing, they're designed for dispersion first, not negation."
"Interesting, given they should have armor that is capable enough to take a few hits," I quipped, "that is similar to what we use for E-WEB. Still, to use it as a shield is going to eat your power supply like a pig."
"Not to mention the fact that as a shield system, they're a pain in the ass to maintain," my XO said as he floated through, "I was an engineer back when we started creating modern shield tech. White Section played with that sort of technology but couldn't get it to work. The required powerplant alone is immense, let alone the required volume for the infrastructure. Though, if you can pay the two price tags, then you've got something that works against pretty much anything short of exotics." I looked at the Holo-plot data with interest. "Last I've heard, White Section has been trying to improve the dispersion properties of our shields to help against shield disruptor fire." The one thing that humanity discovered when it went FTL was that several races had superior shield disruptor weapons than SolForce had in its arsenal. The Klackon, Alkari, and Tarkas are the most infamous in that regard. Dispersion fields have always had an edge in that regard, but, so far, the process to mitigate the downsides wasn't successful.
"Sensors to CIC; new contact detected!"
"Sensors, report!" I ordered.
"The cheeky bugger decided to hide in the proplyd! Passives detected him as he exited. Contact appears to be a destroyer type. He's relatively unarmed from what the passives can pick up. Distance, 850km from the
Stiletto of Sorrow."
"Alright, send the SFSV
Stiletto of Sorrow to investigate, focused active only. I don't want the Loroi and Umiak to know we're here just yet," I ordered, "Get the batteries into standby; if they want to start shooting, we've got to be ready for it. Communications, get the first contact package out on a tight beam to the unknown. If I have to hazard a guess, we're dealing with someone else." The current chief communications officer nodded and got the primary communications array to send the tight-beam message.
"Energy spike! Unknown has opened fire with a particle cannon."
"All stations to quick alert!" I ordered, "Brace for impact!" The vessel shook as the particle cannon shots hit the shields.
"The Stiletto of Sorrow is returning fire!" The holo-plot showed the
Stiletto of Sorrow firing its 40TW UV pulse lasers at the unknown, quickly damaging it. The unknown quickly started to maneuver, trying to escape its current predicament due to the disparity shown. The other Stiletto VIII ship, the Stiletto of Woe, shifted into the attack, lending its armaments into the fray. The unknown ship was quickly pot-marked with the carnage of pulse UV-lasers, sending its crew to their demise.
"Welp, so much for doing this stealthfully," I complained, "Alright, stand down from combat alert; set all stations to Condition 2, have DC sweeps prepared, and prepare AARs. Have the
Stiletto of Sorrow send a boarding team ASAP; we need answers, that ship giving us those answers."
"Sensors to CIC; we've got a Loroi warship coming our way. Given the drive plume, we're looking at something in the megaton mass range using hydrogen as their drive propellant. Better armed than the ship we fought against but still somewhat pitiful in armament. I've seen light cruisers with more guns and launchers than that. If I were a betting man, most of that mass and size is likely on their propellant tanks than anything else."
That is weird, as anyone worth their salt would abandon hydrogen as STL propellant well before they went FTL. Hydrogen is just too bulky and only provides a pitiful thrust-to-weight ratio. Back in the fission rocket days, the most common drive propellant wasn't hydrogen but methane when solid cores were a thing. The moment viable gas-cores got into mass production, everyone went to water and never looked back. Races that still use reaction drives -or in the case of several, a mixed bank of reactionless and reaction STL drives- utilize water as their drive propellant. It is far more efficient, and it doesn't do things like cause carbon fouling.
"Prepare for our first contact with the Loroi and get that boarding team on the unknown ASAP," I ordered, "Stay at Condition Yellow; I don't want to be caught with our pants down." With that, things went apace, and our first contact with the Loroi slowly began...
