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1 Sept 06
The Humans went out with not a bang, but a whimper. Though in the end, they still had some powerful fleets, they had no way to support them. The retro plague wiped out colony after colony until there were only four left. They were well guarded for as long as they could afford the guards. The simple fact was they could destroy bioshock fleets but usually after the missiles fired. Then they could kill some but not all of the missiles. Once the plague was loose on the planet, there was no hope. Due to the massive sudden strikes against the Human economy, their research was slowed then crippled. Without hope of a cure, their cause was lost.
The last major battle of the war was a victory for the Humans. Two of their top of the line Human dreadnoughts combined with a full three rings of planetary defenses and a swarm of destroyers to take out three of the older Liir dreadnoughts. The Liir dreadnoughts knew they could not crush the defenses. They tried to smash the planet and hold on to survive to pull back. They inflicted heavy damage on the planet, but were all wiped out.
Unfortunately for the Humans at the same time, two other colonies were being assaulted and destroyed. That left them with only one surviving world and a few new colonies. The Human surrender came shortly after that.
In the end, the Liir killed 851 destroyers, 282 cruisers and 9 dreadnoughts while losing 139 destroyers, 78 cruisers and 8 dreadnoughts. They had 14 Billion swimmers on 26 colonies and 581 ships. May the peace of the Liir be long and wet.
Jason
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31 Aug 06
The Humans have the armor, firepower and sheer volume of ships to win battles against us. It's not a good idea for us to go head to head and pound them. Fortunately, our strategy has not been about destroying every Human ship out there. It's been focused on taking out their worlds, crushing their economy and will to fight.
Some of my dreadnoughts were getting long in the tooth. They were taking more damage. It was taking longer to take out Human cruisers and dreadnoughts. It was only a matter of time before something bad happened. It happened at Ke'Vanthu. Our cleansing fleet flickered in and drove to try to clear the planet. The engaged a couple of cruisers taking out one. They continue on to engage the planet and the defensive satellites.
Suddenly, bearing down on them were two Human dreadnoughts with a good fleet of cruisers and destroyers in escort. My dreadnoughts turned to engage. They focused fire upon the lead dread while targeting smaller ships with available guns. Initially things looked good as a cruiser and few destroyers went down. Then the enemy dreadnoughts opened up with their beams. They had many heavy lasers and particle beams. They were engaging all three dreadnoughts and cutting them to pieces.
That close to the planet and its gravity well, there were few options. Retreat would mean that they could fire more weapons on us than we on them. The only hope was to slug it out. If the fleet survived, it could flicker away and heal. It was not to be. The Humans were using some improved torpedoes as well. Those started pounding home and things looked grim. It was still a surprise when the command dread exploded in sudden fireball. We sounded the immediate retreat, but it was too late. In just a few volleys the other two dreads were reduced to rubble. The support fleet ran for the cover of deep space.
Though the Humans are getting harder and harder to fight head on, they're not defeating our strategy. Thanks to dreadnought assaults and retro plague attacks, their empire has fallen from twenty-two planets to merely nine. Two more are seriously infected and could die soon. We just have to keep up the pressure a little longer while the new dreadnought fleets come online. Hopefully they will soon see their folly and sue for peace. We can hope. Otherwise it is a future on long battles and heavy losses, but the end will be the same regardless.
Jason
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30 Aug 06
As feared, the Humans adapted quickly to our cloaking ships. Some of their standard designs had the advanced sensors to detect us. This has only resulted in the near destruction of one small stealth fleet. However, it limits our options to keep developing stealth bioshock fleets. Moving forward we will return to heavy assault dreadnought fleets using our latest technology. The remaining bioshock fleets will continue to harass enemy planets.
The Humans have lost five planets now to the plague. They've lost another two to dreadnought fleets. The battles haven't been particularly exciting. The bioshock fleets just hit and run mainly to avoid unnecessary loss, but also because the Humans have built some huge fleets. We've seen as many as five dreadnoughts around a planet. Many Human planets have full rings of dreadnought class satellite defenses. while the small fleets can do little against such numbers, it is perhaps better to let them be. We continue to shrink the Human economy by taking away planets and production. They still have to support those massive fleets. Leaving more ships intact, while potentially dangerous, just adds to their economic woes. Given the limited ability of the bioshock forces to actually take out enemy ships, the risk/reward made the decision easy.
The one interesting battle came at Uulani. Though not far from the main battles recently, there was only a token defense fleet in place. It was mostly older ships and rings of satellites. They were quite dismayed to see a Human dreadnought appear above the planet. It only had a couple support ships. Though seemingly a lost cause, the forces rallied to face the dread. The older defense craft fired with their outdated weaponry until the dreadnought swept them aside. The dread did not have such an easy time with the satellites or planetary defenses. Missile after missile slammed into the dread. Soon it was slowed and limping and forced to withdraw.
Though affected by the Human production limitation weapon, the planet was able to produce a top of the line cloaked assault cruiser. When the battle resumed, the stealth cruiser ran circles around the dreadnought. Though it appeared on of the support ships moved into position to broadcast telemetry to the dreadnought, the dread itself was the first to fall. Then the support ships were mopped up. Uulani is now known as the little planet that could.
The Humans have started repopulating some of the plague cleared planets. That was expected. The plan is to keep casualties ahead of rebuilding until their surrender or economic collapse. For now the plan continues as amended.
Jason
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29 Aug 06
Only the Humans remain. They have chosen now to make war. We don't understand their plan. Their initial assaults have failed. They have not been able to repulse our major attacks. Even our skirmishing fleets are having surprising success. Their doom has just begun.
The Humans have watched us battle. They know our heavy use of plamsa and energy weapons. We knew of their planned treachery. We decided to implement two technologies they had never seen us use. The hope was the impact would be so enormous that they would be either unable to respond, not have the resources to do so or sue for peace. We called it bioshock and awe.
The first technology was a modification of our shields. We created cloaking technology to hide us from the more numerous Human ships. Then we improved it so our ships could fire without removing their cloak. Even if the Humans have the technology to peer through our cloaks, they'll have to field ships with less firepower to do it and keep them in close range.
The second technology was one we questioned using. However, a long war would mean more deaths of our young, and we could not allow that. We tailored a biological weapon for their species. Then we refined it into a more potent retro viral formulation. Unless they had already been working in this area, it would take them far too long to develop an antibody.
So while our cleansing fleets engage them in straightforward combat, our stealth fleets purge their rear worlds. The cloaked ships come in from an unknown vector burning straight for the planet. The combat ships clear any close satellites. Then the bio missile ships fire their deadly payload too close to be shot down. If the planet is lightly defended, the fleet may take out a few more ships. If it's heavily defended, the fleet retreats. Once infected, the planet is likely to die quickly.
The purging fleets will keep on the move trying to hit planet after planet maximizing chaos and death before the Human scientists can respond. Then the Human economy will collapse. They will either beg for peace or be wiped out. Already they have lost several planets. More purging fleets are closing in on their targets.
Massed Human dreadnoughts, according to our estimates, should be able to withstand a direct assault. Hopefully our strategy will circumvent that problem. The scales are tipping in our favor. We must press on.
Jason
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28 Aug 06
The end of the Tarka came even more unexpectedly. The Humans were being cagey leaving large fleets around my new colonies. That kept me moving fleets around like chess pieces to guard against sudden treachery. My second cleansing fleet was still quickly launched against the Tarka planet of Ke'Kiralta. The Humans sent a shadow fleet to take advantage of my presumed failure. They no doubt hoped to grab the planet, but they could have just been making sure I didn't leave a wounded but not defeated anyway. Regardless, they showed up after the main battle.
The Tarka defense was mostly high speed destroyers with beam weapons, but they had the planetary defenses and two rings of satellites to fall back on. However, the fleet was lead by the a heavy beam dreadnought. The dread took up it's position near the satellites with its rear to the planet. That left no choice but to charge into the teeth of its beams. I had to count on the fact that my combined dreadnought firepower from three ships should overcome his advantage in armor and directed weapons. The plan worked. The Tarka dread's hull was soon ringing with constant impacts. Beams and torpedoes cut into its sides. However, whenever all those beams fired, it put a hurt on whichever dread was in its sights. It couldn't withstand the beating for long and detonated in an impressive explosion.
Without the dread, there wasn't much left that could hurt our fleet so they charged into weapons range of the planet and opened up. The armored dread picked off the remaining destroyers while the planetary barrage dread took out the satellites. Most weapons still fired at the planet. The surface went dark surprisingly quickly. The Human shadow fleet actually helped clean up a few remaining satellites and stragglers in the ensuing battle. I quickly followed up with colonists just before the Humans arrived with theirs.
Once another colony was well defended, the first cleansing fleet moved on to assault Kao'Tuno. It had only a light cruiser defense and more of the beam destroyers. They were no match for the dreadnought assault. The fleet and the planet were quickly wiped out. The Tarka could see where this was going. They no longer had an industrial base to produce dreadnoughts. Without dreadnoughts they could not survive. Apparently they chose mass ritual suicide over defeat. That created a sudden land grab as the Human raced us to claim those abandoned planets. We won and snatched up two more colonies including the former Tarka home world.
Now the Humans eyed us warily with no enemies between us. We both scrambled to complete the new weapons we hoped would enable us to win this new war. We both worked to quickly build up our new colonies.
Though this will be our greatest challenge, we are far from panic. We have a few different strategies we're working on to cripple the Human war effort. We also have some significant ship upgrades we're working on. Fleets and defenses are under construction. Some of the pieces are in place. Now time has run out. The Humans have declared an end to our agreement and the peace we have enjoyed. It is time for the final war.
Jason
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