Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution Journal #3
The Age of War
The year is 2243. Earth has colonized three planets and met several alien civilizations. It has made friends with a couple, and is at war with another.
Human space is connected by a set of Hypergates, which allow for supply ships from Earth to rapidly support the construction of critical infrastructure on these fledgling colonies. In turn, humanity's policies and culture have encouraged friendly migration from across the galaxy.
On the planet Athenia, an ancient artifact has been uncovered. When used, it will greatly increase the destructive power of a selected ship. Despite the war with the malevolent Korath, it has not been necessary to use it.
Humanity is a minor power in the bigger scheme of things, but it is about to transform itself into a major power on the galactic scene.
The Raid
For over a year, the Korath have been raiding just outside human space. Now, it was time to strike back.
The Hyperion and the Roanoke would lead the charge, along with 3 escort fighters. The humans hoped that a show of force might bring the Korath to the bargaining table.
The raid, however, did not go over as planned. While the Terran Alliance had learned a lot about the Korath, the Korath had learned even more about the humans.
This included coming up with counter-measures to the human weapons along, with a different weapons technology that was unknown to them.
They also had a ship much bigger than anything the humans had seen before.
It absolutely dwarfed the Hyperion class ships. The raid was far from convincing the Korath to negotiate a peace - instead, it had emboldened them.
Emergency on Ceres
The engineering team on Ceres was tasked for designing a new class of ship to answer this threat. Unfortunately, such large hull sizes were relatively new but the Odyssey class ship was born (hatt-ip to Steam workshop).
January, 2244
While the war with the Korath became more of a priority, another civilization, apparently related to the Korath known as the Drengin Empire made their anger with EarthGov known.
The long-failing colony of Larasa, orbiting Proxima Centauri, finally revolted and joined the Terran Alliance. Despite the insistence of EarthGov that the Terran Alliance had nothing to do with the colony's defection, the Drengin Empire insisted that humans make Larasa a commonwealth planet.
Larasa was made an independent commonwealth. The Drengin living there will hopefully be able to deal with their parent civilization.
Most experts believed, at the time, that this was a mistake.
The primary problem was that their other colony, Proxima Centauri IV, shared a border with the Terran Alliance and the influence of the Terran Alliance was growing.
April, 2244
Task Force Beta (the second raid) led by the Odyssey class, was more successful than the disastrous first one.
The Speaker for the Labor party, however, disagreed that the task force was impressive to the Korath but rather that the Onxy Hive's growing military power made them decide that they had more worthy adversaries.
May, 2244
The debate over what impressed the Korath came to an abrupt end in May, 2244.
The Korath surrendered to the Altarians, who were now the dominant power in known space.
The Cold Peace
The Drengin Empire, like everyone else, was building up a hypergate network.
Unlike everyone else, the Drengin were being especially aggressive with building hypergates.
Meanwhile, the Altarians were slowly conquering known space.
The problem, however, was that the Altarians fully intended to incorporate human space into their empire.
The only reason they hadn't already was because the Drengin Empire was keeping them busy. But, the Drengin Empire was losing the war.
With the Drengin Empire slowly being destroyed by the Altarians and humanity next on the list, it became a question of: what should the Terran Alliance do?
Humanity was far behind the Altarians technologically and had twice the population. Fundamentally, the humans simply couldn't keep up. This fact was kept hidden from the civilian population. Quietly, however, a wide-spread infrastructure upgrade took place in the hope that when the time came, humanity's logistics would be able to deter the Altarians from reaching out to grasp Earth.
The Hypergate-Rally-Supply Initiative
While Earth was humanity's starship juggernaut, New Copenhagen was the research center of the Terran Alliance. Supply ships then delivered the raw goods, which then were converted by New Copenhagen's labs into accelerated research.
Now, supply ships are built on Earth, sent over to New Copenhagen automatically, and converted into research.
A Twilight on Larasa
The Altarians conquered Larasa. Which means that they will likely come to the Terran Alliance, as there is little chance that the Altarians will be able to hold a planet so deeply in human space.
The Drengin Empire fell the same day.
Inevitability
The next day.
The day humanity had feared had arrived.
HELLO, BEST FRIENDS
Luckily for the humans, they had a slimy friend...The Tywom (Star Control alien).
The Tywom decided to stand up to the Altarians with their own surprisingly powerful military.
The two powers were evenly matched. Humanity's tiny military might be enough to tip the balance.
Humanity had put together its biggest fleet ever. Now was the time to use the Arnorian Embers artifact.
Invasion
2245 arrived, and with it, an interstellar invasion of one of the outer worlds of the Altarian Empire.
Invading a planet is no small feat. The Tywom had done much of the heavy lifting by clearing most of the Altarian fleets. The humans had managed to flank the main Altarian force by constructing a hypergate far to the galactic east of the Altarian homeworlds, which allowed them to bypass the front line between the Altarians and the Tywom.
Unfortunately, the Altarians were quick to respond.
Their ships had been designed to counter the Terran Alliance's fleet. Moreover, their weapon of choice was a more advanced form of missile.
The defenses of the Altarians nullified the Terran Alliance fleet allowing them to do over 6X more damage to the Terrans. The fleet and the 4 legions of soldiers were vaporized.
That fleet was literally the best the humans were capable of putting together.
Doom Fleets
The Altarian response was nothing short of breath-taking. Behind their powerful ships was some sort of capital ship of a size that the humans had never seen before.
August 6, 2245
The Onyx surrendered, but not before giving us their remaining worlds and ships.
Consolidation
There were only three major powers left. The Tywom had beaten back the Altarians. so there was still hope.
But every head-to-head engagement led to utter defeat. The humans simply couldn't penetrate the Altarian defenses. Their weapons couldn't even get a weapons lock.
Diplomatic Success at Last
The Tywom threat had made the Altarians consider whether it was worth fighting the Terran Alliance. The humans were of little consequence and far from the Altarian home worlds.
A complicated and decidedly one-sided negotiated peace took place. The humans did their best to make the settlement appear to be an agreement of equals, but the terms spoke for themselves.
Still the humans, though battered, ended the war with many new worlds. Instead of 3 colonies, the humans had 9 now.
The hypergate network had made the difference and in the process, had captured worlds with several new artifacts:
Next up: The Tywom BEST FRIENDS...
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Retribution Journals
Journal #9 (Coming Soon)