Author Archives: erltyriss@gmail.com

Combat in Narrow Seas Initial Thoughts

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Narrow seas and littoral combat have long been important parts of warfare. The modern age has brought complexity to such aspects of warfare to such an extent that such operations have become very difficult to conduct.

In the early modern era, naval operations were mostly considered amphibious operations or flotilla operations, designed to conduct combat in classic brown and green water. Brown water often included estuaries, riverine, and near coastal areas. The green water zone consisted of the far coastal areas and those out past the closest islands. The 18th and 19th century found these areas tended to differ from blue water or pelagic operations, which are conducted in the open seas.

The modern components or aspects of these littoral operations or narrow seas warfare can be divided into the following categories:

1. Amphibious Operations

2. Flotilla or Small Craft Operations

3. Coastal Defenses and Shore Artillery

4. Aerial Patrols and Air Power

5. Mine Warfare

6. Shallow Aquatic or Submerged Operations

7. Riverine Operations

All of these aspects are part of littoral naval operations, combat in the busiest of maritime zones. As the 21st century has developed, there are many changes as technology advances, especially in the fields of advanced sensors, robotics, digital automations, and new propulsion efficiencies.

 1. Amphibious Operations, as they are currently understood, are very much a product of the 20th century. In more classic times, amphibious operations were even less complex. Most ships, from the ancient Hellenic triremes to the Norse longships, could simply be beached and pulled up onto the shore by the crew. Troops could then just disembark.

During the age of sail, the idea of amphibious operations was to put parties of armed sailors and marines ashore using boats such as long boats and cutters. If a fleet was closer to its port of origin, barges or other shallow draft craft might be used as troop transports to put larger forces ashore. Operations became most complicated when getting cannon and cavalry ashore to build up the army or foreign shore.

As the concepts of steamships and coastal defenses developed in sophistication, it became more complex to get troops ashore if contested or threatened by a nearby army. With the introduction of combined armies became more complex and it took more logistics to transport a truly effective army over the seas as expeditionary forces.

By the 20th century, the need for large numbers of artillery, ammunition, and vehicles increased amphibious supply trains by whole magnitudes. Universal conscription raised armies to vast numbers. This made it easier for nations to have forces on hand in various regions to defend and contest coasts.

The late 19th century’s development of sea mines and long range artillery greatly increased the capacity of coastal forces to defend shores by attacking ships. In earlier eras, cannon could complicate operations, so troops were landed elsewhere for indirect deployment.

Experiences such as the Gallipoli campaign and the Zeebrugge Raid in the Great War discouraged amphibious operations, but the need was still there. Extensive amphibious operations with mixed results also took place in the Baltic between the Germans and Russians.

The Interwar Era was a major time of development for amphibious operations, most especially by the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy. There was work done by other great powers, including the Soviet Union.

There would be many starts and stops, with real world experience contributed by the Second World War. By war’s end complex operational procedures for combined air support, naval fire support, shore assaults, and logistics were developed.

World War II saw the use of amphibious vehicles, landcrafts or boats, and even small beaching ships all used to get forces onto the beach. These experiences were kept active for most major powers, but with few real world major operations except for rarities, such as the Inchon Landing.

The introduction of helicopters for air assault mission capacity changed how the Western powers conducted amphibious operations. The war developed methods were still valid, but air assault gave troops a fourth way to get ashore.

As the Cold War developed, the smaller and simpler amphibious ships were kept in reserve fleets, but most active ships became more complex with larger amphib warships operating in task forces designed for full naval deployment cruises, and patrols.

These needed long duration ships that could keep sufficient expeditionary forces aboard for long periods. This differed from the war experience of loading forces and then going directly to targeted amphibious assaults.

The 21st century pushed amphibious operations beyond the horizon as missilery made any coastal area lethal for ships. This created a need for new doctrine development to successfully conduct amphibious assaults. Air transport could only put light infantry ashore. Amphibious vehicles were hazardous to use for long range transport. Landing craft were more ideal, but were large enough to draw long range fire.

Mine warfare also would prove a detriment to amphibious assault throughout the Cold War from the Korean Conflict up through Desert Storm.

2. Flotilla or Small Craft Operations in littoral zones have been a major aspect of maritime activities since the end of the age of sail. As such writers Corbenett and Coldwell have observed, the small ships of the age of sail were no true threat to ships frigate size and larger, even though smaller ships such as sloops, schooners, and barges had their own roles to play in naval warfare. The introduction of steam power and torpedoes, however, changed the whole equation of the effectiveness of smaller combat craft.

Steam power allowed small crafts to maneuver anywhere that its hull had draft to go. The introduction of anti-ship weapons that could damage the largest warship, but be carried by war boats led to the creation of torpedo boats.

In 1878, HMS Lightning was the first true torpedo boat. The first combat action of a torpedo boat was a Russian torpedo boat against the Ottoman Intibd on 16 January, 1878. The first sinking was against the Chilean Blanco Encalada in 1891.

All of this led to a flurry of activity in the last two decades of the 19th century to see if a small craft could be developed to counter capital ships. Mix with other naval technology trends this also led to the development of destroyers and submarines. But the torpedo boats would be dangerous to warships, but not a true paradigm change to naval warfare.

The drive to develop torpedoes and the introduction of machine guns, light artillery, and light mortars led to a renaissance for small combat craft and the introduction of a wide range of boats, including patrol boats, torpedo boats, and many others.

The 20th century saw missiles added to ocean going boats creating yet another deadly threat against warships. Missiles had ranges out past one hundred kilometers. This would lead to the missile boat or missile cutter in the Six Day War, the Indo-Pakistan 1971 War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Battle of Latakia.

3. Coastal Defenses and Shore Artillery have greatly increased in effect over the past two centuries. The start of the Napoleonic Era saw smoothbore cannon able to threaten ships and boats out to approximately three nautical miles. These were often emplaced in fortresses and artillery batteries. Such cannon were not very mobile and had to be transported and put into position.

Field artillery was more able to be moved around in reaction, but fixed artillery did not have the range of heavier artillery used in siege warfare and long range artillery.

The shift of artillery shells, breech loading, and rifles changed the very nature of artillery. Coastal defenses continued to have the range of capital ships. And just as the age of cannon, the rifle artillery could keep the same balance of tactical power, just with ranges out to dozens of nautical miles.

The introduction of anti-ship and anti-air surface launched missiles allowed nations to exert threatening control over sea surfaces and air space out to dozens if not hundreds of nautical miles.

4. Aerial Patrols and Air Power changed how operations were conducted in littoral zones.

In the Great War, aerial patrols flew reconnaissance for naval forces using airplanes and airships. Attempts to bomb ships from long range aircraft and tactical aircraft had mixed results throughout the Great War. Some damage was successfully done via aerial attacks, but the technology was not sophisticated enough to truly make a tactical difference. Yet, it does show what had become possible.

The interwar saw extensive development of aerial attack options. In the matter of anti-ship and anti-maritime torpedoes, bombs, machine guns, and cannons were all developed. Ships were mostly targeted by bombs and torpedoes. Landbound aircraft, both small craft and multi-engine, could greatly endanger any ship getting close to a hostile shore.

As World War II would bring all of this to the ready; to control a littoral zone required air superiority.

The Cold War saw the introduction of missiles, jet engines, and helicopters. All three technologies brought new capacities to the littoral zone. Jets allowed even faster reactions and attacks for aerial operations. That extended the distance of imminent threat of land based aircraft to reach much further. Helicopters created a new type of aircraft that while slower and shorter range then fixed wing aerodynes, were cheaper to operate and could operate from far more austere sites. This allowed helicopters to be stationed in many places to respond rapidly where fixed wing aircraft take more infrastructure and are tied more to their basing.

5. Mine Warfare has also played an extensive part in the changing nature of littoral maritime operations.

The American Civil War saw extensive use of sea mines by the Confederate Rebels in attempts to secure their harbors. The Union Navy had to overcome those sea mines to press home their blockade strategy.

By the end of the 19th century, mines became a standard part of naval strategy. The sea mines had been developed into a more sophisticated technology. Both contact and captor mine technology had advanced and become far more reliable. Also, mines could be anywhere, free floating, or semi-permanent in place, by the time of the Great War.

The Great War would see defensive and offensive uses of minefields, and hundreds of ships would be damaged by mines. By the war’s end, mines were being laid by ships, boats, aircraft, and submarines.

Throughout this period, minesweeping proved to be very difficult and dangerous. Mine anchor lines had to be cut or snagged. Then mines had to be disarmed or harmlessly exploded.

The Interwar Era and World War II saw advances in triggers for mines with magnetic resonance as well as remote and contact triggers. These periods saw improvements in mines using magnetic and hydrophone triggers.

In the Cold War, programmable triggers made mines very sophisticated. It became possible for sea mines to be laid using new methods such as anchored, drift, and bottom laying. Mines were made new durations and with onboard munitions, torpedoes or missiles, mobile mine, nuclear mine, and other rigging systems. Damage could be direct damage, bubble jet, or shock wave.

Mine sweeping has become an equally complicated and difficult technology process. Processes were developed to be a sweep structure to hit the mines, a cutting device to cut anchor lines, and then a decoy could set off a mine simulating a ship.

Mine hunting is a modern method. The individual mines are detected and identified. Then each mine is specifically targeted for destruction.

6. Shallow Aquatic or Submerged Operations have become major operational domains for the 20th century. The early submarines were more submersibles, but were operationally effective by the Great War.

The 19th century saw attempts to develop submersibles throughout the period, even some in the late 18th century. All of their effects were experimental or desperate.

The 20th century saw smaller submarines developed. Also, the advancement of both robotic submersible and diving gear added a whole new capacity to operate in the underwater environment of the littoral zones.

Civilian and scientific reasons existed to develop capacities in this area as much as the military. Post World War II saw diving systems refined, robotic undersea craft developed, and mini-submarines to be extensively developed.

There are even recreational and criminal uses of submersibles.

7. Riverine Operations have their history as long as humans have been putting boats in water. This means that rivers and their estuaries have always been of vital interest to human political organizations from ancient villages to modern nation states.

Rivers are the main transport methods of many nations. And the mouths of major rivers tend to make good harbors and develop into major cities.

This means that many maritime activities will be close to river estuaries and mouths, and that riverine activity of a military nature can overlap other littoral zone operations. This has a large impact upon the other aspects or components.

All of these components have led to the growing complexity of operations in the littoral zones for maritime activity. The 21st century is seeing all components so far discussed developing capacity as the global technology advances toward the 4th industrial revolution.

Combat Paradigms of the Noetic Wars.

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This is the rough draft of a world building essay that is part of an appendix for a military science fiction novel set in the UnWelcome Neighbors Universe, that I just finished.

The Combat Paradigm of the Noetic Wars

The interstellar wars fought by humans of the third Cosm of the Unwelcome Neighbors setting were waged in a unique way

In this universe, the ancient species known as the Deiwos were able to successfully merger their civilizations greatest two technological achievements the luminescent plenum and the hypergate network.

Individually, both achievements spanned the Milky Way and beyond. The hypergate network allowed superluminal travel between worlds by a connection through hyperspace. The luminescent plenum had created a basement pocket universe anchored to the gravity well of the galaxy. This energy filled pocket dimension was able to be tapped by various Deiwos technologies as a universal power source.

The merger would allow the luminescent plenum to be accessed anywhere with superluminal effects. This allowed superluminal knowledge, awareness, and communication.

This became what the humans of second Cosm Earth would call the Mythscape, and the third Cosm Earth would call the Astral Light. Both Earths would have unique experiences from their galactic realities. In the second Cosm the result would leak more than in the third Cosm. But the remit was a merging of the pocket dimensions between the universes to form one dimensional space.

On the Earth of the third Cosm, prehistoric humans found that many of their spiritual practices could produce tangible physical effects or gain real world objective knowledge. This would be strengthened and used extensively in some societies.

The most important event that would diverge this world from our own was the settlement of the Seleucid-Mauryan War in 303 B.C.. the agreement of Seleucid Nicitor with Chardrayupta Maurya was a peace treaty and dynastic marriage.

Their followed an alliance of the two ruler’s sons, Antiochus I and Bindusara. In our timeline the grandsons became rulers of their grandfather’s empires, Antiochus II Theo and Ashoka. Yet, in Cosm 3 Antiochus II did not come to rule the Seleucid Empire. Instead, his older brother Seleucus II came to rule, where in our timeline he was executed for rebellion against his father.

When Ashoka attempted to send out Buddhist monks to proselyte in the West, it was received and supported with more encouragement in Cosm 3 by Seleucus II.

All of these events would lead to a merging of Indian mysticism and Hellenistic philosophy to merge many concepts and give a system of thought to allow humans to effectively manifest and manipulate these strange effects from the Deiwos hyper luminescent plenum. Thus was born the noetic sciences.

The dominant civilization of Cosm 3 Earthy would become a merged Hellenistic-Mauryan culture with access to wonderous meta abilities. Technological development would take them into space by 700 A.D..

The existence of meta-abilities would change the nature of many human endeavors, especially transportation, communication, and warfare. The development of gnostic machines would lead to the existence of self aware space ships, and roads, and advance mathematical thinkers.

All of this would lead to the eventual development of starships that were capable of superluminal travel by the use of quantum phase shifting on a macroscopic scale. This works by the human telaesthesia sensing the current circumstances of a distant point in the space/time continuum, the gnostic machine calculating the four dimensional equation, and the combination of the shift engines and human psychportationist pulling energy from the Astral light to complete the psishifting of the ships.

This was the expansion of humans in Cosm 3 to the stars. There would be wars as daughter systems attempted for independence and as new arrangements of states were made.

The Telaesthetic Sarja (guilds) became the controlling authority in human space, but was sworn to work for any human state. These services included warfare against each other. The need for nonlethal combat led to the concept of suppression and psicasting. The concept is to use meta abilities to subdue the other ship. An offensive operation could be an attempt to suppress the other ship’s meta-ability. Another tactic was to force the targeted ship into an involuntary planeshift through a ppsicasting. This psicentric would stun and disorient the targeted ship’s crew. To counter these offensive acts, telaeshetics learned how to use their meta-abilities to disrupt and block any other usage of such effects on their ships.

The disruption of a foe allowed an attacking ship to only partially score a victory this led to the creation of the Astro Stratiotis (star soldiers).

The Astro Stratiotis started off as simple soldiers in space suits, trained for boarding actions. It eventually grew into full power armor geared to space operation.

As combat operations became more extensive, the Astro Stratiotis became more and more advanced. These power armor troops became highly effective in space or on surfaces.

The states all poured their efforts into Astro Stratiotis for most expeditionary missions, including boarding, orbital drops, and elite assault for surface tactical. The advancements in these areas became the main area of military technology development for centuries. So with advanced power armor and auxiliary developed boarding into a very viable and often used space combat.

To make this a viable tactical doctrine the auxiliary craft were the key. A grav sled was created to give the Astro Stratiotis high maneuverability in space at battle ranges these were to allow the star soldiers to close rapidly with a target ship or facility. The grav sled has extensive duration to operate deployed. The grav sleds are also able to make planet fall on many terrestrial planets.

Another auxiliary craft also used to make rapid deployment of a number of star soldiers to a large surface tactical battles. All of these added to the impact of the tanokoa (ships). The independent capacity of the star soldier allowed them to operate in the weapon range of operations of the tanakara with just the maneuver capacity of their ships.

The needs of warfare did show a need for mundane weapons by the noetic powers. So every tanakara carries conventional particle beans for long range beam weapons in space usage, lasers for space and orbital usage and missiles for mission support.

The various human states warred for years against each other. Contact with other sentients led to sharing the noetic sciences and gnostic technologies. Some of these alien intelligents, were able to use it, such as the Swarmers and others were not, such as the Trees. 

The one species who were able to use the knowledge was the ‘Xenophobes’, much to the regret of the humans. The Xenophobes armed for war and attacked all of the noetic states and other known space. There would be two xeno wars and both wars would leave billions dead. These wars would force drastic total war fighting on the noetic states.

Before the ‘xeno’ wars, the most vicious wars have been clashes between the Alphas and the rest of the human worlds. The Alphas started out as a group of tel aesthetics and other meta-talents who objected to the morality restraints governments imposed upon meta-talent usage.

These clashes were rooted in the era of terrestrial development. By the time humans in Cosm 3 Earth went to space, things were at a breakpoint.

The groups that would become the Alphas invested in space technology and self-exiled themselves to remote corners of the Solar System. They would spend centuries on the fringe of the solar civilization. After the development of psishifting, a plan was hatched to build ten large mother ships capable of interstellar travel. Then they departed the solar system.

They would put some distance between themselves and the expanding noetic states, but future conflict was expected. With this in mind, the Alphas set about arming their otherships and developing military subordinate craft. This led to yet a second path of development of military technology and science among the humans of Cosm 3.

The Alphas expanded their population through cloning and genetic castes. This still only gave them some success replicating meta-talents in their population, but never full certainty.

Their lower population base and fear of being restrained led to the Alpha leaders being reluctant to use their meta-talented in war.

Where the core worlds developed meta-talents for transport with a more benign form of war, the Alpas chose to use their meta-talents just as force enhancers.

 Instead they turned to the use of attrition forces and clone soldiers, in an approach best compared to a social insect form of behavior.

They would develop small power combat armor units. After a few encounters with the noetic states, they pushed the refinement of their power suit equipped soldiers to match the cybernetic atho strategies. They would also develop transport sleds for each power armor star soldier. Where the astro stratiotis mostly deploy directly from star ships, the Alphas fear danger to the other ships so develop system assault frigates as attack transports for their own power suit combats.

For ship to ship combat, the Alphas developed small but powerful system ship category warships. These units were equipped with powerful defenses and offense to guard the other ships and project power. The Alphas found, much as the other noetic states, that telaesthetics allowed very accurate weapons fire in combination with gnostic machines.

This promoted the usage of energy weapons because all but the heaviest armored missiles are destroyed by energy weapons intercepting the missiles on approach

The alphas armed their mother ships heavily with particle beams of various sizes and extensive laser weapons as well. These made the mother ships deadly to small and large crafts.

The Alphas tended to only focus upon defending their own interests with the occasional raids on minor systems. These raids usually consisted of a mothership psishifting into a safe point in the target system. Then the system warships and assault corvettes are dispatched toward the target at a high rate of acceleration. The assault force and assets are considered expendable if necessary.

The most common battle encounter between the Alpha and the Terran Noetic States was minor skirmishes between recon ships with star soldiers and Alpha system warships and squadrons of assault transports and battle sleds. This led to battles of ships sniping and small battle craft and space warriors fighting close.

This often led to the destruction of Alpha strike forces, but sometimes the Alpha forced the noetic ships to withdraw to avoid the potential loss of a whole crew of telaeshetics.

This was often the preferred tactic, threaten the noetic forces with a strike force and then squeeze an assault force to strike at the Alpha’s objective. This concern for telaeshetics would often be an Achilles heel in many of the Noetic military states.

The third major interstellar combat paradigm developed by the humans of Cosm 3 was created by the Andrani Stellar Empire.

This paradigms essence was defined by the origins of the Stellar Empire. During the 1st Xeno war, six frontier star systems on the far side of noetic space were half abandoned. They were not deliberately abandoned as much as very low priority for a civilization fighting for survival against a hostile enemy. The star systems were self-sufficient in system interplanetary spacefaring capacity to sustain thriving economics. All they did not have was superluminal travel with the rest of human space.

Most inhabitants of these star systems likely expected the whole period of isolation to be a few years, but it grew into decades. After that time, some of the star systems began to try and find travel methods. The star systems had kept up active slow communication by light speed radio and laser the whole time.

In time, these six systems began the research into alternative superluminal methods beyond the psishifting method. One group of scientists discovered the principle of the tachyonic transposition methods. This information was shared across the interstellar communication laser with the hope that someone in the six worlds would find a way to make it effective faster than light travel technology.

Several systems went to work upon it. One system discovered what they called the tachyonic engines and set up commerce between the systems. Unfortunately, one system’s government developed the tachyonic engine for warship use, and set about conquering all the other nearby settled systems, starting with the other nearby five. This started a cycle of interstellar warfare in the local region.

After a century of such wars, the end result was a unification of the six star systems under a complex federated constitutional monarchy. This government began to expand and annex nearby settled systems.

The next stage was for this new star nation to send out expeditions toward the old core worlds and Earthy, all to find out why the noetic ships had never returned.

This expedition entered the most settled volumes of the noetic states just at the end of the 2nd Xeno War. these wars had been exhausting for all factions and species. The end result had been a victory, but a very costly one.

To avoid future conflict and build upon their war alliances, the noetic states chose to build the interstellar concordance. This idea was to build a government to avoid conflicts.

The resulting reestablished contact was fraught with tension and eventually conflict. The noetic concordance became more organized and unified in matters of defense and commerce. The Ardoni annexed several volumes of space and in defensive measures against a larger Concordance. The Alphas had maintained their independence throughout all of the past wars and into this era.

The Xenos were still considered a threat to everyone. The first war was thought to settle the issue of the genocidal species, then the second war had started suddenly. It was even more destructive than the first war. So, with these memories haunting them, all of the human powers feared a third war.

The Ardoni were faced with several challenges. The methods of weapons and defense developed during their short unification wars were ineffective against the noetic forces of the Concordance or the mass attritional tactics of the Alphas.

The Ardoni’s answer was to develop new dedicated warships in two fleet arrangements. The patrol fleet  was a security, patrol, and recon force with the responsibility of covering all of the systems of the empire. The Battle Fleet operated in concentrated squadrons out of strategic hubs. All of this was to compensate for the slower strategic response of the tachyonic engine equipped starships relative to the noetic ships’ psishifiting.

For weapons, the Ardoni developed versatile beam weapons and tried using large antiship torpedoes. The beam weapons of the Adroni battle and patrol fleet are designed to be multirole. Where the Noetic forces only needed direct energy weapons as secondary mission needs and the Alphas preferred several different types of energy weapons, the Ardoni fleets preferred a lower number of weapons with a variety of firing formats.

To counter the star soldiers of the Noetics and the battle craft power suits of the Alphas, the Ardoni battle fleet developed fleet defense interceptors based around a power armor and propulsion assist unit combination. This allowed a high performance close range interception yet still have an assault and boarding defense unit. The cataphract of the Ardoni are large but effective in surface tactics and assault against both the noetic star soldiers and the Alphas power troopers.

The Ardoni patrol fleet went for a different concept. They chose to develop long range system interceptors able to engage attrition and battle crafts at a distance. The long range system interceptors have high acceleration capacity, larger mission duration, and long range weapons to engage the noetic star soldiers on grav sleds or the Alpha power troops using assault sleds. This tactic does not work if either opponent supports their attrition battle craft with heavy fleet units. The system interceptors do not have the defenses to engage full scale war ships.

This all leads to the Ardoni being able to engage opponents and keep forces in most of their vulnerable points.

Stars Arising: Archivist Tale chapter 1

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My name is Johannes Sinclair. My title is the Archivist. I have been appointed by the World Council to record as much information as the Eldest People will tell us. There is some hope the information will help us in the War. I guess the place to start this tale is how I got brought into it, a short biography.

I was born to German refugee parents in the American state of Michigan. My parents had fled the horror of the Caliphate invasion of Europe during the Third World War. My upbringing was typical for the time which means hectic as the world was turned upside down by the discovery of the Eldest People and and the Old Ones.

From a young age, I was fascinated by the Eldest. They had forgotten more information about the Universe than Humanity had ever known. They were also the first true civilization on the planet. In many ways they were humanity’s older siblings. The Eldest People had been going to the stars when there were still oceans on Mars and life on earth had just started colonizing the land.

All my youth I aspired to one day work with the Eldest. My training in classical music was conditioning to understand the fluting tones of their language. A study of mathematics to understand their symbol and logic derived written language. Throughout it all I studied every scrap of knowledge and lore to learn the Eldest history and culture.

Throughout my youth and education years, the Shoggoth War raged, and the Eldest reclaimed the ancient homelands in Antarctica. I remember reading about their rediscover of the few surviving populations and the grand reestablishment of their surface cities. The southern continent was still cold but a century of global warming had risen sea levels but exposed the ruins of some of their original land cities.

It was a rough time for humanity. We almost destroyed ourselves during the third world war, just to find out we were not alone on the planet. We even found out we were not the only planet. So much of our science is having to be reworked and our entire system of economics and governance have been upended. National secrets have also become embarrassing issues. The knowledge that the British and Americans had been helping the Eldest in an under sea war against the Deep One Fishmen  for two centuries was bad enough, but to find out the Chinese were in contact with ancient beings who had inspired chinese myths was even more awkward for the world to accept. The decades after WW# was a time of adjustment and growth for the human race.

After I was appointed to my task I traveled to Antarctica aboard one of the first Russian cargo airships designed and built using the new technologies learned from the eldest. The new city was on the Antarctic Peninsula, and was a blending of the Eldest building methods and the humans. Argentina had started a city on the site before WW3 and the public disclosure of the Eldest. The place became a vast collaboration now.

I remember the airship docking at the high steel sky tower on the Torre Ceilo in the local Spanish. The tower was over a thousand feet tall, but it did not dominate the skyline. That honor went to the vast star shaped stone towers built by the Eldest. Few of the granite towers were taller than the Torre Ceilo, but their girth was easily ten times the human structure. The massive size of the stone towers dominated all the eye could behold. As I stood on the observation deck of the Torre Ceilo, two stories down from the ship’s mooring deck. I counted ten of the massive granite edifices looming over the city below. Two of those towers forced me to look up to see their pinnacle. I spent hours looking over that cityscape. The snow still blew through the city, but it was still possible to make out the nonhuman buildings from the human ones. The Eldest built in stone blocks and sheets, while the humans built in metal and ceramics.

I would have still been standing there in fascination come sundown if my self induced trance of fascination had not been interrupted by a musical fluting tone sequence from behind me. Turning to find an Eldest standing there. I was overwhelmed and missed the fact it was talking to me. By the third time the Eldest repeated its greeting, you could tell it was annoyed. The fluting had become louder and flat in tone.

I pulled out the translator flute from the satchel which hung at my left side. Raising the flute to my lips, I played out a greeting in the musical language of the Eldest, adding an apologetic trill to the end of the musical phrase. The Eldest played out a phrase meaning a dismissive tone. I listened carefully. If the follow on measures was a sharp it would mean a harsh rebuke, but if it was running in tone, then it would mean an acceptance of my apology. Instead the Eldest changed the topic. I blinked and struggled to follow the change of focus. Then I was running to catch up physically as well.

The Eldest had moved off toward the interior of the tower. My mind raced as I tried to look at the complex mosaics which lined the walls, and still mentally translated the fluting phrases. The phrase was one part greeting and one part order. He might have said something different the first two times he whistled it at me, but that third time, which I finally paid attention to, was merely a simple: #I am Dawn Reader, you are the servant human, follow me now!#

My instructors had informed me that the Eldest tend to be very condescending toward younger species such as ours. It was merely one more aspect of my new vocation, just like living in Antarctica for the next few years. 

As I followed the Eldest, I was amazed by how fast their form of locomotion could propel it forward. Eldest had five large lower tentacles or boneless legs. At the end of each tentacle were five branching fingers, each having five small tentacles along each finger. It was a complex looking arrangement but the Eldest Peoples could move quite rapidly over the roughest terrain. 

Their leg movement had two legs reaching out to each side, and the fifth leg out behind like a stabilizing rudder. Through my studies I also knew that sometimes the fifth leg was out in front pulling the Eldest individual over rough terrain. All of this just reminded any human observer that here was a being that did not have a front and back as any bisemetrical animal has, instead a pentasymmetrical creature truly was alien in how humans saw the world. The Eldest radial symmetry gave it five eyes looking in all directions on stalks, five upper boneless arms, five wings, and five lower boneless legs for locomotion. 

I suddenly noticed that while I had been studying it, the Eldest had two eyestalks watching me as I followed it. I was being observed as well. Both of us proceeded down the long stone hall in silence. From the periphery of my vision I could see that the long hall was made up of segmented stone blocks, and all the surfaces were covered in ornate and detailed carvings, even the ceiling had been elaborately worked. 

All the reports and lessons about the Eldest People had mentioned this unique art form of decoration, but to see it for the first time was overwhelming. It would take a human observer hours just to study each wall panel for any detail. There were murals, written text blocks, painted pictures, inset carvings, and even mosaics made of smaller stones embedded into the walls. I didn’t stop to try and take in the details. I would be here for years, and I felt there would be plenty of time to sightsee. Besides part of my mission was to read as much as I could of the Eldest history, records, and knowledge. One of their unique social traits was that their most enduring and important knowledge was put right out in plain sight as ornate decorations. 

Soon we had proceeded down that hall from the landing platform, through several junctions with other halls, until we moved out into a vast chamber. The circular room was the size of an auditorium, with over a hundred Eldest moving about on various tasks, standing around conversing in their musical language, or some obviously sleeping. Those sleeping were resting in a bowl shaped piece of furniture that curved up to partially support their body upright. It seemed to serve both as a bed and a chair of sorts. 

Those sleeping had all of their arms and legs inside the bowl chair, while their five eyestalks drooped with closed eyes. Even the 5 membraned wings, which usually remained tightly coiled up and close to the Eldest body when not in use, were uncoiled and drooping down to lay upon the rim of the bowl chair. Despite all the activity elsewhere in the room, the sleeping Eldests seem to have no trouble slumbering.

Dawn Reader had moved well into the room, leading me passed several clusters of conversing Eldest. Each individual we passed spared one eyestalk to watch us pass, but never slowed their fluting dialogue. The exchange was so fast and so complex, I could barely make out any intelligent language. 

My guide stopped in one section of the room. There were half a dozen various bowl chair, and two human shaped beds. The beds stood out as a surreal feature in this alien chamber, with all its Eldest individuals and their living arrangements.  Dawn Reader pointed an arm at one of the two beds and whistled, #That is your dwelling place#

I took out my translator flute and played a response in a complex set of chords. #Thank you. How may I serve first?#

Only one of Dawn Reader’s eyestalks looked at me as it began to move off from the cluster of furniture. It fluted out to me in a commanding tone. #Settle. Rest. Converse later# 

That was as close to a polite dismissal as I could expect. Now to attempt to settle into my home for the next three years. 

World building notes for UwN, Cosm 3

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I’ve been trying to condense all my world building notes for UnWelcome Neighbors. I had suspended writing the novels in the setting as I tried to catch up on other writing and life obligations. The below is an essay for human development in the third Cosm. UwN is built around the idea of three alternative parallel universes that become connected through the actions of a very powerful galactic civilization. ;

 

The Combat Paradigm of the Noetic Wars

The interstellar wars fought by humans of the third Cosm of the Unwelcome Neighbors setting toward an unusual direction.

In this universe, the ancient species known as the Deiwos were able to successfully merger their civilizations greatest two technological achievement the luminescent plenum and the hypergate network.

Individually, both achievements spanned the Milky Way and beyond. The hypergate network allowed superluminal travel between worlds by a connection through hyperspace. The luminescent plenum had created a basement pocket universe anchored to the gravity well of the galaxy. This energy filled pocket dimension was able to be tapped by various Deiwos technologies as a universal power source.

The merger would allow the luminescent plenum to be accessed anywhere with superluminal effects. This allowed superluminal knowledge awareness, and communication.

This became what the humans of second Cosm Earth would call the Mythscape, and the third Cosm Earth would call the astral light. Both Earths would have unique experiences from their galactic facts. In the second Cosm the result would leak more then in the third Cosm. But the remit was a merging of the pocket dimensions between the universes to form one dimensional space.

On the Earth of the third Cosm, prehistoric humans found that many of their spiritual practices could produce tangible physical effects or gain real world objective knowledge. This would be strengthened and used extensively in some societies.

The most important event that would diverge this world from our own was the settlement of the Seleucid-Mauryan War in 303 B.C.. the agreement of Seleucid Nicitor with Chardrayupta Maurya was a peace treaty and dynastic marriage.

Their followed an alliance of the two ruler’s sons, Antiochus I and Bindusara. In our timeline the grandsons became rulers of their grandfather’s empires, Antiochus II Theo and Ashoka. Yet, in Cosm 3 Antiochus II did not come to rule the Seleucid Empire. Instead, his older brother Seleucus II came to rule, where in our timeline he was executed for rebellion against his father.

When Ashoka attempted to send out Buddhist monks to proselyte in the West, it was received and supported with more encouragement in Cosm 3 by Seleucus II.

All of these events would lead to a merging of Indian mysticism and Hellenistic reason to merge many concepts and give a system of thought to allow humans to effectively manifest and manipulate these strange effects from the Deiwos hyper luminescent plenum. Thus was born the noetic sciences.

The dominant civilization of Cosm 3 Earthy would become a merged Hellenistic-Mauryan culture with access to wonderous meta abilities. Technological development would take them into space by 700 A.D..

The existence of meta-abilities would change the nature of many human endeavors, especially transportation, communication, and warfare. The development of gnostic machines would lead to the existence of self aware space ships, and roads, and advance mathematical thinkers.

All of this would lead to the eventual development of starships that were capable of superluminal travel by the use of quantum phase shifting on a macroscopic scale. This works by the human telaesthetic sensing the current circumstances of a distant point in the space/time continuum, the gnostic machine calculating the four dimensional equation, and the combination of the shift engines and human psychportationist pulling energy from the Astral light to complete the psishifting of the ships.

This was the expansion of humans in Cosm 3 to the stars. There would be wars as daughter systems attempted for independence and as new arrangements of states were made.

The Telaesthetic Sarja (guilds) became the controlling authority in human space, but was sworn to work for any human state. These services included warfare against each other. The need for nonlethal combat led to the concept of suppression and psicasting. The concept is to use meta abilities to subdue the other ship. An offensive operation could be an attempt to suppress the other ship’s meta-ability. Another tactic was to force the targeted ship into an involuntary planeshift through a ppsicasting. This psicentric would stun and disorient the targeted ship’s crew. To counter these offensive acts, telaeshetics learned how to use their meta-abilities to disrupt and block any other usage of such effects on their ships.

The disruption of a foe allowed an attacking ship to only partially score a victory this led to the creation of the Astro Stratiotis (star soldiers).

The Astro Stratiotis started off as simple soldiers in space suits, trained for boarding actions. It eventually grew into full power armor geared to space operation.

As combat operations became more extensive, the Astro Stratiotis became more and more advanced. These power armor troops became highly effective in space or on surfaces.

The states all poured their efforts into Astro Stratiotis for most expeditionary missions, including boarding, orbital drops, and elite assault for surface tactical. The advancements in these areas became the main area of military technology development for centuries. So with advanced power armor and auxiliary developed boarding into a very viable and often used space combat.

To make this a viable tactical doctrine the auxiliary craft were the key. A grav sled was created to give the Astro Stratiotis high maneuverability in space at battle ranges these were to allow the star soldiers to close rapidly with a target ship or facility. The grav sled has extensive duration to operate deployed. The grav sleds are also able to make planet fall on many terrestrial planets.

Another auxiliary craft also used to make rapid deployments of a number of star soldiers to a large surface tactical battles. All of these added to the impact of the tanokoa (ships). The independent capacity of the star soldier allowed them to operate in the weapon range of operations of the tanakara with just the maneuver capacity of their ships.

The needs of warfare did show a need for mundane weapons by the noetic powers. So every tanakara carries conventional particle beans for long range beam weapons in space usage, lasers for space and orbital usage and missiles for mission support.

The various human states warred for years against each other. Contact with other sentients led to sharing the noetic sciences and gnostic technologies. Some of these alien intelligents, were able to use it, such as the Swarmers and others were not, such as the Treer.

The one species who were able to use the knowledge was the ‘Xenophobes’, much to the regret of the humans. The Xenophobes armed for war and attacked all of the noetic states and other known space. There would be two xeno wars and both wars would leave billions dead. These wars would force drastic total war fighting on the noetic states.

Before the ‘xeno’ wars, the most vicious wars have been the clashes between the Alphas and the rest of the human worlds. The Alphas started out as a group of telaesthetics and other meta-talents who objected to the morality restraints the governments imposed upon meta-talent usage.

These clashes were rooted in the era of terrestrial development. By the time humans in Cosm 3 Earth went to space, things were at a breakpoint.

The groups that would become the Alphas invested in space technology and self-exiled themselves to remote corners of the Solar System. They would spend centuries on the fringe of the solar civilization. After the development of psishifting, a plan was hatched to build ten large mother ships capable of interstellar travel. Then they departed the solar system.

They would put some distance between themselves and the expanding noetic states, but future conflict was expected. With this in mind, the Alphas set about arming their otherships and developing military subordinate craft. This led to yet a second path of development of military technology and science among the humans of Cosm 3.

The Alphas expanded their population through cloning and genetic castes. This still only gave them some success replicating meta-talents in their population, but never full certainty.

Their lower population base and fear of being restrained led to the Alpha leaders being reluctant to use their meta-talented in war.

Where the core worlds developed meta-talents for transport with a more benign form of war, the Alpas chose to use their meta-talents just as force enhancers.

 Instead they turned to the use of attrition forces and clone soldiers, in an approach best compared to a social insect form of behavior.

They would develop small power combat armor units. After a few encounters with the noetic states, they pushed the refinement of their power suit equipped soldiers to match the cybernetic atho strategies. They would also develop transport sleds for each power armor star soldier. Where the astro stratiotis mostly deploy directly from star ships, the Alphas fear danger to the other ships so develop system assault frigates as attack transports for their own power suit combats.

For ship to ship combat, the Alphas developed small but powerful system ship category warships. These units were equipped with powerful defenses and offense to guard the other ships and project power. The Alphas found, much as the other noetic states, that telaesthetics allowed very accurate weapons fire in combinate with gnostic machines.

This promoted the usage of energy weapons because all but the heaviest armored missiles are destroyed by energy weapons intercepting the missiles on approach

The alphas armed their mother ships heavily with particle beams of various sizes and extensive laser weapons as well. These made the mother ships deadly to small and large crafts.

The Alphas tended to only focus upon defending their own interests with the occasional raids on minor systems. These raids usually consisted of a mothership psishifting into a safe point in the target system. Then the system warships and assault corvettes are dispatched toward the target at a high rate of acceleration. The assault force and assets are considered expendable if necessary.

The most common battle encounter between the Alpha and the Terran Noetic States was minor skirmishes between recon ships with star soldiers and Alpha system warships and squadrons of assault transports and battle sleds. This led to battles of ships sniping and small battle craft and space warriors fighting close.

This often led to the destruction of Alpha strike forces, but sometimes the Alpha forced the noetic ships to withdraw to avoid the potential loss of a whole crew of telaeshetics.

This was often the preferred tactic, threaten the noetic forces with a strike force and then squeeze an assault force to strike at the Alpha’s objective. This concern for telaeshetics would often be an achilles heel in many of the Noetic military states.

The third major intersetllar combat paradigm developed by the humans of Cosm 3 was created by the Andrani Stellar Empire.

This paradigms essence was defined by the origins of the Stellar Empire. During the 1st Xeno war, six frontier star systems on the far side of noetic space were half abandoned. They were not deliberately abandoned as much as very low priority for a civilization fighting for survival against a hostile enemy. The star systems were self-sufficient in system interplanetary spacefaring capacity to sustain thriving economics. All they did not have was superluminal travel with the rest of human space.

Most inhabitants of these star systems likely expected the whole period of isolation to be a few years, but it grew into decades. After that time, some of the star systems began to try and find travel methods. The star systems had kept up active slow communication by light speed radio and laser the whole time.

In time, these six systems began the research into alternative superluminal methods beyond the psishifting method. One group of scientists discovered the principle of the tachyonic transposition methods. This information was shared across the interstellar communication laser with the hope that someone in the six worlds would find a way to make it effective faster than light travel technology.

Several systems went to work upon it. One system discovered what they called the tachyonic engines and set up commerce between the systems. Unfortunately, one system’s government developed the tachyonic engine for warship use, and set about conquering all the other nearby settled systems, starting with the other nearby five. This started a cycle of interstellar warfare in the local region.

After a century of such wars, the end result was a unification of the six star systems under a complex federated constitutional monarchy. This government began to expand and annex nearby settled systems.

The next stage was for this new star nation to send out expeditions toward the old core worlds and Earthy, all to find out why the noetic ships had never returned.

This expedition entered the most settled volumes of the noetic states just at the end of the 2nd Xeno War. these wars had been exhausting for all factions and species. The end result had been a victory, but a very costly one.

To avoid future conflict and build upon their war alliances, the noetic states chose to build the interstellar concordance. This idea was to build a government to avoid conflicts.

The resulting reestablished contact was fraught with tension and eventually conflict. The noetic concordance became more organized and unified in matters of defense and commerce. The Ardoni annexed several volumes of space and in defensive measures against a larger Concordance. The Alphas had maintained their independence throughout all of the past wars and into this era.

The Xenos were still considered a threat to everyone. The first war was thought to settle the issue of the genocidal species, then the second war had started suddenly. It was even more destructive than the first war. So, with these memories haunting them, all of the human powers feared a third war.

The Ardoni were faced with several challenges. The methods of weapons and defense developed during their short unification wars were ineffective against the noetic forces of the Concordance or the mass attritional tactics of the Alphas.

The Ardoni’s answer was to develop new dedicated warships in two fleet arrangements. The patrol fleet  was a security, patrol, and recon force with the responsibility of covering all of the systems of the empire. The Battle Fleet operated in concentrated squadrons out of strategic hubs. All of this was to compensate for the slower strategic response of the tachyonic engine equipped starships relative to the noetic ships’ psishifiting.

For weapons, the Ardoni developed versatile beam weapons and tried using large antiship torpedoes. The beam weapons of the Adroni battle and patrol fleet are designed to be multirole. Where the Noetic forces only needed direct energy weapons as secondary mission needs and the Alphas preferred several different types of energy weapons, the Ardoni fleets preferred a lower number of weapons with a variety of firing formats.

To counter the star soldiers of the Noetics and the battle craft power suits of the Alphas, the Ardoni battle fleet developed fleet defense interceptors based around a power armor and propulsion assist unit combination. This allowed a high performance close range interception yet still have an assault and boarding defense unit. The cataphract of the Ardoni are large but effective in surface tactics and assault against both the noetic star soldiers and the Alphas power troopers.

The Ardoni patrol fleet went for a different concept. They chose to develop long range system interceptors able to engage attrition and battle crafts at a distance. The long range system interceptors have high acceleration capacity, larger mission duration, and long range weapons to engage the noetic star soldiers on grav sleds or the Alpha power troops using assault sleds. This tactic does not work if either opponent supports their attrition battle craft with heavy fleet units. The system interceptors do not have the defenses to engage full scale war ships.

This all leads to the Ardoni being able to engage opponents and keep forces in most of their vulnerable points.

A need to develop a spatial infrastructure

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A commercial intent will be driving the interest to explore and exploit space resources in the 21st century, but what is most focused upon  now is services not building infrastructure. Those services  are furnishing things to government space programs, with some hope that other companies might develop orbital service needs for such things as tourism and satellite maintenance. Yet what might really be needed most over this second era of spaceflight is building a space infrastructure.

When infrastructure is built, it creates new capacities in new locations. These new capacities are in transportation, communication, and logistics. This creates new opportunities to achieve new endeavors never done in that location before. And new endeavors can create both new motivations for more activity and yet more infrastructure. The whole process is a self promoting open ended cycle if sustained, but there is always that initial cost and necessity.

Historical equivalents on Earth were mostly driven by new settlement of lands and military expeditions, but some mercantile activity also drove new infrastructure needs. A good example is the Roman building of roads across Europe. The areas in central and western Europe the Romans built roads into allowed expansion of the Roman civilization into those areas. This was primary a military conquest activity, but trade and commerce soon were using the roads. There was an ease of travel and transport that was created by the road network.

The American westward expansion was similar. Wagon trains and explorers could map out the North American continent and contact the various indigenous tribes, but once the transcontinental railroad was built large amounts of peoples and goods could be moved from the east coast all the way to the west coast. The United States would not have industrialized a continent without that initial building of the railroad.

These are not complete analogous because those regions were already inhabited by native peoples, who created a situation that any expansion would be a matter of military conquest and cultural assimilation. Outer space is a place where no human life can exist without technology. The unique opportunity is that while learning how human life can sustain long term spatial habitation against the dangerous of microgravity and radiation, the infrastructure for that long term habitation can be developed as part of the testing and learning.

All of this means that planned infrastructure development for humans initial space habitation development is essential. The more we build for the long term and with increase capacity, the more that can be built.

Introduction to UwN : Tranc Wars

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Tranc Wars Introduction

 

The Tranc Wars began in areas of the Milky Way far away from the Solar System. Such wars would rage for thousands of solar years before starfaring humanity would be aware of these wars.

The causes of the wars rest with a species known as the Tranc, who plotted to dominate the galaxy. The Tranc did not have the largest numbers or the most advanced technology in the Milky Way, but they had an intense will and vast social discipline.

The knowledge of other stellar civilizations motivated the early Tranc to adopt a subtle and covert approach. Motivations might have initially been for defensive reasons, but the Tranc turned in time to plans of how to control and subvert other stellar civilizations.

Tranc endeavors got bolder over the centuries as they became more successful. Cycles of new gain and new successes developed. Thousands of stealthful colonies would be founded and while new fields of technology be acquired or stolen from other civilizations.

Flux field generation technology was gained about a thousand years into their galactic plan. This form of superluminal technology enabled the Tranc to greatly expand their ambitions. After finding a way to apply the technology, the Tranc began to covertly build a vast network of flux relay stations across the galaxy.

The first stages of the Tranc’s galactic plans had been to hide their efforts and homeworld in plain sight by subterfuge. The homeworld was part of a large interstellar trade region.

Second stages were the slow subversion or infiltration of all stellar societies the Tranc had frequent contact with at this early stage. The Tranc would move on to piracy, covert operations, and building a campaign interstellar infrastructure.

Third stages of this galactic plan were empowered by the flux generators. With this new technology the Tranc were able to greatly expand the practical range of their galactic expansion. This led to thousands of hidden colonies and bases.

Fourth stage of the galactic plan would have the Tranc approach with stellar civilizations far from their home regions. Those more advanced they would spy and attempt to steal technology. Primitive species the Tranc would conquer and enslave. Stellar societies of comparable technology to the Tranc were infiltrated and subverted through espionage and covert operations

The fifth stage of the Tranc’s plan was to begin covert efforts to use stolen technology from more advanced civilizations to greatly empower the Tranc capacity to act. Then they could begin to stealthily commit to operations to weaken the most dangerous powers in the galaxy. This stage would be disrupted before it was well along by two incidents occurring within a decade of each other, but on opposite sides of the galaxy.

These two incidents would be the discovery of the Tranc’s plans by the Sskaria and the Aracana. Both events would spark the outrage of the two factions who discovered the Tranc’s efforts and exploitation of others.

The Aracana would be the first to discover the Tranc endeavors. But the later to react. Wandering starships observed the Tranc expanding and establishing hidden outposts and noted it. These efforts would not draw any concern from the Aracana.

What would be eventually considered is the exploitation and mass atrocities committed by the Tranc against other sapient species. These incidents would also be reported by the Starships to the homeworlds as well. The authorities on the homeworld would be slow to react.

When they did react contemplations of how to stop the Tranc were long debated among the Aracana. The only effective method that seemed a solution was a strange, alien concept known to other species, but never practiced among the Aracana. And this was the institution of war.

Observations from afar had the Aracana see other species practice wide scale conflict, but that was not the Aracana’s way. Conflicts were just a part of disagreements, with the actual art of violence being performed between individuals in duels, either for personal disagreements or as champions for larger causes.

The Aracana would be slow to decide upon war, but even slower to plan and prepare for it.

The second incident would be a complex miscalculation by a Tranc regional commander. Expansion into a new region of space brought awareness to the Tranc of a new starfaring nation, the Cetes.

Tranc observation of the Cetes lasted several years. During that time, regional strategic communities considered the best way to exploit this new civilization. There was some debate if they should be infiltrated or conquered.

Conquest was always a risky and time consuming effort. It would often destroy future potential exploitation of a civilization as well

Wars of conquest could also draw the attention of the more advanced civilizations in the galaxy if the Tranc were not cautious. This would bring more awareness than the Tranc wanted long term from such powers.

Yet the Cetes had more advanced hyperspace superluminal access technology than the Tranc had. Such a tempting target made the Tranc regional commander weigh their options carefully.

After almost a decade of observation they attacked the Cetes outer colonies and began to wage a hit and run attack strategy to wear the Cetes down and attrition their space fleet.

The initial strategy of the Tranc worked. They presented a sinister and deadly presence to the Cetes, that struck on surprise and vanished. The war would go against the Cetes for almost two years of their time. Each battle brought higher losses. When they won it seemed to have little impact on slowly the invader’s war efforts. The Cetes began to despair on their colonies were cut off or destroyed one by one.

The Tranc pushed the Cetes back to their home star system and pushed the Cetes into one large fleet battle. After losing the battle, the surviving Cete forces retreated to their inner region of their inner region of their star system. At this turn of events, the Tranc believed it was just a matter of time before they would be launching an invasion of the Cetes homeworld. The high gravity and different atmosphere mix would force the need for environmental suits and hazardous environ power armor, but those were long addressed issues for the Tranc efforts.

The real surprise came for the Tranc at the time. The Cetes had a long history of contact and aid from a more advanced civilization, the Sskaria Technologary.

The Sskaria in an era before, had made contact with the Cetes when the Cetes were still bound to their homeworld, but looking into space with hopeful potential. First Contact was made when a Sskaria scout ship chose to save a dying Cetes space mission to their nearest moon. Altruistic ehte act might have been, but it put a new responsibility upon the Skarria as a whole society.

It was their first contact with any other intelligent life since the Sskaria had defeated a remnant of the Imperial Malanthekar fleets in the defense of their Builders.

As a machine intelligence, the Sskaria had thought it difficult to deal with the biological intelligences they had observed in the galaxy up to this point.

The dealings between the Cetes and Sskaria would last centuries. During these times, the Sskaria learned much of dealing with biological intelligents, and the Cetes made great advances in technological advances and scientific knowledge.

Trends began to develop that concerned the Sskaria leadership. The Cetes were depending more and more to make progress upon Sskaria tutorship. If it was just a matter of mentorship, things might have not become a crisis. Instead, the Cetes were starting to seek out not just Sskaria advice, but also approval and permission.

After quiet deliberations between the leadership of the Sskaria and the Cetes, the decision was made that the Sskaria would move onward, yet secretly leave communication channels in case of future crisis the Cetes may face. It was this method that the Cetes would reach out to in their dire need.

The Sskaria response to the emergency call was rapid. Tranc war fleets moved to attack the surviving Cete forces, to find several new, strange ships awaiting their attack.

Sskaria forces would quickly defeat the Tranc and secured the surviving Cetes worlds. Then the Sskaria set out to find the origin of the Tranc attack and the motivees. The effort took more effort than the Sskaria suspected.

After searching several thousand star systems, the Sskaria discovered a Tranc flux relay generator station. Study of this find gained technological knowledge, but also an idea of how the Tranc strategically operated.

It took several more years for the Sskaria to find the regional hidden colony of the Tranc. The Sskaria moved to attack and conquer the Tranc facility. The goal was to seize all intelligence and material for the Sskaria to fully comprehend the Tranc efforts.

With all goals achieved, the Sskaria discovered the Tranc’s galactic plans and the thousands of years of progress. Much of the Tranc’s achievements and plans offended the sensibility programmed into the Sskaria by their builders. The Sskaria had originally been created as sentient weapons with ethical restraints. Much of this programming still guided the Sskaria, comparable to the instincts guiding biological intelligences.

This program caused the Sskaria to chose to do something about the Tranc, seeing the Tranc as a threat to the whole galaxy.

The next step was what approach should the Sskaria take to counter the Tranc. Debate took years. During this duration, the Tranc became aware of the compromise of their regional assets in that part of the galaxy. The Tranc Central Committee did not suspect how much information the Sskaria had gained. So the Tranc destroyed all of their bases and abandoned colonies in the region and strategically pulled back.

It was hoped that disengaging for a few centuries from the area would allow the Tranc time to hide their projects. The Tranc would not get that time. The Sskaria decided to try and engage other stellar civilizations to show them the true threat of the Tranc. The Sskaria also outfit expeditionary fleets. These fleets would begin to press a war against the Tranc on a galactic scale.

These two incidents would seriously threaten the Tranc’s galactic conquest plan. The Sskaria expeditionary fleets would begin to push inward from the middle distances of their quadrant of the Milky Way, while the new Aracana War Fleet would spread out all across half the outer regions of the galaxy.

These actions would be countered at regional levels at first by the Tranc leadership. That would be a costly mistake. By the time Tranc Central Committee strategically reacted, the Tranc were effectively in two galactic wars.

These wars would redefine the entire civilizations of all three major belligerents; Tranc, Sskaria, and Aracana. In time, dozens of other species would become involved on all sides, and the wars would last thousands of human years.

One creative studio’s interesting video article summary of the works of H.P. Lovecraft

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This playful video by the Youtube channel , Overly Sarcastic Productions, tries to cover a biography of H. P. Lovecraft and a look at his more significant works. Despite all of H.P. Lovecraft’s psychological problems and questionable personal morals, his creative works had a huge influence on many other creators.

H.P. Lovecraft’s works, which are now in the public domain, and concepts inspired by Lovecraft’s works; are the key inspiration for my own efforts in the projects I label under the title Stars Arising. This includes the Tales of the Elder Things, and War Against the Old Ones.

The Periphery War

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In setting description:

The Periphery War was Humanity’s first interstellar war. It started because of a political movement on Earth and then spread out to many other star systems. The idea was a desire for a greater political and economic unity between all the human settlements and nations among the stars.

This was not acceptable to five frontier star systems who prized their political and cultural independence. This lead to an expedition being dispatched from Sol to the largest of the resistant colony systems, with the intent of subduing the colony as an example.

The expedition was opposed and not allowed to land. The Commonwealth next decided to blockade the world and interdict all space travel within the star system. This sparked an emergency conference between the other four independent minded worlds.

These worlds put together a hastily gathered expedition of ad hoc armed ships and set out to contest the Commonwealth’s blockade of the main world. The first engagement was indecisive, but the ships of the Peripheral Worlds, after engaging the Commonwealth, pulled back to the second gas giant in the system and awaited the arrival of further forces.

Within a month the second wave of Periphery star ships arrived in the star system, and set course to rendezvous with their compatriots. During that month the Commonwealth task force made a sortie with a secondary force to the gas giant to keep a checking force on the 1st Periphery force. This holding force was instructed to block the Periphery rebel star ships from attacking the transports and other naval ships in the orbit of the main inhabited planet of the system.

In time the Periphery star ships gathered and launched a coordinated attack on the Commonwealth forces. The holding force fought the Periphery star ships in a running battle as both forces moved toward the primary planet. Once the battle reach the main inhabited world, the planetary rebels launched aerospace forces from the planets surface.

The Commonwealth commander became shaken by the slashing attacks from the aerospace forces, and the determined hit and run tactics of the Periphery star ships. In a period of bad maneuvering by the Commonwealth forces, their flagship was destroyed, which demoralized the Commonwealth task forces. A negotiated settlement soon followed which saw the Commonwealth forces begrudgingly departing the star system under a truce.

By the standards of later battles it would be a minor one, but it would be the start of the Periphery War, humans’ first interstellar war.

The Commonwealth of Worlds faced the same problems as the new United Peripheral Worlds. Star ships had been rare and heavily utilitarian over the first 3 centuries of human star faring colonization. This meant that neither side started the war with dedicated warships. The ships the Commonwealth had dispatched to the Peripheral world of New Frontier, had been law enforcement transports with some spatial combat capacity.

Each side took a long hard look at their resources and what strategy would best achieve their war aims. These factors dictated what warship designs were developed by each side. The UPW was faced with the age old problem of the insurgency and the rebellion. How do you defend the territory you have against offensive action by the larger force that wishes to dominate you, while at the same time projecting sufficient force to discourage the larger force or nation. After the first battle, the provisional government of the UPW decided that they could not remain merely on the defensive with a guerrilla war approach. With successive expeditions, the main Commonwealth would wear each of the five rebelling star systems down eventually, then merely occupy their worlds. So that meant there had to be an offensive component of the Peripheral Worlds war strategy, to take the war into the Commonwealth and force it to expend resources defending its own member star systems.

The UPW’s answer was to develop highly efficient system ships within each rebellions star system for defense against any Commonwealth expeditions. For an offensive component they would adopt a raiding strategy aimed at attacking the shipping and spatial infrastructure of the Commonwealth worlds. By sticking to a pure space based strategy, it allowed them to focus their power in a fluid war with no set front. It also minimized the chance of high civilian casualties. The Peripheral World government realized they were conducting a war for the hearts and minds of the rest of Humanity as much as a physical war. If they killed to many innocent bystanders, the civilian populations of the Commonwealth worlds would be firmly behind the Commonwealth war effort.

For the offensive component of their raiding strategy,the Periphery developed a space force built around a multi-role, multi-mission star ship they called a strike ship. These ships were designed for extensive independent operations, with long cruising times. The concept was that the strike ships could launch strike missions across the Commonwealth star systems. Strike ships were mostly armed with kinetic weapons that could carry simple munitions that could be in situ replaced.

Large laser weapons were an inherent part of the Carsmir relativistic engine. The UPW adapted this technological capacity to make it more usable for space combat. That required the ability to focus the beam with a more variable intensity and to aim the beam with a wider range of weapons angles. Secondary laser weapons were installed for point defense, and small target attacks.

For assault and boarding missions, almost 4000 space troops were barracked aboard the strike ships. This troop number combined with the 300 member crew made for tight quarters for all aboard the ships. The long mission duration required some amenities and luxuries be built for crew morale.

The war requirements of the strike ship, plus the extensive fuel and reaction mass storage needs, made the ships some of the largest star ships built by mankind up till that point in time. A decision was made by the Periphery Space Force to emphasis for engine reliability and power, instead of a pure acceleration. This made strike ships able to conduct long strategic voyages, but were not always the most rapid tactical performance. The United Peripheral Worlds felt this was acceptable, because the strike ship missions were to be offensive operations, picking their targets careful, and practicing prudence in their battle operations. Strategic withdraw was not uncommon during the war by strike ship captains facing questionable odds.

The Commonwealth of Worlds had a very different strategic problem. How to impose the political will of the central government without inflicting such high casualties on rebellious populations, while still defending loyal colony star systems. To address these war aims, the Commonwealth developed a space navy capable of sustained battle operations. The concept was that any strategy that heavily fortified the colonial star systems would be economically cost prohibitive to the war effort. Instead the decision was to develop common star ship classes that could be dispatched to defend colonial star systems, defend the central developed star systems, and still project power in expedition forces to attempt to conquer the rebellious worlds.

The Commonwealth Navy was developed around 3 combatant star ship classes. Fleet documents would equate these classes to maritime historical analogies of battleships, destroyers, and scouts; but in the popular vernacular they would be called Battlers, Brawlers, and Reconners.

The Commonwealth Space Navy chose shorter logistic mission duration for their classes in comparison to the Peripheral Space Force, due to having the ability to resupply more easily and to deploy a fleet logistic train. With these increased logistic capacities, the Commonwealth were able to deploy more smart munitions for their ships, leading to more smart kinetic munition, and missiles.

These would be the fleets that both sides conducted their war strategies for the next 127 years Earth time. While the Carsmir inducer and relativistic engines did allow superluminal travel, the crews still were subjected to time dilation. Time dilation, suspended animation, and the extended longevity of all of humanity in the 27th century lead to a long war being conducted with the same combatants throughout its duration.

Creator’s note:

The Periphery War as a story plays within that classic of space opera, the colonial rebellion. In most golden age and silver age science fiction stories, the colonial rebellion in more realistic contexts are interplanetary wars. In pure space opera settings, where faster than light travel is a simple thing, interstellar rebellions occur with not much more challenge than in the age of fighting sail.

Some authors tried a slightly more realistic approach such as Gordon R. Dickson’s Tactics of Mistake, or C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station. Dickson took the approach that sociopolitical influences were critical to new settled star systems rebelling against Earth’s control, while Cherryh tried for a more space based infrastructure and long war as a larger society and economy goes on around the combat.

Each of these authors, and others, are trying to show that such rebellions would be complex affairs, because any settled star systems are built from new, implying a complex star faring economy and political system. Historical rebellions usually were long established populations rebelling against central governments, instead of very new population centers and societies rebelling against a central controlling government.

With those considerations the Periphery War is world built so that young colony star systems had enough centuries to develop strong industrial infrastructure and sizable populations. Also superluminal travel is a must to make interstellar warfare for political gains even reasonable, yet such a fanciful FTL capacity can not be so quick that the military and industrial might of the Solar System can be applied rapidly against the rebelling systems.

The strategic situation of the Periphery War is comparable to the American War of Independence. The United Colonies, later the United States, needed to defend their territory against soldiers deployed to North America by the British Empire, yet any attempt to project power to conduct strategic offensive operations by the Americans against the English required naval raiding of commerce as their only reasonable effective method. This compares to the United Peripheral Worlds having to defend their star systems against expeditions by the Commonwealth Navy, while sending out their strike ships to raid Commonwealth space infrastructure in the various Commonwealth systems.

Ace of swords-Keara’s Tarot

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This is a bit of dabbling with part of the rough draft for this chapter. Artwork by Raina Kuptz. 

Ace of Swords.

Alexander entered the forge boldly and with purpose. He walked toward the light of the smith’s fire, stepping around piles of metal ingots and fuel for the forge. He paused at the edge of the circle of light cast by the blue hot forge fire. Watching the smith work upon a piece of metal for several moments, he admired the craftsmanship of the man. This is what had drawn him covertly to this master craftsman.

The smith ignored Alexander’s presence. All of his focus of his concentration was upon the piece of armor that rested upon his anvil. The breast plate was glowing almost white hot, yet the smith held it in one hand. The smith’s left hand was covered in some type of large heavy glove with which he held the glowing armor piece. In the other hand the smith had a small ball peen hammer which rang down on the inside of the breast plate in repeated blows. With these hammer blows the smith was carefully shaping the subtle contours of the armor piece.

The moments passed slowly as the heat of the forge caused Alexander to sweat. His silk shirt was soon saturated. Yet Alexander showed no discomfort to any observer that would have been there that day. His will was intent upon watching every movement of the smith’s actions.

The contrast between the two figures was drastic. There stood Alexander, a slender tall man wearing a blue silken shirt and fine white trousers while being shoe shod with elegant polished black boots. His concentration was all upon what the smith was doing. In contrast there stood the the smith, hunched over his anvil, focused upon his hammering. He wore no shirt, covered only by a heavy leather apron over a short legged set of trousers. No shoes were upon the smith’s feet, and he ignored his silent guest completely.

A balance of ignoring and intense concentration stayed the equilibrium of the moments for over two hours. Only when he had finished shaping, forging, and tempering the armor piece several time, did the smith show any awareness of Alexander. He glanced up as he sat the breast piece aside upon a cooling rank, but still he said nothing. Then he sat about cleaning up his forge. He put away all of his tools in a slow methodical way. When he had finished sweeping up the tell and ash from the floor and banked his forge fire, then he turned to look straight at Alexander.

The smith’s voice sound like gravel rolling over a thick iron plate. “Duke Alexander, why are you at my forge? What do you desire that brings you here? “

Alexander quietly bowed slightly to the smith in respect. He ignored the discomfort of his fine quality clothes soaked with sweat and clinging to his frame. “Great Wayland, I have come seeking a boon. I seek a commission. “

The large smith snorted in derogation toward Alexander, and turned away. He took off his forging apron and hung it up on a peg in a center pillar in the forge. He hung the glove from his left hand on the peg after placing the apron there. Three steps took him to a large wood barrel filled with water. Wayland reach within and pulled up a large sponge saturated with water. He began to sponge off the sweat and ash from his bare chest and back.

“Duke Alexander, what makes you worthy to commission my work. What makes your desires of any significance to me? “ questioned Wayland in is deep, rumbling voice.

Alexander studied the smith in silence for several moments, calculating his response. The smith was a proud and powerful man, whose works were legendary through the centuries. “This commission would not be for me, but for my daughter. I seek to procure arms and armor for her future.”

Wayland threw the sponge back into the barrel. “And what will your daughter need of such things? I thought it was the way of your people to place your women behind closed doors and sequester them away from all doings of the worlds.” Wayland strode over to stand facing Alexander, towering over the slender noblemen.

“My daughter is of mixed heritage. Her mother’s kin are of a different mind set about such matters, “ said Duke Alexander.

The large ancient smith studied the slender man. “Alexander, you are a snake in matters of power. What is your plan here, and why should I gift my time to your schemes?:

For the first time since his arrival Alexander seem to hesitate. This was a vital moment to the beginning of his plans. “ I know my daughter will be a great power, and feel she needs weapons worthy of her coming stature. Once her destiny is revealed she will be beset by enemies on all sides.”

Wayland scowled at the slender man. “You are a liar. I do not know nor care what your schemes are. They are nothing but ash to me. What do you offer to pay for this commission.?”

Alexander launch into his spill, “I bring gifts worthy of your stature and skill. I also bring the materials for the arms and armor, sufficient for five times what is required for the commission. The remainder is yours. “

“I will decide what it takes to craft my wares. But I will see your gifts and materials. Be warned that if you insult me, I will break your arms, and legs and throw your crippled body back to your retainers.” warned the ill tempered smith.

Alexander was unphased by the threats. “Then come, my retainers have the goods and gifts outside your forge door. “

 

Keara Summoned

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test 2

Test

She sat in her hall upon the large black oak chair at the head of a long banquet table. Around the table sat her retainers. The fireplace behind her was large enough to contain while tree trunks ablaze, but the hearth was filled with only ashes of a fire that had burned out long ago.

The retainers about the table sat motionless in their chairs, with their heads bowed in silence. The whole of the hall was still and silent. Long shadows filled the hall, cast by a dim illumination coming through the glass windows placed high in the halls’ outer walls.

Keara’s own head was bowed upon her chest, her hands rested in her lap. The whole hall was covered in a thick layer of dust, so long had it been since there was any movement, that layers of dust were upon Keara and the retainers’ bodies.

The voice started as a small echo in the high reaches of the hall. A small sound like the squeak of a mouse, but soon the noise grew loud with a more pronounced voice. The articulation of speech rose in volume till it filled the hall. The call became a shout, then a roar. As the voices bounced from wall to wall, the figure at the table’s head looked up for the first time in eons.

She tilted her head and listened to the maddening loud voices. The voice was shouting the same phrase over and over. “Keara, Lady of Shadow and Silence, we call to you. Three times we call, three times we beseech.”

The woman stood, dust falling from her lap and form. As she arose, her retainers looked up as one and watched her, still maintaining their silence. The long black silk dress reach to her feet, and her upper body was covered by a black lacquered breast plate worn over the silk dress. At her side rested a black sword.

As the voice called out her name again, Keara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with air for the first time in many years. As Keara breathed out, she opened her eyes again and large shadowy wings formed on her back.

The voice called out once more. “Keara, Lady of Silence and Shadows, we call you, we beseech you. Attend us. Grant us that which we desire!”

A frown formed upon Keara’s brow as she finally interpreted the words spoken across the worlds toward her. The shadow wings spread wide to a wing span three times Keara’s height. With a single down beat of the dark wings, Keara rose into the air, and arrowed out of the hall. Her flight took her into the air. Soon the Keep of Silence and Shadows feel away behind her. Keara rose high above her domain, deep in the heart of Faerie.

Keara paused for a moment hanging high above her land. She could feel her rising strength being drawn from that domain. After renewing herself fully, she oriented herself, seeking from which world the call originated. As a wheel laid out around Faerie, she knew lay the four lesser fae realms: Avalon, Lands Beyond Dusk and Dawn, the Green Silences, and the Chaos Lands. Beyond those lay the three Dragon Realms and several others. And yet all anchored upon the many Earths beyond. It was from one of these Earths that the call came.

Once she had her bearings, Keara winged off across the worlds to fulfill a summons.