[adwight]

I'm bored, so I decided to post a little FS:2 fanfic that I'm currently working on:

The Liberation of Sirius
by Adwight

Prologue:

Officer’s Log:  Admiral Jacob Moss
11/13/67

   Three days ago in the Capella system, an armada of eighty Shivan Sathanas class juggernauts, created a subspace distortion field, which destroyed the star and forced it to go supernova.
   Millions of people in the Capella system were killed by this supernova, but this does not disturb me, because I am the current leader of the NTF, which completely dissolves any connection I have, and ever had with the GTVA and it’s government.
   Over the past three months, we as a whole have been dwindling because of the GTVA’s ‘Great Hunt’ for us.  Yet, since the Shivan’s arrival in the nebula beyond Gamma Draconis, the GTVA has diverted all attention to thwarting the Shivan advance.  This will be the GTVA’s biggest mistake, for we will take back our worlds, and our systems.
   I have been thinking for quite some time on how to accomplish this task, but I cannot find a solution.  The GTVA has too many forces in Sirius, Polaris, and Epsilon Pegasi, so a small strike would not be sufficient to take them back.  We must turn to war.
Maybe with the forces we have, we could destroy some of the GTVA’s most powerful warships, which would then make an assault on our old systems much more possible.  But yet, this seems so improbable for a small force such as us to defeat a force of that magnitude.
   We need something big, something huge, something, unstoppable. . .

Also guys, tell me if you want me to post the rest of the story as I get it done.  (I have Chapter 1 done if you guys like this.)

EDIT: Changed Date

[This message has been edited by adwight (edited 01-06-2002).]

[Mad Bomber]

Looks good. One thing tho: the date is wrong. Capella happened in 2367, not 2336. 2336 was the year after FS1.

Otherwise, looks great!  

Bring on the next bit!

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Looks like you're on to something...
You may want to explain this new NTF resurgence tho as we all know that Bosch took every single ship available to him when he made his run for the Nebula Beyond Gamma Draconis.
This does not mean of course that he took all sympathisers, crews, soldiers and whatevers with him...

[Zeronet]

He did though, the NTF was crushed utterly. The only people who escaped died in the Nebula or went with Bosch. The NTF was a smoke screen for ETAK and now that a way to Earth is feasible, the NTF wouldnt have anything to fight for.

[This message has been edited by Zeronet (edited 01-06-2002).]

[Mad Bomber]

Except for anti-Vasudan racism.

[Nico]

"... we need a sathanas"  

[adwight]

Here's the second installment of The Liberation of Sirius Hey It's my story can't I do whatever I want with it?

Chapter 1:  Grand Theft

   Jacob Moss, commander of the now dwindling Neo-Terran Front, sat in his quarters think of plans of how to resurrect what used to be a powerful space-faring Navy.  He thought of ways he could do this, but to no avail.  He even called in his subordinate’s, but they couldn’t concoct anything.  He pondered for three days, wondering exactly what he could do.
   Throughout his thinking he came across the thought of hijacking a Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance destroyer, but he rejected the thought.  GTVA destroyers were too well protected, so that would be impossible unless the GTVA slipped up somehow.
   Every now and then he would check his sensor logs to see if any GTVA destroyers were alone with minimal escort.  One morning he found one, the GTD Aquitaine, the flagship of the devastated Terran 3rd battlegroup.  The Aquitaine was with minimal escort, which would make it easy for the NTF to capture it.
   Immediately Moss called in his officers to inform them of the of the plan, and they all agreed to it.  The next morning the plan would be carried out to capture the Aquitaine near the Vega-Deneb jump node.
   After all of the squadron leaders on the vessel, the Revelation, were briefed, they passed on the information to their squadrons.  "At 0900 hours tomorrow morning, Alpha wing is to jump into the Vega system and Eliminate the Aquitaine’s escort.  Command has informed me two wings of fighters at most, so it should not be a difficult battle.  Once that objective is finished, command will send in the Sleipner, an Argo transport full of marines, to board and commandeer the Aquitaine.  Once the Aquitaine is captured, it will jump back here to Talnia.  Beta wing, you will be available as reinforcements.  Alpha, call them in if you need them," reported Ryan Hawkins, commander of the 51st Firebirds.  
   
As planned, at 0900 hours the next morning, Alpha wing launched from the Revelation and jumped into Vega.  "Command was actually right about something because I’m picking up only four Myrmidon fighters, designated Theta, as the Aquitaine’s escort," reported Alpha 2.
   "All fighters, break and attack Theta wing," Alpha 1 commanded as he boosted his engine power to full.
   At that instant, all of the NTF fighters sped toward the Aquitaine at full burn.  As the fighters neared the destroyer, it began to fire at them with sheets of flak, storms of lasers, and beams of incandescent fury.  In seconds, Alpha 4 burst into flames and slammed into the Aquitaine.  "All fighters, destroy Theta, that is our first priority.  After that objective is complete, then proceed to disarm and disable the Aquitaine," Alpha 1 commanded dodging cannon fire while he spoke.
   It did not take long for the remainder of Alpha wing to eliminate Theta wing, because of Alpha’s combat experience.  After the objective was neutralized, Alpha began to disarm and disable the Aquitaine.  It took some time for that to occur however, because of the massive hull strength of Hecate class destroyers.
   "Sleipner here, proceeding to dock with the Aquitaine," reported the Sleipner’s commander as it arrived.
   "Roger that, we got you covered," replied Alpha 2 back to the Sleipner.
   Ten minutes later, the Sleipner still hadn’t docked.  "Sleipner, what’s taking so long?" asked Alpha 3.
   "This destroyer is big, it’s hard for a ship like us to dock with it.  Just wait, activating docking clamps now," the Sleipner commander replied as if she was offended.
   It only took five minutes for the marines on board the transport to capture the Aquitaine.  Once the ship was in NTF hands, repairs were initiated on the engine subsystem to get out of the area as soon as possible.
   "These repairs are gonna take about another minute, hang on Alpha," the Aquitaine’s crew reported.  
   A minute later the Aquitaine jumped out of the system engulfed in a Blue-White portal of massive size, which carried it to Talnia.

Chapter 2 (Sopdeu's Call) is currently in the works.  I'll post it ASAP.


[This message has been edited by adwight (edited 01-06-2002).]

[Nico]

5 minutes to capture a destroyer probably full of marines? a little unrealistic if you ask me...

[CP5670]

Looks interesting. How did the NTF return to power?

Chapter 2 (Sopdeu's Call)

hehe, is that the GVCv Sopedu? I have that one attacking a PCA installation in my campaign...

[adwight]

The NTF is not really in power.  A few remaining Corvettes, Cruisers, and Transports are just laying low in Talnia, an uninhabited GTVA system. They are HOPING to return to power in Sirius, Polaris, and Epsilon Pegasi.

ya it's the Sopedu, I had a little typo.

What would be a reasonable amount of time to capture a destroyer Venom?  (I kinda thought 5 mins was a little small)

[This message has been edited by adwight (edited 01-06-2002).]

[Nico]

 

Originally posted by adwight:
The NTF is not really in power.  A few remaining Corvettes, Cruisers, and Transports are just laying low in Talnia, an uninhabited GTVA system. They are HOPING to return to power in Sirius, Polaris, and Epsilon Pegasi.

ya it's the Sopedu, I had a little typo.

What would be a reasonable amount of time to capture a destroyer Venom?  (I kinda thought 5 mins was a little small)

[This message has been edited by adwight (edited 01-06-2002).]

dunno, but seeing the result when the tried to capture the shivan transport in FS1... ok, they were shivans, but damn, just a puny freighter?
Imagine what you would need to capture a USA carrier, assuming all the troop transport got to it safely...

[Su-tehp]

Orion and Hecate destroyers each carry a crew of ten thousand. In order to capture a ship this large, you'd need two things: 1) a way to utilize surprise and 2) sufficient firepower to subdue (but not necessarilty kill) the crew.

(Slightly off-topic: This isn't FS canon, but it might be reasonable to assume that terran and Vasudan destroyers might have internal security systems (like anesthetic gas maybe?) to subdue intruders that somehow make it onto the ship.)

A Marine unit alone would probably be enough to be sufficient security system for a Terran destroyer. That being said, a 5 minute operation doesn't really sound like a reasonable time to capture a destroyer even if Moss' comandos have everything go their way. Obviously, the quicker the commandos secure the ship, the better it is for them, but five minutes is just too small a time to secure a 2-kilometer-long capital ship (please see below).

In order to capture a Terran destroyer, several objectives would have to be accomplished ASAP.

Objective 1: Secure the Bridge. The commandos need to secure the CO of the ship so he cannot give orders to any of his crew. The Bridge is the command center/brain of the ship; the ship's course, weapons, communications (did someone mention sending an SOS?) and other vital systems are controlled here. If the Bridge is not secured, then no capture operation can succeed.

Objective 2: Secure the Engineering Section. Engineering is where the ship's speed can be controlled if access to the bridge is cut off. While the ship's course/steering can only be controlled from the Bridge, that is worthless if the Chief Engineer can simply turn off the engines so the commandos can't slip away with their prize. If the destroyer is stranded in space and can't be taken to Moss' base, the commandos will have to abort the capture operation as GTVA reinforcements will soon arrive to take the ship back.

Objective 3: Neutralize the Marines. Obviously, the Marines have to be negated as a fighting force if the commandos are to take the ship with a minimum of casualties. The ship's Marines don't necessarily have to be killed in room-to-room combat (in fact, that would be a last resort), but they need to be disarmed and made unable to fight. Locking the marines in their quarters before they know what is going on would be one ideal option. Pumping the afore-mentioned anesthetic gas into the ship's air ventilation system to put the Marines (and maybe the crew as well?) to sleep would be another option. However it is done, the Marines need to be neutralized and quickly so that they and the ship's crew cannot take the ship back.

Objective 4: Secure the ship's Crew. This is similar/related to Objective 3. If the crew is not subdued, they will pose a threat to the commandos as they will fight just as hard as the ship's Marines to take the ship back. Furthermore, if the commandos aren't trained sufficiently to control the ship themselves (having commandos with this training would increase the operation's odds of success, however), they'll need the crew alive to move the ship.

All four of these objectives need to be accomplished in as short a time as possible. I suppose it needs to be said that I think getting a commando force onto a destroyer has to be done with stealth rather than firepower. According to this story (if I am correct), Moss doesn't have the resources to take a destroyer by flat-out force, so he'll have to rely on a much more subtle way to get his commandos on board. A "bait-and-switch" manuver would help here. My idea is this: Arrange the target destoryer to be inspected by a flag officer and his entourage. This would be the commandos in disguise. Once they are aboard the ship, the commando leader (disguised as the inspecting flag officer) would have an excuse to get onto the bridge with the ship's Captain. Once the bridge and the Captain are secured (and prevent any of the bridge crew from calling for help from the crew and Marines or sending a distress signal to the rest of the GTVA fleet), the commandos could then shut off the ship's weapons, allowing a second, larger commando force to dock with the destroyer, which would then secure the Engineering section, then the Marines and the crew.

5 minutes seems like far too short a time to complete the capture of a destroyer; in all likelyhood, it would maybe take longer, maybe 30 to 60 minutes for an operation like this. At least this much time is needed for Team 1 to get on board and secure the bridge and allow Team 2 to arrive in its transport and dock then complete its objectives. If things go wrong (as is very possible since no operation ever goes off without a hitch), it could take as long as 2 hours to secure the entire ship. Obviously, the quicker all 4 objectives are accomplished the better.

The overriding principle here is that stealth and surgical precision is of more use here than flat-out firepower.

Hope this helps, Adwight.

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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God

[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 01-07-2002).]

[Starwing]

To be honest, the disable-disarm-board tactics wouldn't work at all. When the crew notices that their ship is going to be knocked out for a boarding party they have more then enough time to fortify every corner of the ship, making boarding it with a small group of marines almost impossible. As Su-tehp said: stealth is the way to go. You have to smuggle your men aboard the destroyer without the crew even noticing it. The inspection team might be a good idea, but it would be even better to have them among the crew for some time before trying to capture it.

[Dark_4ce]

  Whooah...  

[Ace]

Actually Talnia isn't on the official Volition node charts, but is qualified as a "system" so within the V-T war it's logical that it's a gas giant system within Beta Aquilae. (Antares, and Vega don't seem as viable locations for it due to how heavilly the Vasudans held both systems as well as the time the battle occured in the V-T war timeline)

Edit: Also as a quasi pic, part of an FS1 shot of the old Talnia, and an FS2 shot of the new-
 

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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/

[This message has been edited by Ace (edited 01-07-2002).]

[adwight]

Thanks for your suggestions guys, I'll put what sutehp said into the story, so I'll redo most of it.  I redid the time to "Over and hour" to capture the Aquitaine.  Also, I kinda included Talnia for my story because it is connected to a major GTVA system on the Node Map I have.

Well here's the beginning of Chapter 2: Sopedu's Call

   "Sir, we’ve lost contact with the Aquitaine," reported the communications officer aboard the GTVA command station.
   "Say that again, that wasn’t quite clear," replied Admiral Cordoza, overlooking the operations.
   "I said, we’ve lost all contact with the Aquitaine in Vega sir," the comm officer said.
   "Oh my, I’ll inform the command post immediately.  This is very horrible news," the Admiral replied walking toward the door.
   Once he had cleared the room, he began to sprint down the enormous quarter-mile corridor to where command was located.  When he got there, he burst through the door to inform the head of GTVA operations, Jonathan April.
   April and his subordinates were in a critical meeting, but it came to an abrupt halt due to Cordoza’s arrival.  Immediately, Cordoza walked toward April and informed him of the Aquitaine’s disappearence.  April dropped his papers he was holding because of the shock of losing the Aquitaine that came to him.
   After an hour, April addressed the entire GTVA, telling them that contact had been lost with the Aquitaine.  He also informed them that they would send search parties, consisting of no less than one corvette and a wing of fighters, to all systems in GTVA space the next morning.
   To some of the more common systems, a destroyer, a corvette, and a few cruisers were sent to find the Aquitaine.  In less common systems, a corvette and a few cruisers were sent, and in the least common systems, just a single corvette was sent.
   The next morning, a task force of 1 corvette and a wing of fighters were deployed to the far reaches of Talnia to find the Aquitaine.


[This message has been edited by adwight (edited 01-07-2002).]

[adwight]

I was kinda thinking that I could add that some of the Aquitaines crew was killed in the battle they were previously because of hull breaches, fighter losses, bulkheads exploding, etc.

[Mad Bomber]

 

Originally posted by Ace:
Actually Talnia isn't on the official Volition node charts, but is qualified as a "system" so within the V-T war it's logical that it's a gas giant system within Beta Aquilae.

Talnia, or rather, Talania, is mentioned in the FS1 description of the Leviathan. So is Gulnara. I think they were just systems deleted from the official nodemap after FS1, but that Volition didn't feel like editing out of the Leviathan's description (or missed by accident).

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Visited the Winds of Fate forum lately?
Project leader of the Eden Project, its MODs, and all three of the campaigns included in it.

[adwight]

Im currently in the works of redoing chapter 1, because of Su-Tehp's advice.  I'll post it soon.

(I also want this to be good because I'm writing a sci-fi story for english and I chose FS2 as the topic! )

[Su-tehp]

 

Originally posted by adwight:
Im currently in the works of redoing chapter 1, because of Su-Tehp's advice.  I'll post it soon.

(I also want this to be good because I'm writing a sci-fi story for english and I chose FS2 as the topic!  )

Cool, it's always nice to meet another English student!   I graduated from college an English/Theatre dual major, so I know how to write and act (but not all that wwell, mind you   ).

As for my advice about the Capture Operation objectives, well, I did some reasoning from some of my Army ROTC. I also remembered a short story in one of the old Star Wars RPG supplements (from the WEG game, not the new Wizards of the Coast game). There was a short story (actually it was a debriefing report) about a Rebel Special Forces assault on an Imperial space station to steal a new Imperial decoder with contained all the Empire's newest encryption codes. Capturing this device would allow the Rebels to decode even the Empire's most classified encrypted messages.

The Rebels used roughly the same strategy I outlined above: one force to "sneak" onto the station (actually, Team 1 just used an Imperial transport to look harmless as they approached the space station, then they just rammed the airlock and forced their way onboard), then knock out the station's power generator, which shut down the station's weapons, allowing a Rebel shuttle carrying Teams 2 and 3 to dock unmolested.

Teams 1 and 2 fought the Imperials while Team 3 stole the decoder and made its way back to the shuttle. The Rebels then withdrew with heavy casualties (Team 1 was all killed and both Teams 2 and 3 suffered about 25% dead and another 30% wounded each), but the mission was a success because the Rebels DID manage to steal the decoder.

As an added bonus, with the station's power generator offline, it soon fell out of orbit and burned up in the atmosphere of the planet it was orbiting, killing all the remaining Imperials onboard. And since the Imperials couldn't send a distress signal with the generator down, the Empire had no way to know that the Rebels had just managed to steal one of their primary encryption decoders!

Those sneaky Rebels, you gotta keep your eyes on them every minute.  

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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God