User blog:SPARTAN 119/Insufficently Advanced Aliens: The Race (Worldwar) VS The Arume (Blue Drop)

Combatants and Weapons
"If you must blame anyone, blame the planners who sent a probe to this miserable world sixteen hundred years ago and assumed it would not change in the meanwhile. A probe a hundred years before we set out would have warned us and saved us much grief. I have already recommended that this be made standard practice in planning any future conquest fleets."
 * -|The Race=

- Fleetlord Atvar, on the failed invasion of Earth

The Race, often referred to by humans as “Lizards”, are an intelligent species of bipedal reptilians from a planet in the Tau Ceti system, known simply as “Home” to the Race, who play a major role in Harry Turtledove’s “Worldwar” series of novels. The Race have existed as a unified one-planet empire for over 50,000 years, and are extremely conservative, viewing change as inherently bad, and embracing technological advancements only at a glacial pace. The Race are also highly imperialistic, having twice conquered alien races, the Hallessi and Rabotevs, both of which are of similar biology and were only at a medieval technology level when they were encountered. As such, while the Race have some more advanced technologies, such as cryostasis and sublight spaceships, their weapons have remained the same for 50,000 years, at a level roughly equivalent to Earth in the 1990s.

At some point in the 1200s, the Race launched a space probe to Earth, and discovered it to be a habitable planet with an indiginous species at a medieval technology level. Because of the slow pace of Race society, the longer lifespans of the race, and the amount of time needed to traverse the vast distances of space at sub-light speeds, the Race Conquest fleet did not arrive at Earth until 1942, where they were shocked to find that humanity had advanced significantly in the centuries since they launched the probe. While the Race won some early victories against the human countries, who quickly ended their World War and united against the race, the Race eventually found their numbers of troops and, in particular, advanced weapons, attritted by more numerous human forces. The war ended when the US, USSR, and German Reich developed nuclear weapons, and forced the Race to settle for a peace in which the Race retained some territories on Earth, but the US, UK, USSR, Germany, and Japan, as well as few smaller countries, remained independent.

The Race and humanity would co-exist on Earth for at least the next century, as the Race technological advantage began to slip, with the Race fighting a destructive nuclear war with Germany in 1965. Around the turn of the 21st century, the US launched a starship with similar capabilities to that of the Race on a decades-long journey to the Race homeworld, with a similar one later being launched by the Soviets. In 2031, the US designed a faster-than-light starship, which arrived at “Home” after fives weeks’ travel, proving humanity had definitively surpassed the Race.

The Race possess small arms similar to real-world modern weapons, the standard issue weapon being an assault rifle similar to a real-world AK or M16. In additon, the Race are known to possess specialist weapons, including machine guns, rockets launchers, and sidearms. The Race use the term “Landcruiser” to refer to armored vehicles analogous to tanks. The Landcruisers the race deployed in their 1942 invasion of Earth were significantly more advanced than the tanks of any nation on Earth, being roughly analoguous to tanks of the 1990s in real life, equipped with 105mm or 120mm main guns, multiple machine guns for anti-personnel use, autoloaders, and composite armor. Even the German Tiger, the most advanced tank of the time suffered five losses for every landcruiser kill, while American Shermans and, in particular, Japanese tanks suffered far worse kill ratios, with a dozen or more tanks lost for every landcruiser destroyed. The landcruiser were finally defeated because of their limited numbers- the humans could replaced destroyed tanks, but the Race could not. Towards the end of the war, the loss of a single landcruiser could halt a Race offensive. This, along with the superior armored tactics of human armies, contributed the eventual human victory over the race.
 * -|Small Arms=
 * -|Landcruisers=

In addition to Landcruisers, the Race also operated Troop Carriers, essentially armored personnel carriers, but these vehicles were far less well armored and equipped with only a machine gun, making them far easier to destroy than the landcruisers. The Race operated helicopters in the 1942 invasion of Earth in both transport and attack roles. It is not immediately clear if the two roles were played by different types of helicopters, or if they were a single design capable of filling both attack and troop transport roles, similar to a real-world Mi-24 Hind. As an attack aircraft, the helicopters could be armed with missiles, rockets, and nose-mounted cannon. During the war for Earth, the Race found helicopters to be far more vulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and human fighter aircraft than their Killercraft, and thus suffered heavy losses. "Killercraft" was the word for a fighter aircraft used by The Race, a reptilian alien race who invade Earth during World War II in Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series of alternate history novels. The Killercraft is, like most Race weapons technologies, roughly comparable in capabilities to a real-world fighter jet of the 1990s. The aircraft was capable of flying at speeds greater than the speed of sound, and could fly at an altitude high enough to land on Race spaceship, allowing them to operate even in areas where airstrips were unavailable. The Killercraft was armed with 18 air-to-air missiles and at least one radar-controlled cannon for close range armament, and could also be equipped with air-to-ground missiles and even nuclear weapons for ground attack missions.
 * -|Helicopters=
 * -|Killercraft=

When the Race invaded in 1942, the Killercraft easily destroyed almost the entirety of human air forces with their superior firepower, and were subsequently used in a ground attack role. While the Race held near total air superiority at the start of the war, they suffered from the crucial weakness of being isolated from their homeworld, and unable to replace destroyed craft or expended missiles. As the Race had fought only two conflicts in the last 50,000 years, their aerial tactics were far more primitive than those of humans, and human military forces, the British in particular, developed tactics to defeat them using radar and massed anti-aircraft guns. The Race are capable of interstellar travel, but not faster-than-light travel, instead using cryogenic technologies to place the crew in suspended animation for the journey. The primary power plant of the craft was a fusion reactor which powered the sub-light boosters, as well as all other systems. The craft was armored to protect against impacts from meteors and conventional munitions, and some craft had additional armor around nuclear weapons storage, but could still be destroyed by nuclear weapons and even some conventional munitions, such as the German 800mm Schwerer Gustav railway gun. Race warship carried various armaments, including nuclear missiles, conventional missiles for intercepting incoming missiles and aircraft, as well as computer-controlled Gatling-type weapons for close-in point defense. The race refer to nuclear weapons as “explosive metal bombs”, and deploy them mostly on missiles launched from Killercraft or Starships. Race nuclear technology seems to be identical to that used in real life, and they seem to possess both fission and fusion warheads. While nuclear weapons are the most devastating weapons in the Race arsenal, they are rarely used in invasions, as overuse will render the planet uninhabitable.
 * -|Starships=
 * -|Nuclear Weapons=

Atvar was the Fleetlord in command of the Race Conquest Fleet sent to conquer Earth, known to the race as “Tosev-3”. Atvar, as all members of the Race did at the end of the schooling, took a career aptitude test, and was found to be suited to either a career the military or architecture, with Atvar choosing the former as it sounded more exciting. Atvar would be made the commander of the Conquest Fleet shortly before it left for Earth.
 * -|Commander: Atvar=

Atvar and the rest of the Conquest Fleet reached Earth in 1942, and discovered that the inhabitants were far more advanced than the Race had expected. Atvar considered turning back informing the Emperor of the situation, but instead went ahead with the attack, both fearing that humanity might grow powerful enough to defeat the Race by then, and simply to protect his own reputation. In an attempt to disrupt human communications, Atvar ordered several nuclear weapons detonated in high earth orbit, but the EMP failed to cause significant damage to the older vacuum tube-based techologies used at the time.

While the Race had an initial technological advantage, they were outnumbered by the humans, who ended their world war and banded together to fight the Race. While Atvar managed to partially adapt to human tactics, he was relucted to escalated the conflict, in particular, he avoided excessive use of nuclear weapons so as to ensure the planet remained habitable for colonization. This, along with the shocks of the human development of their own atomic weapons, a Race mutiny in Siberia, an impeachment attempt by second-in-command Straha, who called for more aggressive tactics against humanity, and much of the Race ranks being rendered unfit for combat by being an addiction to ginger, which had a narcotic effect on the Race, forced Atvar to negotiate, signing the Peace of Cairo, allowing the US, UK, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan, as well as a few smaller countries to remain independant, while the rest of the world became a Race colony.

After the war, Atvar was made co-governor of Earth, was shocked to learn that humanity was quickly catching up with the Race technologically, dispelling his notions that the humans could be fully subjugated. When the US attacked the Race Colonization Fleet in 1962, Atvar ordered the US to either terminate their space program, or allow the Race to destroy a US city. Atvar was shocked when US president Earl Warren allowed the Race to destroy Indianapolis.

In 1973, Atvar was recalled to the Race homeworld, known simply as “Home”, and was often blamed as a scapegoat for the Race’s failures. Feeling he was unfairly slandered, Atvar heavily criticized the Race government in his memoirs, titled I Told You So. When a US starship, the Admiral Peary, was discovered to be en route to Home, Atvar was asked to come out of retirement as an ambassador, only for a second US spacecraft, capable of faster than light travel, the Commodore Perry to arrive, marking humanity as having definitively surpassed the Race.

'''Note: The Arume in this match will be from a time period about 10 years before the Kamioka incident- hence the Emil Force Drive will not have been invented. As this nerfing is canon, as the Arume existed before the device was invented, it does not violate wiki anti-nerfing rules.'''
 * -|The Arume=

"The capacity of self-sacrifice is seen as the greatest virtue in our culture."

- Yui, a half-Arume resistance agent on the Arume

The Arume are a space-faring humanoid race that play a major role in the manga and anime Blue Drop. The Arume are humanoids which typically, but not always have a pale complexion and white hair, and all members of the species possess blue eyes and blood which turns white when exposed to oxygen, possibly leading to their pale complexion. The primary distinguishing characteristic of the Arume is that, for the past thousand years, every member of the Arume species has been female, reproducing through some form of advanced bio-engineering. Nonetheless, the Arume possess an effectively vestigial sexuality, with all of them being homosexual.

The Arume civilization is far more advanced than that of Earth, possessing technologies such as directed energy weapons, faster-than-light travel, and advanced genetic engineering to name a few example. It is implied, however, that the Arume civilization has been in decline ever since the death of the male population, likely due to a lack of genetic diversity that Arume biotechnology cannot completely correct. During the past, the Arume were said to be even more advance, being capable of interstellar personal teleportation, a technology that has long since been lost. During this period, an Arume male teleported to earth and successfully interbred with a human woman, placing Arume genetic material into the human genome.

In a last-ditch attempt to reclaim their genetic material, the Arume invaded Earth in the year 2000. In spite of their massive technological advantage, the Arume suffered heavy losses in battle with human military forces, implied to be the result of a combination of the fierceness of human resistance and the wasteful and sometimes downright suicidal tactics of the Arume, whose military culture highly values death in battle, and thus emphasized overwhelming the enemy with wave for disposable cannon fodder, or even outright suicide attacks. While the Arume suffered heavy losses, in the end, they defeated the human resistance thanks to the use of biological weapons and a reality manipulation device known as the Emil Force Drive.

After the war ended in 2008, the Arume set up a government which treated humans, particularly males, as second-class citizens. Within a year of their victory, the Arume goal of regaining the their lost genetic material within the human genome was all but forgotten, with Arume scientists using humans as subject for unethical experiments, and many high-ranking Arume officials and officers taking young human women as little more than sex slaves. While the Arume regime lasted for one thousand years, they were never able to eliminate human resistance to their rule, which continued for as long as the Arume controlled Earth.

Arume small arms include both handguns, grenades, and assault rifles, as well as a larger pistol-type weapon seen in the manga, possibly an equivalent to a “magnum” or a sort of “Uzi-style” submachine gun. The manga also shows human resistance using some sort of heavy weapon of presumed Arume origin capable of knocking out walkers, and the Arume may also have handheld missile or rocket launchers. Arume weapons are shown in the anime to fire some sort of projectile with a characteristic purple muzzle flash and purple tracers with apparently similar muzzle velocity to manmade weapons.
 * -|Small Arms=

The Arume possess multiple models of mechanized walker which appear in the manga and anime. The lightest model, with a height of no more than about 4-5 meters is bipedal walker with two hands used by the military, equipped with two manipulators. It is not clear if it has any armament beside sides the manipulators, though it may, given that it is used by the military. While it is the lightest model, it still appears heavily armored, but can be disabled with anti-armor weapons.
 * -|Walkers=

The second, heavier model is a much taller walker consisting of an armored body on four long legs, with a height of at least a five story building. This walker is heavily armed with the main armament consisting of a large cannon with firepower comparable to to a tank gun.

In addition to their faster fighter aircraft, the Arume are shown to possess elongated, roughly rectangular VTOL aircraft roughly resembling a flying bus. The aircraft are sometimes shown with what appears to be armament, presumably some sort of gun or energy weapon, but they appear to be primarily used for transporting troops or cargo. Arume troops appear to be able to drop down from them using some sort of anti-gravity technology to lower their speed of descent. The VTOLs do not seem to be significantly faster than a helicopter, and tend to operate at similar altitudes.
 * -|VTOL Aircraft=

At the time of the Arume invasion, the primary military vehicle for air combat was a small fighter aircraft armed with a single directed energy weapon mounted in a nose turret with a very short range, only a few hundred meters. These craft lacked any sort of energy shields, and seemed capable of flying in atmosphere at speeds comparable to modern fighter jets, but not significantly faster or more maneuverable, being unable to evade air-to-air missiles. For this reason, they could be destroy en masse by human fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons armed with long-range missiles. In one aerial battle, a squadron of JSDF F-15s engaged a squadron of Arume fighters in which the Arume outnumbered the JSDF at least two to one, but the JSDF aircraft managed to shoot down numerous Arume aircraft before being overwhelmed by the Arume. The preferred tactic when using their fighters is to deploy masses of the craft in a sort of airborne banzai charge against better-armed opponents, an example of the Arume military’s culture of idealizing self-sacrifice, in some way similar to Imperial Japan in World War II. In addition to a lack of emphasis on survivability of their aircraft, the Arume culture of self-sacrifice has also resulted in Arume pilots using their fighters in kamikaze-style attacks on large spacecraft.
 * -|Fighters=

In addition to their fighters, the Arume have access to a large aircraft roughly analogous to a heavy bomber, which is at least three times larger than their fighters (some images show it only about three times larger, while some over ten times- possibly an issue of scale). The aircraft is seen in the anime deploying an alien missile with firepower comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon.

The Arume are known to be capable of interstellar faster-than-light travel, and are known to possess several forms of large spacecraft which are capable of not only operating in atmosphere and hovering over the Earth’s surface, but also floating on the surface of a body of water or even submerging and acting as a submarine. The armaments of Arume spacecraft are highly varied, with the primary armaments consisting of multiple directed energy weapons mounted in multiple turrets similar to those a World War II-era battleship. Arume warships are also armed with missiles comparable to their manmade counterparts launched from vertical launch systems, as well as both energy-based close-in weapons systems for intercepting aircraft and missiles, as well as smaller, more numerous point defense guns which appear to use some sort of rapid-fire projectile, similar to a modern CIWS systems. Arume spacecraft appear to be highly automated, as seen by the fact that the alien vessel seen in the anime is only crewed by two Arume, the captain Ekaril and her assistant Tsubael, and yet is capable of full combat functions. Arume ships are protected by an energy shield that provides substantial protection, capable of surviving the impact of dozens, if not hundreds of weapons equivalent to a larger aerial bomb in explosive force, but it can eventually be overwhelmed by numerous impacts. Some Arume ships, such as the Novaal featured in the anime appear to be analogous to carriers, carrying perhaps over 100 fighters and at least one heavy bomber, while still carrying powerful offensive weapons of their own. Smaller Arume ships do not seem to carry a significant aircraft compliment, being designed mostly for direct combat.
 * -|Spacecraft=

One of the most bizarre weapons of the Arume, and the ultimate expression with their obsession with a sacrificing oneself in battle, are the “Gosta”, or cloned Arume somehow capable of exploding with the force of at least an artillery shell on command, either through their engineered biology or an implanted explosive device. The Arume will often drop them out of spacecraft hovering over a target, often a city, and lower them slowly with some sort of anti-gravity device. The Gosta were among the first weapons deployed against humanity in the Arume invasion, used indecriminately against civilian populations as a terror weapon. While they are terrifying weapons, the Gosta can be neutralized by small arms fire, though this may detonate their explosive payload. Very rarely, a Gosta will reject the mission they were designed for and attempt to live as a normal Arume. This has occurred in at least one instance.
 * -|Gosta/Suicide Clones=

Even prior to the development of their Emil Force Drive, the Arume had access to powerful weapons of mass destruction. The heavy bomber spacecraft carried by the Arume warship Novaal, the flagship for the first stage of the Arume invasion of Earth, carried a missile armed with a warhead comparable to a nuclear weapon, though distinguished by its characteristic green fireball upon detonation.
 * -|Weapons of Mass Destruction=

Shivariel was a high-ranking officer in the Arume military. She was the mastermind behind the first Arume action on Earth, a weapons test in 1999 on the Kamioka Island in Japan to test the Emil Force Drive, an advanced piece of technology which was used to develop the Arume’s reality-warping technology. In the incident, an Arume spacecraft, designated Blue or Ship 5, which, unknown to the crew, was intentionally deployed with a faulty Emil Force Drive, which exploded killing everyone on the island save for one person, and also one of the crew, an Arume named Onomil. This was used to test the effects of an Emil Force Drive meltdown, for use in weaponizing the device.
 * -|Commander: Shivariel=

Two survivors of Blue, Tsubael and Ekaril lay low following the incident following incident, with Tsubael mostly remaining on board the ship, while Ekaril infiltrated Japanese society under the assumed identity of a girl named Hagino Senkouji. During her time hiding out in a Japanese school, Ekaril falls in love with a girl named Mari Wakatake, who was the sole human survivor of the Kamioka incident.

Shivariel would later the command the first Arume battlegroup invading Earth. In addition to launching the initial attacks, Shivariel intended to destroy the spacecraft involved in the Kamioka incident to eliminate all evidence of her atrocities, including the only surviving witnesses Ekaril, Tsubael, and Mari. Shivariel’s invasion force meets heavy resistance both from the JSDF and other human military forces, as well as from Ekaril and Azanael, the lover of Onomil, the Arume who was killed in the Kamioka incident. Shivariel is finally killed in battle when Ekaril sacrifices herself by ramming Shivariel’s flagship Novaal with the “Blue”, destroying both ships.

=X-Factors=

Explanations
Both sides are well-trained with the weapons they use, however, in terms of combat experience, they Arume take a slight edge as they fought against a modern Earth (they won but still performed relatively poorly), but also clearly fight among themselves during their time on Earth, and presumably did before their invasion, while the Race have not fought an enemy with an equal technology level for over 50,000 years, having only invaded two medieval-level civilization and 1942-era Earth (and failing to control all of the latter). The Arume are more technologically advanced, having faster than light travel and directed energy weapons, but are hampered by their idiotic employment of them. While the Race’s aerial and armored tactics can be described as primitive and uninspired, the Arume are downright suicidal, viewing self-sacrifice as a great honor, making use of suicide attacks even when they hold a clear technological advantage over their foe- even in similar cultures emphasizing self sacrifice (such as Imperial Japan), suicide attacks are usually a tactic of desperation- i.e. the Japanese kamikaze. Many of their applications of their technology, such as the lack of long-range air-to-air weapons or shields on their aircraft seem designed to force the pilots into suicidal tactics. For this reason, in over air and possibly ground combat, the Race will likely have an advantage. The one place where the Arume use their technology to their full advantage is in spacecraft, and even then, their shields can be broken by sustained bombardment with weapons that possess the explosive firepower of a large bomb or missiles, suggesting the Race’s weapons would be able to harm them. This is further supported by the fact humanity managed to put up a fight against the Arume for ten years even though the Arume had a Deus ex Machina reality warping weapon, so human (and equivalent) weapons can probably shoot down their ships. Now for the part where the Arume really show their weaknesses, the sheer idiocy of much of their leadership. Not only do the Arume have a puzzling habit of using suicide tactics, they also are stupid to the point that, given they are an all female/lesbian species, it seems kind of sexist and homophobic (particular surprising since this is a yuri anime). I mean, the Arume invaded to recover samples of Arume male DNA that ended in the human genome, but instead, many of them just end up taking underage girls as sex slaves and ignore the impending doom of their race.

=Scenario= The Arume will be attacking in this scenario- hence the the Race will have about five times as many ships, fighters, vehicles etc. The disparity of infantry numbers will be even greater. The Arume, however, are more technologically advanced than the Race. =Prologue= Shiplord Phollmos stood at the command of the Race cruiser, the 31st Emperor Rizzon, positioned at the front of the patrol group traveling away from the Race homeworld, known simply as “Home”. The Rizzon was joined by the 22nd Emperor Hetto and three smaller intra-system patrol vessels, smaller ships that lacked cold sleep chambers, intended for patrolling the star system. While the larger race starships were named for emperors, the patrol vessels were named for other heroes of the race, the three accompanying the Rizzon and Hetto being the Sherran the Navigator, Pssufalu the Conqueror, and Skarral the Defender, respectively. While most of the military had been only recently formed when the “Soldiers Time” was declared after the discovery of the habitable planet Tosev 3, Phollmos had been part of a small force of ships tasked with patrolling the system- essentially “space cops”. Phollmos had never had to fire a shot in anger thus far, having never dealt with anything worse than a cargo ship deviating from approved flight paths or occasionally a ship smuggling contraband.

When he detected an unindentified craft traveling on a path that deviated from the usual routes for ships coming in Rabotev or Halliess, approaching from outside the lunar perimeter, Phollmos ordered the Rizzon and the rest of the patrol group to follow him in approaching the unidentified craft and sent out a transmission on all channels. “Unidentified craft, this is the Home System Space Patrol. You are ordered to identify yourself and power down your thrusters. Representatives of the Imperial Military will arrive by shuttle and dock and board your vessel shortly.”

There was no response from the unknown vessel for several minutes, Phollmos had a second transmission sent: “This is the Imperial Military Home System Patrol, you are ordered to identify yourself and power down your thrusters immediately.”

After being ignored a second time, Phollmos ordered the Rizzon to fire a launch an anti-ship missile on a trajectory that would cause it to fly past the bow of the ship without impacting it, along with a third message. “This is the Imperial Military Home System Patrol, identify yourself and power down your thrusters immediately or we will fire on you. This is your final warning.”

Meanwhile, Kaziel, the Arume commander of the space cruiser Duuraal, heard nothing, the Arume not using any of the usual Race frequencies for communications. As far as she was concerned, Kaziel had not realized the aliens had seen her at all. That was until her radar detected a single incoming missile coming from the craft.

“Captain, incoming missile!”, Taranael, Kaziel’s co-pilot and one of only two Arume on the highly automated vessel, said.

“Activate weapons systems and prepare to engage target!”, Kaziel replied, believing the warning shot to be a hostile act.

At once, the Duuraal’s point defense lasers intercepted the the incoming missile. The craft then turned its three top-mounted energy weapon turrets on the incoming craft, which fired off a salvo of green laser beams at the unknown ships.

Alarms blared throughout the bridge of the 31st Emperor Rizzon as one of the intra-system patrol craft, the Sherran the Navigator, exploded in a short-lived fireball as it was struck by a beam of green light, the on-board oxygen quickly being depleted, leaving only a field of floating debris.

“Sherran is hit, catastrophic hull failure! What just happened there!?”, Korron, the commander of the 22nd Emperor Hetto asked.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked like some kind of weaponized skelkwank (Race word for a laser, used only for targeting missiles and electronics applications by the Race)”, one of bridge crew on the Hetto said.

“But that’s impossible”, Korron replied.

The speculation of the crew of the Hetto was interrupted by a transmission from Phollmos on the Rizzon. “Hostile contact, all units, engage!”

Back on board the Rizzon, Gerral, the fire control officer on the ship informed Phollmos that the forward launch tube array had been firing, launching a swarm of anti-spacecraft missiles at the unknown contact. The other four surviving craft of the patrol group also opened fire, launching a swarm of about 100 missiles flying towards the unknown craft. Back on the Duuraal, Kaziel noticed the swarm of countless incoming missiles flying towards the ship.

“Incoming missiles”, Kaziel ordered, “Set all point defense weapons engage and divert additional power to shield”.

“Yes, Captain”, Taranael replied.

As the missiles approached the Duuraal, the point defense lasers and autocannons roared to life, intercepting dozens of the incoming missiles, as the Duuraal send swarms of point-defense missiles to intercept more of the incoming projectiles.

Only about a dozen of the Race missiles make contact with the Duuraal, all of them detonating against the shield, which was still at 90% after the impacts.

Phollmos looked on in disbelief as the enemy ship was struck by a dozen missiles, each designed to punch through an armored spacecraft hull without so much as a scratch. As soon as the missile impacted, the unknown vessel retaliated. The two lighter patrol ships were all struck by the strange beam weapon the enemy ship carried, which burned straight through each of them, causing them to collapse in on themselves from explosive decompression.

After the energy weapon struck, then came the missiles, easily as many as the Race’s salvo, if not more. The Hetto and Rizzon both fired off their point defense missile batteries, intercepting dozens of them, while the close-range computer-controlled autocannons took out dozens more.

The Rizzon was lucky and got away unscathed, but the Hetto was not so lucky. It was hit by several missiles which impacted near the rear of the ship. Anyone in the back of the ship was killed instantly as the ion thrusters were destroyed. As soon as the hits were detected, the automatic airlocks snapped shut, cordoning off the front of the ship, which was now freely drifting without power.

“Hetto, report, what’s the situation on board?”, Phollmos called out on the radio.

“Taken severe damage, propulsion and weapons are cold, abandoning ship!”, Korron replied.

“I read you, Hetto, notifying nearby patrol units to provide reinforcements and search and rescue”, Phollmos replied, before continues, “Gerral, fire the explosive metal missiles, blow them to an Emperorless afterlife!”

“It shall be done, shiplord”, Gerral replied, as he made the final preparations to fire the most devastating weapon in the ship’s arsenal, the six explosive metal missiles.

On the Duuraal, Kaziel saw the six missiles close in on the radar, only to split into four smaller contacts. The point defense systems intercepted first one, then two, then three. After a couple of seconds, however, there was a blinding flash outside ship. An alarm sounded, revealing that some sort of electromagnetic pulse had depleted the shields- the ship was on emergency power. Then two more of the enemy warheads made contact, and Kaziel knew no more.

At the distance of thousands of kilometers, the explosions of the explosive metal warheads was visible as a new star that appeared in the distance for a split second. When it had vanished, the radar revealed only a field of free-floating debris where the enemy contact was.

The crew of the ship erupted in cheers, but Phollmos was more subdued. If… whoever it was that operated these ships… sent more of them, he didn’t know of the Race could defeat them if they sent an entire fleet. After all, it took several explosive metal warheads just to destroy one.

Little did Phollmos know, when Duuraal failed to return, the Arume sent recon probes, confirming the presence of an alien civilization in the early stages of space-faring. The rulers of the Arume decided the Forime (Arume word for humans) could wait- they were nowhere near the Arume technologically. This civilization, however, could prove a threat if they were to develop faster-than-light travel. So the Arume sent a fleet of warships to destroy the civilization before they became a threat...

TO BE CONTINUED AFTER END OF VOTING