The initial plan was not greatly detailed. Produce drones, meet people and try and learn what was going on, without appearing totally green, before being mercilessly crushed by someone. Well that was the best that was hoped for... worked better than our wildest dreams!
The early mistakes were many, a turn was lost in droning the nearby planets in order that the drones be moved so that the incoming reports would not come from the homeworld. A route misdirected all COL to one single planet and slowed down the growth around the homeworld. Using the wrong set of template orders created a weapons tech of 1.01 long before such an increase was necessary... and also removed a turn of growth from what was then, through my eyes at least, a major colony. And there were never enough transports to go around!
First communications occurred with CityState, the immediate neighbor. A day later we had already agreed to an alliance. A mentor had been found and one that apparently was not reluctant to talk about things outside the immediate situation and who to attack next!
About the same time, communications were established with the Esquimaux, who were surprised to find intelligent life out there, being as they were unsure it had existed. They seemed friendly and set the _Empire to peace, allowing Probulators to orbit here, there and everywhere. They then also started to use armed ships to scout out and about.
The first sighting of nyx, and the first sighting of such a large (the largest that had been seen at that point) 33 mass battleship caused some consternation, not least because there was nothing at the time in the KE arsenal to defeat it. The homeworld immediately started gearing for a possible "nyx" crisis that never quite materialized.
When it came to time for KE and CS to discuss borders and things, it became clear that the _Empire had not been at all efficient in the early starting phase, compared to the amount of territory CS had managed to acquire.
KE > Alas... 470 was colonized by us in turn3! 201 is our Homeworld!!!!!!
CS > It didn't really dawn on me that my border was so close to your
CS > homeworld until just now. I'm gonna set you to Peace so as to preclude
CS > any chance of a mistake being made. WHAT have you been doing all these
CS > turns???!!
KE > Really? What with you colonizing everything within 20LY of your
KE > homeworld... and with the homeworld seperation being 20-25LY... unless we
KE > are really unlucky, you are probably fairly close to several homeworlds!
It is not easy being little!
Then Esquimaux armed scouts started causing havoc and some concern amongst his neighbors (well CS and KE anyway, although thanks to the peace setting I never had a planet bombed). War seemed, and indeed was, pretty much inevitable from the get-go. Assistance was needed and although the CS/KE Alliance was created to be exclusive of all other races, given the time frames involved and the embarrassingly small size of the _Empire, it was agreed upon that help was needed. The Moose were inducted into the alliance, and moves were planned on the Esquimaux. Forces were also committed to join Moose in a campaign against Behemoth, scheduled to start on turn 24. Given the distances involved, the onset of this campaign dominated KE thinking, planning and production from about turn 9!
Esquimaux fell. Dialogs sprung up with races all over, some being more communicative than others. Pertinent details from these communications were passed on to our three-way alliance so that hopefully no one would get the drop on us, and disasters could be averted.
The plan called for KE drones and ToM battleships to sneak up on the nyx homeworld via a conveniently placed rock on turn 14, whilst Sykather and CS provided other forces to take on the other nyx colonies. The initial attack worked like a charm, because the rock was mysteriously void of nyx craft when our combined forces arrived. Thus the attack on the homeworld was able to proceed with minimal losses. The reason for this was that a nyx battlefleet had appeared appallingly close to KE and CS space. nyx's dying thrusts were directed primarily (or so it seemed) at KE culminating in a spectacular battle over the KE homeworld fought with the aid of CS defenders, followed by a 35 light year chase across what had become a sausage shaped KE domain. Eventually the nyx forces were neutralized, but the _Empire had discovered what it was like to see bombing reports of its own worlds, and it was not happy.
Z > So, ahhh, would you care to attack Tsalia? I'm sorta stuck here, I've Z > gotta start a war soon.
And so the forces of the _Empire agreed to go to war against Tsalia working with Zorg.
Then things started to get difficult. Zorg needed to break the treaty with Tsalia in such a way that, it was hoped, Tsalia would not immediately feel threatened. He settled on the plan to break the treaty with every one of his neighbors, and allow them the opportunity to renegotiate. This plan caused several uncertainties here in the _Empire. According to treaty, KE advised CS of the impending Tsalia campaign. CS was convinced that Zorg might be trying something tricky, maybe centered around possessing the "3 planet cluster" of rich planets that CS had staked a claim to. It became clear that whilst Tsalia presented a very real and dangerous threat to the _Empire, the ongoing stability of THE ALLIANCE would best be served by a downfall for Zorg. So the drones were launched.
Tsalia was informed of the impending Zorg attack whilst the drones were in flight. Zorg tried to back out of the attack on Tsalia, claiming that Valar would make a better target. This note was passed on to Queen Varda at the same time as Zorg was assured that all should proceed according to plan vs Tsalia. Then the drones landed. Zorg was not amused. KE was not amused either, for it appeared to our analysis that the Zorg ships that had been built for the Tsalian war were not fast enough to get to the Tsalian homeworld as expected. The drone information was passed on to Tsalia and Tsalia was able to take on and bomb the Zorg homeworld. But the Zorg attack fleet had disappeared. Despite expressing a just desire to strike back at the architects of his downfall, due to a lack of intelligence information, Zorg was left no recourse but to throw himself at Tsalia. Valar and CityState moved in on Zorg's worlds to take down what was left. In an epic battle over the Tsalian homeworld, the defenses held, barely, as 100 drones of The_Force showed up for the fight apparently on the side of Zorg against the Tsalian and KE defenders. In a cunning move inspired by CS, Tsalia had set to peace his homeworld, and The's drones played no part in the fighting. The Zorg situation was resolved.
Behemoth and Q had taken out the Aelian_Conclave, and Hackers and Tribes_of_Man were recruited to take on the Q side of this alliance whilst the three of us (Moose, CityState, KE) moved on Behemoth as planned so long ago.
The campaign appeared to proceed like clockwork, with worlds falling. The only thing that really marred it from our point of view was a miscalculation that caused nearly 600 drones to be wiped out on an attack on a Behemoth world when no gun sufficient to penetrate the shields of the defender was sent. But before the Behemoth war was really underway, a new specter had raised its head. The Blitz of the Galaxy seemed to be a possibility and CityState was so taken by the idea that he was willing to jeopardize the three-way "until the end" alliance for it. There were several tense moments here in the _Empire as it looked as if Moose and CityState were going to start shooting each other over the idea. Eventually the words of CityState won out, and Moose grudgingly agreed to the plan.
Then, shortly after Pyrrans met and fought the fleet destined for his destruction, and as The attacked and finally overran Tsalia, and as the Behemoth war was still grinding on, albeit on the backburner, and as the _Empire were pursuing their construction plans for the Hackers phase of the Blitz, Tribes_of_Man attacked.
All in all it was a fairly amicable war. Having learnt an awful lot about offensive operation, now it was time to learn about defense. ToM and KE maintained a line of communication throughout the shooting. When it became clear that there had been a leak or was a traitor amongst the "Gang of Seven" the _Empire curled up within itself. This was the first time extinction had been faced in a Galaxy, and it was a prospect that was not viewed with relish. With over a quarter of production removed, ToM invited KE to negotiate a peace, and invited KE to propose the terms. With some reluctance (not least because I could see no reason at the time for ToM to stop the attack considering how totally overwhelmed the defenses would be) negotiations proceeded to a conclusion and a peace was signed. News about the origin of the leak surfaced and it was a terrible shock to the _Empire (like discovering your parents aren't perfect!). The _Empire all but withdrew from galactic communications.
The bombed some worlds. Some nice worlds. Without much thought I agreed to let them keep them all, rather than trying to fight them myself, but this changed feelings drastically towards The, who up until then had not bombed my worlds out of hand.
After a while of nothing it was decided to drone the entire galaxy, for no other reason than it was within my power, and I had nothing to lose.
Whilst the drones were under construction Tribes_of_Man started trying to put together a force that could meet the challenge of The, who were clearly the leaders. When the galaxy-wide probe landed (I managed to hit all systems except one simultaneously, much to my chagrin) the information was in the possession of the others before any one objected. Although several races objected to the drones, none of them were ready to take the matter up with the military (although Pyrrans charmingly offered to reform the Side of Light to come and get me).
Tribes_of_Man slid in and out of communication, more out than in as time went on. Although KE techs were laughably inferior to those displayed by The, some military forces needed to be built. Because The had ships situated at all key systems it was felt necessary to construct a reason for constructing warships. Thus the Jerter mission was born. Ships built, staged, launched and the Jerter world was bombed. This world was offered up to The hopefully to keep them from squishing the _Empire. By this time no more meaningful moves had been made for a big strike on The, and another context for military construction was needed. Two simultaneous military campaigns were planned for, striking at Behemoth and finishing the job that THE ALLIANCE had started, and also a strike against EmeraldKnights. Construction began and ships were staged.
The turn of the EmeraldKnights assault came. Orders were written, and a last minute diplomatic message to Pyrrans was sent, to either try and secure their aid, or get them to stay out. Unfortunately the last minute turned out to be more of a "last week" because the turn was held up. Consequently EmeraldKnights was able to talk, and Pyrrans was able to throw their weight behind the words of the EmeraldKnights and instead a joint EK, KE, Pyrrans plan to take on PeaceMakers was formed. More time was wasted as ships were moved into their new positions.
Unbeknownst to the Admirals in charge of the anti-Behemoth strike force, Behemoth had been planning a massive drone wave of their own. This meant that when the KE forces arrived at the last Behemoth world the defenses were a lot less than had been expected. Unfortunately this coincided with The breaking the galactic silence and swarming everywhere with their ships. Whilst KE and The forces did not shoot at each other at the Behemoth world, The's gunship did bomb the Behemoth world instead of the KE fleet. Coupled with the earlier, unprovoked bombing of several KE worlds this was the straw that broke the camel's back. And this was what convinced the _Empire to fully throw its weight into the recently organized strike on The to try and do some damage before the end.
The fighting was brief and one sided, of course. Desperate to see the previously alluded to messages from the server that get sent to an Empire on its way to extinction, some ships were launched into Hyperspace for several turns. For turn 60, it was attempted to bomb the original homeworld of The. The task of planning the assault of the KE and PeaceMaker forces fell to Admiral Jspht of the _Empire. Unfortunately a small typographical error in one of the PeaceMaker deployments meant that an intercept lead the big The battleship to join the fight, and the homeworld was saved. Next turn Sebulba let us bomb it as a consolation prize. By then the whole thing was over and all that remained was to let the last ships come out of hyperspace and die. Because the Behemoth War had dominated so much of the early thinking and planning of the Koridan Empire, it was felt fitting that the last KE ship be destroyed over the Behemoth Homeworld that was.
The End.
Wow. I wrote a lot. And missed out a lot, but then so much was said during Prometheus that I could not fit everything in! I really enjoyed my introduction to Galaxy in Prometheus, and I learned a lot in a short time.
If anyone wants to get in touch, and they don't know any other address, then
this one works reasonably well!
koridan at trust-me.com
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