Chapter 038: Conclusions

Leviathans, superdreadnoughts, or titans is the common size class for all ships significantly larger than a dreadnought. There is no upper size end of this class, aside from practicality, resources and logistics needed to operate them.

This category of ships is created with a single goal in mind - carrying and using superweapons. Typically, each of them possess a single superweapon capable of destroying (efficiently or in a particular original way) a world, and a single superweapon dedicated to a destruction of enemy fleets.

This is because it’s not the size of the superweapons itself that’s the problem with installing them aboard the ships, but the inefficiencies of human power generation technology. As a result, every superdreadnought is composed of superweapons, armor layers, some defensive weapons - and power generators, which occupy a majority of its hull.

The largest superdreadnought in active service is the Spirit of Humanity, a flagship of the Solar Navy. While its exact tonnage is unknown, it has a length of twelve kilometers, two kilometers of height, and four kilometers of width. It is crewed by almost one hundred thousand people. It is twice as large as the second biggest superdreadnought, making it little more than a manifestation of power - but one capable of eradicating all planets of a solar system in a single salvo.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 9, Page 759

***

Reinhard Heydrich, Crew Deck

12:27 27.07.2610 STT

Rear Admiral Gunther Koll

The Virtual was a pain in the ass, but demanding to meet Rear Admiral Koll immediately and while he was having his free time was the height of impudence. Yet, in this particular circumstance, he decided to not have it spaced.

Instead he told the slave attending to him to leave the quarters. She hurried away, not even bothering to wear anything. On the other hand, it’s not like she wore anything when she came in, either.

He chuckled to his thoughts, pulled up a dressing gown, and agreed to the meeting. The Virtual appeared out of nowhere, wasting Koll’s valuable time to look around his quarters.

“Quite… cozy.” Then he has shown an even greater impudence by daring to comment on his living arrangements. It had entered his personal space quickly enough to see Eva disappearing in the doors. “Quite cozy, indeed. Rather bland, though.”

The Rear Admiral snorted with the purest form of disdain he could muster. “Oh, excuse me that I’m not taking part in that little contest of degeneration and wealth that warlords are all about. Sure, I could have been going around with a leashed and naked cathuman on her knees, hard mentalsculpted into acting like a cat, continuously boring everyone in the vicinity by telling them that she used to be a prime minister of some cathuman country. Like your beloved ‘Admiral Johnson’ does. Instead, I’m interested in efficiency and strength. Which is why I happen to have twice as many ships as he has.”

And a much greater ambition. Warlords commanded powerful fleets and were utterly merciless, but all he saw was a bunch of squabbling pigs. When he first arrived at Discord, he made a pledge to himself to be the person running that circus within fifteen years. He wasn’t even halfway there, and he was almost a part of the Council.

The whole ‘showing up how wealthy and powerful you are’ business was part of the Discord’s culture that Rear Admiral Koll just couldn’t get used to. Nor did he want to. He had much simpler tastes, and preferred to show achievements instead of useless posturing. He did the bare minimum to not be seen as ‘weak’, as that was lethal for any ‘warlord’ of Discord. And for any member of what passed as ‘society’ of that place.

He was fairly certain that showing to the world how grotesquely and idiotically evil you were had nothing to do with strength. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do. At least to the degree that didn’t make him look down on himself.

“So feel free to not waste my valuable time on your antics, and tell me what you want.” He added after a few seconds of death stare.

“Captain Akhrarh is… saddened by the recent battle.” The Virtual remained steadfast, but obeyed and moved to the subject. A small victory of the Rear Admiral’s willpower. “Especially by our casualties.” Gunther Koll quite literally couldn’t care less. But he had to maintain the pretense.

“I offered you a chance to deal a major blow to your little Shadow.” He informed him. “And you jumped on it. But you didn’t prepare well enough, despite the enemy being good enough to take advantage of the typical weaknesses of your kind. You are thus free to execute the person responsible for the casualties. You can find it on the Budapest.” He moved over to the minibar, and pulled out a solid bottle of beer. This moment was something to celebrate.

“Captain Arkhrarh…” the Virtual tried again.

“Captain Arkhrarh can suck the barrels of my ship’s main MAW.” Rear Admiral informed the Virtual. The tone of his voice was calm and relaxed. He had waited a long time to be able to say that to the Virtual’s face. “Stop pretending that you have any influence on him. He dissolved himself so much into your system computers that he doesn’t even have any bits of flesh left anymore. Now there is only the Budapest. You are all travelling around in the belly of a space shark whose thoughts you can barely understand. Knowing well enough that if you won’t satisfy his tastes, he will digest you and excrete you out of the body. A massive space diarrhoea made of stupid.” The hit connected.

“This talk is over.” The Virtual announced. “Transhumans are…”

“...staying in my fleet.” Rear Admiral announced. “I actually planned to kill you all, but after the battle I changed my mind. I have something to show you. Something that I believe will greatly interest you in a continued cooperation. Of course, no longer as equals. This time you are going to work for me.”

The Virtual was wary. But he was also curious. These fools treated everything as a videogame, and a promise sounding like the beginning of a fine quest was bait they couldn’t say no to.

“And what might that be?” It asked. Rear Admiral Koll sent the brief compilation of files recovered from the security system of the Seekers base.

“Interesting.” Virtual admitted. “The pink twintails are a signal of a strange sense of aesthetics, but the speed and agility are… impressive. That person is worth a lot of experience points. However, I do not see how that is enough to interest us.” Of course they didn’t. He didn’t expect anything more from them.

“Us?” Rear Admiral Koll laughed. “It’s enough to interest the entire Council of Woes. I’m going to send you another compilation of files. Then run a comparison. It’s not about boring biometrics. But about the things that matter to actual warriors. The combat tactics. The prioritization of targets both in melee and in regular combat. The tactical skills, this particular style of hyper-successful micromanagement of combat teams.” He sent the file.

He almost emptied the bottle before the Virtual came to a conclusion.

“This is impossible.” The Virtual was shocked. The fact that it actually showed the shock was telling. The hit came through. “Ninety-seven percent of similarity. How?!” It was fascinated. Koll wasn’t surprised. He had a similar look on the issue ever since he noticed the similarity. Of course, he didn’t need fancy technology to notice it. ”Do you think that the Seekers are aware?”

“No way.” Koll was sure of that one thing. “They are like you. Their technology blinds them to the truth. They would have missed it simply because they would never have bothered to compare the two, even if someone did notice that these two are somewhat similar. Simply because it is ‘irrational’. Besides, it is mostly about close quarters combat. Have you ever seen a Seeker who didn’t consider that type of warfare a barbaric waste of time?”

The Virtual shook its head. It knew a lot about the Seekers. As far as Koll was aware, the transhumans of Discord had a personal beef with the Truthseekers. More than that, they were mortal enemies. Both used extremely advanced technology to improve themselves, but the Seekers seeked to maintain the core of humanity. While the Transhuman Alliance was determined to abandon that.

In Rear Admiral Koll’s opinion, the Seekers wouldn’t recognize humanity even if it jumped out of the bushes at them and kicked them in the ass. He saw the whole beef as one of the many manifestations of stupidity that seemed to plague the universe. Both sides were doing the same thing, but both claimed to be doing completely different things - which resulted in their war.

The Seekers to this day were pissed off ever since the Transhuman Alliance stole their vaunted AI/APHRODITE. Koll liked to remind the Virtual of that quite often. ‘Mightiest programmers’ of Human Space, outperformed by some human corporation? Hilarious. Posthuman overlords forced to steal from said corporation and only fighting it to a bloody stalemate later on? Doubly so.

“You precious little Shadow no longer matters.” Koll announced. “Nor does Captain Keller, the local Guild forces and even the Seekers. Contact the Council. We might need reinforcements to keep anyone from interrupting. And once we finally get to kill that man, the Human Space will burn.”

***

TCS Stephen Hawking, Command Deck

01:27 28.07.2610 STT

Enlightened Aumar Karthari

The situation was vexing. Of course, it was vexing only in name. Enlightened Aumar Karthari went through many enhancements - as all Enlightened of the Truthseekers Corporation did - some of which altered the range of emotions that he could experience.

Being vexed by something was on the list of things that a true Enlightened shouldn’t be capable of. So he wasn’t. But he still remembered the meaning of the term and knew where using it was appropriate.

“So, they escaped.” He said to his commanding officer. “Are we going to fight our way through the Discord forces?” It was possible. Not easy, but possible. The Heydrich was a dangerous enemy, but the Budapest suffered from the same weaknesses as all ‘venerable relics’ - Mankind’s technological progress was a slow crawl, but after a century or two it became notable. And while you could modernize the computers and weapon systems, there were limits to what you could do to the hull structure. Better technology almost always won when it was better by such a large margin.

“That would be unwise.” The High Enlightened Hao Yunqi replied, his eyes not straying from the display for even a second.

Keller probably thought that ‘his’ Hao Yunqi was the true one. Said Hao Yunqi probably thought the same. Recent improvements on the field of mental indoctrination and cloning technology achieved by the Truthseekers Corporation were yet to become public knowledge. Even the Guild didn’t know - at least for now.

Hao Yunqi in front of him sold the Guild years ago, laying the foundation beneath the infiltration of its regional structures. For more than a decade he funneled interesting discoveries within the subsector into the Corporation’s hands, while allowing it to improve its budget. The irony of Guild buying Corporation-harvested exotechs and thus financing its operations was truly delicious.

He rose higher and higher, finally discovering the jumpgate network and becoming High Enlightened. Very little remained from what he once was, forcing the Corporation to create fakes to continue fooling the Guild.

“We could attack Koll.” Hao continued. “But we risk losing enough of our forces to make Keller escape the encirclement instead of flying through the jumpgate. The worst case scenario, we would mutually annihilate, allowing Keller to roll through the survivors. It’s best to focus on the bigger picture.”

“Great.” Aumar said after a few seconds. “Part of me began suspecting that you have some secret superweapon, and you’ll try to use it right now. But we all know how prone to malfunctions prototypes are.” Being on the cutting-edge of science had its downsides.

“Of course I do not have such a superweapon.” Hao replied calmly, his capacity for emotions diminished far beyond Aumar’s. “I have three such superweapons, all waiting to be combat-tested. I’m just not using them now. Koll’s presence is merely an annoyance, and a minor one. He will be put down in time. Our strategic prediction department is already making plans for that. I just do not wish to risk more valuable personnel and ships by charging at him. Especially considering the circumstances.”

“Circumstances.” Aumar snorted with indignation. His emotions, however diminished, were the very point while he was a part of Hao’s command staff. “We did all we could, but it seems that they got what they wanted. The real question is why did they go through all the motions? Why did they pick their chosen one so early, when they wanted him to get through the jumpgate? Keller would have done that after falling for our initial plan. They could land their little pet aboard the Echo twenty minutes before the jump, without the whole mess.”

“Correct question.” High Enlightened replied. “However, thought patterns of Higher Order entities are rarely rational according to our definition of the word. The Interlopers combine that with a prediction ability beyond our best achievements. There is a reason in all that, just one that is currently obfuscated from us.”

“And the plan?” Aumar asked. Hao had one, of course.

“We call in our fleets.” The Discord and the Confederation of Mankind were greatly underestimating the firepower commanded by the Truthseekers’ Corporation Board of Directors. It was time to show that to the Galaxy. “We destroy the Rear Admiral Koll’s forces. Then, we risk one last incursion through the jumpgate, in order to destroy Keller and the Interlopers’ puppet before they manage to ruin our plans.”

Losing their entire fleet for that would be a small price to pay. The Corporation had a debt to settle. Both against the Interlopers... and against Innocent. After seeing the recording of his fight with the Corporation’s Divine-class sorcerer, it was hard to find a scientist among the Seekers who didn’t dream of dissecting the berserk.

Their creation was perfect. Impossibly powerful. A mass destruction weapon in the shape of man. And yet it died. Its limb torn off, its face melted, its mind broken, its vocal cords damaged from screaming so much that they filled his lungs with blood. A god swatted away like a fly.

Corporation had to know how could a single berserk reach this level of power. To achieve that goal, fleets and crew members were expendable. Of course, the mysteries on the other side of the jumpgate were of higher priority... but not to sorcery-oriented scientists following Hao Yunqi's fleet.

“And if that won’t work?” Aumar decided to inquire.

“Well…” Hao said, before letting out a small chuckle. His augmentations allowed for that much. “Keller probably still thinks that the spy he found was the only one aboard Echo.”

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

07:13 04.08.2610 STT

Commander Lena Drathari

The jumpgate looked both completely different and similar to the ones she knew off. The U-Gates leading to Unity were just a bunch of interconnected exotech drones, which spread around in a circular formation when activated and created an artificial hyperlane in the middle. The D-Gates of Discord were more akin to a relay station - you connected to one, set up a destination, and suddenly you were on the other end of the Galaxy.

The A-Gates of the altertechs were just metallic rings, kilometers in length. B-Gates - used by berserks and then the Truthseekers Corporation - were an enigma to her as she never saw any of them.

Creators of this particular jumpgate had a completely different approach. The jumpgate was carved inside a seventy-two kilometers wide asteroid. The hole itself was seven kilometers wide. But the whole portal aesthetics reminded her of the U-Gates and A-Gates.

“Someone liked to build big.” Keller commented on the image on the display. “According to the Seekers’ data, the entire complex is fully automatic… and something like twenty square kilometers in size.”

“So, a lower technological level than creators of the other gates?” She asked. “They needed less space to do the same thing.”

“Quite the opposite.” Keller shook his head. He was still shaken internally, but he calmed down during the past few days. Lack of threats did that to cowards. “D-Gates and U-Gates appear much more high-tech, but they have restrictions on mass transfer. U-Gates shut down for two hundred and ten hours per a single object heavier than four million forty-three thousand tonnes. So if you try to send an entire fleet through them, they are out of commission for more than a year. D-Gates shut down to recharge after each ship transfer, taking hours for a cruiser or days for a battleship. This beauty?” He chuckled.

The display changed to display a close-up of the gate itself. Twenty-four points lit up, surrounding the gate itself.

“Each of the points is a separate jumpgate. Though jump relays are a bit more correct term.” Keller informed her. “The Seekers suspected that the large gate in the middle was made for civilian traffic. You can fly the largest of our cargo vessels through it for days non-stop. And both ways at once, if you are careful. The outer gates or relays were used for a simultaneous mass transit, for example a large fleet of warships. Seekers believe that the total tonnage that it can transport at once is counted in quadrillions of tonnes. Which opens some very dangerous lines of thoughts.”

Either the mysterious precursor species created things with a massive margin, just in case - or they had access to some truly insane amount and size of warships.

Technology to simultaneously transfer so many things on an interstellar distance was so high up on the wall that it went past the level of Super Advanced Aliens into the realm of Literal Space Gods.

Someone with such technology and numbers could have squashed the Confederation of Mankind and all of its contemporary civilizations like a bunch of bugs. The creators of the network seemed to be playing in the same league as the Screamers, Shades and the pre-Schism Berserks.

All she knew about the former two species were gossips and some spooky space tales. The Guild knew much more, but all of it was censored. However nobody could censor the knowledge about the Black Fleet - more than one million berserk warships still loyal to the orders of the Prime Code, floating around the hyperlane leading to the Shade’s homeworlds, deactivated yet ready to spring to life if something left the quarantined area of space. It took a fraction of that fleet to defeat Mankind and all other species it knew.

And the Seekers were intruding into the worlds of a species that seemed to be even stronger than the Berserks in their prime. It was hubris that only people who wanted to become gods were capable of. But there was also another, even crazier question - who managed to bring such a species to their knees?

“Let me guess, you are reminiscing about the power of this jumpgate’s creators.” Keller proved to be able to read her mind.

“Yes, I am.” She admitted.

“Good, so I’m not the only person.” He chuckled. There was no joy in his eyes, however. “One more species that didn’t get the memo about the universe being governed by hard science. This is going to be an interesting and slightly terrifying journey.” Hopefully also a long one. She didn’t want their ships to be vapourized on arrival by some ancient defense system.

“Unless whatever killed the Seekers kills us too.” She decided to voice her worries. Sure, she was the author of the plan to go through the gate, but that was merely the least suicidal of suicidal options.

“I don’t think it will, at least not instantly.” He said. She looked at him, with a question mark written on her face. “Christopher’s ‘angels’ want us to do something. Chances of the Echo being destroyed are relatively low, for as long as he is here. Of course, this is merely a matter of believing in the angels’ good will. And in the fact that our deaths isn’t a part of their plan” He shrugged.

“So that’s why you decided to give him two new teammates, despite the general shortage of those, huh.” She was sure that both of them were going to be a major shock to someone from the 21st Century. The Recovery Team Eight was already a ragtag bunch of weirdos, but Keller seemed determined on making things even weirder.

“That is correct.” Keller admitted straight away. “As much as I hate to base my entire plan on something as flimsy as help from angels, we are simply out of other options. This is my last card, and I intend to play it as much as possible.”

“Sounds like you are really desperate.” And terrified, but she didn’t add that.

“I prefer the term ‘faithful’.” He replied. “Now, please send the activation signal. Let’s see where that gate will take us, shall we?”