“Ok, Alcander, you know that we do not have access to an FTL drive working in Terra’s universe. But we do know were working examples of those are. I am just saying that we acquire one of those ships that the enemy is nice enough to park in our operations range and simply copy their drive. Yes, yes, I know we cannot do it immediately, we likely need at least somewhat specialized equipment, and so on, but I think we can pull it of.”

“Cutler, I know you do not want to just sit on your ass here and plan for things were we have no clue of how they work. But let’s think about the basic issue with your plan. We know that some elements are not stable in other universes. What is if the FTL-drive the attackers use is one of those elements? To figure that out, and to do the necessary tests, we need to take the orbit of Terra. Which is for what we need a fleet. If you could let me back to my job, so that I can design that fleet?”

“Oh, I understand the problem. But the thing is, we do not need to take the orbit permanently. We just need to hold its long enough to figure out that issue, as well as gather enough data about the drive to analyze it back home.”

“And we would tip of our hand, with a decent chance at learning nothing. For all we know, the only way to get to FTL is an element, only found and stable in Terra’s universe, but the only source we have for it is in the enemies ships. Which would make attacking them with the intent of leaving without that element contra productive. I also want revenge for the attack on the homeworld. But going forward without knowing more and without having backup is stupid. So please stop this madness now, before it spreads. Thank you very much.”

“You have a point. But how about this. Our new, shiny starships will likely have trouble getting the enemy ships intact. So how about we plan and figure out what we need for the raid I want to pull off, and then pull it off when we are ready to move. As a sort of vanguard, if you understand what I mean.”

“I must admit that this idea has at least some merit. I guess we can do that for a week or so on our off-time, and then look to the results of that. If those make any sense whatsoever, then we can present that to others. Maybe the upper brass thinks it makes sense as well, and that we should expend resources for that. If no, then, better we think about it and it gets shut down, then we do not think about it, and we miss something that could have made the war easier and cheaper for our side, don’t you think?”

“Exactly my thinking. Now, I think I have a beer somewhere here, back in the refrigerator. Do you want one?”

“Yes, please.”

Roughly a week later, they had a better idea of what would be required, were those things could be used outside a hyper specialized mission, as well as how viable it might be to enter the enemy ships.

It turned out, that this might be surprisingly viable, although, depending on the enemies defenses against such a thing, hard on the units doing the entering. Robotic units would be a necessity. Still, there would be at least some humans that would need to be there physically, if only to help identifying which systems were important and which could be ignored without a problem.

Now, the only thing that was left, was convincing the important people that this was, in fact, a sensible use of ressources. In the grand scheme of things, this action would not use that many resources, although it likely would need a number of volunteers for a highly dangerous job. But, considering the level on which the UE worked, not all that many things actually used a large amount of resources in the grand scheme of things. And those that did were gigantic projects, like the free education that every citizen enjoyed, as well as public healthcare.

That convincing turned out surprisingly easy in the end: “Oh, what did you say you wanted to develop for that mission? Small shuttlecraft, meant to get to enemy ships during a battle and attach to them, so that you can enter those? We have a team working on something similar, although with a different purpose. Their plan was to use small shuttles to resupply mobile defense station which are to expendable to have an internal Gate, while being valuable enough to afford the use of drones to keep them in the fight without replacing them entirely. What you want is a manned modification to their design, potentially even without a human pilot. Lets do that, and figure out if they have a chance in hell of carrying out their intended mission. If yes, great, if not, well, I am certain we can find a use for them. Maybe countering borders on mostly automated stations?”

“Great. Thank you, sir.”

“No, thank you. Now, here are your new orders. Continue with the good work!”.

From a science-fiction website ca 7287:

Starships. The word itself is wrong, they do not have anything to do with classical, ocean or river going ships. But the name was popular in science fiction for a long, long time, so it stuck in the end. Which has caused its fair share of problems, Because knowing to steer or design an ocean going ship has nothing to do with knowing how to do it to a space-ship. Science fiction is wrong. And the scientists designing the first iteration of our fleet that was actually put into production sometimes got to close to science fiction, instead of designing something sensible. I guess that this is the logical issue that shows up if you let science fiction fanatics design your fleet, because they are the best you have available.

The drive that we ended up using is fairly simple, and slow. It has the big, big advantage of working in most universes we know of, and all that support life that is in any way, shape or form similar to human life. If you are ready to allow you being even slower, and needing regular refuels, you can even get away with using just about 30% of your ships mass for it and the fuel. Which is shockingly little. And considering that operations outside of rapid resupply are rare as hell (although they were intended, and, in fact necessary to beat the Kyreikon), this is a tradeoff we could easily life with. The ships were designed to operate between Venus and Mars. An FTL drive would logically extend that, and the designs were on purpose very modular, so that designing them for an FTL-drive would be easy, and might even allow to modify existing ships. A hope that sometimes was even true.

While science fiction ships generally were ocean-liners in space, those early designs were skyscrapers in space. Maybe with a rotating habitation ring added, so that during times when the drive was not running, at least some gravity was available.

The weaponry consisted primarily out of mass throwers, however, the specific way of accelerating that mass could be quite different. Some plasma weaponry existed, but the only other types of weaponry that could really shine were missiles, which had the advantage of being capable of adjusting their course (at least a bit), although they tended to become very expensive, very, very quickly, as well as lasers, mostly in the point defense role. Trying to blow up enemy missiles as well as hopefully reduce the mass the enemies mass throwers sent in your direction. Not all that effective honestly, but every bit helped, and they were very effective at killing missiles.

While during and after the war science fiction tended to become more realistic, some of the ancient, totally unusable in our reality, mainstays returned or never really disappeared. Still, with the easy access to research and fact checking, by now most science fiction is at least internally consistent, as well as somewhat usable in real life. If you happen to be in the universe were the specific external rules apply.

Which always makes it problematic if your civilization uses the Gate technology…