Chapter 596: Stock Car Race (2/2)
You want to capture parts of the INR's and Doom Tubes, not nova-spark them or planet crack them.
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CONFEDMIL
Not exactly. We need military resources that can deployed against INR's and Doom Tubes from the stellar system they are being accessed from.
Wait for the Atrekna to open the door, then shoot into the house and blow it up, so to speak.
It is strategically sound.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
You want to bring back the Ring Breakers.
Make more of them.
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CONFEDMILINT
Combat metrics from a recent clash between a Ringbreaker in Novastar VII power armor and Atrekna forces have shown that it takes a disproportionate amount of Atrekna rulership caste to merely pin down a single Ringbreaker.
If deployed in standard Star Elements of five, we estimate that it would geometrically increase the amount of Atrekna leadership needed to quickly become impossible.
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CONFEDMIL
The price per unit versus the strategic value metrics present this as a highly desirable option.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Ugh, I hate you guys sometimes since we lost TDH.
You sound like Vulcan rip-offs.
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CONFEDMIL
Be nice.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Can you even find enough humans to bring back the Ring Breakers? If I recall correctly, the washout rate in training was something like ten thousand for every one you found.
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CONFEDMILINT
That is the primary problem. A Ring Breaker requires many things, and the Enragement/Phasic Index Matrixes are important and the most difficult to overcome.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
I'm going to say: No. Don't bring them back.
I have moral and ethical concerns, but let's look beyond that.
There's hardly an TDH left. There's even fewer PSH left. Of the PSH, less than one in a hundred thousand can take the DNA imprinting needed. Less than one in a thousand can actually pilot a Novastar.
Less than one in five hundred can survive, intact, the effects of Warsteel Mk2 on their bodies and minds.
With all of that, your chances of finding a PSH-TDH who is not currently Enraged, giving them the training, putting them in the armor, and having them survive the armor's bonding process with their minds intact, go from slim in normal times to as mathematically close to zero as our chaotic universe and reality allow.
You would spend the next hundred years looking for candidates and maybe find one who makes it.
And we have one.
We know the problems inherent in the system.
We got lucky with him. His people were a martial people.
Aside from my moral and ethical objections to Project Spartan Halo being revived, it is currently unfeasable with the operational reality of our current reality.
If you want my opinion: you'd be better off dedicating the resources and intelligence gathering that you'd need to do to even find candidates to figuring out some other way to take the war to the Atrekna.
A defensive war is a losing war.
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CONFEDMIL
We're aware of that.
We also invited you here for another reason.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
All right. Now I'm nervous.
Go ahead and tell me.
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CONFEDMILINT
We have verification from multiple sources.
It's been verified via several different methods.
The Earthlings are back.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
I knew they would be.
How bad?
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CONFEDMIL
Just a few strikes at the Atrekna.
Not many yet.
So far, they have just liberated the system then vanished again.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Still no clue where they're coming from?
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CONFEDMILINT
No.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Tech progression?
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CONFEDMILINT
Nothing apparent. They still use the same drive style. Looks like the same ship classes.
Same profile: Attacking in overwhelming force, rapid operational tempo, brutal tactics, full scorched earth xenocide on the Atrekna, then a complete withdrawal.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
And you sure it isn't The Locusts? They've settled in on one of the abandoned systems in Lanaktallan territory.
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CONFEDMILINT
I'm sure.
We got a clear view of one of their super-capital ships.
It was the Last Gasp You'll Make.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Brr. They're serious if they deployed that thing.
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CONFEDMILINT
We also have verification that they deployed Entropy's Little Sister twice to liberate planets.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
So, it survived the war.
Damn.
That thing's bad news.
Have the Earthlings made any move on the Confederacy or the Lanaktallans?
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CONFEDMIL
No, so far they've only gone after scattered Atrekna strongholds.
It looks like the chronotron burst that occurs when a sun is being gravitationally sunk is what attracts them to the system.
Sometimes they don't move much past red-shift before coming back up to realspace.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Well, if they're fielding Little Sister, then the Atrekna have had it.
Have we tried to communicate with them?
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CONFEDMILINT
They ignore us.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Well, it's better than them attacking us.
The Treaty of Twenty Carvings is still holding.
What about TerraSol?
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CONFEDMILINT
No luck. We've been trying to measure approximate time dilation inside but we can't get any readings.
We did figure something weird out.
The Mat-Trans System Carrier Wave is still exiting The Bag, though.
Not sure why it would be operative.
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CONFEDINT
Type II and Type III are still operational, but all of Type-I is locked out for everyone. It's login-password-hardware protected now. Plus, it uses elliptic-curve encryption, which is everyone's favorite one.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
I was wondering if you were going to speak up.
How about SUDS?
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CONFEDMILINT
Nothing. No breakthroughs, nothing out of the Black Box Projects.
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CONFEDINT
Not... entirely.
One of the team who are attempting penetration of the system got into the uplink data that the SUDS utilized a Level-IV Black ICE on the person attempting the hacking.
Completely erased a digital sentience in less than a second.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Well, it's good that it's still defending itself. We know the whole system hasn't crashed.
Thanks for the updates.
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CONFEDINT
Not a problem.
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>MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS LEFT THE INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT
CONFEDINT
Think she knows?
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CONFEDMILINT
Probably closer than anyone else.
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CONFEDMIL
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
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CONFED
Agreed.
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///INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT CLOSED
///DELETING LOGS
///HAVE A NICE DAY