Hull 721, plot arc the second

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Vianca
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Vianca wrote:Good piece Remnant, really like the Hull 721 parts.
Have you ever played (or wikied) Empire at War?

I'm mostly thinking of the Zann Consortium or rather some of their ships, Trawn did confront Zann. :twisted:
Seeing Black Prince up against an Aggressor would be amusing- something about that design concept strikes me as profoundly off.

Giant spinal energy weapons are all well and good, and I'm playing very enjoyable games with them over in the STGOD subforum, but you have to design the rest of the ship around the guns to a higher degree than the Aggressor-class seems to have done. Heavily armored and suitable for a siege platform, that's the obvious way to take advantage of the main gun and of having a narrow target profile when the enemy's in your alpha arc, yes.

But that particular school of design is premised on set-piece battles. As implemented in the Aggressors, it leaves more than a little to be desired in the kind of high-mobility, high-evasion combat Lennart prefers.
Makes you wonder if you could put that spinal weapon layout into place on a Venator it's flight deck.
True, you lose your flight deck, but you still have those side bays and lower bay.
Though I bet you lose atleast on of them for a extra power plant.

This wouldn't be what the Zann Consortium did with those Venators of them, did they?
Never found out for myself, never got a Venator in game, as Zann.
The Vengeance class frigate's have cloak's that either are bought with or use Tibanna Gas to work.
If it's the later, I bet it has something to do with how Tibanna Gas is transported.
Shame the cloak only works without shields of any kind, thought the weapon layout reasons are intresting.

Then there is the Merciless, Zann's Aggressor class Destroyer.
She has a cloak that that works with a shield.
I can really see Mirrannon playing with their designs, stripping it to the bare-bones for comparison between each other.
Though I don't think it is possible for Mirrannon to ad such a weapon system to the ship, it might be what was done to the Errant Venture.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Kartr_Kana »

Vianca wrote:Makes you wonder if you could put that spinal weapon layout into place on a Venator it's flight deck.
True, you lose your flight deck, but you still have those side bays and lower bay.
Though I bet you lose atleast on of them for a extra power plant.
I suppose this is theoretically possible yet highly unlikely unless the ship was built from the ground up to carry a large spinal weapon. You would have to add all sorts of structural support for to handle recoil, heat and other variables that such a large weapon would create.
Vianca wrote:This wouldn't be what the Zann Consortium did with those Venators of them, did they?
Never found out for myself, never got a Venator in game, as Zann.
It's been a long while but I'm pretty sure that Venators in EAW are just smaller Star Destroyers.
Vianca wrote:The Vengeance class frigate's have cloak's that either are bought with or use Tibanna Gas to work.
If it's the later, I bet it has something to do with how Tibanna Gas is transported.
Shame the cloak only works without shields of any kind, thought the weapon layout reasons are intresting.
Two big problems with this;
a) buying/building ships with Tibanna gas is a game mechanic and makes no sense in the "real" world where you need enormous quantities of diverse materials as well as highly advanced and sophisticated electronics, power plants, power distribution, etc. Simply adding extra tibanna gas doesn't really do much for you.

b) cloaking fields are extremely rare in fact canonically there are only two kinds to my knowledge. According to the Complete Cross-sections "Invisibility fields were considered theoretical until the discovery of the rare stygium crystals on the volcanically turbulent world of Aeten II..." the only other working cloaking devices in canon are the ones used by Thrawn in his campaign against the New Republic. The idea that you can just buy cloaking devices off the black market for your secret fleet is (pardon the pun) criminal. It is merely a game mechanic to make EAW more interesting rather than a viable concept.
Vianca wrote:Then there is the Merciless, Zann's Aggressor class Destroyer.
She has a cloak that that works with a shield.
See above it's canonically implausible if not down right impossible. Once again a game mechanic to make EAW more interesting rather than a viable concept.
Vianca wrote: I can really see Mirrannon playing with their designs, stripping it to the bare-bones for comparison between each other.
Though I don't think it is possible for Mirrannon to ad such a weapon system to the ship, it might be what was done to the Errant Venture.
Honestly I doubt that anyone would be interested in those ships in any setting out side EAW. The Aggressor is said to fire a massive ion cannon shot followed by a bolt of plasma. The ion cannon might be interesting to people, but the plasma shot? Outside of EAW I can't think of anywhere that plasma is mentioned as a viable weapon. Once again I'm inclined to chalk up the Aggressors capabilities to game mechanics rather than anything that could be honestly considered viable. Blame the devs for feeling the need to come up with exotic new weapons rather than stick with the tried and true turbolaser.

If the Aggressor used a spinal turbolaser based on the superlaser design from the Death Star it would make a lot more sense. After all according to the game the designs for the Aggressor were found in the Death Star ruins. If the devs had left it as a powerful spinal mounted turbolaser/superlaser it would have made more sense considering where the designs were found and the fact that the Empire was working on ships with spinally mounted superlasers. It would almost have made the whole Eclipse bit make sense though having Zann try and capture the Eclipse was one of the stupidest possible ideas the devs had.

As for the Black Prince, she already has a slew of advanced TIE craft, the Alephs and if Mirrannon gets his way some super heavy turbolasers far above and beyond what the ISD was designed to carry. The way ECR has presented all of this makes it believable, but if you start throwing in random "cool stuff" you fall into the same trap that LucasArts has. Putting in pointless, lorebreaking and implausible characters, and technology just so nerds can go "OOOH Shiny!!". That destroys the SOD faster than having a 12 year old race and win the Hover 500.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Kartr_Kana wrote:
Vianca wrote: I can really see Mirrannon playing with their designs, stripping it to the bare-bones for comparison between each other.
Though I don't think it is possible for Mirrannon to ad such a weapon system to the ship, it might be what was done to the Errant Venture.
Honestly I doubt that anyone would be interested in those ships in any setting out side EAW. The Aggressor is said to fire a massive ion cannon shot followed by a bolt of plasma. The ion cannon might be interesting to people, but the plasma shot? Outside of EAW I can't think of anywhere that plasma is mentioned as a viable weapon. Once again I'm inclined to chalk up the Aggressors capabilities to game mechanics rather than anything that could be honestly considered viable. Blame the devs for feeling the need to come up with exotic new weapons rather than stick with the tried and true turbolaser.
Your forgetting that Star Wars has something called a Plasma Bolt, see their Blaster Guns.
You basicaly get hit with a solar flare after being stript of your shields.

The best way to use it with a starship would be a bullet of some kind fire from some railgun, that is than superheated by a laserbeam.
The reason for this is to overload a enemy his/her shield grid and damage his/her sensor systems.
If the Aggressor used a spinal turbolaser based on the superlaser design from the Death Star it would make a lot more sense. After all according to the game the designs for the Aggressor were found in the Death Star ruins. If the devs had left it as a powerful spinal mounted turbolaser/superlaser it would have made more sense considering where the designs were found and the fact that the Empire was working on ships with spinally mounted superlasers. It would almost have made the whole Eclipse bit make sense though having Zann try and capture the Eclipse was one of the stupidest possible ideas the devs had.
Not really considering who was onboard, it might be how Zann got cloak designs.
Just remember, Palpy didn't use the Death Star for himself.
As for the Black Prince, she already has a slew of advanced TIE craft, the Alephs and if Mirrannon gets his way some super heavy turbolasers far above and beyond what the ISD was designed to carry. The way ECR has presented all of this makes it believable, but if you start throwing in random "cool stuff" you fall into the same trap that LucasArts has. Putting in pointless, lorebreaking and implausible characters, and technology just so nerds can go "OOOH Shiny!!". That destroys the SOD faster than having a 12 year old race and win the Hover 500.
O, but I was also thinking about possible Imperial opponents their stuff.
They are dealing with a Imperial Conspiracy, after all.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Kartr_Kana »

Vianca wrote:Your forgetting that Star Wars has something called a Plasma Bolt, see their Blaster Guns.
You basicaly get hit with a solar flare after being stript of your shields.
The Plasma Bolt in blasters behaves nothing like plasma, it's more likely a holdover term from early (prehistoric) plasma weapons rather than being an actual bolt of plasma. Just like Laser Cannons/Turbolasers/Superlasers aren't actually lasers.
Vianca wrote:The best way to use it with a starship would be a bullet of some kind fire from some railgun, that is than superheated by a laserbeam.
The reason for this is to overload a enemy his/her shield grid and damage his/her sensor systems.
So let me get this right you want to carry all those railgun rounds, expend the energy to propel them to a high fraction of c and then expend even more energy to shoot down your own bullet many seconds or even minutes after you fired it when you've most likely maneuvered a considerable distance from your start point. All this so you get a nice little explosion that redirects most of the energy you expended into space? You wouldn't be related to Rube-Goldberg would you? Railguns themselves are pretty much a laughable weapon in Star Wars space combat considering that turbolasers are lightspeed weapons with a limited ability to track their targets. Using turbolasers I could spend less energy and get more higher powered shots on target than your absurd concept.
Vianca wrote:
Kartr_Kana wrote:If the Aggressor used a spinal turbolaser based on the superlaser design from the Death Star it would make a lot more sense. After all according to the game the designs for the Aggressor were found in the Death Star ruins. If the devs had left it as a powerful spinal mounted turbolaser/superlaser it would have made more sense considering where the designs were found and the fact that the Empire was working on ships with spinally mounted superlasers. It would almost have made the whole Eclipse bit make sense though having Zann try and capture the Eclipse was one of the stupidest possible ideas the devs had.
Not really considering who was onboard, it might be how Zann got cloak designs.
Just remember, Palpy didn't use the Death Star for himself.
Considering who was on board? Well with the first Death Star the main people of note were Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. Neither of whom had cloaking devices as the only working cloaking device and plans the Empire had at this time were stored in Mount Tantis. Never mind the fact that the game explicitly states that the cloaking devices were "Bought off the black market" so there goes your theory on how Zann got the cloaking devices.

Palpantine used everything in the Empire for himself and everyone even if he wasn't there in person so I don't understand what you mean by "Palpy didn't use the Death Star for himself."
Vianca wrote:
Kartr_Kana wrote:As for the Black Prince, she already has a slew of advanced TIE craft, the Alephs and if Mirrannon gets his way some super heavy turbolasers far above and beyond what the ISD was designed to carry. The way ECR has presented all of this makes it believable, but if you start throwing in random "cool stuff" you fall into the same trap that LucasArts has. Putting in pointless, lorebreaking and implausible characters, and technology just so nerds can go "OOOH Shiny!!". That destroys the SOD faster than having a 12 year old race and win the Hover 500.
O, but I was also thinking about possible Imperial opponents their stuff.
They are dealing with a Imperial Conspiracy, after all.
Ok that I have less of a problem with, though I still think that cloaking shouldn't be used and that bringing in Dark Troopers is just fan whoring.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

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So let me get this right you want to carry all those railgun rounds, expend the energy to propel them to a high fraction of c and then expend even more energy to shoot down your own bullet many seconds or even minutes after you fired it when you've most likely maneuvered a considerable distance from your start point. All this so you get a nice little explosion that redirects most of the energy you expended into space? You wouldn't be related to Rube-Goldberg would you? Railguns themselves are pretty much a laughable weapon in Star Wars space combat considering that turbolasers are lightspeed weapons with a limited ability to track their targets. Using turbolasers I could spend less energy and get more higher powered shots on target than your absurd concept.
Well, it's either that or another Ion-canon thats set to make a more plasma based scrapnel bolt like shot.
Considering who was on board? Well with the first Death Star the main people of note were Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. Neither of whom had cloaking devices as the only working cloaking device and plans the Empire had at this time were stored in Mount Tantis. Never mind the fact that the game explicitly states that the cloaking devices were "Bought off the black market" so there goes your theory on how Zann got the cloaking devices.
It was one possibility, for all we know, Palpy is spicking things up by selling some to people he thinks that can use them while doing (odd) jobs for him and this way they can't trace it back to him.
Palpantine used everything in the Empire for himself and everyone even if he wasn't there in person so I don't understand what you mean by "Palpy didn't use the Death Star for himself."
I ment that Tarkin had Vader nearby to make sure he wouldn't shot on the planet were he (Palpatine) was on.
A very real danger with such powerfull weapons.
Palpatine only claimed the Second Death Star as his place to rule from, probably to better crush those opposed to him.
Ok that I have less of a problem with, though I still think that cloaking shouldn't be used and that bringing in Dark Troopers is just fan whoring.
Who says they have to appear in the story as more then a hint? :wink:

Also, read this. :mrgreen:
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by fractalsponge1 »

Vianca, this is a story, not a tech expo :) You'd have to make some serious mental jumps to justify bringing in technology that is canonically extremely rare or (in the case of Vorkknx, a potentially dangerous and very secret prototype device). I'd say leave it as is. It's already a little confusing why Lennart hasn't gotten hunted down for even looking at a Ubiqtorate hyperspace scanner.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

fractalsponge1 wrote:Vianca, this is a story, not a tech expo :) You'd have to make some serious mental jumps to justify bringing in technology that is canonically extremely rare or (in the case of Vorkknx, a potentially dangerous and very secret prototype device). I'd say leave it as is. It's already a little confusing why Lennart hasn't gotten hunted down for even looking at a Ubiqtorate hyperspace scanner.
True, but read it.
Then read Trawn's file. :kill:
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Simon_Jester »

Guys, this is getting a bit silly.

I don't really want to see the story of "Black Prince versus the EU technological gimmick of the week." Many of those gimmicks were devised precisely to allow some story of the week to function, and discarded in much the same fashion as their Trek counterparts. Which makes them answerable to the same criticism as the ones found in Trek: it isn't good for an overall sense of a coherent, continuous universe to hype up a gimmick as being some kind of critical superweapon.

Then again, it's at least interesting to contemplate, idly, throwing something out of the ordinary at them to see how they react.

But all in all, I think ECR will have enough of a challenge wrapping up the plotline without trying to monkey with assorted miscellaneous weirdtech.

Thinking about it... Pursuant to ECR's comments about what we see being the 'hollywood version' of real events, that works very well with the constant portrayals of individual bits of hardware (dark troopers, cloaked this, giant plasma cannon that) as being some kind of critical superweapon. It's the Galactic Empire equivalent of the "Luftwaffe 1946" stuff you see thrown around for Nazi Germany, the idea that if they'd only pulled this or that piece of exotic machinery out of a hat they'd be invincible.

That doesn't make for good plotting, but it certainly makes for simple plotting: show off superweapon, have heroes do whatever is necessary to disable it, preferably involving lots of flashy action. It's a convenient way to show the good guys winning without actually having any impact on the overall storyline of the setting, since by destroying the superweapon they merely preserve the status quo.

But to then try and bring those superweapons into play on a semi-regular basis... that's nearly always a bad idea, I think.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vehrec »

The comparision with 1946 napkinwaffle stuff is particularly apt here. The Empire is a massively militarized state that has created nearly everything-weapons, doctrine and such-from scratch. And it is famously fractured, with massive amounts of internal division and competition. If anything, the situation is far worse than anything the Germans knew. Imperial doctrine alone is a hideously crippling thing compared to what might have been-close to point blank range, eliminate all individuality of response? This is not a time-tested warrior ethic, or a professional soldier's tactics and style. It's ultimately most similar to conscript tactics from my perspective. They're trying to find their way. So are the weapons designers-Kuat gets the most efficent designs within their paradigm, but who's to say a more effective one wouldn't exist? For instance, mass-produced hyperdrive missiles instead of fighters. Then again, all you need to defend against that is a few interdictors to drop them out of hyperspace early.

Hmmm. Which is more important to maintaining galactic civilization anyways-Interdictors or the planetary shield? One wards enemies off from your economic centers, the other traps them for the kill. Maybe planetary shields are why orbitals never caught on as populations centers in Star Wars-smaller forces could always raid them without the space available to devote to massive shields. An interesting digression, but I've lost my train of thought. To me, the greatest use of technology in this story is the Engineering section's weapons-all tools used to fix the ship, most of them horribly more deadly than a blaster when turned against a man.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Thank you, Simon; neither do I. I'm regretting starting that hare now.


In practise, the bit about the scanner, that's something else that could do with being fleshed out but the short version is it was a retrieval op. The Alliance stole it in the first place, they were lucky when it came to actually intercepting the rebel courier, but it did get a little fried in the crossfire, which made later events possible. The subsequent application of a high-voltage logic probe to the thing's self monitoring systems can be neither confirmed nor denied.

It was reported as damaged, and in theory officially written off, but this is where the bureaucratic game strikes again- through (at that point, Tingel Approaches/Azure Hammer) fleet technical services, they obtained permission to, and this is pure analogy here, experiment with the use of it as the functional equivalent of a canard foreplane for the hyperdrive.

That having proved an acceptable idea, the next step was to get the local sector plexus to rescind the destruct order on the grounds that the thing was still useful to the Imperial state, albeit not in it's originally designed role. Lubricated a little by the promise- actually more or less kept- that if it's shredded circuits did manage to shake themselves back into usefulness long enough to turn up anything interesting, they would be the first to know about it. Politics, basically.

Tingel Approaches were more than happy to sign off on this also, as it gave them a credible excuse to steal a fully functional HOS should they ever feel the need for one. (Not that I reckon they live up to the legend- floating insults to Heisenberg that they are, their resolution cannot conceivably be as good as it's boasted to be.)

Theoretically Black Prince is a poor choice for ELINT conversion anyway; factory-fresh is better. The irregularities and variabilities in a modified or even a hard-used ship's own signature should create self- noise problems that interfere with efficiency.


Cloaking devices are complicated- and NB, this particular one doesn't work- it's only practical use is s a red herring. They are, however, canon and have to be accounted for accordingly. Captain Needa's comment may provide a clue; "no ship that small has a cloaking device!" It's not a physical size problem, so what is it? I reckon it's a heat and other signature dispersal issue. My theory here is that a cloaking device is basically an active mask, but one that fails fairly promptly- and in the case of the Vorknkx Project catastrophically- if the carrying ship does anything too energetic.

To stay cloaked, the underlying passive measures are essential, and that means the heat sink system has to scatter the energy as widely and at as low an intensity as possible, something inherently more practical for a large ship with a large radiator system than a small ship. Any small craft capable of cloaking would have to be a very expensive dedicated custom job.

Considering it's very difficult to do much while under cloak except thrust very gently and drift hopefully in the direction of a good ambush position while praying that nobody nearby actually has a CGT, they are probably a lot more often talked and speculated about than actually used, and then more for espionage than military purposes.

Anyway, next chapter about twenty percent written, give me a few days, should be soon.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Simon_Jester »

Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Thank you, Simon; neither do I. I'm regretting starting that hare now.
The main respect in which you did so was with the fighter wing. And that's excusable in my opinion, not least because it's damn hard to set up a good recurring cast of fighter pilots in a squadron of bog-standard TIEs, on account of the attrition rate.

By and large, elsewhere you've been fairly restrained about bringing in wonky EU hardware, striking a balance between giving your characters a set of tools good enough to let them use their talents effectively and giving them tools that overshadow their own personalities and talents.

But it would be all too easy to cross that line, which I think is why Vianca's been getting so much flak lately. Throwing in a small mountain of one-offs on the bad guys' side, when most of those one-off 'prototype superweapons' turned out to be very disappointing in combat practice, doesn't sound like a good plan.

Most of the exotic-ness of the Black Prince design revolves around stuff that is, individually, more or less off the shelf; what makes the ship as a whole so unusual and customized is that Mirannon's essentially trying to use the thing as a testbed for his theories of how the Imperator-III series ought to look.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

This is roughly the first quarter of Ch 20, and is going up now to accompany a bit of a mea culpa, actually.
I'd expected more of this to be ready sooner.



Well overdue, there was a party to be had. Two, in fact, but they had merged. Commander Ielamathrum Brenn, fresh from one of the most controversial passes of the Corellian Navy command course ever recorded, and the barely but acceptably successful Senior Lieutenant Themerhahn were going out to dinner.

They ran into- not literally, of course, traffic accidents were the fighter wing's job- the unbelievably innocent Lieutenant Aldrem and Ordinary Spacewoman (Int/Interpret) Hathren, each pair with difficult things to talk about.

It had been a mutual relief to postpone what promised to be a fair few awkward moments, although they would come sooner or later. Not that there hadn't been others along the way.


The first of which had been Aldrem nearly lynching the maitre'd at the swanky place they had reservations for. He had basically given up on the concept of tailoring and been dressed as usual, in his old, salty, comfortable ranker's jacket with the officer's rank tabs pinned on, and the irretrievably snooty head of the waiting staff had made the mistake of being snobbish about it.

There should have been no problem at all, they were supposed to be here, but the man was evidently a passive-aggressive pacifist, one step above "we don't serve your kind here", as well as a fashion victim.

Pel Aldrem did the overwhelming majority of his violence with hand and eye, but he was a large man, he was decently fit, and he had a very nasty-looking gun.

Brenn only found out about the gun when the maitre'd had taken so long about seating them that Aldrem slammed him against a wall and stuck what appeared to be an all too literal hand cannon up against one eyeball.


'The Commander,' Aldrem had snarled at the headwaiter, meaning Brenn, 'is an officer and a gentleman. His lady- what branch are you, ma'am?'

Nat was deeply uncertain she ought to go along with this, but she had just come off a command course where one of the major lessons had been not to give an order- put that man down, for instance- that you know will not be obeyed. 'Logistics.' she said.

'Ah. Hm. An officer and despite temptation a gentlewoman. Jhareylia is a specialist and a noble soul. I', Aldrem said, tone terrifyingly calm and level, 'am a gunner and by the grace of the job a certifiable homicidal maniac. Start treating them with the respect they deserve.'


The victim might have been able to manage some kind of ego saving comeback under other circumstances, staring down the barrel of a smaller gun maybe. If he had been remotely popular, someone might have tried to help him, and that could have been seriously embarrassing and possibly somewhat explosive.

They had nothing so gauche as a bouncer, the junior waiting staff appeared to be cheering Aldrem on, and the customers hardly knew to make up their minds. The maitre'd cut his losses and flapped vaguely in the direction of a table.

Aldrem let him slump to the floor, said 'thank you' and let Brenn lead off.

Crap, the navigating officer was thinking. I'm supposed to have passed the command course. It certainly didn't do what it was supposed to- turn me into a steely-eyed, lantern-jawed leader of men overflowing with personal magnetism. Then again, steel, magnets, sounds like a recipe for permanently crossed eyes.


Which may well be what it would take to be Pel Aldrem's commanding officer for any length of time. There we were, commanding officer candidates, fit to take charge of an armed starship, and we let some jumped up jobsworth in a penguin suit play us for fools.

This repeatedly court- martialled ex officio lunatic takes charge, and- was he bluffing? Brenn rather thought that he was. No, not quite; he had sized his target up and knew intimidation would work, that he wouldn't need to pull the trigger.

The command course had been a pleasant surprise for Black Prince's senior navigator in two aspects, one of them professional; he had thought of himself as a deeply and narrowly focused specialist. It had been good to find out how much of the other aspects of running and fighting a ship he had picked up essentially by osmosis.

On the other hand, in terms of natural authority, personal magnetism, charisma, it had essentially confirmed what he already knew- he didn't have very much.

He knew what he was doing, and it got easier after the crew had had to rely on his judgement and seen him get it right time after time, but he had essentially cheated like a Hutt playing Sabacc to get the first chance with that drug-emitting cactus.

Aldrem, on the other hand, genuinely was a natural leader- however he was entirely right in describing himself as a homicidal maniac, and quite wrong in assuming it was occupational.


As they sat down, Nat was obviously about to say something and wondering if she should or not; Aldrem said 'Go on, I'm an ex- ranker, I'm used to the abuse.' Which was a cleaned up version of what he would normally have said, at that.

She flushed a little, and said 'I was wondering if you were one of Iel's management challenges?'

'Different department.' he said, unabashed.

'Just as well.' Brenn stated. 'I read the transcript- wasn't in the wardroom five minutes before someone waved one at me. I presume it made less impact read out, because on paper it looks as if it was only the politics that stopped them crucifying you on the spot.'

'Yes.' Aldrem admitted; that did get to him. 'To be honest it scared the crap out of me, thinking about how much of our own little world we inhabit.' He said, tapping the ship's-crest shoulder patch. 'How our standards are, well, completely divorced from the rest of the fleet. I mean, I was a galactic- class criminal and didn't even know it.'

Nat, relatively conventionally trained and brought up as she was, was looking distinctly uncomfortable at this. Even the Corellian fleet had a spinal ramrod insertion unit otherwise known as the naval academy.

'How could you not know? How could you be unaware that what you were doing was- what did you do, was this some kind of technical offence that snowballed into a larger problem?'


'You could say that. I, well, the turret team ah, sort of accidentally overthrew a government.' Both women looked at him in amazement. 'Just before your time I think, Commander, but there was a dockworkers' strike on Phthal that, well, we were in for resupply.

Skipper sent a work detail to sort it out- we were in pursuit, didn't have too much time to spend; there were a couple of elevation actuator motors, ion injection coils, I suppose if there hadn't been something important to pick up we wouldn't have bothered pausing. Or it might have been a trap.

Anyway, we arrive, things drop in the pot inside seconds, we get mistaken for a flying column of reinforcement dockers by the government thugs and goons outside the port. The- hm, the very short version;

They start a brawl with us. We, well, what else was there to do? Fight back, of course. The dockers turn out to support us- enemy of my enemy, right? Then third of the fourth's infantry elements arrive to get us out of trouble- we were doing just fine actually.

The strikers panicked a bit when the legion started to arrive, but we'd already been talking to them a bit. Essentially the government had picked their moment to clamp down on the unions because we were there- there was a major move in the sector.

Authorities push them, they push back, we arrive in the middle of it all, dockers tell us nothing doing, no parts moving, the government has all the excuse they need to call them reb sympathisers, win the argument by default and get to shoot them all- or get us to do it for them. That was their plan, anyway.


We basically suggested to the dockers that if they got off their arses and shuttled the bits up to the ship for us, they could turn the government's trick against them, land them in the dreck for Imperial non-cooperation.

I was mainly thinking about the mission. Really, I was. The Phthaline Plutarchy's hired goons were scum, though- just bullyboys, didn't like them at all. How many police forces does one planet need?

In fact, I think there's a correlation there. The chances of the government being a bunch of crooks is proportional to the square of the number of separate police organisations it thinks it has to have? Something like that.

So, yeh, I...may have made a bit of a speech- that was being broadcast planetwide. And if you actually find it, you should be able to spot the exact moment when I think I grew up. Two moments within two seconds, when first of all I realised I was talking myself into a world of shit, and second when I realised I had been put in charge of that detail for a reason.

The revolution started that night. I think we got away with it because the incoming sector governor figured out what the locals had been up to, and didn't like being used- or them- any more than we did. I don't know though, first his staff wanted me courtmartialled, then he wanted me transferred to his staff. I had to resort to cannibalism to get out of that one.'

Both Nat and Jhareylia wanted to ask, but Brenn said 'I was there for that, at least- and trust me, the full story, even the edited highlights, are not something you want to hear over dinner.'
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by drakensis »

I suspect the Imperial Navy would be wise to never transfer a member of the Black Prince's crew anywhere else, ever. Having more ships like that would probably lead to an effective revolution.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Simon_Jester »

I think that overstates the strength of the conclusion a bit.

Pel Aldrem is probably the 'worst' of the lot when it comes to his willingness to speak turbolaser to power; we shouldn't judge the entire crew by his standard. And by and large, single transfers won't be problematic. It's the collective effect of the ship that creates the strangeness, the sheltered little world Lennart devoted himself to building for them. Take one rating off the ship and drop them elsewhere, and they'll most likely fall into line rather neatly.

The crew is predominantly loyal, or at least the sort of "screw this political nonsense and let me get on with my job" type who is functionally equivalent to loyal.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

drakensis wrote:I suspect the Imperial Navy would be wise to never transfer a member of the Black Prince's crew anywhere else, ever. Having more ships like that would probably lead to an effective revolution.
O, it could be fun. :angelic:
Like if one of them gets the command of a support ship, like a Strike Cruiser.
And the funny fact is that it doesn't have to be for long either, just long enough to drow up some plans. :mrgreen:
ImageImageImage
Image
I can see the basic shape of the big pic in the two upper (left) pic's, just remove the curves and turn them into hard edges (upper right pic).
Heck, I would love to see a back-wards pic of the original Strike Cruiser it's engine bells and so.
Image
Yes, I can see it happening if the plans off the Black Prince in the WH-40K cross are to go by, will come into play.
If only to keep their fighter squadrons close by and ready for duty. :wink:

But if the Black Prince will play any roll in the Eidolon's creation and if the Black Prince will be converted furture in the same time, is up too: :arrow: Remnant.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

As that dinner conversation is going to include- needs a lot of fleshing out and typing up, but the bones are there- and as Aldrem points out, it's not about getting Brenn a command, that in itself isn't going to be hard, and probably an Ecliptic or Meridian- class (the preceding and succeeding gunship designs related to the Acclamator)- larger than a Strike. The problem is getting him that command under a flag officer who isn't going to hang him out to dry half a second after the politics comes calling, the way that happened to Dordd.

Doing something tech-expo-esque would actually be a relief, because what I'm sweating at the moment (and shying away from, as you may have noticed) is the high conspiracy, who in Palpatine's inner circle would make a convenient mastermind and who a useful official patsy, who was in and who out of favour, who disappeared from the political radar about the time of Hoth and who rose to prominence. Publius' writings are being extraordinarily helpful in this.

Oh, and Aldrem probably is the worst when it comes to deviant outlook- one of the reasons he's centre stage a lot of the time. The official chief of the boat's probably the helmsman- enlisted head of the ship control team, properly- a character who needs and deserves a lot of fleshing out, but unofficially it probably is Pel Aldrem. In a way he is a sort of surrogate son to the captain, and Lennart's thought just before the trial, of better not let him know how much I'd actually let him get away with, because he'll go and do it, is part of that.

One of the things poor Mirhak-Ghulej was supposed to be was the unofficial ambassador of normality; Lennart is quite conscious of the fact that he demands very high standards of job performance from his crew and cuts them a lot of- officially, far too much- slack in return. There needs to be somebody with a normal, officially acceptable attitude around the place, not least to drop on the crew when they take the slack without giving the performance. Anyway,



Rafaella was a fairly sensible young woman, which was one of the reasons she chose not to react violently when they came for her. The main reason was that there were a lot of them. Almost- not quite- enough to get in each others' way, led by a dozen of them in red-blue iridiscent armour.

One of them, interesting how the fore seemed to flow through the most basically hardwired of the senses, had her father's scent about her- wait, a female stormtrooper? Worse yet, one her father had made an impression on? Oh...

Past that even, she had a touch of it herself, and knew she was being watched. She took her helmet off, and the two women looked at each other.

Jorian was pale-skinned, dark hair and eyes; Rafaella must take after her mother, Aleph-3 thought, dark blonde with orange-brown, tawny eyes, shorter and wider than her father. She also had little of her father's bounce- the tension coming off her was palpable.


If I wanted to, the (ex?) talent scout for the dark side of the force thought, I could lead her down the dark path so very, dangerously easily; she feels outnumbered and pressured, a fighter in a losing battle, and hating it.

I'm not sure I'm any better at the light side than she is, but I was certainly never that close to needing- to proclaiming that I needed- the strength that the dark path could give me.

Rafaella's brain had hiccuped, and all she was doing was wondering how the female stormtrooper got her hair like that. Her colouration was extraordinary, had to be artificial- so why for this, of all occasions, had she made the effort?

In fact it was artificial, but it was genetic- one of the whole cloth bits that got added in along with strands from at least four donors. The memorymetal wire that gathered up her hair into a bun under her helmet when she put it on, and let her hair down when she took it off, was her own idea though.


'Rafaella Lennart?' Aleph-3 made the first move, deliberately standing close and looming over the younger woman, leaving Rafe feeling there was a "whether you like it or not" missing there. Not quite domineering, not pushy as such, more like establishing the pecking order.

Interesting, that she feels she has to, Rafaella thought. That she feels she can. I doubt this is the right moment to peck back. I don't want to be...stang, what did I expect?

'Come with us.' At least no threats were added to that, but they did form a rough, staggered circle around her, the redhead in the centre with her, that was something. As they escorted her down to the assault transport, the corvette's crew and security detachment were nowhere to be seen.

Damn, Rafe thought, this could be important, she's at least a, hm, work colleague, of my father's, and here I am behaving like a sulky teenager. She tried to say something witty and personable, but it came out as 'Leprosy, again.'


'Considering your education,' Aleph-3 said, careful to do so without contempt, 'you should know- much more clearly than they do- what it is they're afraid of, and how much of a right they have to be to be afraid. In theory, at least.'

Rafaella had the sense not to follow that up- for now, at least not directly. 'You were shown my file?'

'Your father did think that I needed, that I had a right to know. Although as anyone who knows him and his methods could confirm, the file hardly ever tells the full story- before I take you to meet him, how much do you know?'

They crossed into the assault transport, the hatches dropped, the transport kicked loose. They were all in the relatively small troop bay in the back, sealed and shielded.


All right, so the older woman wanted to make it clear that she was in charge...maybe I am getting a touch paranoid, though, Rafaella thought. How does someone who, plin, she's carrying a lightsabre; perhaps that's how she intends to stop me. Kriffit, I am not a monster.

'I met his sister- my aunt, I suppose. She didn't feel very like family.'

Aleph-3 sighed, thinking about it- she was the captain's daughter, and telling her nothing, treating her as if she already was the monster she could so easily be, could only make things worse. Her gut was saying don't, give nothing away, but heart said take the chance.

'I'm a bit of an outsider myself when it comes to family, but I believe that gives me an outsider's perspective. There are three, there's a younger brother as well, and blood is all they have in common- I think when they were young, they defined themselves in opposition to each other, each refusing to be what the others were. So, be skeptical.'

Rafaella thought that one out for a moment, thinking of the great, the dubious and the long dead, looking for an example, a matching pattern. Also, the living now. 'She, ah, she showed me the Alliance's file on him- the full story, I want to see him because I can't imagine him. You know him, I can sense an echo of him on you...'


'I was afraid you might be able to.' the older woman said. 'It isn't really a safe subject, we'll have to talk about your relationship with the Force, but speaking of which...Jorian and I have a sort of "it's complicated" happening. I know the theory and philosophy of the Force better than he does, so...'

She half- changed the subject. 'Was he really so unlikely as a young man? Impossible for you to see the Starfleet Captain in what the file told you of the youth?'

Rafaella wished her head was clearer; it was easy to be contemptuous of some of the stupid decisions she had raked over the aftermath of, of history's more idiotic moments, when you were just sitting there. Having a personal stake clouded your mind, made things, all things, that much less clear, everything very difficult and complicated.

She thought it was called losing the arrogance of youth. Still, the whole point of being a past- finder was to have something to hold back the dithers with, a record of what happened last time that could restore clarity, preserve the horizon.

Not that it was all that easy even then. Twenty years, more now, clearly a man who could seduce a Jedi Knight into breaking her vows was not short of charm; it should have occurred to her but she had never even considered the thought of a stepmother, never mind an 'it's complicated'.

Oh, currents and undertows, and some of the largest and nastiest were the ones her force potential dragged behind her- which was a good enough reason for the transport crew to be afraid of her, come to think of it.


Rafaella blinked and shuffled before answering. 'Obviously it happened, and you know the adult, but...memory metal whoopee cushions? It was an orphan comment with no background, but, what?'

'I was there when he said that,' Aleph-3 realised, 'I tried to figure it out but I don't think I got more than a fraction of the truth, whether it was a spur of the moment thing simply to bait the Alliance- what do you think it means?'

Rafaella paused, unsure how much to say, knowing that she desperately needed a friend, utterly bemused that it should be a stormtrooper, not wanting to admit too much. Aleph-3 approved.

'Well,' Aleph-3 said, deciding to see what sort of reaction a little speculation got, 'the worst case is that he's not actually kidding about being an anarchist, and there's a warrant still out.'


Rafaella's jaw dropped. This was a look inside the new order that she was not expecting, a direct shock that got through her caution, overloaded the dam. 'He admitted it? To his crew- to stormtroopers?'

'He has more sense than that, so no, but it explains a lot.' Aleph-3 grinned. 'You must know how closed and interest-group communities work, how stories and reputations resonate; in fact considering the theory it's surprising how much he actually manages to hide. But it was an easy enough suspicion. Do the Alliance know, or did you reason it out?'

'The only use for something like that would have been to commit an indecent act on the senator from Chandrila,' Rafaella didn't manage to come right out with it, 'while the Senate was actually in session- there's only one group that fits, and my father was in the right place at the right time.

It would have been one of their crueller pranks, which is perhaps why it didn't happen, but there are surely enough ex- anarchists from that time in the ranks of the Alliance now to reason it out themselves.'


'Probably best dealt with pre-emptively- another press conference. Or put to use? Hm.' Aleph-3 thought about it.

' I didn't actually want to meet like this, I don't know quite what I did want to happen but being the bringer of bad news wasn't it- and this is just something to take in your stride? Don't you worry about what this could do to him?' Rafaella asked.

'The last major deployment, we- the collective we, the ship led by him- managed the execution of a corrupt Sector Moff and the destruction of a Black Sun cash cow, the capture after bombardment of a major Rebel construction base, and accused the Dark Jedi agent of the Privy Council sent to investigate the mess of treason and had him shot.

I think his plan may actually be to get all his enemies shooting at each other and duck out between them; so as you can see, things are a little complicated in his life at the moment.' Aleph-3 understated.


'Oh.' Rafaella said. 'My turning up, then- the officer, the Rear- Admiral, who suspended the charges and remanded me into my father's custody, I can't imagine he was simply being generous.'

'Letting you wander off into the wide, wild sky might be an easy option,' Aleph-3 acknowledged, 'but it's, well, he wants to know too. Besides, you're subject to the Dangerous Cults Act, it's in your file, the system knows you have the force now. How long have you known, incidentally?' That conversation was coming, but not yet.

'Only-' Rafaella tried to add it up, found her grasp of time had gone. Well, there was the field trip, and the visit to the surgery, and the first run, and the bank robbery, and the second run, and the jail, and- 'Shades, only sixty days.

It wasn't a massive surprise, I've always had a few odd gifts that I usually tried to ignore, tried to be sensible instead, but suddenly fell into place. I can hear bits of the past talking to me, thought it was just imagination- without the practise I had coping with that, I think I could have lost my wits. How does my father cope?'


Aleph-3 smiled. 'Anarchically, of course. He's known he had the Force for less time than you have, and there's a pattern- he deals with it in a similar way, reacting against it, sharpening himself against it. At the moment he's proclaiming a pox on both of them, and refusing to join either side until they make him a better offer.'

Rafaella accepted that for a moment, then her brain caught up. 'But that's- it's unprecedented, it's never worked like that- it can't, the universe just doesn't, individual renegades,vigilantes- but-'

'Sounds about right, actually.' Aleph-3 said, looking forward and noticing they were about to come in to dock. 'Look at it this way; most of them only had a lightsabre. It may indeed be impossible to hold some kind of personal balance between the Light and the Dark; in fact I told him it was, repeatedly. He'll still try to, of course.' She grinned.

'Which unfortunately folds back to you and your force abilities. It's as simple as join the dots really.' Aleph-3 said, and waited for her to work it out.


'I'm probably going to make things worse, then. The officer who sent me here, suspended the charges- only suspended- and remanded me into my father's custody, I can't imagine him not being a party, not having an end and objective of his own.

This is not how I wanted to meet my biological parents. Mother dead before I was born, father- "Hi, Dad, I've been sent as a political pawn to help bring about your doom." Augh.'

Landing was straightforward enough, despite the junk in the way; down, hatches open. Rafaella was a little stunned by the crowded complexity of the bay; in most of the news- holos, the background on board an Imperial ship was always stark simplicity. It was twenty years too late for that here.

Most ships had their own smell, too, and most large Imperial ships smelt of powerful disinfectant with fugitive hints of what the heavy sanitation was supposed to hide, sweat and stress and fear.

HIMS Black Prince smelt more like a foundry, searing metal and lubrication and forced-draft electric air and hard work done. Rafaella wrinkled her nose at it at first, then thought of how much worse it could have been.


A random aside occurred to her, completely irrelevant but she needed a moment of irrelevance...'Do you have a ship's cat?'

'No- we had a ship's squid once though.' Aleph- 3 said. 'A Dianoga we found on an inspection, somebody made the mistake of feeding it and it basically followed them home. Curious thing, really, and quite intelligent like most squids are, maybe more so- couldn't verbalise but we taught it maybe eight thousand words of sign, and seemed to be trying to help out.

'We called it Ebbie, and mostly as a dare, somebody faked up a service record for it, transfer orders, managed to satisfy the bureaucracy well enough to have it accepted as a sailor in the Starfleet. Ordinary Spaceman (life support technician) Corot Ebbie Fallopodd; they didn't figure it out.

It backfired, though. Ebbie's efficiency reports were just too good- self motivating, brilliant with restricted-accessibility jobs, pulled more double and triple shifts than any other spacer in the fleet. It was promoted and transferred to HIMS Framea.'


Rafaella did not, could not believe that. She had encountered Dianoga and found them hideous crawling horrors. 'That is one of the most ridiculous stories I have ever heard.'

Back to the serious bit. 'You had better hope that every word of it was true, because that kind of deviant creativity, that your father lives for, is all that may be able to save you. You are actually a lot closer to the Dark Side of the Force than he is.'

'I'm what?' It was Aleph-3's disapproval that threw her more than anything else. Hold on a moment- the Emperor, the Empire, the Dark Side, what?

'You've been through a great deal. Persecuted, harassed, turned inside out, forced to take decisions that you hate, punished for them, driven, cornered- you're angry at how you've been pushed around.' Aleph-3 said, and Rafaella would have objected, except the older woman was right.

'I was basically a talent scout for the adepts of the dark side; spot force potential, and do what I could to lead- or provoke- them to fall, to strengthen the ranks of the dark orders. Your father was the one who refused to go.

I could use what you've been through to set your feet on the dark path; both the injuries done to you, and most dangerously your determination to do right despite them. Nothing like the ugly unintended consequences of a good intention to get someone to start navel-gazing and see darkness...

It would be very easy, in fact- so dangerously easy that you might do it to yourself. If there is such a way as the polychromatic side of the Force, he'll find it, and I intend to follow him to it; and you- we're here.'
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Good update and I did say temperary, didn't I?
"Devide and Conquer" is the motto with a reason, but in this case it would only let to "Devide and Defeat".
Which I could see Trawn betting upon. :lol:

The situation is fragil enough to warrent a certain Imperial Spymaster to be in system, wouldn't it?
Infact, if after this all, Trawn is raised in rank, I could see Black Prince ordered to keep certain projects save.
Like the Eidolon project, while Trawn trows a (cloaking based) smokescreen to keep that Renegade Admiral away from it.
That guy had the TIE-Defender factories in his hands, thus a must to keep away from each other.

Really, Thrawn's bio gives plenty of options already without even starting to dig down. :roll:
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Congratulations, you've managed to home in on one of the handful of people it can't possibly be...

The investigation is going to dissect the subject pool into four categories;

Wolves- the handful of dark siders powerful enough to have plans and followings of their own, and Vader would be at the head of that list;

Jackals- without the strength or the courage to stand up on their own, but would join a winning conspiracy, or a still dominant Palpatine, whoever was on top- first name on this list may be Inquisitor Tremayne;

Cornered Rats- those who are at the moment strong but see doom approaching, the bitter and resentful, the most likely to be part of the move against Palpatine- names may emerge, in due course;

Black Sheep- Palpatine's loyal pawns, those high in and well regarded by his system, benefiting from the status quo, whose only connection with a move against him is that they are likely to be associate targets of it- and the first name on that list will be said Imperial spymaster. Pestage is just too closely identifiable with his boss, or at least his boss's shadow.

Not that they are necessarily sheeplike; Nial Declann, for instance, would fit in that category, because he's powerful, and busy, and successful- he has no particular need to rebel, he's doing well out of things as they are. Gain a little more power and he'd likely qualify as one of the wolves, which is something a backroom operator like Pestage could never be- he reads like a born staffer, no more temperamentally suited to the top job than Berthier was to stand in for Napoleon.

I may sidetrack myself later, incidentally, because the plot bunny of Ebbie the squid keeps popping up whenever I try to get on with the main line. More soon-ish.
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Andras »

Glad to see the updates ECR, can't wait for more!
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Congratulations, you've managed to home in on one of the handful of people it can't possibly be...
Off-course, how else won't I showboat the guys you'll probably will pull in.
I'm betting the Bio's of Emperer Palpatine, Dart Vader and the Imperial Spymaster will hold some clue's to them, right?
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Was rereading things a bit and noticed something.
Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Cloaking devices are complicated- and NB, this particular one doesn't work- it's only practical use is s a red herring. They are, however, canon and have to be accounted for accordingly. Captain Needa's comment may provide a clue; "no ship that small has a cloaking device!" It's not a physical size problem, so what is it? I reckon it's a heat and other signature dispersal issue. My theory here is that a cloaking device is basically an active mask, but one that fails fairly promptly- and in the case of the Vorknkx Project catastrophically- if the carrying ship does anything too energetic.

To stay cloaked, the underlying passive measures are essential, and that means the heat sink system has to scatter the energy as widely and at as low an intensity as possible, something inherently more practical for a large ship with a large radiator system than a small ship. Any small craft capable of cloaking would have to be a very expensive dedicated custom job.
Is it possibly that this is one of the reasons that Stygium is also reported to be the fuel of a Stygium Cloaking device?
With this I mean that they are burned up like a lightbulb with a too thin wire.
Simon_Jester wrote:By and large, elsewhere you've been fairly restrained about bringing in wonky EU hardware, striking a balance between giving your characters a set of tools good enough to let them use their talents effectively and giving them tools that overshadow their own personalities and talents.

But it would be all too easy to cross that line, which I think is why Vianca's been getting so much flak lately. Throwing in a small mountain of one-offs on the bad guys' side, when most of those one-off 'prototype superweapons' turned out to be very disappointing in combat practice, doesn't sound like a good plan.

Most of the exotic-ness of the Black Prince design revolves around stuff that is, individually, more or less off the shelf; what makes the ship as a whole so unusual and customized is that Mirannon's essentially trying to use the thing as a testbed for his theories of how the Imperator-III series ought to look.
Well, hinting at such one-off projects builds-up some background for not only the story but also of the one-off projects.
Even if it's just that final break-trough needed to get it to work and thus starting said one-off project.

I must say, your thoughts about what Mirrannon is trying to do is both shocking and suprisingly, expected.
But I also think Mirrannon would wish he could break her down to her frame, so he could redo the frame it's self. :mrgreen:
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

New segment, slightly incomplete- this one literally breaks off in mid conversation, partly because it's already quite long, but mainly because I need to pause it there and come up for air.

Planned later is another bit, Lennart/Mirannon, where I intend to go into some detail about that, I will get to that soon. In the meantime,


From the black-haired, black gowned woman's point of view, it was not a simple job at all. The instruction to "take care of him" had been straightforward enough, if euphemistic- honestly, would the galaxy end if anyone just said Kill?

It was possible that the assassination business might collapse if they did, though- talking round the issue was many millennia old by now, so much so that many goons might not understand the direct version.

No, she thought after a second, it was about the colonisation of words. If take care of means kill, destroy, what does care mean? Is it any longer possible to talk about being helpful and supportive, or is it part of some subconscious long term plan to eliminate all possibilities except bloody death?

For me personally, she thought, what would be better- to operate in a galaxy where euphemisation is still the order of the day, with layers of active and passive pretence, or in a galaxy where civility is dead and the rule is open social war openly acknowledged?

Hm. Deception and deviousness, or mayhem and slaughter? What a choice to offer a girl. Actually, which approach would work best on her current problem, there was a thought.


At the moment, travelling on a commercial liner, she was evidently following the way of the criminal; it was a risk moving without entourage, but her unofficial contacts had more of a presence in the target's system than the official.

Honest work, staying within the bounds and working to the limits of her official remit, had never really occurred to her. Nor was it particularly likely to, to anyone who found themselves in the same line of work.

Dark, obscure, illegitimate possibilities abounded- and the job itself really wasn't what it had been, anyway. Not that a sizable part of the galaxy didn't think the work of the Inquisitorius dark and illegitimate to begin with, even- especially- if they were too scared to actually say so.

Comprehensive and far- reaching authority, some touch of the Dark Side, a tracker and hunter and killer's training- and honestly, inclination- and the growing suspicion that they were all part of an organisation that only really existed to annoy Lord Vader.

Not that that was particularly difficult. She had known him for years, worked for him and been around him for more time than she liked to think about; well, it's not as if there was any real seniority in this business, she thought, apart from that Palpatine decides on.


That was something that stung, too. One of the earliest recruits to the Inquisitorius, and never really risen in rank- so, naturally enough, she had turned for opportunity to outside the system.

Vader was the empire's resident Angry Man, whose usual modus operandi was if in doubt, slaughter something; she had watched him trying to learn diplomacy and tact like an elephant learning to walk a tightrope, and had had to be very careful not to laugh at him. That would not have been survivable.

Not that the job was; like most of the lesser darknesses, it had been made clear to her that she was already judged and damned, and would be allowed to hold on to life only as long as she was useful. Finding unofficial opportunity and, hm, fulfilment, with one of the Dark Dunce's worst enemies had been first merely a rational, then grew and flowered into a wonderful solution.


Intellectually, she knew that Falleen hormones had that effect, that it was unlikely he felt for her as she felt for him; but most people knew that falling in love made you do stupid things, and they still did it.

To a degree she was chained to him by her nose, the glorious indescribable scent of him that went straight to her hindbrain, she wasn't a fool, knew that full well. She had seen so many society doxies come and go, slaved by smell, enjoyed and cast aside- but because of what she was, and because she wasn't daft, she was still there.

Agent, advisor, bodyguard, enforcer, for the core branch of Black Sun. It was much more fun than Vader's service had ever been, although she was still officially on the strength, with the authority that came with that.

Both organisations had put a mark on the same man. The Inquisitorius wanted him investigated, thoroughly; the syndicate just wanted him to die a slow, painful death- which a thorough investigation usually added up to anyway.


Her quondam colleague in the dark side, Kor Alric, had undoubtedly thought it would be easy too, and look what had happened to him.

Quondam meaning at some time, partially, formerly; not quantum, and the wordplay and notion of quantum colleagues would never have occurred to her. It might have to Adannan, and certainly to her target.

Little or nothing of the special agent's notes survived, and if she had been fired by any remaining shred of zeal for the work of suppressing renegade force users she would have considered him very necessary to investigate. He was undoubtedly dodgy.

The prime target, the commanding officer of the star destroyer now swimming before the starliner's forward viewports, was bureaucratically elusive. That had been an Inquisitorius habit, flashing sabres and sizzling force powers first, questions later. Bypass all normal methods and modes of operation; they had, in fact, been amazingly uninquisitive.

Finding out everything normally possible about the target first before jumping in force lightning blazing was not really what they were supposed to do; scream and charge was the order of the day. Those who survived, however, learned caution.


She had had him investigated, and unsurprisingly the official side had yielded a gargantuan amount of data, very little of which was instantly categorisable as information. The ISB Liaison on board had, apparently, 'just popped out of the office'- ten years ago.

Squadron was almost as bad. Apart from having a choice of about twelve, some of whom eagerly claimed and some of whom declined responsibility, the ship was meshed in- protected by?- a cat's-cradle of conflicting and contradictory lines of reportage. It had been difficult to even assemble a crew roster.

Barging straight in and officially arresting him was an option, but one that would make noise, raise questions. Depending on his and his crew's willing, straightforward compliance with the system did not seem wise.

Possibly not survivable, at that- but still, it was the Inquisitorius way. That and Black Sun really did most sincerely want to see him very dead- and he was personally much less dangerous, on his feet and in the flesh, than he was in virtually any other scenario.

How to get at him, though? Lure him out? A possibility. As the transport headed for one of Corellia's orbiting transfer stations, Inquisitor Pasiq started planing where to strike.



The official captain's quarters were buried in the bowels of the accommodation block, a strange design decision indeed and one it really took a Kuati to come up with; Lennart used them less than once a year- literally, for an annual Commissioning Day party that they had been too busy to celebrate once.

He was seriously considering converting the space to something else more useful, because the only other purpose it had was as VIP guest quarters, and he had had quite enough of those for a while.

It had been given a quick search by the cleanup crew after the event, as the last significant occupant had been Kor Alric; for a whole afternoon before he had decided the Imperial suite was more to his taste, but he had left nothing behind except a foul smell.

The place had been, in the interim, sanitised. It was still physically in the wrong spot. There was too much crew berthing directly adjacent, and for the status- conscious Empire, and the almost as bad old Republic, giving the plebs the chance to see the captain in his underwear was just not on.

Lennart couldn't really disapprove of that in principle- and after a seconds' thought, it was probably one of the changes the local builders had made to the Kuat design- but he certainly could in practise; it was too far away from the bridge.

Still, at the moment, here it was, and it was where Aleph-3 and her team escorted Rafaella Lennart.


She could sense her father's presence- then the door slid open, and there he was in the flesh. He was taller than his daughter, leaner and darker-coloured, but they were obviously family- she took more strongly after her mother but there was a definite resemblance, a kinship. Aleph-3 certainly hoped so.

Jorian wasted no time; looked her up and down, said 'You remind me of your mother' and hugged her, as hard as he could. Aleph-3 was instantly jealous- I wish he hugged me like that more often, she thought. 'Come in.'

Rafaella- and the squad- did. A picture-hung, otherwise light walled reception room- atrium, really- with couches around a water feature with an abstract sculpture in, that he had always meant to replace with a deactivated battle droid in a ballet arabesque pose.

The young archaeologist looked around baffled; this wasn't at all what she was expecting. The fact that she had expectations- that she had some idea of what to expect- aid a lot to her father.


'It's not really me,' Lennart said, much more breezily than he felt- Aleph-3 reacted badly at first, then grasped the scheme. Good. 'I have a hammock in a closet off the bridge, this place only really gets used as guest quarters, and I intend to put you up here until something else starts to make more sense.

Although that may be around the time I become a great- grandfather. I met your fiance; he's lucky he's a pre-existing fact in your life, because I was strongly tempted to have him fed to something, possibly a drill instructor.

I'll introduce you to such else of the family remain unarrested when there's time, speaking of which, hm, in a moment for that too, remind me to talk to the chief about that. Why archaeology?'


He's not babbling, Rafaella realised. He can bounce from thought to thought like that- and there wee curves of structure protruding, of meshes of ideas- in control, with clarity, at a speed that makes him look as if he's grasshoppering, but he isn't- wait, what? Plarch? Where is he? I wonder what my father would approve of in a son-in-law?

'Because I was looking for a past, I think.' she said. 'Your sister Alrika showed me the alliance's file on you- it told me what happened, but not what, hm, happened.'

'I was told about that, too. She precipitated herself into the hands of a being I know to be a very deft manipulator, and would not trust as far as I could throw our new secondary powerplant. It is going to take some doing, to make that situation end well.

Your young...entity, on the other hand, is doing ninety days in the Kor Vella Correctional Academy for Hopeless Space Numpties. He tried to get in touch by short-circuiting every safety on a spacehopper and telling it to get him to me as fast as possible. Survival was not part of the plan.

He tried to commit kamikaze, and I let the local law deal with him, as a safer alternative to taking him in myself- because then I would have had to have him shot. He couldn't have picked a worse way to introduce himself to a navigating officer. I presume that there was something you saw in him?' Lennart asked.


That was a poser. Not because there wasn't an answer, but- space, there wasn't. She had, oh, no. Well, opposites did, had attracted, and he could be witty when he put his mind to it, and he had the courage of his convictions, and he might be an introvert but there was a lot of him under the shell.

What had just loomed up in front of her was the notion that in view of her force sensitivity, a much nastier explanation suddenly made sense. He really wasn't hero material; could be said to be a bit of a mouse actually.

Had she deliberately picked a weak one because she did have a touch of the dark side? Someone meek and mild that she could mould, impress on, malform and mistreat, a chew toy?

It wasn't like that, she wanted to scream, but who to, herself? Her man was better than that, he was- well, cruelly, he was an absent-minded daydreamer with no instinct at all to reach out, who might never have had a sexual experience if it wasn't for her.

And her father, sitting opposite her now, was a decorated and acknowledged warrior- hero with standards far higher than poor Plarch could ever hope to meet, and the dark side explanation had clearly occurred to him too.


Yet she did not want to give in to that explanation, did not want to fold and collapse before it. She temporised, parrying/defending with 'You don't think he's good enough?'

She was actually quite surprised when her father chose to avoid a head on clash by saying 'Stranger things have happened. Your mother and I, for instance.'

The truth was, Jorian Lennart did think that. With reservations, of course; the kid had at least tried to rob a bank, had hauled himself across half the galaxy searching for a being who may or may not still exist, had found his family at least- screwing up and blundering through every step of the way, but he had achieved something.

The seeds were there. Would take a lot of effort to make grow, and he was nowhere near good enough at the moment, but- for an idle second Lennart senior let himself wander over his own crew, wondering how many potential bank robbers it contained- how many teams he could raise on short notice.

Obviously not everybody, but most of the senior petty officers at least. How many of them would be better potential sons in law? Same answer. Hm. In the interests of honesty he admitted it. 'Although I will say that he's going to need a lot of work done on him to bring him up to spec.'


There were obvious things to say in response to that, but they were so cliched and teenage- sounding that she decided to avoid them. Especially as he might be right. 'Was it thus with you and my mother?'

'More like like charges repelling.' He jumped a step ahead of her in turn. 'Why our respective authorities didn't dump us both in padded cells, preferably on opposite sides of the galaxy, passes understanding now.

We met oh, two, three months after Geonosis, she was a final- stage padawan then and I think her master looked on me as one of her trials. Which she would have failed if, well.

'You may find this hard to believe,' he understated, aware that Aleph-3 and the rest of the team were hanging on every word, 'but then I was an ultramontane, a flag-tattooed-on-the-forehead Republic patriot; with all the fervour of a recent convert, worse yet one who does scent something subtly wrong about his own cause, and shouts all the louder to keep the suspicions away.

I suppose that deep down I was never really all that sold on it, but it was a useful public face, and it sort of became cemented in place as a result of both our positions being pushed to extremes by the arguments we blundered into.

The Jedi Order is a closed, sealed and highly touchy subject these days, so naturally you went looking for whatever you could find about them?' Lennart asked his daughter.


'I, we, ah- no.' Rafaella admitted. 'There were enough ancient traces of them that the Empire couldn't eliminate, there were clues that resisted eradication. Up until, until it really mattered, we could find everything we needed from the past.'

Lennart sighed. 'That would be the sound of your mother. I was in my early turning to mid twenties, she was late teens scrambling after a tradition that like to pretend it was a million years old.

I was already predisposed against them, although in hindsight it might have been worse if they really had done what they were capable of. Certainly would have, for me. Operationally, I'm not sure there was much in it.

I wish the politics really were ancient history, but they're not, nowhere near safely dead and buried yet, if anything ever is- which I presume you're going to tell me it isn't. The point is that we more or less totally failed to get on, after the first couple of weeks.

There was, there definitely was something there; perhaps I am flattering myself, but there's living proof now. That was a thread that was increasingly buried under the way things went, what we were doing, what they thought they were about. The easiest way I can describe it- how hard did you have to cram for exams?'


Rafaella looked slightly perplexed, but Aleph-3 nodded. She knew what he meant. 'Continuous high intensity operations, for someone who hasn't been there that's the next best description I can think of.

Much worse, of course. Your life, and the lives of your friends, may be riding on this- and yours on their success; you have no guarantee, none, that what you're doing is actually going to help, and no idea when the actual test will be, a month, a day, five seconds. No second chance, either- sometimes not a first chance.

You work till you're ready to drop, as many hours a day as you can cram in and stay sane, and sometimes not that, everyone else who gives a damn pushing themselves too, some falling apart, some becoming so burnt out they cease to care, everyone worn, tired, frightened, biting at each other-

and then after the blinding barrage of paper from behind, there are the official enemy, who have been putting themselves through the wringer too, and whoever has managed to think and train and work and practise the best and whose head is still on vaguely straight at least has the ascendancy, not that it always works out that way.

Sometimes you screw up and live through it, and you have no time to mourn, you're too busy trying to make do without the ones that didn't make it and break in a new batch of fresh bodies, and watch them go through the same.

Now add a pair of smugly self-centred, indifferent, tactically illiterate force users into the mix and watch what happens. It was like inviting the hophead dropouts round for a spice party in the middle of a study session.


This is why Black Prince's crew are such lunatics, incidentally, and why the basic training that may still be in your boyfriend's future is the way it is; because functioning under such circumstances is a corroding, inhumanising business anyway.

The human mind will be broken by it; better to get that out of the way in controlled circumstances, where what's left can be arranged into a form that can do what the service demands, and won't get itself and its' comrades physically killed as well. Repair and reconstruction can come afterwards, once the need is done.

My crew, my extended military family, are as human as I can afford to let them be under such pressure; and by time and tempering, they have come closer to being used to this, more rational in the face of it than I would have thought possible, twenty-five years ago-

...and some of the stranger incidents are really no more than should be expected from letting an almost-normal sense of humour and ethics play with the tools of Armageddon. Still, that's now.


Then, we were basically pulling in different directions, with different ideas of what war was about and this particular one was for, and I had somehow become ship's fixer- because I knew more or less what I was doing, was mostly functional most of the time, I was taking up as much as I could of the slack for those who didn't. And, as I said, ultramontane.

Looking back on it, it wasn't, no, it was that bad but not on purpose; she was in an awkward position, and she was trying to help, much more than I- no, I knew that at the time, but it was never the right time and never the right way.

Her boss was much worse, but she was stuck between us, trying to be a proper jedi by the standards of a being who, I cannot reconstruct his thinking; he really did seem to believe that if he pretended hard enough nothing had changed and that there was still peace on, then all the shooting would go away.

He couldn't really have been that stupid, not and remain functional. Which, well. What I think he was trying to do was set a moral example, of the sort of personal standards we needed to hold on to. Although a more awesomely inappropriate time to do so or standard to try for would be hard to find.

I abused my position, I admit it now, to trivialise them; drafting ops plans that gave them nothing to do, or sent them far out into the margins. He noticed, and insofar as he let anything show at all, I think he was ashamed of being glad of it.


She was the one who took up the cudgels on his behalf. we- as the mode we fell into started to set around us, the stances we took up hardened, the arguments began. I accused them of being essentially indifferent to the republic qua republic, to them it was just the order's milk cow; she accused me of being an arrogant egocentric, little better than a separatist myself.

She called me a frothing maniac, who had got so used to this I was actually enjoying myself; probably actually true now, of course, but not then. I called them sterile wastes of flesh, oxygen thieves who understood nothing, proud of their learned blindness, a tactical and political appendix.

The harder he tried to rise above it, be serene and tranquil, the more he tended to prove my point. Why she didn't cut my face off is the real question. Before you start feeling sorry for him, remember the jedi way; mission justifies.

Knight Senemit was essentially a pacifist and as far as he could be a peacemaker, guilty that peacemaking had failed, and overcame his guilt- or indulged it- by holding his own life cheaply. The risks he wanted to take and the uses he wanted to put the group to- he would have been content to die doing his duty.

Which is acceptable- no, endurable- for a platoon commander, the rank he was just about competent to hold, but not for a fleet general officer. He would have got us all killed if I had let him have his way.


Altara knew that, and she knew I knew she knew. She had a damned bad starting position to defend, and she did her best for it. Although there were limits. She could have legal-jitsu'd me into what could have amounted to an admission of cowardice, for instance.

Did manage to get me to admit that I wasn't nearly as much of a patriot as I was pretending to be, and that I was actually trying to stop her getting killed. Somewhere in there amongst the shouting.

Although yes, there were times when we both went too far. We were both young, and asked to carry far more responsibility than was really healthy for us, and our coping techniques were worlds apart. We couldn't really be there for each other; tried as often as we dared, sometimes helped, usually failed, occasionally made things worse.

If the rebel alliance file told you we had a love- hate relationship, a lot of the time the hate was real, too. Then there were moments such as my calling her a young fogey, desperate to avoid the terrible burden and misery of having to be free.

She snapped back at me that I had no right to talk, started giving me chapter and verse on my own life, the official version at least, I called her on it, and that was the first time I saw her blush- after I accused her of caring.


We parted for a time not long after that, and not in the best way- Senemit's death wish finally came good. She had won the latest round of our endless argument, we had been talking about detachment, errors of omission.

I had got a notification that two of my academy classmates had been killed, one in a particularly messy way when the separatists had boarded her ship and resorted to biobombing the crew. It was at a bad time, and I had the jitters- worse than usual.

I recall asking her what the difference was between Jedi detachment and standard squishy-groundpounder "don't mean nuthin'", and getting the answer that I don't believe she meant entirely, but was good to hear- that the surface flowing bubbles and ripples on the river of Life are not the whole story.

There is a deep, flowing positive, and the losses and miseries of the day are not the cosmic all, just what has to be endured, and can be endured and overcome, if you simply let the currents of life take you.

Normally I would have ripped into her for such mushy mystic no-horizons bullcrap, or she would have ripped into me for meekly accepting such, but right then I really wasn't up to it. Or up to stopping her boss, when he wanted to dive them headlong into harms' way.


It was basically a smash and grab, our associated 2808th assault group were going in to take a poorly shielded mainworld, Kermadec IV, with a separatist seed base before it could get too big. The Jedi plan was to sabotage the planetary defence guns and arrest the base commander- on their own.

I had set a plan that made no allowances for them whatsoever, which was just as well. The assault group staged a textbook meteoric assisted assault, the support group fought off separatist reinforcements in an extended- system rolling battle that I was quite proud of at the time.

The shock troop found them holed up in a dead end corridor low in the base's structure behind a barricade of broken droids, he was draped over the rear surface and would have been killed by that alone if, well. She was crouching there, apparently catatonic.

I had to go down there myself and call her back to her senses, I said that this could give us material for so, so many future arguments- but just this once, I was prepared to let it ride.

The temple called her home, after that, sent a special transport. They didn't like leaving solitary Jedi scattered across the galaxy, not where normal people could talk to them- or they could start talking to themselves.

I missed her; life was much quieter and duller without her around, and I did think, after the war if there was an afterwards, maybe...it was only much later, in the fourth phase of the war, that we got back in touch.'
The only purpose in my still being here is the stories and the people who come to read them. About all else, I no longer care.
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Andras
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Andras »

ECR- This chapter would be easier to read if each new line of dialog had opening quote marks. I kept having to check to see if Lennart was done speaking or not.

The last few lines as an example:
'The temple called her home, after that, sent a special transport. They didn't like leaving solitary Jedi scattered across the galaxy, not where normal people could talk to them- or they could start talking to themselves.

'I missed her; life was much quieter and duller without her around, and I did think, after the war if there was an afterwards, maybe...it was only much later, in the fourth phase of the war, that we got back in touch.'
Maybe that's a difference between UK and US grammar.
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Mayabird
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Mayabird »

When someone is talking and goes from one paragraph to the next, it's normal to not have quotation marks at the end until the very end. Opening quotation marks are at the start of every paragraph, however.

"This is an example. Watch and learn.
"Now I have started a new paragraph. This is how it works."

It's easier to do in regular print, however, than on a message board. Since we lack indentation and have to rely on spacing for separation, plus there's no official rule of how to format these things, it makes deciding how to do these things difficult. Do you keep a back-and-forth between two people on adjacent lines, as above, or give spacing to every new line of dialogue? Do you risk having a wall of text by keeping things adjacent or put in a lot of spacing that could end up being confusing? I personally try to mix it up when possible, though I've had disagreements with people.

That being said, I do consider the formatting of these stories to be their worst part and it does make it difficult for me to read them, which is a shame because they are quite enjoyable besides that.
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!

SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
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Vianca
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Re: Hull 721, plot arc the second

Post by Vianca »

Not my problem, I had trouble following Lennart's thoughts.
Good job on that, Remnant, must have been a hard job.
Nothing like the present.
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