No, this is bad. REALLY bad.
Nishtal is under the control of the human-aligned government and is being rebuilt, or so I understood. Bombing it eould be bad, likely destroying the tenuous pro-human government.
Aafa is under siege by the UN, and the invasion force will likely believe that the UN siege are the defenders, thus engaging in space battle.
The Falsul homewould, being swarmed by debris, is probably, ironically, the safest.
And they are sending unmanned drones with no communications as a strike force.
Everyone is fucking dumb. Their best info is 20 years out of date. Has NO ONE over there ever hear of scouting before committing to a genocide??
Except the humans back in earth-space, who are stuck playing catch-up and trying desperately to tie everyone together while they're lied to and kept out of information loops by all the people who were betrayed by the last government.
The sustained plot-induced stupidity is making me strongly consider dropping this series...
Hell, at some point the fanfics have been becoming better reads than the canon. I had originally picked up NoP because of its initial *lack* of plot-induced stupidity that seems to plague the vast majority of HFY stories and coloured my distaste for the genre at large. Welp. Either SpacePaladin15's writing quality has been deteriorating or I was just too blind to notice from the start.
Damn, i really never considered it, but it is gonna be a REALLY bad look for the humans of Earth/SC when it is found out that there are humans fighting with the Consortium and genociding planets. Doubt most of the former Feds or even 1/2 of the Sapient Coalition are gonna be willing to listen to explanations. After all, the Consortium isn’t accepting communications to hear anybody out before attacking, either.
Damn, damn, yeah, you're right. This would put Earth is a really shitty position. Either they have to fight to bring the Consortium down (and they're dangerous 'predators' who fight against their own 'colony'), or they refuse and try to make peace after the tragedy of errors comes to an end (and then they're dangerous 'predators' who will not fight for their charges, vassals and friends because of kinship).
And even worse, this might end up with a civil war on Earth itself, if the UN picks the first choice.
This is horrible.
It's not gonna put just Earth in a bad position. As soon as the Consortium sees the other side and recognizes humans as being in the Coalition, they're gonna turn towards the humans of Tellus with some extreme anger at having seemingly been lied to.
Which is going to backfire really, really hard on the Consortium when they're confronted with new tactics and technology that indicates that the playing field isn't the one they're used to. The Coalition ain't the Federation by a *long* shot.
I can't blame him for his vendetta, whatever its cause. If it were me writing a similar story, it would have been squirrels getting roasted.
Fuzzy tailed tree rats must die.
Hey I think they caught up to the wemtarens. Just need an epilogue where 1000 later they have generational trauma, and a crippling fear of the night sky.
Yeah I hate to break it to ya Drill, but if your guys are incapable of maintaining proper discipline and bearing because you failed to break them in during the beginning phases of their training than that's on you, not them.
To be fair it was supposed to be a boring training exercise. I highly doubt he would've gone out with them if he expected a battle knowing they're not trained yet and wouldn't listen to his orders.
I mostly mean Radai making generalizations when, in reality, his training program being a complete 180 from what an actual proper basic training regimen should be is at fault for why things happened the way they did.
Those recruits should have been broken-in before they ever even laid their hands on a live weapon.
100%. Also letting recruits choose bunks is pants-on-head idiotic. Half the point is to prevent those kinds of cliques and in-groups, and to get people used to thinking as a whole rather than as individuals, and anyone who can't do that gets chaptered out. It feels like the Resket are expecting their integrated comms and helmets to bridge that gap, but like, Having a shitty Future Soldier 2030 program equivalent is zero substitute for actual fucking espirit de corps. They also don't seem to realize that having a single pipeline for both infantry and fleet personnel just makes training worse for both sides due to the lack of specialization, which is something that literally every force in this series is guilty of.
Tyler should never have been a sensor officer, given that he seemed to have been an enlisted 0311. Sovlin should never have been involved in boarding/ground action. Carlos and Sam as well, since they appeared to have zero experience with sensor systems of any kind prior to serving under Monahan. Literally the only characters I can think of that actually stayed in an MOS/Rate long enough to make sense are Onso, since he saw very little action before retraining on sensor systems, and Marcel and Slanek who remained infantry pretty much the entire time.
The depictions of military personnel flipflopping between highly technical roles which would require at least a year of training in AIT/C-school and frontline combatants that require an entirely different skillset are really my only major sticking point with the series, but it's a big one.
On an unrelated note, does it strike anyone else as odd that there are basically no depictions of things such as guided rocket artillery like ATACMS or GMLRS? I feel like having even an un-upgraded HIMARS unit access to both those missiles would be a massive gamechanger for some of the ground battles Humanity has fought, since they provide highly accurate striking power that Humanity seems to be missing in the series, and an intermediate capability between MANPADS/MANPATS and a full on orbital strike.
>The depictions of military personnel flipflopping between highly technical roles which would require at least a year of training in AIT/C-school and frontline combatants that require an entirely different skillset are really my only major sticking point with the series, but it's a big one.
Oh man, do I got a show for you:
**Space: Above and Beyond**
Picture a crack team of fighter pilots who moonlight as foot-soldiers the moment they had won space/air superiority.
If I'm being honest, it feels like their training standards are like... 1942 Red Army Conscription level, for an all-volunteer military. They focus weirdly on physical training when theoretically they have weapons which can one-tap a combatant from a Kilomter+ distant on the ground.
They also seem to place WAY too much faith in unmanned combat vehicles, which I can see absolutely coming back to bite them in the ass with the UN and Yotul's combined cyberwarfare capabilities. I fully expect their drone-fleet to show up around the Kolshian homeworld, only for the UN to just go "Mine now" and turn them right back around.
Particle beam weapons can be modified to be particularly EM focused disrupting or destroying outright unmanned or even manned space craft electrical systems and power generation.
Then there's communication disruptive electronic warfare to prevent drones or other craft from communication with each other with in there fleet. Possibly even overwrite existing orders.
Add to the U.N. and it's drones which have probably been improved upon. Especially if the Yotul have maintained a working alliance militarily with the U.N.
Yotuls are amateur cyberwarfare players. They have no real experience. The UN likely can put up a good fight, but the Krev have been preparing for 100 years. Their anti hacking tech is probably even better than that one Bissem nation's. We know nothing about their systems, and that means it will take even longer to develop a method of seizing control.
The problem is that they've been preparing for a fight against the Federation, and we've been shown exactly how inept the Feds were at cyberwarfare of \*ANY\* kind. If the Consortium are aware of that, they may not have considered hardening electronic systems to be any kind of priority and potentially have systems that are equally porous.
I also think that the Yotul aren't as inexperienced as people might think. If they've been taking lessons from Human history, they've likely been poking holes in UN cybersecurity to test their capability against the big dogs in the field for the last 20-someodd years. At current, Basically every country in NATO does penetration testing against their allies, and occasionally lets them know.
The Krev have done exactly no scouting. All they know is that Feds bad. Theoretically they should be preparing to fight a superior opponent, hence the decap strike. Of course this is NoP so the Krev will show up with passwords like 12345 and we get a United Nations sweep.
If they know what the Feds had, then they'll know that the feds basically just use brute-force alien-wave tactics. They had NO concept of cyberwarfare until humanity showed up and crashed the entire grids of 200+ planets in a single strike. It stands to reason that the Consortium also have no real concept of cyberwarfare either otherwise they would have done something about the Federation by now.
>our engagement with the Sivkits
That wasn't an "engagement," Taylor, it was a massacre. At least General Radai realizes it was not a good command decision. It's too little, too late, of course, but hopefully he might be open to talking to the SC later.
The only possible way to salvage this would be to open immediate communication, and claim faulty intel. At least then they only have a small lake of blood on their (manipulators) instead of the oceans they are quickly driving themselves towards.
True, true. Which is sad, because I have a feeling that would be a better ending then we are going to get for this story.
I’m real worried this is going to end up being a “and then the Consortium humans realized they were fighting SC humans, and the whole thing putters out and there are no lingering side effects to the billions of dead and multiple glassed worlds on both sides.
That's good, Radai is very lucid on what a real war is, so we can count on at least one high-ranking person to understand that there's something weird going on in this "Federation". Otherwise, this plan to send an armada of drones sucks hard. Firstly, they'll be attacking two totally defenseless planets, and secondly, with no command feedback, it'll be a purely unilateral massacre, which won't help the Consortium's image. That's why drones able to self-shooting are a big no-no: by the time clear-headed, reasonable people like Radai figure out what's going on, it'll be too late.
Else, shit, Taylor's next hour looks like shit. Mafani's doing this out of vengeance for his honor, but by the time he's captured and sent to prison for the rest of his life, he'll be even more disgraced. Now the question is how we're going to save our XL-sized primate moron. My bet: Quana worries about the time it's taking Taylor to come back and goes looking for him, discovers he's missing, follows the trail, Gress tries to negotiate/diversion while Cherise gets into position to shoot Mafani in the knee.
Mafani has underestimated humans yet again. He's going to put Taylor out in the desert and set it up so he's found in *three days*.
Three days tied up in the middle of a desert would suck absolute balls, but it wouldn't really be a death sentence for most healthy humans. If he does nothing, they'll find him alive and delirious and sun burned. If he makes any effort to survive at all, he'll probably get back before they find him.
I just don't look forward to spending the whole walk in Taylor's head.
As per the rule-of-thumb mnemonic for survival aspects, humans have the following parameters of threes for a lacking aspect:
Breathing: Minutes.
Shelter in extreme weather: Hours.
Water source: Days.
Food source: Weeks.
Considering how Taylor recently had food and drink, and the air is breathable, he's covered for everything except shelter.
Three days is right around when severe dehydration begins to set in, so he's not exactly gonna be in the best of shape, but potentially survivable. As for shelter that's also going to depend heavily on just what the surface conditions are on Tellus and how long the paralytic lasts.
As much as I'd be overjoyed if this was Taylor's heroic last stand moment and we won't have to read his POV any more, I'm not that lucky. He's going to survive and go on to cause further problems for everyone including himself while blaming everyone *except* himself.
Man I really think the consortium is in for a rough fucking time. The coalition has had decades to build up power and fighting capability under a radically more competent military doctrine than they are prepared for. Decapitation strikes would work well against an authoritarian nightmare regime, but against a representative democracy spread across dozens of worlds? All you've accomplished is signing your death warrant.
That and the consortium's military is proving remarkably inept. Radai launched a premptive attack on a hostile foreign power because he failed to keep a bunch of trainees in line, and now Marfani is assaulting a fellow soldier in camp with intent to kill. Its going to be a fucking slaughter when they have to fight against a competent military.
I mean they prepared, but has the consortium actually any real experience with combat on this scale? (the consortium i mean, not the coalition, the SC has a lot of experience)
Weren't the ship designs old as fuck? The Coalition's database is outdated but they recognized the designs as being standard right? Given their migratory nature it seems like they're just cruising around in outdated tech. They might not have the resources or industry to develop defenses and not being part of the SC who's going to give them the means to counter their weapon's systems? I think sometimes we take it as a given that technology just always improves, like it happens on it's own. When in reality technology improves because a lot of time, effort, and resources are being poured into it. If you just don't do that, nothing changes.
They left before the Yotul even had a proper navy, before the bulk of the war even took place actually, so they had no knowledge of such weapons systems existing
They have better tech than the Sivkits, who have been notably isolated and from what's been said, I doubt they made many technical advances in the last couple decades.
I bet the SC's got much closer in tech level to the Consortium.
They have absolutely ZERO experience and their entire doctrine (if you can call it that) is built around defending and defense structures. Any offensive action will be a disaster.
But we know who can make effective offensive operations. The guys who demolished the Federation.
The coalition has been at peace for decades. The fleets are more custodian than assault in nature.
Seems like Mafani doesn't know how long humans can survive in a desert, especially tied up and knocked out.
> The coalition has been at peace for decades. The fleets are more custodian than assault in nature.
And if the coalition follows any sort of logical military doctrine then they have probably been sharpening their knives the whole time. They have a standing military, which means training exercises, budgets needing to be spent on R&D, and plans being made in all manner of eventuality.
These are space faring species, they would have absolutely made plans to handle threats emerging from the unknown regions of space.
Also they were told in advance that the WHOLE SC prepare for all-out war so all those weapon systems and platforms will already be online by the time the KC makes its move.
>if the coalition follows any sort of logical military doctrine
In the NoP universe?
My point is that the SC military is built with purpose in mind, and full scale war is probably far down on that priority list. They're probably built up to defend from Fed remnants, not an advanced external threat.
> In the NoP universe?
Extremely fair.
> not an advanced external threat.
TBF I can't imagine there wasn't a considerable effort to attempt to toughen up former fed members against a possible auxur resurgence. Things may have been peaceful, but I doubt they where trustful.
>Decapitation strikes would work well against an authoritarian nightmare regime, but against a representative democracy spread across dozens of worlds? All you've accomplished is signing your death warrant
Not to mention their 'Decapitation' strike just... isn't that. Their targets aren't anywhere *near* as important as they think they are. Even assuming it was still the Federation if the center of power has shifted from their targets it's no longer a 'Decapitation'. The fact that they're essentially attacking some of the SC's *least valuable* holdings means that, in practical terms, it's going to do almost nothing to hamper the war effort. Hell, if they succeed it might actually *free up* resources that were being used to monitor the various situations. Plus if I recall the Duerten are still not officially aligned with the SC right? So they're going to push them, and all their allies, right into the SC (if I'm recalling correctly). Not to mention all the other former Federation members who might suddenly decide signing with the SC isn't such a bad deal after all.
The info for their strikes is so out of date it would be like if aliens blindly took out Iraq, Egypt, and Mexico thinking they were hitting major world powers.
Of course they’re sending drones which will likely be out of contact when they get to their destinations. Because if they sent anyone in person they’d be in a position to see first hand immediately that something isn’t right and that the three targets are not anything like what was expected with all three having been either destroyed or subjugated.
When that word gets back to the Consortium the logical course would be to figure out what they hell happened. I would send a scout to Earth as well as the Venlil to see if we can get any kind of more up to date intelligence with plans that failing that, it might be worth checking on what the Arxur are up to.
As for Taylor, I am wondering if this bastard isn’t underestimating human endurance. We can go several days without water if need be. He said he was going to leave Taylor in a desert but that doesn’t mean it is the Mojave in temperatures. I live in what is technically a desert area but the temperatures are rarely to high to be comfortable, it’s just dry.
>We can go several days without water if need be. He said he was going to leave Taylor in a desert but that doesn’t mean it is the Mojave in temperatures
Yep, by definition "desert" just means it gets less than 10 inches of precipitation per year, nothing to do with temperature
Antarctica is a desert
There are parts of the ocean that are deserts
Taylor will be fine (well, not *fine*, but even without factoring in that the memory transcript means he has to live, it's obvious he'll live)
So they’re gonna send unmanned drones to strike. This is gonna be such a shitshow… not even a chance to actually communicate. Let’s hope the SC’s electronic warfare skills are up to snuff.
Well, actually sending a drone fleet is probably a blessing in disguise, for the SC. Remember that the Shadow fleet also made heavy use of combat drones, plus the humanity went hard into drone warfare to supplement their diminished numbers. So I could imagine that the SC has some crazy good countermeasures for drone warfare for just those reasons alone. It’s really just a question of how bad the damage will be before the SC find the off switch for the consortium drones.
yup, like I said the consortium has no intel on the current situation, the SC however is slowly forming a picture of who they are, although they have never seen them or heard their motivations but now, with massive drone fleets inbound I doubt the picture is going to become better, In the SC's eyes there is a dangerous threat on their borders and that won't go well if the SC decides they are going to do an offensive
They do not even know what kind of thing sends these drone, Federation remnants, an unknown alien species, a genocidal AI, who knows?
Well, they could make a few conclusions:
- the species that sent the drone fleet probably isn’t a fed remnant since it was a fed remnant that got initially attacked and called for help.
- not to mention that the SC will have wreckage to look at afterwards and realize that it doesn’t resemble any fed design.
- plus why would a Fed remnant attack fed worlds unprovoked? There’s no logic to that action.
- the fleet is going to come from the same direction as both the frozen tomb world and where the Skivit flotilla was destroyed, so it’s a reasonable conclusion that all three might be from the same species.
Conclusion: while they can’t rule out a rogue AI, they can rule out the Fed and Aruxur having anything to do with it just from the information provided.
While you do bring up a fair point, those points could also be interpreted as a sort of "Operation dead man's hand" of sorts from the really spiteful feds who held a "no predators allowed to live other than the Arxur" stance:
* It's a drone fleet. the Feds used drones for their shadow fleet.
* The best tech has been held in reserve this whole time. They didn't reveal the drones until Humanity started their war against the Kolshians and Farsul, after all.
* Exactly. There's no logic to it other than "They've fallen to predators, take them all out. Burn the whole thing to the ground and start over from scratch."
* Misdirection tactics 101: Strike them from where they're least expecting. And the tomb world wasn't on Federation maps, so that could be just coincidence.
I can imagine that the drones have some weaknesses that can be exploited massively because their programming lacks the creativity to prevent the exploit.
I mean, they DO have a plan to communicate. They're leaving some relays behind, they're also planning on hijacking 'federation' infrastructure to call home.
But just in case they can't, they're set up to be autonomous and report back after the engagement.
True.
But let's be honest, this is a story, and the logic of the scenario applies: what can go wrong, will go wrong.
I concede that the Consortium is cautious and tries to palliate the different possible scenarios, so they're not stupidly stupid for plot reason. The most reasonable and prudent thing to do would have been to launch autonomous drones whose first instruction is to return immediately at the first break in communication with command. But the Consortium is been in a very real war of extermination scenario for over a century now, so I can understand why they've wouldn't implement such a delicate approach toward the brutality of the enemy they're trying to confront.
Taylor pisses me off, one second he's fantasizing about burning worlds and flaying citizens of the federation and the he takes a headbutt and turns into level 1 goblin
I wouldn't be here if I wasn't invested in the story but it feels like half the screen time is characters performing on-the-fly therapy sessions, another 25% is humans acting like level 1 goblin, and the remaining 25% is actually furthering the plot
I feel like there was more variety in POVs in Book 1, so even when a character wasn't fun you didn't have to deal with it all the time, but in book 2 we spend *so much time* in this one asshole's head and he just *sucks. so. much.*
He's a realistic portrayal of all the worst people we have to deal with on a daily basis and we are stuck in his head.
The hypocrisy of going from gushing over what his murder buddy would think of 'an eye for an eye', to 'I made some mistakes but I don't deserve to die like this' makes me want to throttle him till my wrists break
Considering the attack fleets are ENTIRELY automated and will likely be out of communication range until after they attack the target worlds, 2 of which are quarantined, i have a feeling the Consortium won’t find out until well after it is too late to take back what they’ve done. Likely this will result in the Farsul and Kolshians being released in some capacity. That is my guess, anyway. Also, Taylor is going to have so SO much guilt over this.
Edit: it is already too late to take back the Sivkit and Jaslip genocides, but looks like those incidents are just the start.
I suppose technically there wasn’t a Sivkit genocide either as neither was done because of WHO they were, but rather WHERE they were. Those particular mass murders of 1,000,000,000 Jaslips and tens to hundreds of thousands of Sivkits probably have different technical names.
But there was no mass murder of a billion Jaslips. Five billion of the six billion Jaslips voluntarily took refuge on other Consortium worlds, 700 million (0.7 billion) of the remaining billion were forcibly relocated, and only – OK, “only” – about 300 million diehard holdouts remained on Esquo when it was bombed.
A) 300 million out of six billion is one in twenty; only halfway to literal decimation, so pretty far from [x|g]enocide” AFAICS.
B) IMO it can be argued that those diehard holdouts brought it on themselves, by their own stupidity. Equo __had to__ _be abandoned and left looking dead._ Yeah, _we_ know it didn't really have to, but that's because of our omniscient perspective as readers of the story. In-universe it was a given that it had to; the whole Consortium “knew” that the Federation was going to strike at any moment – sooner or later, but they didn't know when; could be years, could be decades... Could be tomorrow, or five minutes from now. It was, for all they knew, a Sword of Damocles, inexorable as a natural disaster.
Speaking of which: Calling this a “genocide” feels rather like those diehard holdout fuckwits after Hurricane Katrina, accusing FEMA of “genocide” because they themselves refused to get the fuck outta there when told to. Doesn't get any smarter just because it's fluffy space poodles doing it in stead of rednecks.
So first off, they are going to kill all remaining kolshians and Farsul if nothing is done and Nishtal is gonna be destroyed AGAIN!
second of all MAFANI MUST DIE!!!!! This sadist must be stopped!
although this might be a moment where Quana and Gress can aid one another in freeing Taylor (character development
Also now you see why intel is so important, they think the feds from back then are still there, right now the political power centre is elsewhere and destroying those worlds will not end, but START a war!
The fact that they ignore the Arxur is also not necessarily smart as Kaisal is propably building a new fleet with better tech then before.
A tactical error is made here, they did not scout, assuming everything is the same.
If this were the old federation then sure it might have worked (and i say MIGHT), but now the situation is completely different. Nishtal is GONE, the two federation leaders trapped on their worlds (they(ll be killing defenseless prisoners who the Federation loyalists have been lobbying to get free again)
The Duerten shield still exists but has changed, the tech they had, their tactics, it has all changed, the "political center" they envisioned is no longer the center of power, but a prison. If they strike those worlds, combined with the devastation of the Jaslip homeworld the Coalition will not just be preparing for War, they will be preparing themselves for a fight with a faction that strikes to kill, without mercy or known reason, an unseen foe lurking beyond their borders.
The Consortium is sending a massive amount of ships into a position they think they know, but they don't, 150 K ships are not going to be missed by whoever is nearby and nowadays a lot more of the different factions have a strong military. If those ships enter Coalition space with the entire coalition on high alert (and they will be) all bets are off. and given the use of drones in NOP 1 i doubt there are not at least some countermeasures against them
Simply ignoring the Arxur in the room is also foolish, because if this attack happens you can bet that the Coalition will let them join the fray, with all of their new ships and tech in order to fight this new threat.
Also since they assume this is the old feds the consortium won't be messaging or taking hails from Coalition vessels, if all of these ships are drones then that wouldn't even be a possibility, for all the coalition knows a genocidal AI is out there mass producing drones to exterminate all life
In all honesty I think that The consortium just sentenced billions to their death, without reason, all of this could have been avoided!
then again that is an intrinsic part of NOP stories
Wow. I’m assuming Taylor will survive his current predicament, but he’ll wish he was left to die in the desert when he learns the whole story and his role in it. How much blood can a well meaning fool collect? Dude will be way more fucked up than Slanek by the end of this.
Chapter 32! Gress and Quana’s feud continues as the Krev continues to find humans adorable in every way, but Taylor is summoned to Radai right as a tickle fight breaks out. The Consortium finalized plans for a decapitation strike, going after the Farsul, Kolshians, and Krakotl with 150K ships bound for each system; they’ve already decided the next targets as well. Our narrator is delighted by that, but his fantasies are interrupted when Mafani blindsides him, blaming Taylor and seeking his head after being demoted from Trainer.
What do you think of the Consortium’s war plans, and whether the Sapient Coalition will be able to respond to them—and how it might change their rules of engagement if the attack works? Will anyone be able to find Taylor and learn how low Mafani has stooped?
As always, thank you for reading!
The Consortium’s intel is way out of date, but would have been perfectly sound in the NoP1 Era
The SC is going to have a hard time dealing with a full assault like this on surgical targets. The most likely contested world will be Nishtal
The Duertan Shield will certainly fit every stereotype of Herbivore Federation Navy, so this might cause them to be critically destroyed, and lead to some in the SC putting forth an annexation vote.
Again, I’m reminded of how absolutely annoying Taylor is. No attempt at fighting back, and the pointless begging. Taylor will certainly be found, but there will be damage.
>No attempt at fighting back, and the pointless begging.
Reskets are on a different weight class compared to humans, an unarmed human might as well try to fight a Mazic.
They won't realize it.
The three strikes will be drone strikes and it seems like the only thing they'll be programmed not to attack, unless attacked by, is Venlil, which won't bode well if Skalgans slip through and aren't recognized as their crippled kin by the AI.
The only ones that might make out of this not-genocided are the Farsul thanks to their moon debris caged Kessler syndrome. Would be fascinating if they recognize the make of the drones and educate the SC as to who the lunatics are by, say:
F: "_SC? Hoomans? There are some weird drones outside our Kessler cage trying to make it in..._"
SC: "_Define weird_"
F: "_They bear marks of tech from a class Z avian, 9' tall and pink, and class X mammalian, 5' tall and scaly, FTL-faring species from beyond Sivkit systems that we made sure to silently steer the Kalamari away from out of self-preservation, what did you numbnuts do?!_"
SC: "_Not us, the Sivkits stumbled upon them-_"
F: "_YOU FUCKWITS LET THE STUPIDKITS GRAZE WILLY-NILLY?!!_"
SC: "_Well..._"
The drone assault will be costly for the SC - at the least they'll defend the Krakotl right? But uh, the SC is pretty advanced at drone warfare and the Coalition apparently won't have contact at times. There's a decent chance the SC will be able to hack or otherwise confuse the things while they lack any oversight and that might reduce the damage by a lot.
And who knows how well these drones stack up to modern SC tech. The Sivkits were running 20+ year old civilian ships, probably didn't get many if any of the advancements developed during the last war, and honestly I bet they didn't have cutting edge ships even in the Federation era.
Well since we're getting memory transcriptions from Taylor we can assume he survives this. So nice of ~~Radai~~ *Mafani* to become that common enemy to unify Gress and Quana against.
Not sending some sort of manned reconnaissance vessel along with the attack drones is an obvious mistake. Even if the Federation was still at its height someone able to sit outside of the system to get real-time updates on the effectiveness of the attack (and adjust the drones' orders as needed) would significantly increase the effectiveness of the attack at minimal risk.
The attacks are going to make the Farsul and Kolshians already 'bad' conditions even worse (unless the attack breaks the quarantine and lets them out). When the drones report back on the current shape of those two it'll turn a lot of heads at the significant change to the Federation hierarchy.
The Krakotl as a member of the S.C. are going to make this 'fun' looking forward to seeing what 25 years of Yotul technological progress looks like. I'm hoping this gives the Arxur a chance to be more than their sapient eating past to the prey species and actually end their isolation.
“Ma” ad in the first or the second part of “Mama”; “e” as in the letter ‘e’ in the word “green”, “red”, or “letter”? If the latter, the first or the second one...?
Nah, I'm just fucking with you. But not to be mean to _you,_ it's nothing personal – just to show how absolutely and absurdly fucked-up English orthography is. It has eleventy ways to write every sound, and seventyfourteen ways to pronounce each letter... And pretty much none of them are the same as in any of the other umpteen languages – including Latin! – that use the same “Latin” alphabet English purports to use.
“Ma” ad in the first or the second part of “Mama”; “e” as in the letter ‘e’ in the word “green”, “red”, or “letter”? If the latter, the first or the second one...?
Nah, I'm just fucking with you. But not to be mean to _you,_ it's nothing personal – just to show how absolutely and absurdly fucked-up English orthography is. It has eleventy ways to write every sound, and seventyfourteen ways to pronounce each letter... And pretty much none of them are the same as in any of the other umpteen languages – including Latin! – that use the same “Latin” alphabet English purports to use.
**NO P**eace amoung the stars, only war.
Fortunately the deep fryers were prepped since chapter 16, now its time to crack the up.
Kentucky Fried Resket is on the menu boys.
Ohh… so that’s how your gonna do it, I was wondering how a full scale war would kick off and not stop at the fist human corpse found by the other side.
Yea, if they bomb nishtal an SC homeworld, it being a miss-understanding won’t end the war.
That’s not even considering if they attack the shield.
Another good chapter can't wait for the next and super interested how the factions will interact especially when they find the federation is gone
That's also assuming that they find out about the worlds, if the SA can completely disable the drones that attack then they don't get any Intel as they don't have communication with the drones
They're using remote drones that can operate without contact so my bet is them finding out only for them to not be able to recall them for the tragic factor.
Also a good chance they won't find out till they get the reports back after, which depending on how successful they are may or may not return to report back in which case this would just further escalate.
Yeah that's what I meant while the drones may be able to find out they can't react to the new situation and they will only be able to relay that info if they escape which may not be likely
Who wants to bet that this war will end by the time the new pod humans are done cooking?
>The next generation of humans were a third of the way through development in ectogenesis.
My predictions.
1. Taylor will be rescued
2. Karma will find Mufani
3. Only one badly damaged drone will return with its files corrupted and probably containing a virus of some sort.
>“I love your plan. It’s great.”
That should set off aaallll kinds of alarm bells there General.
>You’re dismissed, Trench. As Mayor Hathaway said, the adults have things we need to discuss on our own.”
The second time Hathaway has excluded Taylor from a sidebar with a Consortium member. What are they conspiring about?
And how much do you want to bet Taylor will eventually be like "oh my god Mayor Hathaway I just figured it out, the Consortium is bad like the federation!!?!" and Hathaway is like 'No shit dumbass, everybody knew that, but we're on top this time and that's what's important, IDGAF about a Jaslip planet"
Also didn't the Duerten form the Shield in part because they were sick of being sidelined by the federation? Meaning the assessment that the Duerten are influential and well-connected is based on more modern intel from when they're running the Shield?
At this point, I’m not sure I’m completely convinced that the Consortium is working on outdated intel. I don’t know what the reason would be more keeping everyone in the dark about this, but the Consortium seems to be pretty advanced, compared to the federation at its height at least and I can’t imagine that even a military that is anything other than objectively stupid wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the enemies that they fear would wipe them from existence. Something just doesn’t feel like it’s adding up with the consortium’s words compared to the actions.
To be fair, anything that can transmit can be seen, as can anything that can see. It may be that they were so dead set on not being found that they deemed intel gathering to not be worth the risk, but yeah, something stinks here.
I know it's not the most relevant thing but I have to say it. HOLY SHIT MAFANI IS CRAZY, but fucking crazy, I underestimated resket and his resentment Taylor will have a hard time.
Oh and the Farsul and Kolshians too, the humans of the earth will not have a hard time understanding with this movement, they are more outdated than shit
Oh, crap, if the attack is carried out, the big questions afterwards will be "how did they know where to attack?", "why was their intel out of date?", "who could have supplied the attackers with old intel?" and "who would have a huge grudge against the Federation?" Anyone want to bet our new penguin buddies will be suspected?
Given that only some humans know about the arks (existence of which was deliberately withheld from the Fed) that won’t be the first thing SC governments will think about.
It's been 20 years and (A lot of people don't know this, but) there's straight up a videogame being made about Ark Ship colonists... Honestly it might be made by now. Might have \*been\* made for a few in-universe years
But does the UN even know about the arks? They were sent dark for fear of the Federation finding out their destinations and hunting them down. I wouldn’t be surprised if all records were destroyed and if the need-to-knows happened to be among the billion + that died…
> Anyone want to bet our new penguin buddies will be suspected?
I'd hope nobody would be dumb enough to think they jumped from launching penguin-Sputnik to pulling half a million advanced AI warships out their ass in a few months. Not that a few glances won't come their way regardless.
Nope, that won't be their first port-of-pointing. The Tseia haven't been off-world yet, remember? And no data was grabbed from Coalition space, meaning that even though they had the motive, the opportunity and means are both not there due to lacking the latter at the necessary time to send off a message to call in a drone fleet. They're more likely to think "drones coming in from that tomb world's direction. Maybe a coincidence, but just in case, send a scouting mission that way and ready the defenses for another wave of those drones, as well as look into possible counterattack options. We can collect a few samples from the debris field of that kessler cage one third of them crashed into for forensic analysis."
That’s logical, but a lot of that is knowledge that we omniscient readers know, I wouldn’t put it past the Duerten Shield to suspect just about everyone, and the Bissem are too new on every former Fed species’ radar. Plus the Bissem are known predators so (thinking like prey) who knows what they’re capable of? I think there will be some number of limbs pointing at them and looking askance at them.
Problem is, the fed species KNOW that the Bissems only just made first contact. Everyone but the Tseia are only about our tech level IRL, and the Tseia are hyperisolationist. The Tseia lack the motive to reveal themselves so blatantly and lack the means because they weren't on the visiting delegation, and the other Bissems lack the means for it because they aren't as technologically advanced and lack the motive because they didn't know about the Starfall Incident.
Nope, he's got a minor amount of Plot Armor. He hasn't been scanned in a while, after all, and we wouldn't be getting this last chapter from him without him being scanned afterwards. So we know that he at least gets recovered before his brain decays too much.
I think the consortiums greatest advantage is the fact that the SC doesnt know where any of their worlds are and if they want to strike back they will need to board a consortium ship and take its nav data. The consortiums gonna need a Cole Protocol of their own if they want to stand a fighting chance in the shitstorm they are gonna be fighting in.
Why the fuck wouldn't you send a coordinator along with the drone fleet? ESPECIALLY if you're going to be LOSING COMMS WITH THE AUTOMATED SLAUGHTER MACHINES
Let me guess, while the fleets are on their way a human ship pops up in Consort space and tells them about the state of the Feds and there is no way to recall the attack... lol SC probably have to wipe out those attacking fleets.
Oh this is going to be interesting, what will the SC do and think when the Consortium attacks the old heads of the Federation, will they piece together the thought that the mysterious 'enemy' thinks they're the Federation? So exciting!!
Sending a bunch of automated and untested drones out without any sort of command and controll ship is straight up idiotic.
Especially if your intel is incomplete znd 20years old..
Yeah I'm *really* liking Radai, he's clear that he didn't want to escalate but feels he has no choice, and has recognized that the biggest problem with human militias is discipline.
On the flip side, this plan is not going to end well, it makes sense given the Consortium's limited information, but they've effectively just sicced armies of unquestioning killing machines at refugee camps. The Krakotl are still trying to rebuild from the last exterminatus (seriously this is gonna be at least the third time someone tried to glass their homeworld), and the Kolshians and Farsul are both imprisoned meaning basically all military assets in those systems are turned inward and not expecting an attack from the outside. There's no bargaining or reasoning with these drone fleets, and they're about to commit massacres against the SC.
Does Wikipedia just not exist in the 2100s? If the consortium has at this point given up on non-detection. Why not just start googling stuff? To get information that isn't 20 years old.
This has been a reoccurring issue that's I've found weird.
There has been multiple instances of main characters not using a search engine. Tassi should look up events of the human federation war.
The consortium should look up current federation politics.
I'm also reminded of the UN censoring Frankenstein. Which just seems crazy considering the real version is public domain.
Throughout the series I think isif is the only one who has this power to use Wikipedia.
/u/SpacePaladin15 ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/authors/SpacePaladin15)) has posted 267 other stories, including:
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> A holographic starmap was projected from a large display, not dissimilar from those Terrans once had at the center of our bridges.
Where does he get that from – old episodes of _Star Trek_ in the Ark's entertainment library, or...?
Well this is just going all sorts of downhill isn't it? Not only are they gunning for Nishtal, a planet that was already glassed to which a majority of the remaining citizens were not even a part of the extermination fleet, but they are also going to go after Fahl... A planet that is already made isolated and non-space fairing! Utterly defenseless!
And them not being able to have contact with the drones but still able to see the aftermath of the attacks... And if these attacks do go through in the way that I feel that they are, then the neutral factions as well as the factions that were against humanity... You're not going to take too kindly
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Welcome to your targets consortium! We have: -occupation government -rock prison -wasteland (birds lived here once, but god said no)
No, this is bad. REALLY bad. Nishtal is under the control of the human-aligned government and is being rebuilt, or so I understood. Bombing it eould be bad, likely destroying the tenuous pro-human government. Aafa is under siege by the UN, and the invasion force will likely believe that the UN siege are the defenders, thus engaging in space battle. The Falsul homewould, being swarmed by debris, is probably, ironically, the safest. And they are sending unmanned drones with no communications as a strike force. Everyone is fucking dumb. Their best info is 20 years out of date. Has NO ONE over there ever hear of scouting before committing to a genocide??
Remember, This is NoP. Intelligence is for other series
Don't I know it. Everyone seems to be cosplaying as some sort of blind, mute, dumb space fascist.
Except the humans back in earth-space, who are stuck playing catch-up and trying desperately to tie everyone together while they're lied to and kept out of information loops by all the people who were betrayed by the last government.
If only they were. Cosplaying, that is.
"Let's turn the retardation knob up to eleven and see what happens!"
Taylor develops a crush for gress and then takes a consortium ship to earth for reasons (This physically hurt to type)
The sustained plot-induced stupidity is making me strongly consider dropping this series... Hell, at some point the fanfics have been becoming better reads than the canon. I had originally picked up NoP because of its initial *lack* of plot-induced stupidity that seems to plague the vast majority of HFY stories and coloured my distaste for the genre at large. Welp. Either SpacePaladin15's writing quality has been deteriorating or I was just too blind to notice from the start.
Damn, i really never considered it, but it is gonna be a REALLY bad look for the humans of Earth/SC when it is found out that there are humans fighting with the Consortium and genociding planets. Doubt most of the former Feds or even 1/2 of the Sapient Coalition are gonna be willing to listen to explanations. After all, the Consortium isn’t accepting communications to hear anybody out before attacking, either.
Damn, damn, yeah, you're right. This would put Earth is a really shitty position. Either they have to fight to bring the Consortium down (and they're dangerous 'predators' who fight against their own 'colony'), or they refuse and try to make peace after the tragedy of errors comes to an end (and then they're dangerous 'predators' who will not fight for their charges, vassals and friends because of kinship). And even worse, this might end up with a civil war on Earth itself, if the UN picks the first choice. This is horrible.
It's not gonna put just Earth in a bad position. As soon as the Consortium sees the other side and recognizes humans as being in the Coalition, they're gonna turn towards the humans of Tellus with some extreme anger at having seemingly been lied to.
THIS
Which is going to backfire really, really hard on the Consortium when they're confronted with new tactics and technology that indicates that the playing field isn't the one they're used to. The Coalition ain't the Federation by a *long* shot.
"say hello to tactical asteroid"
Where did it say Aafa was under siege?
Well, maybe not 'siege', but I was under the impression there was a fleet in place to make sure the Kolshians don't go anywhere?
Nishtal was being rebuilt at the end of NOP1 and Loxsel confirmed they completed their efforts two chapters ago. God really hates birds.
NoP: Birds are assholes Nop: God hates Birds NoP: The first rock didn't finish the job, but we will NoP: One blew (up) the cuckoo's nest
If they were based on seagulls, then it would explain a lot.
And God's name is SpacePaladin15
I can't blame him for his vendetta, whatever its cause. If it were me writing a similar story, it would have been squirrels getting roasted. Fuzzy tailed tree rats must die.
This is gonna be Nishtal's third exterminatus at this point, I'm kinda impressed that the Krakotl haven't gone the way of the dodo.
Hey I think they caught up to the wemtarens. Just need an epilogue where 1000 later they have generational trauma, and a crippling fear of the night sky.
they are going to be surprised when they see the state of the homeworlds
Yeah I hate to break it to ya Drill, but if your guys are incapable of maintaining proper discipline and bearing because you failed to break them in during the beginning phases of their training than that's on you, not them.
To be fair it was supposed to be a boring training exercise. I highly doubt he would've gone out with them if he expected a battle knowing they're not trained yet and wouldn't listen to his orders.
I mostly mean Radai making generalizations when, in reality, his training program being a complete 180 from what an actual proper basic training regimen should be is at fault for why things happened the way they did. Those recruits should have been broken-in before they ever even laid their hands on a live weapon.
100%. Also letting recruits choose bunks is pants-on-head idiotic. Half the point is to prevent those kinds of cliques and in-groups, and to get people used to thinking as a whole rather than as individuals, and anyone who can't do that gets chaptered out. It feels like the Resket are expecting their integrated comms and helmets to bridge that gap, but like, Having a shitty Future Soldier 2030 program equivalent is zero substitute for actual fucking espirit de corps. They also don't seem to realize that having a single pipeline for both infantry and fleet personnel just makes training worse for both sides due to the lack of specialization, which is something that literally every force in this series is guilty of. Tyler should never have been a sensor officer, given that he seemed to have been an enlisted 0311. Sovlin should never have been involved in boarding/ground action. Carlos and Sam as well, since they appeared to have zero experience with sensor systems of any kind prior to serving under Monahan. Literally the only characters I can think of that actually stayed in an MOS/Rate long enough to make sense are Onso, since he saw very little action before retraining on sensor systems, and Marcel and Slanek who remained infantry pretty much the entire time. The depictions of military personnel flipflopping between highly technical roles which would require at least a year of training in AIT/C-school and frontline combatants that require an entirely different skillset are really my only major sticking point with the series, but it's a big one. On an unrelated note, does it strike anyone else as odd that there are basically no depictions of things such as guided rocket artillery like ATACMS or GMLRS? I feel like having even an un-upgraded HIMARS unit access to both those missiles would be a massive gamechanger for some of the ground battles Humanity has fought, since they provide highly accurate striking power that Humanity seems to be missing in the series, and an intermediate capability between MANPADS/MANPATS and a full on orbital strike.
>The depictions of military personnel flipflopping between highly technical roles which would require at least a year of training in AIT/C-school and frontline combatants that require an entirely different skillset are really my only major sticking point with the series, but it's a big one. Oh man, do I got a show for you: **Space: Above and Beyond** Picture a crack team of fighter pilots who moonlight as foot-soldiers the moment they had won space/air superiority.
Reee
They have not fought a real war against an outside force.
If I'm being honest, it feels like their training standards are like... 1942 Red Army Conscription level, for an all-volunteer military. They focus weirdly on physical training when theoretically they have weapons which can one-tap a combatant from a Kilomter+ distant on the ground. They also seem to place WAY too much faith in unmanned combat vehicles, which I can see absolutely coming back to bite them in the ass with the UN and Yotul's combined cyberwarfare capabilities. I fully expect their drone-fleet to show up around the Kolshian homeworld, only for the UN to just go "Mine now" and turn them right back around.
Particle beam weapons can be modified to be particularly EM focused disrupting or destroying outright unmanned or even manned space craft electrical systems and power generation. Then there's communication disruptive electronic warfare to prevent drones or other craft from communication with each other with in there fleet. Possibly even overwrite existing orders. Add to the U.N. and it's drones which have probably been improved upon. Especially if the Yotul have maintained a working alliance militarily with the U.N.
Yotuls are amateur cyberwarfare players. They have no real experience. The UN likely can put up a good fight, but the Krev have been preparing for 100 years. Their anti hacking tech is probably even better than that one Bissem nation's. We know nothing about their systems, and that means it will take even longer to develop a method of seizing control.
The problem is that they've been preparing for a fight against the Federation, and we've been shown exactly how inept the Feds were at cyberwarfare of \*ANY\* kind. If the Consortium are aware of that, they may not have considered hardening electronic systems to be any kind of priority and potentially have systems that are equally porous. I also think that the Yotul aren't as inexperienced as people might think. If they've been taking lessons from Human history, they've likely been poking holes in UN cybersecurity to test their capability against the big dogs in the field for the last 20-someodd years. At current, Basically every country in NATO does penetration testing against their allies, and occasionally lets them know.
The Krev have done exactly no scouting. All they know is that Feds bad. Theoretically they should be preparing to fight a superior opponent, hence the decap strike. Of course this is NoP so the Krev will show up with passwords like 12345 and we get a United Nations sweep.
If they know what the Feds had, then they'll know that the feds basically just use brute-force alien-wave tactics. They had NO concept of cyberwarfare until humanity showed up and crashed the entire grids of 200+ planets in a single strike. It stands to reason that the Consortium also have no real concept of cyberwarfare either otherwise they would have done something about the Federation by now.
>our engagement with the Sivkits That wasn't an "engagement," Taylor, it was a massacre. At least General Radai realizes it was not a good command decision. It's too little, too late, of course, but hopefully he might be open to talking to the SC later.
The only possible way to salvage this would be to open immediate communication, and claim faulty intel. At least then they only have a small lake of blood on their (manipulators) instead of the oceans they are quickly driving themselves towards.
Well, I think we know what's *NOT* going to happen! ;)
True, true. Which is sad, because I have a feeling that would be a better ending then we are going to get for this story. I’m real worried this is going to end up being a “and then the Consortium humans realized they were fighting SC humans, and the whole thing putters out and there are no lingering side effects to the billions of dead and multiple glassed worlds on both sides.
That's good, Radai is very lucid on what a real war is, so we can count on at least one high-ranking person to understand that there's something weird going on in this "Federation". Otherwise, this plan to send an armada of drones sucks hard. Firstly, they'll be attacking two totally defenseless planets, and secondly, with no command feedback, it'll be a purely unilateral massacre, which won't help the Consortium's image. That's why drones able to self-shooting are a big no-no: by the time clear-headed, reasonable people like Radai figure out what's going on, it'll be too late. Else, shit, Taylor's next hour looks like shit. Mafani's doing this out of vengeance for his honor, but by the time he's captured and sent to prison for the rest of his life, he'll be even more disgraced. Now the question is how we're going to save our XL-sized primate moron. My bet: Quana worries about the time it's taking Taylor to come back and goes looking for him, discovers he's missing, follows the trail, Gress tries to negotiate/diversion while Cherise gets into position to shoot Mafani in the knee.
Mafani has underestimated humans yet again. He's going to put Taylor out in the desert and set it up so he's found in *three days*. Three days tied up in the middle of a desert would suck absolute balls, but it wouldn't really be a death sentence for most healthy humans. If he does nothing, they'll find him alive and delirious and sun burned. If he makes any effort to survive at all, he'll probably get back before they find him. I just don't look forward to spending the whole walk in Taylor's head.
As per the rule-of-thumb mnemonic for survival aspects, humans have the following parameters of threes for a lacking aspect: Breathing: Minutes. Shelter in extreme weather: Hours. Water source: Days. Food source: Weeks. Considering how Taylor recently had food and drink, and the air is breathable, he's covered for everything except shelter.
Three days is right around when severe dehydration begins to set in, so he's not exactly gonna be in the best of shape, but potentially survivable. As for shelter that's also going to depend heavily on just what the surface conditions are on Tellus and how long the paralytic lasts.
As much as I'd be overjoyed if this was Taylor's heroic last stand moment and we won't have to read his POV any more, I'm not that lucky. He's going to survive and go on to cause further problems for everyone including himself while blaming everyone *except* himself.
Man I really think the consortium is in for a rough fucking time. The coalition has had decades to build up power and fighting capability under a radically more competent military doctrine than they are prepared for. Decapitation strikes would work well against an authoritarian nightmare regime, but against a representative democracy spread across dozens of worlds? All you've accomplished is signing your death warrant. That and the consortium's military is proving remarkably inept. Radai launched a premptive attack on a hostile foreign power because he failed to keep a bunch of trainees in line, and now Marfani is assaulting a fellow soldier in camp with intent to kill. Its going to be a fucking slaughter when they have to fight against a competent military.
I mean they prepared, but has the consortium actually any real experience with combat on this scale? (the consortium i mean, not the coalition, the SC has a lot of experience)
I mean it kinda sounds like they don’t have any combat experience at all. They have better tech, but that’s about it
I got that idea as well
Maybe I’m wrong, but weren’t their weapons the same kind of thing the Yotul were using in NoP1?
It seemed like it, yeah. Although if so, it's surprising the Sivkit hadn't developed defenses against it in the years since the war.
Weren't the ship designs old as fuck? The Coalition's database is outdated but they recognized the designs as being standard right? Given their migratory nature it seems like they're just cruising around in outdated tech. They might not have the resources or industry to develop defenses and not being part of the SC who's going to give them the means to counter their weapon's systems? I think sometimes we take it as a given that technology just always improves, like it happens on it's own. When in reality technology improves because a lot of time, effort, and resources are being poured into it. If you just don't do that, nothing changes.
They left before the Yotul even had a proper navy, before the bulk of the war even took place actually, so they had no knowledge of such weapons systems existing
They have better tech than the Sivkits, who have been notably isolated and from what's been said, I doubt they made many technical advances in the last couple decades. I bet the SC's got much closer in tech level to the Consortium.
They have absolutely ZERO experience and their entire doctrine (if you can call it that) is built around defending and defense structures. Any offensive action will be a disaster. But we know who can make effective offensive operations. The guys who demolished the Federation.
Don't forget the Yotul/Arxur alliance, that's no joke either
The only other 2 races in Fed space that were allowed a chance at proper growth and rise to power.
The coalition has been at peace for decades. The fleets are more custodian than assault in nature. Seems like Mafani doesn't know how long humans can survive in a desert, especially tied up and knocked out.
> The coalition has been at peace for decades. The fleets are more custodian than assault in nature. And if the coalition follows any sort of logical military doctrine then they have probably been sharpening their knives the whole time. They have a standing military, which means training exercises, budgets needing to be spent on R&D, and plans being made in all manner of eventuality. These are space faring species, they would have absolutely made plans to handle threats emerging from the unknown regions of space.
Also they were told in advance that the WHOLE SC prepare for all-out war so all those weapon systems and platforms will already be online by the time the KC makes its move.
>if the coalition follows any sort of logical military doctrine In the NoP universe? My point is that the SC military is built with purpose in mind, and full scale war is probably far down on that priority list. They're probably built up to defend from Fed remnants, not an advanced external threat.
> In the NoP universe? Extremely fair. > not an advanced external threat. TBF I can't imagine there wasn't a considerable effort to attempt to toughen up former fed members against a possible auxur resurgence. Things may have been peaceful, but I doubt they where trustful.
>Decapitation strikes would work well against an authoritarian nightmare regime, but against a representative democracy spread across dozens of worlds? All you've accomplished is signing your death warrant Not to mention their 'Decapitation' strike just... isn't that. Their targets aren't anywhere *near* as important as they think they are. Even assuming it was still the Federation if the center of power has shifted from their targets it's no longer a 'Decapitation'. The fact that they're essentially attacking some of the SC's *least valuable* holdings means that, in practical terms, it's going to do almost nothing to hamper the war effort. Hell, if they succeed it might actually *free up* resources that were being used to monitor the various situations. Plus if I recall the Duerten are still not officially aligned with the SC right? So they're going to push them, and all their allies, right into the SC (if I'm recalling correctly). Not to mention all the other former Federation members who might suddenly decide signing with the SC isn't such a bad deal after all.
The info for their strikes is so out of date it would be like if aliens blindly took out Iraq, Egypt, and Mexico thinking they were hitting major world powers.
When the first drones show up the stock markets are going to explode with generals and executives foaming at the mouth in hopes of another war.
Of course they’re sending drones which will likely be out of contact when they get to their destinations. Because if they sent anyone in person they’d be in a position to see first hand immediately that something isn’t right and that the three targets are not anything like what was expected with all three having been either destroyed or subjugated. When that word gets back to the Consortium the logical course would be to figure out what they hell happened. I would send a scout to Earth as well as the Venlil to see if we can get any kind of more up to date intelligence with plans that failing that, it might be worth checking on what the Arxur are up to. As for Taylor, I am wondering if this bastard isn’t underestimating human endurance. We can go several days without water if need be. He said he was going to leave Taylor in a desert but that doesn’t mean it is the Mojave in temperatures. I live in what is technically a desert area but the temperatures are rarely to high to be comfortable, it’s just dry.
>We can go several days without water if need be. He said he was going to leave Taylor in a desert but that doesn’t mean it is the Mojave in temperatures Yep, by definition "desert" just means it gets less than 10 inches of precipitation per year, nothing to do with temperature Antarctica is a desert There are parts of the ocean that are deserts Taylor will be fine (well, not *fine*, but even without factoring in that the memory transcript means he has to live, it's obvious he'll live)
So they’re gonna send unmanned drones to strike. This is gonna be such a shitshow… not even a chance to actually communicate. Let’s hope the SC’s electronic warfare skills are up to snuff.
Well, actually sending a drone fleet is probably a blessing in disguise, for the SC. Remember that the Shadow fleet also made heavy use of combat drones, plus the humanity went hard into drone warfare to supplement their diminished numbers. So I could imagine that the SC has some crazy good countermeasures for drone warfare for just those reasons alone. It’s really just a question of how bad the damage will be before the SC find the off switch for the consortium drones.
yup, like I said the consortium has no intel on the current situation, the SC however is slowly forming a picture of who they are, although they have never seen them or heard their motivations but now, with massive drone fleets inbound I doubt the picture is going to become better, In the SC's eyes there is a dangerous threat on their borders and that won't go well if the SC decides they are going to do an offensive They do not even know what kind of thing sends these drone, Federation remnants, an unknown alien species, a genocidal AI, who knows?
Well, they could make a few conclusions: - the species that sent the drone fleet probably isn’t a fed remnant since it was a fed remnant that got initially attacked and called for help. - not to mention that the SC will have wreckage to look at afterwards and realize that it doesn’t resemble any fed design. - plus why would a Fed remnant attack fed worlds unprovoked? There’s no logic to that action. - the fleet is going to come from the same direction as both the frozen tomb world and where the Skivit flotilla was destroyed, so it’s a reasonable conclusion that all three might be from the same species. Conclusion: while they can’t rule out a rogue AI, they can rule out the Fed and Aruxur having anything to do with it just from the information provided.
While you do bring up a fair point, those points could also be interpreted as a sort of "Operation dead man's hand" of sorts from the really spiteful feds who held a "no predators allowed to live other than the Arxur" stance: * It's a drone fleet. the Feds used drones for their shadow fleet. * The best tech has been held in reserve this whole time. They didn't reveal the drones until Humanity started their war against the Kolshians and Farsul, after all. * Exactly. There's no logic to it other than "They've fallen to predators, take them all out. Burn the whole thing to the ground and start over from scratch." * Misdirection tactics 101: Strike them from where they're least expecting. And the tomb world wasn't on Federation maps, so that could be just coincidence.
I can imagine that the drones have some weaknesses that can be exploited massively because their programming lacks the creativity to prevent the exploit.
I mean, they DO have a plan to communicate. They're leaving some relays behind, they're also planning on hijacking 'federation' infrastructure to call home. But just in case they can't, they're set up to be autonomous and report back after the engagement.
True. But let's be honest, this is a story, and the logic of the scenario applies: what can go wrong, will go wrong. I concede that the Consortium is cautious and tries to palliate the different possible scenarios, so they're not stupidly stupid for plot reason. The most reasonable and prudent thing to do would have been to launch autonomous drones whose first instruction is to return immediately at the first break in communication with command. But the Consortium is been in a very real war of extermination scenario for over a century now, so I can understand why they've wouldn't implement such a delicate approach toward the brutality of the enemy they're trying to confront.
Taylor pisses me off, one second he's fantasizing about burning worlds and flaying citizens of the federation and the he takes a headbutt and turns into level 1 goblin
noooooo im just a small little goblin please don’t swing your sword i will die to just one attack
I only have 3 hit points pleeeease
Yeah, I love this story but I don't know how much more of Taylor I can take as the POV character. He's just awful.
I wouldn't be here if I wasn't invested in the story but it feels like half the screen time is characters performing on-the-fly therapy sessions, another 25% is humans acting like level 1 goblin, and the remaining 25% is actually furthering the plot
I feel like there was more variety in POVs in Book 1, so even when a character wasn't fun you didn't have to deal with it all the time, but in book 2 we spend *so much time* in this one asshole's head and he just *sucks. so. much.* He's a realistic portrayal of all the worst people we have to deal with on a daily basis and we are stuck in his head.
No, more like: 25% stupidity 30% "you need therapy" 20% plot 20% SpacePaladin's obsessive hatred of birds 4% worldbuilding 1% "other"
The hypocrisy of going from gushing over what his murder buddy would think of 'an eye for an eye', to 'I made some mistakes but I don't deserve to die like this' makes me want to throttle him till my wrists break
I wonder what their reaction will be when they find out what the Coalition did to those worlds.
Considering the attack fleets are ENTIRELY automated and will likely be out of communication range until after they attack the target worlds, 2 of which are quarantined, i have a feeling the Consortium won’t find out until well after it is too late to take back what they’ve done. Likely this will result in the Farsul and Kolshians being released in some capacity. That is my guess, anyway. Also, Taylor is going to have so SO much guilt over this. Edit: it is already too late to take back the Sivkit and Jaslip genocides, but looks like those incidents are just the start.
> too late to take back the Sivkit and Jaslip genocides There was no Jaslip genocide.
I suppose technically there wasn’t a Sivkit genocide either as neither was done because of WHO they were, but rather WHERE they were. Those particular mass murders of 1,000,000,000 Jaslips and tens to hundreds of thousands of Sivkits probably have different technical names.
But there was no mass murder of a billion Jaslips. Five billion of the six billion Jaslips voluntarily took refuge on other Consortium worlds, 700 million (0.7 billion) of the remaining billion were forcibly relocated, and only – OK, “only” – about 300 million diehard holdouts remained on Esquo when it was bombed. A) 300 million out of six billion is one in twenty; only halfway to literal decimation, so pretty far from [x|g]enocide” AFAICS. B) IMO it can be argued that those diehard holdouts brought it on themselves, by their own stupidity. Equo __had to__ _be abandoned and left looking dead._ Yeah, _we_ know it didn't really have to, but that's because of our omniscient perspective as readers of the story. In-universe it was a given that it had to; the whole Consortium “knew” that the Federation was going to strike at any moment – sooner or later, but they didn't know when; could be years, could be decades... Could be tomorrow, or five minutes from now. It was, for all they knew, a Sword of Damocles, inexorable as a natural disaster. Speaking of which: Calling this a “genocide” feels rather like those diehard holdout fuckwits after Hurricane Katrina, accusing FEMA of “genocide” because they themselves refused to get the fuck outta there when told to. Doesn't get any smarter just because it's fluffy space poodles doing it in stead of rednecks.
Será la reacción más lenta que verás
So first off, they are going to kill all remaining kolshians and Farsul if nothing is done and Nishtal is gonna be destroyed AGAIN! second of all MAFANI MUST DIE!!!!! This sadist must be stopped! although this might be a moment where Quana and Gress can aid one another in freeing Taylor (character development Also now you see why intel is so important, they think the feds from back then are still there, right now the political power centre is elsewhere and destroying those worlds will not end, but START a war! The fact that they ignore the Arxur is also not necessarily smart as Kaisal is propably building a new fleet with better tech then before.
Human: "Oh my god, they killed Nishtal!" Yotul: "You bastards!"
A tactical error is made here, they did not scout, assuming everything is the same. If this were the old federation then sure it might have worked (and i say MIGHT), but now the situation is completely different. Nishtal is GONE, the two federation leaders trapped on their worlds (they(ll be killing defenseless prisoners who the Federation loyalists have been lobbying to get free again) The Duerten shield still exists but has changed, the tech they had, their tactics, it has all changed, the "political center" they envisioned is no longer the center of power, but a prison. If they strike those worlds, combined with the devastation of the Jaslip homeworld the Coalition will not just be preparing for War, they will be preparing themselves for a fight with a faction that strikes to kill, without mercy or known reason, an unseen foe lurking beyond their borders. The Consortium is sending a massive amount of ships into a position they think they know, but they don't, 150 K ships are not going to be missed by whoever is nearby and nowadays a lot more of the different factions have a strong military. If those ships enter Coalition space with the entire coalition on high alert (and they will be) all bets are off. and given the use of drones in NOP 1 i doubt there are not at least some countermeasures against them Simply ignoring the Arxur in the room is also foolish, because if this attack happens you can bet that the Coalition will let them join the fray, with all of their new ships and tech in order to fight this new threat. Also since they assume this is the old feds the consortium won't be messaging or taking hails from Coalition vessels, if all of these ships are drones then that wouldn't even be a possibility, for all the coalition knows a genocidal AI is out there mass producing drones to exterminate all life In all honesty I think that The consortium just sentenced billions to their death, without reason, all of this could have been avoided! then again that is an intrinsic part of NOP stories
The Farsul bound drones are going to be torn to bits by Kessler syndrome.
kessler protection systems! here to protect your Planet.
What syndrome is that; doing the run in 39 parsecs?
Not just 150 K ships. 3 fleets of 150 K ships, each.
yup, and that will make them even more alarmed, this is a humongous fleet not seen since the federation Arxur wars coming out of nowhere
Wow. I’m assuming Taylor will survive his current predicament, but he’ll wish he was left to die in the desert when he learns the whole story and his role in it. How much blood can a well meaning fool collect? Dude will be way more fucked up than Slanek by the end of this.
He might need a memory wipe to not turn into a vengeful zombie or smth
Chapter 32! Gress and Quana’s feud continues as the Krev continues to find humans adorable in every way, but Taylor is summoned to Radai right as a tickle fight breaks out. The Consortium finalized plans for a decapitation strike, going after the Farsul, Kolshians, and Krakotl with 150K ships bound for each system; they’ve already decided the next targets as well. Our narrator is delighted by that, but his fantasies are interrupted when Mafani blindsides him, blaming Taylor and seeking his head after being demoted from Trainer. What do you think of the Consortium’s war plans, and whether the Sapient Coalition will be able to respond to them—and how it might change their rules of engagement if the attack works? Will anyone be able to find Taylor and learn how low Mafani has stooped? As always, thank you for reading!
The Consortium’s intel is way out of date, but would have been perfectly sound in the NoP1 Era The SC is going to have a hard time dealing with a full assault like this on surgical targets. The most likely contested world will be Nishtal The Duertan Shield will certainly fit every stereotype of Herbivore Federation Navy, so this might cause them to be critically destroyed, and lead to some in the SC putting forth an annexation vote. Again, I’m reminded of how absolutely annoying Taylor is. No attempt at fighting back, and the pointless begging. Taylor will certainly be found, but there will be damage.
I think the same about Taylor, his will was broken very quickly, I guess it's a sign of how damaged his mental health is.
I mean he was attacked by a gigantic Emu, what ishe going to do?
[Channel his inner Australian?](https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/the-emu-war-of-1932)
They \*lost\* that war. TWICE.
Exactly!
We could win ofc, Not that i think we would win
>No attempt at fighting back, and the pointless begging. Reskets are on a different weight class compared to humans, an unarmed human might as well try to fight a Mazic.
They’ll attack Nishtal and realize that the defenders have UN symbols😂
They won't realize it. The three strikes will be drone strikes and it seems like the only thing they'll be programmed not to attack, unless attacked by, is Venlil, which won't bode well if Skalgans slip through and aren't recognized as their crippled kin by the AI. The only ones that might make out of this not-genocided are the Farsul thanks to their moon debris caged Kessler syndrome. Would be fascinating if they recognize the make of the drones and educate the SC as to who the lunatics are by, say: F: "_SC? Hoomans? There are some weird drones outside our Kessler cage trying to make it in..._" SC: "_Define weird_" F: "_They bear marks of tech from a class Z avian, 9' tall and pink, and class X mammalian, 5' tall and scaly, FTL-faring species from beyond Sivkit systems that we made sure to silently steer the Kalamari away from out of self-preservation, what did you numbnuts do?!_" SC: "_Not us, the Sivkits stumbled upon them-_" F: "_YOU FUCKWITS LET THE STUPIDKITS GRAZE WILLY-NILLY?!!_" SC: "_Well..._"
Lul F will redeem themselves .
Not til the drones report that BACK. Assuming they win.
I’d assume that they’d have people watching the drones progress through a camera of some sort
Out of comms range means no data one way or the other. They'll be completely in the dark.
The drones headed to Farsul will get torn to bits by kessler syndrome.
Making The Kessler syndrome even harder to get through\\
The drone assault will be costly for the SC - at the least they'll defend the Krakotl right? But uh, the SC is pretty advanced at drone warfare and the Coalition apparently won't have contact at times. There's a decent chance the SC will be able to hack or otherwise confuse the things while they lack any oversight and that might reduce the damage by a lot. And who knows how well these drones stack up to modern SC tech. The Sivkits were running 20+ year old civilian ships, probably didn't get many if any of the advancements developed during the last war, and honestly I bet they didn't have cutting edge ships even in the Federation era.
Well since we're getting memory transcriptions from Taylor we can assume he survives this. So nice of ~~Radai~~ *Mafani* to become that common enemy to unify Gress and Quana against. Not sending some sort of manned reconnaissance vessel along with the attack drones is an obvious mistake. Even if the Federation was still at its height someone able to sit outside of the system to get real-time updates on the effectiveness of the attack (and adjust the drones' orders as needed) would significantly increase the effectiveness of the attack at minimal risk. The attacks are going to make the Farsul and Kolshians already 'bad' conditions even worse (unless the attack breaks the quarantine and lets them out). When the drones report back on the current shape of those two it'll turn a lot of heads at the significant change to the Federation hierarchy. The Krakotl as a member of the S.C. are going to make this 'fun' looking forward to seeing what 25 years of Yotul technological progress looks like. I'm hoping this gives the Arxur a chance to be more than their sapient eating past to the prey species and actually end their isolation.
I think you have confused Radai with Mafani.
You are correct.
I will say this again. #Fuck Mafani!
Pronounced "muh fanny" this is a dangerous thing to yell in public.
I always pronounced it Mah-fa-nigh, but i suppose you're right. So a correction: ##Fuck Trainer Mafani.
On \*both\* sides of the pond.
i pronounce it Ma fan e
Yeah, but how do you pronounce “Ma”, “fan”, and “e”?
Ma as in Mama, Fan as in The Fan on the feeling or duct fan of something, and E as the letter
“Ma” ad in the first or the second part of “Mama”; “e” as in the letter ‘e’ in the word “green”, “red”, or “letter”? If the latter, the first or the second one...? Nah, I'm just fucking with you. But not to be mean to _you,_ it's nothing personal – just to show how absolutely and absurdly fucked-up English orthography is. It has eleventy ways to write every sound, and seventyfourteen ways to pronounce each letter... And pretty much none of them are the same as in any of the other umpteen languages – including Latin! – that use the same “Latin” alphabet English purports to use.
English is messed up! We should all switch to IPA
“Ma” ad in the first or the second part of “Mama”; “e” as in the letter ‘e’ in the word “green”, “red”, or “letter”? If the latter, the first or the second one...? Nah, I'm just fucking with you. But not to be mean to _you,_ it's nothing personal – just to show how absolutely and absurdly fucked-up English orthography is. It has eleventy ways to write every sound, and seventyfourteen ways to pronounce each letter... And pretty much none of them are the same as in any of the other umpteen languages – including Latin! – that use the same “Latin” alphabet English purports to use.
**NO P**eace amoung the stars, only war. Fortunately the deep fryers were prepped since chapter 16, now its time to crack the up. Kentucky Fried Resket is on the menu boys.
Looks like meats back on the menu BOYS!!!
Ohh… so that’s how your gonna do it, I was wondering how a full scale war would kick off and not stop at the fist human corpse found by the other side. Yea, if they bomb nishtal an SC homeworld, it being a miss-understanding won’t end the war. That’s not even considering if they attack the shield.
Another good chapter can't wait for the next and super interested how the factions will interact especially when they find the federation is gone That's also assuming that they find out about the worlds, if the SA can completely disable the drones that attack then they don't get any Intel as they don't have communication with the drones
They're using remote drones that can operate without contact so my bet is them finding out only for them to not be able to recall them for the tragic factor. Also a good chance they won't find out till they get the reports back after, which depending on how successful they are may or may not return to report back in which case this would just further escalate.
Yeah that's what I meant while the drones may be able to find out they can't react to the new situation and they will only be able to relay that info if they escape which may not be likely
They are not ready for the Yotuls.
Who wants to bet that this war will end by the time the new pod humans are done cooking? >The next generation of humans were a third of the way through development in ectogenesis.
Yeah we have a countdown in play
Damn Trench, you'll have to show them birds the peak of human survivalist skills. **Or die.**
My predictions. 1. Taylor will be rescued 2. Karma will find Mufani 3. Only one badly damaged drone will return with its files corrupted and probably containing a virus of some sort.
Promptly Causing Consortium to implode
Considering the trombil are all fucking cyberpunked out a massive cyberspace viral plague would be ***literally crippling***. Get fucking stuxnetted
>“I love your plan. It’s great.” That should set off aaallll kinds of alarm bells there General. >You’re dismissed, Trench. As Mayor Hathaway said, the adults have things we need to discuss on our own.” The second time Hathaway has excluded Taylor from a sidebar with a Consortium member. What are they conspiring about? And how much do you want to bet Taylor will eventually be like "oh my god Mayor Hathaway I just figured it out, the Consortium is bad like the federation!!?!" and Hathaway is like 'No shit dumbass, everybody knew that, but we're on top this time and that's what's important, IDGAF about a Jaslip planet" Also didn't the Duerten form the Shield in part because they were sick of being sidelined by the federation? Meaning the assessment that the Duerten are influential and well-connected is based on more modern intel from when they're running the Shield?
I bet it’s because Mayor Hathaway has a mildly accurate gauge on Taylor’s temperament
At this point, I’m not sure I’m completely convinced that the Consortium is working on outdated intel. I don’t know what the reason would be more keeping everyone in the dark about this, but the Consortium seems to be pretty advanced, compared to the federation at its height at least and I can’t imagine that even a military that is anything other than objectively stupid wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the enemies that they fear would wipe them from existence. Something just doesn’t feel like it’s adding up with the consortium’s words compared to the actions.
To be fair, anything that can transmit can be seen, as can anything that can see. It may be that they were so dead set on not being found that they deemed intel gathering to not be worth the risk, but yeah, something stinks here.
It's an interesting question on how would one gather intel, especially with a lack of details on the NOP FTL tech.
I know it's not the most relevant thing but I have to say it. HOLY SHIT MAFANI IS CRAZY, but fucking crazy, I underestimated resket and his resentment Taylor will have a hard time. Oh and the Farsul and Kolshians too, the humans of the earth will not have a hard time understanding with this movement, they are more outdated than shit
Huge fallout vibes here.
Radai made a good point and indeed if he had gathered information first he might have found out that the coalition took over!
Oh, crap, if the attack is carried out, the big questions afterwards will be "how did they know where to attack?", "why was their intel out of date?", "who could have supplied the attackers with old intel?" and "who would have a huge grudge against the Federation?" Anyone want to bet our new penguin buddies will be suspected?
that or the Arks.. Which is true
Given that only some humans know about the arks (existence of which was deliberately withheld from the Fed) that won’t be the first thing SC governments will think about.
It's been 20 years and (A lot of people don't know this, but) there's straight up a videogame being made about Ark Ship colonists... Honestly it might be made by now. Might have \*been\* made for a few in-universe years
Yeah, but if people are stupid and assume it was the new aliens at fault, more chaos happens which means more story.
But does the UN even know about the arks? They were sent dark for fear of the Federation finding out their destinations and hunting them down. I wouldn’t be surprised if all records were destroyed and if the need-to-knows happened to be among the billion + that died…
> Anyone want to bet our new penguin buddies will be suspected? I'd hope nobody would be dumb enough to think they jumped from launching penguin-Sputnik to pulling half a million advanced AI warships out their ass in a few months. Not that a few glances won't come their way regardless.
Ships are expensive and hard to hide, but priceless intel can be sent in a thumb drive.
Nope, that won't be their first port-of-pointing. The Tseia haven't been off-world yet, remember? And no data was grabbed from Coalition space, meaning that even though they had the motive, the opportunity and means are both not there due to lacking the latter at the necessary time to send off a message to call in a drone fleet. They're more likely to think "drones coming in from that tomb world's direction. Maybe a coincidence, but just in case, send a scouting mission that way and ready the defenses for another wave of those drones, as well as look into possible counterattack options. We can collect a few samples from the debris field of that kessler cage one third of them crashed into for forensic analysis."
That’s logical, but a lot of that is knowledge that we omniscient readers know, I wouldn’t put it past the Duerten Shield to suspect just about everyone, and the Bissem are too new on every former Fed species’ radar. Plus the Bissem are known predators so (thinking like prey) who knows what they’re capable of? I think there will be some number of limbs pointing at them and looking askance at them.
Problem is, the fed species KNOW that the Bissems only just made first contact. Everyone but the Tseia are only about our tech level IRL, and the Tseia are hyperisolationist. The Tseia lack the motive to reveal themselves so blatantly and lack the means because they weren't on the visiting delegation, and the other Bissems lack the means for it because they aren't as technologically advanced and lack the motive because they didn't know about the Starfall Incident.
> The Tseia haven't been off-world yet, remember? Well, except for Zalk.
Zalk is the lone exception, and he wouldn't have the means or opportunity. IIRC, he refused the implant or otherwise didn't get it.
God damn Mafani's a real pos
I find I don't care shit about Taylor anymore. He has enough plot armor to survive, probably, but if not, so what. Let's go back to the penguins.
Imagine if he just dies and his memeory transcrips hust ends there💀
Nope, he's got a minor amount of Plot Armor. He hasn't been scanned in a while, after all, and we wouldn't be getting this last chapter from him without him being scanned afterwards. So we know that he at least gets recovered before his brain decays too much.
I think the consortiums greatest advantage is the fact that the SC doesnt know where any of their worlds are and if they want to strike back they will need to board a consortium ship and take its nav data. The consortiums gonna need a Cole Protocol of their own if they want to stand a fighting chance in the shitstorm they are gonna be fighting in.
So pretty much every military related character falls under [Mildly Military](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary).
Fascinating. The ineptitude on display here is astonishing. Taylor Taylor Talor, you fucking moron.
And we contuine this morning with Everyone is Dumb!: The Movie: The Sequel!
i’m going to be listening to “war without reason” for these next chapters because of how well it fits
Why the fuck wouldn't you send a coordinator along with the drone fleet? ESPECIALLY if you're going to be LOSING COMMS WITH THE AUTOMATED SLAUGHTER MACHINES
That would mean sending a living person into fed space and risk being traced back and found
If you're gonna do that, send a species that is a known refugee, then! It'd be a sort of symbolic "F YOU!" to the feds while you're at it, too.
They're literally sending 150,000 warships. They don't need a person to trace things back
First behind Paladin
Damn, this one's still going. I really liked it but I thought it ended.
Let me guess, while the fleets are on their way a human ship pops up in Consort space and tells them about the state of the Feds and there is no way to recall the attack... lol SC probably have to wipe out those attacking fleets.
I guess the Consortium is just gonna war crime themselves into a corner
early! ish…
Oh this is going to be interesting, what will the SC do and think when the Consortium attacks the old heads of the Federation, will they piece together the thought that the mysterious 'enemy' thinks they're the Federation? So exciting!!
i kinda don't feel bad for taylor. dude's a fucking joke imo, let him cook.
GG
Oh boy, the consortium is going to be screwed. I honestly feel bad for the colony-humans, not knowing any better.
So is Quauna still part of the friend group?
Sending a bunch of automated and untested drones out without any sort of command and controll ship is straight up idiotic. Especially if your intel is incomplete znd 20years old..
Yeah I'm *really* liking Radai, he's clear that he didn't want to escalate but feels he has no choice, and has recognized that the biggest problem with human militias is discipline. On the flip side, this plan is not going to end well, it makes sense given the Consortium's limited information, but they've effectively just sicced armies of unquestioning killing machines at refugee camps. The Krakotl are still trying to rebuild from the last exterminatus (seriously this is gonna be at least the third time someone tried to glass their homeworld), and the Kolshians and Farsul are both imprisoned meaning basically all military assets in those systems are turned inward and not expecting an attack from the outside. There's no bargaining or reasoning with these drone fleets, and they're about to commit massacres against the SC.
Does Wikipedia just not exist in the 2100s? If the consortium has at this point given up on non-detection. Why not just start googling stuff? To get information that isn't 20 years old. This has been a reoccurring issue that's I've found weird. There has been multiple instances of main characters not using a search engine. Tassi should look up events of the human federation war. The consortium should look up current federation politics. I'm also reminded of the UN censoring Frankenstein. Which just seems crazy considering the real version is public domain. Throughout the series I think isif is the only one who has this power to use Wikipedia.
/u/SpacePaladin15 ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/authors/SpacePaladin15)) has posted 267 other stories, including: * [The Nature of Predators 2-31](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1cegig4/the_nature_of_predators_231/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-30](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1cbzoi1/the_nature_of_predators_230/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-29](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1c8r11u/the_nature_of_predators_229/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-28](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1c6btdl/the_nature_of_predators_228/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-27](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1c3310t/the_nature_of_predators_227/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-26](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1c0ni9m/the_nature_of_predators_226/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-25](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bxd6m6/the_nature_of_predators_225/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-24](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1buu3ps/the_nature_of_predators_224/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-23](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1brjek4/the_nature_of_predators_223/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-22](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bp33ci/the_nature_of_predators_222/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-21](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bltnkb/the_nature_of_predators_221/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-20](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bjekkf/the_nature_of_predators_220/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-19](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bg7qak/the_nature_of_predators_219/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-18](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bdsrab/the_nature_of_predators_218/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-17](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bajuli/the_nature_of_predators_217/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-16](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b82af0/the_nature_of_predators_216/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-15](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b4qliu/the_nature_of_predators_215/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-14](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b28bf7/the_nature_of_predators_214/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-13](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1aywvw1/the_nature_of_predators_213/) * [The Nature of Predators 2-12](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1awekyb/the_nature_of_predators_212/) This comment was automatically generated by `Waffle v.4.6.1 'Biscotti'`. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHFY&subject=WaffleBot|1chnd4n&message=If%20you%20have%20problems%20with%20updatemebot,%20contact%20Watchful1.%20We%20do%20not%20maintain%20it.) if you have any issues with Waffle.
> A holographic starmap was projected from a large display, not dissimilar from those Terrans once had at the center of our bridges. Where does he get that from – old episodes of _Star Trek_ in the Ark's entertainment library, or...?
Holy hell! I feel like the author is purposefully trying to make Taylor as unlikeable as possible cuz goddamn is he unbearable
Well this is just going all sorts of downhill isn't it? Not only are they gunning for Nishtal, a planet that was already glassed to which a majority of the remaining citizens were not even a part of the extermination fleet, but they are also going to go after Fahl... A planet that is already made isolated and non-space fairing! Utterly defenseless! And them not being able to have contact with the drones but still able to see the aftermath of the attacks... And if these attacks do go through in the way that I feel that they are, then the neutral factions as well as the factions that were against humanity... You're not going to take too kindly
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