Indeed. The Ultrasmurfs are now absolutely superior to every other chapter because fanboyism and wtf did they do with my necrons?! I was my soulless warrior slaves of star gods back, not sone weird metal pokemon trainers who capture fragments of their gods... how the fu-
We have also already created a antimatter, and even managed to hold a atom of antihydrogen stable for a half and hour.
Also nano machines not being a thing in the near future is hard to believe.
If your civilization is at the stage where antimatter reactors have been objectively proven to be entirely superior to fusion or fission reactors (meaning that you've surmounted the engineering issues with such a finicky reactor system), where reaction drives have been outmoded by magical reaction-less propulsion systems, and where nano-scale robots can complete entire star bases at breakneck speeds, then there's really no point in the Federation even existing. You're already leagues ahead of everyone else in terms of technical capability.
Hell, doesn't your nation control three planetary systems?
When I go with capital ships, I go with ships that are utilarian. Not space robots. God, I hate the term mecha- I love mechs, I see them as realistic sophisticated machines with guns, rockets, or missiles in reasonable quantity. I see mecha as giant multicolored human-bots that like beating the shit out of everything with metal fists.
If someone can make a giant metal fist that holds together on impact to something else steel, then I want to use that fist as armor.
>mechs >realistic
The perfect oxymoron.
Mechs > Mecha, yes, agreed. go Mad Cats and blood Asps :P
Battletech is arguably even worse when it comes to realism.
Jia-Jio initial inclination was to train the Watchman’s engine upon the radioactive surface of Enned and wholly expunge the huge alien-crafted landing pad below with impunity.
After all, these slack-jawed lapdogs menaced her respected handpicked crew and her decorated vessel with indiscriminate annihilation should she decline to yield to their unsavory demands!
The nerve these unclean cretins had! Jia-Jio was a tribal king’s daughter! Jia-Jio was proper royalty! She was of potentate ichor! If anyone would be issuing inconsequential ultimatums, it would surely be her and her alone!
But before voluntarily inaugurating Anuku’s 14th interstellar crusade with yet another series of hopeful foreigners, Jia-Jio’s conflictive demeanor warped significantly when her keen eyes mated with the icon of the Straylight Institute, the first and only “docile” political entity that the azu had made contact with in the last two-hundred cycles.
Almost immediately, her igneous temper simmered into a dull, cold-hearted annoyance, for a set of predetermined directives surfaced to the forefront of her keen memory.
The symbol--and the xeno dialect that it was accompanied by--were both entirely familiar to the youthful star lord. Jia-Jio’s patrons had informed her that, should she encounter a spacecraft known as “Letona's Gaze” (or any other vessel that lay in the possession of the Straylight’s Institute) she should refrain from acting in an overtly hostile manner.
Of course, the masters of the Peaks of Hia-Hia had told her nothing of a dense nucleus of savage warships that thought it best to entertain her abrupt presence with open missile bays and swarming murders of petty strikecraft. Reluctantly, Jia-Jio opened a channel directly with Letona’s Gaze, ignoring the other transmissions that were vying for her undivided attention.
She couldn’t understand them anyway. The azu lacked universal translation technology.
The Starylight Institute? Letona’s Gaze? You supposedly visited the world of my people some time prior to this altercation. Anuku yes? You must recall it. You were there.
Regardless, my esteemed patrons have spun tales of you--but they failed to tell me of your organization’s other companions. As per the wishes of my sponsors, I am open to cooperating with you-- but these unknown heathens that you select to feast with are most troubling. Their intentions are a mystery to me. After all, what sovereign nation elects to bring an invasion force to an archaeological assignment?
I will require proof of your integrity. I can contact Anuku if you desire to have a word with persons that are of higher station than I.
Additionally, I should offer cautionary advice against any boarding attempts. You will damn your ground teams--and a substantial chunk of Enned--to a swift yet thankfully painless death if you should decide to seize my vessel by force. The same fate will come to fruition if any other plans of immediate aggression are set into motion.
Jia-Jio spun the Watchman on its axis, its nuclear thermal rocket RCS points firing until the ship’s aft section was pointed diametrically at the surface of the queer planet, with the monstrous craft locked in geosynchronous orbit above the target. The Eye's main engine slumbered for now, but there was no doubt that the jittery feline would unleash apocalyptic fury upon the hapless ground personnel and their favored dig site if sufficiently pressed.
But like any clever star lord, the azu woman stealthily began spooling the craft's FTL drive in preparation for a hasty getaway. The hanger bay's blast doors were sealed and the craft's repulsion barrier was brought to full strength in the event that weapons fire was exchanged. While the growing energy signatures of the FTL module were hidden, the power fluctuations of the Watchman's shield were painfully obvious.
Jia-Jio, an azu female of regal stock, floated aimlessly within the embrace of a non-Newtonian solution, the liquid gradually regaining its viscosity as The Watchman's Eye decelerated with graceless, daunting tempo. In respect to her station as reigning star lord, Jia-Jio had been awake throughout the entire interstellar transit, watching the encompassing semi-transparent fluid twist and distort around her with each pounding reverberation that cascaded through the Eye's reinforced hull as she shadowed the ship's core navigation systems and subroutines by way of a neurological implant. A high-strength unidirectional repulsion field chaperoned the fluid's behavior, dynamically playing in tune to the craft's perpetual spacial movement.
“Duel Acceleration Nullification Harness” the aerospace engineers at the Peaks of Hia-Hia had formally christened the system--so named for the apparatus' revolutionary ability to render azu cosmonauts functionally impervious to the deleterious repercussions of high-g maneuvers by employing sheer-thickening compositions and re-polarized PDF modules. Following D.A.N.H's refinement by a number of azu engineers, derivatives of the system were hastily integrated into the Eye's bulky chassis to protect it from undue mechanical stress that might be incurred from the operation of its personal nuclear rocket engine. What ultimately resulted was an unusually-robust star freighter attributed with a warship's armor, durability, dependently, and an FTL-capable vessel's propulsion system: one antimatter-catalyzed proton-proton fusion engine with a median power output equivalent to five gigaton-grade nuclear weapons detonating every 1 second. Narrowing the exhaust trail with extraordinarily potent electromagnetic fields made the Eye into an ad hoc intergalactic weapon of mass destruction that harbored a super-dreadnought's most celebrated of abilities: the capacity to lay waste to virtually any vessel or object that it crossed paths with.
...as long as said vessel or object was within range of course. Other than its main engine and maneuvering thrusters (and the collection of armed land drones that rested within its innards), the Eye was objectively unarmed.
When Jia-Jio's vessel finally ceased FTL operations, killed its main engine, and switched to lurching towards the target world under the power of its secondary nuclear-based RCS points, the Watchman's crew, of which there were ten, initiated preparations for landing, with Jia-Jio declining to formally heed the presence of the dozen or so foreign vessels that buzzed uselessly about within the Enned System.