A Selection of Rigtt Slheppi’s Statement to the Q.V. Council

Written 2/10/2007 2:34


It entertains the mind to imagine that there’s a lot of depth and strategy to combat -layers, depth movements, contradicting fields that aren’t quite parallel, subtle feints, unavoidable blows, ricocheted, diverted, and returned attacks. This counters that in a balanced set-up where for every assault or defense there’s an equal overriding counter. But in reality, outside our minds where physics and spirits are at play, conflict is brutal in its’ simplicity: the stronger element wins. No amount of maneuvering can avoid an enemy whose forces encompass the world; a boxer who’s faster and stronger than his opponent can keep pounding until he’s too tired (there‘s no need to shadowbox), and a deft fencer finishes whomever’s against him with a single lethal strike. Mudrigal had thoughts similar to these but in a language I couldn’t quite comprehend or make out. I scryed his mind from Azbourne Heights during the Montil’s passing when Al Kon Dais had yet to reach its’ zenith. Multitudes of forces overwhelmed Mudrigals stronghold and swept it away -with all of his research, every patient he pain-inducingly examined in care, like so much chaff in a hurricane. There wasn’t time for the sentries message to be returned as a retreat order but men retreated anyway. His own forces shook the earth with their fearful stampede. Yet no redeployment would come. No dropships fell to pick up the wounded, dying, loyal or brave. That’s one of the power’s of Frighenka that has been tested and proven: the clouds covering their bodies are a result of myopic spores. Replaced more often then any human tissue, many of the spores are swept away by air currents. Some of these spores will trace paths onto human skin, bury tendrils into a man’s pores, and cause a chemical reaction of induced fear. It’s hard to get any of our own soldiers to fight because fear is so strongly seeded in them. Fleets of Frighenka will fly over unguarded human-bearing lands just to lay their spores across them. The fear induced is so strong that it permanently leaves its’ victims with a terror associated with the Frighenka. So pilots behind layers of plastic and metal shielding, in craft that scrub their air internally, will tremble when they even see a Frighenka. These parades of their kind spread such phobia amongst us as much as possible because it affects those of us who don’t come in contact with spores too. When two men are together and one begins to panic the other’s emotions are set on fire as well. This has occasionally backfired on our common enemy. Men have been so jacked with adrenaline they’ve emptied clips in the biggest Frig they could fire upon; those would be their leaders. But most often when one man turns from a turrent or wall and flees his second doesn’t take the time to weigh his options or own survivability between staying or fleeing. He figures the decision has been made and heads out himself. So, though Mudrigal’s forces weren’t human we’ve seen much of the same reaction’s in them (likely due to much shared physiology) and we can use Mudrigal’s recent fall as an example of what an assault on one of our own orbital strongholds will be like.
I’m trying to make my report sound more entertaining so we all keep our spirits up. …eh, heah. The most efficient countermeasure we’ve encountered to Frighenka advantages was the Tolpoln’s long-range battery exhaustion. The effects of these tactics in protecting some of their last holdouts have been much lauded. It’s egregiously flawed. Battery stores can not be manufactured at the same pace as Frighenka troops meaning that a few won battles eventually lead to a massacre where the defenders are without ammunition. Secondly, and more importantly, the long-range battery exhaustion can easily be countered by smaller forces. At the close of the campaign against Tolpoln Frighenka had already begun to split their waves into smaller sequences that were large enough to overwhelm small-yield turrents but small enough to leave reserves that could not be countered were batteries fired on earlier waves. It is because the Tolpoln system requires our own weapon stores be upgraded to accommodate it that I advise against it. Though it worked to stall some stations takeover it was effectively countered. Altering our own stations to perform an outmoded defensive model is madness. Instead I suggest that we expand spending and divert funds to Heyman’s mine-drones. Increasingly mechanized detachments seem the way to go as they can not be overcome by fear and are much more easily replaced. In the time it has taken Frighenka forces to plot routes between mine-lanes we have been able to isolate them long enough for armada sections to eliminate. Our current coverage of the space between stations is inadequate to protect and defer the Frighenka armada.
I was a proponent of thinking that the attacks on the Wriqub Duaxzy meant we had more time to observe and hold back on manufacturing. Further mapping of WD’s holdings have shown that most of their old-lands are already lost. What we see left is too small to require more than a quarter of the known Frighenka forces attention. We’ve seen them split their forces before. With our proximity to the WD’s heart we should expect that the forces our fleets have engaged are not routine scouts but the final intelligence gatherer’s before our space is massively incurred into.
I hope I’ve entertained you gentlemen and not put too fine a point on the knowledge that my next colleague to speak may be interrupted by the Frighenka which overwhelmed our warning-satellites before they could send signals. I recommend mass mine production be begun -I mean, will we care what the cost would have been if our death’s imminent?