Part 20, continued

With the collapse of the Korx, the galactic political situation now stood thusly:

The continued hostility between the Torians and Krynn was a concern, especially now that the Torians were only fighting weak opponents such as the Drath and Scottlingas. But it could wait, as there was a much more urgent matter to deal with: the pirate crisis. Although the Korx military had been gravely weakened, they still had a decent amount of ships left near my territory - more than enough to cause some trouble. That trouble began almost immediately, as a pirate fleet destroyed the defenseless influence station OwnGame 7. I dispatched the battleship TAS San Francisco - the sole capital ship in the Earth orbital fleet - to avenge it. But first, the San Francisco confronted its opposite number: the advanced Korx battleship Yux Ulnar II.

As the above screenshots show, I was mistaken when I said I'd converted all of the Korx colonies in Terran space. Alioth III had remained Korx and was now under Arcean control.

The Yux Ulnar II was surprisingly effective - if the Korx had had a few more ships like it, they might have been able to put up more of a fight. But the San Francisco still won the battle, afterwards destroying the pirate fleet with ease.

That same turn, I had an unexpected success as one of my new armed freighters (running a route to the Arceans) successfully repulsed a pirate attack:

Because my internet is sluggish tonight, I will be splitting this update into many short posts so that I lose less work in a crash.

Part 20, concluded

By early October, the combined efforts of the Terran, Altarian, and Torian militaries had swept the pirates out of populated space.

A few were left in more isolated regions of space. In my first casualty during the pirate attacks, one of these destroyed the survey frigate TAS Argo:

But other events were now taking more space in the galactic news and my priorities list. The annual Terran Senate election left my Federalists with an overwhelming majority, thanks to relatively low taxes and the construction of many morale improvements.

In a semi-tragic - but really predictable - turn of events, the Arceans conquered the feeble Vegans.

More significant then these minor events were the Torians' wars. They had begun a counterattack against the Drath, easily crushing Drath defenses at several planets:

But their push towards the Scottlingas homeworld was thwarted, as a Scottlingas fleet defeated the attackers in a bloody battle:

While these wars went on, I was continuing my preparations for an all-out attack. A fleet of transports and escorts - "Task Force Provocation" - was being assembled in Terran space. Its goal was to move beside a Torian planet and provoke them into firing the first shot, therefore getting my allies to enter the war on my side. I wasn't sure when I would send it in, but with the Torians steamrollering the Drath and continuing to threaten the Krynn, I knew it would be soon...

Same here I can't wait, I enjoy a good AAR.

Part 21, concluded

On December 8th, an interesting but apparently insignificant event occurred as the Enterprise-class TAS Gagarin discovered a pirate Arcean frigate, apparently having been donated to the Korx, with Arcean fleets closing in on it:

Unexpectedly, the pirates attacked the Gagarin...

...but she was much more advanced then the Argo had been and the pirate frigate was destroyed.

Meanwhile, I finally finished researching Particle Beams III with the help of an anomaly. The newly-formed Terran Alliance First Fleet - formerly the Rigel defense force - had all of its ships that were not already using Particle Beams II upgraded immediately.

The beginning of the end

While these relatively unimportant events had occurred, the Torians continued to roll up the hapless Drath invasion force.

The Drath were starting to collapse. On one level I didn't really mind - they remained implacably hostile and would have to go one way or another - but with Torian transports now starting to move out, I knew I had to stop the Torians from conquering them outright. Task Force Provocation was not having enough effect, as the Torians were simply too overconfident in their military superiority. So - reluctantly, but confidently - I decided to handle things in a more formal fashion:

Next time: News from the front lines!

Your criticism is noted, but I'm honestly just writing this thing in chronological order, with a few alterations to keep strings of related events together. It's not a story-type AAR and it's not meant to flow like a story.

As noted earlier, my internet connection has been very bad lately, so I'm intentionally making short posts to try and avoid a damaging crash. I chose to make this a new installment because this was more about the final events before the Torian war began than the pirate conflict in part 20.

Part 22: The Torian War Begins

The first week of the war against the Torians saw numerous actions, as the forces I had previously readied for action now struck. I suffered one setback immediately, as the ancient UP law against first strikes resulted in a number of my ships being ejected from Torian space.

Two task forces that had been just outside Torian space were unaffected, and quickly struck at a pair of mining starbases, destroying them without much effort. The loss of the Torians' morale resource was particularly significant, as it would make their planets more vulnerable to Information Warfare.

On the Rigel front, the First Fleet swept over the border to find that the Torians' standing fleet in the area had inexplicably disappeared. With no significant resistance in its way, it swept aside the obsolete Torian defender at their colony Avignon I, paving the way for an invasion.

The Torians put up very stiff resistance, but Avignon I fell to the invasion. Although it was basically a worthless planet, every planet of theirs lost was one step closer to defeating them.

Back near Terran space, meanwhile, Task Force Provocation (or what little I had assembled of it, anyway) launched a preemptive strike on a first-rate Torian frigate. This was the first really difficult battle of the war, and it showed how dangerous the Torians could be. Ultimately the frigate was destroyed, but not without inflicting fairly heavy damage on the TAS Paris.

Also near Terran space, I used a spare transport to strike at a target of opportunity - the former Iconian colony Cheli IV, which the Torians had left without any orbital defenses. The invasion failed, but inflicted high casualties.

As 2235 came to an end, there were no major actions on the Drath front. The UP meeting led to an unexpected success with a vote to open up the tourism market, a prime source of income for my influence-heavy nation:

But as the New Year's article in Homeland Magazine warned, the success of these first skirmishes against the Torians meant nothing. They were still more significantly more powerful than I was, and my only advantage lay in my ability to out-think them...

(cont.)

So is anyone (er, anyone who doesn't come across as a spambot) still interested in this? I do intend to finish it either way, if only because I'm trying to avoid writing one of those AARs that just die off, but I would be a lot more motivated if I knew anyone else cared.

I've been following for years now and I still check in about once every week--because a new episode of this thing will make my day! I know how a lack of motivation with something like this feels man, but please know that you still have fans out there. This AAR is the only reason I'm ever on this site, and it's outlived both my time actually playing the game. I still maintain that it's the best AAR I've ever read anywhere. All I can say is keep it up! 

As it happens, I'm actually working on a post now, though it might wait a day for my internet connection to improve. The Torian War is in full swing and is proving pretty exciting; it's rare that I fight a war of this scope at this level of technology in TA.

Part 23, cont.

Three weeks into the new year, the remaining Drath ships in Torian space all formed into a single fleet for their last stand. This did them no good, as they were completely wiped out by the Torian fleet that had been formerly defending Avignon without inflicting a single casualty.

But while the Drath had proven utterly ineffectual as a war partner, other civilizations were not as useless. The Arceans and Krynn proved unwilling to enter the war despite all entreaties, but were willing to trade me useful techs.

Meanwhile, the Scottlingas had directed a large fleet against the Torian defenders orbiting New Iconia V. It was spearheaded by this lightly-armed but heavily-defended (and shockingly fast) battleship.

My own fleets remained active, though I was now pursuing a somewhat more cautious strategy after Task Force 39's shocking demise. The Fast Reaction Force - a special formation consisting entirely of Quendor-class battlecruisers - saved the shipping lanes to Altaria by obliterating the marauding battleship, while the First Fleet continued to ambush the Torian ships assembling piecemeal near their homeworld.

Meanwhile, in a wholly unexpected (if insignificant) setback, one of my space miners near the Carinoids Cluster was suddenly ambushed and destroyed by a Korx pirate frigate, the Bolfirx. Although I had been previously inclined to ignore the remaining pirates, this infuriating event caused me to send the newly-commissioned Second Fleet on a mission to wipe them all out.

In fact, though, there were about to be many more pirates...

The End of the Drath

With the collapse of most of the Drath's effective resistance, the Torians had finally begun sending in transports. Inexplicably, these transports traveled directly past Gabe V without any escorts, allowing the Third Fleet to destroy several of them.

But it did the Drath little good. The miserable remnant of their fleet launched a final attack on the Torians at the Haber system and was destroyed by a single battleship.

And thus, with the proverbial whimper-not-a-bang, they surrendered. Luckily, it wasn't to the Torians:

Though the Drath had never been a major power and by this point had been reduced to a virtual irrelevancy, their surrender still represented a significant development. With their elimination went the last civilization who was not either one of my allies or the Torians. The Torian War had always represented the ultimate struggle for the fate of the galaxy, but now that was literally true: defeating the Torians meant I would immediately win an alliance victory.

Of course, defeating the Torians was still somewhat more easily said than done... particularly because of the other consequence of the Drath's defeat: the Torians were now free to focus all of their forces on me!

Galactic map at this point

So, we draw towards the epic conclusion. I am really, REALLY pumped for the remainder of this AAR and also a bit sad--this may be the first of several conflicts between the two great factions, but either way, this AAR is now in its final stage, and I doubt that I'll find anything like it again. 

In any case, something tells me the worst is yet to come. Personally, I believe that soon enough there will be a second Great Galactic War. 

*Grabs popcorn

I can't wait! 

I'm sorry this has taken so long to update. I should have another post up fairly soon.

By the way, I'd appreciate any feedback on the amount of details people want me to go into here. This is a seriously huge war.