Original Fiction Tintagel

[bintananth]

I haven't yet decided where the plot is going and my writing style doesn't include a lot of exposition.

The basic situation:
- Humanity is the new kid in the neighbourhood, trying to proove themselves, and irritating people in the process.
- The Shalmaneseer have been around awhile, have a very strong military, but aren't prepared for a long drawn-out fight.
- The Chizoba have a small population and mostly interact with others via trade. Their merchant ships are getting attacked, hence the request for aid.
- The Llyrians are the grownup in the room. They're generally uninvolved with what the kids are up to but will intervene to say "knock it off" when necessary.

The societies which have direct dealings with the Llyrians don't openly announce that fact. Most of the ones who don't have dealings with the Llyrians have at least heard rumors of them.

 

[bintananth]

Ship sizes and capabilites:

TSS Calypso: about the same size as a B5 Earth Alliance Omega-class Destroyer or Mimbari Sharlin-class Warcruiser (44,000,000tons)

Shalmaneseer Corvette: About the same size as a B5 Whitestar (85,000tons)

Space Shuttle Orbiter: (78tons, dry)

The largest Llyrian Battleships are about 3/4 the size of a Whitestar. Most are 1/2 to 1/4. Llyrian frigates, fully fueled, are about 10-12 times as massive as the Space Shuttle.

The Shalmaneseer or Terrans could go toe-to-toe with the Shadows or Vorlons (but not both at the same time) and expect to win due to the vastly longer effective weapons ranges this setting has (theirs is about 8-10 light-seconds, max).

A Llyrian frigate could disable a Shadow or Vorlon planet killer threatening Earth with one FTL missile "right in the down under" while about 1/3 of the way to Venus when the two planets are at closest approach. A Llyrian battleship could destroy one while more than half of the way there and about a minute later someone on Earth would notice that the sky got slightly brighter for a few seconds due to reactor waste heat catching up with the resonance cannons.

Ranges are measured in light-seconds for a reason and the Moon is only 1.28 light-seconds away.

The obsolete FTL surface-to-space missile which merely disabled the TSS Calypso was fired from further away than the Earth is from the Sun.

 

[bintananth]

I'm not sure what the best direction for the next part is so I thought I'd open it up to the audience. Here goes:

Viole has been talked out of attacking Earth but there's still the issue of the heavily armed LRS Hailee within weapons range of Earth's planetary defenses. That will get ugly if anyone opens fire on her. Some options:

[] The Constel returns to Earth with Lindewe after she's refueled. This will take a couple hours.
[] The Arethusa returns to Earth with Lindewe and her stealth shuttle.
[] The Hailee heads to Fomalhaut. It'll take a few minutes to reach minimum safe jump distance and she, like the Constel, will be followed.
[] Kirika boards one of the ships recalled to Earth due to the Hailee's presence for a face-to-face meeting.
[] Kirika sends a shuttle to pick up a human captain for a face-to-face meeting because no human shuttle is small enough to fit in the Hailee's hanger.*

Face-to-face is needed because of light-speed lag** but there are so many ways things can go wrong if someone sets off a Llyrian shuttle's automated security system.

There's also the issue of gravity: Llyrians aren't that adept at moving around in microgravity while humans who've spent a long time in it aren't very mobile right after they return to Earth. The 0.8g the Hailee has would be almost as problematic for them. Especially if they're in an environment suit because they don't trust the breathability of the air.

* Resupply is done using shuttles about the size of a box truck and those barely fit.

** At close range Llyrian FTL video calls overload human FTL comm receivers and routing one through a relay on Mars then back to Earth or the Moon takes all the FTL bandwidth Mars has.

 

[bintananth]

A/N: Explaining Llyrian apparent age and ranks

Humans and Llyrians look quite similar but Llyrians have vastly longer lifespans. At some point the rate at which they physically age must slow down.

I wasn't going to take the DnD approach which slows both physical and mental ageing which results in century-old elves being about as mentally mature as a teenager. I wasn't going take the Honorverse approach which results in young adults who still look like elementary school age children.

Both species mature at the same pace until puberty. That's when Llyrian physical aging slows to a near complete standstill.

Lindiwe was centuries old when she visited Earth 40yrs ago and this story is set several centuries in the future. She's been promoted once during the intervening years. See her walking down the street and you'd think she's in her mid 40s.

Kirika is the same age as Captain Johnson but looks like she's about thirteen. Viole is 17 and also looks like she's about thirteen.

Llyrian officer ranks are roughly equal to the ones we use but the amount of responsibility associated with that rank is much higher.

Senior Lieutenant Kirika - in StarTrek - would be between Archer/Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway and T'Pol/Spock/Riker/Kira/Chakotay in terms of role.

The Commanders who get frigates and destroyers are often the highest ranking Llyrian officer in a Galaxy because the Virgo Supercluster contains more Galaxies than Llyrian warships.

Junior Captain Lindiwe is the second highest ranking Llyrian officer within several million light-years.