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Dev Diary 7 - Myth and Dream

Folk tell the stories different in every part of the Valley. Some just tell it in their own way, or as they were taught long ago. Others know secret knowledge, parts of stories they share only with some or new tales outright. I hear beyond the edge of the mountains they tell similar stories but that they grow ever stranger as you travel away from the Heartspring.

And why shouldn’t they? Even the sun may not stare at everyone at once. No one can claim mastery over all, not even a god. It’s only right that places have their own gods to look out for them. Moreover, anyone who knows Dreaming will tell you that nothing is fixed there. It is a river winding back upon itself with a clear surface. It seems eternal but is always in motion.

I will not tell you the Lay of Creation yet. That is a song for certain times of year. Maybe when winter ends. I will tell you of the Coming to the Valley through.

A long time past, before any soul living today can remember, the Kin lived far from here. It was a vast forest around a place where many lakes came together and we made our camps and raised our halls there.

Some of our gods were kept in that time, but we had two we no longer sing of: The Master of Still Waters and the Tree Woman. Those days were hard because the Kin were always at war with the world around them, either on behalf of one god or another or to protect themselves.

So it continued for some time that the people rejected that the world around them lived and felt as they did, and they cut with a cruel knife and were cut in turn….

I wanted to get into a bit of lore this time, but ended up meandering a bit. Next week I’ll post the second half of the myth and bring up a few other aspects of the lore.

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Since you all seem to really like my last mech post, you can have another. This is "Trench Sweeper." My Cailban.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The S&M-Class (Smoke and Mirrors) Missile Carrier is, much to the chagrin of form-over-function purists in Gilden's naval research offices, the best way to use the currently effective doctrine.

While both naval powers in the Rellion system have a resistance to using new technology, the Gildenian victory against Tannitan carriers using railguns was enough to shift some hearts and minds. Additionally, the success of both the Pancake-Class and the RL-Class showed the strenths of Advanced radar systems and exclusive missile armament, respectively. The S&M is a fusion of the two advantages into a ship that has yet to fully prove itself as a long-lasting craft, but the few in service have had an effective track record.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The bridge crew of the Lead & Roses are the most senior group on the ship, at least on average, with a couple having helmed the ship since it was built four years ago.

Bridge crews on Gildenian corvettes are rather sparse, at minimum. A Pilot (picture 2), a Weapons Coordinator (picture 4), a Readout Operator (not yet pictured), and a Radio Operator (not yet pictured). The L&R has some new-ish talent though, with an apprentice pilot (Picture 5) and an apprentice Weapons Tech (picture 3).

As always, these are dine by the fantastic @andyartistics , check him out qhen you have the chance.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The OID-Class (Opportilunity in Destruction) Heavy cruiser was, for a while, the heaviest ship ever put into space. This was despite it being essentially an upscale of other craft. It was more dense, with two of every essential room and a larger crew complement by a wide margin.

While Tanniter has an orbital facility, Gilden's situation is a bit more strained. The uninhabited moons of Ahlk, the gas giant that Gilden orbits, are sufficient for raw materials, but most of the complicated parts need to be constructed on Gilden and ferried to orbit for construction, as solid hydrogen drives are very dangerous to burn in-atmosphere. This makes their production more heavily bottlenecked than their adversary, as well as being more vulnerable to raids.

The OID itself has shared the fate of its light cruiser sibling, too competently designed to be useless in the modern age, but perpetually on the back foot of tech.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The Kōba-class Light Cruiser is one of the few ship patterns that remain from the carrier era of the Pan-Rellion conflict.

Before the advent of better generator layouts and more efficient Solid Hydrogen Drives, combat doctrine dictated that massive ships would carry dozens of small skirmishing fighters into battle to try and reach the enemy carriers. This doctrine was shattered in the first year of the war, when up-gunned Kōba cruisers destroyed three Tannitan Carriers during what was otherwise a weighted battle against Gilden.

To this day, the venerable frame of the Kōba has found itself able to handle almost anything thrown at it, and makes for a versatile layout.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The RL-Class (Repeat Last) is one of the newer crafts being used in the Rellion system. Despite being classed tentatively as a Destroyer, it has the same crew size as a Frigate. This is because of its huge fire control and detection array that takes up the top third of the craft, jammed into an older form factor.

This has garnered a reputation among crew of the Repeat-Last having a bit of a glass jaw. Of all the mission kills of a Repeat-Last, damage to the FCS is the chief reason for getting disabled. This has led to a familar argument, with the more old-school combat organizers wanting to prioritize turreted railguns, and proponents of the modern doctrine pushing back hard. No one can deny its effectiveness when it works, though.

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YOU KNOW WHAT.

I’M DONE WITH BURNOUT AND PERFECTIONISM. I’M GONNA POST MORE SPACESHIPS AND THEY’RE GONNA BE SHITTY AND THEIR LORE IS GONNA BE UNPOLISHED.

My spaceship posts are gonna be back. They’re not gonna be as good, but they’re sure as hell gonna be back. I’m also gonna reopen my asks - send me inspiration! I’m gonna try and just doodle more spaceship designs on whatever.

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EMERGENCY COMMS!!!

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Today's lore tidbit!

The SOT-Class, short for Sword of Truth, is the older frigate in the Gildenian navy. As such, to remain tactically effective, its dorsal turret was replaced with a missile bulge, and an extra radome to help with the extra load that missile guidance requires.

The ship as a whole is a viable workhorse that shows little sign of being retired, even if the pancake-class is generally more effective. Perhaps the only notable aspect of its history is that the class isn't named for the first ship of the production run, but the one immidiately following it. The first ship was named the "Sort of Truth" in an attempt to frustrate and annoy anyone trying to target the ship. The more noble name was chosen in the end.

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Today's lore tidbit!

Tanniter's fleet as of year five is fairly standard, both by virtue of its comprehensive compositions and because they set the standard by virtue of their sheer size.

Something slightly odd about Tanniter is their rapid turnover of designs. Whether because of bribery by the far-right kingdoms still remaining on the continent, or a devotion to an image of an invincible navy, this results in obsolete craft getting switched out as quickly as possible.

Despite this somewhat shaky doctrine, Tanniter has the industrial power to continue this trend.

The fleets are broken up into five, with a few smaller splinter forces. One fleet guards Tanniter from a wide orbit around the planet, one guards the whole Tanniter system (though in reality, it's to keep a watchful eye on Chyro) and three are dispersed in the Midline belt. Of those, Two are clearly preparing to advance to the moins of Ahlk and get a foothold close to Gilden.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The XCP-4 Dreadnought (Experimental Cannon Platform) has been an idea floated by the navy for a long time, but it's been put in development hell since the change of tactics that de-prioritized railguns. Despite what its detracors say, there's merit to the craft and it has proven itself at least once.

The weapons, mounted on a modified battleship chassis, are somewhat of a blend of missiles and railguns. A multi-stage projectile the size of a bus is fired by a conventional, if quite large railgun. Within the projectile is a simple chemical propellant designed to arc it. It uses a stage to shed the hot external metal from the railgun, and the propellant is cool enough that it can't be easily targeted. It uses external guidance, both as a cost-saving measure and to further lower its radar return.

Mock battles have shown its armament to be too slow and finnicky to engage smaller craft, but it has such a long effective range that it can engage battleships quite effectively.

There are currently two constructed, and are still trying to find their niche. The massive expense it takes to maintain one, along with the absurdly expensive ammo, means it doesn't have much of a place in normal fleet use.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The Inexorable-Class Battleship was lucky enough to be built after the realization that missiles were just as useful on a ship as railguns. As such, it splits its armament between the two methods and arrives at a pleasant medium between.

It's a modern ship that takes few risks and is almost boringly effective at its job. It still requires protection by Shell craft but is designed to be able to hold its own against both cruisers and other battleships.

Its leading issue is the absolute resource drain it put on the navy. After staggering losses in the early years of the war against small and cheap fleets of missile-armed Gildenian craft, the political push was for new battleships, and the navy bent to the pressure. The entire fleet of Superheavy Core Craft was mothballed and replaced. This led to the brass-adopted nickname of the Inconsolable, seeing as how it drained many coffers. Few argue with the results, though.

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Today's lore tidbit!

The Lake-class heavy cruiser is not as old as some of Tanniter's other craft, but shows its age more than the others by virtue of its core position within space strategy.

"Shell" ships, designed for skirmishing and engagement at closer range, have historically been modular and easy to retrofit as the tactics of space combat were worked out. "Core" ships, on the other hand, are the anchors around which fleets are built and are often themselves designed around a particular weapon. The Lake-class put its chips on turreted railguns over missiles, which has thus far not panned out tactically.

The pioneering aspect of the craft are it's two-tiered turrets, initially created in an effort to engage as many targets as possible, was quick to show its issues. Catastrophic damage to the main turret would also put the secondary gun out of commission, recoil from guns aimed in other directions could throw off targeting, and the lack of space for missiles made it severely hampered in most fights if it lost its shell craft.

Despite this, many crews realized that the ship was scarily effective against single targets, where staggered fire could close any evasion windows and increase effective range at the cost of spending all their energy on one enemy.

The succesor to the Lake is stuck in development limbo, and has failed to manifest in the few years after the Lake's shortcomings were revealed. This has left Tanniter with a notable gap in their Core Ship tactics, where smaller ships need to shore up the lack of missiles.

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“I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation program to Syria,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Austrian media, without clarifying which migration statuses would be targeted. Some 100,000 Syrians live in Austria, according to the country’s statistics agency.

One day after Syrian rebel factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Kingdom — took Damascus, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are using the success of the rebels to revise their migration policies, with all six closing their doors to asylum seekers. The U.K. has also said it will stop processing asylum applications from Syrians.[...]

On Monday the EU’s executive arm announced the bloc won’t engage with HTS “full stop,” said its spokesperson Anouar El Anouni, raising questions as to how countries will reconcile their new migration limits with the EU’s policy toward HTS.

9 Dec 24

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