Fiction:Great Cyrannus War/Year One/Nobi Involvement

Capture of Velron, Nobi enter war.
Velron was a smaller system on the southern (galactic wise) border of the United Republic of Cyrannus. When a large fleet of unidentified vessels entered its space it had no idea what was about to happen. The planets leaders asked the vessels to identify themselves, but there was no response. Being far from the major areas of the war, they were not prepared to be attacked, and as such they pleaded for surrender so long as they could be left alive, and even went so far as to ask the fleet to send a representative to their capitol so they could talk about peace. It was about then that they got a response.

"We do not want peace, we are fighting with the Confederacy of Allied Systems, and this is our declaration of war. However, since we do understand such concepts as mercy, we will merely occupy this planet, and take your population back to Drenol to be held as prisoners of war. Our troops will be landing across your planet in approximately 10 minutes time. You have until then to assure that your people will not attempt to fight back. If you choose to fight back, we will not hesitate to destroy you utterly. Do not attempt to flee either, that will result in punishment. We will not harm children or those caring for children, but anyone else is an option, there are no "innocents" in war. That is all, be ready for us.". The people of Velron knew then that they would not fight this enemy, that they could not hope to win.

They surrendered without a fight, and the enemy ships landed on the planet. As hundreds of strange, almost human troops filled their cities, the people there wondered what kind of enemy this was. They hadn't actually harmed anyone yet. A few minutes into the invasion and a group of people decided to attack them and see just how strong they really were. This group attacked, and immediately the forces closed around them and within 3 minutes not a single one of the people who had attacked were left alive. The last of them had surrendered, to no avail. This enemy apparently did not accept surrender from hostile forces. It was shortly after that event that the enemy dropped a large lander from what looked to be an ordinary ship.

The lander landed in the capitol of Velron, and discharged a number of much larger and more ferocious looking warriors, all of them carrying strange weapons, but besides that they wore only a thin layer of armor. After these creatures, a single person, obviously the one in charge, came off the ship, accompanied by 3 other people who were obviously strategists of some sort. The person in the middle walked up to the previous leaders of Velron and said: "This planet is ours. We are the Nobi Nations of Drenol, and I am Travis, leader of the Roamer Nation and of this fleet. We will not harm your citizens, but you and your people are going to be sent back to Drenol, to be held for negotiations, should we look to be losing this war. Best to keep all options open and burn no bridges, right? Since you are to kept as backup, we will not harm you, in fact your being sent to one of our best prison planets. Do not worry, besides being forced to farm for us as well as yourselves we will not harm you, and we will allow you to have minor say in what we do with you. Again, any resistance will be crushed absolutely. We will begin removing your population in 2 days, you can bring anything you wish, so long as you can carry it yourselves. We already have housing for you on our ships and on the prison planet. That is all."

The leaders of Velron knew they had lost, and knew that now their only job was to keep their people safe among these strange "Nobi" creatures. They feared what the future would bring, but hoped from the way things had started that it would end well, and without incident. Meanwhile, among the Nobi, Travis and his advisors worked on a reasonable plan to take this planet and prepare the fleet to hit the next before the United Republic of Cyrannus found out about their attack. Velron had fallen, but the Republic was far from beaten...

Plans and Planets
So far the war had gone very well, very well indeed. They hadn't even been attacked yet, at least not successfully. The only hitch had been that single trading ship that had escaped from that last world, Korin. Now, though, the Nobi had to be ready for resistance from the Republic, and they knew that the next system would not be as easy to take. "Sir, our scouts say that there's a decent sized fleet there. Nothing we can't handle, but you asked to be notified of any ships in the system." "Thank you, sergeant, leave the info with me if you don't mind." "Of course, Sir." Travis looked over the info and noted that this would be a great chance to steal some of the Republics ships and tech, and maybe even plan some kind of spy/sabotage mission using any captured ships to get close to the Republic. Yes, this would make for an interesting first battle. "Troops and fleet, we want these ships intact if we can get them that way, but remember to shoot anything headed out-of-system. We don't want another screwup like last system." In the last system, a single trader vessel had been fleeing and everyone had assumed that someone else was going to shoot it, and it hadn't been shot down.

But this was a new battle, a new chance at victory. As the fleet of 15 hundred ships arrived at the "Liap" system, they came across a small fleet of 500 vessels. None of them seemed dangerous, and Travis thought they would go down with little fight. He was wrong. They fought tooth and nail, but eventually all but 23 were destroyed. The 23 that survived were captured and the crews places onto a prison ship. This system was under Nobi control now. Travis watched in satisfaction as the newly captured ships were taken to his scientists to be worked on and repaired, and to steal any useful information from.

Later, Travis got a message telling him about the vast fleets coming in from Drenol, a 150 thousand at first estimate, and he thought Well now, at this rate the Republic will know a little more about us Nobi, I should think, then they want Travis chuckles to himself, and goes back to his strategic maps to plan according to the expected fleet...

Main Fleet Arrives
Arukas and Travis, accompanied by Remlap and a number of Verinobi Guards, were looking out over the planet Velron as the massive fleet sent in by the Nobi Nations of Drenol arrived, far larger then had been expected. It seemed that Drenol had decided to pitch in and that everyone old enough wanted a chance to fight in "the first real war in centuries" for the Nobi Nations. Remlap looked with satisfaction to see that there were many of his people's ships mixed in with the rest of them, knowing his people would have a key role to play in the coming war.

Thousands of ships, a vast fleet well over the expected 150 thousand strong fleet officially sent, was pouring into orbit around Velron. All sorts of ships and battle stations were in this, and even a few dozen astroid ships from the Pirate Clans. Also in the fleet were 2 Battleships had been sent. The Valader was expected to arrive with he next fleet as well. As more and more ships just kept coming in, Travis wondered how he would manage to keep this fleet a secret, then decided he would just watch as it entered and let himself feel powerful for a bit before worrying again.

Travis makes a note that this will be difficult to organize, Arukas makes a stupid comment, Travis and Remlap chuckle. Arukas gets annoyed and goes off in a huff to another part of the observation deck, muttering about self-centered old men and overconfident young ones. Remlap and Travis discuss how they will organize the fleet, and decide hat the best plan is to give each section a planet to capture and hold, and then work from there. They plan to hold 100 planets before any further action is taken, and start to organize which ships will go where and secure what. They also set up a line of systems that leads to the edge of the galaxy, and tell 500 ship fleets to go to each one and stay there to hold a way out in case something goes wrong.

The massive fleet continues to pour into orbit around Velron, creating vast ring of ships around the planet, and then spreading out to form a second, and then thirds ring, each with hundred of thousands of ships. Arukas watched in awe as a massive battle station drifts past the flagship main window, thinking This is gonna be a fun war, a very fun war indeed...

The Fleet continues to pour into the system, well over 400 thousand ships and with no end in sight...

Cult of the Damned
Our massive fleet had arrived, and while there was still a steady steam of ships coming from Drenol, the majority of our first main fleet had already arrived. Every so often, a new Cohort of ships would arrive, and we had a continual stream of Pirates and Roamer Vessels, as well as mercenary groups, entering the Velron system. In the velron system, the main control hub had been placed, and we had already sent out 21 cohorts to secure our back door, our way out if this war turned against us. Each new cohort that arrived was another 28,744 ships that were added to our fleet, which was over an entire Superfleet Cohort (373,659 ships) in size. The Valader had arrived, and was off to a nearby system to attack and take over the planets there, along with its fleet of ships. This was still nothing compared to the full might of both the Nobi Nations and the Republic, but it was a start. Of course, bring this many people together and your bound to have conflicts, every so often arguments would start between ships, but besides that it was usually very controlled. That is, until the Cult of the Damned showed up. The Cult of the Damned is a very racist group, they loath non-Nobi creatures, and that included Verinobi. When the Cult arrived, they demanded to see the head of this organization, and when they found that it was none other then Remlap himself, the leader of the Verinobi, they were furious. They refused to listen to his orders, and so he was forced to ground them on Velron. Once there, they started trouble with the natives, with the Verinobi, and even with other Nobi groups.

In the end, there was a brawl fight between a few hundred of the Cult and a group of 32 Verinobi. By the end of it, only 53 of the Cult were left of that group, but they managed to kill 23 of the Verinobi, despite not being warriors and being rather small for Nobi. 23 Verinobi dead, hundreds of Nobi dead, and a large number of very angry people on both sides of it. They asked for an appeal, and they got a court case. In the court case, the ruling went against them, and they were required to pay a fine of 200 spucks apiece, for wasting the court systems time. After that, they went and got themselves drunk on Gorgo (A Nobian version of beer) and promptly attacked a group of natives being moved off-planet. No one was killed, but 3 of the natives and 12 of the Cult we injured, the worst being a broken leg on one of the Cult members. They again went to court, but this time they were denied. This just made them even more angry, and they blamed Remlap for it. They were close to boiling point, so Remlap gave them an ultimatum: Either control yourselves of be controlled, if you don't stop this nonsense you will be sent to a prison planet back in Drenol. Of course, this just made them angrier, and they then rebelled, attacking the main spaceport where their ships were being held. The attack was unsuccessful, and landed the participants a special ride back to Drenol, in a high-security prison ship to a high-security prison planet where they would be effectively punished by being forced to mine resources.

But that was only the beginning. As time went on, more and more of the Cult arrived in Cyrannus, and even Remlap began to fear that they had plans here for some kind of "Nation of the Damned" or something. The Cult was gathering its power in Cyrannus, and that couldn't mean anything good for any of the natives or invaders...

Remlap's Choice
Remlap was worried. He was often worried, in this modern day and age, about many things, but currently he was worried about the Cult of the Damned, and its opinions and strength in the Cyrannus Galaxy. It hadn't been a solid month into the war before their numbers had gotten to the point where they felt comfortable attacking Verinobi and the Natives, and they had only gotten stronger since then. They had already attacked his people several times, and nothing he did was getting the Nobi to try and stop them. They were hurting his people, and nothing was being done about it. Remlap was definitely worried, but he had a plan. Since the Nobi Nations had never done anything to help his people against the Cult, Remlap knew that the only way to assure his peoples safety was to ask the Republic for a secret alliance with them. He already had the basic outline done: He would give the Republic information on Nobi fleet movements, and the Republic would simply capture his people and hide them away in its interior until the war was over, or until the Verinobi openly admitted to the alliance. Now Remlap had but to ask. He knew his people were behind this, that they supported a break with the Nobi Nations fully and completely. He just needed to seal the deal...
 * Note:This is unknown to CAS, The Nobi Nations, or any other faction but the Republic and Verinobi.

Attack On Utuma
The fleet started up their warp drives, with the mighty Valader in the center, ready with its vast amount of weaponry to destroy any opposition that may be waiting, though all the most recent scout reports said that there was nothing. As the ships reached Warp point, they held themselves back, not activating the warp. After a few minutes, the last of the ships have checked in, and the entire fleet leaps into warp. The fleet numbers at 1 full superfleet cohort (373,659 ships), and had been sent to set up the base operations in the system, which would then allow the Nobi to attack nearby colonies and systems. The fleet drops out of warp, into what was supposed to be a mostly undefended system. It drops right into the waiting arms of a massive Republic fleet, at least as large the the Superfleet Cohort!

The Superfleet Cohort had landed right in a trap, and now it was being demolished! Mass panic and confusion, ships colliding as they tried to doge multiple attacks from all sides. "Get your asses outta here! Now!" some random captain manages to state the obvious. The mighty Valader starts to open fire, and soon, all the surviving ships open fire as well. Then, the Gamma Cannon on the Valader activates, and clears a large opening in the enemy ships. "Get though that and head home, fools! We will hold them back!" The Valader starts to disgorge its fleet against the Republic forces, distracting them and holding the opening open. "Thank you, Valader, but we will stay here and fight with you." "No, you will leave or we will leave you here, got it? You don't have a choice in the matter." The Valader fires its gamma cannon again, having turned slightly to hit another portion of the enemy fleet. The ships that had accompanied it acknowledge defeat knowing that the Valader's captain is right, and head off though the opening, activate their warp drives, and jump out of the system.

The Valader starts up its warp drive, shoots its gamma cannon again, and orders all ships to return to it. Not a single ship listens, they continue to battle against the Republic, even as the Valader's transmissions get more and more frantic, as they can only have the warp drive in idle for so long. They know that their fleet was not built with warp drives, that leaving them here will seal heir fate. "Please, return to the ship. We can't leave you here, not alone!" "You can and you will. We know what we signed up for, we know what this choice will mean." It means that they will have to suicide into the enemy fleet before they allow themselves to be captured. The Valader leaps into warp, unwillingly accepting the sacrifice of the entire fleet that had once been contained within it, forced to leave behind thousands of Nobi and Verinobi to fight the Republics fleet alone.

They return to the Velron system, having suffered an embarrassing defeat in the first real battle between the two empires. And back at Velron, the biggest question is ''How? How did the Republic know we were attacking?''

Plans
The plan was simple: attack with overwhelming force, destroy anything that opposed us, and capture everything that didn't. With, of course, our basic rule: No children or those who care for children are to be harmed. Of course, the plan had other parts to it.

We will arrive from the galactic north, because they aren't expecting that. When we arrive, I expect you to take each of your Cohorts and form a basic defensive forward, nothing special. I want you to then make your way toward the Republic's main fleet there, and attack it from behind, if you can. If you can't attack from an unexpected direction, maybe from below, above, or just from the front. Remember, this is a 3d environment, not a 2d one. When you have coordinated your attack with the other fleets, attack simultaneously and take no quarter from the enemy ships. This is to show them our full power here. The Valader is to be dead center of the fleet, but that is just so it looks nice. Once battle is engaged, the Valader will pull back. After your done mopping up the enemy main fleet, the rest of the cohorts will go and clear out the system, make sure that no one is hiding behind any gas giants or in the shadows of other planets. It is then that the Valader will arrive at the planet.

We want you to take the Valader into the atmosphere and make a show of our force. The Valader will take the planet itself, and once its done, we will gather 3 Superfleet Cohorts and show them off to the natives, just to show them the sheer power of our fleet. Of course, the Valader will be leading the fleet, to show off, again, our power and industrial might. I expect there to be no children or parents/guardians harmed in this. If there are any orphans, well, thats why we have the Orphan Fund for this war, so we can help them find new parents and hopefully make up for the loss of their old ones. We will crush this system utterly, but remember to let some of the natives and a few of the enemy ships to "escape" and take word of our power to the Republic. We will have them shaking in their boots from this single battle, that it the entire purpose of this attack. Any questions? No? Good, lets get moving!

Arrival
Our arrival worked like clockwork. We arrived from the galactic north, and came in without them knowing, or so we thought. We arrived at the planet, and found a vast fleet, far larger then we had expected. Of course, we had made a few last minute additions to our own fleet, so this battle would be an even match. Each side had around 2 million ships, total, from what we could see. So we decided to continue with our plan. The fleet they had there was ready and waiting, but they obviously expected less ships then we came with, and were therefore not ready to fight an equal enemy. Battle was joined, and it became obvious that the two fleets were equal in power. Fighters zipped in between larger ships, chasing each other and avoiding the larger ships. Even as the smaller ships were darting in between each other and blasting other ships out of space, the larger ships were blasting each other out of space. Lasers and anti-matter missiles and even the Valader's Gamma Cannon were being fired en-mass by both sides, it was like a space sized firework show. The battle waged on for almost 2 hours, and our fleet slowly gained the upper hand, but every single one of our ships had to pitch in. The battle was nearing an end, and we were confidant we would win. Then...

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, we were attacked from behind.

Attack!
"Where's that weapons fire coming from? What do you mean they came from behind, where the hell did all those ships come from!?" A large fleet of ships had just come out from behind us. We overheard relieved messages from the planetside fleet to the space-side fleet. "God damnit, they had a backup fleet! Everyone, we need to crush them, fast! Valader, drop your troops planetside, landers, do the same. If we manage to take the planet then they won't be able to beat us down there! All other ships, attack them! Hold nothing back, we need to win, no matter what!" The fleet divides, the landers dropping into the atmosphere, while the space fleet turned to attack the new fleet, as well as destroy the remnants of the older one. This battle entered the planets atmosphere, as our ships were driven towards it. This was quickly looking to become a disaster. The mighty Valader had disgorged its troopers, as had most of the landers, which were now coming back and suiciding into other ships with an explosion of fire and a concussion of energy. With the battle in the atmosphere, explosions were now doing damage to the planet itself. A large starship loses its main engine and starts to fall from the sky, smashing into the side of a mountain and blasting hundreds of tons of material away from the landing site. THEN its ekti tanks explode, blowing a 3 mile wide crater in the planets surface. Even as the dust settles from that crash, another starship explodes over a city, the shockwave blasting the city out of existence. This was going to cause great damage to the planet now, and it seemed that this "Republic" didn't care.

As more and more of our ships started to fall down towards the planet from varying distances, the ones left started to pull out, trying to prevent damage from occurring to the planet and its civilian population to the best of their abilities, but still being driven down toward the planet's surface. It was about then that the planetside defenses opened fire on the Republic ships, and we knew that we would win. That gave us new hope, and our forces redoubled their efforts. With the ground side defenses in our control, we were able to push the Republic back into space, despite their best efforts to destroy us. Granted, many hundreds of our ships we destroyed, and as many were damaged and forced to land, but we won, and thats what mattered to us. We had needed a good, solid victory under our belts, and we had achieved such. But now we had to take care the planet we had captured, and that would be no easy task...

Reconstruction and Reconsideration
We had won the day, but now we needed to help the planet. The planet itself was mostly unharmed, some minor damage to the atmosphere from burning ships, nothing that couldn't be fixed. The cities and other civilian population centers, well, those had been hit hard by the battle, many of them were still burning from crashed ships, or had been engulfed in firestorms, again started by crashed ships. "Get some relief ships down there pronto, and put out those fires before they destroy everything." As our ships went planet side to aid the people that had lived there, we realized that this war would be costly, no matter what side we were on. But for now, we needed to aid the planet, to repair the damage that battle had done, and to get the civilian death count, as well as the militarian death count. It would be a hefty count, for both groups...

A great debate arose: would we stay and put more people at risk, or would we leave this galaxy to its wars. All the Nations had been shocked when they heard the total civilian casualties of the Battle of Harilic alone, and many of them children to boot! That one battle had been the most costly for us so far in that war, even when we had lost we had done so with minimal actual ship losses, and no civilian casualties had been reported yet. And, as so many people just couldn't quite grasp, thousands of children, who our society held above all other things, even the wellbeing of the rest of the species, had been wiped out of existence. The entire of the Nobi Nations was beginning to regret, not just the battle, but the entire war. Never in our history had such an atrocity occurred, and now everyone was having second thoughts, even the Gord and Siaino Clans. Only the Cult of the Damned were celebrating the battle, and even they weren't getting a large kick out of it. As the debates raged on in Council Station, the entire war effort ground to a halt. Oh, ships were still arriving in Cyrannus, but they were on idle, no one quite knew what to do next, and no one wanted to suggest another attack, not yet anyway. Everyone was waiting for word from the Senate of Stars. Would the Nobi stay in Cyrannus, or would we withdraw from the war? That was the question on everyone's mind.

Betrayal
Travis was looking at the numbers, as he did quite often these days, and he saw that the civilian death tolls were predicted to be in the billions or higher if the war kept up as it had been going, and with the new expectations from the disastrous Battle at Harillic. The Nobi were debating a complete withdraw from the Cyrannus Galaxy, and from the Cyrannus War. He was on the side for leaving, and was pushing rather hard to get out of Cyrannus. There was a knock at the door, "Come in." Travis looked up and saw Remlap enter the room, along with 7 Verinobi Guards. "To what do I owe this unexpected arrival? No bad news I hope?" "The worst. The Senate of Stars had declared a full removal of all Cyrannus Troops and fleets." Remlap's guards seemed to be busying themselves with something all around the room. "Well, thats great news, isn't it? By the way, what are they up to?" Remlap looked at Travis with distain. "They are checking for surveillance devices. So, you think that it is right that we withdraw from Cyrannus?" Travis looks at the guards suspiciously, getting a little nervous about them shuffling though his things. It looked like they were purposely making a mess of things. "Are you sure thats necessary? And yes, this whole war is a bad thing, we should never have come here." Remlap looks at him with annoyance. "You just can't see the big picture, Travis. And yes, its completely necessary for us to be here in Cyrannus." Remlap's guards look at him. One of them nods, "The room is secure. You may speak freely, Remlap." Remlap nods satisfactorily. "This war is the only way for my people to ever be free of yours, Travis. "

Travis looks up in surprise, "What do you mean? Free of my people? What have we done to you? How are you slaves of ours?" Remlap looks at him like an adult about to explain something to a child. "It is simple. Your people have held my people back. You are weak, and your people fear us, and because of that we always get the worst jobs, the worst planets, the worst opinions. Travis, your people have been cruel and racist against mine ever since the Verinobi escaped from Palon. Because of that, we must secede from the Nobi Nations. But in order to do that, the Nobi must have their attention divided, they must be caught up in wars that cannot hope to win. If they leave Cyrannus, my people will never have any hope of rebelling against yours. Therefore, we must remain in Cyrannus." Travis is utterly baffled, he had never once thought that the Verinobi felt this way. He then realized something "Wait, but the Senate of Stars has already said we're leaving. How will you complete your plan if we leave?" Remlap sighed. "Well, its just as simple as before. The Verinobi need the nobi to remain in Cyrannus. The Nobi need a reason to remain in Cyrannus. I will give them that reason." Now Travis looks scared. The Guards have placed devices all around the room. Explosive devices, made in the design of the Republic.

"Wha- What are you doing?" Remlap looked Travis in the eye. "I fully regret needing to kill you, but my people are more important to me then my friends. I'm sorry, Travis, but you will need to die in order for the Nobi to stay in Cyrannus. Do not worry, I'll take good care of your little war here, and when the time is right... my people will be free forever from the clutches of the Nobi. This is goodbye." Remlap unsheathes a hidden knife, and stabs Travis in the chest before he has a chance to even cry out. Remlap looks at the guards. They know what to do. He walks out of the room, and leaves the building on his ship. A few moments later, the entire complex erupts into fire and flames, taking with it all evidence that Remlap or his guards were ever there, and leaving the distinct explosive trails of a Republic explosive. ''This war will not end. I have done my dark deed, now the Roamers will need their revenge. I expect this war to continue for many years now, and then... and then my people will be freed at last...''