Part 51: Episode V: 2350 - 2362

Episode V: 2550-2562





By acquiring Xengara the Psilons went up 9-8 in the planets race. Also worth noting is that we have half of their fleet strength at the moment. After some consideration, I decided to have Cryslon stop building Piranhas and go back into Colonizer production. Drakka and Stalaz will continue shipbuilding, keeping research at a bare-bones level, but we've got to keep pushing towards the left as much as we can and picking up territory.

After considering the situation, I thought our fleet strength overall might be strong enough to let us get somewhere with an attack threat on the Psilons. I did not expect the response we got.




Um, ok ... I'll take it. Thanks OAquinas for your helpful advice!

Of course this isn't going to help relations, and was followed by 'we go now'.

The Psilon ships left orbit in Dunatis, but nowhere else. We still couldn't do enough damage to their transports, and they took the colony. Well, crap. Now the question is do we risk war here and try to take it back? I don't think we can afford to let them keep it, but we frankly don't have much of a choice in the matter without a mass transport from all available colonies, which would put our population situation back in crisis. They out-weigh us even if we go that route. It's a real catch-22, but the choice is made to accept the loss of Dunatis. That means we need to start building missile bases on the surrounding systems. Our nearly 100 Piranhas will hopefully suffice for now, blockading Crypto and Crius until they get defences up. They already have ships at the latter and it's less capable of defending itself, so all possible troop transports and ships are sent there first.

Meanwhile, the Psilon payment is used to speed up growth at some of our newer colonies.




2353. Here's a bit of better news for sure. We also spot 35 more transports heading for Crius, and are racing to get enough ships there in time ...

Three years later, we take 25 of 35 Psilon transports, but it's not enough and they take Crius. We have no choice now but to fight back. Bombardment keeps the planet at it's current population but is unable to reduce it much. We are going to lose a ridiculous amount of population recapturing in a best-case scenario. There's already some transports coming in as it is, and if we just them take our worlds like this they are going to crush us in the long-term. If we're going down anyway, might as well go down fighting now while it can still matter.




The lower-left corner here is much too far away with the dark-space gap to be reached yet, but the work of our Recons continues.







This is unexpected. Darloks with the strongest space fleet? Meanwhile the Psilons make our conflict official. 2359 is the date.




It may indeed be so. The next year though, we retake Crius. So that's something. The next question; do we try to take Dunatis as well? At the moment it seems best to try to hold the line where it is. They have 10 systems, we have eight but a lot more room to expand. If we stop attacking them, relations could slowly improve possibly leading eventually to peace. That also won't divide our forces risking losing Crius again. On the other hand it's a tempting target right here and they currently have no ships in the area. I could go either way on this, but ultimately decide to leave it to them.




This isn't much, but it was deemed worth it to get the range to reach the somewhat larger one to the right. We also note 19 Psilon transports incoming to Dunatis. We wouldn't have been able to stop them in time, and that would have made retaking that system a lot more problematic and a resource drain. Still not completely comfortable with the choice, but perhaps it's just the reality of things now .




Another unclaimed world out that way, small but lucrative. How many will we get before the others?




This one's better. And then ...




Eggheads and kitty-kats. With our population being constantly drained for the war, I knew we'd be nowhere near the front of this.

My main concern was who has what. It's a Psilon runaway, as they have 7 votes. Mrrshan are next with four, then Darloks with three. Humans and Klackons have two each. The homo sapiens sided with Zygot but they were the only ones to do so. Our three votes puts us right in the middle. Given that we have only Cryslon in the nearly-full category, I definitely see us getting into the mix as the Psilons' rival in this vote sometime in the future. Right now I don't mind being out of the mix.

We abstain, waiting to see which way the winds shift. The population is recovering from what we lost to the Psilons, and we're almost ready to switch from missile bases to more substantive research on Crypto, with Drakka following shortly and Stalaz nearly ready to start funding the reserve. The tribute payment we got is nearly gone, but I think it did bridge the gap and help us accelerate growth in a few places. Multiple colony ships are still out there as we are grabbing up everything in range at the moment.

Still, it's doubtless we will pay, and already are paying, a significant price for this delay in getting research going. Not that I think there was any real alternative(?). The Psilons are still mad enough not to speak to us, but I'm hoping they eventually come around. I'm sure they will take some 'convincing'. Hopefully that happens before half the galaxy allies with them.

Ultimately, it's the left-ward expansion that seems most likely to determine our fate. If we can snag the rich planets out that way, which are still out of range, we've got a chance to be sizable enough to dig out of this. If not, well ... the galaxy giveth, and the Psilons taketh away.