Planetfurry BBS

[Macrorufus]

This one makes only a passing referance to macros but is really a satire about people in general. War. Well, humanity as a whole can be a little silly and this is just an exaggeration of that, of a disaster set up by ourselves.



Inferior Technology

The manacled man stood up before the court, his expression grim and his eyes bright. He cast an eye upon his people who had condemned him after the war. Their expressions said that they did not want his presence.
“Admiral Holbeck your statement please.”
He clears his throat and says,
“I have come before this court to explain how we were beaten by the race called the Estau. It was not because of our leadership, or our forces or even their forces. We were defeated by our enemy’s inferior technology. I will say that again. We were defeated by the enemy because of their inferior technology.”
He pauses and glances at the puzzled courtroom before embarking on his entire tale.
“When we first encountered the enemy, the Estau they had only recently entered space and our technology was clearly greater than theirs; however in an act of stupidity they attacked our scout that found them. Our government declared a state of war upon the Estau and I personally lead the first wave. Now our first engagement with the enemy was successful as we had both superior numbers and weapons; however the losses we took were also very high and so a meeting was called with all the top leaders including me.”
He pauses to take a breath.
“During the conference we discussed our need for a better success rate and a need for fewer casualties because otherwise the public opinion would turn against us and damage the war effort. It was here that the leading scientist Dr. Nordeck made an announcement. He got up and made a sound in his throat to indicate he wanted to speak.”
Again he paused but this was not for a breath this time he was shaking in anger, clearly he had no love for Dr. Nordeck.
“Dr. Nordeck reminded us that our technology was perfect, all of our weapons, ships, engines, defences were at their best optimization and were unlikely to be improved. He suggested entering new forms of research outside of our existing technologies and promised to develop a new weapon that would be much, much better.”
Admiral Holbeck looks round the room and notices that all eyes are on him.
“As it turns our Dr. Norbeck did not ever promise anything without having already developed a prototype. Within a year of fighting he came up with the Reality Dysfunction Torpedo. From what I understand it opens up a gap in space and sucks in the target when activated making it 100% effective at all times and also ensure 100% casualties for the enemy. We were all pleased greatly and quickly allowed him to implement this. However the RDT, due to its complex methods had to be fired from a larger torpedo launcher than was used by our existing ships and also required a larger torpedo chassis. We all agreed this was a small price to play and so recalled all of our ships and began constructing new ones with the implemented devices. However by this time the Estau had already conquered many of our outlying system for although they were not eager to attack us, when they found our systems defenceless their attacked vigorously. Finally our new fleets were ready and we powered out to meet the enemy, however by now the enemy ships numbered in ratios akin to 40 to 1 and so our advantage was equalised by the superior numbers of the enemy ships even though they were now vastly inferior. So we turned back to Dr. Norbeck and asked him what to do. He said that he had developed a better weapon with his scientists and offered it up to us.”

“I am not entirely sure how it works I leave that to the scientists but this device creates a temporal field around the ship placing it into a broken second, essentially making our ships invisible to sensors and the naked eye. This was an incredible device that should have granted us a much better advantage. So once again grinning at each other and confident in support of Dr. Norbeck we recalled ships and had them equipped with the new Temporal Stasis Field Generators. This was our largest mistake. We prepared a great ambush and all our ships slipped into broken time when the enemy began to show up and this is when it all went wrong. Our shields were up, engines online but when we tried to contact other ships there was no answer. There was utter confusion onboard as we tried to understand why we could not contact each other so we slipped out. Upon seeing us slip out our other ships slipped out and this is where we discovered the mistake we had made: namely trusting Dr. Norbeck. Many ships were out of position, some had collided other could not make any transmissions while others could. We did not realise this then but apparently the nature of the field warps everything it touches and thus ruins them. Almost our entire navy was destroyed. Bolts no longer fit into screws, bullets would fit into gun barrels, torpedoes had uneven engines, guidance chips didn’t fit into their motherboards and radios broke down. The warping effect meant that our repple depple no longer functioned either, as standard bolts would not fit onto a warped nut. Half of our navy was destroyed because guns didn’t function, weapons didn’t fire and shields and engines stopped working.”
He breaths deeply fighting tears for the men he saw die.
“Perhaps we should have realised our folly in trusting Dr. Norbeck but we let him have one last go. As none of our warships could be used and the enemy now numbered in the billions we had no way of combating them except perhaps using our trade ships and freighters to raid enemy planets. Not only this but our fleets began to be decimated as weapons, subsystems and engines malfunctioned. Dr. Norbeck promised us a weapon we could use on the surface to ensure the destruction of our enemy. His prototype was what lost us the war. He called it a macro. A giant creature grown in a lab with semi sentience and gene modified to be naturally blood lusting, foolishly we all agreed this was the way forward, to tilt the war in our favour so we authorised it. It was designed to be a mix between an animal and a human except in huge proportions. To say it was a disaster when they tested the prototypes is an understatement. As the court is aware the continent once called Australia is still uninhabitable. It broke loose and turned on its creators and resulted in the destruction of the entire continent and the majority of our planets production at a time where Earth was all that was left to combat the threat of the Estau in their billions. So we surrendered.”
He stops and glances to the judge.
“The reason I have told you this is not to remove blame from myself, I accept that as part of my actions and foolishness, but if I am forced to share a cell with Dr. Alexander Norbeck I am afraid that I cannot be held responsible for any damage to him.”