Stellaris from the Automata Era

The so-called standing army itself is not a high-tech branch of the military, considering that the current accident rate of fallen ships is comparable to that of Indian-made ones.

The guard groups that are easy to use, numerous and low in maintenance became the first choice for the ancient tribe to maintain its military. Other large ships, such as Titans and Battleships, were all sealed in warehouses.

Engineers inspect and repair them all year round, trying to appease the unhappy machine spirits and praying that fewer accidents will occur when they are really needed.

Naturally, these sealed warships are in a more core galaxy. Although the ancient clan has made preparations for war, it still takes some time to start up and travel.

Therefore, as the first ancient galaxy to encounter the Earth, the local supreme commander himself was also feeling uneasy.

"We have around 4,000 frigates. We can definitely do this. The enemy currently has only twice as many as us," the commander consoled himself. "With our strength, we can definitely break through their lines, then siege the enemies emerging from the warp one by one. Everything will be fine."

Maybe its words worked, and all the tree people deployed around this plan.

In an instant, all the warships rushed out and rushed to the front line of the battlefield at their maximum speed.

The first order these tree people received was to use their auxiliary fire control, which might not be accurate, to conduct long-range shooting, while at the same time closing the distance between the two sides to engage in bayonet fighting.

Putting aside other things, just in terms of military quality, the tree people are much stronger than the slime.

The artificially retarded AI round heads were soon subjected to their own first round of fire.

Note: India is said to have 600 fighter jets, but they've reportedly lost 20 in the past 1600 years. This isn't hearsay from a professional military fan, but it's a far-fetched number. This is based on low-intensity flight, non-combat losses, which is nearly one-sixth of the total! Wouldn't half of them be lost in a war?

Chapter 303: The battle situation is somewhat unfavorable to us.

who I am? where am I? What should I do?

When Cyan jumped out of the subspace with the large ship and subsequent logistics, he immediately fell into three philosophical questions.

He just stayed in the subspace for a while longer, and the battle situation in the material universe became a little confusing to him.

Countless tree-decorated ships and fleets of mechanical lifeforms were engaged in a dogfight. Both sides fired at each other almost at close range, competing in control techniques and ship performance.

From time to time, you can see two ships, whether they are hostile or friendly, collide with each other, creating magnificent fireworks in the universe.

It is undeniable that the ever-changing situation caught him off guard.

Isn't the duel between battleships a turn-based game where everyone lines up and you shoot at me and I shoot at you?

Otherwise, it is a competition of chasing each other for effective range and advantage.

But what is going on between the two parties currently entangled?

We must understand that with the continuous upgrading of science and technology, space warfare is actually basically based on beyond-visual-range warfare, just like modern warfare, with the main principle being that if you have longer arms, you have the final say.

This also means that the warring parties can replace a battle-scarred ship at any time and send it to a safer point further back for repairs.

Therefore, fleets can sometimes fight each other until the end of time, with the tug-of-war lasting for months.

So is there any way to end the fight faster?

Yes, bayonet fighting.

The attacker rushes to the opponent's face at all costs and actively engages in close combat.

When it comes to this point, tactics, strategy and command are no longer enough to solve the problem. Hand-to-hand combat is a test of equipment technology and crew operation and coordination.

At the same time, all ships will have room to retreat, especially the two sides that are currently intertwined. You are in me and I am in you, fighting each other. Any warship that dares to turn backwards will be closely watched and turned into scrap metal.

More importantly, this situation is actually disadvantageous to the Earth.

Because the Earth's fleet not only has small boats but also new large ships such as battleships, and their artillery has great destructive power.

Just firing randomly could hit more than just the enemy.

"What should I do now?" Qingse asked himself.

It would definitely not work to order everyone to keep their distance now, not to mention that executing such an order would cause the fleet to endure more fire pursuit and fire strikes.

Secondly, escorts and destroyers may be able to successfully create distance, but battle groups with larger mass and volume will not have such conditions at all. Their speed is too slow compared to small ships.

After all, destroyers and escorts are also called screen ships, and their original intention is to block any damage that can approach the battle group, including but not limited to missiles, torpedoes and opposing ships.

But the brutal strangulation made almost no difference. The opponent's crazy attack made even Qingse, who was on the flagship, feel a violent psychological shock... Wait, was that a physical shock just now?

"What happened?" Qingse quickly raised his head and asked.

Of course, he was not asking about the other people who were also on the ship, but the core and soul of the entire ship.

The shipgirl humanoids were born under the blessing of the earth's black magic. After all, it makes sense for the humanoids' flagship to use their own battleships, right?

"An enemy ship just maneuvered right next to me, taking advantage of my poor steering," a voice said over the ship's speakers, though her tone was a bit high. "And those round-heads! They dropped a nuclear bomb right next to us in an attempt to sink it!"

Very good, this is also one of the disadvantages of fleet dogfights. If you are not careful, your own people may cause more damage than the opponent.

It was obvious that the violent vibration just now was caused by the missile of the mechanical life. Those artificial idiots have been using their own algorithm to find the optimal solution. Perhaps they determined that dropping a nuclear bomb could quickly destroy the target.

Whether there are friendly forces within the explosion range of the nuclear bomb is no longer within its consideration.

Realizing that this was just an accident, Qingse turned his attention back to the battlefield.

"Evacuate all the logistics units first! With the combat ships holding them back, the enemy won't care about those ineffective units."

At this point in the battle, it has become a test of the resilience and endurance of the soldiers on both sides.

If it were just this, the battle would enter the stage that Earth is most familiar with, and the humanoids and round heads with mechanical attributes would not suffer any loss of morale and energy.

On the contrary, although the Earth has not yet determined what kind of civilization they are, the corpses floating out of the wreckage can be confirmed that they are not taking the route of mechanical ascension.

However, the Earth, which is in a stalemate, is more afraid of the reinforcements from the opposite side.

This was indeed the case. After four hours of fighting between the two sides, the alarm of the humanoid flagship began to repeatedly sound high-energy alarms.

Immediately afterwards, the shadows of warships emerged in the material universe and soon became entities.

It was only at this point that the humanoid realized his mistake in intelligence.

"Jump! This is an advanced civilization!"

Perhaps because the enemy support fleet was too far away from the current galaxy, they chose a more convenient way and were able to reach the center of the battlefield in an instant.

Similarly, compared to the frigates that Earth was currently dealing with, everyone could clearly see that the enemy reinforcements were not just small ships, but a mixed formation including battleships, battlecruisers, and destroyers...

There's even a larger ship in sight.

"That's Titan, order everyone to retreat." The moment the magnificent 'behemoth' appeared in the starry sky, all the information had gathered to Yan Luo who was far away on Earth.

It was not until this time that humans realized that the other party was not what they had expected.

This is not a first-generation civilization, but a degeneration!

"Cygnus is so big, why is it the first one we encounter?" There are not many civilizations that currently possess Titan battleships, or to put it another way.

The currently flourishing cosmic civilization does not yet have the technology to rival the Fallen, so naturally they cannot create the Titan, a 'giant beast' that far surpasses the Battlestars.

Of course, in order to further verify the facts, Yan Luo also contacted Mao Meng and sent a series of pictures to him.

And soon he got the answer.

"It's indeed the Ancient Tribe. Since they're tree people, their warships have a distinctly natural style. Huh? Didn't you ask us for the characteristics and specific information of the Ancient Tribe?"

"..."

Oh no, why did I forget about this at that time?

If I had confirmed and contacted Mao Meng earlier, I wouldn't have just rushed over like that, right? ?

Chapter 304: The ancient dock will be operational again

After all, Yan Luo is not omniscient and omnipotent. He was promoted from humans by relying on spiritual power. Naturally, he would be careless in his thinking, which is itself the limitation of human beings.

Fortunately, these were not major mistakes.

After redefining his enemies, he had to rethink how the Cygnus incident should end.

Fall is a tough nut to crack. Its difficulty is second only to being classified as a high empire. The ranking may change with the passage of time and version.

But for now, no civilization can challenge the majesty of the Fallen, at least that's how Mao Meng explains it.

"No, we can't withdraw our troops. We have to keep fighting."

Although Yan Luo did want to avoid a head-on confrontation with Fallen, and instead return to Earth to concentrate on operations and development, waiting for the day when he would be stronger to fight a decisive battle.

However, based on the legacy of the previous era, Earth's enemies may include more than just this one fallen civilization.

To put it in a more accurate light, anyone who has fallen has suffered at the hands of 'themselves'.

Thinking about it from this perspective, perhaps what Yan Luo needs to face is not just the lingering hatred of the ancient patriarch, but rather the counterattack of all the fallen people.

Of course, judging from the last unexpected audience with a certain knowledgeable official, they may not have such courage, but courage is given by people.

You see, this Earth is so weak that it can’t even beat the younger generation (the ancient tribe). It seems like we can give it a beating too.

Almost instantly, the above scene appeared in Yan Luo's mind.

Moreover, with the Fallen who has a private communication platform, Yan Luo might not even be able to block the news of Earth's defeat.

Even with his defeat in the first encounter, perhaps other fallen eyes have already turned to Cygnus.

Then there are actually not many choices left for Yan Luo.

Either you give in now and call it a day so that everyone can be happy, or you take advantage of the fact that the ancients have not yet completely reorganized their technology and turn them into curators to shock everyone.

Yan Luo’s choice was naturally the latter.

It’s not that Yan Luo is stubborn and insists on fighting the opponent to the death, using his precious development time to abruptly interrupt others’ revival.

But on the battlefield of Cygnus, after Yan Luo ordered the retreat, the Earth fleet's evacuation was not greatly hindered, so the losses were relatively small.

On the one hand, the ancients used jumps to quickly deploy on the front line. This force beyond space itself would cause a certain degree of damage to the hull, especially the shield generator, which could be more obviously felt to be unstable.

On the other hand, the ancient standing army that had previously pulled back the Earth fleet was already at the end of its strength after four hours of fierce fighting. Bayonet fighting itself was a radical tactic, which was an exchange of damage by banning the repair options of both sides.

To put it another way of saying it on the battlefield, this is a world where no one gets hurt, after all, there is only death.

Therefore, the battle time was destined to be short, and after fully exchanging opinions, both sides actually felt a little exhausted. Perhaps their people could still continue to fight, but the ships could no longer.

Of course, when the communication on Earth ended and they wanted to leave, the enemy's subsequent reinforcements tried to stop them, but the magic main guns mounted on the Starlight Battleship still proved their power, and one shot penetrated the shield and armor of a large ship.

Then the scene became strangely harmonious. Apart from symbolic additions, the ancient tribe did not take any further action, as if they had tacitly agreed to everything that happened.

This made Yan Luo feel that there was something very, very wrong with them, but...what exactly was wrong?

However, no matter what, the essence of decadence and weakness has been exposed.

At this time, Yan Luo must use a more decisive way to end everything. Hesitation will only lead to failure.

...

"Over 2000 warships have been lost in the battle with Earth, and the remaining ones will need a major overhaul to eliminate possible faults. I'm afraid an entire galaxy's standing army will be wasted for a long time."

On the other side of Cygnus, the ancient tribe was also discussing the results of the battle.

"And it's not just the standing army. The fleet that was urgently activated is also in a somewhat unstable state. Add to that the impact of the jump. Honestly, if Earth hadn't continued its attack, they might have discovered that some of our ships had run aground."

"So, are we scaring the other side away?"

The ruler of the ancient tribe sighed.

Perhaps "scare" is not a very accurate word. In fact, due to the decisive actions of regional commanders, the standing army has indeed caused enough damage to the earth.

In fact, the frigate group has almost cleared out the Earth's screen ships. Judging from the wreckage left at the scene alone, at least 5000 warships are left.

In terms of the scale of the battle, the Earth has shrunk by half. Unfortunately, the ancient tribe no longer has enough spare energy to wipe out the remaining enemies.

All I can say is that this is actually a lose-lose situation.

"However, our shipyards are not fully operational yet, and we have abundant reserves of various war resources. With enough time, we can quickly build an invincible fleet, or even more than one."

"So it's not too bad. This is good news. The Earth Empire probably hasn't returned to its heyday. We can still continue."

Judging from the current intensity of the attack, the Earth should have no extra offensive power.

Their fleet that emerged from the warp remained abnormally small in size, and even more abnormally, the mechanical fleet that never retreated actually withdrew from the battlefield.

For the ancient tribe, this was almost a scene they had never encountered before.

"So what's next?"

"Build space artillery batteries and fortifications, and call on everyone to produce warships. Everyone should be aware that we are not actually qualified to leave the galaxy."