Stellaris from the Automata Era

P.S.: The Treeman fleet's offensive doesn't seem to last long. In just seven Earth days, their fleet will cease all offensive activity and switch to defense. —By, Tactical Research Humanoid.

Chapter 316: These are two breads with cheese

The ruler of the tree people no longer wanted to speak.

It is now standing in front of a huge star map, staring blankly at various alarms.

And those think tanks and powerful people who gave it advice did not dare to say a word.

How did the situation become like this?

It was hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago, everyone who had just received intelligence from Earth was excitedly discussing clearing the Earth fleet from their area.

Even if they face the pressure of equipment loss and logistical maintenance, they should try to launch an active attack to show that their civilization is still unyielding to the powerful enemy and to restore the confidence of civilization.

But the sudden reality quickly poured cold water on everyone. Just as their fleet left the anchorage and headed for deep space, the Earth's mechanical fleet suddenly appeared in their galaxy.

The scale of five fleets would not be considered a huge lineup in their heyday, but for the ancient clan that is now facing internal and external troubles, it is a deadly dagger.

Faced with the numerical advantage of the Earth, the Tree People could only urgently jump all combat forces to fight back to ensure that the situation was at least under control.

In fact, until this period, the top leaders were still full of confidence. Based on the wreckage of warships left behind when the Earth retreated before, research showed that they had not recovered to their peak period.

A large amount of technology has been lost, and it has even seriously affected the level of their warships. Those round heads are completely inferior to the previous level (the last era).

Although they still maintain the characteristic of each fleet being overstaffed, and their own fleet being understaffed, they have a technological advantage. They may not be able to annihilate them, but they can still delay them.

As long as we wait until the main force that set out for deep space returns to support us before launching the attack, everything will be fine.

Then..

Then everything went wrong, and another Earth fleet appeared from nowhere and destroyed their own galaxy defense circle.

Then it moved towards the outer galaxy. It seemed that it was heading to deep space to find its main fleet for a decisive battle.

It was not until this time that the ruler of the tree people realized that the empire he was struggling to maintain and wanted to revive was indeed a leaky house.

The earth is like termites that are gnawing at the house. No matter how hard you try to repair the damage, you will always see them biting through the sealing wooden boards the next day.

If this defensive battle can achieve a decent victory, perhaps it is time to consider writing off the past hatred - no, not the physical kind, the tree people do not have enough strength to launch an expedition, while the opponents have plenty of time to rebuild their fleet. Even if they fail this time, they may soon return to everyone's sight.

They can lose countless times, but they only need to win once to kick their own broken house down.

"Alas." The treeman ruler sighed and drove away the thoughts in his mind that were irrelevant to the current situation.

If you think about it carefully, it is not the time to think so far ahead. The current Earth fleet is on its way to find its main force, and the mechanical fleet on the other side also has the idea and motivation to leave the current battlefield, and probably has no intention of continuing to fight.

In this case, it would be better to just let the mechanical fleet go, so as to free up those under-strength fleets that are entangled.

The most important thing at the moment is to re-consolidate our defense line and not let the earth wreak havoc in undefended areas. At present, losing one or two space defense stations is not a big deal. The most feared thing is that the rest are all lost.

Especially the capital star, which is the most important ship production base of the ancient clan. It can be said that their current production capacity is entirely supported by the space dock here. Once it is lost, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Whenever the treeman ruler thought about the bad situation he would face, his scalp would tingle.

"So do you think it's too late for us to negotiate now?"

"How could you possibly have such an idea!?" All the tree people were shocked, their expressions asking, "Your Majesty, why did you surrender first?" If they hadn't considered the person before them was of higher status than them, they would have rushed forward to reason with them. "They (Earth) won't accept peace talks, will they?"

That’s because you haven’t discussed it at all! And you’re not prepared to discuss it! The ruler roared in his heart.

The tree people are a race living in the past. It is undeniable that the inheritance of their genes and memories enables them to obtain the wisdom of their ancestors, and from birth they have greater development potential than other civilized races.

But it also binds them to their past glory.

Because they cannot learn what letting go means. They know that their ancestors once had a glorious period, and they also know that they once stood at the top of the starry sea, with all races bowing their heads and submitting at their feet.

The descendants of other races may not attribute the achievements of their ancestors to themselves because they have not experienced it, but the special abilities of the tree people allow them to understand their own golden age. The time when they looked down upon the universe seems as if they had experienced it themselves.

That is why tree people hate the earth even more, because it is like their spines being broken, waking up from their past dreams, and suddenly realizing that all that remains of their former glory are broken walls and ancient relics.

That is why I was so impressed by the person who woke me up.

In fact, from the very beginning, the tree man did not want to wake up from his dream more than any other fallen.

In fact, the ruler of the tree people himself is also aware of his own problems, but he has been finding excuses for himself.

Understanding this, it raised its head and looked at the ministers who were about to remonstrate with them: "What's the situation with the main fleet? Tell them that there's no need to continue to tangle with them. The most important thing now is to return and consolidate the defense of our galaxy."

"The main fleet has located the enemy in deep space. The commander there just reported that it won't take long to annihilate the enemy fleet."

"Not long? How long will it take? I hate to get nitpicky right now, but you have to understand that they'll soon connect with another enemy fleet.

Not to mention that our failure rate has probably already reduced their combat effectiveness. Just to annihilate a fleet that is no longer necessary, and being ambushed by another intact enemy fleet has already caused us to suffer huge losses.

Now I can't let the only fully staffed one just sit there like that! I need them to come back, replenish their equipment and status, and face the next challenge in their prime. Do you understand me? "

After the ruler finished stating his demands in one breath, all the tree people looked at each other in confusion.

They knew that the dire situation had stretched the ruler's patience to its limit, and its words did make sense to all the tree people.

Soon, a tree person replied: "We will notify the fleet to return immediately."

"Remember to use normal means of travel first. If there's really no way to jump again, I don't want them to come back with so many ships unable to move due to the turbulent energy from the jump."

...

"Senior, we've won again!" 160d jumped up to 11b, trying to think of the praise words in the system. "As expected, as long as you're here, we'll kill like crazy."

What a wonderful metaphor.

But the current situation seems to be the case.

After finishing the call with the commander, she directly ordered the fleet to charge forward. Although the process may be incomprehensible to many people, the result was indeed a victory.

The tree people may have panicked when facing the oncoming fleet. After a round of fire, they determined that they could not quickly wipe out the humanoids, so they quickly used the jump to leave the entire battlefield.

Of course, this is not without cost. The charging time for the jump is enough to make them pay a considerable "toll".

But this at least saves most of the main force. Now they can return to the safer rear to reorganize their equipment or deal with the enemies in their own galaxy.

"So it's a win, but not a complete win." Even 11b understood that killing as many enemy troops as possible was the only way to effectively prevent the enemy from making a comeback.

After all, the space age is a true competition of equipment, unlike the army where all you need is manpower and accessories provided by gun manufacturers.

Superb craftsmanship also means higher time and manufacturing costs. Even if a ship is damaged and only the steering wheel is usable, as long as the skeleton is still there, it is bound to be less time-consuming to repair it than to rebuild it.

"Forget it, they are just some chickens and dogs anyway, this is the extent of their decline." That's what 11b thought, and everyone on the ship also agreed with it.

Since setting out, the 11b fleet has been playing in a favorable situation. From the perspective of confidence alone, they have completely won the game.

Today's 11b has long lost the initial idea of ​​"I can't do it, let's change people", and has become a mentality of "this is it, it's not enough to just have hands".

"160d, send a communication to the commander. We need to take over their army. According to the master's instructions, we need to occupy the planet next."

As for whether the original starting point would be filled with treeman fleets by the time they received the army and returned, this was not something 11b should consider.

After all, before setting off, Yan Luo had already said that he would let N2 take over the defeated galaxy to stop the enemies who tried to regain control of the galaxy.

Although the round-headed fleet was not seen arriving until the last second before 11b left the galaxy, it seems that judging from the current performance of the tree people, N2 should have been chasing them all over the map and had forgotten the time.

It is a big problem.

Then, just as she was thinking this, she received a communication from N2.

As soon as 11b turned on the projection, he saw the angry face of the girl in red.

"11b, didn't you say you'd completely overwhelmed the system's defenses? Why did I see a fleet the moment I got here? And you're not even in this system! Where are you?"

"Alas, my Lord said I should go and support the Commander's Army Unit! So I'm leaving now. Will you wait for my Lord to notify you?"

"Of course not! Wait, what's going on? Evolving? I was busy... well..." N2's expression shifted to anger, then quickly regained her composure like a Sichuan opera. She said helplessly, "Okay, I did. At the time, all my computing power was focused on fighting the tree people, so I didn't pay attention to this information. But how do you explain the fleet thing?"

"I'm not sure about that. I made sure the area was safe before I left. Could they have added it after I left?"

N2 still agrees with this statement.

After all, when reviewing the information uploaded by Yuan Naotou afterwards, there should be a full record of the process. If it doesn't match what 11b said, she can come back to ask for accountability.

The problem now is that no one knows what to do.

N2 took a lot of effort to withdraw from the previous battlefield. Although the situation has not yet reached the point of serious injury, several high-intensity fights can still be carried out next.

But their original strategic deployment has been completely disrupted.

The original plan was that after 11b left, N2 would take over the defense behind and play a supporting role before 11b obtained the army to complete the occupation of the planet.

However, due to the gap in the middle, the enemy fleet has already reinforced. If the Earth's army has already started landing operations, N2 will defend to the death no matter what. However, since 11b has not arrived, facing the situation of attacking and defending aliens, N2 also has to consider whether it is worth it.

"But speaking of which, why does the fleet across from me look so wounded? Like..." as if it had just experienced a great battle. N2 swallowed the rest of his words.

She has fully witnessed the combat effectiveness of the Fallen. Even if it is a fleet that has just finished a battle, N2 will not underestimate its strength.

In particular, it was obvious from the detector that this was a well-organized fleet. Compared to the mismatched ones she had fought before, this was obviously a main force.

After careful consideration, she changed the following sentence: "It seems to be very difficult to chew."

"Why do I feel like your words don't make sense? Is your language plugin broken?" 11b complained, but didn't think much of it. "Then let's change our target. I happened to penetrate a star system on my way to find the army, so we might as well set our sights there."

"It's not impossible."

N2 glanced at the coordinates sent by 11b, which was in the galaxy between their two fleets. According to the time, as long as they set out at the same time, they would be sandwiched between the two fleets.

Whether viewed objectively or subjectively, this is beneficial to their side, especially as they can join forces with humanoids to make up for the shortcomings in the lack of large ships.

In general, the combat effectiveness has been greatly improved and can cope with any emergency.

Having just experienced the hardship of not having a large ship, n2 eagerly expressed that it would be better for everyone to meet up.

"That's settled then. Let's hurry up and get going."

Chapter 317: We land on this planet

11b and N2's temporary decision to change the landing target was not objected by Yan Luo. In fact, as long as they could win, he would basically not say anything. Moreover, from the overall perspective, the need to land on the planet of the tree people was also a temporary decision made by him.

This is the course of war, always full of unknown possibilities. No one knows what twists and turns will occur until the situation becomes clear.

What a good tactician needs to learn is to be flexible and adaptable, otherwise the deployment and planning can easily be mastered by experienced opponents. To summarize someone's words, as long as you don't know how to attack, the opponent will have no idea how to defend.

Fortunately, the landing point pre-selected by the humanoids and mechanical lifeforms did not have a fleet to replenish and defend.

I'm afraid that considering that the Earth's fleets are so close to where they are, the Tree People have already made plans to give up tactics.

By the time 11b and the others arrived above the planet, countless ships had already fled from the planet's dedicated docking port. Judging from their lack of weapons, these should be civilian ships.

"There's no need to pursue these ships." The commander sent a communication to 11B and N2. It was obvious that she still could not return home in glory. After 11B defeated all the enemies, she was directly recruited on the spot.

In a sense, 11b has completed a legendary comeback.

Of course, because she controls the army, she still has a say in the "Three Ship Alliance" as a commander, but she has been demoted from a noble naval general to a fourth-class army commander.

"Those should all be civilian ships. Chasing them will distract us too much." In principle, there is no so-called unspoken rule of not attacking civilians in wars between civilizations.

After all, this behavior itself is to challenge the other party's bottom line with one's own morality. However, what Yan Luo needs is conquest. He needs the other party's manpower to produce resources for himself, so as to offset the extra time cost caused by the long supply line.

Therefore, the population size of the other party is a very important key.

Moreover, even if we want to chase those fleeing civilian ships, I am afraid the current fleet will need to disperse. Whether it is to intercept them or capture them, it will consume time or ammunition.

Instead of doing such useless things, it is better to focus directly on occupying the planet.

Anyway, in such a short time, the tree people certainly cannot evacuate all the population from the planet. Those who run away early are mostly powerful and wealthy types, and they themselves are worthless.

Naturally, the other two... or n2 should also understand such a simple truth and quickly voted in favor.

The remaining 11b had no intention of confiscating their property, exterminating their clans, or killing them all.

"Then the next priority is actually occupying the planet." N2 glanced in the direction of the planet and then asked the other two people on the line, "Did you do any reconnaissance beforehand?"

"I don't know the situation. I just arrived in this galaxy like you. Maybe you can ask the person who broke through the defense of this galaxy." The commander glanced at N2 and decisively threw all the questions out.

Seeing two eyes fixed on him, 11b quickly shook his head. "You know me, after disarming their defenses, we'll head straight for the commander. How could we possibly have time to investigate?"

"Then we have a poor understanding of the overall planetary defense strength."

"So, let's do a pre-landing survey and get some data on the planet?"

"That's too slow. Our enemies should be assembling their fleets right now, ready to disrupt our operations at any moment. They can't just sit there and watch us successfully land and occupy the city." N2 decisively refused, then turned and gave the order. "Launch missiles at the city. Let's see their defenses."

After she finished speaking, 11b and the commander saw a round-headed battleship quickly leave its formation and dive towards the planet, and then a missile was fired from its muzzle.