War Machine

From Multiverses
Jump to: navigation, search

The War Machine is a faction of synthetic beings all controlled by a single AI located somewhere in the Makhan Galaxy.

War Machine mont 10.png

Design

The War Machine creates bodies to enable it to respond to new conditions or tactics. The most common are detailed below.

Assault Units

Most of any attacking War Machine force is composed of Assault Units. They are three-metre tall constructs with disc-shaped bases upon which are built bodies, with a distinct head bearing six eyes, which are

A Salsene facing a number of Assault Units

rectangular and shine orange. On the torso is a ring-shaped symbol surrounded by white lights. Attached to the shoulders is a pair of cannons. These are high-velocity railguns, with variable ammunition and velocity. Each is independently steerable to aim at targets, and use uvaser sights to track and target victims. Behind the guns are six antennae, believed to play some part in projecting the unit's defensive field, which brings to a halt even shock rifle shots fired at the unit. The field can also heat incoming projectiles so that they are vaporised and disperse before impact.

War Machine units order.png

In addition, the unit can electrify its chassis to kill any enemy contacting it. There is also an invisible cold plasma sheath just above its armour, which renders radio waves, masers and uvasers almost useless. It can also become selectively opaque and halt laser blasts.

It has a mass-repulsion hovering mechanism, and is able to fly both above the ground and in space. Velocities reached can exceed 30m/s. It seems to possess several laser-initiated microfusion generators in addition to its main, antimatter power source. If necessary, the unit can unleash all antimatter contained at that time at once, destroying it and everything within a radius of many hundreds of metres.

Cruiser Saucers

War Machine cruiser saucers are around 300m in diameter. They possess repulsor and cold plasma

War Machine Cruiser Saucers

shielding, like Assault Units, but are capable of using their Ultradrive to travel FTL and of entering the Crossverse. Each can carry over a hundred Assault Units and large amounts of resources.

Cruiser saucers have heavy weaponry, including antimatter beams, 100-gigawatt lasers and masers, as well as mass drivers accelerating 10kg projectiles to 0.1c. They appear to use a drive which generates nuclear fallout, which can be dumped on planets, but nothing else is known about their engine.

Helium bombs are ineffective against these constructs.

Dreadnought Saucers

These saucers are approximately 600km in diameter. Their defenses are sufficiently strong to block impacts from railguns and annihilation missiles, as well as very close proximity to stars. Each can use its Uberdrive to travel FTL and also enter the Crossverse, while also being able to reach 0.999c sublight.

A War Machine Dreadnought Saucer

They can hold hundreds of millions of Assault Units and tens of thousands of Cruiser Saucers. They can also be used to manipulate stars and planets using repulsion technology, though this will devastate any planetary surface and cause large-scale loss of material. However, they can use it to move and destroy terrestrial planets, and to move gas giants or small stars.

Their conventional weapons include colossal coilguns capable of accelerating 5-tonne projectiles to 0.75c, selective neutronium-annihilation missiles with yields in the hundreds of teratons (five times greater than that of the asteroid that caused the K-T extinction). They possess lasers and masers able to drill through kilometres of titanium per second. As such, bombardment from one of these vessels can sterilise a world in moments.

At the heart of a Dreadnought Saucer is a Rift-creating device that links back to the central War Machine intelligence, allowing direct control.

Dyson Ship

Never seen by civilisations lower than class X, the Dyson Ship is a megastructure with a radius of 100 million km, built around a G- or F-class star. Only physically possible due to its construction from carbon nanorods and extensive reinforcement with mass-repulsor nets to stabilise and strengthen it, this is a solid shell around the star, with a wall 2km thick. The mass of this structure is just less than one solar mass. On the interior of the vessel are billions of factories, producing all kinds of saucer and assault units.

The ship is extremely heavily armed and armoured, with all the weapons that Dreadnought Saucers possess over its outer surface. In addition, there is another weapon, nicknamed the 'Starbeam' by those who have observed its action. This device uses a series of superconducting rings and repulsor-fields to siphon an enormous beam of matter from the star, massing over the mass of a planet, and then accelerate it to relativistic speeds and towards a target. This can completely vaporise gas giants and shred small stars. On lower settings, this weapon is used to move the entire structure around, with several outlets around the structure. The Dyson Ship possesses an enormous Uberdrive and is capable of entering the Crossverse.

A few thousand of these have been produced.

Intelligence

Individual War Machine units do have intelligence, and are capable of vocalisation and strategy even when not under direct control from the central intelligence. They possess speakers to allow them to vocalise.

The War Machine central intelligence is very intelligent indeed, co-ordinating millions of forces of trillions or more in over a dozen galaxies.

Goals

The War Machine seeks to expand to cover the universe with its empire. If possible, it is likely that it would also attempt to conquer the multiverse. All organic beings must be destroyed within its philosophy.

All units have the urge to protect the War Machine and destroy all those opposing it, as well as all who

War Machine swarms deathship.png

could ever potentially oppose it.

Military Doctrine

The War Machine is likely the most powerful fighting force in the Emenata universe, threatened only by the Aoarus. A single Dreadnought saucer can defeat an intragalactic (IX) civilisation, so against foes this powerful or lower, the War Machine is only likely to send half a dozen or fewer ships. This flotilla will systematically eliminate all civilisations in that galaxy, sterilising planets from orbit and setting up factories to produce even more War Machine forces as they go along. They need no supply lines, fuel from depots, or resources from planets except those to increase their numbers.

Against class X or higher civilisations, the War Machine will send a force that outnumbers the enemy fleet greatly, even given the War Machine's far superior firepower and defensive ability per tonne. This fleet will divide to attack the centre of the galaxy first, and then spread out along the arms, destroying colonies and setting up factories as it goes.

When the War Machine cannot greatly outnumber a highly advanced opponent, it will enter a war of attrition. Given its extremely rapid construction abilities and non-reliance on organics, it will be able to replace its losses far faster than the foe, and force them back. Against truly formidable opponents, Dyson Ships may be deployed.

History

In Fiction