Lore and Legends of the Dezzyverse

Small Ship Campaigns at the End of the Rebellion War

By 1121 3i, the Rebellion War had been in stalemate for two or three years. Fleet Actions and counter-actions have burned through entire front-line fleets and the reserves. For Lucan’s Imperium most of the remaining deca-kiloton and hecto-kiloton warships have been folded into his “Vengeance Fleet” with the singular goal of driving like a spear into Ilelish and dragging Dulinor’s head back to Capital as a trophy. The Solomani Front developed into a defensive struggle, with Imperial fleets holding the line and bleeding the Confederation dry.

When the Black War began, first targeting the Hi Population worlds, then attacking the trade infrastructure, the targets were the resources needed to maintain these powerful Battleship fleets. Hoping to shock their adversary into a sudden collapse, the Black War only served to push the 11,000 worlds of the Imperium over the brink. By attacking the mechanisms that held interstellar civilization together, what started as a decline became a free-fall.

By the end of 1124 3i, the Hard Times had begun

Shifting to Commerce Raiding and Preserving the Big Ships

With resources to keep the big cruisers and dreadnoughts battle ready dwindling fast, the major powers started turning to cannibalizing damaged ships to repair and refit the more capable ones. From 1121 through 1124 3i, the rapid decline in Tech Level hadn’t set in yet, but it was visible on the horizon. All the major navies could see a time when their TL 14 and 15 components wouldn’t be serviceable until after the War. Worse, none of the factions could see the end of that War. Especially Lucan.

Lucan had become mad by then. Completely obsessed with “revenge” on Dulinor. In his all-to regular rages, he started authorizing “superweapons” and giving orders to non-existant fleets. Always and loudly proclaiming thatthis push was the one that would break Dulinor. It was only because his Imperium was the largest and richest faction by far that his reckless waste of resources didn’t cause a complete military and economic collapse.

Cooler heads worked to preserve what battle fleets remained. Many of the still active fleets not engaged in deterrence, replaced their valuable capital ships of the line with much smaller, destroyer-sized squadrons. 5000 ton “pocket battlecruisers” and 1000 ton “strike cruisers” could be designed, built and deployed at a fraction of the cost in material and technology. Clever naming conventions held an illusion of the massive capital ships for the Admiralties still living at the high point of the war.

Megacorporations suffered similar cutbacks. The old megafreighters massing in the hundreds of Ktons had been burned to a small fraction of their fleet. Like the battle fleets of the Navies, what few megafreighters had survived the Black War were travelling secure routes in the Core of the factions. No one risked the big freighters out in the no-man’s space of the Wilds.

The result here was a return to small merchant freighters of 5000 tons or less, and for trade routes that crossed into the Wilds, the megacorps more than often simply contracted with independent tramp freighters to keep their cargo moving. This had a cooling effect on the war in general. At this smaller scale, even raiding commerce lines didn’t return the sort of results as jumping convoys of 50,000 or 200,000 ton freighters. That strategy too was downsized, then outsourced to Privateers.

Pirate Kings and Merchant Princes

Piracy has never been a “big ship” affair. Ships over 2,500 dtons tend to be too expensive to run are way too noticeable. There are millions of 400 ton Corsairs and 800 ton Mercenary Cruisers prowling the trade routes in charted space. But if a 10k ton pirated Light Cruiser started attacking shipping? That monster would be the top priority of every pirate hunting institution in the Sector.

With the reduction in fleet strength, both among Navys and Corporate Fleets, the effectiveness of a pirate flotilla has increased greatly. Existing syndicates of pirate fleets claimed “toll fees” for safe passage through “their” space. With the threat of a strong Imperial, or Sector response that could easily outgun their corsair flotillas dwindling, Pirates became the wardens of the space-lanes. These resembled pocket-empires in some regions and crime families in others.

A related condition affects the merchants and traders that continue to operate out in the Wilds. The same conditions that caused megacorporate fleets to withdraw to the relatively safe Core regions has opened opportunities for the owners and captains of small independent traders. Even though the Megacorporations have pulled back their fleets of multi-kiloton freighters, the demand for goods along the trade mains doesn’t change.

The withdrawal of megacorporate naval power has empowered independent and local traders to attempt to fill the void. This has increased consumer prices across the board. After all, demand wasn’t falling but the delivery of supply carries a much higher risk. Trading fleets provide a measure of mutual protection and support, but not all Free Traders want to share profits, pay dues, and abide by the rules and bylaws of a fleet.

In this new age of small ships, non-existant security, and isolation, the line between a Free Trader and Corsair can be very blurry.