Super Mothership
Inside the Dreadnought Battle Star, the senior commanders of Gemini were holding a post-battle meeting.
“In this battle, we lost a total of 124 warships, including 3 large destroyers. The mecha units lost 4,230 machines, drones lost over 50,000, and part of the defensive fortifications were damaged. Repairs will take about five days…”
As they listened to the long list of losses, everyone’s expression grew grim.
“What about results?” someone asked.
“We destroyed more than 5,600 enemy new-type mechas…”
Everyone’s expression became even heavier.
Without even deploying warships, the enemy had inflicted such severe losses using only mecha units in a surprise attack—despite Gemini holding the home-field advantage. The resulting casualty ratio was nothing short of shocking.
The most critical reason was that this time, the Wolf Civilization deployed a massive number of powerful new-type mechas, the likes of which Gemini had never seen before.
“Damn it! In the enemy’s previous assaults, whether with warships or mechas, their combat power was clearly weaker than ours. Could they have been deliberately hiding their strength?”
“Maybe… this was only a small elite corps of theirs, and not representative of their true power?”
“I think that’s unlikely. Who would risk consuming their most precious elite troops in the most dangerous wormhole assault stage? It’s more likely they were hiding their strength until now!”
“……”
The officers present all voiced their opinions.
At that moment, a sea-clan officer draped in a blood-red cloak, seated at the head, spoke in a deep voice:
“Has the analysis of the Wolf Civilization’s new weaponry been completed?”
The moment he spoke, the room fell silent.
This sea-clan officer had a hard, unreadable face. His deep nasolabial lines and hooked nose gave him a sharp, hawk-like presence. Though thinner than the average of his kind, his eyes were razor sharp.
He was Gillard, one of only five Grand Generals of Gemini—and the supreme commander of the front against the Wolf Civilization!
By Gemini’s military structure, corps commanders like Isabel were roughly equivalent to major generals, two full ranks below Gillard.
Each of the four star regions had a Grand General stationed as commander. Gillard commanded the Gallente Star Region—the one containing the Wolf Civilization’s wormhole.
“Grand General Gillard, sir!” one officer immediately stood at attention to report. “The reverse engineering of enemy mecha wreckage has been partially completed. From the data retrieved, the enemy has designated this type of mecha as ‘Bronze’!”
“Bronze? Tell me its specific performance.” Gillard said.
“Yes, sir! Based on current data, aside from defensive performance, this mecha’s overall capabilities nearly reach 80% of our own Sea Storm-class mechas.
Technologically, the enemy appears to have implemented field-propulsion technology. In shaping and applying force fields, they clearly surpass us.
However, that is not the true reason their mecha corps are so formidable. The most fundamental reason is… their pilots are, on average, on par with our ace pilots!”
The atmosphere tensed.
In this raid alone, the enemy deployed nearly ten thousand ‘Bronze’ mechas—machines approaching the performance of the Sea Storm-class.
Even more terrifying was that these mechas were piloted by nearly ten thousand ace-level pilots? That was beyond extravagant!
Even if Gemini possessed so many ace pilots, they would never throw them away in such a brutal war of attrition.
Had it not been for the lack of heavy fire support, those elite mecha corps might have torn a hole straight through Gemini’s defensive line.
“Now that we have samples, can we reverse-engineer their mecha technology?” Gillard asked.
War has always been the best catalyst for technological progress—especially wars between civilizations.
On the battlefield of civilizations, every great commander must not only know how to weaken the enemy through war, but also how to strengthen their own side through it.
From the ongoing war between Earth Civilization and Gemini, it had been shown that paradoxically, the technologically weaker side often stood to gain the most.
Of course, those gains depended on whether you could survive long enough in a disadvantaged war to properly absorb the new technologies…
“The enemy has implemented certain protective measures on their technology, but we acquired plenty of samples this time. We believe that in 2–3 years we’ll be able to fully absorb it. However, large-scale deployment and application will take at least 4–5 years!”
Gillard frowned. Clearly, this digestion timeline was far too slow to eliminate the enemy’s technological advantage in the short term.
He lowered his head in thought, then turned his sharp gaze to a younger sea-clan officer at his side.
“Beckman, I want to hear your staff department’s assessment.”
Though phrased as a question, Gillard’s tone was noticeably softer. It was clear he valued this young officer highly.
Beckman was a strikingly handsome officer of the sea-clan, though his posture was somewhat lazy. A golden electronic pen spun deftly between his fingers in complex patterns that made others’ eyes blur.
When Gillard addressed him, Beckman stilled his hand, gripped the pen, and lifted his head. His previously lazy gaze now carried a sharp glint.
“Hmm… I think we need to reassess the Wolf Civilization… from the ground up.”
Soon after, the giant projection screen before the officers began to display every type of war machine the Wolf Civilization had deployed so far.
There were squid-shaped ships, various mechas wielding different weapons, and an assortment of bizarrely designed war machines—dozens of types in total.
Beckman pointed at the projections.
“Based on our previous engagements, the Wolf Civilization’s war machines displayed technological capabilities clearly inferior to Gemini’s. That’s why our casualty ratio had generally stayed around 5 to 1!
Even without factoring in our home-field advantage, the ratio could still hold around 2 to 1.
Moreover, intelligence gathered from the battlefields indicates… the Wolf Civilization is not a monolithic whole!
Normally, to lower production costs and improve logistics and maintenance efficiency, an army should standardize its weapon systems. At most, you’d see only 1 or 2 models of the same type of weapon in service.
Even for us in Gemini—despite being a federated government—it’s the same.
But the Wolf Civilization’s arsenal is all over the place. We already know that at least 3 distinct races have joined their battles. That means there’s a 90% chance they lack a unified military system, which explains their chaotic logistics.
For this reason, our earlier assessment of the Wolf Civilization was that they were ‘comparable in strength’ but had ‘insufficient cohesion,’ giving them only an A- threat rating.”
Cohesion! Within Gemini, this was one of the most important criteria for judging a civilization’s overall power.
A group’s overall combat strength was not just tied to technology, population, and other forms of hard power, but also to its political structure and military organization—its soft power.
The degree of cohesion depended on a civilization’s power system. The more centralized the authority, the stronger its warfighting ability in inter-civilizational conflict.
Thus, empires generally had the greatest cohesion. Systems like Gemini’s United Parliament were somewhat weaker by comparison.
Take Earth as an example: over 200 countries loosely tied together under the “United Nations system.” If faced with an external threat, even if their combined strength were only slightly weaker than the enemy’s, once fighting broke out, they might not even be able to find “north” on the battlefield…
Or consider Earth’s unique “Blue-Green Camp” factionalism in one region, which had achieved the magical effect of 1 + 1 < 0. Its unparalleled “combat power” was the stuff of both ridicule and awe…
Of course, nowadays Earth’s nations had been virtually “hired” by Nie Yun, with foreign wars essentially dictated by the Ghost Captain alone. Their cohesion was, for all intents and purposes, “imperial-level.”
Thus, given their weaker technology, their coalition of more than three races, and their chaotic logistics, Gemini had previously scored the Wolf Civilization low and listed them as merely a “target for expansion.”
But clearly, the Wolf Civilization’s powerful surprise assault this time had sounded an alarm for Gemini!
“From this battle, it’s obvious… we were misled.
The enemy is not lacking advanced weaponry or a unified military command. Their mysterious wormhole-expansion technology is a strategic-level force that is nothing short of astonishing!
And… once again, the enemy left no prisoners behind, correct?” Beckman suddenly asked.
“Correct! The disabled mechas automatically shut down their life-support systems. Not a single survivor!” someone replied.
“Yes! That was unmistakably a forced, suicidal assault! Even this alone is not a tactic that a low-cohesion civilization could carry out!” Beckman declared firmly.
“You’ve said all this just to claim they were feigning weakness before. At this point, even a blind man can see it!” one officer scoffed.
Beckman simply shook the golden pen in his hand dismissively.
“No. We were indeed misled—but not because the enemy deliberately pretended to be weak. That kind of strategic deception wouldn’t gain them much against us.
What I mean is: the enemy actually possesses a two-tiered military structure. The lower tier is chaotic and inefficient, resembling a collection of peripheral forces. The upper tier, however, is far stronger and holds absolute control over the lower tier!
From this, we can basically conclude… the enemy most likely has a pyramid-style power hierarchy!”
“What? A two-tiered military system?”
“So above the seemingly chaotic ruling layer, there exists another, higher ruling layer?”
“Hmm… if that’s the case, then the vast disparity in their strength makes sense!”
“So what we fought before were just their rabble, their outer troops? And this time… it was their real army?”
“……”
After Beckman and the others had digested this information, he slowly continued speaking.
“In my judgment, the races currently taking part in this war… are most likely slave civilizations under the enemy!” he speculated further along this line of thought.
“From this style of domination, we can roughly imagine the aggressiveness of the Wolf civilization.
Once they decide to launch an invasion, it will inevitably be a brutal war of attrition fought without regard for cost, continuing until the slave civilizations are bled dry—only stopping when it begins to threaten their ruling class itself.
And in order for the ruling class to control these lower slave civilizations, they must wield military power at least one, or even two levels, higher than them.
Therefore, I believe the threat level of the Wolf civilization should be raised from A- to A+, classifying them as an extremely dangerous civilization!”
The room fell silent.
In the history of the Gemini civilization, an A+ threat level had appeared only twice, and each time it had inflicted severe wounds upon the entire civilization.
And above A+ was yet another rank: the completely irresistible S-level, also known as the “Calamity Class”!
Whether or not Beckman’s speculation was correct, many people had already realized that Gemini was likely in very serious trouble…
TL Note- The most powerful civilization untill now?
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