| Technology Achieved | Technology Unavailable |
|---|---|
| Wormhole / Jump Drive (star-to-star) | FTL Travel, FTL Comms, FTL Telemetry |
| Fusion Power, Advanced Batteries, Portable Nuclear Generators | Cold Fusion, Antimatter |
| Non-Volitional AI, Advanced Robotics, Quantum Computing | AI Singularity, Two-Way Neural Interfaces |
| Space Elevators, Asteroid Mining, Artificial Habitats, SSTO | Gravity Generators, Personal Teleporters, Tractor Beams |
| Vehicle-Borne Chemical Lasers, Advanced Coilguns | Energy Shields, Personal Laser Weapons, Plasma Weapons |
| Advanced Gene Therapy, Tissue Engineering, Cybernetics | Mind Uploading, Cybernetic Reprogramming |
| Nano-Scale Material, Polymer-Based Electronics | Grey/Red Goo Nano Machines, Time Travel |
The only species colonising the galaxy is humanity, and intelligent alien life seems to be absent.
Most of the above technologies could taken up an entire post by themselves. Maybe one day they will.
What is a C²CLIC?
C²CLIC stands for Command and Control, Communications, Logistics, Intelligence, and Computers, as those are all of the spheres a C²CLIC is capable of managing in the battle-space.A C²CLIC is classed as an "automated warfare space station." C²CLICs do have manoeuvring thrusters and jump drives, but they moved like beached whales and were not built for speed. I always imagined them looking like the Dark Athena or the mothership from Homeworld.
A C²CLIC is full of computers, sensors, communication arrays, blocks of ice, and a metric butt-load of very clever cruise missiles. They are powered by a fusion power plant, with a backup fusion generator and redundant solar panels that spend most of their time folded away like a damselfly's wings.
Most C²CLICs are controlled by a dedicated AI (only a very important C²CLIC might have two or three AIs within its internal network). There are no pressurised areas for human personnel, no cargo bays or hangars, and no lifeboats.
A C²CLIC will usually be accompanied by a human-occupied vessel bearing someone in a position of authority who can issue orders to the C²CLIC's AI. This vessel might have basic defensive measures, but it is not built for prolonged combat, open battle, or extended manoeuvres.
The C²CLIC will carry a squadron of small, networked drones that can carry out regular maintenance and repair. For extended repairs, refits, etc. the C²CLIC must be manoeuvred to a suitable spaceport.
Hows does a C²CLIC Fight?
A C²CLIC will very rarely be employed against anything smaller than an enemy fleet, a fortified planet, or another C²CLIC. They are capable of engaging their targets at extreme ranges (usually 100,000km or more); if a C²CLIC had windows, you would not be able to use them to "eyeball" a target as the enemy would simply be too far away.The C²CLIC's primary weaponry is its massive array of missiles. Against another C²CLIC, it will likely launch 90% or more of its missiles in one salvo. These missiles are pretty clever - many are networked with one-another so that they can dynamically optimise their targets and flight paths; some have small laser batteries to shoot down other missiles; some can broadcast evolving computer viruses to hack enemy missile networks and prevent damage to their own. Most of the missiles, however, have a fairly straightforward mission: accelerate, fly towards the enemy position, destroy the incoming enemy missiles, and (if there are any of you left after that) then the enemy fleet/C²CLIC/planetary base.
If two opposing C²CLICs engage one-another, this results in a huge missile scrum halfway between them. This halfway point is often hundreds-of-thousands of kilometres from the C²CLICs and it can take hours for the missiles to meet before blowing each other up. The remaining missiles then continue on to the enemy C²CLIC.
This is when the C²CLIC has to rely on its sensors, intelligence records, and a bunch of simulations. If there are incoming enemy missiles, can the C²CLIC stop them with a combination of chaff, point-defence, cyber attacks, and its reserve missiles? Note that, due to this "missile scrum" attack pattern, the C²CLIC that keeps more missiles in reserve is usually the one that loses, so most do not spare many from the initial salvo.
As battles take place at vast distances, the C²CLIC usually has plenty of time to make an accurate judgement and (if necessary) initiate its wormhole drive to jump to a friendlier system.
So most battles between C²CLICs end with one C²CLIC withdrawing rather than suffering catastrophic damage. A C²CLIC, the AI piloting it, and the intelligence and cryptographic data on its computers, is very valuable and therefore not worth sacrificing just for the sake of taking pot-shots at the enemy. It is far easier and less expensive to re-arm and re-deploy a C²CLIC than it is to rebuild a destroyed one.
The Heat Factor
Space may be "cold" but cold is just an absence of heat. Heat takes a very long time to radiate away from things in space, and even though a C²CLIC has no human crew to worry about, its electronics can still be damaged by an un-managed build up of heat throughout its systems.C²CLICs have very long "arms" covered with radiator fins that act link heat sinks, drawing heat from the main body to be radiated from an extended surface area. These fins, like the redundant solar panels, are usually folded away, but unfold like flowers blossoming in the Spring when the C²CLIC expects to be working at high-performance.
As an emergency action, the C²CLIC also holds large supplies of ice that can be melted down, flushed through conductive pipes throughout the main body, and then expelled into space once it has drawn heat from the main systems.
Why Not Lasers?
While chemical laser weapons do exist, and some are employed in space combat platforms, they require massive amounts of energy to be effective at the extreme range that a C²CLIC can otherwise engage its targets. Not only that, but a firing solution at such long ranges is exceeding difficult to acquire since your target may not be where you "saw" them last due to light lag. Lasers and mass-driver weapons (e.g. coilguns) are employed on C²CLICs as point-defence where they can be used as much shorter ranges, but they do not have the manoeuvrability to be useful at exceedingly long range.The Home Field Advantage
A C²CLIC will rarely fight alone. Although it carries a huge arsenal of smart missiles, it is mainly designed as a command and control centre (hence the primary letters in its acronym). In large-scale conflicts it will be a centralised point for coordinating battles, intelligence reports, counter-intelligence, logistics chains, and communications. It also benefits from being able to swiftly re-arm its missile batteries if it is positioned near to a friendly starport or space elevator.In a friendly system, a C²CLIC will be constantly receiving telemetry and communications from remote sensors and listening posts. If you also consider that jump drives are star-to-star (i.e. if you are jumping to another system, you have to "aim" for orbiting a star you want to jump to, you cannot simply jump into orbit around another star system's planet), it is relatively simple to set up alarms, sensors, and killing zones for an enemy invasion force to fall foul of.
For these reasons, as potent as they might be in theory, C²CLICs very rarely see actual combat. They are like the nuclear weapons of the Hundred Colonies - everyone keeps their C²CLICs reserved just in case anyone else decides to use one. A faction would have to be supremely confident of themselves to jump a C²CLIC and its supporting craft into an enemy system. This is one of the reasons why the opposing colonial powers are locked in cold wars consisting of sabotage, infiltration, and espionage rather than glittering starships blasting each other with laser broadsides.
