The Grand Cross Approaches
[Grand Cross Defense Fleet.jpg]
Stages 1 and 2 look pretty manageable, honestly.
But stage 3 is just a straight-up siege, isn't it?
And until you actually breach the interior, you're eating gamma-ray bursts that are supposedly absurdly strong.
They say those hit harder than a stellar flare.
So you have to smash through that main battery AND all the defense installations packed into the outer asteroid belt of the system,
then once you're inside, duke it out with the unmanned fleet stationed there?
This does not sound easy.
Maybe it was because a combat event hadn't come around in so long.
Big-gun capital ship fetishists and war maniacs whose hands—or mouths—had been itching for a fight were springing up everywhere like weeds after rain.
And that reaction was no different in our own Central Zone neutral territory… better known as the Icarus Republic.
— Anon: We changed the name again?
— Anon: His Majesty said he doesn't want a kingdom, so of course we had to switch to a republic
— Anon: lmao
— Anon: Anyway, what are we doing about the event?
— Anon: What's there to do?
— Anon: Just dock at the base and they'll come to us
— Anon: Base defense fleet, facilities, plus our own base defenses—just turtle it out, no?
— Anon: We might not have fleets, but we got superhumans!
— Anon: How about we use this chance to pile up superhumans and capture a ton of Ancient Empire ships?
— Anon: Didn't they say capturing Ancient Empire ships is impossible?
— Anon: That was about the flagships that popped out during the event. These are regular ships—no way that doesn't work
— Anon: Being an unmanned fleet makes it a little sus though
— Anon: lol just rip out the CPU and stick a person in there, done
— Anon:WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BLOOOOOOD?!
"Everyone's looking awfully lively."
"Well, there haven't been many direct armed clashes lately, after all."
"…Is that so?"
"Only a tiny fraction of them ever got personally beaten down by you, Commander. The rest just got scared of the fleets you deployed and folded on their own."
Now that she mentions it, she's right.
Jessica's point made real sense, so I nodded in agreement.
And on top of that, a genuine large-scale war event was about to crash down on us for real.
"Hmm. Right now Kraken Unit Three and the two SS-grade dreadnoughts still need leveling, and Dornea's not fully leveled yet either, right?"
"Yes—though given how high Dornea's affinity already is, she's been climbing quite fast."
"Still, more never hurts. Have the rest of the superhumans prep thoroughly as well."
"Yes, Commander."
With the event only a week—no, six days—away, I set myself to grinding levels and fiddling with gear loadouts in earnest.
But around then, I received a piece of news that left me genuinely disappointed.
"Oppa, I'm sorry, but I think I need to head back to headquarters soon."
"Aww…"
Marian and her hangers-on—no, the elite fleets of the Pirate Coalition—who had come to my aid right after the Leviathan Fleet during that invasion by the Zenobia Empire's punitive expedition.
Apparently the event had thrown the Coalition into internal chaos, and they needed to return to their original posts.
I felt a deep pang of regret, but there was nothing I could really do about it.
"Bring Melona when you come back."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Just take care of yourself."
"Of course!"
I had no choice but to wave a handkerchief in farewell as Marian and the Pirate Coalition fleets pulled out—right before the event, of all times.
And over those six days, players busied themselves trying to figure out what kind of "enemy" this event would throw at them.
The problem was that even when they tried, the only "reliable" information on the wiki tab amounted to the Grand Cross fortress itself and the "Ancient Empire flagships" that had appeared in a previous event. So the way players gathered intel was, quite literally, by leaning on the hive mind…
[Some unidentifiable mess assembled from pure player headcanon.jpg]
Write down everything you know, Anon.
If hundreds of thousands of people unleash their collective intelligence, we can accomplish anything.
[Grand Cross enemy fleet speculation status, growing more brain-melted by the second.jpg]
Last time, during stages 5–10, people got roasted for brain-melt the second they landed a valid hit on a ship one tier higher.
But going by what's in that doc right now, a corvette could one-shot a dreadnought.
The problem with collective intelligence was its nature.
Every troll under the sun piled in, and the predictions got dirtier by the minute.
The Ancient Empire was packed with romance. (4)
But long, long ago—under the name of "middle-school notebooks"—that kind of brain-melt, treated like a black-market listing for national-secret superweapons, never lasted very long.
The reason, of course, was the mass purges carried out by enraged player moderators once the excess brain-melt made any actual information impossible to extract.
[Roughly thirty-person 3-day ban list.jpg]
Yeah.
Cut it out already.