The Big-Gun Fetishists Weep
After one last check of every superhuman's condition, and only after confirming that nothing was wrong, I finally allowed myself a relieved nod and greenlit our entry into the event map for Stage Two.
Of course, simply entering didn't mean combat would break out the moment we stepped inside.
"Pretty lively in there."
"It really is."
Eight hundred seventy-two people — no, one more had just joined, making it eight hundred seventy-three — and every last one of them had brought not only their main fleets, but also the mercenary corps and faction expeditionary forces that the event maps normally wouldn't even let you carry in. The result was a sea of ships far denser than anything I'd imagined, and the sight left me with a distinctly complicated feeling.
Of course, hauling all those mercenaries and expeditionary forces along also meant they'd completely replaced anyone's actual small-ship complement.
Our fellow players were suffering from that classic player disease. Even after Stage One had carved their fleets to pieces, that vicious, unkillable big-gun fetish still reared its head without the slightest shame.
"…How the hell did those maniacs even decide to bring nothing but dreadnoughts."
"Well, the Ancient Empire ships only know how to fight fleet battles, so maybe they're just trying to play it straight?"
Even Jessica — still half a novice when it came to fleet warfare — could offer that much while I idly pinched and kneaded her ears. The other players were hardly going to be any wiser.
"Everyone's on fire."
"You sound an awful lot like an arsonist when you say that."
A lot of players were voicing some pretty serious concern that Stage Two might, in a completely different sense, wipe player power off the board. Naturally, most of the big-gun fetishists waved it off with a proud "My precious battleships would never go down that easily, rohoho" — but the moment every participant was present, the roster filled, and Stage Two combat actually began, those same swaggering capital-ship lovers found themselves weeping tears of blood.
The big-gun fetishists cry again today.
And the reason they were reduced to sniffling was simple enough. Their entire plan, when you stripped it down, was this: let the faction expedition forces and mercenary corps serve as the fleet's small-ship line — the meatshields — while their own "big, beautiful" capital ships sat safely in the rear and poured on damage, recreating the glory of the fortress main guns and defense fleets they'd tasted in Stage One.
But the instant the event started, the enemy fleet that came pouring in fought like this…
It was genuinely absurd — and yet, sure enough, ships were teleporting straight into the middle of our formation. Until now, players had been stuck with the subtle but ironclad assumption that "teleport" only applied to strike craft, missiles, torpedoes, and the like. So just like that gallery post said, the thousand-player force I was in had its capital-ship-heavy main bodies sitting wide open with the mercenary small-ship screens strung out in front of them…
Except for players like me, who'd felt something was off after reading the gallery reactions before combat started and had simply kept their fleets in one tight clump. Everyone else…