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I wonder what if the Loroi encountered the pre Cov-War UNSC of 2525 how would they see and feel of not only the UNSC Super Carriers, massive numbers of large Heavy Cruisers to their forces.

I mean now after years getting a proper idea on Stuff with our luck its likely a ONI scout or colony ship that runs into the war ether way what would be a likely outcome if contact made with the UNSC.

If I have my Halo Canon down right the pre war-UNSC/UEG would still be relatively behind in technology in comparison to both the Loroi and the Umiak. However the UEG was very big before running to the covenant, with over 800 worlds; many of whom were full fledged colonies. In comparison the Loroi Union is somewhere between to as low as 30 to as high as 100 worlds. The Umiak Hierarchy is bigger, far bigger than the Union, I would say that around 300 to 400 worlds being around the point.

Taking the above into account the UEG would be able to outproduce BOTH the Union and the Hierarchy with ease, as it would have an over abundance of raw materials and industrial capacity. In fact it was this very industrial capacity that allowed the UNSC to stand against the far superior Covenant war machine for over 27 years.

Politically the pre-war UNSC had to face severe internal problems. These problems were what forced the UEG to militarize the UNSC to such an extent and create the first Spartans as a means to surgically behead any and all internal opposition before they would become a real threat. The Halo prequel novels tell this story in great detail.

With the above in mind the UEG would certainly try to draw the attention of the human populations away from the internal front and into an external one, this external front being the Loroi/Umiak conflict. Taking into account the human Lotai as a fact the UEG would immediately side with the Loroi for some very simple reasons:

1) The Loroi are not as big of a potential threat as the Umiak as they are the smaller of the two combatants and the key advantage in their warfighting is naturally nullified by human abilities.
2) It would be easier to sell the Loroi as friendly aliens in need to human populations.
3) The Umiak territories offer far better looting opportunities should the be conquered.
4) The Loroi do share technologies with their allies up to a point.

It is relatively safe to assume that the war would be pretty much over in favor of the UEG in a matter of years by that point. Not having precise numbers on either UNSC and Hierarchy naval numbers I can't say how that front would go but I can safely say that the UNSC has plentiful numbers of starships that they aren't afraid to sacrifice. Their numbers were such that their naval doctrine was to effectively outnumber the covenant in space in 3 to 1 ratios when fighting major battles. Those battles being either disastrous loses or pyrrhic victories.

Against the Hierarchy however things would be far easier, both combatants being knife-fighters and mass torpedo users. They would effectively mirror each other and since the Hierarchy doesn't have anti kinetic shields the kill to loss ratio would be a somewhat acceptable one, probably 1 to 1.

The Loroi would certainly use the grinding war between the Hierarchy and the UNSC to outmaneuver the struggling Umiak forces and land crippling blows at will.

After the war the UEG would probably be assertive in its relations to all alien races, although not a totalitarian state the UEG weren't 'nice' to put it lightly. Relations with the Union would quickly strain to a breaking point.

hi hi

While I find that comparing different space opera settings like this is kind of silly, I'll take a stab.

Both the Umiak and the Loroi would demolish the UNSC. The tech level of their ships is so antiquated by comparison, their greater numbers would only serve to make a navel battle the space equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, seriously, fusion propulsion, mass drivers and nukes? It'd be like trying fight off an AC-130 gunship with sticks and stones.

icekatze wrote:hi hi

While I find that comparing different space opera settings like this is kind of silly, I'll take a stab.

Both the Umiak and the Loroi would demolish the UNSC. The tech level of their ships is so antiquated by comparison, their greater numbers would only serve to make a navel battle the space equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, seriously, fusion propulsion, mass drivers and nukes? It'd be like trying fight off an AC-130 gunship with sticks and stones.

Never underestimate the MAC guns, Point Defenses, and Naval Auto Cannons or meters of armored battle plates from looking at the UNSC Canberra is CA-70 so lets say 100 to 200 Marathon class Heavy Cruisers.

I always projected the UNSC needs at least 10,000s to sustain the losses plus automated production and a population of around 40 billion plus lets not forget ONI as optical camo and baffle engines and thrust and mobile stations and platforms at best say around say 50,000 to be on the safe side from Cutters to the new Punic class Super Carriers to the Infinity which was in development for a long time and could have been committed but used as a escape ship so she not count.

The Super MACs and meters of armor can make any invasion difficult and slip space means we can take the slow side roads and bypass strongholds.

Plus slip ground forces onto a planet. With what dragoon said all we need is time and UNSC at full strength can creation additional S-II classes and likely S-IIIs than once the Nova bomb comes into play well only down side we need to take the long way as slip space lights up nukes to every sensor if I recall the novels best case a few Stealth Frigates can fire a few MAC rounds to surface targets or EVA a strike force to infiltrate a planet's defenses or cold launch some missiles and fire and move like submarine deep behind their lines.

hi hi

Sounds to me like you already had the answer when you asked the question.

And this is why these kinds of discussions are so silly, it all comes down to whatever space magic the various authors have hand-waved into their stories.

Well I didn't say besides the buggers have likely hive minded it be the other way around while yes we have the numbers and industry won't be a quick war or easy as in space fire and maneuver while yes hope for the best and plan for the worse we don't have farsight of Loroi while we have Super Capitals like Infinity and Punic the Buggers can still do what the Innies did mass attacks of small ships as pin point attacks as unlike them we have ammo and limited supply. Likely could storm a capital ship plus takes weeks or months to get somewhere and I bet even if we slip Spartans on the ground it be Zerg intrench and likely need to take out the hives with bunker busters but even if we knock out the hive upper layer of defenses need to go down in the tunnels to clear them out. Pinning our men down for years and months likely containment will need to be place on the Umiak worlds. Unless develop some new toy or chem to smoke them out of the tunnels.

Yeah the Heavy MACs take 60 seconds to charge we can kill there Capitals they can adapt by building Gunships and such as they can intercept our missiles and slowly boil away plates it will be a prolong war likely.

Plus you have ideas while yes numerous beams will cut through UNSC ships like maybe Covie pulse lasers still 1 on 1 at least good odds.

I have to agree with Icekatze... comparing space operas rarely works well. Source material is often inconsistent, contradictory, or just plain absurd. And many many assumptions have to be made about the various "space magics" involved.

I don't really know Halo stuff, so my examples will be ST vs SW :

Do Star Wars shields block Star Trek transporters? (Space Magic conflict)

Can a Star Trek ship fight while moving at warp speed? (Inconsistent answer in canon material)

IF ST ships can fight at warp, would a SW Interdictor be able to pull them out? (Space Magic conflict again)

Weapon energy claimed in Star Wars fandom vs observed effect in canon? (Plain absurd)

And so on...

Well UNSC just armor and Kinetics



Armaments:
2 Heavy MACs
3 Nuclear Missiles
9000 Archer Missiles
40-60 50mm Point Defense Guns
Craft
24 Longsword Multi Role Fighters

Besides lasers and beams faster than shells and bullets and Longsword likely if knowing the design base on the B-2 a full burn than drift can use stealth features to drop a few mines or missiles.

Its kinda well balance its just we don't use direct energy weapons except Prowlers and Spartan Lasers but at the same time the others have thin hulls and rely on shields of course unsure if they can stop a super fast slug dead on like us but we do have to stare down on them to use the MAC. Plus emergency thrusters and AIs its a pretty balance fight.

I don't know if there's enough consistent tech numbers anywhere to say for sure, but my rough estimation is that the UNSC is on a very similar tech footing to TCA. That means they have two key advantages that the TCA does not, oneis a significantly broader industrial base and deeper militarization, so a much larger fleet, and the other is the more flexible FTL.

Given the similar tech footing, the UNSC is going to lose every fair fight they get into in space, whichever side they tangle with. The range advantage of Loroi and Umaik energy weapons over kinetics has been talked to death in discussions around here about the TCA's military position in the setting. The only tactical victories they'd see would be if they can use their jump drives to come out on top of an enemy fleet, which if I recall correctly humanity wasn't very good at.

Their FTL would be a problem for the Loroi or Umiak though, they wouldn't be restricted to the same kinds of strategic movement the Outsiderverse folks are. The UNSC could potentially do a lot of damage if they capitalize on this properly, bypassing defensive forces and hitting soft targets behind. They lose if they get caught though, and they wouldn't really be able to stop the same being done to them due to their tactical disadvantages. Though forget the Cole protocol destroying nav data, you're going to want to stick a nuke in every jump drive to prevent capture, millitary or civilian. If the Loroi or Umiak realize what they're up against, they'll probably do anything in their power to capture intact examples to reproduce.

I looked into the numbers involved with the MACs and I think that I will have to recant my first post, the ratios of 1 to 1 kill to death was too optimistic. Honestly I thought that the MACs were stronger than the numbers I dug up which made me believe that the UNSC would be able to fire at somewhat longer ranges. As such I think that 3 to 1 is closer to the point if they are fighting Umiak, far more if they are fighting Loroi or Umiak with particle blasters.

I think it would mostly boil down to a numbers game. The UNSC has an immense industrial base dispersed over a relatively large volume; it would be difficult and time consuming for the Loroi or Umiak to dismantle it. As far as I can tell, that was a big reason the UNSC was able to weather the Covenant for three decades (I think the other was just finding human worlds in the vastness). And, this is at least part of the problem that the Loroi have with fighting the Umiak in Outsider: wildly disparate force sizes.

As for anything else, I'm in the "space magic" camp. We can't draw anything strongly conclusive, but I think Siber makes a good point about FTL. UNSC slipspace drives may give it more strategic flexibility than the Loroi/Umiak jump drives.

What about UNSC Super MAC Guns which fire at some what close to the speed of light and effective ranges as I heard around the Lunar Perimeter so that be our one ace bad news only Punic class Supercarriers have them and likely a dozen or few dozen at most.

Likely our ace in the hole is Prowlers that can be really sneaky and better likely limited but Prowlers during Cole's Last Stand drop a slip space beacon for UNSC to close the distance. So we can much better target logistics and limited option to close distance by dropping a fleet in range MAC Rounds, Archer Missiles and Nukes with intel as said from Loroi Prowlers would have prelaid mines and have pulse lasers or missiles ready to knock out command ships thus confusing a enemy.

But slip spacing in system with a beacon is risky at best and likely need to be well map and a cleared vector so very mad but works ideas.

ONI likely going to be our primary ace in the hole for the war.

Plus while we shoot at max range and 60 seconds to recharge likely crisscross firing to get some ships and missile spams to overwhelm defenses. We really don't know the fire rate of weapons. But of course we only seen UNSC back to a gravity well in fighting the covies so firing at a gravity well have to account gravity helping pull in a round faster maybe.

Than there is slipping in forces onto worlds and highly valuable areas they can't strike like foot in the door that give our Spartans and ODSTs the edge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH83rkEVhoY

Welcome to Earth.

It's mostly "which space magic do I like more?", but I think there's some room to debate tactics as defined by physics...

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:What about UNSC Super MAC Guns which fire at some what close to the speed of light and effective ranges as I heard around the Lunar Perimeter so that be our one ace bad news only Punic class Supercarriers have them and likely a dozen or few dozen at most.

Projectile weapons have been discussed ad nauseam in the fora, but it basically comes down to a random walk. Loroi ships have an engagement envelope of at least a light second, too, and have a lot of delta-V. They would simply have to randomly maneuver to greatly reduce the chances of a hit.

Likely our ace in the hole is Prowlers that can be really sneaky and better likely limited but Prowlers during Cole's Last Stand drop a slip space beacon for UNSC to close the distance. So we can much better target logistics and limited option to close distance by dropping a fleet in range MAC Rounds, Archer Missiles and Nukes with intel as said from Loroi Prowlers would have prelaid mines and have pulse lasers or missiles ready to knock out command ships thus confusing a enemy.

Stealth in space has also been discussed in deep detail around here. Basically, it doesn't exist. Unless you have space magic, which is what the Prowler very much is.

ONI likely going to be our primary ace in the hole for the war.

Intelligence is a key to victory in any setting. Good luck infiltrating and/or turning a Loroi or Umiak into an informant, though. Both are very strongly devoted to their causes (especially the Umiak).

Plus while we shoot at max range and 60 seconds to recharge likely crisscross firing to get some ships and missile spams to overwhelm defenses. We really don't know the fire rate of weapons. But of course we only seen UNSC back to a gravity well in fighting the covies so firing at a gravity well have to account gravity helping pull in a round faster maybe.

A projectile has an infinite range, but is really only effective at a range where the projectile's velocity matches or exceeds the target's ability to change velocity in time. That is, mass drivers are "knife fight" weapons; you have to be within hundreds or thousands of kilometers to reliably score killshots.

Also, Loroi and Umiak particle beam weapons have effective (lethal) ranges of a half light second or more. And the beams move at near lightspeed.

Than there is slipping in forces onto worlds and highly valuable areas they can't strike like foot in the door that give our Spartans and ODSTs the edge.

The problem here is that neither the Loroi or Umiak really fight ground battles and boarding actions aren't common. The first is because if you make planetfall without securing orbit, your enemy is just going to glass your army where it landed. If you successfully hold the planet's surface, that means you hold orbit and your enemy's going to have to get through that before they can even think of fielding ground forces. And if they succeed, again, they can just glass what forces you have on the planet. Neither side has any compunctions about that.

The second is due to the energies the Loroi and Umiak sling around during a fight. A ship is much more likely to be destroyed rather than be brought to a state where it can be boarded. And, if you do manage to get aboard, don't be surprised if they just decide to blow up the ship.

Why does stealth have to be space magic like modern day stealth with adaptive camo and chem burst to move ships in once enter the system give off no heat and drift with a system able to keep up thus likely no blob on visuals or optical sensors. Of course need to jump in outside the system go full burn than glide in system and by pass early warnings. Likely use of trust pushes from thrusters and cold all in will slip by. But given Far net not likely but buggers may work.

While yes they can move you need to also narrow down likely evasions fire one round and reload Super MACs on orbital defenses can fire enough rounds to scattered and 5 seconds it can't kill the small ships while local fleet unleashes hundreds of thousands of missiles and MAC fire by the hundreds

So if a strike force slip in by a Carrier in slip space and release a number of drop pods like Operation Torpedo and engage in local distruption and interfrence there going to risk glassing for a small handful of Spartans running around.

Plus another thing taken from the Fall of Reach UNSC ships with smart AIs can in time evade a ship still sting but use of emergency thrusters can make gase shots plus since Archer pods like blisters or submuntions can fire all at once as our ace as both sides limited so missile spam a ace. Plus if learning this Halcyon class can in cases still be functional even if 90 percent damaged even if Loroi burn away most of the armor can still be fighting. As compared to UNSC and Loroi and Umiak vessels still be functional even after a direct hit.

But no one telling me rates of fire and how long can fire before overheats or waste precharge.

Plus UNSC alway known for tactics likely not attack head on likely in cases fire and run at full burn using emergency thrust to evade the fire long enough to close in as be very rough on the crews but better than dead.

Plus whats to stop the UNSC from using fire ships and electronic warfare and hacking or disruption plus UNSC vessels can reach a system edge within 40 mins or faster depending on drive and power as they been known to push into the 120 and 150 percent of course overheat and emergency coolant.

Yes there will be losses, and cost but that is war and while the UNSC has time to learn and prepare unlike the Covies storming on multi fronts and thousands of ships and millions of lives lost a year. We have the time.

By the way my original question was how would the Loroi feel about the UNSC and outcomes to such a contact instead.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Why does stealth have to be space magic like modern day stealth with adaptive camo and chem burst to move ships in once enter the system give off no heat and drift with a system able to keep up thus likely no blob on visuals or optical sensors.

Because everything (including your chem bursts) is constantly emitting some frequency of EM waves (object temperature determines emission frequency; even black holes follow a version of this rule, albeit through a more circuitous route than normal; it's all called "blackbody radiation"), and if your ship has been worked on or been in physical contact with anything else for even the last decade, then it's almost guaranteed to be emitting in one of the infrared bands. The only reason there are still asteroids to find is because noone who has enough money is willing to spend that much on telescopes.

The only reason why stealth & camouflage work is because they use low-power radars & various atmospheric disturbances like clouds and birds (specifically for stealth: it's long been known that SAM homing radars can spot stealth aircraft, it's the initial scanning radars that can't accomplish the task, because they just aren't strong enough emitters), and hide among the landscape (camouflage). The cases where this stuff ever works are rare, we simply live inside one of those cases.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Of course need to jump in outside the system go full burn than glide in system and by pass early warnings.

More likely is to jump deep into the system, then start MACing everything both interesting & slow. The "initial burn" is going to be energetic enough to be noticed if it's energetic enough to get the ship in during a reasonable time frame, so might as well just skip that step, and go full-on fast-raider. If enough MAC rounds were carried, and a ship could raid a dozen or more systems, then this tactic could both devastate Umiak near-front infrastructure, and force them to face the prospect of NOT being able to protect their systems from the raiders.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Likely use of trust pushes from thrusters and cold all in will slip by. But given Far net not likely but buggers may work.

I'm sorry, but I just cannot figure out what this is supposed to mean. Please aim more for "literature" and less for "texting" so that it's easier to understand what you're writing.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:While yes they can move you need to also narrow down likely evasions fire one round and reload Super MACs on orbital defenses can fire enough rounds to scattered and 5 seconds it can't kill the small ships while local fleet unleashes hundreds of thousands of missiles and MAC fire by the hundreds

Same here. It looks like you might have forgotten some periods, but even with them it doesn't make sense. Whose small ships? Whose local fleet? What is "fire enough rounds to scattered and 5 seconds" even supposed to be talking about?

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:So if a strike force slip in by a Carrier in slip space and release a number of drop pods like Operation Torpedo and engage in local distruption and interfrence there going to risk glassing for a small handful of Spartans running around.

Was this supposed to be a question? Not that it matters, since you might as well just launch a few missiles through the same capability. Spartans were valuable commodities when fighting in a place that you wanted to seriously use. They were always intended for an insurgent & anti-insurgent role, and only wound up fighting against the Covenant because they already existed. The right weapon for fighting a war against the Umiak Hierarchy if you insert arbitrary forces from FTL is the neutron bomb, dirty bomb, or "Tsar Bomba" (anti-matter variants included: I've thought on this subject some for my own setting) super-bombs, depending on the exact effect desired, and vulnerability expected. Depending on the capabilities of slip-drives (can you kick something out and reliably predict where it'll hit?) these can either be ejected directly by ships in slipspace; ejected on missiles that then carry them to the target; or carried by a smaller ship that exits slip-space, fires it's payload of missiles, and then returns home. You have some restrictions (if ships are near the target, what do you do?) to work around, but taking out a ship can be a victory in itself, especially if that ship can't stop the other waves of bombs as a result.

Spartans might be effective against ground forces, but in this particular war they're nothing but a clean-up option if you're winning (why bother inserting under fire if there isn't any reason to rush?), and effectively irrelevant otherwise (even Spartans can only be in one place at a time).

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Plus another thing taken from the Fall of Reach UNSC ships with smart AIs can in time evade a ship still sting but use of emergency thrusters can make gase shots plus since Archer pods like blisters or submuntions can fire all at once as our ace as both sides limited so missile spam a ace.

What does this even mean?

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Plus if learning this Halcyon class can in cases still be functional even if 90 percent damaged even if Loroi burn away most of the armor can still be fighting. As compared to UNSC and Loroi and Umiak vessels still be functional even after a direct hit.

Were you trying to say that UNSC ships are still operational after 90% armor loss while Loroi & Umiak ships are often crippled with a single direct hit? Because "UNSC and Loroi and Umiak vessels" implies that all three groups act the same in that situation, which would make it pointless to even mention.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:But no one telling me rates of fire and how long can fire before overheats or waste precharge.

I think that 30 seconds to 2 minutes between shots from main guns was a stat mentioned once, but Wave-loom devices are much more variable (due to highly variable precharge levels between individual shots). Overheating is almost never a problem, because the engines generate so much waste heat that the weapons system isn't significant.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Plus UNSC alway known for tactics likely not attack head on likely in cases fire and run at full burn using emergency thrust to evade the fire long enough to close in as be very rough on the crews but better than dead.

That is already the standard Loroi combat doctrine in the majority of battles.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Plus whats to stop the UNSC from using fire ships and electronic warfare and hacking or disruption

Fire ships? Why would those work better than missiles & torpedoes? If you can maneuver fast enough to hit the dodging Umiak (Umiak & Loroi ships aren't "slow and stately" style), then you can get close enough to shot them & then move to another target; "fire ships" in comparison are ships that are sent into the enemy fleet to damage it with their very presence (traditionally because they were on fire, but today you'd be setting of a bomb or something). No matter what you do to make fire ships effective, you'd be better-off sticking it on a missile and loading several on the same ship.

Fire ships only ever make sense when a ship just gets so worn out that it won't be useful for many more years anyways.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:plus UNSC vessels can reach a system edge within 40 mins or faster depending on drive and power as they been known to push into the 120 and 150 percent of course overheat and emergency coolant.

1) That's only meaningful when given better information, such as actual distance traveled & initial speed.
2) This can just be rolled in with "slip drive" unless you provide delta-vee for a specific total impulse.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:By the way my original question was how would the Loroi feel about the UNSC and outcomes to such a contact instead.

They'd be severely disturbed, but they're also quietly worried already. They'd accept the alliance, but the more assertive the UNSC was, the more distrustful they'd be. At some level of distrust, they'd even switch their plans to conquering the Umiak as a counterweight to the UNSC instead of simply destroying them.

So in other words like Hot War with the UNSC great no peaceful outcome or Alliance and likely end up defeating one and turning on each other makes me wonder what will happen when the UNSC conquers the Loroi as I doubt we be caught off guard and watching the same as us.

Of 5 seconds is reload and charge times of UNSC ODP Super MAC Guns and mostly local like as in UNSC fleets able to unleash hundreds of thousands of missiles.

Yes sir 90 percent damage of special Halcyon class hull as take some hits unlike the others who one shot death no shields but tough capital armor.

Yup UNSC quick jump out of the way emergency rockets they could missile I say at best skim 4 to 8 beam shots in closing to MAC range of course make sure to buckle up and let the AI drive as fast enough to fly and evade in the few second window of build up and flash and incoming to evaded like the PoA at reach.

UNSC has a number of older hull vessels they could throw at them as fire ships to draw or take fire as remotely piloted by AI in mass attack.

Aside from the folly of mixing space operas that have large unique doses of "Space Magic as Pertaining to Weapons Dynamics and Spacial Motion." We are missing a pink elephant in the room... size of ships in the UNSC fleet.... a Halycion class cruiser makes the Cry of the Wind look small, when considering overall dimensions. The Infiniti makes a bug TTK ultra heavy look insignificant. And looking how halo 4 portrays the infiniti's FTL assault against the didacts ship which is essentially a small dread star and have effective fire on it while performing combat maneuvers. Not to mention unsc ships can survive one hit from covenant main plasma weaponry. Which basically makes heavy plasma foci look like pdf cannon.

The UNSC would murder the Umiak and the Loroi.... Probly even the Historians.