Bollar Freeholds fleet hierarchy

Posted by Jacquelope 2 years ago

 

Analysts from Earth routinely take one look at the hierarchy of Bollar warships in service for a typical Colony Force (earth term equivalent: super fleet) and go... "What the fuck?"

That's because the Bollar Freeholds continue to this day to use a full range of ships analogous to ship classes from Earth navies. The full range.

Their hierarchy runs from ship-launched mechs and fighters at the bottom rung capable of dealing out megatons of firepower in a single salvo to fighter-ships analogous to sloops with turrets and missile payloads that deal out low gigatons of destruction. Then come the Corvettes with high gigaton beam lasers and continent-cracking missiles. These fighter/mech and sub-capital classes are increasingly built and deployed on demand: a mid-sized force exists for immediate deployment while nanomanufacturing can digi-construct an order of magnitude more if needed for a major engagement. The Corvette is the biggest ship that can be deployed as an unmanned drone. Drone-classes are usually half the size of manned versions. There are also submarine-class ships that cloak to strike undetected but they're obsolete because stealth is far too unreliable.

Capital ships start with frigates. Each of their turrets deal out teratons, and they bristle with turrets. These are meant for big trouble encounters and also glassing unshielded planets. When an enemy proves too strong for frigates to deal with, there is the destroyer class, which also deals with cloaked (submarine) ships and is responsible for the obsoletion of cloaking technology. These ships are the first class of planet-crackers that can turn a world's crust to molten rock or even blow chunks of a planet into space with its typical porcupine-arrangement of high teraton turrets.

The modern cruiser class is the first of the sub-planet killers, well beyond capable of sterilizing, glassing or cracking a planet. A cruiser can punch a hole straight through a moon with its petaton-class guns and blast chunks off an unshielded planet. A cruiser is only ever deployed for a threat that needs firepower of that magnitude. It is rarely the first thing an enemy ever sees. If there is a full scale engagement with the Imperishable Empire, of course, large swarms of them will go into battle.

Battleships are usually overkill. These ships can almost destroy a planet just by ramming it. They're bigger than cruisers, giving them more surface area for their petaton-class turrets. The Nivalavi populace of a given Bollar Freehold will usually hinder their deployment unless they're up against an Imperishable Empire colony force, and then the battleship is meant to crack enemy ship shields for the usual Nivalavi boarding-and-mass-abduction raids.

Dreadnoughts, or "super battleships" in Bollar terms, are capable of using their enormous size and mass and their stupidly strong shields to just ram straight through an unshielded planet like Earth. Humans call these Ceres-sized monsters "world bulldozers" for good reason. Their exaton-level guns can combine to deal out zettatons repeatedly in a sustained salvo and can overcharge to yottatons for a single salvo. They're never deployed except in engagements against full Imperishable Empire colony forces.

The top of the hierarchy for a Bollar colony force is the mother ship. Some Freeholds mount Hammer class Planet Killer gun platforms on their mother ships, capable of dealing out 10-E+42 joules of destruction, basically a mini-supernova. Without it, however, a mother ship, the center of the entire Freehold (a Freehold can be loosely defined by its Colony Force, in fact the two terms are understandably interchangeable) super fleet, can deal out beyond yottatons of firepower in sustained salvos: brontotons, in fact. However it has been a few centuries since any Imperishable Empire colony force has ever drilled through a Bollar super fleet far enough to force the lion of the fleet to get up off its haunches and fight.

This enormous vertical hierarchy exists because the Bollars believe in encountering an enemy with the bare minimum force needed to deter the enemy or win the engagement. They will very precisely measure out exactly how much biggatons they need to use on a hostile force, usually underbilling the enemy in an initial hostile contact. Given that they are using drones more than humans as of late, they have blood to spare. Bollar military strategists across all Freeholds subscribe to the use of drone fighters to buzz unknown entities without known hostile intent, and if the drone gets destroyed, send in the sloops. Once they know how much firepower the hostile entity has, they will dial up precisely. If they estimate they need six corvettes to end that enemy that is all they will send. If they suspect they're encountering the tip of a big iceberg they still won't send a frigate, they'll wait until that iceberg comes for them, then re-measure their strength and dial upward accordingly.

A Bollar Admiral who sends a Dreadnought to an engagement had better have one hell of an explanation to their Clanlord or Clanlady. Such a ship had better have encountered an equally strong enemy hiding in the weeds or else someone is being relieved of command.

Most importantly, Bollars hate letting the enemy know how much firepower they really have. If they could get away with destroying an Imperishable Empire colony force with a few frigates while keeping the enemy totally unaware of their Dreadnoughts they most certainly would. They especially do not want other unknown hostiles out there to know they can crack their homeworld open like an eggshell... unless they desperately have to resort to that.