The following record has been altered for mortal consumption.
BEGIN MEMORY EXCERPT
"They use what?"
System Administrator Lar'ken was having the worst day of his life. After watching the council meeting live, he was having a field day. That is, until this so-called "Terran Republic" showed up with a CLASS 3 FLEET mere seconds after the ugly primitives publicly declared war.
"They... primarily use slug-throwers, System Administrator." His head sectary said, nervous pheromones leaking from her scent glands into the war room.
"How is this possible, Head Secretary? Slug-throwers are a dead-end. They are heavy and slow, and while they are devastating short range, their lack of relativistic speed makes them next to useless in a space engagement."
The Head Secretary's throat rumbled briefly in an expression of awkwardness. "From what we have gathered so far, a large portion of their slug-throwers have a internal diameter of about 6.8 ker-metrics. They're big, but they're not so huge as to be unwieldy by emplacements or turrets."
"That still doesn't explain how they're hitting shots they never should be, or why their slugs are so devastating to our armor." Lar'ken said, rubbing his forehead.
"Well... most of their slugs contain either a thermite compound combined with very potent plastic explosives, o-or..."
"Or what, Head Secretary?" Lar'ken spat.
"Self-contained hydrogen based fusion thermonuclear warheads."
Lar'ken burst out rumbling for a solid three moments, amusement pheromones leaking. "You certainly know how to cheer me up, Hal'adi!"
"System Administrator, I wasn't joking. Their slugs are guided, and accelerated by both a chemical propellant within the slug and inside the barrel and either electromagnetic rails or coils. Each one acts like a missile. Around 10% of their 6.8 ker-metric throwers use slugs with thermonuclear warheads. They are small, but any thermonuclear warhead is disproportionately powerful for it's size."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Disbelief pheromones filled the room from his currently silent admirals and generals.
"Oh, stars above. You're not joking."
"No, System Administrator."
"What's the radiation poisoning like on their warheads?"
"Minimal. They easily could have added cobalt to them to make the impact sites deadly for hundreds of years, but their warheads seemed to be somehow optimized for thermal radiation and sheer force. How you optimize a thermonuclear warhead for anything is beyond me."
Exhaustion pheromones rushed from Lar'ken's head. "So, what's your cursory analysis, Head Secretary?"
"After our cursory investigation into the Terran Republic's military and navy, my conclusion is that this civilization has operated entirely within it's home system for several thousand years, optimizing for self improvement over expansion. Their FTL systems indicate that they have new navigators, and have just discovered FTL techniques. They do have weapons besides slug throwers, but they are clearly partial to the primitive concept, and have taken slug-throwers to a level unprecedented in galactic history. Their navy is extremely coordinated, and also coordinates with their ground forces. It's like they are both a single hive mind, but also an army of individuals. It's astounding. In just 40 kahl-moments, they have uprooted every standard galactic naval and army doctrine and thrown it to the wayside. They do not follow the galactic standard rules of engagement. Furthermore, and this is astounding to me in particular, they have managed all of this with minimal galactic war crime violations, besides the thermonuclear warheads, of course. Even their nukes are designed to cause a specific type of harm that doesn't endanger the lives of personnel as much as it does infrastructure."
The war room was silent, of both words and pheromones. "And your conclusion?" Lar'ken said after a moment.
"Their quantity of ships and personnel cannot compare to our empire's combined arms. We would annihilate them. However, our forces are spread thin compared to their force. It would take nearly 4 ker-cycles to muster a force capable of greater than 50% win probability. Even then, our predictive algorithms are programmed with galactic standard doctrine in mind, and are entirely unprepared to deal with the strange and disproportionately effective doctrines that these Terrans use."
"So... what's our probability of holding out for 4 ker-cycles against these primitives?" Lar'ken asked.
"Inconclusive. With an direct override to the algorithm, about 3.5%, with about 65% confidence. System Administrator, I'm afraid we have awoken a sleeping giant. They aren't primitives anymore. They're not just a legitimate threat, they're a catastrophic threat. Our initial predictions estimate that if they have even a fraction of the industrial power we think they might, our entire empire could be at risk of collapse."
Despair pheromones filled the war room like smog.
Lar'ken sighed, his eyes watering from the potency of the pheromones. "May the stars help us, though they likely won't."
END MEMORY EXCERPT