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Front 9.3; Appendix - On the Curadh - By Pierre Havelock
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The Curadh, as also frequently referred to as 'The Submarine' is a nearly decade old Assault-Carrier class warship. It sails under the flag of 'The States Union-special branch' or TSU-s and is the primary target of Operation Deadlight, the mission which the NTME has shown us when we look in at the UnderCurrent through the eyes of the Am-Fluchtig's crew.
As a vessel we know that the Curadh has quite the storied history being one of the only two or three(the exact number is unclear) so called 'Troy Class' vessels.
As you may remember certain figures talking about, Troy class ships are a rare category made during the last year of the so-called 'First War' (TA414) - Despite massive success only 2-3 have ever been constructed owing to the extravagant costs involved and the need for large quantities of the rare wonder-metal Goibniu/Magite. Of these the lead ship of the line, the 'Cheval de Troy' is the most well know and the only one that was actually completed in time to partake in the First War.
The Curadh was finished a few months after and owing to the destruction of the Cheval de Troy during the last battle of the war - The Curadh would spend much of its early life effectively pretending to be its sister ship for moral purposes.
Although it would quickly rebuild, TSU was in tatters at the war's close and many of its remaining vessels were so damaged it was easier to scrap them than repair - Meaning for a time the Curadh may well of been the most powerful ship in existence (of course this was after the war so there is no actual evidence of this in combat per-se).
Its first crew was made up of veterans from across the military whom had all survived the war and needed a new posting, chief among these were two men in particular:
Head-Captain Synapse was a man in his early 70's at the war's close and was already well past retirement - However there were so few senior field officers left that he reluctantly agreed to stay on in a reduced role as the captain of just the Curadh (as averse to his earlier career as a fleet leader during the years immediately prior). He brought with him a squad of pilots whom had originally operated fighter jets before transferring to Vijaiks during the war - Among these he would appoint a man by the name of 'Moncha' to the position of combat commander aboard the ship, in charge of all pilots and the on-board company of marines - This is a role major Moncha still holds today nearly a decade later.
As mentioned in the early peace years, TSU was doing all it could to rebuild and couldn't afford resources for extravagant parades & recruitment drives, as such the Curadh with small escorts was sent far and wide - Its similar appearance to the 'Cheval de Troy' acting as both an intimidating presence to some and a morale boost to others. None-the-less, with time new flagships were thrown up and the Curadh gradually entered a more reserved role being more a ceremonial vessel than anything else.
Around 4 years after the war the Curadh was scheduled for a large scale retrofit and the appointment of a new captain, as Synapse was finally ready to retire, literal months before this hand-off could occur, in the year TA418, the 'Remembrance Incident' began.
It is more than worthy of an entry in its own right but in simple terms, this time period is what we on Earth would call a most brutal war.
The Remembrance Incident is hard to find concreate facts on owing to TSU still refusing to call it a 'war', they claim it was 'just' a collection of large scale terrorists attacks, 'Incidents'. In reality the 'Incident' took place over months and involved outright fleet battles, alongside smaller gorilla warfare attacks - And in all took millions of lives, it is truly a remarkable testament to TSU's corruption and propaganda facilities that this has been kept under wraps from much of the unaffected general public.
And while TSU had been rebuilding at a frightening pace in the 4 years of peace, its new fleets were spread thin keeping watch over the various Nation-States and the occupied parts of Abhaile, leaving a massive opening for Remembrance's assault.
Using almost solely veteran soldiers and extremist youths along with self-made Casnels, Remembrance rapidly sunk multiple fleets and claimed credit for a freak meteor shower that took an entire country and its populous off the face of Western Bhaile - TSU deny this, saying the meteor storm was unfortunate & unforeseeable, but also a completely natural occurrence.
This massive hole in TSU's front line leadership lead to Remembrance winning dozens of raids despite their relatively small numbers - Fact being that Remembrance may of been the greatest concentration of proven warrior talent all under one banner to of ever flown in mecha combat.
Captain Synapse, nearing retirement chose to fill this gap in front-line leadership rather then keeping his head down. When the base he was stationed at suffered a small Remembrance raid, Synapse apparently grew frustrated with the base-commander's response, raising the Curadh's main cannons to face the base's command centre and demanding fleet leadership be transferred to him.
The youth in command 'complied' and Synapse took control of the local TSU forces, fighting back the Remembrance raid with great success - Then seemingly with no permission to do so, the old man commanded this little group of ships to follow him, and with the Curadh at the lead took this ad-hoc fleet into the thick of it.
From here the Curadh with an ever growing unofficial 'TSU-Fleet' of sorts, would find itself involved in every major battle against Remembrance that took place over the course of the following months. Reports at the time suggest Synapse acted as an admiral rather then a mere head-captain and that his tactics and mind were as sharp as ever in spite of his now old age.
Ultimately this would lead the Curadh to being at the centre, the culmination of Remembrance's operations - Supposedly the terrorist's faction planed to use a second, larger meteor shower to destroy the TSU home-fleet and strike at Central Bhaile all in one - Effectively this would of destroyed the Union's biggest fleet and headquarters simultaneously. They did this by simply luring the home-fleet into their predicted path of where the meteorites would hit - The lure was none other then themselves as the largest Remembrance fleet to this day gathered.
TSU command eagerly jumped at this opportunity for a more straight forward fleet battle and merrily sent the home-fleet along to engage.
The Remembrance force was clearly outmatched, made up of previous war vessels and a handful of new original Casnels mixed amongst the dozens of last war Vijaiks. The fleet bravely faced off against TSU, outnumbered by upwards of 10 to 1, famous aces like the 'Bane of Konpei' and the 'Scarlet Scourge' leading the defence - But ultimately it mattered little as the meteor strike never came, and gradually Remembrance was overwhelmed by TSU's incredible numerical advantages.
Some say that Remembrance really did have a cult of Magi who could direct the path of asteroids - And indeed a meteor shower did pass through the solar system - But it was nowhere near Bhaile or Abhaile.
Most believe that between the first shower hitting Western Bhaile and the second's planned date, TSU found and assassinated the Magi(s) responsible.
Interestingly it's possible our topic today, the Curadh, may actually of been involved in this - It uncharacteristically arrived late and damaged to the final battle and although it quickly made up for lost time, it is still redacted information as to what it was doing just prior to this last fight.
Whatever the case, Remembrance were summarily routed with only a sliver of their forces retreating under the command of the injured ace pilot, Scarlet - While the Bane of Konpei (Remembrance's 'Field Commander Supreme') lead a desperate final kamikaze-charge of all still functional mechs in the fleet.
This charge alone bought the stranglers time to not be entirely wiped out and did considerable damage to the TSU home fleet by itself, but obviously took the life of Remembrance's fiercest leader and most loyal subordinates.
The Curadh successfully survived once more, heralded by many as the biggest hero of this 'Incident' in much the same way the Cheval de Troy had been in the previous conflict - And so it came as quite the shock to all sides when, rather than retiring a heavily decorated war hero of two separate world threatening conflicts, the Curadh's Captain was put on trial by States Union high-command.
It's pretty clear to see that high-command used Synapse as a scapegoat for their own incompetence during the events of the incident.
Charging him on petty counts of insubordination and accusing him of purposefully leaving the half-dozen remaining ships escape the final battle - Synapse was sentenced to public execution broadcast via national media.
It is true Synapse broke rank in order to better fight back against Remembrance, it is also arguably true that he did in fact leave Scarlet's group retreat from the battlefield - As some have claimed he was either trying to conserve what was left of the home-fleet or that he truly respected the Bane of Konpei's final sacrifice of beliefs and had no interest in shooting the backs of the ragged remains of the retreating Remembrance force.
Whatever the case, to the public Synapse was blamed for it taking so long to put a stop to the so called 'terrorists', while those in the know would take it as a huge injustice. So large in fact that among the many reasons listed by 'Vice-Admiral Louise' during his declaration for the formation of the 'Independent Alliance of Free States' (IAFS), a declaration that included the likes of the wanton murder of all Station 5.5's population at TSU's hands - Louise also listed Synapse's miss-carriage of justice as another of the reasons behind IAFS's formation.
And yet to me dear reader, even that isn't the most surprizing part of the Curadh's colourful history.
With Synapse gone the damaged ship required repairs and a new leader - And so the second (and current) commanding officer was appointed, a woman by the name of 'Captain Synapse'.
Now astute readers may of noticed the discrepancies there - Synapse senior was not a woman and held a rank one above Captain.
Indeed this new Synapse was none other then the first's daughter.
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'Marie Synapse' had like her Father fought in both the First War and the Remembrance-Incident and was well-known in her own right.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
An indomitable leader, effective, level-headed and well respected by her crew - When the need for a new captain of the Curadh arose Marie volunteered, transferring from her previous post aboard a destroyer-class ship, over to the Curadh. She brought with her a small number of previous staff but other than that it was almost as though the Curadh hadn't changed. The bulk of its crew remained the same and it was still helmed by a Synapse.
Marie has achieved some impressive things during her time as Captain - Convincing higher ups to continually update the ship and provide further training for all its crew members - But most of all would be her getting the Curadh transferred from regular TSU over to TSU-s.
It is worth noting that the speical forces branch of TSU had existed for as long as the main navy, almost every military has some form of military intelligence & subterfuge division, however the current iteration of TSU-s is different.
Established immediately after the end of the Remembrance-Incident, TSU-s has the explicit goal to suppress further uprisings among Abhaile and the Nation-States using as little resources as possible - This leading to the group of little more than a hundred ships, using tyrannical supressing tactics to control human space.
However when it was created it would be fair to say that TSU-s were an elite force, consisting of only the best TSU could offer in crews and pilots. When Marie managed to get her ageing ship (a ship that in reality is so unique it has no explict purpose within a normal fleet) into the ranks of TSU-s it was a great achievement. And for much of the peace years the Curadh's involvement was mostly benign, used as an experimental weapon's testing platform and simple patrol vessel.
Of course as you dear reader are by now well aware - Then came IAFS.
Nearing six years after the Remembrance Incident, an IAFS strike team launched from the flagship 'Tradech' and lead by Lt.Commander Ceathair infiltrated a TSU-s base and successfully stole 3 brand new Casnel-Mark G2's - And in doing so began the current war between TSU-s and the renegade faction IAFS.
The Union wasted no time putting the Curadh to work, deploying it with the most advanced in anti-detection equipment, the Troy class Vessel became a most-deadly submarine. In this role the Curadh has spent 6 months or around 210 Earth days remaining almost completely undetected as it expertly slew IAFS supply lines and minor patrol vessels. This is no doubt a mark of the Curadh's experienced and skilled crew, to remain undetected for so long and have such a high success rate is surely impressive, that said we can presume it has also taken a massive toll on the moral and mental health of its staff.
In its mission the Curadh has been obliged to leave no survivors, leading to them frequently defeating already surrendered or even civilian 'enemies'.
As of the 6th month of TA424 IAFS has finally managed to launch a counter-offensive lead by the 'Am Fluchtig', the second ship of the Celtic-Class battleship line (a somewhat unfortunately ironic similarity to the Curadh being the second ship of the 'Troy' class line), leading up to the current events we see the NTME showing us and as documented in this novel.
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Paired with this are some further points worth noting;
First it should be said that the Curadh has a rather curious combat set-up, despite being a carrier class vessel designed for more then 10 Vijaiks at any time - Being that it was only finished shortly after the First War and originally used for morale purposes, the Curadh was assigned a minimum mech escort of just three. That's under 30 percent of its capacity and less then the average cruiser.
This number has of course risen & fallen over the years, during the now much aforementioned Remembrance Incident the ship had 5 native machines (including a Casnel of its own) and acted frequently to house mecha who'd lost their home-ships in battle or simply needed somewhere quick and easy to resupply from & then relaunch off during the longer battles of the Incident, as is the idea of the Troy Class ships.
Nonetheless by the time of TA424 the Curadh had returned to just three mechs, those belonging to the long-standing Combat-Commander major Moncha and his two wingmen Lt.Yazan & Lt.Gemon who had joined the ship during the Incident.
Further their trio of mechs are actually the same ones they have been using ever since the Incident - The MBT-Mk2-Special - The Special part referring to it being a highly modified version, specially equipped for rapid movement, high manoeuvrability and close combat.
These Speical-Main-Battle-Types would of been the very peak of Vijaik technology 5 years ago, a large squadron of which might even be able to match a real Casnel. However five years is a long time when there is an on-going arms-race at play in the galaxy.
Arguably these Gen-2 frame Specials are now no better then IAFS's Gen-3 general purpose Neo's, as piloted by Lt.Kolme and his squadron.
It should be added that this is not too say Kolme Nilas could face off evenly against major Moncha - Moncha is an ace pilot with a lot of experience, having been awarded the 'Knight's Commendation' - A medal TSU awards only to its very finest pilots for extreme bravery and long service, and is exceedingly rare.
The award also acts a speical rank of sorts - If there were two majors in a room, Moncha's 'Knight' ranking would give him automatic seniority and arguable puts him on level footing with the Curadh's Captain.
All this said, had the Tristian group with its 15 Neo-Vijaiks gone up against the Curadh's 3 MBT-Specials, IAFS would of most likely won with ease. So its unfortunate for them that just a month before the open of Operation Deadlight, the Curadh was given a new machine to test, and just two weeks after a further one.
The first is the titular Experimental-G-Type Casnel. We have yet to hear mention of an official title but what we have seen shows this Casnel as far superior to the regular MkG2, it fields some form of energy shield - Capable of blocking high powered rifle rounds as seen at the battle of the Clover. Further its own rifle and close combat abilities seem state-of-the-art and it easily repelled the combined strength of the Fluchtig's five mechs, with even the infamous Casnel-Killer, Scarlet failing to inflict any real damage to it.
Secondly is the Diamond-Type experimental Fortress. A Casnel in its own right we will soon see its powers at play.
The Diamond is Magi controlled, meaning it substitutes the dozens of interconnected AI programmes it would otherwise need to function - For instead having a highly specialised human-esper act as one massive central processor with no lag between various programmes talking, but instead the will of the Magi at the helm being instantaneously carried out by the machine - We can presume it is as dangerous, if not more so then the experimental Casnel.
With these two machines alongside its camouflage abilities and pre-existing veteran captain and staff-pilots, the Curadh is now an undeniably powerful force to be reckoned with once more.
With the conflict between TSU-s and IAFS now in full swing and the Tristan group dragging the Curadh back to the frontline for the first time in five years, will this aged vessel once more rise to be a hero of this 'Incident' too?
Or is this one war too many?
All this technical jargon and history aside, I as a writer documenting this, was left with a few more interpersonal questions at the end of my time studying this long-standing vessel. One obvious question to ask is why the Curadh hasn't changed sides?
Considering the treatment of its previous captain, a direct relation to its current and the fact that one of IAFS's core tenants retains to holding TSU-s accountable for its past crimes - One would think the Curadh a perfect candidate to join IAFS rather then fight against it.
If it did, it would no doubt be treated as a new capital ship and the current captain Marie Synapse would surely be made a leader of the group, giving her the opportunity to avenge her late Father - And yet the Curadh by all accounts remains very loyal to TSU-s.
Is this out of a desire to fix the military from the inside?
Is it simply because they've always been on TSU's side - Do they believe the propaganda, that TSU have somehow not committed any atrocities? Perhaps the Captain has run the numbers and believes IAFS are doomed to lose this conflict, she is after all known to be a deft tactician like her Father before her.
After-all when the NTME suddenly swapped from Kolme's perspective, to that of major Moncha I believe I speak for the whole research team when I say it was a most unexpected shock to see the supposedly deplorable TSU-s, are just a bunch of regular soldier.
Oh sure they are clearly more organised and disciplined than IAFS, and despite their ship being 10 years older then the Fluchtig, its far 'shinier' - But in truth the crew of the Curadh don't particularly seem like the tyrannical evil that TSU-s is made out to be.
Of course it is not my place as the mere author to pass judgement on their morality or motives. Perhaps it is IAFS who is lying and actually TSU isn't so bad after all?
Then again tell that to destroyed families like Una's...
Maybe TSU itself is not 'evil' but rather a small sect at the top are the ones pulling the strings, that people like the Curadh's inhabitants are simply following orders.
It strikes me writing this, that perhaps no one in TSU-s seems 'evil' on the surface, maybe all members seem as amiable, courageous and kind as those we've briefly seen aboard the Curadh - And if that's the case then I'm afraid to acknowledge just how deep a darkness and capacity for wrongdoing hides within each and everyone one of us all - Something I suppose I already knew...
After all I'm compelled back to the Operation-Deadlight briefing, to a video Commander Nate Novel played in amongst the squabbling of that briefing - I'm referring to the one taken by some nameless IAFS officer, whom dies desperately trying to get the first ever footage of the experimental Casnel off of his ship.
And so for all the Curadh has a history of exemplary bravery, cunning and heroics - Despite the fact its crew seem so admirable and Just, I shall end with that unnamed soldier's own words - After all this entry is about the history of the Curadh, that includes its darker more recent chapters:
"Th-They just appeared the bloody bastards. No sonar, radar, no look-out - friggin nothing saw them. The Puma just exploded, it was there and then it weren't. We--"
"We haven't long now. Escape pods are no good, they shot them all out of the air when the Pirelli tried to run. T-There were kids on that ship, kids for Sun's sake--------- N-no God no----"
"That's John. Remember him you hear me? Ha, hell if anyone finds this."
"He's the only one of his team left, remember John Smith you hear me, rememb--"
"This is the Cruiser Class 'Red--"
"--The enemy has a Casnel, I rep-------- further multiple Vijia-------- tell m-my ------ lov--------"
[Transcript of the Recording Shown During Operation Deadlight Meeting One.]
As Recorded in 'Front 5'.
Appendix Ends.