The fact that Nel looked very much like Humans still spun Hana’s head. If they didn’t have tails she would have assumed that they were just Humans in makeup. But if someone took time to look deeper, they would discover that for all our similarities we are very different culturally. In public Nel conducted themselves reserved, keeping their emotions of their faces. It gave them a kind of blank look. They kept emotional responses and gestures private. It could be said that Humanity was the same, but on a closer look it was not. Most Humans were perfectly comfortable with public displays of emotion and gestures of affection, in moderation of course. Nel were more family oriented, while Humans were more individual oriented. Of course over the course of our history, we were also focused more on tight groups, tribes, families, even later nations. They were something that Olympus hoped to be, though not that extreme, a people united in purpose where everyone worked for the betterment of all, while still retaining their personal identities. It was a fine line, but Olympus succeeded in making it work. Nel still wouldn’t accept a test to determine if there is any kind of connection between them. Which told Hana that either it went against their ways, or that they already knew the answer. Or they simply didn’t yet trust them.
Hana opened a file on Sowir, and scrolled down until she found the section about their ships. The majority of their fleets were comprised out of light cruisers. Ships meant to strike fast and hard against the enemy. The three ships that destroyed Voyager were light cruisers. Sowir light cruisers were the fastest ships in this conflict, with their top speed being even greater than that of Traveler, but not by much. These ships were also powered by a power system that was “cold”, and very hard to detect until they were close enough to have already fired their missiles, save getting lucky and catching light reflected off their hull. All Sowir ships and that of the Consortium for that matter, used missiles as a core of their arsenals. Missiles were long range and their trajectories could be adjusted. Then there were lasers, of varying kind. They were used as mid to close range, as prolonged exposure to the enemy hull was needed for them to inflict any kind of damage. And even with them being light speed weapons, they were not viable at long range. Greater distance meant in order to hit your opponent, you needed to anticipate where he would be, and fire accordingly, not to say anything about them losing their power the further they go. And last there were particle beam weapons. Humans knew about them of course, charged particles fired at near speed of light. They were devastating weapons. Olympus didn’t use them yet. At least not yet. The Consortium, including Sowir all built their ships with ceramic composites that Humans never discovered. But then again Human strengths were in other areas. Nel considered metals obsolete and primitive. Though Hana thought that would change once they realized the strength of Human ships. The Consortium fleet before the war mainly consisted out of a battleship core, with supporting cruisers. Each race had different variants of the same design, each race had their own needs, so there was no way for them to use universal controls. Though those races that could, did have joint crews, but those ships were in the minority. There were few differences between the ships, including the Sowir ones. Manly those were necessary changes, a Pouute ship was larger in order to contain more water, Nel and Mtural were the same on the outside while the inside was slightly altered. Guaxcacul and Sowir had designs that suited them, and their ships differed from the rest the most. By Consortium law, each race could have a maximum of 150 warships, with one more joint fleet of 30 ships per member, being under the command of joint government. Each race had its own government, though those were subject to the Consortium government.
Sowir light cruisers, the ones that now consisted the brunt of their fleets, were a relatively new design, made specifically for the war. The Consortium didn’t know about them until they unexpectedly attacked. Looking at the information in front of her, Hana could see that the war was lost even before it started. The Sowir planned for a long time. The first attack came simultaneously against every major fleet of the Consortium. Sowir hidden ships attacked from the dark, while Sowir ships in the joint fleet turned against the others. It was a slaughter. Sowir had a lot more ships built secretly, and with them they managed to overwhelm the other races. Not that they didn’t take heavy losses, they did. That was one of the reasons why they still fought the war. The ships they had were on the same technological level. And even their new light cruisers couldn’t stand up to a Consortium battleship one on one, not even four to one. But they had built many. And so, slowly they started cutting into the territory of other races, cutting them off from each other. That gave them even more advantages that they used ruthlessly. Now they were content to slowly rebuild their forces, while they kept a constant pressure to keep the Consortium from rebuilding. In the opening strikes on the Consortium, Sowir focused on those systems that held their shipbuilding facilities. Taking them for themselves, or destroying them where they could not. According to the last information Nuva received from Nel home world remaining Sowir forces were estimated at around 250 warships. The data indicated that they started the war with around 500. They lost more than half of that, but have slowly been replacing those losses, while Consortium couldn’t. At least not as fast as Sowir could. Nel home world currently had 80 ships. And Nel government believed that was enough to protect them until they could build more. Their projections indicated that Sowir couldn’t have yet conquered the other races, and that they were spread thin. They didn’t believe that Sowir could spare more than 100 ships to attack their home world, not without giving ground on the other fronts. That made them believe that they had time to rebuild. Hana was not convinced. Sowir managed to defeat them with inferior numbers, through guile and surprise. They were not an opponent that would give them enough time to become a threat again. Not when they went to great lengths to neutralize the Consortium’s greatest strength, their unity. Sowir had been dismantling Consortium territory piece by piece, dividing and conquering. They will take every world until only the home worlds remains, then they will bring enough force to beat them.
No matter what way Hana looked at it, she couldn’t see a way for Consortium to win. Sowir had expanded too much. And no matter how much she wished it, she knew that Olympus couldn’t beat them either. Their technology might be better, their shipbuilding faster, but their one weakness was that there just wasn’t enough of them. Olympus could build ships faster than Sowir, but didn’t have enough trained people to crew them. They could recruit from other areas, but that would only mean that their other fields would suffer. Perhaps if they had enough time to grow, but that could only happen if they managed to stay hidden. And she was sure that Sowir would not stop their expansion. They were conquerors, when they met with the Consortium they reached an obstacle. They tried pushing and when they failed, they pulled back, reassessed, and patiently waited for a time when they would be able to smash that obstacle to pieces. From everything she read, Hana could see that Sowir were a terrible opponent, they were experts at adapting, at deceit, they did not care about other races. They would never stop, any peace with them would only last for as long as it suited them. And that meant that Olympus would need to fight. And unless something changed, they would lose simply because they were too badly outnumbered. Hana finally sighed and got to her feet, she made way towards her quarters, and went to bed. Thinking how she could help Nel survive long enough to give Olympus a chance.