Volume 2 - Chapter 80 - Companion
| Now, what happens when two ships that would very much prefer the other did not exist find themselves sharing the same stretch of Voidspace? Combat inside the Void is not simply real-space combat transposed onto a stranger backdrop. The core issue is this: A Repulsor-Field cannot be extended outward to shepherd an individual projectile or laser through Voidspace on its way toward a target. A salvo fired with perfect real-space precision can curve back on the ship that fired it, disappear entirely, or arrive at its target from a completely different vector—or time—than intended. This is where Thread and Echo Astropaths earn their place on a warship's roster once more. A Thread Astropath can chart a path through local Voidspace in the moments before a firing solution is committed to—finding the clear line through which a salvo can travel predictably. An Echo reinforces that path, holds it stable long enough for the shot to get through cleanly. Veil Astropaths exist in direct opposition to this, their job being to disrupt the Thread's chart and the Echo's reinforcement, forcing the enemy's firing solutions back into pure guesswork. When the Astropaths on either side run dry—and they will—the calculation changes once more. The standard doctrine at that point is to fire small, controlled salvos you know your own hull can absorb if they loop back, watch them carefully, track where they go and whether the path looks clear, then commit the real salvo. And then pray to the Emperor, that the Void has not rearranged itself in the intervening moments. Naturally, most Captains, given the choice, prefer not to leave things to prayer. Which is precisely why boarding remains the dominant tactical preference for Void combat. Larger boarding craft carry Repulsor-Fields, and moving a vessel through Voidspace toward another keeps everything inside the field's protection for the duration. It is worth noting, however, that ramming is not universally advisable—smaller vessels and anything not built with structural reinforcement as a primary consideration will not survive the impact intact. That said, the vast majority of dedicated UHF attack ships and battleships are designed around the explicit assumption that ramming and breaching are strategic assets, to be pursued deliberately and with intent. This brings us to the two largest fixed pieces on the board: Gates and Phalanx Fortresses. If Voidlanes are the roads, Gates are the cities. They are fixed points in real space, artificially constructed through the combined effort of researchers, engineers, technicians, and Astropaths of every type. At their core, a Gate is a massive beacon fitted with an artificial gravity well—strong enough to reach into Voidspace itself and pull any vessel traveling through it back out into real space, providing a guaranteed exit point for ships that would otherwise have to navigate their own extraction. The Voidlane connecting two Gates—referred to as a Gateway—becomes, over time, something qualitatively and quantitatively different from a standard Voidlane. Permanent rotations of Echo and Beacon Astropaths reinforce and widen the path continuously, around the clock, indefinitely. A Gateway active for several decades is not a charted mudpath through Voidspace anymore—it is a highway, stable enough for full fleet movements and continuous resupply chains at a scale no naturally charted Voidlane could ever support. Every Faction treats its frontline Gates as among the most important structures it possesses, and enemy Gates as among the most valuable targets it could pursue. The primary danger to a Gate, thusly, is not enemy fleets—they generally want to capture Gates, not destroy them. The genuine threat comes from within the Void itself, in the form of Titanicus-class Entities attracted by the Gate's constant activity. They are rare, but not impossibly so, which is why every major Gateway connected to a critical frontline is staffed by at least one Knight or Runepriest at all times, for deterrence. The final piece of this Void-picture is the Phalanx Fortress. Where a Gate is a city, a Phalanx Fortress is something closer to a small continent that has decided to become a weapon. They are the largest mobile structures ever constructed by any Faction in the Galactic War—supermassive stations built over decades, with hundreds of millions of personnel working their construction using the most advanced production capabilities available, and still requiring decades to near completion. Their purpose, however, is elegant in its simplicity: Interdiction. A Phalanx Fortress moved into a location creates a gravity well that outcompetes any natural well in the vicinity. Stars, planetary clusters, black holes—all of them become secondary navigation targets the moment a Fortress is present. Any vessel attempting a Voidjump in the area finds itself pulled out early and deposited directly into the Fortress's engagement range, which spans further than any ship could accomplish by several orders of magnitude. If one of them ever enters your system, the calculus is straightforward: If it is friendly, you are safer than you have ever been. If it is not, there is nothing in your system that changes what happens next. The only variable is how long that “next” takes—which for the Phalanx Fortress' Helios Annihilation Array is exactly three minutes at best, no matter where it sits within the system… — [Shortened Excerpt from Chapter 4 of "Between Stars and Silence," Dr. Aethon Varri, Chair of Voidspace Studies, UHF Orion Prime University, PFC 801]
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