That is unfortunate indeed. Well I'll try to write what I can for them in holed that one day people may return, or you may find yourself with time. Feel free to corny on which way I take them.

That pretty much is dying

Recalling that this was supposed to be the first appearance of a Colta-class vessel ever; edited preceding posts to smooth things out.

Carl has two weeks to bolster Blacken's defenses against a Kallum scout force of about seven Colta. This would be followed up later by a full planetary extermination force consisting of something like thirty-six Colta, at least fifty Yoltoc, something like a hundred smaller vessels, and a thirteen-kilometer Ruvaak-class 'planetary exploration ship' (euphemism for 'dreadnought designed to glass planetary surfaces').

He has some options. He has access to UEF shield technology, which has demonstrated the ability to withstand extensive planetary bombardment given a large enough power source. He also has access to UEF energy generation technology, which would generate the necessary power using high-efficiency fusion reactors.

The problem then becomes how do we shoot a bunch of Kallum out of the sky.

Well, you can't really use the fleet; there are too many enemy ships. So you need planetary defenses. The problem is it's _expensive_ to lift things into orbit, and it's _hard_ to shoot things in orbit from the ground.

You could try laser cannons: the problem is that high-energy photons are absorbed really efficiently by Blacken's atmosphere. You could try particle beams: the problem is that the energy release caused by interaction with the atmosphere would cause some major damage on the ground at the energies needed to punch a hole in a spacecraft. You could try standard railguns or coilguns: the problem is that things in orbit are moving really quickly relative to the surface of the planet, and so targeting would be next to impossible.

Carl has schematics for a relativistic electromagnetic projectile accelerator: "smaller" single-shot examples (firing microdarts at close to 0.9c) were used by mechanically assisted infantry as anti-vehicle weapons as vehicle plating got more sophisticated, before infantry were rendered obsolete by the invention of the macrofabricator. Something reloadable that could take out an orbiting spaceship from the ground would be constructible, but maybe _one_ example would be ready by the time the scout force arrives.

Carl also has schematics for Kallum hyperdrive technology. Before the Terranova was destroyed, he had toyed with the idea of augmenting its mass drivers with stationary hyperdrive emitters, to allow mass driver shells to 'skip' through space, past both normal shields and armor, causing devastating internal damage to a target. For planetary defense, such a "warp" weapon would be ideal, because it would allow a projectile to skip all of the intervening atmosphere and gravity well. This technology could be readied as a retrofit kit and installed on existing surface-mounted artillery turrets and missile installations by the time the scout force arrives.

What would Logan do?

The storyline has deviated already since the original Terranova no longer exists. I think I've inadvertently skipped us past a large section of the introduction, because the entire sequence with being sent through a spacetime anomaly would be difficult to pull off if we're missing a ship. Also, Kallum exploration ships won't show up for a little while because they would introduce too large of a power imbalance.

Reading the original script I note that Logan isn't supposed to know about Blacken yet, but we could do things differently this time around. Maybe Logan's ship has already linked up with the forces at Blacken in the preceding past?

Basically, we're on page 28 of over 100. In the original continuity, Blacken has a fully functioning spacedock. This need not be the case now. If the war is only a few years (a couple of decades at most?) in the past, the remnants of humanity may not have a fully functioning naval presence.

If you decide it's too early for Blacken, I can change the last two words to "our base" and then we are happy.

Well I was still thinking about whether or not to be at blacken. Maybe we could include blacken at a later date?

Im guessing that two weeks is before they find the base?