Cosca

(This article includes ideas, technology, or events which have been declared "Heresy", or not true in the Swarm Cycle's universe.  These concepts cannot be used in a story claiming to be 'canon'.)

The Cosca

For a full background see the article on the Godfather.

With an intention to bomb the Sa'arm into submission they developed the Asp bomber and the Nagina carrier/delivery ship.

Security for these craft is active and lethal. Both the ships and the HSIT devices have embedded thermonuclear devices, and are designed to self-destruct if the hulls are compromised. While in dock, security systems are under the control of the carrier transport. Away from dock, there are only two ways to safely board the craft:
*If the on-board crew authorizes entry
*If the command AI receives an encrypted keyphrase via a particular communications channel. The keyphrase and encryption key are changed for each mission.

Tactics are fairly standardized. A Nagina transport travels to the Oort cloud of a target star system, and releases the number of Asps required by the mission in that system, then travels on to the next target. The Asps hide out in the Oort cloud, selecting targets, and waiting until the group leader judges it feasible make a bombing run. The pilots then use short hop FTL methods to pop into realspace at an appropriate distance from their primary target (usually a Sa'arm-infested planet), and deploy one HSIT device. If there is an assigned secondary target, the second HSIT is deployed as well. In the absence of an assigned secondary target, the pilot may use the device to take out a target of opportunity, like a hive-ship if one is nearby, or he may use the device with a time delay in hyperspace to cause further damage to the primary target. All action is pre-programmed, and usually under the control of the shipboard AI. Immediately following deployment of the payload, the Asp proceeds, via short-hop FTL, to a rendezvous point back in the Oort cloud, to await pickup.

Strategy: For as long as the Navy is able to interdict the advance of the Sa'arm toward Earth, the Cosca will not interfere in their conduct of the war. Instead, they will target systems at the rear of the Sa'arm expansion bubble, and in a direct path to Earth. As they work forward toward the expansion front, the Navy should face fewer and fewer reinforcements, because the occupied worlds providing them will cease to be usable to theSa'arm. There will likely be some fill-in from surrounding Sa'arm-occupied systems, but that just establishes another set of targets for the Cosca. Given their limited resources in terms of pilots, the intent of the Cosca is, at a minimum, to create a "hole" in the Sa'arm front, which would permit Earth to pass through it unmolested.

(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))