Interstellar Age

Chapter 431 A Meeting of the Gods

It had been well over a decade since the so-called gods of the Ennead Theocracy had first been alerted to the reality of the Naraku. Their civilization was ancient, far older than humanity, and in fact, they had visited humanity in the early years of their civilization.

But in comparison to the elves, they were like children. Even then, the rulers of the Theocracy, the so-called Divine Council, were viewed as gods, not only by their own people, by nearly everyone in their sector of space.

Yet these gods were not exactly beacons of hope at the moment. Or they would not be if their current states were witnessed by their legions of followers. Currently, the Divine Council was meeting at their largest temple.

It was not uncommon for them to meet on significant matters of importance, but throughout the last few millennia of peace, this had been a rare occurrence. Yet in the last twenty years alone, these in-person meetings became more and more common. Specifically, this last decade where they had become aware of the Naraku Threat and began preparing for it.

The once massive warships that were fielded by the Great Powers were proven to be far from perfect when waging war against the Naraku. Over the course of the decade, the Great Powers of the Galaxy began to scrap what remained of their near planetary sized capital ships, and instead began to replace them with more reasonably sized vessels.

The largest of which were roughly twenty kilometers in length. These ships were more easily protected by the point defense systems, which could be spread for more effective coverage. They also didn't require as much resources to keep maintained, or to produce in the first place.

For every one of the old "Worldships" that could be produced, the Theocracy could manufacture several dozen of the new Dreadnoughts and in less time. Technologically speaking, these Dreadnoughts were slightly more advanced than the old Worldships.

Of course, there was only so much a civilization could achieve in ten years of technological development. Well, a civilization that was not entirely run by an advanced artificial intelligence who was at all hours of the day focusing on this very task.

This was the Germanic Star-Empire's greatest strength. They had Tia, and nobody else did. Because of this, only mild improvements had been made to the weapons, shields, armor, engines, and warp drives on the warships that the Ennead Theocracy and their other rivals had begun to employ in their fleets.

Scrapping one's entire navy and rebuilding it was a long, expensive, and arduous task. But considering how ineffective their previous warships had proven against the scout fleets which the Naraku had sent to the Milky Way, it was a necessary expense.

One that appeared to be progressing far less smoothly than the gods of the Ennead had originally thought, hence why they were gathered today. The leader of the gods, Amun, was the one who ultimately asked about recent acquisitions.

"Tell me, how many ships have we manufactured in this last decade? Do tell me we have made some progress towards our goals?"

Montu, the Ennead's God of War, and foremost commander of its Military was the one who answered this question, albeit with an anxious look on his face as he did so.

"We have produced one hundred warships a year this last decade, which means we currently have 1,000 of the latest generation vessels currently within our fleet…"

While the other gods nodded their heads in satisfaction, Amun raised another question, which was the exact reason Montu appeared so nervous.

"And tell me, by our latest reports, how many warships has the Germanic Star-Empire manufactured these last ten years?"

Montu looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die as he answered this question with a bit of a stutter in his voice.

"Dou… Double…. The Germanic Star-Empire has produced double the amount of warships we have this past decade. They are currently capable of producing an entire new fleet every year, and they are also able to man them with new personnel. We really don't understand how they are able to do it!"

The looks on the faces of the Divine Council was if they had just been forced a pile of manure. They were about to freak out and panic when Montu tried to reassure them and himself that this wasn't as large as an issue as they thought.

"You all have to remember that the largest warship of the Germanic Star-Empire is 1/4th the size of our dreadnoughts. This is why they are able to produce so many vessels in such a short amount of time! I mean, if you really think about it, wouldn't our current ships be more powerful?"

As reasonable as this explanation seemed on the surface, one which had just begun to reassure the gods of the Ennead Theocracy, that is until Amun pointed out the flaw in the logic.

"The size of a military vessel does not equate to its capability on the battlefield! If it did, we wouldn't have scrapped out World Ship's for these dreadnoughts now, would we have? If the Germanic Star-Empire is able to outproduce our navy by twice the amount in the same timeframe, then we really will be relying on the Asuras and god forbid those damn Elves if the Germans decide to stab us in the back after all this is over!

We need to produce more ships! Period! Do whatever you can to increase our output, will you?"

Just like the Ennead Theocracy, this same conversation was also taking place among the leaders of the Asuran Cabal. Meanwhile, both the Alfheim Dominion and the Svartalfheim Federation appeared to be following Erich's lead, at least for the time being.

Erich himself was naturally aware of this reality, and the information that had been "leaked" to his rivals on the galactic stage wasn't exactly accurate. The Germanic Star-Empire wasn't simply producing double the numbers of the other Major Galactic Powers, but he was producing the same amount as the four of them combined.

Meaning that in the last ten years, The Germanic Star-Empire had added 4,000 ships to its navy, or 4 Full Armadas. Which, while impressive, was far from enough to deal with the Naraku invasion that was still decades away.