Calculus-of-the-Nu'chut

Description
    The Nu'chut was a race of bipedal amphibians that, due do their physiology and mental makeup, was unable to endure the rigors of spaceflight. Even the invention of the reactionless drive didn't help, for they could only stand the briefest of spaceflights. The Nu'chuts were able to colonize their homeworld's moon. However, for longer flights hibernation was required, and not all such flights were successful. Thus after 20 years of having a moon colony only a few asteroids were claimed and settled. Something had to change, and soon. Over the previous centuries the Nu'chut had observed periods of intense activity occurring on their sun. They felt eventually the sun would flare up to such an extent that their planet would become uninhabitable.
    With hope the Nu'chut turned to robotics and artificial intelligence. After 40 years of testing and development a reliable, but subservient, AI program was created. It wasn't long afterwards that an AI-crewed survey ship explored the first warp point in the Nu'chut home system. On the other side of the warp point there was a new system, and most importantly there was a habitable world. A fleet of AI-crewed ships was sent to prepare the world for Nu'chut colonization.
    Then it happened. The Nu'chut sun didn't just flare up; it went nova. All life on the homeworld and the moon colony was wiped out. Even the few asteroid colonies perished, as did all system shipping, both hibernation and AI-crewed ships. Only those ships (all with AI crews) in the new system survived. There were no living Nu'chut in the new system at the time, not even a child. Had there been one, and only one, the AIs would've been compelled to follow whatever orders such a child would've given. But that didn't happen. The coordinating AIs were forced to follow through on their primary task - making the new planet habitable for a race that was now dead. In the ten years that followed the AI population grew to 50,000. With an infrastructure set and ready to receive one million non-existent colonists, the AIs went idle as they consulted their contingency orders. Orders that were written ten years previous, before the homeworld sun went nova.
    Again the unexpected happened. Though stored with care, the datafile containing the contingency orders was damaged by a cosmic ray sometime in the intervening ten years. The hardcopy backup, however, was unchanged. Not only that, the Nu'chut programmers failed to specify which set of files would take precedence. Left to there own devices, the AIs ultimately decided to combine both copies and (pardon the pun) used 'fuzzy logic' to fill in the gaps.
    The coordinating AIs decided to resume exploring new systems for worlds fit for colonization for the now-dead Nu'chut. Defensive military installations and ships, specified in the orders, were to be built. Technical research and development programs were initiated. Additional AI units were created. The one major error the AIs made in their revised orders was in regards to hostile fauna. Ways were to be found to handle animal life that could prove harmful to the Nu'chut. The section regarding native sentient species in the orders was intact on the hardcopy but garbled in the datafile. In their revision, the AIs took the definition of fauna literally. For two races, this fuzzy logic decision making would prove fatal. All hostile fauna was to be eliminated.
    First were the Hajatana, a pre-industrial race just entering the iron age. Intelligent but violent, the Hajatana attacked AI exploration teams that landed on their planet. No one can blame them; what else could the AIs be but metallic monsters that came from the sky. For the AIs it was all too clear. There was hostile 'fauna' on the planet that had to be destroyed. Using a combination of direct ground assault, selective orbital bombardment, and even tracking down of Hajatanas by hunter AIs the planet was cleared for colonization in under a year. Again, after a few years of work, Hajatana was ready to receive one million Nu'chut colonists that would never arrive. More bases and ships were built for the system's defense and the AIs resumed exploring.
    Next to be encountered was the Qzzen. A robust and industrious race, the Qzzen were nonetheless quite xenophobic. There was some evidence that another alien race visited the Qzzen in the recent past and that accounted for their reaction towards the Nu'chut AIs. Make that over-reaction, for all the AI survey ships within range of the Qzzen's homeworld space stations were destroyed. A second attempt at contact just resulted in the destruction of another AI ship.
    The AIs took note of the Qzzens obvious hostility and concluded that they were dangerous fauna. They also took into account of the three rather large space stations the Qzzen built. Primitive as they were, the stations would inflict unacceptable damage on the current AI fleet. Retiring from the system, the coordinator AIs set upon creating weapon systems that would deliver the maximum amount of firepower with an acceptable amount of loss.
    Two years of research and development resulted in two new weapons: the capital missile launcher and the strikefighter. AI battlecruisers were not fitted out with the new missile, but the components of two type-5 bases were built with the missile launchers as well as the first hanger bays. Along with the first six carriers, the AIs returned to the Qzzen system, assembled the two bases, and towed them to within capital missile range of the space stations.
    It could hardly be called a battle, for it was more like a live weapons exercise. The bases concentrated on one station while the fighters, armed with short-range attack missiles, went after another. One firing pass had the fighter-targeted station in ruins and the other took only a bit longer to succumb to capital missile fire. The fighters didn't even had time to reload when the third station fell. For the loss of only 12 fighters and fifteen missile salvos the Qzzen lost their defenses. The fighters did go back in again, but this time to take out major Qzzen population centers. AI troops were landed and, just like Hajatana, the remaining inhabitants were killed.
    The Qzzen homeworld was prepared like Hajatana and the industrious AIs made good on the resources of the system. During this time two more habitable systems were found, but unlike the previous two, there were no native sentient races. Also two new weapons were developed and deployed; the capital force beam and the precision needle beam. With the refitting, new construction, and updating of orbital and warp point bases the AIs went back to exploring five years after exterminating the Qzzen. This was when they ran into the Asteroid Axis.
    As described in their own entry, the Asteroid Axis firmly believed in their own natural superiority and manic drive to impose their will on the rest of the universe. They found the Nu'chut AIs to be offensive to the natural order, an opinion that was only reinforced when an Axis taskforce managed to capture an AI ship and examined the database. The following war lasted 30 months. In that time the Axis built their own carriers and a strong core of dreadnoughts and battleships. Even with the build rates that an AI population could achieve there was no way they could win against the Axis. There were not that many AIs to begin with (roughly 250 million at the start of the war) and, due to some hard-wired commands, a certain percentage had to stay on the developed planets at all times.
    Sadly, the five planets that the AIs had built up for their long-dead masters were conquered by Axis forces. AI neural nets proved to be as vulnerable to radiation as biological ones. With that information Axis troops used low-yield neutron radiation artillery, 'hot' grenades and armor-piercing bullets to take down AI ground forces. The five planets needed some cleanup afterwards, but the Axis found them to perfectly suitable for their population needs. Though they hated them with a passion, the Axis had to grudgingly agree the AIs did a rather good job on preparing planets for habitation. Only the original Nu'chut system remained unoccupied. It would take hundreds of thousands of years before natural forces could render the home planet habitable again. At least one planet won't know the cruel mastership of the Asteroid Axis.

The Calculus Defense Fleet (CDF)
    The CDF was created when the Nu'chut tasked their robotic AI servants to operate all space ships. Seeking maximum efficiency and durability, no civilian-hulled ships were built, only military hulls. Beam weapons were chosen as the main armament as such weapons would need nothing in the way of expendable ammunition. The only missile launchers were found on bases and space stations, and their resupply would be easy since such bases were only in 'inhabited' systems. This changed slightly when carriers were developed, but CDF colliers just dedicated a few holds to bulk storage of fighter ordnance. External ordnance on CDF ships centered on capital, EDM, and ADM missiles.
    Having developed fighters, the CDF logically decided that anti-fighter escorts would be needed if they encountered a race that had fighters of their own. The AIs had enough of an imagination to develop minefield patterns and deep space buoys. What really hurt the AIs was their own efficiency - they were too efficient. Any excess robotic AIs was considered a waste of resources and new AIs were built only when they were truly needed. There was no real population pool for the CDF to draw upon. Each AI was hard-wired at construction to handle a certain number of jobs. Adding to the difficulty of making stable AIs and the dedicated resources needed the fleet had a hard time crewing the ships it built during the Axis war, let alone gathering the pilots required to man the growing carrier squadrons. Due to the imposed limits of their original programming, AI crews and fighter squadrons cannot earn experience but neither will they lose any experience. Thus, all AI crew grades are average.
    In combat against the Axis, CDF formations sought to close the range and batter down shields with force beam fire and launch ADMs to slow targeted ships down. Needle beams would then be used to take out magazines (if it was missile ship), beam mounts and ECM systems. When the battle was clearly in favor of the CDF, needle beams would take out engines and life-support systems. Fighters would gang up and take out the largest enemy capital ships first or carriers if present. Enemy cruisers and destroyers were left to the light cruisers and destroyers to handle until all large enemy ships were dealt with first by the battlecruisers and fighters.
    The CDF did build a few large large auxiliaries, namely the DN-hulled minesweeper and mobile shipyard/repairships. It stayed with battlecruisers as main combatants as they could be built quicker and required smaller crews.
    Given the priority of ship construction, the CDF did manage to raise to TL 9. The development the first generation strikefighter was given priority and was completed in time to see service in the last battle against the Axis. The only other technology to reach operational status was the fighter laser pack and fighter missile.

Warships	Bases	Mobile Shipyards and Repair Ships
Carriers	Tug	Minelayers and Sweepers
Auxiliaries	Transports	Survey Ship