The Great Operas

In all things the Thadrakos seek aesthetic perfection, their void fleets are not omitted from this mindset; sleek, shiny and smooth, with hand-made engravings across the hull, the fleets of the Thadrakos Families are easily misperceived as shooting stars in the night sky. Gun barrels are curved internally and shaped *juuust* the right size so that the noise emitted from a firing gun is much like a note of music, combined with other guns they make symphonies of music as they dance across the void in deadly battle; many recount the Thadrakos fleet guns reciting Beethoven or the Thadrakos national anthem, the resonating sounds being so intense that sensors are crippled and internal glass cracks.

Thadrakos ship became known to many as ‘bangers’ – The Thadrakos, being the refined elves of culture and art that they are, obviously found ‘bangers’ distasteful and insisted their fleets be called Great Operas.

### **Hierarchy**

The Thadrakos rank structure makes as much sense as orange milkapples, because Thadrakos hierarchy in space makes about as much sense as orange milkapples.

* **The Five Families:** usually a combined fleet is commanded by a single senior member from one of the families, but often they all hold a council and decide together, but then again whichever family most recently won the inter-family art contest has executive decision making which can only be overridden by a challenger beating the decision maker in an art contest of the defender choice… So usually the admirals of the Opera just ignore everything the families tell them to do.

* **The Conductor:** The equivalent of a grand admiral, he/she oversees ship design and that’s actually pretty much it, the conductor is more of a ship designer than a person who actually knows how to conduct war. A conductor is given said rank for merit in craftsmanship of void vessels, knowledge of warfare is a trivial secondary concern; again, because of the complete lack of knowledge the admirals generally ignore specific orders and achieve the objective in their own time.
* **The Admirals:** Thadrakos admirals are numerous and disparate, usually only commanding 15 to 20 ships at the pinnacles of their careers; the void navy is divided into many factions depending on the admirals' allegiance, these factions vary from loyalists to a specific family to patrons of a prominent artist. In times of war many admirals are able to come together and combine fleets, though non will ever submit to another admiral and the fleets move and attack by majority consensus rather than command. In peace time though a violent game of scheming and murder is played, a game whose victor would become a Thadrakos known as an 'Admirax' whose power would extend to command all the Thadrakos fleets; this has never been achieved though, any Admiral who has come close has been chopped down by allied competitors or fallen to a blade from his subordinates.
* **Capitáns:** The captain of a ship, how they become captains is an unregulated and random system; some win captaincy of a ship through art competitions, others through betting, inheritance or simply owning enough slaves and money to build their own. No regulations, no formalities. Capitáns spend peace time roaming space with no exact purpose other than the chance to find something interesting to do, including abduction of other people.
* **Successors:** Essentially the Capitáns' subordinate and the chosen heir to the ship, often the successor is a brother/sister or son/daughter of the Capitán but they can simply be chosen. This has been the source of many conflicts though as the successors is not often pleased to lose the ship because the Capitán lost a bet or changed his mind.

You have probably some of the facts above to conflict, this is simply because there is no real structure or rules and the above hierarchy simply outlines the most common occurrences.

## Fleet Stratagems, Doctrines & Tactics

The Thadrakos, when it comes to combat, are cowardly; even the more militaristically inclined do not revel the thought of combat, this is because of one simple fact. In a fight, you tend to get wounded... scarred, a scar that does not heal spells the end for many Thadrakos who see scars as grotesque and ultimately barring them from the peerless ideal.

So Thadrakos will generally avoid combat unless it heavily favours them, delegating the more even battles to mercenaries or pirate factions whom are on good terms with the Thadrakos.

### **Stratagems**

#### **Stratagem - Lone Wolves**

This is not an official strategy and more just what has become the norm, Thadrakos have a freedom in space that they do not have on planets and are reluctant to submit their own power and forces under another; so many go separate ways. In war this is a double edged sword, the Thadrakos fleet is hard to wipe out and they remain a threat throughout the entire campaign, they could quickly join forces to smash unprepared fleets and quickly separate again; but also this makes the Thadrakos weak to organised fleets that maintain formations and do not get drawn into chasing the Thadrakos, this can mean the Thadrakos do not even sum up the will to fight and simply let the enemy fleet do whatever it wants, at least that is what the Thadrakos want the enemy to think.

#### **Stratagem - A Sudden Union**

This is the other side of the coin, for the most part the Thadrakos fleets are divided; but suddenly, when it is least expected, the disparate ships will join together to form a fleet. This is often done in an ambush-like fashion, what seems like a simple skirmish with a few Thadrakos ships will quickly turn into an envelopment from multiple fronts as more and more Thadrakos ships join from other systems.

### **Doctrines**

#### **Doctrine - N/A**

The Thadrakos Families and the rest of the fleets do not really conform to any standards or preferred set of equipment, the Thadrakos thusly have the most versatile fleet in the galaxy, this is more often bad than it is good though; ships can be 30 years outdated even by their own nation's standards and are more often lacking the necessary equipment than they possess it.

### **Tactics**

#### **Tactic - Hook and Blade**

The Thadrakos like to lure opposing ships into ambushes, they will execute a seemingly poor attack and feign retreat; the more that follow the better, during the chase the Thadrakos will drop inactive mines behind them and once the enemy are ahead of the mines the Thadrakos will turn round and activate the mines. Suddenly the enemy are facing weapon fire from the front and homing mines from the back, for added effect this is the time when the Thadrakos will try to disable engines and pick apart the immobile enemy.

#### **Tactic - Silent Running**

The Thadrakos are notoriously hard to find in space, this is due to their Lone Wolf stratagem; due to the separation of ships the vapours they emit are hard to detect in comparison to the vapour trail entire fleets leave behind. The Thadrakos also use a slightly different fuel source to others, slaves, they do not literally use slaves as fuel; rather, they have large decks of slaves whose labour powers the thrusters and engines of the ship. This translates into the Silent Running tactic where entire squadrons of Thadrakos ships can approach unwary targets undetected, this is most effective on docked or stationary fleets who passively rely on sensors rather than sight to detect enemies.

#### **Tactic - A Song Of Fire**

Noise, noise, noise. The Thadrakos ships make a lot of it in combat, Thadrakos ships blast high pitch notes from as many points as possible while the sound of gunfire is amplified, the purpose is simple and the ultimate tactic is to. Noise, when amplified to levels beyond certain thresholds, can destroy sensors and wear down hull integrity of opposing ships.

## The Pirates

With all this considered you might still wonder what makes the Thadrakos Families so dangerous in space; they lack unity, strength, co-ordination and a willingness to fight like most do. Well many others have thought this way, the Eternal Empire thought they would be easy prey; what few account for is the pirates, Thadrakos space is a pirate haven. Great pirate space fleets and forts litter the deepspace and any fleet that invades the Thadrakos must fend off the pirates, who will unify behind the Thadrakos flag to destroy supply lines and pick apart lone squads. The Thadrakos have an unwritten deal with the pirates, you can do whatever you want in our space as long as you do not harm us, this has more or less worked out for them.