Growler Submarinal Vessel

## Tactical Analysis

* **Quiet rules beneath the waves**: The backbone naval combatant of the Ecumenical fleet is the Growler. It is the primary anti-ship submarinal vessel in the Ecumene's underwater fleet. Using an array of powerful sonic pulsars, the Growler blasts enemy naval units with a ferocious harmonic beam that jackhammers the enemy target apart. Potent and useful at its designated task, the Growler measures well to the likes of the Akula and Assault Destroyer in terms of achieving naval dominance.

* **Get the hell out of dodge**: The Growler is capable of surrounding itself in a supercavitated bubble that renders itself unable to fire but also lets it race forward, typically to either get to a combat zone more quickly or to escape a losing battle.

* **On permanent leave of shore**: The Growler is incapable of defending itself from either air or surface-based units and as a submarine, is not as tough as a surface ship of the same cost, so if it is cornered by enemies that can retaliate and block off its escape it is unlikely to survive.

* **Let me torpedo that argument**: High-class Growlers are given supercavitating torpedoes from the Ecumene's arsenal, with these fast-moving hard-hitting torpedoes exploding into concussive waves that rock enemy vessels and substantially harm their accuracy.

## Background

**Unfinished draft, when published, title would have been UNRESOLVED ENIGMAS X: UNDERWATER STUPENDOUS OBJECTS:**

*The following broadcast does not reflect the views of CBS or its sponsors.*

Rod Serling: The world is full of enigmas, confusing facts and myths that blend together into a tapestry of part-human experience and part-whole cloth fiction. Is there a way to separate them? Tonight, we will investigate, on Unresolved Enigmas.

(\*Commercial break\*)

(\*Serling is standing in front of a giant ocean, fish swimming around as he is talking\*)

RS: In our fifth episode, we discussed possible proof for Undefined Fantastic Objects; telltale floating lights in the sky or bizarre aircraft. Tonight, we look on the aquatic variant of UFOs. While not as mainstream as the airborne counterparts, the existence of these so-called 'Underwater Stupendous Objects' still capture the imagination of seafarers and sailors throughout the world.

(\*Images of various depictions of sea monsters, from the Loch Ness monster to the Jörmungandr, and the deities from H. P. Lovecaft's Cthulhu Mythos\*)

RS: Throughout history, the question of what kinds of beings call the sea home have been speculated about by different civilizations, many of them fantastical. The *Odyssey* told of Greek sirens luring unwary sailors to their doom with their serene voices, Japanese paintings portrayed *kappa* drowning hapless civilians by dragging them underwater, and even Lovecraft wrote of terrible beings underneath sunken cities whose unpronounceable names drive men to insanity. At the advent of marine biology, however, many of these tales were soon refuted, eventually consigned to the same dustbin as every other mythological being ever developed. But do we really know about everything that is underwater? Are we sure that those reports are nothing more than old sailors' tales, relics of a bygone area predating compasses and sonar detection?

(\*Grainy photographs of a large, cephalopodic metal robot underwater, an unknown vessel hauling a giant eel-like creature, and a jellyfish outfitted in what appears to be cybernetic attachments strangling an unidentified diver\*)

RS: When thinking about what sorts of monsters lurk beneath the briny blue, what should not be forgotten is that like the Universe, the sea is simply far too vast for bizarre things not to scurry about in it. Species previously thought extinct are still being discovered today; the coelacanth for example. (\*Image of coelacanths swimming in a deep-sea cave off South Africa\*) Treasures considered long-lost for centuries are being unearthed, and the deep sea is still no stranger for the most unbelievable results of evolution. Perhaps, there might have been kernels of truth on those sailors' tales.

(\*Image of ANV *Chadwick* before its sinking, cutting to the alleged sonar profile of the 'Growler'\*)

RS: While most of these tales have likely more to do with the bottom of a rum bottle than the bottom of the ocean, many of them carry elements of great consistency across disparate regions of the world. One such recurring USO case has been cataloged by amateur cryptid hunters by the name of the "Growler", named after the distinctive growl recovered from the black box of ANV *Chadwick*. Pointed out as one of the reasons for countless shipwrecks occurring today, the USOs discovered not far from the wreckage have all appeared to have the same set of traits over and over. Debate has raged over this topic: is it all the work of one, single USO? Or is it a contingent of Growlers responsible for such disasters?

(\*Footage of Dr. Atchison working at his aquarium in his personal lab\*)

RS: (Voiceover) Prof. Gilchrist Atchison is a leading marine biologist from the University of Glasgow. Aside from his conjoint research in cetacean social structures with Dr. William McTavish III, his other pet projects involve studies of what laymen would normally consider to be products of science fiction. His most infamous journal involves the Combine's utilization of bio-engineered sea monsters, a piece considered highly controversial in the marine biologist community.

(\*Footage of an unconfirmed sighting of an mammoth-sized aquatic creature swimming underneath the Peru-Chile Trench\*)

Gilchrist Atchison: Although I have acquired most of my information from - let us say not the most reliable sources of intelligence - for my research, what I know is that those "animal hybrids" speculated to be under Combine control are the very least of what their zoologists are capable of.

RS: Prof. Atchison claims that the 'Growler' is in fact just one of the many breakthroughs in the Combine' studies into the field of eugenics, which involves encouraging the spread of desirable traits of an organism. He posits that if the Combine is able to call up enormous ants in war, then surely engineering deep-sea life to be monsters capable of wrecking vessels can not be out of their bounds.

Atchison: Perhaps Combine scientists have bred an entire school of gigantic, hideous-looking fish not only to sink enemy vessels, but to importantly dishearten our navies from facing them in combat. Of course, these Growlers' deep, guttural growls can be accounted for their throats modified for such psychological tactics. And those abyssal terrors potentially have craniums sturdy enough to charge headlong into the *Chadwick* (\*Shows picture of the underwater *Chadwick* wreck\*), causing this immense amount of damage to its hull before getting away with minimal bone damage.

RS: Prof. Atchison's hypothesis, indeed, seems to be grounded in the darker rumors surrounding the Combine's advancements in bioengineering. But given his aforementioned questionable reputation in marine biology circles, it should come as no surprise that other Allied scientists have formulated alternate theories for the untimely demise of ANV *Chadwick*. (\*Footage of Eng. Simões, designing a blueprint for ANV *Chakram*, currently under development\*) Naval engineer Bartolomeu Simões has been one of the most respected individuals within the Atlantic Navy for his indispensable service in the research ship ANV *Ferreira*, in which he even oversaw the construction of. He states that Atchison's proposals are so far-fetched, so far beyond any level of biotechnology currently reachable in this time.

Simões: Prof. Atchison clearly wants to bring us back to the time where massive forests of kelp were called krakens and undiscovered species of sea cows were called mermaids. My counter-theory is that if the Combine has such mountainous aquatic beasts in their disposal, their enormous sizes would have alerted the crew in the *Chadwick* of the destruction old sailors' tales claim they portend... unless, of course, he will claim that those fish have somehow been engineered to evolve natural camouflage to cloak themselves with the seafloor itself.

(\*Footage of a medium-sized Akula wolfpack downing the ANV *John Locke* during WWIII\*)

RS: What Simões advances is that what brought down the *Chadwick* was in fact a mundane submarine attack - mundane in the sense that mammoth-sized undersea beings could not have been responsible. What exactly, then, were those submersibles capable of that they were able to evade the sonar pings of the *Chadwick* and escape before the men in the sinking ship even knew what registered in the black box?

Simões: When I talk about casualties in the Allied navy during World War III, I always state that most of them came about by the hands of Soviet submarines, notorious for their ability to disappear into the waves as nimbly as they submerge and sink ships. It wasn't until that fated encounter with one of their sailors that we began to piece together the factors that made Akula wolfpacks frightful among our own sailors. If you look at this particular incident, and try to match it up with what we know about submersible tactics that were used against us, it's too unbelievable of a coincidence when those 'growlers' are not similar to ambush attacks carried out by the Red Navy.

(\*Footage of construction of what appears to be an *Akula*-class submarine at a Soviet naval port, location unknown\*)

RS: Simões advances is that what brought down the *Chadwick* was in fact a mundane *Akula* attack - mundane in the sense that mammoth-sized undersea beings could not have been responsible. But how could such submersibles be responsible for this string of 'growler' attacks? How can they easily down a well-defended ship situated near Cayman Islands, which has a sizable Allied fleet defending it? Engineer Simões believes he has the answer.

(\*Eng. Simões points to a retrieved blueprint of the *Akula*-class submarine, then to a diagram comparing ordinary underwater movement to supercavitation\*)

Simões: The deep, guttural growls that Prof. Atchison pins on giant fish creatures, to his credit, might have been indeed for psychological tactics. Take it from someone who once played a loop of orca sounds in a submarine during his years as a novice - but that's neither here nor there. How quick the *Chadwick* was neutralized can be explained by supercavitation, the process of creating an air or vacuum bubble within a body of water. The greatly-reduced drag that supercavitation brings is what allows *Akula* torpedoes, for example, to achieve high, even supersonic speeds at a drag-heavy medium such as under the sea.

(\*File of the alleged sonar profile of the 'growler'\*)

RS: Eng. Simões offers a shave of Occam's Razor: the simplest guess is always correct compared to Atchison's whimsical assumptions. Naval engineers, since WWI, have maintained that USO sightings, no matter how they are dissimilar to any other known submersible in the world, are simply misidentifications of different submarines, the German U-Boats being the first to rationalize the alleged phenomena. But figures like Prof. Atchison and a growing number of sailors say otherwise, blaming the 'growler' on a return of sea monsters brought about by another power such as the Combine and more. Since grains of truth are found in all assumptions, is it possible that the USOs possess elements both posited by these two figures? What are the objects other than the 'growler' capable of, and do they even announce their presence before going for the kill? Up next, we shall embark on a new journey across the sea of ignorance: the dreaded black ships surrounding what appears to be an uncharted island southwest of Australia.

(\*Commercial break\*)