Dan Vs. The Ace Killer- Sabotage Probes · 3:19am May 19th, 2023
It was the Age of Aces, the Great Starfighter Era, the Galactic Frontier Generation, whatever you want to call it, starfighters ruled the skies and the stars across the vastness of space. Colonial expansion and deep-space mining had created a boom of businesses and settlements all at the fringes of civilization, the edge of known existence. Pirates, criminals, gangs, marauders, raiders and entrepreneurs of all kinds raced into space to make a name for themselves or simply make a living among the stars. The wild west had returned with the dawning of the age of far space travel.
Larger ships were easier prey for pirates and marauders, even rival colonies and settlements. The only real defense were brave pilots and individuals willing to risk it all to protect the innocent, taking to the stars to engage the criminals on their own turf. They needed fast ships of their own rather than bulky cruisers, and so the best defense were starfighters.
Interceptors, Strike Fighters, Gunships and even Bombers, bands of pilots took to the skies in squadrons and sometimes alone to face pirate fleets. Of course, the pirates had starfighters of their own, so battles became pitched competitions between pilots and their ships, facing one another in fierce combat in the depths of space above remote worlds. New tactics and technologies were developed constantly, and few were those that could be called ace. For those few, however, the honor of their name being known far and wide was both blessing and curse; challenges to those at the top were never few in number.
Over time, the frontier communities began to look to other means to defend themselves. Some ace pilots even joined the pirates or took bribes, turning their guns on the settlements they protected. One of the technologies developed was a device that could disable a ship rather than destroy it, something faster that no ship could outrun, that no pilot could outmaneuver. That device was the Sabotage Probe.
Small, innocuous and at times sinister, the LOS-O "Lasso" Sabotage Probe Droid was one of a few such droids developed at the height of the Starfighter Era designed to fly near starfighters and disable them. Once near or launched at a starfighter, the diabolical droid disabled thrusters and controls, preventing the pilot from maneuvering or changing direction. The droid did this by using specialized micro-tractor beams, kinetic projectors and magnetic fields that paralyzed enemy starfighters. The droids were faster than even the swiftest interceptors, ensuring no pilot could escape, no matter how crafty.
It didn't matter who you were, how good you were or how advanced and fancy the ship was you were flying, the Sabotage Probe was the Blue Shell of space. It took all down; there was no defense. Its only drawback was the fact that, despite its paralyzing effects, it burned out quickly and had to be replaced. The droids could only actively disable ships for a few seconds, forcing pursuers to act fast to use them to their advantage. The Sabotage Probe could disable any starfighter but only for a short amount of time, and rarely did they outright destroy ships unless they were already damaged.
Many were the times that a suave and cunning pilot, an up-and-coming flyboy or flygirl sure of themselves, the latest hotshot to grace the frontier only to be brought low by a tiny droid no larger than a refrigerator or a shop vacuum cleaner. They were so effective that some aces even mounted Sabotage Probe Droid launchers to their ships, taking down other aces... or forcing them to crash into asteroids, rocks and space debris.
In the end, the Sabotage Probes did not end the Age of Aces. In time, advances in colonial defenses like targeting computers and planetary gun batteries made the frontier a safer place. The ace starfighter pilots went the way of their wild western gunslinger counterparts, gradually fading into legend. Their noble starfighters can mostly be found in museums, records and history of the pilots and their exploits found in the pages of books. Without many starfighters, the Sabotage Probes themselves became unneeded, and so were no longer produced by droid factories. The very few remaining Sabotage Probes were quietly deactivated and placed into storage, waiting for the day they would clip the wings of those that dared to fly again.
Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship: Season 2
As the Terran Empire spread out in its conquest of every universe, their seemingly-endless Imperial Starfleet gave them supreme advantage in space and by extension, every other known theater of warfare. Their superiority in space was unchallengeable by any other fleet, flotilla or armada; none could stand against the legions of loyal Terrans. Yet some did, and valiantly did they fight against the Imperial battle-fleets. The Empire's preference for larger warships has once again seen the rise in usefulness by starfighters, particularly ones that are fast enough, small enough and with pilots smart enough to use them to outwit and defeat the Terrans in hit-and-run tactics.
Gunstars, or gunship starfighters are particularly effective against the Terran Empire's Imperial Starfleet. Small and properly cloaked, gunstars are capable of using new capital-class weapons to destroy Terran cruisers. Dan worked with Barro and Michael Hay to develop the new Tactical Hyper-Warp Accelerated Particle or THWAP cannon, a weapon using a magically-modified railgun combined with parts from both Star Wars and Star Trek to bypass even the largest ship's shields, penetrate its hull and deliver explosives directly to its most vulnerable areas at high speeds. Although only few weapons exist and ammunition is limited, the results have been extremely devastating on early incursions with the Terrans.
Wanting to have all bases covered, Dan obtained a small supply of Sabotage Probes and took about the task of upgrading them. As always, Dan likes having all of his bases covered.
Sabotage Probes sound a real pain to deal with, trying to think how they handle low level disruptuion shields related to passive particle defense shields modulated to cause shear stresses on larger stelthed items passing through them? Then again, the version as drift mines, limpet mines or even Cukoo mines maybe be possible? These last are designed so when ships pass through their region, they drift into soft contact with an external piece of hardware, then glitch and replace it so it passes all but extreme inspection, and sits thre not behaving otherwise uneil some random or high energetic enviroment time later? This makes it far more difficult to tell where Cukoo mine fields are?
The more scans that are done to analyze the Cukoo mines to detect them, the more data the mines pick up and record, they can then spall off wear particles with smartwater style ID material compositions with something as simple as a heavily encrypted timestamp? Follow the trail. Right into the Ambush?
5728962
The Sabotage Probes use micro-tractor beams to attack ships, so they bypass shields. The probes themselves are actually very rarely used because they can only be mounted on Scout-class starfighters.