Brank
Right now ive slept and thought about it some more:
Alright so, i clearly stated they would even PAY for the ships if needed.
And well...
Brank They see about 10 Ships that are Purple, and Have Red Shields with golden Crosses Painted on them
how, in a week, did 10 ships become thousands?
Without sensors picking up ANY kind of fleet movement?
If you told me they somehow had thousands there, i would have changed the offer to allow most to leave.
Anyway, ignoring the blatant "Expanding fleet", there are two outcomes here:
1: the Dreadnought is eventually rendered combat innefective, since it is overextending and is surrounded by ships firing spinal cannons at it.
2: the Dreadnought surrenders, and is quickly allowed passage back home since it is carrying civillians, however the remaining ships are made to stay in LC custody until their crew are allowed passage home via shuttles.
Numerous ships would eventually be returned to your fleet.
It would be impossible for these forces to win here, since they are facing a huge chunk of the LC navy. After all, this is right next to their homeworld.
Essentially, your best option would have been diplomacy.
RedAndCosmoteer Gladiaxa
The collective are a group of beings that are naturally inclined to test the boundaries of relationships.
Alongside that, they do not like talking, it actually hurts them slightly when they then stop.
They deliberately worded the diplomatic request in a bad way, to provoke a reaction of some kind.
Ignoring that, i had no clue Brank somehow had a dreadnought there, nor did i know of the true numbers of ships he had here.
Essentially, the collective where going to outfit the Byzantine ships with drones, and test a fake offensive against the system.
Afterwards, the results of the test would have in fact been fowarded to the byzantines, so they too could improve.
The collective are not horrible, but they do like to test limits.
As for, "is my fleet overkill"?
Of course it is!
This system is right next to the LC homeworld, of course there will be a vast amount more ships attacking than Brank has.
Well, it should be like that, but somehow brank still has more, because logic.