Like a hornet's nest many ships clustered around a Bussard ramjet core. Sometimes like a Portuguese man-of-war: thousands of ships as weights around the fringe of a great silver light-sail. Early fleets included hospital ships and return fuel; later there were massive suicide attacks. It went on for centuries. The State utopia became a subsistence civilization turning all its surplus energy to war. The fleets moved at just less than !ightspeed. News of success or failure or need for reinforcements... read more
