In 1908 is given Portuguese nationality to all the indigenous inhabitants of all Portuguese colonies. As this is done in a very orderly fashion the stir generated in all the colonial powers is low. Great Britain lifts its eyebrows to the entrance of native Africans and Indians from Goa into the Portuguese army and navy. An alarming quantity of indigenes from all the Portuguese colonies that started education in 1903, go to Portugal to advance their studies.

The German East Africa colony sends spies to watch what is being done in Mozambique and report it to the Kaiser. The German ambassador visits D. Carlos I in order to "understand" what Portugal is doing in Africa. D. Carlos, being a philanthropist, convinces the Germans of the small importance of the work being done with the natives. Portuguese special forces, raised among the Cuanhamas tribes from Angola, the last of the great warrior tribes, are secretly send to the north of Mozambique to stop the entrance of German spies and troops. After some months, the Leopard Men myth starts to spread throughout Mozambique and German East Africa. Still it isn't enough. In December 1908, the Germans photograph the construction site of the first Portuguese ether battleship near Lourenço Marques, Mozambique provincial capital. A "stolen" blueprint and very modified Bantam Class design.

In 1909 just after the battleship "Vasco da Gama" is launched to the ether, the German and Great Britain governments protest against the armament run started by the Portuguese. Waiting for this, the Portuguese make a dangerous gamble. They offer Great Britain some of the information collected in the Martian site in Angola and ask for help in the international community against the German threat. Canada and Brazil immediately reply siding with Portugal and taking with them the rest of the ABC powers. Great Britain drops it's complains leaving Germany alone. Germany attack several Portuguese ships in the Indian ocean and in reply the Cuanhamas special forces attack several military outposts in German East Africa and incite the local tribes to do the same. The Germans agree in stopping the attacks against Portugal.

In 1910 the Cab Verde archipelago receives the autonomous region status. All throughout the Portuguese Empire a stir rises. Even if not everybody is happy about this resolution in the Portuguese empire, live is much better now than before the Martian Invasion. In a historical speech that awakes all the powers to what Portugal is trying to accomplish, King Carlos I doesn't let the Portuguese people forget that "another more advanced species tried to conquer and enslave us, treating us as an inferior race. How can I close my eyes and sleep like a just or look into the eyes of my sons knowing that I represent an Empire that is doing this same thing." In a very wise speech he declares that "we have to arm ourselves, all as citizens of a equal Empire. Not to threaten our neighbours but to stand strong when the Martian return. For the Martians will return." Three months later a German squadron of ships, three cruisers, several destroyers and troop transport ships invade Cab Verde. It's the powerful German empire reply to the Portuguese king. The Portuguese navy isn't a match for the German might. A strong protest is the Portuguese reply. But soon, another kind of reply will follow. In the capital and in the colonies, men of all conditions offers to join the army and liberate Cab Verde. The King asks for patience and speaks against violence, but accepts all those that want to join.

In 1911 Portugal, Brazil, Japan, Canada and the United States of America launches a mission to Venus. The Portuguese Light Cruiser "Cidade de Lisboa" and Frigate "Moçambedes", the Brazilian Destroyer "Petrópolis", the Japanese Cruiser "Hiryu", the Canadian Freighter "Calgary" and the United States Destroyer "Howard" set their course towards the second planet. It will be a very eventful voyage since the very beginning. Fernando Pessoa, now with 22 years is the civil chronicler of the expedition.

After the launching and at 200.000 miles from earth the convoy is attacked by ether ships without signs of any nationality. To defend the unarmed Canadian freighter, "Hiryu" jeopardizes his own safety receiving several hits that will cripple her. But to enemy surprise, all ships fire back in perfect order, scattering the enemy destroyers that show a big resemblance with German destroyers. Incapable of continuing, the "Hiryu" returns earth leaving the rest of the convoy moving in Venus direction. Returning to earth the "Hiryu" commander reveals a movie showing the German destroyers firing against them. The Kaiser denies any part played by Germany on the event.

Here they are. Along with my rationalisation. Know its probably not what you wanted, but anyway...

Also, there are some files of ships I put up (like the Swiss) that have gone missing. Could anyone post them up in a new thread for me, please?

March 1912. The Venus mission should have returned, yet, nothing. The Portuguese King is under assault by the republicans regarding his politics. Cab Verde is now under German control for 19 months.

Manuel de Arriaga, a Republican moderate is also being undermined on account of his friendship with the King. The Portuguese colonists in Mozambique that are leaning toward the Germans, helped by German agents, try a coup d'etat against the reformist colonial government. Blood is spilled. General João Martins de Carvalho attacks decisively the colonial pro-Germany Portuguese with the Cuanhamas troops. The pro-German colonist are defeated, but the price is another stain is the king's image.

Advised by his ministers the King implements two plans to improve portuguese image and his own. The liberation of Cab Verde and the assault to expel the Germans from German East Africa.

Two months after, in June of 1912, over the German fleet in the port of Mindelo, in Cab Verde, several Brazilian advanced military Zeppelins drop, during the night, two thousand Cuanhamas and Portuguese troops in a new invention called "softfall", a belt with a small cavorite system that lets a man fall slowly from the sky. Because of the atmospheric turmoil caused by these tiny belts, the Cuanhamas Special Forces start to call themselves "Whirlwind Warriors". The battle is fast and furious. After two hours, more than two hundred Portuguese troops are dead, but all the ships of the German fleet are in the hands of the Portuguese.

In German East Africa, a contingent of German African subjects, trained and commanded by the Leopard Men attack almost at the same time all the German settlements. By 1903, 4,700 Germans civilians were in Southwest Africa, enough Germans for an expansion that drove local people from their tribal lands. In 1904, the pastoral Herero and Nama peoples, who traditionally had warred against each other, rebelled against the Germans. German troops crushed the rebellion, killing local chieftains and one-third of the Nama nation. Five thousand Germans died in the war. Thousands of Hereros were driven into exile, and only one-third of the Herero people remained in Southwest Africa after the war. Still in 1912 there aren't more than six thousand Germans in German East Africa, and the attack kills almost two thousand men. At the very same time, Portugal gives independency to Mozambique. Mozambique offers to mediate conversations between Germany and the New Tanganya state. After a first denial to accept Mozambique as a nation, Germany accepts to retrieve German population through the Beira city port. After two months, and with famine and general chaos going on, the New Tanganya state pleads to become part of the Portuguese commonwealth. Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique accept this with reluctance. Germany declares war to Portugal.

In 12 February of 1913, an ultra-nationalist, advocate of Portugal forever with colonies, shoots King Carlos I three times in the chest, killing him instantly and after that fires against his son two times, Prince Luís Filipe, who will die three days later from heart failure. Trying to prevent a worse scenario, Manuel de Arriaga and the moderate republicans declare Portugal a democratic republic. Manuel de Arriaga declares D. Carlos I a Portuguese hero and his body is translated to the National Pantheon.

The Germans attack south Angola and demand that Portugal delivers the warships taken in Cab Verde. Portugal denies the request and with German former warships attacks German ships in the Atlantic African coast. To defend its former colonies, Portugal gives it all independence stating that the Germans are only fighting Portugal. One by one, starting with Mozambique, all the new countries declare war to Germany. And surprises rise when also Brazil declares war on Germany. The Portuguese Commonwealth, the King's dream, is now consolidated.

From the Venus mission no word.

Oh, my! No, sir, Vice Admiral, sir. I meant the hull of the lady, not the rigging!

No way, sir, Vice-Admiral, sir!  :wink:

On the old joke, sorry, didn't get it... There must be a portuguese equivalent, but I can't find it. Care to explain?

  :?

Looks interesting. I think I lifted the names of the Tejo-class from a book that I looked through. There was a Tejo-class in real life and two of the sister ships listed, I believe, were the Pedro Nunes and the Vaya or similar.

I must admit I like the Magalhães cruiser. I tended to place heavy damaging but shorter-ranged torpedoes on my vessels because it made them easier to calculate, and because perhaps smaller powers would choose to have more damaging torpedoes to stand up to vessels of the larger powers like the Machtigsten or similar.

These are the most important ships in the Portuguese War Fleet since 1900 to 1923:

Battleship: "Vasco da Gama";

Cruisers: "D. Carlos I", "S. Gabriel", "S. Rafael", "Adamastor", "Rainha D. Amélia", "Almirante Reis" and "República";

Auxiliar Cruisers: "Pedro Nunes" and "Gil Eannes";

Light Cruiser: "Vouga", "Tejo", "Lima", "Douro", "Dão";

Corvettes: "Bartolomeu Dias", "Estefânia", "Duque da Terceira", "Sá da Bandeira", "Rainha de Portugal" e "Mindelo";

Colonial Corvettes: "Save", "Lurio", "Pátria", "Chaimite", "Limpopo", "Açor", "Bengo", "Mandovi" and "Beira";

Destroyers: "Tâmega", "Sado", "Rio Lima", "Quanza", "Bengo", "Mandovi",
"Rio Ave", "Guadiana", "Tavira", "Faro", "Lagos", "D. Luís", "Diu", "Zambeze", "Liberal" and "Zaire";

Fleet Transports: "Guiné", "Fulminante" "Álvaro de Caminha", "Salvador Correia", "Pêro de Alenquer", "Chinde", "Pébane" and "Pungué".

Class-Espadarte Submarine: "Espadarte";

Class-Foca Submarines: "Foca", "Golfinho" and "Hidra";

Mine-Layers: "Vulcano" and "Rio Sado";

School Ships: "D. Fernando II e Glória", "Duque de Palmela" and "Sagres".

I may have forgot and misplaced some ships. These were the times where the designations changed a lot and a frigate could be no bigger than a corvette or as big as a battleship. Then I had to translate to english with the right designation, so I might be in error somehow.

From the diary of the Lt-Captain Afonso Miranda Teles, Captain of the Light Cruiser "Cidade de Lisboa" and Commander of the Venus Expedition:

September 27, 1911.
Only by now I have the time to write down the events that followed our first encounter with the humanoid Venusians. Mr. Fernando Pessoa gathered himself after the first shock and told us that those who were communicating with him in his head called themselves the "Ainduren" and were grateful for our help in expelling the Karroon. I must say that I never had the pretension of taking credit for that, but as I will explain later, things worked in a way I could not control. Maintaining the rest of the fleet much above the ground, more to their own protection than to avoid the turbulence of the air over the city I ordered the cruiser to land. As we left the ship, the air was mild and completely breathable, having a strange but not bad smell. To my astonishment in front of me a group of bluish humanoids waited. As I studied their forms, two notions become clear to me. The entire group was composed of females, if breasts and hips are a universal trait for humanoid females and secondly they weren't afraid and seemed excited and happy with our arrival. One of them advanced some steps and approached Mr. Fernando Pessoa, which, in a most civilized way bowed to the humanoid female. After that he looked at me and said that she was asking me if she could talk in my mind. I confess that the thought was very disturbing but I accepted finding no way past around this. And then a voice sang in my mind and if i wasn't a little afraid I would think that it was the most beautiful thing it ever happened to me. We talked for some time and she told me many things about her people and Venus, or Anidar as they call their planet. I will try to summarize what she told me and what happened after that.

First. The other race they were fighting is called Karroon. They are amphibious beings with eight legs and a strong tail fin. Almost all creatures in Venus are octopod. They are brown or purple and have a big globoid body with big eyes. Of the eight legs, two are arms. They are very strong and dwell in shallow waters where they build underwater cities. They build devices that work with a kind of energy that I could not understand very well, though Sa'atia (the name of the Ainduren female) has tried to explain me several times. It has to do with salt. I have been into one of these vehicles that were destroyed in the battlefield and it seemed to me very impressive.

Second. The Ainduren know that they aren't originally from Venus. They say that they are as we are. And of course I could not pretend I didn't see the similarities. They are smaller, 5 feet tall, they are skinny, maybe the gravity being less made them this way, they have an head as big as ours, but a longer neck. Their hands are bigger than ours but in the females, still very gracious. Their hair is much thicker, looking almost alive, and as I pointed this, Sa'atia told me that this was on account of their telepathy. She can speak a language I don't understand, but she told me that the language is only to speak with children for they only acquire telepathy when they reach puberty. She has a very sweet voice.

Third. They fight a war with the Karroon ever since they can remember. They only stopped fighting them when the asteroids started to fall in Anidar and strange and horrid beast firing an hot ray raised from the asteroids. I told her about the Martian invasion. They don't have telescopes due the eternal clouds in the sky so they don't know that there are other planets, but they suspected and their legends also confirm this. At the attack of the Martians, the Karroom and the Ainduren stop fighting themselves and though they didn't allied themselves, both races tried to fight the Martians. To their surprise and relieve the Martians started to die for themselves and after a fashion disappeared in the bottom of the oceans. Some cities were burned to the ground and people kidnapped but it all ended 15 Venusians years ago.

Fourth. They have dirigibles or zeppelins, lighter than air aircrafts, to move from island to island and they don't use ships for the Karroon sink it all. There are, as we suspected, two big islands. This is called Atra'tia and the other in the other pole is called Atra'ud'atria. The smaller islands are one hundred and eighty six habitable ones and near the equator there are several deserted ones.

Fifth. The strangest thing is that we have met yet no males of the Ainduren. As I casually asked for these I felt a sense of terrible sadness and danger. I'll ask no more of that for the time being.

Sixt. We have visited the city that was being attacked and we were most impressed. The buildings are beautiful and very opened and the way the few children we saw played around gave me the feeling of trust that I needed to send for the other ships. We have been here since yesterday and already we tasted their food that harmed us not. Just some intestinal flatulence, but I think we will eventually accommodate with this for the food is very tasteful.

Last. Tomorrow we will see one of their most reverend places. They call it the "Arriving" and I was told that I will understand it fully when we arrive there. By zeppelin. I am a bit concerned with this, but I'll go along, although I gave some very precise instructions to my second in command, Commander O'Dunagan, the American Captain of the Destroyer "Edward". We will see.

Golfinho-class destroyer (11 pts)
Hull: 3
HVP: 2
TR: 8, AV: 0
Primary: --
Secondary: --
Light: 6/d4(x1)
Torpedoes: 3/d6(x5)
Equipment:
None
[Hull] [Armour] [Thrust] [Primary] [Secondary] [Light Guns]
[1-6] [--] [7-14] [--] [--] [15-20]

This is a murtalianconfederacy design that I'm using, hopefully under his permition.

I added a very fast sketch of the Portuguese Golfinho-class Destroyer. I tried to capture the portuguese caravels feeling, without loosing the Iron Stars mood.

Edited: After a while and after some more sketches, I remade the Golfinho Class Destroyer. Here's another, better I hope, drawing.

[attachment=0]golfinho class destroyer.jpg[/attachment]

The Magalhães class Heavy Cruiser, as I see it.

[attachment=0]magalhaes Heavy cruiser.jpg[/attachment]

I remade the drawing of the Golfinho Class Destroyer. I replaced the drawing in the original post.

From the diary of the Lt-Captain Afonso Miranda Teles, Captain of the Light Cruiser "Cidade de Lisboa" and Commander of the Venus Expedition:

October o3, 1911.
Once again, my question about the male Aindurian wasn't answered. There was pain in Sa'atia eyes when she changed subject and I felt no courage to insist. She was right about the dangers we would face. After we walked several hours and having rested once, we encountered a huge beast. It had eight long limbs, and I can only compare it with a bull with big horns crossed with an yellowish octopus. When the creature met us, the women soldier pointed their lances at it but made no threatening gest. I, myself, pointed my pistol at it and protected Sa'astia with my body. The beast growled twice and started to leave when Mr. Pessoa coughed. The beast turned around and charged at us. I fired three shots that surely hit the monster squarely in the head but seemed to be of no visible effect. Then the lances of the soldiers fired a burst of hot light and the beast fell to its side. The women looked at my weapon with as much surprise as I looked at their lances. Later, while we were moving away from the creature, Sa'atia told me that it's name was Voltoro and that the lances stopped it cold, but it was my weapon that killed the animal. And she thanked me for protecting her. I felt a warm sense of accomplishment going up my spine.
Six hours later she showed me what we come here to see. An huge underwater city. A Karroom's city. It is constructed in the shallows. For what I can see, the Karroom build underwater walls so that the sea waves don't reach their cities. Emerged from the sea there huge chimneys that send out plumes of smoke. So they build things and are able to make underwater fires of a sort. Rising out of the water there is a construction site. As I can see, they appear to be making some kind of vehicle. Very big. It looks like a zeppelin. Near the city in another site there is a ripped apart skeleton of a Martian walker. They are learning from it. Most alarming. After my question about peace with the Karroom, Sa'atia answered me with this sentence: "We are invaders. Why should they want to make peace with us?" I fear that this kind of honesty will put me in problems in the near future. After we come back we had a silent dinner. Mr Pessoa draw a quick portrait of Sa'astia. I did not need to ask for it. Mr. Pessoa offered it by his own will. I think that Mr. Pessoa is also a little telepathic.

[attachment=0]Sa'atia.jpg[/attachment]