It is things like this that totally destroy the premise of the book. Why would Gaia start them all back in the cold weapon era. They had the worlds population in a game that just replayed history?? Why not start them with the high tech and give them similar difficult environments? Let humanity have ten years improving current technology, not reinventing the wheel. This authors world kinda deserves to all die.
(Conspiracy theory!) Gaia actually staged this; like, the forward base was, in-fact, destroyed, but only because Gaia withheld information and messed with humanities defenses. (Seriously, evacuation protocols didn't even work? Someone is messing with them)
I would guess a idea such as turning the ships in to a giant orbital bastion and useing it for orbital mining and for launching ovit support and colonization attempt but that just my idea
Keyang27