[X] The Federation will pick off the outlying systems first.

While doing directly for Chronus is tempting, the capital is sure to be heavily defended. Instead you decide to target its old conquests first as the Chronus Dominion must be relying upon them for raw materials for its industry if nothing else. Of Solas and Alanus, you decide to assault the former first as the former mining world was both richer in resources and more developed when the two systems fell to the Dominion's forces.

You bring almost all of the Federal Navy with you, leaving just a single Tiamat-class Destroyer behind to come and fetch you should anything happen to Excalibur in your absence. The journey into the Solas system is uneventful and what greets you when you arrive in-system is informative.

Only three Dominion warships are in the system, two of its ancient Havoc-class Frigates and a sleek-looking light cruiser of a design unknown to your records. Meanwhile there are several defence platforms in orbit around the colony and half a dozen freighters in the system. Certainly a step up from fragmented city-states of slowly decaying technological ability, but nothing that you can't smash aside with ease.

Unfortunately, it only partially comes to that. While the Federal Navy clears Solas of its orbital stations with contemptuous ease, the Dominion warships flee at the sight of you, beginning to charge up their own warp drives as soon as they pick you up on their sensors. No doubt to report back to their superiors on Chronus, but you are confident that you can handle any reinforcements from the Dominion.

The invasion goes off with a good start as the Federal Army securing a beachhead with only roughly even losses on both sides and nothing too extreme either. Given the heavy fortifications that the Dominion has built on Solas to protect their equally heavy industrial investments on the planet, you had expected a more brutal landfall. As things have gone, it turns out that Bel and Yas are an excellent encounter for the enemy's fixed defences.

As the months drag on, the defenders get their act together, bunking down behind their fortifications and fighting viciously against any attacks on their positions. The Federal Army gives as good as it gets with both sides suffering heavy casualties as the invaders throw themselves at Dominion citadels. Only the presence of your warships in orbit over Solas turn the tide of battle, granting a slight advantage to your groundside counterparts and allowing for them to make a slow advancement into Dominion lines.

Then as the year reaches the halfway point, it all changes. The Dominion leadership makes a major mistake and your wives waste no time taking advantage of it as they lead a massive Federal Marine strikeforce into the gap. Within days, the frontline has collapsed and the Dominion forces are in fall retreat as the Federal Army overruns their fortifications thanks to the exploited gap.

Deprived of most of their defences, the surviving Dominion soldiers put up a determined stand. Unprepared for the sudden shift in resistance, the Federal Army is caught off-guard and forced to halt their advance to avoid ruinous losses even as the latest casualty counts increasingly favour the Dominion even as the defenders remain on their last legs.

As the first year of the invasion comes to an end, it is clear that the Dominion garrison will fall within the next few months and there are still no reinforcements from the rest of the Dominion to be seen. That has left you suspicious of what the Chronus Dominion is up to so you aren't too surprised when your courtier Tiamat warps into the Solas systems. What does surprise you is that the destroyer isn't reporting a major Dominion attack on Excalibur, but a major invasion by two of the Four.


While you rush back to the Bladus system with the Federal Navy, you take the opportunity to read up on the reports of the current crisis. Several months after you left, the warp rift opened once more for the first time in many years. This time it was the Diseased who was behind the attack, his bloated and plagued servants spewing out of the warp rift.

The initial fighting had favoured the standing garrison, the daemons coming out slow enough for reinforcements to be brought to the frontlines. To your mild surprise, Connor was amongst their number as your brother had decided to join the fight and high command had decided to allow it despite his civilian nature. You put it down to your shared similarities combined with your own track record.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, the decision was swiftly proven to be a fruitful one. The first line of defences barely held under the onslaught as the Diseased's host emerged in full. Even then, that was only because your brother torn his way through the daemonic hordes, slaying enough of the warpspawn that the regular defenders were able to fend off the rest.

That state of affairs didn't last as daemonic servants of the Tempter joined those of the Diseased. Unable to hold two hosts of the Four at bay, the first line fell as the Federal forces withdrew to the second line. At the second set of defences, the defenders of Excalibur did their best and almost held their own. Alas, they were undone as large portions of the Diseased's host warped in behind the defensive lines, scattering the defensive efforts.

Despite everything, the Federal Army is barely able to keep the daemons contained within the ring of defensive positions around the warp rift. As the defenders try to reorganise themselves into a functional frontline again, the decision is made by high command to send the courier Tiamat to fetch you.

When you arrive in the Bladus systems, things have deteriorated even further. While it has been mere hours for the courier to reach you and for you to return home, another of the Four has entered the fray as a host of the Violent joins those of the Excessive and the Diseased. Your brother has already been laid low, having attempted to replicate your daemon hunting feats only to have his left eye bitten out by a Keeper of Secrets.

With Connor out of action and dealing with three daemonic hosts, the Federal Army has been unable to keep the daemons contained as the invaders have broken free of the defensive positions. They roam the countryside, battling the Federal Army, but they are thankfully far from any urban areas for now as the Federation was wise enough to keep any settlements far away from the warp rift just in case something like this happened.

Just as you are giving orders to move towards the planet so you can provide orbital fire support and Federal Marines to aid the defenders, your fleet's sensors begin to go off like crazy. Over a hundred warships have just warped into the system even as daemons run havoc on Excalibur's surface.

While sensor data is limited at this distance, your ships are able to identify the newcomers as belonging to the Dominion Navy with five battleship-sized contacts, forty cruiser-sized contacts and seventy escort-sized contacts. Part of you bulks at this as there is no way that the Dominion could have recovered their losses so quickly, but the more rational part of you realises that your assumptions are just that, assumptions.

So while you know that the Chronus Dominion could not have built so many warships so quickly, you also know that you had only assumed that they had sent the bulk of their fleet to Bladus last time around. If they are able to field these numbers, it seems that they held more of their warships in reserve last time than you had assumed they had.

Nonetheless, this presents an unfortunate complication. Dealing with either the Dominion invasion fleet or the daemonic hosts would be one thing, but having to handle both at the same time? That is a far more challenging task.

Not to mention you need to decide what to do with yourself and your wives. You could remain as the fleet commander against the Dominion fleet, but you are also the best in the Federation at slaying daemons with a Greater Daemon kill count in the double-digits. Likewise, you could keep Bel and Yas with the fleet to use in boarding actions and to support the Merlin or you could send them planetside to help the Federal Army contain the rampaging daemonic hordes.

No plan voting.

What does Drake do?
[] He stays in command of the fleet.
[] He goes hunting for Greater Daemons.

What do the Jens do?
[] They stay with the fleet.
[] They go to the surface.


While the invasion initially goes well, disaster strikes as the Ruinous Powers make their move. Don't be too surprised, it has been some time since the warp rift and the forces of Chaos have made trouble for you. As for the Dominion, they got an excellent roll for their shipbuilding, always had more ships in reserve than the Federation expected and I rolled to see if they would stay at Chronus, retake Solas or strike at Bladus while you were busy.

Anyway, you got some hard times ahead, but that honestly isn't anything new for this quest.

Please point out any spelling or grammar mistakes that you spot. Please quote them in the thread and explain what you think is wrong so I know what you are referring to.