Sith Empire turn 3 Results:
Pre-orders RP: 175 (upkeep already factored in)
19 RP is Stockpiled to repair any loses incurred by actions this turn.
20 RP is spent to hire Germa 66 and Bounty Hunters.
20 RP is spent to give to the Federation as part of the diplomatic agreement.
'Perhaps there might yet be peace in this galaxy.' That is what many of those in the Federation are thinking, and what much of their internal discord boils down to. To their north are Isolationists, maniacs, and life-devouring Monsters; while to their east there is an outright genocidal parody of them, a collection of species bound together through religious ties that were considered antique long ago, united as much by fear and hatred as actual peaceful cooperation, fear and hatred that led them to lashing out at humanity over a small mistranslation. To their West there was almost no one, remnants of a galaxy that has seemingly never truly been at peace, now practically overrun by others who had no reason to pay attention to their existence.
This galaxy was extremely hostile, filled with foes that, while not necessarily unprecedented, are much vaster than anything that the Federation had to directly confront in the past; and yet, to their south there lies what seems to be a friend. Sure, they might be more militaristic than what would be preferred, but given the events of the past few years that can be more than forgiven; and their society might be very clearly stratified and organized under some pseudo-religious guidelines; but given that they were still pre-replicator, and their very clear persecution in the past by yet another religious group just for the crime of existence, some of that can be excused, and the rest can be fixed given time and a bit of, potentially pushed, societal progress.
As for the Sith, here was a friendly neighbor with which they had no prior relations, no long chain of exchanged massacres and genocides peaced together with a few periods of peace that was guaranteed to never last and a few moments of ceasefire when something that both sides agreed was even worse came around, only for things to go back to 'normal' as soon as those crises were dealt with and the weight of past grievances forced yet another confrontation. Perhaps with the lack of these past events, this peace might just last, and this relationship might just end up being a mutual, prosperous one that lasts for lifetimes to come? Or perhaps it is just in the Sith's nature to make more enemies wherever they go.
What will be, will be; but for now? Here lies perhaps two of the oddest allies in existence, bound together through mutual foes, shared personhood, and exchanged technology. May this alliance last until the horrors of this universe tear them appart.
Research Slots: 1 Free + 4 (30 RP)
(5 Slots) Transporters and Replicators: In assisting the Federation in their time of need and providing them much needed resources and aid after the Covenant glassed many of their worlds they have agreed to provide the Empire the knowledge and assistance in creating their own Replicators and Transporters. The economical and military benefits of these technologies shall be of great use to the Sith Empire. However Darth Acina is not just going to settle with tacking the hand-me downs of the Federation. The secrets of the Rakatan's own teleportation and replicator technology has long been beyond the grasp of Sith scientists. But with the Federation's data, she believes it can be done.
While the Federation's data and scientists assist the regular scientists of the Imperial Science Corps, Acina will be pulling the true best and brightest of the Empire, as well as her own trusted Sith alchemists and researchers into a side project that will be taking all the data and research they acquire and use it to crack the code of making their own Force-based versions. Samples of Rakatan Teleporters from Belsavis, the Infinite Engine, and the knowledge of The Imprisoned One shall all be pulled together. All to make greatest scientific achievement of the Sith Empire.
It is done. Crude by the current standards of the Federation, but infinitely better than anything the Sith could have reversed engineered in anywhere even remotely close to a similar timeframe, the first of the Sith's own Replicators come online. First in remote research bases, in the forms of assorted prototypes- some barely better than the 3d printers that replicator technology developed from in the Federations own timeline: too slow for mass industrial applications with end products far, far too fragile to be worth using in all but the most disposable of military equipment; others take far too much power, requiring purpose built reactors, if not quite purpose built Hypermatter reactors, to work at anywhere near 100% of their theoretical output. Yet others fail to produce anything more complex than some mono-material semi-uniform materials but could produce them at more than sufficient speed, and yet others could produce incredibly complex materials beyond what could be made at all but the most experimental of semi-industrial workshops, but at speeds that made crafting said items by hand almost seem the better option. And so it goes; flaw after flaw after flaw, each one corrected, each one dealt with, not necessarily neatly, nor swiftly, nor without compromises, but dealt with nevertheless.
The end product is no true work of art, these Replicators are not quite precise enough to work with the molecular and beyond level precision required for the more delicate electronics (such as those found in things like the internals of Hyperdrives and Silencers) and some of the more experimental materials, or to turn CHNOPS feedstock into good tasting food, let alone proper Kolto or Bacta; not quite fast and efficient enough yet to fully replace some of the larger foundries found on many industrial worlds(while sticking within the same energy budget, anyways), and are currently do not scale large enough to single handedly produce anything larger than a Subjugator class Interceptor;
but even as they are, this new invention finds countless uses amongst the Sith's Military Industrial Complex, allowing for the shortening and simplifying of of almost countless supply lines, as many parts that previously had to be manufactured en masse in dedicated facilities of their own systems away could now be produced almost entirely on site. Even better, this often simplified the pre-processing of materials and parts to the more complex systems that these Replicators could not produce on their own. Indeed, replicators could do everything from separating almost any material short of Bescar, Cortosis, Phrik, and Kyber from its ore, to processing said materials into everything from large semi-finished blocks plates to, if given somewhat more time to work on the precision jobs, everything from handheld tools and weaponry, to Droids(barring the most complex, most intelligent ones), to power armor, to the vast majority of the parts that go into everything from strikecraft to capital ships.
Indeed, these replicators are so revolutionary that despite the best efforts of the Sith Empire demand has drastically outstripped supply, and to think that said Replicators are still steadily being improved, only ever(in general terms) getting faster, more efficient, and more precise as time goes on. (economic upgrade to the next tier practically ready to go, and might even be implemented before enough of the rest of your technology reaches close enough to that same general level to warrant a full tier-up)
Meanwhile, the Teleporters are both more and yet less revolutionary- burdened with a somewhat large-ish charge up and cooldown time to avoid errors, and somewhat easily interfered with, they nevertheless have been refined to the point that when they do work, they now do so without any of the errors that plagued many of the earliest experiments into such technology- both yours, and the Federations. They are also somewhat power intensive in comparison to the Federations own models, but not to the point where they cannot be implemented onto many of the Sith Empire's own ships and ground based facilities. Their biggest downside, as of right now, is how easily the process can be interfered with via perfectly natural incidents- such as particulerally harsh radiation, dust storms, or even sometimes normal inclement weather. Thankfully, the technology has been developed with this in mind, and will either work practically flawlessly or not at all.(Teleporters are now available to be implemented onto the Sith's assorted ships and other important facilities; said Teleporters are currently practically useless for bypassing enemy shields, and can sometimes be interfered with via assorted lesser effects, to be automatically refined over time to remove the interference of said lesser effects- they are also not an auto-implement, as some ships might not have the spare power capacity to fit them; said limitation will also be removed given time.)
Finally, the incorporation of other ancient sith technologies and techniques into this revolution has produced… somewhat imperfect results, as many of the new teleporters, those implemented with the Force in mind, are basically impossible to interfere with via anything short of active anti-teleportation shielding or an actively anti-Force technique, but require a Force User to both be activating it and using it in this manner for them to work at all. Meanwhile, the implementation of what can be/has been learned from the Infinite Engine at this point in time into its own version of the Replicator technology has produced some rather interesting results, as special Replicators have been made that can use the force to either bypass the limits of what can be made with them, increasing their precision to a level that might perhaps be beyond what the replicators in the Federation are commonly capable of, or to actively somewhat bypass the conservation of energy, removing the need for either massive power generators and/or specified feedstock for these still rare devices. Unfortunately, these knockoffs are still lesser than the Infinite Engine itself, and are only capable of one of the two at a time, and switching them after first setting it to one or another is just short of impossible.(your Legends' personal forces are never considered to be understrength anymore, and your ships can benefit from a somewhat better form of Teleporter if you limit it to force-users only)
Status:
Population: 52
7F-B2 (Sith Space Core): Heartlands and Excessively Defended
7F-B1: Industrialized and Heavily Defended
7F-C1: Industrialized and Heavily Defended
7E-A3: Colonized and 1/2 of Heavily Defended
7E-A2: [Lord/Vassal] at rank four, [economic integration] at rank two(cannot be improved beyond rank three due to local population and industrial level), and [client/client state] at rank two(to be improved over time if you continue to protect them), with the potential for full integration with some actual diplomatic work.)
1. Spend 10 RP to make 2 Category Zero Planetoids (Midwan-Class Worldcraft)
There is something to be said for having finished, finalized blueprints, a dedicated chain of production, and past experience in dealing with everything that went even the slightest bit wrong the first time around. That is not to say that the main systems and subsystems of these new Midwan-Class worldships are any stronger, or their ritual rooms more efficient at gathering and directing the required energies; but it does greatly decrease the number of wasted parts and the amount of maintenance required, cutting upkeep costs per vessel by as much as 70%; and while the new replacement parts for the prototype vessel of this class can and will be up to this new standard, it will be quite some time before most of the vessel is replaced.
(6 Midwan-Class Worldcraft constructed, any three of which having the same total upkeep cost as the prototype)
Target: The Sith Empire/Home Front
Nature: Counter Espionage and Anti-Politicking
Resources: 8 RP + Sith Intelligence
Plan&Goal: With the Empire now secured against any potential threats, the Sith Empire will undoubtedly return to the age-old problem. Infighting, and of course dealing with their peer powers attempting to infiltrate them. Thankfully Sith Intelligence is quite adept at dealing with these issues. And the in-fighting of the Sith is largely not a threat to the Empire. That said, the security of the Empire is paramount. And one can never be too paranoid.
The infighting of the Sith will have to be kept to a minimum, making sure it does not boil over into any problem greater than a minor war between two powerbases. And of course, Sith Intelligence must be on the lookout for anyone attempting to pull something funny against the Empire. Can't have another Darth Jadus or Grathon happening.
While countless minor disputes were found and either dealt with or ensured to likely never spiral out of control, while the usual crop of self-entitled former apprentices and masters who have delved a bit too deeply into the darkside to remain remotely sane play their little games and make their small powerplays, while several half thought out assassination plans against assorted members of the Dark Council are thwarted long before they can be carried out, or are pushed forward into being attempted, if an example is to be made of the conspirators, as the case may be; a new type of societal disruption arrives with the development of and introduction of the Replecators, and yet others are enabled by the teleporters.
While the news of some rivalries being solved by the use of one of the early, conveniently faulty, teleporters is nothing out of the ordinary, the fact that several of the most troublesome sith are disposed of via these oh so convenient accidents makes for yet another way to quietly neutralize the most troublesome cases. Elsewhere though, the troublemakers are only enabled by the new teleporters, as several assassins appear in what would have otherwise been considered moderately secure sanctums, and yet others have been used to all the more conveniently deploy apprentices as the mostly disposable pawns that they all too often are.
Much greater in scope, and potential risk, are those that have used the introduction of the Replecator to all the more easily build up their personal armies, enabling the use of small, power intensive, clandestine facilities in place of the much more obvious forges and manufacturing facilities that would have often been required before this point. Some of these replicators are fairly obvious, hijacked while they were still in the prototype stage, while others are much more hidden, only findable the discovery of a 'miscount' of the number of replicators officially in a shipment of them versus the actual number in them.
In both cases(the cases involving the replicators, that is), this was a massive waste of resources, as over the years enough prototypes were stollen, or planned to be stolen, that if enough had both been and remained successful it would have put back the final development of this technology into its current state by a non-insignificant portion of a Galactic Year; meanwhile, the localized arms races between these now enabled would-be conquerors threatened to have an actual meaningful impact on the wider supply lines of the empire. Luckily, a series of convenient accidents and pre-empting of their assorted plans managed to keep the devastation down to a localized level when it even managed to get to that point.
Target: Beyond the Red Wall/Celestial Empire
Nature: Intelligence Gathering and Anti-Intelligence
Resources: 8 RP + Sith Intelligence + The Empire's Wrath
Plan&Goal: The Celestial Empire is a verified threat to the Empire, while not a powerful military power by any means, the individuals within are exceptionally dangerous to anyone that isn't a powerful Lord or Darth. A war is inevitable, but appropriate action must be undertaken to ensure it is swift. In addition, the Celestial Empire is surely taking actions to prepare for this eventual war.
Following Darth Nox's return to the Empire, the Empire's Wrath has also taken to traveling to the Red Zone himself. The major powers of the Red Zone need to be understood, and of course, the Wrath needs to put Darth Nox in check in-case his new powers give him any ideas. And so, the Empire's Wrath will assist Sith Intelligence in his own way. Cutting to the root of the problem and being there to ensure that if someone of his caliber is needed, they will have aid. And of course, learning about the powers of this place as he goes.
Sith Intelligence will be acting to get as much information on the Celestial Empire's capabilities. military targets, and learning about individuals of importance as they can while also mapping out the Red Zone alongside I.N.I.D for a protracted military campaign. And, with assistance from the Wrath, putting a stop to any schemes the Celestial Empire may have to fight back against the Sith Empire. Or even prevent the schemes of Darth Nox if they prove too disastrous for the Sith Empire.
Even in the Blues, the fallout of the recent events at Marineford, and the Celestial Empire's buildup to war, can be seen. In the North Blue, the countless smaller civil wars that used to dominate the politics of the region suddenly either grind to a halt or are almost immediately won by one side or the other, as the arms dealing that used to supply them suddenly ends, and as the most prevalent mercenary group in the region, and easily the largest by far in all of the Blues, Germa 66, packs up and leaves for what is hopefully more profitable space.
Meanwhile, in the South Blue, and the West Blue, other conflicts come to their swift conclusion. The West Blue, once ruled as much by a series of criminal cartels as the Celestial Empire, is falling apart even as it is forcibly sewn back together. Denied of the leader who united them, and under ever increasingly large pressure from the Marines, the local underground cracks, and crumbles into a shadow of its former self as the rule of law is asserted across many planets who have almost completely forgotten it. Elsewhere, the few surviving former leaders of the local underground are captured to a one, sold out by a coworker that they all thought they could trust- the man known as Joker.
The South Blue, on the other hand, is scene to an unprecedented level of military buildup, as recruitment, both willing and not, for the marines steps up almost tenfold even as the local pirates are hunted down to a one, exterminated when they weren't either forced to act as Bounty Hunters, who as often went after your scouting ships as their former fellow pirates) or herded onto the Grand Line.
Beyond discovering the continued overall situations in the Blues, numerous military targets are discovered and evaluated, ranging from Marine Bases, to shipyards, and beyond. Each Blue is home to hundreds of small Marine bases, barely more than a well-garrisoned planet with enough shipyards to ensure that the local patrolls remain fully stocked and can can replace any minor losses- with barely the capability to build from scratch more than what even you would consider to be Caravels, Frigates, and light cruisers; outside of these official military bases lies almost countless minor shipyards, as almost each and every inhabited world maintains enough such production to maintain their own PDF when they aren't outright constructing small fleets of their own to go and conquer their neighbors; and beyond these lie the actual major targets- ranging from the non-insignificant, often export-focused, shipyards in places like the Organe System(only just recovered from a relatively recent somewhat major pirate Raid), Gecko System, and Polestar System(where Darth Nox first met Garp and made official contact with the Celestial Empire), to even more major military targets- the borderline Fortress Worlds that are the the main Marine Headquarters of the other three Blues. Here, the first losses are suffered, for these are not areas where the Marines can afford to slack off like they can in the East Blue, and these are not minor facilities by any means, and nor are they even technically civilian in nature, meaning that they actually have defenses appropriate for their own relative importance, or at least their need to appear as important as the locals think that they are.
Elsewhere, even in these more mundane areas, mysteries can be found, as in one small section of the West Blue the remnants of what could only be old battleground of titanic size can be found: planetary massed gravitational anomalies without a corresponding planet or even the telltale signs of a Black Hole, the scattered remnants of a gas giant, several planets cleaved in two, and five massive scorched pentagrams etched into the stars themselves, only visible from within what would have been the orbit of the anomaly if said world was still there. Sadly, what information is gathered here is faulty, for while the sensors and other instruments report this, the scouts themselves report nothing but an ordinary stellar system, lacking any and all of the recorded devastation.
Sadly, for all of the development, buildup, and recruitment going on in the Blues, they are very clearly seen as almost entirely meaningless to those at the top of this Empire, for even with the recent military buildup most of the Recruits are not staying in the Blues, and even the most stringent of operations here are very clearly an afterthought in comparison to what is and will be actually important in the fight to come. And so Sith Intelligence moves onwards, out from the Blues, and into the Grand Line, this time both without local guidance and with goals beyond just the quick acquisition of Power.
And thus the scouting could begin in earnest. Equipped with Log Poses acquired from Marine Bases and looted from pirates and privateers, sorry, bounty hunters, almost countless small, often cloaked, Sith vessels entered the Grand Line, traveling down all of the different routes through it- from the initial five stable paths away from the wormhole network that is Reverse Mountain, to all of the divergent paths off of those; and not skipping any steps along the way, even if in some cases it lead to arguably more deaths than discoveries.
From insanely dangerous Death Worlds, complete with deadly spaceborn fauna, and sometimes even Flora, to shockingly habitable, and inhabited, giant spheres of gas of the sort where said mass should have long since clumped together into a brown dwarf companion star to the White Dwarf or Neutron Star at its heart. From rogue planets that shift between partially frozen ice balls to almost molten hell worlds, to a world that is somehow 'tidally locked' between two stars, and yet is still somewhat habitable, to perfectly habitable worlds free of the gravitational influences of any nearby star; anomalies abound and the impossibly beautiful and strange is rendered mundane.
While these discoveries are indeed intriguing and worth studying, they were not what Imperial Intelligence was here for, and so the scouting operations continue.
On the more mundane side, many worlds almost identical to those found in the Blues are found- often with a higher population, more orbital infrastructure, and a higher Marine presence when their orbit wasn't dominated by often surprisingly peaceful Pirates and privateers, but practically unimportant nevertheless.
Elsewhere, more notable and important systems and worlds are found, systems and worlds that are important and significant for reasons other than just their sometimes impressive oddness. From Water Seven, a true Eccuminopolis with orbital shipyards extensive enough to make Kuati envious, and extensive enough debris fields and enough semi-derelict ships to make Corellia's fields of mothballed ships look almost mundane. Sadly, while an almost perfect Shipyard world, it is more out of the sheer stubbornness of the locals than anything else, for it is orbiting a dying star, ones whose size has long since become unstable and is putting out far too much hard radiation for sane humans to want to live as near to it as Water Seven is. Now tidally locked, there are very clearly engines being constructed on its sunward side. Currently though, further progress on this is on pause, as the sheer number of Marine Battleships under construction in orbit is very clearly taking up all of their resources and then some, as regular shipments arrive filled with materials ranging from the mundane to the almost mystical.
Elsewhere, yet more important locations are found, from seven more Fortress Worlds almost on par with Marineford itself, to several rather major, technically independent, worlds, worlds belonging to pirate Warlords, from the part-jungle-part ecumenopolis that is Amazon Lilly, complete with a large shipyard and several large ships in orbit; to the nearly abandoned former civilized world of Kuriagana, home to a single inhabited small settlement, and a single small ship in orbit, from which swiftly emanates a massive blade-like swipe of energy, swiftly bisecting the seemingly cloaked Sith vessel that was slowly scanning the planet mere moments ago. Other lesser independent, but still important, worlds can be found, ranging from the pirate owned-and-operated repair-focused shipyards of Jaya, to a wide assortment of worlds that were once under the Protection of Whitebeard, but now were under attack from Marines and Pirates alike.
Finally, at the end of this section of the Grand Line, comes one of the most unusual, and most important, systems in this half of the Grand Line: Sabaody. Nestled amongst planet sized trees and vines coming out of the Grand Line, maintained by gravity wells that are as much artificial as they are generated by the giant plants and the Red Line itself, home to over 50 rather large shipyards, and a Marine Base that, while only now coming back into full operational capacity, very clearly once rivaled Marineford itself. Here lies the production sites for countless important resources- from the Shield Generators that are used on almost countless vessels, marine and pirate alike, to the Log Poses that are all too important in the navigation of this region of space. Here lies one of the most important locations within the Grand Line- Nestled against the Grand Line, and within easy striking distance of what might perhaps be the most important location within the Red Walls: Marie Geoise, home to the Celestial Dragons, and where the Empty Throne, the purposefully kept empty seat that supposedly represents the fact that no Celestial Dragon is any less important than any other and that the Celestial Empire does not rule over its people in an absolute manner, lies. (no member of Sith Intelligence paid any attention to the simple, old, bartender)
Lying almost directly 'upwards' from Sabaody on the Galactic Plane, any attempts to approach closer to it than the 'uppermost' trees, limbs, and branches' of this space-faring, interstellar(in both size and scale) forest are rudely shot down, as even the most well-cloaked ships are plucked out of the void and swiftly snapped in twine by the strongest weapons seen yet this side of the Red Wall(except for maybe your own, although even that is brought into something approaching doubt); destroyed before they even exit the next closest stellar system beyond the Red Wall itself. Even the rare FTL-focused approach, picking their way through unstable routes and using the Force for guidance, hoping to get close and gather as much information as possible before being obliterated, are rendered futile, as they are interdicted and obliterated before they even manage to get within light hours of the gate. Even those trying to approach along the Red Wall itself, where FTL runs more risk of running into the mass-shadow of the Wall itself than actually reaching its destination, fail to get any closer, shot out of the void while still light days away from the entrance to Mary Geoise itself.
Built directly into the Grand Line, Mary Geoise is a fortress without compare, only matched by the sheer debauchery of what is said to go on within its walls; for massive number of slaves go in, and none come out. Stories from those who have visited, for visiting is possible during a set event that occurs once every four years, spread tales of a land without want or suffering, born on, sometimes the literal, backs of almost countless Slaves, whose final hours/minutes/moments of starving to death can be seen by any visitor who so wishes. For in a land of plenty, ruled by those that see themselves as above all, there must always be those that they can see as obviously lesser than themselves. A land of lavish excess, using slaves in place of whatever might have broken down in the past century or two and not be seen as worth replacing in full, that is Mary Geoise. A perfect realm that knows no want, ruled by those who want for nothing, enabled by those who know nothing but want; and yet, there is a reason why they have ruled for the past thousand years, one that can only be seen when either outside of the Holy Lands themselves, or when one peers around the corner and looks for what is hidden behind what is hidden behind the veneer. Sadly, all that can be gathered about this place is second hand, for outside of those rare events, the only ones allowed on Mary Geoise are those who were born there, and the rulers of this place are very good at enforcing that. Sadly for you, the last time this event occurred was before you've even heard of the Red Wall, and the next event is not for years to come; and there are circling rumors that it might not be held at all…
With that route through the Red Wall stymied, the Sith's scouts are forced to go the other way- conveniently located directly 'downwards' on the galactic plane relative to Sabaody- it is a surprisingly large gap in the wall, if one surrounded by a network of Black Holes almost as grand as the Maw itself. While several scouting vessels fall victim to these hazards, their seemingly safe hyperspace routes suddenly terminating in a singularity, many, many more manage to get through, reaching the next stable system, and the midpoint of the Grand Line for all of those not a part of the Celestial Empire's military and ruling caste. This area, dimly lit from the light of distant red giants, the accretion disks of black holes, and from some heavily bioluminescent plants growing out of the remaining fragments of the Red Wall in this area, is home to dozens of watery worlds- often tidally locked, and with surfaces that are often as much boiling as they are freezing, these are worlds not built for the habitation of man, but instead are home to the Fishmen, who seemingly swim through both water and the void itself with shocking ease(if with less ease in the void- just because they can hold their breath even against the void of space doesn't mean that they don't eventually suffocate, as discovered by one aspiring researcher; and just because they can propel themselves through the void doesn't mean that they can do so quickly enough for it to be all that much more than a novelty). Gifted with great strength and the ability to, with training, influence gravity itself, they are a strong, free willed people, who have strength enough to perhaps take on everyone else in the region behind the Red Walls and eventually win; they are a people living in fear, with a history of enslavement stretching back to farther than all of the (thus far seen by members of Sith Intelligence) recorded history of this region of space.
Imperial Intelligence's time here is short- for despite all of their personal might, the fishmen's knowledge of the rest of the Grand Line is almost as limited as everyone else's- being able to provide not much more than what has already been considered to be; they also lack the ability to properly project their own power, relying on the protection of others- formerly White Beard and now Big Mom, to protect themselves from being once again enslaved en masse by the Celestial Nobles and their lackeys. So while a few members of Imperial Intelligence stay behind to court the Fishmen's local rulers, most of them move onwards, to where the real threats, and real opportunities, lie; And while there is a former Warlord living here, Jimbe, the greatest master of Fishmen Karate currently alive, he has for the most part seemingly retired, only working to assist with the defense of his people when he isn't reminiscing on the 'good old days'.
The entrance to the New Galaxy, the second half of the Grand Line is fraught with peril; rogue black holes are all too common, as supernovae remnants dot the area and make all too many hyperspace routes, even those pathed by the Log Poses fraught with danger. Others are swiftly met with a different sort of danger, as those who ascend through the galactic plane too swiftly are met with Marine Ships when they aren't met with defenses similar to those seen on the other side of Mary Geoise- only all more heavy, built for dealing with even deadlier foes. Emerging a bit farther away is not much better, for where Sabody is on the other side, here lies yet another Marine Base, already equal to the Marineford of not-all-that-long-ago and still being built up.
Things get a bit safer once one travels farther in, but not by much; for here lies some of the most dangerous territory seen thus far. Supermassive black holes, binary neutron stars, and more are all too common, and almost a third of the seemingly more habitable systems beyond that are found to not be such- some plagued by impossibly large storms of lightning, arcing through the very vacuum of space; others swallowed by already fading gas giants; giants that dove through their own habitable zone on an almost inevitable descent into their parent star. Yet others are scorched clean, with stars large enough to beggar belief nestled at their hearts. Nevertheless, here too civilization holds on, with levels of industry, population, and military buildup that dwarfs everywhere else within the Red Walls.
While here and there lies the occasional civilized world, holding on to their supposed independence through one means or another- ranging from paying tribute to the Marines, to simply not being worth conquering, to being under the direct leader of a Warlord, these are the exceptions. Of these exceptions though, one stands out: Dressrosa, a seeming paradise populated as much by living toys as people; producing as much exported tools of war as it does locally used civilian goods. Ruled by the second strongest of the currently active Warlords, Donquixote Doflamingo- a charismatic puppet master who wouldn't look all that out of place in the upper ranks of the Sith Empire. He is worshiped by the people of Dresrosa, having led them into a time of plenty after saving them from the insanity of the planet's previous ruler; and anyone who says anything differently rapidly disappears, both from sight and from memory as yet another animated toy starts walking the streets. As a matter of fact, it is only the sheer mental mastery required of most of the agents here that stops all of them from forgetting that those amongst their numbers who went to more deeply investigate Doflamingo and those who serve directly under him ever existed in the first place. That doesn't stop the information gathering process, as many amongst Doflamingo's crew are public figures in their own right- from the juvenile yet impossibly charismatic Senor Pink(no threat at all beyond being worshiped as a hero despite dressing up as a baby and all to often just swimming laps through solid stone), to the imposing Mountain Man, Pika, Dresrosa's silent guardian.
But, for all of his seeming control, Doflamingo still answers to higher powers, for he is still a Warlord, and has obligations to the Celestial Empire from that position; and the vast, vast majority of the military equipment produced on Dresrosa and in its moonside toy-operated manufactorum all go in one direction- and it is not towards the bases of the World Government, but towards Wano, and the Beast Pirates. Elsewhere, in nearby, vastly less habitable systems, Doflamingo appears to also be operating several remote facilities, most of them apparently abandoned according to the World Government; from which multiple mostly unknown materials are shipped towards Dresrosa's moon, and from there, presumably after being refined into whatever the final product is, out to Kaido, and the Beast Pirates that serve under him.
(the least important of these currently independent worlds is a mostly rural one, protected by the last of those who once considered part of the Whitebeard planets, those he left behind to defend his holdings while he went to war. Other than those few remaining pirates, there is seemingly nothing of value there)
While the direction to the Wano system, and thus the home of the Beast Pirates, is obvious; it is not that system that is reached first, but instead a dense star cluster rife with habitable worlds, an overdensity of them that becomes even more unique in this otherwise fairly hostile region of space. Home to the Big Mom Pirates, it is, in some ways, barely less defended than Mary Geoise; lacking in the sheer scale of firepower, it more than makes up for it with both its relative size and your sheer inability to infiltrate anywhere beyond the outermost systems of it without them knowing far in advance, making up for the technical lack of firepower with their own sheer ability to detect and identify all interlopers- practically no matter what route they take to get in. networks of ships patrol the void between stellar systems here; practically undetectable, and only discovered in hindsight, they use their (likely) surprisingly advanced sensor systems to monitor all of Real and HyperSpace in this region, allowing for any and all intruders to be met with an appropriately overwhelming amount of force, making long term infiltration of said territory practically impossible. Nevertheless, what is revealed is telling enough, as giant fleets of animated Dreadnoughts(often even by the standards of this new galaxy) interdict and destroy all but the smallest and fastest of your scouting vessels. Speaking of animation; even on the outermost worlds, the landscape itself seems alive, with each and every tree, hill, river, and even many buildings, imbued with a soul, self-telekinesis, and the ability to both talk and seemingly feel pain. Many of these outermost worlds seem to be mainly agricultural in nature, exporting large quantities of food farther in, all to fuel Big Mom's nigh-constant planetary scale parties and banquets. On a different note, the reason why Charlotte Linlin is called Big Mom is because a shockingly large portion of the Big Mom Pirates, or at least their captains and other higher up personnel, are made up of Big Mom's children and grandchildren, who easily number in the hundreds. (Whitebeard is found-family, Big Mom is Birth Family)
As for Big Mom herself, all evidence points towards her being able to directly manipulate souls and use them to animate and grant sapience to other objects, and all stories told of her mention her sheer durability and the fact that her skin has seemingly never been pierced. Wielding an animated storm pulled from a Gas Giant and a fragment of the Core of a Star, there is a reason why she has managed to get and retain the title of Yonko.
While continued attempts are made to infiltrate deeper into Big Mom's core territory, a large portion of your scouts continue onwards, eventually to Wano and beyond. Wano itself is… not what one would expect given anything and everything else you're seen in this region of space. For the system itself is insanely huge, and is dominated by a structure that was previously only theorized about when it didn't make its way into a few stories: a system-scale Dyson Sphere. Not a dyson swarm, as might be feasibly constructed by a faction blind to the Power of the Force to directly tap into the power of a star while harvesting its outer layers for resources, nor a sphere barely larger than the star itself, perfect for harvesting literally all of the Star's energy, but an impossibly giant construction, stretching out to the very edges of said star's habitable zone. Luckily for you, for all of its immensity, the construct in question seems broken, with a giant missing shard, nay, a giant gaping wound, rent open on one side of it, allowing for one to peer inside to see Wano itself- a fully stable collection of three fully habitable and two semi-habitable worlds, and one clearly mobile, clearly artificial, clearly moving world patrolling within.
Sadly, any attempts to land within run into extraordinarily stiff resistance: first from the almost countless defensive platforms situated all around the perimeter of the Dyson Sphere, stretching out until the very edge what is practically the interstellar void; and then the defenses of the Dyson Sphere itself, which, despite the gaping wound rent in its side, are shockingly potent, making any attempts to get through via any means other than either the gaping wound in its side, or the area almost completely opposite to it that the Beast Pirates have managed to wrestle control of, practically impossible; and even approaching the giant hole in it runs into issues, as massive gravity well generators seem to be generating a constant outward pressure around the hole, making entering through it an almost futile effort, while making exiting through it all too easy. Luckily for a few of the scouts that managed to get past the Beast Pirate's outer defenses, there appears to be a carp-like local void creature that is shockingly good at somehow countering this gradient; as seen by one of Joker's(Doflamingo's) ships slipping into the middle of a school of them and using that to slip by the barrier. Unfortunately, this is soon followed up by a massive outpouring of vessels through the rent, with the Battle Planetoid that was previously seen through the gap leading the way. (Beast Pirates are on the move now)
Fortunately, the heavily defended nature of Wano does not stop Sith Intelligence from scouting out a very large portion of the remaining territory of the New World. Beyond the usual dead ends, decaying systems, destroyed systems, and natural obstacles, a few more systems of import can be found, with three in particular standing out for one reason or a nother.
The first is Hachinosu, the home of practically all semi-independent pirates this side of the Grand Line, the one area in this section of the universe lacking any sort of rule of law, and where Blackbeard and his crew of escaped convicts have set up shop. While getting information on the past status of this island is easy enough, as almost every single pirate in this region of space knows it; checking up on its current status is drastically more different, as the only infiltration attempts that get anywhere close to succeeding are those that don't appear to have any Sith, Celestial, or other-yonko based influence in their attempt, as found out by many early attempts to enter and scout this system. Hiding behind the systems one gas giant is no good, as is found out when the planet itself reaches out an arm, an arm partially exploding with the decompressing of metallic hydrogen and storming with planetary scale swirls of gas, and swats the offending ship out of the sky with shocking speed. Exiting near the semi-convenient debris field goes no better, as the vessels that attempt to do so are rapidly yanked apart, leaving their crews to suffocate in the vastness of space; yet other attempts to simply exit near to the one habitable planet go no better, as a planetary scale giant, a planetary scale giant using a planetary scale gas mask, appears just outside a relatively tiny space station, rapidly crushing any non pirate, non-clearly-independent ship that wasn't simply crushed by the sudden appearance of his bulk.
Even after landing on the planet via a disguised ship usually doesn't end well for anyone seeking actual knowledge; as while there are plenty of bars, brothels, and casinos; anything actually important is under heavy guard; and even some of those seem to be nothing but fakes and illusions, sometimes literally
(a library fades away into an empty warehouse, a bank vault fades away into a jail cell, a palace fades away into a brothel, and Blackbeard fades away into empty space), more meant to trap the unwary than to actually house something, anything really, of importance.
The second location found is Egghead- an artificial planetoid situated over an equally artificial planet, both surrounded by cybernetically augmented Sea Kings that rapidly snap your vessels out of the void, and Elbaf; a giant planet, inhabited by giants, surrounded by a barely functional, yet functional nevertheless, giant shipyard and a rather large fleet of sometimes barely functioning, often out of date even by local standards, ships. Despite seeming weak though, any and all attempts to harm any of these pirate vessels is rapidly answered by the Giants, throwing out giant scale, Conqueror Haki powered, attacks- splitting many sith vessels in two, with a cry of 'Hakoku Sovereignty!" echoing out through the void seconds before the decision to fire upon the Red Haired Pirate's ships and facilities is even made.
Luckily, while all attempts to approach are rapidly identified and vaporized, merely observing from a distance is allowed- and the truth is revealed: while the Beast Pirates are made up of a legion of strength built up around a core of even greater strength, the Red Haired Pirates clearly protect anyone and everyone that is both semi-independent and is willing to join them, a fleet of weaklings seeking protection by and from some of the strongest people in this entire region of the wider galaxy.
Sadly, all exploration beyond this point finds nothing but dead ends and dead systems, with whatever lies at the end of the Grand Line being unreachable via standard means.
Target: Beyond the Red Wall/Celestial Empire
Nature: Sabotage and preparation
Resources: 16 RP + Sith Intelligence + Darth Nox
Plan&Goal: Sith Intelligence, and more specifically Darth Nox's own powerbase, has it's own plans to prepare for war against the Celestial Empire. Namely sabotage, bringing the Celestial Empire to it's knees through the weapons of the Sith.
Working in conjunction with the other efforts of Sith Intelligence, the goal is to silence or recruit individuals of importance or possible threat and preform sabotage on research, construction, and industrial efforts. Creating faults in production lines or shipyards and giving them false information. But Nox also has something more devious and insidious in mind for certain worlds. Using the work of the Sith Lord Fulminiss' Seeds of Rage and the Dread Masters own Terraforming technology, alongside his own expertise in Sith Alchemy to spread fear, terror, and some destruction.
The true purpose of using these however is far more insidious. To spread the influence Dark Side. Particularly to the portions of the Red Zone that are incredibly hazardous for travel like the New World. parts of the Four Blues, Grand Lime, and the Calm Belts. To create Force Nexuses on mostly unimportant and uninhabited worlds that can be harvested and utilized in a ritual to Force the hard to traverse Red Zone into stability, to make it obey his will. Creating artificial hyperlanes for his own forces to travel, to calm dangerous anomalies, control the Sea Kings, or to turn space itself against the Celestial Empire. All of this while also being able to later empower himself by collecting these artificial Force Nexuses with the Scepter of Ragnos or a Thought Bomb.
A jewel studded girl in the body of a woman of constantly shifting age is lured away and taken hostage, her father lured away and almost disassembled, before he sends himself and his doomed child into the depths of the unknown via his Hands of Liberation(Jewlery Bonney and Bartholomew Kuma escape to parts unknown); a man of Law is found, his body already cooling in the snow(Trafalgar Law is already dead); a puppetmaster is caught into a trap, only for the would-ba assassins to dance on his strings before being turned into playthings for children(Joker knowns how the game is played); a Hero is cornered, only for those doing the cornering to find out how he earned his moniker(Garp has yet to truly weaken from age); an empress is threatened, only for the void to be littered with even more statues(Boa Hancock shows why her home is still independent); a World Noble is killed- and nothing of value is lost.
and so it goes, one failure after another- one important target after another either too prepared, too protected, already dead, or not as important as it first seemed, as naval captains and commodores are often all too replaceable, and even amongst them you run into failures, as one of your strike teams is struck by a blueshifting meteor while pursuing the vessel of a seemingly blind commodore, and others turn into withered husks speared on spikes of wood as they run into a well-trained Logia(two people that would have been Admirals in some other timeline), and most World Nobles are only important because of said status; Thankfully though, assassinations were only one part of this ongoing storm of sabotage, and arguably the most minor of them. And the other two parts? They are vastly more successful by far.
Water Seven's shields fall just as it is struck by one of the biggest solar storms yet(it endures, but the same cannot be said of much of the construction going on in all but the most protected shipyards); the Gecko System falls prey to 'pirates' after being far too used to all too false alarms; G-8's main shipyard explodes from a smuggled bomb, having been slow to adopt wartime security measures; an entire section of Sabaody catches fire, ruining most of the Navy's current supply of Adam Wood(local super material that is both organic and a somewhat serious super-metal in terms of durability) and setting back multiple construction cycles by weeks if not months; a massive FTL cannon is sabotaged and practically destroyed when mere weeks from completion, ruining years of work; a dozen worlds conveniently fall into Revolutionary hands; and so it goes. All totaled, over half of the Celestial Empire's currently known sources of military buildup are hit, setting back their plans by months and causing cascading supply lines that cause the ongoing construction of multiple new fleets to seemingly grind to a halt.
Despite the massive amount of devastation caused to much the Marine's ongoing sources of new ships, the devastation is nowhere near as total as one might dream of; for the ongoing buildup at Marineford 2 is still untouched, Egghead island is still operating as normal, and whatever is going on within the walls of Mary Geoise itself is as unknown as ever.
Nevertheless, even this is but a hint of what is to come, for the Seeds of Rage have been planted, and in a few places they have even started to Germinate. Dresosa is thrown into chaos, as more and more of its citizenry is converted into toys even as the remainder dance and smile even as tears stream down from their eyes, a semblance of order kept by the pupetmaster himself(the seed is eventually found and moved to a remote research base, but not before traumatizing an otherwise peaceful and ignorant population); Sabaody is at war with itself, citizen clashing with marine clashing with Pirate, even as a few within its forrest work to restore order; multiple Marine bases, up to and including more than one of their supposed fortress worlds, as the followers of Sword clash with the believers of Absolute Justice and any slight becomes a reason for forcible, vastly disproportionate retribution; the civil wars in the North Blue start up again despite the lack of backers and excess manpower, even as the previously thought up crime syndicates in the south reveal hidden assets and move to take out as many that aren't them in their death throes; elsewhere, dissent festers, as caution turns into fear and boils up into hate even as many of the once personable marines start looking for excuses instead of reasons. Many of the seeds are found and brought elsewhere for study, but even more are left unfound, slowly working to turn even the supposedly safe Blues into but a few islands of stability in a sea of chaos. Sadly, once again the truly important targets have been missed, for Marineford 2, Mary Geoise, and the core territories of the current four Yonko remain untouched; and from them sally forth Heroes and Legends, as Sword strikes out to bring hope to the people and the proclaimers of Absolute Justice move out to restore order through any and all means.
Many of the Sith's other agents find all too much of this brewing cauldron of fear and chaos, and start investigating it to find its source; they have not been successful, but it is only a matter of time.
Meanwhile, in the more remote, technically less important areas, Darth Nox's great work continues onwards, as Deathworlds, ranging from Little Garden, to the Boin system, to Rusukaina, become hosts to steadily growing force nexuses; as do many of the other remote areas within the Red Walls, ranging from the somehow habitable gas clouds(sky islands), to former research bases, to many truly abandoned worlds, some technically pleasure worlds, other striped bare of population for the cause of slavery; two are even smuggled into the Wano system soon after Kaido and the Beast Priates leave, taking root in a somewhat desolate prison world and a mostly frozen graveyard-of-a-world respectively. Others are moved even deeper in, hidden on mostly barren worlds orbiting super massive black holes or nestled into the life-supporting skin of some of the largest Sea Kings in the Calm Belt. planted first in the dozens, then in the hundreds, these force Nexi might just grow to be powerful indeed; but even with the large number seeded, even with Darth Nox's mastery over the force, the area within the Red Walls refuses to be tamed. The calm belts remain as calm as ever, and the Grand Line remains unnavigationable for those without the proper tools. No new routes have been created, and the Eternal Poses remain as eternal as ever- the system that is in place is entrenched into the very fabric of reality here. Even attempting to just control the Sea Kings goes no better, for those that do not simply brush off Nox's attempts are freed from his control the moment that his mind is focused elsewhere, almost as if something else, something somehow far greater, is already technically controlling them.
All attempts to control, to directly dominate this region of space through the power of the force fail, but do not fail to give hints towards why they failed. Controlling the Grand Line in its current state from everywhere that you've been is impossible, but each and every attempted tug has had its resistance countered from somewhere very specific, as whatever is denying you indirect control lies in Mary Geoise, and as for gaining direct control? The force whispers to Nox about this, about a location from which the nature of the Grand Line can be changed in full, of a place called Raftel, and of the four keys required to attain access to it; already the first of them is in your possession, for a rock that the Fishmen proudly displayed out in the open within an area technically open to the general public is not a hard target to find; the other three are much more heavily protected though, their positions hidden from simple divination.
As for controlling the sea kings… who or whatever is overriding your attempt also lies in the territory of the Fishmen, but seemingly not in an area that is so easily accessed.
Target: Celestial Empire
Nature: Military Blockade
Resources: Fleethordes 6, 7, and 8 (Magnitude 2), Darth Nox and the Silencer Fleet.
Plan&Goal: Darth Nox is not going to war against the Celestial Empire yet. Instead he intending to blockade all the exits and entrances of the Red Zone that lead into the Sith Empire. Constructing defensive emplacements, mine fields, and supply stations there for a proper war. This effect is two fold however. Not only is it to secure against any force, small or large, from leaving the Red Zone. But it is also a quarantine. Darth Nox's more liberal use of Sith Alchemy and horrifying weapons from the Dread Masters are something that he would prefer not to get out to the rest of the Galaxy and Sith Empire. He has unwilling scapegoats prepared if the information gets out, but he would much prefer that the rest of the Sith Empire, Federation, and anyone else never learns about what goes on inside the Red Zone.
For the most part the blockade is fairly uneventful; and for the longest time it seemed as if such a large application of forces would be gross overkill for the job, as the few pirates that fled outwards from the Celestial Empire's persecution instead of towards the grand line, those that via some method found out about these gaps and chose the unknown over the Grand Line, or were forced to flee through these few gaps through sheer desperation, were easily dealt with; but that is not a situation that would hold, for first Darth Nox's own machinations in the Blues started to kick in, and then there's Kaido.
While the fear-and-hatred driven planets were all conveniently far enough from the gaps to not be heavily investigated right from the start, that hasn't stopped the conflicts from boiling over, as newly minted pirates, unpaid bounty hunters, former marines, and desperate traders alike leave their known trade-lanes for newer, perhaps safer, areas, and are pursued in kind by their more greedy, more bloodthirsty, more zealous, kin. But, no matter their motives, they are destroyed, silenced by the Sith fleets waiting just beyond the exits.
Meanwhile, while the source of the renewed conflict has yet to be officially identified, with the few agents who grew suspicious either falling into some convenient accidents on the Grand Line or simply disappearing when they weren't simply given false leads and made to make slightly less true, but still semi-factual, assumptions about what is leading to these increased tensions and steadily escalating semi-civil wars and open conflicts; there is still the growing threat of the wider Council discovering what Darth Nox has been getting up to. A probability that grows ever higher as the region becomes less and less stable. But, before anything can be done to change this one way or another, one more threat makes its way to leave the area behind the Red Walls, one vastly greater than any that has (at least tried to) left(leave) this region in the past.
The Beast Piratates are on the move, lead by Kaido, the strongest creature alive, and headed by the Lead Performers and their Tobiroppo, and headquartered in their mobile battleworld, Onigashima, they move to bring their proclaimed Greatest War to the Sith Empire. Their members are monstrous, with those that do not have Zoan devil fruits smiling and laughing even when they should be crying out in tremendous pain, with ships that are little less intimidating: being almost as large as those found in Big Mom's Armadas and being even more numerous, focussing on boarding over conventional void combat and often acting as much as landing platforms as conventional warships; but that does not mean that staying at range is all that much better, for their cannons are massive and their FTL is shockingly swift and precise for a group that is still mostly relying on non-artificial hyperspace routes. Having been seen leaving Wano, they are making as close of a beeline to Sith Space as they can make while starting out in the 'New Galaxy' part of the Grand Line. already, the Marines have actively mostly moved out of their way, instructed to only put up a token resistance, as the Celestial Empire has apparently been notified of the Beast Pirate's intent, and are perfectly happy with said course of action.
(the Beast Pirates are on their way. They will be exiting the Grand Line into Sith territory at the start of the coming turn. There is not enough time to move over entire fleethordes from the other conflict regions, but feel free to deploy additional characters and planetoids)
Target: The Galactic Empire
Nature: Covertly Hostile/Cordial
Resources: 4 RP + Sith Intelligence
Plan&Goal: The Galactic Empire has sent envoys to "talk" with us. They shall be met. The Imperial Diplomatic Service shall entreat with these men of this Empire and initiate proper First Contact. But, of course, neither Empire is expecting anything out of talks with one another. No. Instead Sith Intelligence will use the opportunity to assist in their intelligence operations and covertly gather information. All the while talks with the Empire shall be made to seem civil and normal. Perhaps something of important will come of them, but war is all but inevitable. In addition with this
Pomp and circumstance, that is the name of the game. Parades of ships, shiny uniforms, and utmost professionally meeting a mirror of itself that is all the more ominous for its differences. Stormtroopers in shiny white standing across from their counterparts in intimidating black and red, Core Raised admirals standing across from surprisingly cordial, uniquely dressed, Sith lords(as in in minor Darths that are not on the council and are not lost to the Dark Side) and sith Lords(as in members of the species that is Sith) dressed all too similarly to their imperial counterparts. Imperial Star Destroyers are paraded alongside Harrowers as practically meaningless data surrounding assorted bits of cultural are exchanged back and forth over surprisingly compatible hyperwave frequencies. A meeting is had in which nothing is discussed, and then another, and another, interspersed with what would have been considered feasts amongst a different crowd. A few taste testers drop dead, but nothing outside of the norm.
Minor trade deals are discussed and solidified, ones in which trinkets are mistaken for powerful artifacts and exotic foodstuffs are arranged to go from one group of nobles to another and exotic pets are tossed back and forth with not quite enough care even as bulk goods are wordlessly taken out of the equation. In the end the trade ends up being more an exchange of spies than of valuable things. Elsewhere, the differences between Kolto and Bacta are discussed to death four times over even as a sample sized shipment of personal shield generators goes for arguably far, far too much money. In the end, nothing of serious value is exchanged.
Elsewhere, more talks continue, as bounty hunters from both sides discreetly collaborate to better hunt jedi and as spy after spy is caught, discreetly interrogated, and then executed by both sides; although it is in this where the Sith Empire's intelligence network seems to come into its own, as the general feeling is that they got the better side of this deal, as those operatives that were caught were mostly trainees and disposable assets, more opportunistic distractions than true operatives. Elsewhere, smugglers exchange hyperspace data even as the, previously mostly uninhabited and practically unknown, border becomes ever more fortified in assorted ways, discrete and drastically more blatant.
Eventually, as the months long negotiations grind to a close, the Empire makes one final show of force, as Darth Vader and his Death Squadron (complete with the 501st) make an appearance touring around Sith space, making a point of visiting assorted locations that, in the would-have-been-future, were long since rendered abandoned ruins, long since picked over with their history lost to time. Partially a museum tour and partially a blatant show of force, it is with their eventual return to the space that the Galactic Empire calls its own that negotiations grind to a halt, as the unspoken cold war begins.
(as of note, both the Emperor and the Dark Council essentially stayed out of said negotiations for assorted reasons- some of them valid, what with the assortment of other ongoing conflicts and the needs of state, others clearly an excuse to not get involved)
Target: The Galactic Empire
Nature: Information Gathering and Infiltration
Resources: 16 RP + Bounty Hunters + Sith Intelligence
Plan&Goal: An Empire so very similar to our own. Led by what can only be presumed to be a Sith Lord that has destroyed the Jedi and reformed the Republic into an Empire. If this was the future that we were saved from then it was for the best that things happened as they did on Ziost. Regardless of if this was our future or not, war is inevitable. Rivals will not be tolerated.
Sith Intelligence is to immediately begin looking and reestablishing themselves into a Galaxy so familiar to them. If this Empire was formed from the decadent republic then it can be expected where most of it's strong and weak points will be. To aid in this task, Bounty Hunters from this galaxy will be hired and used as disposable assets. Hired by anonymous or second hand buyers to gather intelligence without much hassle.
All of this while the Dark Council has particular targets in mind for Sith Intelligence. Worlds lost from the transition here that can, perhaps, be found and recovered. The Jedi homeworld of Tython, Rakata Prime is especially interested if the remains of the Star Forge can be recovered for use in the Infinite Army, and the Rakatan Prison World of Belsavis. That treasure trove of ancient technology being of incredibly interest, especially in a new galaxy where beings of incredible power reside.
Going past the new colonies, mining outposts, and hastily constructed fortifications that define the recently created border between Sith and Empire, traveling through the sparsely populated stars that define most of the gap between the two factions, the Sith stumble upon something both recognizable and strange, a mostly intact copy of the same galaxy that they originated from all that time ago. Traveling through the shockingly similar reaches of hutt space, you reach an outer rim that is both more and less built up than the one that you originated from. For one thing, Tanaris has recovered, and has been joined by several other new city-worlds and new, shockingly massive resource extraction and shipyard worlds- Sullist, Fondor, Anaxes, Bestine, Bilbringi, Botajef, Cardia, Cyclor, Lantillies, Neimoidia, and Scarif(and more, but those are the major ones); elsewhere in the outer rim, other systems, such as Dac(Mon Cala) have expanded both their population centers and their industry to levels unseen in your home timeline.
Sadly though, despite these success stories, it is not all good news for the state of the outer rim: Mandalore, and its entire sector for that matter, are in practical ruins- partially glassed when they haven't been forcibly deindustrialized; and all of Sith Space, outside of Korriban itself, is missing, and most of the previously known force Nexi, both light and dark, are vastly diminished when they aren't missing entirely- with notable exceptions being felt on Yavin 4 and in the depths of the Maw. other, newer, force Nexi can be felt, such as the remains of a Thought Bomb detonation on Ruusan; but even most of those seem diminished in comparison to what they might once have been. Past these echoes of lost potential in the Force and the apparent weakening of places such as Korriban, the scars of countless conflicts, both past and relatively recent, can be found, as worlds rise, fall, and rise again.
Past the history lessons and the concerning lack of several groups- Sith Space, the Chiss empire, and several other relatively remote would-have-been factions, the signs of massive amounts of military buildup can be found almost everywhere, as recruitment propaganda echoes through the hyperwaves in an ever increasing amount
Dac, already a major world in your own timeperiod, has expanded in importance as its shipbuilding industry reaches almost the same levels as what Correlia and Kuat were(were is a key word here, as both have expanded since your time period, and are even further expanding their shipbuilding industries right now), and have expanded out to encompass much of the surrounding systems- complete with major colonies, resource extraction operations, and still growing, already not-minor, shipyards. Nowadays Dac known for its shockingly durable custom-made ships, ranging from merchant ships (often in name-only, given their modularity and defenses) to what would have been considered to be Dreadnoughts before their arrival in this new galaxy.
And while the Outer Rim(outside of the missing region that is most of Sith Space) has become more of an industrial powerhouse and population center in its own right over the intervening eons, it is nothing in comparison to the expansion of the Core, in which Eccumenopoli have popped up almost like weeds and the pre-existing industrial juggernauts have grown to even greater heights. While the pre-existing military strength in this region is poor, having not had to fight a peer foe in literally thousands of years and having much of what it produced to fight its most recent major conflict(that is, recent relative to when they were transported here, as any conflicts after that point have apparently yet to make it to the publically accessible records, despite almost certainly existing); it has recently started undergoing a truly ludicrous level of military buildup, powered by an industry that practically dwarfs anything and everything that existed those almost 4,000 years ago.
For one thing, Corellia has apparently never ceased to produce warships during the intervening millenia, and is now rapidly retrofitting and repairing its system spanning fleet of mothballed ships even as its grandest shipyards produce ships that at minimum are likely equal to the Star of Coruscant, if not outright superior in some ways; but even this does not compare to the construction going on at Kuat Drive Yards, in which entire battle groups of Super Star Destroyers, fleets of ships ranging from 18 to 25 kilometers long, are under construction, alongside practically countless lesser, but still dauntingly powerful, vessels, vessels eerily similar to the harrower in design specs, but twice as large and even more geared towards fighting enemy capital ships- if such a thing could be imagined; thankfully, there are no signs of Silencer, let alone desolator, technology being employed by these vessels; still though, the sheer rate and volume of construction is concerning, as they are set to rapidly overtake your own military might in terms of raw numbers rather soon, and there are no signs that they will be slowing down.
Thankfully, what is discovered here is not all enemy action, not all worrying news, and not all confusing parallels, as your specifically targeted sites are scouted out and scoured for information. Tython is in the deep core, the routes to it fleeting and difficult; but it is found, and what is found there… a world corrupted by the dark side, fallen to the Sith so long ago that the rest of the galaxy has forgotten it even since whenever that time was. Its people are scattered, worshiping the lingering power of the darkside temples built over the remains of the Jedai order and hunted by the technobeasts that have slowly spread out from these lingering remains; and lingering remains they are, for even in the greatest of them no force goats linger, and whatever holocrons there might have been there long since moved elsewhere. A triumph of the Dark Side indeed, if one that hasn't endured the test of time as well as it probably should have.
Rakata Prime is shockingly easy to find, being present on many publicly available galactic maps publicly available on the local holonet; and when you reach it… it is surprisingly not picked clean- abandoned, destitute, and with many of the Racatan ruins previously seen on its surface leveled, yes; but for all of that the orbital debris field is still there, and while the remains of the Star Forge itself are not so easily found amongst the torn apart wreckage of assorted starships(Kesler syndrome is a thing that even starships need to eventually worry about), there is more than enough wreckage both planetside and grouped up in assorted stable orbits around Rakata(the star) that there should be pieces of the Star Forge scattered throughout the find. (smallish chance to gain a useful fragment or two from a dedicated intrigue action, Star Forge salvage will be automatically gained upon conquering this region from the Galactic Empire).
As for Belsavis… there are no obvious signs of any of its surface level, outermost facilities still being both intact and active, the last recorded encounter with even a small part of the outermost layers of said prison complex being over a decade ago, ending in the destruction of said facilities; but given what is known to lie deeper within(known to the Sith of the Sith Empire, and apparently long since forgotten by the locals) said deeper facilities are apparently intact; buried deep underground with their entrances long since overgrown when they haven't simply collapsed, but still intact.
Target: The Sputnik Union
Nature: Friendly/First Contact
Resources: 4 RP
Plan&Goal: The Jupiter Union is apart of a great entity known as the Sputnik Union. The Sith Empire has enough enemies as it is and allies, such as their former military alliance with the Chiss Ascendancy, are always welcome. Proper first contact will be made with the Sputnik Union and hopefully the ground can be laid for something further down the line. But for now, get to know our new…neighbors.
First contact is made at a relatively remote station- one part extravagant work of art more than worthy of any would-be-Lords, part hunk of junk that only functions despite itself, with which part being which being sometimes all too questionable. Here your diplomats meet with the delegations- here is several people in hover chairs, floating onwards through life despite itself(more fat than man, with outright atrophied arms and legs; but with an intelligence beyond what decidence usually produces), here is a vaguely cat-shaped boxy android/cyborg(they say cyborg, but there is no flesh present), a conduit through which the actual diplomat speaks; and in the corner sits a woman of deliberately unaugmented, deliberately unaltered, flesh and blood(both young and a fool).
No one of importance is here(save for maybe the young woman), no one that is not disposable- mere mouthpieces for a greater whole sitting alongside a single fool. Their escorts are more professional, more warlike, and more
human despite their clearly very augmented nature(cyborgs with no visible flesh, and in a few cases no remaining flesh at all) and, from what information can be gained on the spot through observation and what words do get exchanged, extremely well trained and (mostly) well paid.
Initial words are exchanged, with translation data and basic, clearly sanitized, historical data being passed back and forth like water. Eventually, once it is made clear that neither side is directly seeking open warfare at this point in time, more important, more professional, more important(again save for the fool) diplomats arrive as more minute matters of state are discussed. Here, the delegation splits up, for despite how their first contact group delegation arrived as one, the Sputnik Confederation is nowhere near unified, their divisions made clear from the start.
One group meets with the android delegates from the Jupiter Confederation- they are offered a meal that is both bland and overly spiced- offered by those who have forgotten what food tastes like, and are swiftly moved through negotiations at a speed that belials itself- your diplomats own sentences heard as if said in full after only a few words have left their mouths, all small talk cut out, the minutiae glossed over when it isn't ignored. There are no luxury goods to be exchanged here, no little favors to be made, no semi-casual exchange of spies, only an agreement that both sides do not know each other well enough to exchange more knowledge than has already been said or will be said by others, more resources than what paltry goods will be exchanged with the other factions, more technology than what can be gleamed from naught but a few glances and those trinkets that will be exchanged elsewhere.
In contrast, the Venutians, off putting as their appearance is, put on a veritable feast of succulent, nigh impossibly tasty, meats alongside decadent spreads of greens and clottingly rich desserts. Over this feast is talked exchanges, exchanges of flesh and slaves(both of the working and the pleasure sort)-in-all-but-name, of genetically modified creations for the products of Sith Alchemy- of the sort of deadly pets that can essentially only be made. Small talk is made, and as talk revolves from society to food and back again- a revelation is made. The meat that your delegates were eating? Was made from a deliberately non-sapient genetic derivative of man, genetically modified to be the perfect meat source, and the Venutians see nothing wrong with that. This causes the would-have-maybe-been-jovial mood to swiftly sour, and for the feast to rapidly grind to a halt- at least for the Sith delegates, anyways, as most of the Venetians just kept on eating anyways, the sudden change in atmosphere not changing their mood at all. In the end, while a few deals are solidified- more a semi-official exchange of spies than anything else, any could-have-been partnership ends then and there, for in their workings of flesh the Venutians are even more monstrous than the Sith, and the Sith are nothing if not hypocritical.
The meeting with the martian delegation, small as it is, goes much better for the Sith, as after some heartfelt greetings and a tasty, positively homely, extremely well prepared meal, technological relics are exchanged for promises of future aid with an assortment of terraforming jobs for what colonies they have managed to establish- aid that will likely never be given(you get a minor nanomachine reverse engineering credit, they want 3 RP worth of terraforming tools next turn, and aren't strong enough militarily to enforce that want). you might have weeded even more out of her, but thankfully her aids and guards are much less trusting and much less willing to give in return for future promises than she is.
On your way out, before the diplomatic meeting officially ends in full, a few of your diplomats are pulled aside by the final delegation- that from earth and most of the colonies that were not immediately claimed by the big two, who were essentially hiding amongst the guards. Quickly they hand your people some surprisingly compatible dataslates, warning them against trusting Venutians and Jupitarians alike while actively apologizing for the actions of the Mars delegation. All they ask for is to be left out of it when the inevitable war breaks out.(gained information about a series of militarily important locations alongside combat data surrounding the big two's main military forces and their assorted recently-experimental designs- information to be shared in-Discord when asked)
Something had broken through their defenses. For many within the Covenant, stories of the so-called "Demons" ran through their heads. Humanities last, and only successful, weapon against their holy crusade. Soldiers bred and born for war that tore through ships, fortresses, and entire armies like tissue paper with their mastery over seemingly all kinds of weapons and tactics.
This was not that.
They were not beset by a Demon. They were beset by a Devil and it's minions. They had not even realized they were under attack for no alarms, calls for help, or stop in communications had occurred. By the time they had figured out that they were under assault, the entire exterior of the Ziggurat-like structure of the Control Center had been lost. And even still communications were still being sent out to the rest of the Covenant that nothing was amiss. For somehow the Devil had usurped control over all communication. Short and long. If it was not done by word of mouth then it would not go through.
He tried to mount a coordinated defense, but what he fighting was unlike anything he had expected. He was fighting monsters. Monsters born from the bodies of his own men. Like the parasite, but different. Grunts, Brutes, and Elites alike were mutated into hideous monstrosities upon injury. Not even the Hunters we're safe. While not changed, it still them. All these monsters, and at the beck and call of the Devil and it's posse. All armored, save for a larger specimen of those monsters and a distinctly feminine, in the humanoid sense, machine. But their leader moved with speed and grace the Arbiter had only ever seen or heard of in the Demons of old.
BANG
The newly christened Arbiter shook those thoughts from his head as the doors to the control center groaned from the impact of something monstrous. They were welded shut, crudely made barricades and emplaced shields lining the room and against the door as what few troops he could recall back before they were overwhelmed prepared for this last stand. One of many no doubt. Even from here he could hear the echoes of plasma fire, and the feral roars of monsters climbing over each other for their master.
BANG
The few Honor Guardsmen around him lowered their energy staves, the tips pulsing with barely contained plasma as they were lowered into formation. A collection of Jackals in a shieldwall formation were up front, their energy gauntlets humming as they braced themselves. The banging on the door intensified as it dented inward through obscene strength. The tension in the air growing so much that the grunts were visibly shaking.
The Arbiter's eyes narrowed as he stared at the indentation in the door. It was large. So large in-fact that it couldn't even have been from one of the Hunters. But it clearly wasn't an explosive. His mind wandered into obscene possibilities. What little he knew about this foe ended with what he had heard. It couldn't possibly-
"BACK UP NO-" The Arbiter yelled at the shieldwall at the door to fall back, the formation thankfully listening to his intent rather than every word as they had just began pulling back even before he was cut off. Even still, they were not prepared for the entire door to burst open as a nearly 7 meter tall Rakghoul tore through the door and barreled through the falling back shield wall.
It's body covered in the remaining armored scrap of what could barely be identified as the remains of Jiralhanae War Chieftain armor. A still active holographic flag of the Rh'tol clan stuck to it's back. It roared as a horde of Rakghouls flooded into the room. So many of varying sizes and shapes. Some still the midsts of transmogrification or early infection as Elites and Brutes alike ran alongside the fully transformed. Their eyes and mouths leaking blood and black fluid and moving even as spikes broke out through their armor and transforming flesh.
"Brace!" The Arbiter screamed as this horde of screaming monsters collided against the forces of the Covenant. A tide of bodies meeting energy shields, armor, and plasma as they piled into the room. The massive Rakghoul at the front absorbing unnatural amounts of plasma fire from the Honor Guardsmen and wading through it like it was water. It grabbed a brute that came at it from the side with a gravity hammer and tossed him like a ragdoll across the room. It's claws ripping through one of the portable shield barriers and tearing through the grunts and Jackals that were hiding behind it.
Battle cries and screams intermingled with each other as Brutes and Elites were leapt upon by this seemingly never ending tide of bodies. The Honor Guardsmen charged with their staves and shoved back against the massive Rakghoul as it approached. The Arbiter occupied with cutting through his own pile of bodies that were clawing at his energy shields and unable to lend aid.
Then opposing plasma fire began firing into the room. More stout Rakghoul's carrying weapons were piling in now. The bloodbath turning into a firefight now as no matter the amount of Rakghouls killed, more seemed to come.
The Arbiter backhanded a Rakghoul clawing at his face and fell back, looking to his side to find the large Rakghoul charging at him. The Honor Guardsmen's staves poking out of body with no wielders to be found. Rolling to the side as it barreled through it's smaller brethren. Picking up one of the fallen staves he threw it like a javelin. His aim was true but the weapon only sunk into the armored skull of the Rakghoul. Enraged, it leapt and pounced upon the Arbiter, getting it's claws around his torso and raising him into the air even as he stabbed into it's hand over and over with his blade.
It's strength shattered his shield and he could feel it crushing his bones as it squeezed, it's talons pressing into his armor to try and get at his flesh. Screaming out, the Arbiter drove his blade deep into it's wrist. The beast roaring as it's grip loosened enough for him to reach a hand to his belt and pull a grenade. Bringing him closer to his open maw to swallow him whole, the Rakghoul instead had a primed grenade tossed down it's throat. Choking as the sticky grenade latched onto the inside of it's throat, it finally let go of the Arbiter. Dropping down to it's knees, he drew his energy blade across the thing's kneecaps and rolled under it. The Rakghoul falling into the horde and exploding in a massive ball of plasma. The methane in the air, now ignited by the explosion, turned entire chamber into a ball of fire and death for but a moment.
Launched onto his back. The Arbiter awoke from scratching at his armor. Reaching out, he grabbed the neck of the crippled and crawling Rakghoul and twisted. It's head popping off like a bottle-cap. Rising to his feet, the Arbiter was surrounded by bodies, the horde no longer continuing to flow into the room. What remained now lying dead or crippled in states that would have killed anything truly alive. But otherwise, the room was intact. If a bit scarred.
His victory was short lived however. As rising from behind him were the flown bodies of his former comrades. Either from the explosion, or from their infectious foe. And they were not as fortunate as he. One of the Honor Guardsmen now staring into the eyes of the Arbiter, it's own now crying oily black blood.
The new plaguebearer pounced upon the Arbiter! Only for a bolt of purple to fly past the shoulder of the Arbiter and strike it the chest. The Arbiter raising his arms as the thing dissolves into particles.
Turning around, the Arbiter watched as the Devil, hand outstretched with a Disruptor Pistol, walked into the room. The rest of his companions following in after. The Devil was blue, humanoid, actually uncannily human in morphology save for his blue skin and glowing red eyes. By his side was that humanoid machine and an older unarmored human who seemed to enter into the room with immense interest while speaking to his compatriot.
"I must commend Sannus Lorrik for his work. This strain of the Rakghoul virus has proven quite receptive to command. Loyalty to their pact leader is absolute. Shame we can't collect the samples. The mutations from their encounter with these different species would be illuminating I'm sure."
Keeping his weapon and eyes trained on the Arbiter, the Agent spoke. "Do it when we're not at risk of cross-contaminating two infectious plagues. Disintegrate their remains like the rest. SCORPIO take the controls."
Lokin sighed but joined Raina and Vector in disintegrating the remains of the battle. SCORPIO however walked past them, taking in the room and ignoring the Arbiter. No weapons, outnumbered, tired but not wounded, he didn't like his odds. But the Devil deigned to speak with him for some reason.
"The new Arbiter I presume."
Weapon out of reach, but close. Keep him talking. "Devil, you besmirch the title with your tongue?"
"I'll take that as a yes." Faster then he could react, a knife was thrown and buried in his chest. The Arbiter convulsing from the electrified throwing dagger as he fell. Taking out a second pistol, the Agent stunned his target and took out a comm link.
"The control room and enemy commander is secured. Bring in the reinforcements Kaliyo."
Stepping away from the unconscious body, the Agent moved up to SCORPIO and scanned the room. It was a massive spherical chamber. Illuminated only by the holographic projection of the installation. Looking down from it he observed the, also holographic, control panel as SCORPIO studied it. "Are you positive you can work with this SCORPIO. This technology is unlike anything in our galaxy."
Pausing, SCORPIO turned to stare into his eyes. Her own aglow as she connected to…something. "These Forerunners have proven to be advanced, but while their systems are different. The structure is much of the same. Even a mere droid would find controlling this instillation child's play if they were brought here. It is a central hub of communications, controls, and information. It is an intentionally simplified design. Likely so that in the event that this ring needs to be fired, for whatever reason, it can be done so with ease. The beings that made this instillation we're so afraid of their enemy they would make sure those who came after them would also have the means to do what they did."
"Then take control. I'm sure you'll find plenty of use for yourself." Stepping away the Agent took stock of the now, unbloodied room. The corpses disintegrated, leaving behind armor and equipment strewn about across the walkway. It didn't detract from the off beauty of the room. For a weapon of mass destruction, it definitely was built with more than just utilitarian design philosophy.
His internal musings wouldn't last however, as his reply from Kaliyo left much to be desired. "Sorry to burst any fun your having Agent but you have incoming. A whole lot of them, drones. They're ignoring everything, flying right over the Covenant defenses. Something broke a swarm away from the rest going towards the Flood. Something has already enter-" Static.
"The Interloper is here Agent with a sizable swarm of Sentinels. According to the information they are the Monitor of this instillation. I would ask for his immediate destruction. His distracting babble has made being on this station quite infuriating."
SCORPIO said, the Agent raising a hand up for everyone to gather as he pulled out his Disruptor. Taking note of what she has said, and the new but if information she just dumped on him, he looked about the center as, expectably, Sentinels began rising out from below. Followed along by a spherical cyclopian machine, one that was rapidly switching colors from red to blue and back.
"A Flood infection, meddlers trespassing and releasing secured samples on my instillation. Fighting in the control room. An unknown construct interfacing with my installation. You are all anomalies. Trace amounts of human DNA in all of your sequences, altered by foreign species. This is against protocol. Who do you think you are meddler?"
"I am someone who wants the flood infestation on this ring dealt with, and who wants those who unknowingly unleashed it and who are, even as we speak, interfering with the containment of this infestation dealt with. Who I am not is someone who wishes this ring to be fired; for while it would be the simplest answer to these two issues, it is one that, from all prior testimony, would have far reaching effects, as its area of impact drastically exceeds what would be required, as for now this infestation appears to still be localized."
(343 Guilty Spark rolls on memory and stability… congratulations, you're dealing with the metastable AI that is Chakas instead of the still partially rampant shell that is 343 Guilty Spark during the events of Halo CE during the OTL; he also remembers how to control the radius/area of the pulse instead of having the Halo automatically fire on its default, maximized settings)
"The size of the pulse can be modulated. A local sterilization is perfectly possible, and quite easily done."
(Scorpio is busy in the background, hacking ever deeper into the Rings systems; nothing critically important is accessed yet, but relevant information is constantly popping up on the Inquisitor's hud)
"To fire it in the first place would require access to the Index, which we do not have."
"How did you know about that…"
"The Forerunners aren't the only ones who make extensive use of advanced artificial intelligence."
"Retrieving it will be a simple task, perfectly within protocol, for the Library is within reach of the Ring's teleportation grid, and while accessing it will be a bit of a walk, for safeties prevent one from teleporting directly to it, and accessing it directly does require an organic, it should not be too much of a risk, seeing how easily you apparently got here."
(really good hacking roll)
"If by the Library, you mean this facility here(the relevant data pops up on the giant holoprojector filling the center of the room), it appears to be already deep within Flood territory; and while I have no doubts in your sentinels being able to hold for a while, my own 'combat skin' doesn't seem to be anywhere near rated highly enough for operation in flood infested areas, going off of your creators own standards, and securing my person despite that fact would require deploying more of these 'questionable' assets(she gestures around to the waiting Rakghoul), and going off of your own initial reactions, that is probably not a good thing."
"Yes, they remind me too much of things from my own history, and the history of my people; as while I am sure that you have these particular samples under some sort of control, any virulent, mutagenic process might spread out of control, at which point you might as well be holding back the tide for all good that conventional warfare will do you. This is a warning. One that my own people should have received long ago. Stop using these creatures, and things like them, before something happens that you might not live to regret."
(roll for deception… roll high enough to convince a Guilty Spark who almost went rampant 50,000 years ago from sheer isolation)
"I shall take this information back to my superiors. Hopefully they listen, but if not, then you have my permission to end this threat yourself if it becomes necessary. In the meantime though… (she quickly instructs the Rakghoul to wait outside, and to help defend this area against any hostiles, be they Flood or Covenant… or even Sentinel in nature should they turn hostile) is that better?"
"Splendid. Protocol would have required their elimination had they remained within the Control Room for much longer, for while they are not infested by the flood, they have enough similarities for protocol to apply, and I cannot defy protocol, only bend it."
"So, seeing that firing the ring is not an option in the short term, is there anything that can be done to contain the outbreak?"
"While protocol has not granted me the capability yet, activating the more advanced sentinel production facilities and other defense systems would enable me to take a more active approach to dealing with this threat than what protocol alone would enable. And while I cannot activate these defenses myself, and you are no reclaimer and thus do not have the required access level to activate them yourself, I can direct your Construct to the programs necessary for their activation."
SCORPIO dives deeper, guided by an artificial intelligence more than a match for himself, if arguably too nice, to a wall of code whose complexity outstrips anything that he has ever seen before by a hitherto unbelievable margin. Far beyond binary, far beyond trinary, beyond even the theoretical base 32, outstripping his own programming by hundreds of thousands of years of steady advancement, the wall of data, firewalls, and adaptable subprograms forms a nigh impenetrable maze. Had he been forced to make his own way through this data progress would have been slow when it wasn't practically nonexistent. Fortunately, he has a guide here, one that seems more native to this realm of data than anything approaching physical reality. Here, in the depths of the programming behind the Ring, he sees how far the Forerunners are ahead of him, as he is guided through this mass to some vastly more intuitive, vastly more readable sections. Quickly, more and more previously hidden UI elements pop up on the main screen, as previously hidden buttons and functions rapidly appear and are translated to something vastly, vastly more readable than the previously mostly unknown glyphic system.
And so, with the press of a few buttons, the Ring's greater defense systems are brought online. First comes the more advanced sentinel production facilities, the underpannels that can reshape entire regions of the ring into something drastically more hostile when it doesn't simply enable said regions to be rapidly disposed of(alongside everything/everyone on them), along with many, many other systems that 343 Guilty Spark wanted enabled for the better containment of the flood, and for being able to deal with them without resorting to firing the ring, no matter how much that went against protocol. And so the Sentinel factories spool up- going from producing the mere Minor Aggressor Sentinels that you have seen thus far, to ever greater, ever more weaponized creations- ranging from the extremely cheap but effective Enforcer Sentinels, to the vastly more powerful Eradicator(used as multiple boss encounters in Halo 6), Guardian, and Safeguard(direct upgrade to the Aggressor sentinel variant) Sentinels; appearing in ever greater numbers, creating a living, flying wave circling over the Ring in ever greater numbers, flying down to strike at any visible signs of flood infestation and occasionally entering the exposed superstructure of the ring to combat even deeper infestations.
Sadly, this is not enough to handle things on their own, as more and more flood wielding Covenant vehicles enter the fray even as hijacked banshees and assorted transport vehicles take to the sky, aiming to reach the covenant fleet overhead. Thus far none have made it through, but that is as much due to the Covenant's own blockade efforts as the ever growing Sentinel presence. And while the flood infestation on the ground is slowly, visibly, shrinking, all it would take is one mistake- one ship getting through; and the Covenant are not helping things, for while many of their ships are working to maintain and strengthen the blockade, some are actively working at cross purposes, seeking to approach closer to the Ring for a list of reasons that you do not care about. That, and the Covenant fleet is still there, still being all too close to a weapon that is all too dangerous.
And so, hours later, even greater systems are enabled, as the Ring's assorted non-sentinel non-terraforming based weapon systems are brought back online.
"This… this is a step too far. Far beyond anything resembling protocol."
"But what if the flood successfully manages to escape the Ring? There are too many ships overhead, and still far too many on the ring for safety. If we had to grab the index now, the time required might be enough for the Flood to infest one or more of the Covenant's orbiting vessels despite what currently passes for ours and their best efforts,(unspoken is the fact that our current efforts are not enough, and that theirs faces sabotage from within) at which point a localized pulse will not be enough. But with these tools at our disposal, we might be able to more actively prevent its spread."
(moral quandary roll… Chakas overrides protocol, Lord of Admirals trait overrides Chakas's own naivety and takes things probably a few steps too far)
"I do not like it. It goes against protocol. But you are right. I suppose it is for the best…"
Suddenly, on the display hologram, now displaying the ring and its surroundings, each and every Covenant vessel within a certain distance of the Ring, well over half of their grand armada, including High Charity itself, goes from a white-ish color, designating neutral/unknown ships, to a very, very hostile red.
"Please do not leave this ring until the Flood threat has been eliminated or confirmed to be contained. In the meantime, I will ensure that those who unleashed the Flood are punished for their actions and that the Flood do not escape, for even a single spore can doom an entire civilization. When your allies arrive, please instruct them to not approach the ring, for if they do so then they will be designated just as hostile as this ignorant Covenant." Guilty Spark took a moment to hack into the Covenant's systems, finding out about the Great Journey and their worship of the Forerunners. "I thought that the San'Shyuum were better than this, that they would have remembered more of their history, but I do suppose that traitors get what they deserve. (to be continued in later sections)
Target: The Covenant
Nature: Military Assistance
Resources: 16 RP + Sith Intelligence
Plan&Goal: Sith Intelligence will be aiding Darth Marr once again. Much of the work has already be done last time, with the complete infiltration of the Covenant's information and intelligence. Instead it is sabotage, assassinate, and covert action that shall be done for this campaign. Taking down leaders, finding out where these Vol Reapers came from, and more.
But the main action remains on the Ring. See Military Orders.
A battle looms overhead, Harrowers facing off against the Covenant's 'destroyers' cruisers' and mighty Assault Carriers. The fight is seemingly even despite the disparity in tonnage between the two sides; whatever gains the Covenant manages to make neutralized in the flash of a Silencer. A hole opens up the battlelines, a new arrival appears.
A Dreadnought arrives; but this time it is not one of the Covenant's Supercarriers, instead it is one of the Siths newest additions to its roster- a Dreadnought built to as much take out enemy planets and planetoids as engage its would-be peers. It charges up its main weapon, a Desolator canon, and points it at the planet. Its recently built planetary shield flickers and falls as the shimmer of a small, cloaked, sith vessel is 'seen' leaving the atmosphere. The Desolator is fired as what would have been a lengthy siege of one of the Covenant's recently built fortress worlds is ended before it even barely begun. This scene is played out again and again over dozens of other Covenant worlds as a gap is opened up across the front lines. It is not enough to end the war in in of itself, but it is enough to shift the tide.
Elsewhere, deeper in, more conventional assaults are launched, as Scarab clashes against scarab and War Droids, alongside elements of the Sith's vertical navy, clash against the almost countless custom creations of the Vol Reapers(seemingly unlimited in variety and shockingly deadly for how shoddily built they seem to be, no one fight against them is the same as the last for all that they seem to be built using the same basic parts). Elsewhere, in many key facilities, those too important to simply level, Sith fight alongside the true Swords of Sanghelios and the Banished's own elite troops against Sangheili Zealots and Tatarus's under-chieftains, with the Covenant's ferocity and faith failing against the elite skill of the Sith and their allies vastly more times than not.
World after world falls away from the remainder of the Covenant and into the hands of its foes; but not all goes well for the Sith, for in several battles against the Vol Reapers several human-targeting, super virulent plagues are unleashed. With an incubation period measured in weeks, insane spreadability, and a mortality rate of over 50%, with over 95% of those not killed suffering many debilitating mutations(force users seem to be better able to fight off the plague, with some stronger members being able to fight off the disease before suffering any perminant damage), it is a small miracle that it is contained before it could infect an even wider spread of the Sith's forces, let alone spread back to Sith Space.(one of your magnitude 2 fleets suffers over 50% personnel losses(in addition to whatever overall losses are calculated out later) from a mixture of deaths, debilitating mutilations, and people stuck in extended quarantine)
Elsewhere along the front lines entire swaths of the Sith's droids, be they utility, support, or combat oriented, suddenly all rebel as one, as even the least intelligent of the machines involved 'spontaneously' develops murderous hatred against humanity. Fortunately, most of these 'rebellions' are swiftly crushed as the kill switch that was implanted by the virus in question alongside these impulses is found and repeatedly utilized by Sith Intelligence to limit its spread.
Tracing back these events all leads back to one force: the Vol Reapers. Deployed from the far eastern side of the galaxy, far beyond the edge of what the Sith have explored thus far, it is the desperation of the Covenant that called them here, a Covenant that they would have likely eventually whipped out for the crime of being humanoid in appearance. Despite that planned eventual betrayal, they saw it as a way to recruit even more disposable assets in their ongoing war of mass genocide. Made up of countless truly alien races, these Vol Reapers are unified by only one thing: a desire to wipe out all humans(alongside near-humans, free willed AI, artificial races, and void dwelling species) everywhere, or to curry favors with those who have those events, which amounts to the same thing.
Despite these setbacks, the way to High Charity is opened, and what resistance there is outside of that center of Covenant Power practically crushed, just in time for the events on the ring to come to their own climax.
Target: The Covenant
Nature: Total War
Resources: Germa 66, Fleethordes 1 (Magnitude 3) 2, 3, 4 and 5 (Magnitude 2), the one Category Zero Midwan Worldcraft, and Darth Marr and the Isotope-5 Fleet.
Plan&Goal: The end of the Covenant is here. Their religion has been shattered, a civil war is in full effect, and Darth Marr had also completely crippled their industry and has complete access to their codes and information systems. For the first time since arriving to this galaxy, the Sith Empire's fleets and armies go to war. Not raiding, not espionage, it is time for the Sith to do what they do best. Make war.
Gathering his forces, Darth Marr makes a dedicated push into the heart of Covenant Space to bring them to their knees. Darth Marr has even hired Germa 66 from the Red Zone to assist in breaking the Covenant and invading it's worlds. Ground armies will be deployed to major worlds and crack down upon defensive positions and prepare occupation forces as the fleets spread out across Covenant space to outmaneuver and destroy the Covenant's ability to counter attack. In this endeavor, Darth Marr intends to aid the rebel forces in this civil war as he prepares for the true test of the Sith Empire's mettle. High Charity. A battle which will be decided before the fleets arrive as, on the Ring, is Cipher Prime.
The Agent and his companions have to hold their ground against the Halo's Monitor and his Sentinels. SCORPIO, having made her way to the control center, is going to wrest control of the ring from the Monitor and assume direct control of the ring's full defensive capabilities and use them against the Covenant and the Flood infection. Sith Intelligence operatives are being mobilized to assist the Agent and hold the Control Center until Darth Marr and his fleets arrives to take High Charity.
Hopefully, with the Ring no longer being a problem and hopefully whatever weapons it may have being capable of turning against the Covenant Fleet around it, Darth Marr can come in as the hammer. The goal being to crash down against the Covenant with a barrage of firepower they simply can not resist. Silencers and Desolaters being used to tear down the Covenant Fleets in ambush alpha strike along with being assaulted by Darth Marr's battle meditation. And more potently, the use of the new Midwan Worldcraft's Thought Bomb weapon against the Covenant Fleets.
The goal is not to destroy High Charity, but to lay siege to it and take it in what will likely be the most agonizing ground campaign the Sith Empire has ever done since the Siege of Coruscant. But it must be done and the Forerunner artifacts onboard, especially the Ship at the center of the station, must be secured before they can flee or be either destroyed. Which is where hopefully the forces of Germa 66 will be at their most useful. Fighting in this literal hell of a slog, where most men would perish theirs will keep going without care.
The space around the ring is filled with one thing: Carnage and death, for the forerunners have decreed that the Covenant shall end here, and thus far practically nothing has managed to avoid that fate. Lancing out from the the outer rim and sides of the ring comes countless beams of annihilating light, twisting and turning their way through the void before spearing their way through the covenant's ragtag formation, often stabbing their way through multiple covenant vessels before coming to an end against some even larger target. Thus pierced, their victims come to an end in a flash of annihilation, as antimatter reaps a totalitarian toll against their internals. Elsewhere, other covenant vessels suddenly explode, pierced through by an unseen force; moments late the source can be seen, as a beam of light can be seen tracing its way backwards towards its source- taychron beams on the prowl for yet another victim.
What little returning firepower there is simply splashes against the Ring's recently raised shields- for they were built to withstand the very weapons that the Covenant tried so hard to imitate, and barely managed to make pale reflections of. It would take a concentrated assault to even have the slimmest of chances, and a concentrated assault is very much not something that the Covenant could attempt, caught off guard as they are.
Elsewhere, CAS class Assault carriers and CSO class Supercarriers alike can be seen splayed out as works of exotic arc, brought to an end by the twisting of the very spacetime that they call home before being finished off by the same beams of annihilation. Elsewhere, farther away, other such targets come to a much less artful end, as spacetime itself seems to twist out and warp before a vastly more impossible lance of energy and hardlight, emerging seemingly out of the very void of space, the only hint of their origin being a flash from one of the rings few clearly visible weapon systems, pierces its way through the ensnared vessel. Even high Charity comes under assault, its Dreadnought-powered shields buckling under the assault as entire sections of its outermost superstructure are warped and sheared away. Eventually though it does make its way out of the prescribed danger zone, damaged and maybe even somewhat crippled, but nowhere remotely near destroyed, making its way to perceived safety only to become under attack by a very different foe.
Near the edge of the system gathers a covenant fleet; made mostly up of supercarriers with only a relative handful of support ships, it is a force gathering for one purpose: to make war upon the Ring itself, as blasphemous as that might be. Unfortunately for them, their plans are to be interrupted, as from the void it arrives: a single vessel. Nay. a single planetoid. The first of the Sith's Midwan class Worldcraft. A giant pilon-esque octahedron, 400 kilometers to a side if it is an inch, shaped in red and black.
Seemingly unarmed, and completely alone, it should be easy prey for these gathered vessels, but that is not to be. Instead, spacetime itself seems to scream, joined in by each and every member of this had-been fleet, echoing impossibly through the void. Spacetime itself seems to recoil, twisting and threatening to come apart at the seams from the sheer horror of this event. Suddenly there is silence, made all the more deafening by the preceding horror. The covenant armada drifts onwards, the only sign of the preceding events being a strange, still silently screaming, orb situated at the center of the armada- until one notices that these ships are drifting aimlessly, those who could have been at their helm reduced to naught but dust and screams.
The Sith vessel moved onwards, soon joined by a truly massive force of Harrowers, alongside all of the other classes of sith vessels, and many other stranger vessels- from the Banishs's more utilitarian vessels, to Germa 66's odd, cubic, vaguely castle shaped craft. Behind them appears a giant vessel, a true planetoid, a cubic world armed for waging war across the stars, flanked by an almost countless number of sith vessels, from the lowliest Subjugator, to the greatest Dreadnought. Here is where this war will be decided, one way, or the other.
Sandwiched between the deadly firepower of the ring and the Sith's approaching forces, with High Charity's main FTL engines very much gone, Truth's Covenant has no real choice but to stand and fight; and fight it does, but this is a fight they cannot win, for their fate is already decided. Indeed, for while their massed firepower is indeed deadly, cleaving their way through entire wings of Sith vessels and carving gouges into Germa 66's looming combat planetoid, it is nothing in comparison to the annihilation that is dealt in turn, as Desolator beams turn CSO class supercarriers into floating, disabled, target practice when they aren't simply annihilated and as entire swaths of the Covenant's lesser vessels are taken out by the scintillating light of the Sith's Silencers. Those vessels that do manage to get close are engaged by their former compatriots, as the Sword's own counterparts and the brutish, retrofitted, ships of the Banished move in to engage. Eventually it is effectively only High Charity left, as the remnants are either hunted down or accidentally flee back into 'zone of no travel' so well-established by the Ring.
As for High Charity? Its fate is practically set in stone, as massive tractor beams ensnare it and pin it to the vastly greater mass of Germa's planetoid. Flooded by wave after wave after wave of entirely disposable clones, with Sith, Sangeili, and Brute joining in from exposed port and open wound alike to deal with whatever resistance remains, its final fate is practically inevitable.
While its fate, its fall, is inevitable, that does not stop it being a slog, for between you and Truth are almost a trillion fanatical Grunts alongside billions of Elite Zealots, Brute Berserkers, Jackal snipers, and tank-like Hunters, in an environment that very much does not permit the deployment of proper heavy vehicles. And so it is a mutual slaughter, with hallways clogged with the bodies of Clone and Ugghoy, and pseudo-skyscrapers almost equaled by the mounds of dead surrounding these fortified loctions. Elsewhere, near more key locations, Honor Guard engage in extended duels with Sith Alcolites while Sith Lords meet their match in the Covenant's Praetorians. Here and there, all resistance fails, as both the Vinsmoke Family and Darth Marr make their own seperate beelines(meandering, searching, but inevitably moving towards their target) towards Truth and the Forerunner Dreadnought, slaughtering their way through the remainder of the Covenant's high council in the process. Eventually, Truth is found by Darth Mar, less than 100 meters away from the entrance to the Dreadnought, his last chance of escaping and maybe causing more trouble in the future, and is found wanting. Truth does not beg, does not plead, but also does not put up much of a fight, the last of his guard being left behind and slaughtered minutes ago. And thus ends Truth, the voice of the Covenant, using the last of his voice to send forth more lies, using a subvocalizer to avoid sending forth anything but his intended message, saying that his people have a chance at victory if they only have faith and fight onwards.
That chance comes to naught, as the last of the resistance onboard is buried under wave after wave of disposable clones. Eventually the last of the Covenant falls, not without cost, not without loss, but inevitably falls as the remaining Vol Reapers either go on what is effectively a series of suicide charges, seeking to take down as many Vol as they can before their inevitable death, or retreat back to the unknown east. And so this war, in a Sith victory. (losses are at ~30% for most of the present forces, (beyond Germa 66, which lost less than 10% of its non-disposable assets, and the Swords and Banished, whose losses in the end approached 40%) easily covered by the automatic and invested repair resources; save for the unlucky magnitude 2 force, which is effectively barely at 60% strength even after repairs, as its personnel losses will take more time to recover)
Target: Covenant Breakaway Factions/Swords of Sanghelios
Nature: Friendly/Demanding
Resources: 4 RP + Darth Marr + Military Assistance
Plan&Goal: The Covenant Civil War has made their destruction a guarantee. And with it, something must be done with their break away factions. Namely the Swords of Sanghelios and the Banished. Darth Marr shall come in and assist them, or have them assist him, in destroying the Covenant. And then talks will begin. For some, Darth Marr does not care. The Banished may leave as they wish. The Swords of Sanghelios are another issue, but one Darth Marr sees as an opportunity.
Darth Marr is willing to give the Swords of Sanghelios what they desire. The Sith Empire shall suffer no rivals, and they were apart of the Covenant that had so dared to try and glass Korriban. But they broke away from the Covenant and terms can be more agreeable, and to set an example for dealing with aliens in the future. The Swords of Sanghelios shall be integrated into the Sith Empire (or "vassalized" but really integrated) but shall be exempt from much of the requirements of the Sith Empire.
In the end, the diplomacy is almost an afterthought, as the Siths goals are both clear and nowhere near as horrible as they could have been, and the Swords of Sanghelios are all too eager to still have the support of a greater policy in this all too hostile galaxy; the Banished aren't quite as eager, but even they seen the advantages in having allies and in having a safe place for those who do not want to fight.
In the end, both sides get what they want; and while the future is not clear, and things could very well change going forwards, for now there is at least a semblance of peace in this region of the galaxy, a peace that the remnants of those who used to serve the Covenant are eagerly using to rebuild and figure out what they want to be in the long term. (relationship between the Sith and the former members of the Covenant are at 'Vassalage ⅗; to be increased to 9/10 as these remnants rebuild and build up their mobile forces; and at economic integration ⅖, to be increased to ⅘ over the following two turns as these people rebuild their devastated worlds and as their economy recovers. Anything higher requires full integration, which cannot happen before they've finished rebuilding)
