Ideology of the Imperium:
Fantastic Materialist: Pragmatists to the last breath the Imperium...
Fantastic Materialist: Pragmatists to the last breath the Imperium...
Tale of an Imperium
- Thread starter phoenixfryre
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Prologue
- Location
- Minas Tirith
Ideology of the Imperium:
Fantastic Materialist: Pragmatists to the last breath the Imperium has only ever believed in one faith: the unlimited potential of the human race.
Egalitarian: After much strife the Imperium that exists today is far more peaceful as it spans the Galaxy and reclaims worlds that were glassed by the Unbidden, the Fight against the Three Inter Dimensional Species had forced the Galaxy to unite, allowing Egalitarianism to thrive in the resulting Imperium dominated Galaxy.
Hidden Ideology: [In Universe Development]
Slight Xenophobia: The race of Man has always felt that it was superior to the other races in their galaxy, they had faced countless foes; The Unbidden, many Fallen Empires, An awoken empire, 3 Anti-Imperium Federations and yet they triumphed without fault. Thus despite begin firmly entrenched in Egalitarianism and belief in the equality of all life, Mankind puts itself above the remaining species of the imperium, who themselves view Mankind as a quasi god like species who heralded a 3 Century Meteoric rise through the ages. Despite this belief all species in the Imperium are entitled, and provided, a living style rightly titled 'Utopian Abundance'. Of course the fact that the only galactic power capable of functioning (despite their own crippling debts, death of nearly 10% of the population and massive disarmament due to said debt) after the War with the beings that cam out from other dimensions.
Ship classes of the Imperium of Man:
The Imperium had been commanded for long by an Omniscient Voice that seemed to always know what to do, whilst the voice was not worshipped as a god it was revered as an eternal guardian of Mankind, it was only due to this voice the Imperium had their meteoric ascension to a Galaxy spanning Unbidden Kicking Empire. And so it was only right when the Voice asked for help the entirety of the Imperium sprung into action to provide the help.
It is here the story starts as a former player of stellaris was dragged into the universe he 'created' as an omniscient voice. Right when the Imperium discovered Multiple Gateways into unknown origins they awaited the counsel of their eternal guardian.
Would the Imperium continue it's Meteoric rise through other dimensions ? or would it flail as it's eternal guardian might have been rendered incapacitated [though this is hardly true, he is only gone for a merger month]
Most Important Imperial Systems:
List of Worlds on my to visit list (open for suggestions):
One moment I was in my comfortable bed, in the next I'm in some weightless void, oh I don't have a body. I wonder how that works, I'm also hearing these strange- wait what ?! President Laskasris was not real last time I remember, then again this could all be a dream, no body to feel the pain if this is not. Good work brain, let's see then, this most certainly is my imperium. And that's good news, if I'm real they should help me, if I'm not, well I'll probably wake up and forget most of this. Well, let's get started then, after all what can go wrong ?
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I gasped as I metaphorically picked up my presence and 'ran' to the Caput Imperatoria System, "Activate the psionic field damn it!" I roared, the Imperium had already summoned 4 Battle Groups to the Capital System, bloody hell the Reckoning was horrifying in 'real life' I found out I 'lived' on a plane different from all other planes including the 'reckoning' but the Bloody thing somehow woke up and pulled me through to the Psionic plane, I call hax.
I swiftly told the Imperium how to act though, and specialised flagships were already deployed to destroy the entity- and they also made a sweet psionic body for me. I'll have to become a semi-clone for a while, at least till I go back to my plane of existence. On that note the Galaxy looks quite nice, I was 'floating' along as the 'Reckoning' or as I call it 'Screw-the-Psionics' followed me through the dimensional tear created by my Imperium, I swiftly 'floated' into my body whilst the 'Screw-the-Psionics' was taught exactly why the abomination came to late into the end-game to matter, the combined firepower of 4 Battle Groups and 5 Modified Annihilation-Class Flagships tore the bastard apart. Side Note: Nearly Four Centuries of memories do a lot to crush home-sickness, thanks ROB.
I finally took in my first breath as I looked at the security personnel standing in front of me, huh that's a lot of reverence.
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Chapter 1 [Everything is in Narrator POV from now on]
The President almost looked like a gleeful child now, "It is true then, Humanity was chosen by our guardian" then guilt suddenly flashed through her eyes as she just remembered that thing was chasing me over 6 months as the Imperium prepared, The Overseer had not hidden the consequences of the 'Screw-the-Psionics' coming free on it's own, it horrified her just to think of what could've happened had the Overseer not not guided them to take certain actions and given them directions for an effective anti-Screw-the-Psionics ships, the 5 Modified flagships were given over to the Overseer at his own request, "Are you truly fine my lord? It must be jarring, to be chased by such a beast?".
The Overseer smiled gently, as if correcting the child, "I have faced many a threat, I was far more cautious with the Unbidden." Some sadness passed through the Overseer's mind, the memories of the war with the Unbidden.....were his greatest regrets, billions were sent to their deaths by him, to save the galaxy. Many decisions the Overseer still felt guilt over. Regrets that were ancient, including one hidden guilt he had carried since the inception of the Imperium.
The Overseer developed a more grim look, "The Gateways in the Germania System shall be explored by my fleet and I, the Imperium must know about any threats on the other side" the grim look gave way for another indulging smile, "As always all those in the imperium who need guidance need not do anything but think of me" The Overseer gave a final nod before leaving the Room and heading towards a shuttle that would take him to his shiny ship of doom.
Behind his back he was being discussed by the President and her Cabinet, of course he knew about their conversation, limited omniscience allowed him to keep eye on all those he deemed important in the Imperium, surprisingly he was unable to talk to any non-human using his powers. This indicated the first block on his power, it seemed he could only communicate with the ones he 'created' the others his Imperium had conquered were not recognised as his metaphorical 'brain children'.
Just sighing at the incredulity of the situation the Overseer gazed out of the shuttles window as it ascended above the atmosphere.
Presidential Meeting, Imperial Capital Complex, Terra Nova.
The Grand Marshal stared defiantly into the Presidents eyes, "We should not let this-this absurd 'entity' to have a free run throughout our empire! why in Heavens name did you give 5 Annihilation-Class vessels to this 'Overseer', just one is the equivalent of entire navies of smaller nations! WE ourselves have just fifteen of the new variant and you gave 5 away as charity!?" The Grand Marshal was a Vivisandian Admiral found on a shielded world, ironically enough the Overseer himself had picked him for his unrivalled skill in naval command, not that he knew that.
The President almost growled the attitude of the admiral, "For the last time Tubrek get this through your skull the Overseer is and has been our eternal guardian, he acknowledged your merit and thus we chose you to command our fleets but we will not allow a fallen to dictate policy on the being that might as well be the sole reason our Imperium has prospered!"
Before the Grand Martial could speak the Overseer took over, with the help of a synthetic, the comms and was quick to calm down the Admiral as if the veteran of countless conflicts was an errant child, "Be calm Admiral, I understand you may hold grievances against me for the fall of your race but there is no reason to be so hostile to me, the 'Reckoning' was far more fearful and it held no ground either and we both know you hold no love for your species, the one that locked you away for many millennia in stasis" Even his voice sounded like a wise elder gently reprimanding a young child.
As the Overseer disconnected the President smiled smugly at the Admiral, "I told you so, now Admiral can we return to the concerning news you brought about this A.I trying to commit omnicide on a galactic level? We have things to do, other than squabble about our Lord"
The Grand Admiral just huffed, first president to even begin the rearmament and this was what he got, he sighed.
On INC Isabella, Annihilation-Class Flagship, head of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet.
The Overseer almost choked on his tea as his mind registered and double checked what the President said. Then he just got up and then sat down again before slamming his head on his desk.
The ship A.I noticed was about to call the medical droids before inquiring about the issue, "Is-is everything okay my lord ?" The A.I seemed nervous, a surprising fact was the Overseer could talk to Terran A.I, which meant he somewhere internally allocated the Synthetic and Organic Humans under the same group.
The Overseer refrained from responding before bringing his face back up with his usual serene smile, "Everything is fine, young one please set up a comm line with the President"
The A.I virtually shrugged and established a comm link before going back to what he was doing, using the numerous lasers of the Annihilator to blow up small pieces of rocks.
Imperial-Planetary Capital Complex, Terra Nova.
Admiral Tubrek continued onwards with his usual dry tone, as if talking about possible omnicide was something he did every other day, which might as well be true, he and the Admiralty Board had little to do after the disarmament, "As I was saying these A.I have awoken in one of the neutral systems under out Sphere of Influence, they claim to be some sort of 'Contingency' that is acting to prevent a 'class 30 singularity event' the Overseer has yet to inform us about them, most possibly meaning even he is unaware of the threat" The Admiral finished with a drawl.
The President's eye twitched, as anyone not alien could not hear the Overseer they had always been suspicious of such a being, usually chalking it up to Humanity's belief in a god however before she could say anything the Overseer did, "I very much know what the Contingency is young admiral, and I can assure you I know exactly how to defeat them" He remembered the basic information, at the least. It had become so hard- to remember a life of not even two decades in comparison to his millennia, oh it was all there, just hard to remember.
The President smiled smugly at the admiral, "As always the Overseer knows all that we need to know".
The Overseer coughed at the interruption, "As I was saying the ones coming towards our galaxy are the Contingency is a rampant A.I made by a species that committed suicide, it was supposed to prevent the event that led to the entrance of the three extra-dimensional empires into our galaxy. However as I said it is a rampant A.I that is just seeking to commit galactic omnicide."
The President looked deep in thought while the admiral showed his experience, as he put any disaster he held for 'the Overseer', "That is certainly… something, can they affect our synthetics?" The Admiral looked quite worried at the thought as everything but the core of the offensive army was made up of Android Assault armies, the mere threat of their armies turning on them was horrifying.
The Overseer now was quite grim himself, "Not directly, soon the Contingency shall launch a signal into the Galaxy, it'll be labeled the Ghost signal. Block it, that signal is the only way the Contingency hopes to turn our Synthetics against us" The Overseer tried to remember something more about the event chain but failed to do so and mentally shrugged, "I shall be available for any counsel you wish to take but as of now we have finally reached the Germania System, I shall proceed with the Expedition"
The President finally snapped out of her thoughtful mood, "Take care my lord, may fortune favour you in your adventure into the unknown". If only she had known what he would encounter the Imperium would have sent an actual fleet along him.
The Overseer laughed gently, "Indeed, take care child and remember, I am always there" Though he was merely a shadow of a shadow most of the time.
The Admiral rubbed his nose with a sigh and pressed the intercom, "Send the Alpha and Beta science teams to the Cabinet Chambers."
Germania System, Path of 5 Gateways
Captain Marcellius saluted the Overseer as he entered the Overseer's chambers, "Lord Overseer, we have entered orbit of the Starbase of Germania System, which gateway should we enter?"
The Overseer thought for a moment before mentally picking the first one, it felt oddly in need, "Captain, set course for the first gateway" The Captain nodded and stepped out to relay his orders, soon enough the fleet entered the gateway.
And out they came facing a battlefield the Overseer had seen in games and read in many novels in his old life.
Out of the portal created by the Gateway the 1st Expeditionary Fleet found itself in an universe that the Overseer was keenly familiar with and equally affronted by the offences committed by one of the coalitions in the universe.
They had found themselves in the Halo Universe
More specifically they found themselves in Espilon Eradani on the 25th of July and in front of them a different humanity waged a desperate war of survival.
The First Expeditionary Fleet on its entry to the gateway:
Humans on the ship were immediately fed the images of the Covenant ships and soon enough the Overseers voice came through rippling with unbridled Psionic prowess, "All vessels get firing solutions on those despicable fanatics, leave none alive in the system" the cold fury in the voice of the Overseer sent shivers down the spine of the crew of Isabella.
Abord UNSC Trafalgar, Admiral Michael Stanforth
The admiral, like his counterpart in the Covenant Navy, was awestruck at the sizeable ships that just appeared in the system. Both fleets had stopped firing for the briefest of moments to watch the new fleet manoeuvre itself. Silently praying that the new xenos wouldn't be horrid like the Covenant, he nearly collapsed when a single phrase flashed on the Comms screen.
'REST EASY BROTHERS, SALVATION HAS ARRIVED'
At that moment Humanity dared to hope, and their salvation arrived in the form of giant beams of promised death.
INC Isabella, Espilon Eradani
The die was cast, as one the many bridge officers of both, the UNSC and the Covenant, fainted as they read the energy reading of the Blackhole Reactors spike and as one, bright lances of energy ripped through space, Both CSO-Class Super carriers of the Covenant found themselves riddled with holes as their shields were ripped to shreds and the volley of the Imperium killed nearly double the ships killed by the Covenant. Around a hundred of the Covenant found themselves derelict before they could react and then the battle restarted, UNSC once more openly attacked the Covenant who were in mass panic as the Imperial Fleet continued onwards towards the Covenant. The Corvettes flew circles around the Covenant, absorbing many blows aimed for the UNSC ships.
Meanwhile the Carriers of the INC deployed their complimentary escorts alongside the Flagship deployments, Citadel-Class Dreadnoughts absorbed entire salvos of the now desperate Covenant Navy.
The Cronos-Class entered the orbit of Reach and other UNSC colonies deploying their massive supplement of Android Assault armies on the planets. Masses of Androids hit the Covenant in a deadly Zerg rush.
The Battle was over the moment the Imperium chose to involve themselves. Now, now it was an absolute massacre, UNSC took pot shots at the Covenant but most UNSC ships were now actively looking for life pods of that might have survived the first salvo that hit them, only the Super Carrier managed to resist, it too only briefly as its own crew was lax due to facing the 'primitives'.
In Isabella the Captain looked at the Overseer with conflicting emotions, like all humans he trusted the Overseer with the fate of humanity as in the past the Overseer had asked of them many difficult tasks but in the end it was all for the benefit of the Imperium.
The Overseer just glanced at him with his patented 'It is all going to be okay child' gaze, "You have questions, young one ?" He asked softly.
The Captain stuttered a bit but got his bearings back, "Sir, why did we attack an unknown faction? It was first contact after all" Many other heads were also gazing at the pair now.
The Overseer only smiled sombrely, "The ones we attacked, they were the Covenant." His smile tightened and cold fury flashed in his eyes causing shivers to run up the spines of his crew, "They have killed nearly 18 Billion humans without cause or reason thus far" Multiple eyes widened and more than a few had fury light up in their own eyes.
The Captain was infuriated but nodded nonetheless, "I understand your decision my lord, a decision chosen with deep thought in it" the Captain ended smiling slightly, never did he question how the Overseer knew it.
The Overseer nodded, "Indeed I have seen many precursors rise and fall and I have yet to find a species with the potential of Humanity" he smiled fondly, "It has been my sworn duty to guide this potential into something greater" He had, in fact seen so, so many, precursors; the Yuht, The First League, The Cybrex all of them with so much potential and yet none had shown a light as bright as humanity and therefore for the first time in his life he interfered in the lower plane.
Half an hour after the Battle,
The Captain, received a message from his Comms officer, "Sir the Admiral of their fleet is requesting to meet the leader of our fleet, how should we respond ?"
The Overseer's eyes started twinkling suddenly, sending shivers down the spine of Admiral Tubrek who looked around with wariness, "tell them I shall me this admiral in a real meeting, I shall go myself accompanied by a squad of our Power Armoured Soldiers. [Mechanised Infantry in game]
Though the majority of the Army of the Imperium was Android Assault Divisions there was a small core of Elite troops reserved to garrison the core worlds of the Imperium. Their most awe inspiring moment was the defence of Terra Nova during the Extra-Dimensional War as the Unbidden stormed the planet, it was one of the darkest chapters in Imperial History as Nova Terra fell at the end but the Elite Soldiers had held the Planet for en entire month, only when the last Power Armoured Elite die were the Unbidden able to start the purge of Nova Terra, but the Imperial Navy patrols launched wave after waves of stalling Corvette attacks to stall as Battle Group Bastille rushed into the system and cleansed the Unbidden out of the system. After this no major planetary conflicts occurred during the Extra-Dimensional wars, but the Imperium fought twice as hard, the memory of a burning Nova Terra was branded onto the minds of the Imperium. It was perhaps his greatest regret that he let Terra burn, but it was necessary to close the access of the Extra-Dimensional Empires to the Galaxy. It was perhaps one of his most regretted actions till date, he condemned tens of billions to death that day.
Nudging his darker thoughts away he smiled at the Elites as he entered the shuttle.
[For reference the Elites wear an armour that more of less looks like a more silver version of the UNIF Power Amour]
Back at the bridge,
The Captain gazed at the place formerly occupied by the Overseer, in his worry the Psionic Overseer had let his thoughts transmit to him, "It was not your fault Overseer" Muttered the Captain softly before going back to his position, awaiting the word of the Overseer.
UNSC Trafalgar, Docking Bay,
The Admiral looked at the Spartans II's lining the door in a parade fashion, "Spartans" he gazed at his crew, "Navy Personnel, today is a day that shall be forever remembered in history, when the evil tyranny that the Covenant represents have been finally given their just rewards by our new exponentially powerful friends" He finally smiled, a gritty smile, but a smile nonetheless, "Therefore let us welcome them with the warmest welcome humanity can afford!".
The door slid open and the Spartans saluted the entering figure, Michael's eye grew wide, not only at the power armour worn by the visiting leader's guard but also at the species of their magic helpers, he would have never thought of them being actual brothers.
The human in the middle of the armoured infantry just smiled at the Admiral, he looked maybe 23 years old and yet he commanded the massive firepower outside, "Hello Admiral, I am Aurelius, the Lord Overseer of the Imperium of Man in our universe. It pleases me to see Humanity thrive here as well, I hope your rowdy neighbours are not causing too much trouble, I'm afraid genocide does not please me" a subconscious shiver went up the spines of the Admiral at the words of the….. 'Lord Overseer'.
The Admiral finally regained his tongue and smiled at the Lord, "Of course Lord Aurelius, it is a pleasure to meet you, if you will please follow me, we have much to talk about".
The eyes of the Overseer twinkled as he smiled, "Yes indeed young one, we have much to convene upon" before he gestured to his fleet, "Look brightly upon the stars now! No longer do you fight alone!"
And this was how the Imperium of Man met the first of their neighbours.
Edit: I just wanted to add a clarification the Overseer himself does not have a name, he just adopted one to make the other humans feel more comfortable, he has been the literal second voice in his universe's humanity for so long that he probably forgot any name long ago.
Fantastic Materialist: Pragmatists to the last breath the Imperium has only ever believed in one faith: the unlimited potential of the human race.
Egalitarian: After much strife the Imperium that exists today is far more peaceful as it spans the Galaxy and reclaims worlds that were glassed by the Unbidden, the Fight against the Three Inter Dimensional Species had forced the Galaxy to unite, allowing Egalitarianism to thrive in the resulting Imperium dominated Galaxy.
Hidden Ideology: [In Universe Development]
Slight Xenophobia: The race of Man has always felt that it was superior to the other races in their galaxy, they had faced countless foes; The Unbidden, many Fallen Empires, An awoken empire, 3 Anti-Imperium Federations and yet they triumphed without fault. Thus despite begin firmly entrenched in Egalitarianism and belief in the equality of all life, Mankind puts itself above the remaining species of the imperium, who themselves view Mankind as a quasi god like species who heralded a 3 Century Meteoric rise through the ages. Despite this belief all species in the Imperium are entitled, and provided, a living style rightly titled 'Utopian Abundance'. Of course the fact that the only galactic power capable of functioning (despite their own crippling debts, death of nearly 10% of the population and massive disarmament due to said debt) after the War with the beings that cam out from other dimensions.
[Mods Used :
New Ship Classes and More;
Advanced Ascension;
NSC Add on: Unlimited Supercapitals;
More Hyperlane Chokepoints;
No megastructure limits;
Sol System Expanded;
New Army Types;
New Ship Classes and More;
Advanced Ascension;
NSC Add on: Unlimited Supercapitals;
More Hyperlane Chokepoints;
No megastructure limits;
Sol System Expanded;
New Army Types;
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ship classes of the Imperium of Man:
The Imperium had been commanded for long by an Omniscient Voice that seemed to always know what to do, whilst the voice was not worshipped as a god it was revered as an eternal guardian of Mankind, it was only due to this voice the Imperium had their meteoric ascension to a Galaxy spanning Unbidden Kicking Empire. And so it was only right when the Voice asked for help the entirety of the Imperium sprung into action to provide the help.
It is here the story starts as a former player of stellaris was dragged into the universe he 'created' as an omniscient voice. Right when the Imperium discovered Multiple Gateways into unknown origins they awaited the counsel of their eternal guardian.
Would the Imperium continue it's Meteoric rise through other dimensions ? or would it flail as it's eternal guardian might have been rendered incapacitated [though this is hardly true, he is only gone for a merger month]
Most Important Imperial Systems:
Imperial Battle Groups :
Battle Group Bastille;
Battle Group Lutetia;
Battle Group Ravenna;
Battle Group Olympus;
Battle Group Toulouse;
Battle Group Valencia;
Battle Group Constantia;
Battle Group Rostov.
Battle Group Bastille;
Battle Group Lutetia;
Battle Group Ravenna;
Battle Group Olympus;
Battle Group Toulouse;
Battle Group Valencia;
Battle Group Constantia;
Battle Group Rostov.
List of Worlds on my to visit list (open for suggestions):
- Halo
- Mass Effect
- Starcraft
- Star Wars (Open to suggestions for which time)
- Star Trek
- Warhammer 40k
- SG-1
- FireFly
- Homeworld
- DCU [Unexpectedly large amount of Space Action going on in the background here)
- Babylon 5
- MCU
- Marvel (at some sensible time)
One moment I was in my comfortable bed, in the next I'm in some weightless void, oh I don't have a body. I wonder how that works, I'm also hearing these strange- wait what ?! President Laskasris was not real last time I remember, then again this could all be a dream, no body to feel the pain if this is not. Good work brain, let's see then, this most certainly is my imperium. And that's good news, if I'm real they should help me, if I'm not, well I'll probably wake up and forget most of this. Well, let's get started then, after all what can go wrong ?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I gasped as I metaphorically picked up my presence and 'ran' to the Caput Imperatoria System, "Activate the psionic field damn it!" I roared, the Imperium had already summoned 4 Battle Groups to the Capital System, bloody hell the Reckoning was horrifying in 'real life' I found out I 'lived' on a plane different from all other planes including the 'reckoning' but the Bloody thing somehow woke up and pulled me through to the Psionic plane, I call hax.
I swiftly told the Imperium how to act though, and specialised flagships were already deployed to destroy the entity- and they also made a sweet psionic body for me. I'll have to become a semi-clone for a while, at least till I go back to my plane of existence. On that note the Galaxy looks quite nice, I was 'floating' along as the 'Reckoning' or as I call it 'Screw-the-Psionics' followed me through the dimensional tear created by my Imperium, I swiftly 'floated' into my body whilst the 'Screw-the-Psionics' was taught exactly why the abomination came to late into the end-game to matter, the combined firepower of 4 Battle Groups and 5 Modified Annihilation-Class Flagships tore the bastard apart. Side Note: Nearly Four Centuries of memories do a lot to crush home-sickness, thanks ROB.
I finally took in my first breath as I looked at the security personnel standing in front of me, huh that's a lot of reverence.
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Chapter 1 [Everything is in Narrator POV from now on]
The President almost looked like a gleeful child now, "It is true then, Humanity was chosen by our guardian" then guilt suddenly flashed through her eyes as she just remembered that thing was chasing me over 6 months as the Imperium prepared, The Overseer had not hidden the consequences of the 'Screw-the-Psionics' coming free on it's own, it horrified her just to think of what could've happened had the Overseer not not guided them to take certain actions and given them directions for an effective anti-Screw-the-Psionics ships, the 5 Modified flagships were given over to the Overseer at his own request, "Are you truly fine my lord? It must be jarring, to be chased by such a beast?".
The Overseer smiled gently, as if correcting the child, "I have faced many a threat, I was far more cautious with the Unbidden." Some sadness passed through the Overseer's mind, the memories of the war with the Unbidden.....were his greatest regrets, billions were sent to their deaths by him, to save the galaxy. Many decisions the Overseer still felt guilt over. Regrets that were ancient, including one hidden guilt he had carried since the inception of the Imperium.
The Overseer developed a more grim look, "The Gateways in the Germania System shall be explored by my fleet and I, the Imperium must know about any threats on the other side" the grim look gave way for another indulging smile, "As always all those in the imperium who need guidance need not do anything but think of me" The Overseer gave a final nod before leaving the Room and heading towards a shuttle that would take him to his shiny ship of doom.
Behind his back he was being discussed by the President and her Cabinet, of course he knew about their conversation, limited omniscience allowed him to keep eye on all those he deemed important in the Imperium, surprisingly he was unable to talk to any non-human using his powers. This indicated the first block on his power, it seemed he could only communicate with the ones he 'created' the others his Imperium had conquered were not recognised as his metaphorical 'brain children'.
Just sighing at the incredulity of the situation the Overseer gazed out of the shuttles window as it ascended above the atmosphere.
Presidential Meeting, Imperial Capital Complex, Terra Nova.
The Grand Marshal stared defiantly into the Presidents eyes, "We should not let this-this absurd 'entity' to have a free run throughout our empire! why in Heavens name did you give 5 Annihilation-Class vessels to this 'Overseer', just one is the equivalent of entire navies of smaller nations! WE ourselves have just fifteen of the new variant and you gave 5 away as charity!?" The Grand Marshal was a Vivisandian Admiral found on a shielded world, ironically enough the Overseer himself had picked him for his unrivalled skill in naval command, not that he knew that.
The President almost growled the attitude of the admiral, "For the last time Tubrek get this through your skull the Overseer is and has been our eternal guardian, he acknowledged your merit and thus we chose you to command our fleets but we will not allow a fallen to dictate policy on the being that might as well be the sole reason our Imperium has prospered!"
Before the Grand Martial could speak the Overseer took over, with the help of a synthetic, the comms and was quick to calm down the Admiral as if the veteran of countless conflicts was an errant child, "Be calm Admiral, I understand you may hold grievances against me for the fall of your race but there is no reason to be so hostile to me, the 'Reckoning' was far more fearful and it held no ground either and we both know you hold no love for your species, the one that locked you away for many millennia in stasis" Even his voice sounded like a wise elder gently reprimanding a young child.
As the Overseer disconnected the President smiled smugly at the Admiral, "I told you so, now Admiral can we return to the concerning news you brought about this A.I trying to commit omnicide on a galactic level? We have things to do, other than squabble about our Lord"
The Grand Admiral just huffed, first president to even begin the rearmament and this was what he got, he sighed.
On INC Isabella, Annihilation-Class Flagship, head of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet.
The Overseer almost choked on his tea as his mind registered and double checked what the President said. Then he just got up and then sat down again before slamming his head on his desk.
The ship A.I noticed was about to call the medical droids before inquiring about the issue, "Is-is everything okay my lord ?" The A.I seemed nervous, a surprising fact was the Overseer could talk to Terran A.I, which meant he somewhere internally allocated the Synthetic and Organic Humans under the same group.
The Overseer refrained from responding before bringing his face back up with his usual serene smile, "Everything is fine, young one please set up a comm line with the President"
The A.I virtually shrugged and established a comm link before going back to what he was doing, using the numerous lasers of the Annihilator to blow up small pieces of rocks.
Imperial-Planetary Capital Complex, Terra Nova.
Admiral Tubrek continued onwards with his usual dry tone, as if talking about possible omnicide was something he did every other day, which might as well be true, he and the Admiralty Board had little to do after the disarmament, "As I was saying these A.I have awoken in one of the neutral systems under out Sphere of Influence, they claim to be some sort of 'Contingency' that is acting to prevent a 'class 30 singularity event' the Overseer has yet to inform us about them, most possibly meaning even he is unaware of the threat" The Admiral finished with a drawl.
The President's eye twitched, as anyone not alien could not hear the Overseer they had always been suspicious of such a being, usually chalking it up to Humanity's belief in a god however before she could say anything the Overseer did, "I very much know what the Contingency is young admiral, and I can assure you I know exactly how to defeat them" He remembered the basic information, at the least. It had become so hard- to remember a life of not even two decades in comparison to his millennia, oh it was all there, just hard to remember.
The President smiled smugly at the admiral, "As always the Overseer knows all that we need to know".
The Overseer coughed at the interruption, "As I was saying the ones coming towards our galaxy are the Contingency is a rampant A.I made by a species that committed suicide, it was supposed to prevent the event that led to the entrance of the three extra-dimensional empires into our galaxy. However as I said it is a rampant A.I that is just seeking to commit galactic omnicide."
The President looked deep in thought while the admiral showed his experience, as he put any disaster he held for 'the Overseer', "That is certainly… something, can they affect our synthetics?" The Admiral looked quite worried at the thought as everything but the core of the offensive army was made up of Android Assault armies, the mere threat of their armies turning on them was horrifying.
The Overseer now was quite grim himself, "Not directly, soon the Contingency shall launch a signal into the Galaxy, it'll be labeled the Ghost signal. Block it, that signal is the only way the Contingency hopes to turn our Synthetics against us" The Overseer tried to remember something more about the event chain but failed to do so and mentally shrugged, "I shall be available for any counsel you wish to take but as of now we have finally reached the Germania System, I shall proceed with the Expedition"
The President finally snapped out of her thoughtful mood, "Take care my lord, may fortune favour you in your adventure into the unknown". If only she had known what he would encounter the Imperium would have sent an actual fleet along him.
The Overseer laughed gently, "Indeed, take care child and remember, I am always there" Though he was merely a shadow of a shadow most of the time.
The Admiral rubbed his nose with a sigh and pressed the intercom, "Send the Alpha and Beta science teams to the Cabinet Chambers."
Germania System, Path of 5 Gateways
Captain Marcellius saluted the Overseer as he entered the Overseer's chambers, "Lord Overseer, we have entered orbit of the Starbase of Germania System, which gateway should we enter?"
The Overseer thought for a moment before mentally picking the first one, it felt oddly in need, "Captain, set course for the first gateway" The Captain nodded and stepped out to relay his orders, soon enough the fleet entered the gateway.
And out they came facing a battlefield the Overseer had seen in games and read in many novels in his old life.
Out of the portal created by the Gateway the 1st Expeditionary Fleet found itself in an universe that the Overseer was keenly familiar with and equally affronted by the offences committed by one of the coalitions in the universe.
They had found themselves in the Halo Universe
More specifically they found themselves in Espilon Eradani on the 25th of July and in front of them a different humanity waged a desperate war of survival.
The First Expeditionary Fleet on its entry to the gateway:
Humans on the ship were immediately fed the images of the Covenant ships and soon enough the Overseers voice came through rippling with unbridled Psionic prowess, "All vessels get firing solutions on those despicable fanatics, leave none alive in the system" the cold fury in the voice of the Overseer sent shivers down the spine of the crew of Isabella.
Abord UNSC Trafalgar, Admiral Michael Stanforth
The admiral, like his counterpart in the Covenant Navy, was awestruck at the sizeable ships that just appeared in the system. Both fleets had stopped firing for the briefest of moments to watch the new fleet manoeuvre itself. Silently praying that the new xenos wouldn't be horrid like the Covenant, he nearly collapsed when a single phrase flashed on the Comms screen.
'REST EASY BROTHERS, SALVATION HAS ARRIVED'
At that moment Humanity dared to hope, and their salvation arrived in the form of giant beams of promised death.
INC Isabella, Espilon Eradani
The die was cast, as one the many bridge officers of both, the UNSC and the Covenant, fainted as they read the energy reading of the Blackhole Reactors spike and as one, bright lances of energy ripped through space, Both CSO-Class Super carriers of the Covenant found themselves riddled with holes as their shields were ripped to shreds and the volley of the Imperium killed nearly double the ships killed by the Covenant. Around a hundred of the Covenant found themselves derelict before they could react and then the battle restarted, UNSC once more openly attacked the Covenant who were in mass panic as the Imperial Fleet continued onwards towards the Covenant. The Corvettes flew circles around the Covenant, absorbing many blows aimed for the UNSC ships.
Meanwhile the Carriers of the INC deployed their complimentary escorts alongside the Flagship deployments, Citadel-Class Dreadnoughts absorbed entire salvos of the now desperate Covenant Navy.
The Cronos-Class entered the orbit of Reach and other UNSC colonies deploying their massive supplement of Android Assault armies on the planets. Masses of Androids hit the Covenant in a deadly Zerg rush.
The Battle was over the moment the Imperium chose to involve themselves. Now, now it was an absolute massacre, UNSC took pot shots at the Covenant but most UNSC ships were now actively looking for life pods of that might have survived the first salvo that hit them, only the Super Carrier managed to resist, it too only briefly as its own crew was lax due to facing the 'primitives'.
In Isabella the Captain looked at the Overseer with conflicting emotions, like all humans he trusted the Overseer with the fate of humanity as in the past the Overseer had asked of them many difficult tasks but in the end it was all for the benefit of the Imperium.
The Overseer just glanced at him with his patented 'It is all going to be okay child' gaze, "You have questions, young one ?" He asked softly.
The Captain stuttered a bit but got his bearings back, "Sir, why did we attack an unknown faction? It was first contact after all" Many other heads were also gazing at the pair now.
The Overseer only smiled sombrely, "The ones we attacked, they were the Covenant." His smile tightened and cold fury flashed in his eyes causing shivers to run up the spines of his crew, "They have killed nearly 18 Billion humans without cause or reason thus far" Multiple eyes widened and more than a few had fury light up in their own eyes.
The Captain was infuriated but nodded nonetheless, "I understand your decision my lord, a decision chosen with deep thought in it" the Captain ended smiling slightly, never did he question how the Overseer knew it.
The Overseer nodded, "Indeed I have seen many precursors rise and fall and I have yet to find a species with the potential of Humanity" he smiled fondly, "It has been my sworn duty to guide this potential into something greater" He had, in fact seen so, so many, precursors; the Yuht, The First League, The Cybrex all of them with so much potential and yet none had shown a light as bright as humanity and therefore for the first time in his life he interfered in the lower plane.
Half an hour after the Battle,
The Captain, received a message from his Comms officer, "Sir the Admiral of their fleet is requesting to meet the leader of our fleet, how should we respond ?"
The Overseer's eyes started twinkling suddenly, sending shivers down the spine of Admiral Tubrek who looked around with wariness, "tell them I shall me this admiral in a real meeting, I shall go myself accompanied by a squad of our Power Armoured Soldiers. [Mechanised Infantry in game]
Though the majority of the Army of the Imperium was Android Assault Divisions there was a small core of Elite troops reserved to garrison the core worlds of the Imperium. Their most awe inspiring moment was the defence of Terra Nova during the Extra-Dimensional War as the Unbidden stormed the planet, it was one of the darkest chapters in Imperial History as Nova Terra fell at the end but the Elite Soldiers had held the Planet for en entire month, only when the last Power Armoured Elite die were the Unbidden able to start the purge of Nova Terra, but the Imperial Navy patrols launched wave after waves of stalling Corvette attacks to stall as Battle Group Bastille rushed into the system and cleansed the Unbidden out of the system. After this no major planetary conflicts occurred during the Extra-Dimensional wars, but the Imperium fought twice as hard, the memory of a burning Nova Terra was branded onto the minds of the Imperium. It was perhaps his greatest regret that he let Terra burn, but it was necessary to close the access of the Extra-Dimensional Empires to the Galaxy. It was perhaps one of his most regretted actions till date, he condemned tens of billions to death that day.
Nudging his darker thoughts away he smiled at the Elites as he entered the shuttle.
[For reference the Elites wear an armour that more of less looks like a more silver version of the UNIF Power Amour]
Back at the bridge,
The Captain gazed at the place formerly occupied by the Overseer, in his worry the Psionic Overseer had let his thoughts transmit to him, "It was not your fault Overseer" Muttered the Captain softly before going back to his position, awaiting the word of the Overseer.
UNSC Trafalgar, Docking Bay,
The Admiral looked at the Spartans II's lining the door in a parade fashion, "Spartans" he gazed at his crew, "Navy Personnel, today is a day that shall be forever remembered in history, when the evil tyranny that the Covenant represents have been finally given their just rewards by our new exponentially powerful friends" He finally smiled, a gritty smile, but a smile nonetheless, "Therefore let us welcome them with the warmest welcome humanity can afford!".
The door slid open and the Spartans saluted the entering figure, Michael's eye grew wide, not only at the power armour worn by the visiting leader's guard but also at the species of their magic helpers, he would have never thought of them being actual brothers.
The human in the middle of the armoured infantry just smiled at the Admiral, he looked maybe 23 years old and yet he commanded the massive firepower outside, "Hello Admiral, I am Aurelius, the Lord Overseer of the Imperium of Man in our universe. It pleases me to see Humanity thrive here as well, I hope your rowdy neighbours are not causing too much trouble, I'm afraid genocide does not please me" a subconscious shiver went up the spines of the Admiral at the words of the….. 'Lord Overseer'.
The Admiral finally regained his tongue and smiled at the Lord, "Of course Lord Aurelius, it is a pleasure to meet you, if you will please follow me, we have much to talk about".
The eyes of the Overseer twinkled as he smiled, "Yes indeed young one, we have much to convene upon" before he gestured to his fleet, "Look brightly upon the stars now! No longer do you fight alone!"
And this was how the Imperium of Man met the first of their neighbours.
Edit: I just wanted to add a clarification the Overseer himself does not have a name, he just adopted one to make the other humans feel more comfortable, he has been the literal second voice in his universe's humanity for so long that he probably forgot any name long ago.
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- Location
- Puerto Rico
Awesome intro.
Looking forward to more.
Can you post a list of worlds we might visit?
Also, all the events that happened in opening, are they part of the game or something you invented?
Asking since I don't know much of Stelaris (mostly since none of my computers can run it).
Looking forward to more.
Can you post a list of worlds we might visit?
Also, all the events that happened in opening, are they part of the game or something you invented?
Asking since I don't know much of Stelaris (mostly since none of my computers can run it).
- Location
- Minas Tirith
The starting event is one the most awesome event chains that, if completed unknowingly, leads to the spawning of a monster that is the soul of all the dead psionics [more or less psyker], it isn't that hard to kill in the beginning, but the moment it spawns it kills everything in the summoner' empire and deposits them to a random world. for every 200 pops [1 pop is 500 million in story] it gets absurd modifiers, here I accidentally poked it into waking up so instead of eating my empire it tried to eat me (and presumably my imperium after that) and I just led it to the capital where the anti-psionic flagships were waiting alongside 4 Battle Groups. So it was fairly easy kill it as it was slain before it at ate the souls of 100 million pops. It becomes nearly impossible to kill down the line.
And yeah the Extra-Dimensional invasion actually happens in game, if you have jump-drives unlocked the drives are a beacon to three extra dimensional omnicidal energy beings who want to kill everyone and anything in the galaxy including themselves, I have indeed given up Nova Terra and it's 12.5 Million pops to commit to a massive Imperium led Counter Attack on the points entry for the extra-dimensional beings. It was truly a sacrifice, though I did Corvette Spam to stop them from leaving the system or attacking any other habitats in system.
EDIT: I added a list near the Battle Group Listings in a spoiler.
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- Location
- Puerto Rico
Okay.
As for your list, any chance for Babylon 5?
Your fleet appering during the Ba. of the Line and killing the Minbari will have B5 humanity join your Imperium faster than you can say Overkill.
In the case of 40k, which timeline?
Would be interesting to see your empire help the Emperor before he allied with the Red Toasters.
As for your list, any chance for Babylon 5?
Your fleet appering during the Ba. of the Line and killing the Minbari will have B5 humanity join your Imperium faster than you can say Overkill.
In the case of 40k, which timeline?
Would be interesting to see your empire help the Emperor before he allied with the Red Toasters.
- Location
- Minas Tirith
40k is most certainly to be visited but the problem is the sheer scale, whilst I have full faith just one Annihilation-Class Flagship is worth hundreds of 40k ships there's just so many of them that eventually the Imperial Fleet would have to jump away, also traditional Hyperlane travel would be banned in 40k due to, well the chaos gods and sure somewhere down the line Babylon 5 sounds nice, more Utopia to spread for humanity!
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- Location
- Puerto Rico
Wait, what type of FTL does Stelaris use?
Also, how is your empire's terraforming and agriculture tech?
- Location
- Minas Tirith
There's two main types of FTL in Stellaris:
1: Jump Drive, which basically works by creating quasi-wormholes.
2: Normal Hyperdrive which uses a different dimension like Slipspace, this is quite safe in universes like Halo where the other dimension is calm, in a universe like 40k it's pretty unsafe but still safer than 40k drives as it's very hard for extra-dimensional entities to find out where the drive is being used before it's already of.
2.b: Psi-Jump Drive : A vastly superior Jump Drive but this one is like a beacon for all sorts of trouble, the Imperium has it but they don't use after it caused the Extra-Dimensional War.
The Imperial Terraforming tech is good enough it takes just about an year to restore a glassed world to a Gaia World. (A world that is perfect for most Imperial Species)
On the Food sector due to having an entire quarter of the Galaxy devoted to producing food, it actually is a lot lesser than one may imagine, so far the Imperium has a vast abundance of food due to improvements in agricultural tech and reverse-engineering fallen empire technology (which is where they got their Black Hole Drives and Tier 5 Shields) To be honest the Imperium uses artificial dragonscale reverse engineered from an Ether Drake, but since most people would scoff at that I'm reducing it to Tier 5 Neutronium Armour. Otherwise In-Game I killed the Ether Drake and got the Armour, a pity since I was hoping to get the baby dragon.
- Location
- Minas Tirith
I'm not so sure about that as seeing the worse vs worst in the game It's all but certain the Imperium would either not intervene as Humanity is not under a direct threat or have to commit valuable military resources in an invasion, then pacification and integration.
The Imperium is primarily Egalitarian, I don't see the killzone natives doing anything but trying to exploit the Overseer till the Overseer or the President get so annoyed they cut ties.
Helgahst might have been the victim first but they tried to do the equivalent of glassing to Earth No matter if the Imperium goes there or not they won't look kindly upon anyone in the universe.
Both sides are just people the Imperium would never let into their systems because of the ideological dissimilarity between the Utopian Empire and the Post-Apoc EvilvsEviler Humanity in Killzone
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themisticShroud
The Red King And His Court
- Location
- The Red Court
I got to finish reading this and its absolutely amazing and an incredible story! Seriously can't wait to see what comes next! 
Virian
Sage of Reason and incomplete information
- Location
- Where logic has never been before
- Pronouns
- he/him
I thought it was
1.the Hiperdrive similar to Star Wars using only pre-made paths that cannot be changed
2. Warp drive slow but can take you anywhere
3.Wormhole drive, near instantaneous but requires a lot of infrastructure to use in the form of wormhole gates and you risk having your ships stranded.
- Location
- Minas Tirith
Actually you're right for Star Wars but in Stellaris the Jump Drive actually has dual-functionality, it works as a more effective hyperdrive alongside having the ability to open a quasi-wormhole [a portal, actually] to a destination within the range for jumping, jumping in essence takes the hyperdrives pre programmed exits and stops the ship from exiting at a fixed exit, rather it allows a ship to manoeuvre to a desired location within range. Whilst doing this it also leaves the safety of the basic hyperdrive as more extra dimensionals can sense them while they jump, the psi-jump drive has exponentially more range and is has the best speed but it carries the largest risk, the Extra-Dimensional [Which destroyer half the imperium and killed around 1.7 trillion beings of other species] war occurred because it is around 50% easier for the outside empires to locate this drive, it gives them 50% more time to rip a hole into the galaxy, whilst some might be pleasant the vast majority look at lower planar life as nice hunting prey, to be hunted as animals.
Also creating hyperlanes is fairly easy, first a drone is dropped into a system scanned by the Imperium [made easier by the galactic scaled Sentry Hub] then the location is added to Hyperlane charts as a safe exit point and that's about it.
Chapter 1
- Location
- Minas Tirith
And this was how the Imperium of Man met the first of their neighbours.
Chapter One - Miracle at Reach
UNSC Trafalgar, Rec Room,
The Admiral and The Overseer both continued eating their meal as the Admiral continued thinking on the revelations their new ally had made.
The Overseer had made it no big secret that the Imperium was firmly against genocide, "The Imperium shall support us in our conflict then?" The Admiral once more asked the same question, for the third time.
The Overseer did not lose his calm to annoyance like lesser men might have, he understood the situation faced by the Admiral, in a time so dark, when Humanity was being culled like cattle by this Covenant it was only right to believe any light would turn out to be an even darker hole, "Yes Admiral, the Imperium would like to help the UNSC, we have seen your plight and as the Overseer of the Imperium I guarantee you this- this is a crisis of the highest, these animals have dared to kill three fourth of our kin, thus you are granted unlimited access to our own food stuffs and minerals produced by us, in fact we are already setting up a Colony on a nearby tomb world that we shall terraform into a Gaea World once we are done setting up a basic colonial capital." The Overseer smiled brightly at the Admiral as the Admiral once more put the thought of having an ally through his head.
After finally accepting that, yes there was an Imperium and they were rather nice chaps the Admiral got his head around to the second part of the conversation, "Colonisation? May I enquire the coordinates, times have been harsh on UNSC" He grimaced there, no use hiding it, "Most of our colonies are, as you put it, Tomb Worlds, a colonial conflict between us is something we would hope to avoid" Lies. They would sacrifice any colony if this Imperium gave their word to stick to their preliminary agreement.
The Overseer just smiled an even brighter smile, "Oh Admiral you need not worry about that, we specially sought the colony you had termed as Harvest as a colony as we want to commission a joint Colonial project with the UNSC on the planet, it would be great for the people- to see the first casualty of this dastardly war to be the new beacon of hope for future peace and prosperity" The Admiral once again sat slack jawed as the Overseer continued to beam as brightly as the sun.
The Admiral whilst recovered and sighed, "I'm afraid I cannot give a permit to you for a joint colonisation sir, but I can however talk to the UNSC to send an actual diplomatic envoy till then I'm afraid my authority only extends to the military cooperation with the Imperium, If you would allow us to send detachments of those giant flagships of yours with our fleets we'll be able to swiftly beat the Covenant" Before the Admiral could continue the Overseer had to stop him with a grim look on his own face.
The Overseer started gently yet firmly, "all my capital ships except the Serres-Class Titans have already been deployed to search for the existence of a threat even greater than the Covenant whilst you need not fear for the protection of the remaining Human Worlds as the Imperium will guard them with out fleet but we cannot let this threat go unnoticed, of course slowly we will send more ships but for now you must commit any offensive alone, my friend".
The Admiral once more looked down with a weary sigh, "We cannot do this alone, we need help" The last part barely came out but the Overseer heard. And the Overseer disagreed.
The Overseer narrowed his eyes and spoke sharply, "Look at you! All depressed that you cannot beat a bunch of uppity zealots, Once Humanity fought the Forerunners themselves to a standstill, they conquered the lofty might of the Flood, cured the incurable, YOU are the Reclaimers, the heirs of the precursors and the inheritor of a legacy so old entire stars have burn away since its age, it is not a question of can or cannot, you shall persevere and you shall be victorious!" The startled Admiral looked into the eyes of the the Overseer which had lit up with a familiar fire, a fire that the UNSC once held before it was nearly squashed out by the constant humiliations, the constant defeats and then he remembered, how they cheered when the imperium attacked, when they won at Harvest, at Sigma Octanus IV and then he smiled at the Overseer, "and besides help'll arrive soon enough".
Admiral suddenly stood up and saluted the Overseer, "Thank you, Lord Aurelias, Humanity has survived alone whilst defending so far, you have already helped us great deal, we'll rebuild and together the Allied forces once more defeat this evil of fanaticism, much like our ancestors, our demands shall remain unchanged- Unconditional Surrender!" The Admiral finished with Determination in him eyes, and a new fire in his veins.
The Overseer smiled as he stood up, he still had his abilities of inspiring nudges, "That is the fire I wish to rekindle", still smiling the Overseer pulled out a data disk and handed it to the Admiral. "You still use Fusion engines Admiral, I think Antimatter is two grades above what you regularly use, now I should not be uplifting the UNSC without the proper arrangements being made, and they are being made, but if I accidentally leave it here, well who knows ?" The Overseer playfully winked at the admiral before walking out towards the shuttle bay, to once more await the UNSC Diplomatic team he was promised.
The Admiral smiled as he took a look at the data disk in his possession, "Who knows indeed" He turned to John-117, "Get this to our shipyards at any cost".
The Spartan nodded before taking the datadisk as he and the rest of the blue team exited, heading for the Forward unto Dawn as they prepared to make the random slipspace travels required to go to Earth as per Cole Protocol.
UNSC Cairo Station, Meeting of the Diplomatic Team with Lord Terrence Hood and Admiral Parangosky
The acting president looked onwards firmly as the Diplomatic team got briefed on their mysterious allies, "As your brief says, you are to initiate diplomatic talks with this Imperium and negotiate for trade treaties, if the Imperium is telling us the truth about their extent then they might be the saving grace of the UNSC".
The Diplomatic team nodded to the president and started filling out whilst Admiral Parangosky waited for them to leave before starting the second part of the President's briefing, of course ONI only told the President what they wanted to but both had Humanity's best interest at heart, the president, however, beat her to it, "Admiral, I understand your concerns about humanity blatantly putting out faith in the hands of a foreign power" The President turned around, looking towards the planet that below the mighty station, "This is all we have left Admiral, our colonies are burnt husks of their former selves, our 'Eternal -here the President scoffed scathingly- Fortress' is aflame due to the Covenant. We cannot lose this, as long as Humanity holds on to Earth, the eternal home of humanity, we shall rebuild, so I understand, in fact I agree that we should not afford so much trust so casually but it is our last hope, we must act cordially, at least until Infinity is out of the Shipyards, then perhaps we can negotiate with more propriety with our kin".
The Admiral herself looked like she had swallowed a bitter pill, "You are quite right Lord Hood, but that was something I had already grudgingly deduced. Nevertheless I was about to tell you of the gift they gave us" Her eyes glinted before she rolled her eyes, "and yet something tells me you already know" Lord Terrance allowed a brief flash of smugness pass through his eyes, "As is stands, the Imperium has already begun to form a protective influence around all remaining Inner Colonies, Spartan Team Blue has been redeployed under the command of Spartan-117 to an interesting destination cordinates we found in the wreckage of the Covenant fleet. ONI estimates this discovery alongside the new antimatter engines might win us the war." Admiral Parangosky nodded to the President who was deep in thought, "That's all President Hood".
The President shook himself out of his thoughts, "Thank you, admiral, you may take your leave" Parangosky saluted the President and left for her office.
Many, many light years away a UNSC Battle Group moved swiftly towards with the highest morale Humanity had held in decades. The UNSC's naval core which despite suffering heavy casualties remained fairly intact due to timely help from the Imperium in the Battle of Reach. So Battle Group Carthage kept going towards Installation-04 to hopefully find a way to put an end to the Covenant.
Admiral Parangosky's Office, Earth
Parangosky calmly sipped contemplating the image of Imperial Power Armour before finally pressing a button on her datapad, "Move the Spartan-IV Program further up the line, I want the first batch in the field in two months" Before a reply could come the Admiral had already cut the comms.
Behind her Serin spoke up, "They might not be ready in time".
The Admiral just stared back at him with a glint in her eyes, "The Covenant won't be either".
INC Isabella,
The Overseer sighed, honestly so much to do, so little time. He nodded at the aide to continue the report on the first of the many Imperial Humanitarian aid to be provided to the UNSC, "Lord Overseer, the food shipment from the Imperium have arrived through our recently deployed gateway. We have prepared more terraforming teams to start Terraforming the various glassed planets of UNSC, am I to do another task my lord?".
The Overseer shook his head, "you may leave" He mentally summoned the Captain as he looked over more reports of minor skirmishes between his forces and Covenant patrols. So far the Imperial senate had not convened to pass the sentence but the destruction of their state was already assured for their crimes as per the Prometheus Convention signed between the Imperium and their allies as the War in Heavens started with two fallen empires clashing with their titanic strength, Humanity being the third strongest in the galaxy in that time was quick to scavenge the Fallen technology, by the time the war in heaven was over the Imperium stood victorious but the Fallen ravaged half of the galaxy which fell quickly to their forces. Surprisingly he felt little guilt for condemning Hundreds of Billions by intervening so late into the war, he noticed the Captain standing for the last thirty seconds, patient man that captain, "Captain gather prepare a bio-hazard team." The Captain nodded however before he could go off the Overseer changed his orders, "Change that Captain, we need more Elite Power Armour (PA) Soldiers. And an army of neurological doctors and scientists".
The Captain was looking slightly nervous now, "And may I ask Lord Overseer, what do we need such impressive forces for? Not a plague I hope?".
The Overseer smiled the brightest smile at the Captain, "We're going out to hunt captain, more specifically we're hunting a Omega-Class Bio-Virus to try and turn it back into what it was supposed to be!".
The Captain tried to stop himself, he really did, but his eye twitched regardless, the tone used by the Overseer might as well suggest they were off to tell tales of the wondrous space to orphans, "Can't do something that doesn't include Galactic or Genocidal threats once in a while? I wouldn't mind fishing once in a while" The Captain continued mumbling going back to the CIC to relay his Lord' will to the Imperium.
In his chambers the Overseer was having his own conversation with the President, "President, do you know any nice fishing spots on Nova Terra ?".
The President was slightly confused, and drowsy, but readily replied in her sleepy state, "There are plenty of fishing ponds on the moon Titan, in the Sol System".
The Overseer hummed, "Thank you President, now back to work you go, it is rather unbecoming of the President to sleep on her duty".
The ship a.i beeped before vocalising the message for him, "My lord the UNSC diplomatic team awaits you".
Imperial-Planetary Capital Complex, Presidential Chambers
The President woke up rubbing her eyes, "I must've fell asleep again, that was the most vivid dream I've had in while." The President sighed and prepared for the next conference with the Admirals and the Grand Marshal about their final assault to seize the Contingency ring world, the Imperium never built Ring Worlds, believing them to be a waste of resources in relation to the far cheaper and accessible voidborne habitats build in orbits around celestial bodies, but seizing an active ring world was hardly something they would ignore, their fault for attacking the Imperium when they had something to lose, with a smile at the thought of the first Human Ringworld she pressed the comm button on her datapad and called in the War Council.
INC Isabella,
The Overseer looked passed his gaze over the map of the Installations, it was pressing to make sure no one had access to them, destroying them seemed to be like the only feasible thing to do, he never liked Galactic Omnicide anyways.
A combined UNSC-Imperium operation sounded nice, it was only right, it was their universe after all. His gaze moved on to the more pressing issue, a cure for the flood. If found, the Precursors, who were supposedly nice (far more so than the forerunners), would be revived, quite obviously not enough to ensure the survival of the species, without protection, but with near immortality that was a concern for the later generations to worry for. A cure was hardly impossible, the Humans found one, never implemented it, but they found it. If they could do it then he'd be damned if he couldn't. More so his hopes on a possible cure hinged heavily on reviving the Precursors, he was forced to rest most of his eggs in the same basket.
Then came the biggest challenge, to contain the flood, ideally they would be able to seize control over the holding facilities of the flood. He sighed, even if Murphy favoured him that plan would be hard to pull, the forerunner a.i would be hostile to any form of help to the Precursors.
He moved onwards to the last problem, one Mister Henry Williams sent by the UNSC to be his diplomatic contact with him, with a grunt of annoyance he settled down on his desk, closing the relevant star maps and details as the door slid open to reveal a blonde with blue eyes, much like their president, who was cheerfully smiling at the Lord Overseer, "Lord Aurelias, a pleasure to meet the saviour of Reach, a catchy title if I say so myself" He extended his hand, "I'm Henry Williams, I'll be your diplomatic envoy to the UNSC, anything you wish to convey to my superiors I shall do for you".
The Lord Overseer looked at his hand curiously, the first human to offer him a handshake he looked after them since they were in their cradles, so little reason for them want to shake his hand (rather they wanted to worship him, but that he ended quickly), he shook his hand before allowing the diplomat to settle in front of him, "The Imperium has seen the plight of the UNSC and whilst we are otherwise engaged in our galaxy we shall provide all the food required by the UNSC" The Overseer smiled and slid his datapad over with the relevant amount of Food displayed on it.
Henry was a trained ONI agent, a diplomatic one but a trained one nonetheless, so he suitably hid his gasp with a well timed cough before stealing more glances at the figure, he finally turned his gaze to the Overseer, "I- This is, this is great Lord Aurelias, I cannot say even begin to mention how grateful the UNSC is for this, you have saved a great many amount of people from starvation my lord, and you have my thanks for that".
The Overseer just smiled amiably, "It is all but proper for us to help our fellow kin in their time of need" The Overseer put the next bit down carefully, "We have discovered….some rather sensitive information, the Imperium acknowledge the UNSC governance in this universe as such I find myself in want of a combined UNSC-Imperial operation to capture an ancient Biohazard, we need to act quickly as the fate of the galaxy may depend on this operation" The Overseer finished grimacing, seeing as the Diplomats face himself turned more serious from his earlier cheer.
The Diplomat nodded once thinking over the issue, "Lord Hood will hear of your proposal, in all likelihood we shall be accommodating Spartan Team Red for this operation" The Diplomat smiled, "they are the best humanity has got".
"I shall trust your word, envoy Williams" The Overseer procured three datadisks from his desk, "I have here the technology of how to efficiently Terraform, make Habitats and make Advanced Droid Bombers and Strike Craft" The Overseer passed them on the Diplomat who was very wary of the catch, The Overseer rolled his eyes, "There is no catch, envoy, It was not me who decided to grant you this gift but rather the Imperial Senate that decided the UNSC was in dire need of this grant".
The Diplomat was already getting up and nodding, "The Senate's observatory skill cannot be understated, I must take my leave to sent this generous gift to Intelligence, by your leave Lord Aurelias?"
The Overseer smiled at him and gestured towards the door, "Feel fre-" the Diplomat was already off, the Overseered just smiled, "To be young again".
Soon enough he did return to actually formalise the agreements, this time with an actual delegation, it just left, agreements were established for wartime aid and economic transitions while he insisted on none they were quite against the debt of such and they reached a relatively cheap agreement.
The Overseer sent commands for clone vats to be set up in the Weeping Angel Facility, with that one he finally looked ahead, as the sun pulsed brightly the Overseer smiled at the Planet of reach, where rebuilding had finally begun. It was a symbol for times to come, the Rebuilding had finally begun.
Chapter One - Miracle at Reach
UNSC Trafalgar, Rec Room,
The Admiral and The Overseer both continued eating their meal as the Admiral continued thinking on the revelations their new ally had made.
The Overseer had made it no big secret that the Imperium was firmly against genocide, "The Imperium shall support us in our conflict then?" The Admiral once more asked the same question, for the third time.
The Overseer did not lose his calm to annoyance like lesser men might have, he understood the situation faced by the Admiral, in a time so dark, when Humanity was being culled like cattle by this Covenant it was only right to believe any light would turn out to be an even darker hole, "Yes Admiral, the Imperium would like to help the UNSC, we have seen your plight and as the Overseer of the Imperium I guarantee you this- this is a crisis of the highest, these animals have dared to kill three fourth of our kin, thus you are granted unlimited access to our own food stuffs and minerals produced by us, in fact we are already setting up a Colony on a nearby tomb world that we shall terraform into a Gaea World once we are done setting up a basic colonial capital." The Overseer smiled brightly at the Admiral as the Admiral once more put the thought of having an ally through his head.
After finally accepting that, yes there was an Imperium and they were rather nice chaps the Admiral got his head around to the second part of the conversation, "Colonisation? May I enquire the coordinates, times have been harsh on UNSC" He grimaced there, no use hiding it, "Most of our colonies are, as you put it, Tomb Worlds, a colonial conflict between us is something we would hope to avoid" Lies. They would sacrifice any colony if this Imperium gave their word to stick to their preliminary agreement.
The Overseer just smiled an even brighter smile, "Oh Admiral you need not worry about that, we specially sought the colony you had termed as Harvest as a colony as we want to commission a joint Colonial project with the UNSC on the planet, it would be great for the people- to see the first casualty of this dastardly war to be the new beacon of hope for future peace and prosperity" The Admiral once again sat slack jawed as the Overseer continued to beam as brightly as the sun.
The Admiral whilst recovered and sighed, "I'm afraid I cannot give a permit to you for a joint colonisation sir, but I can however talk to the UNSC to send an actual diplomatic envoy till then I'm afraid my authority only extends to the military cooperation with the Imperium, If you would allow us to send detachments of those giant flagships of yours with our fleets we'll be able to swiftly beat the Covenant" Before the Admiral could continue the Overseer had to stop him with a grim look on his own face.
The Overseer started gently yet firmly, "all my capital ships except the Serres-Class Titans have already been deployed to search for the existence of a threat even greater than the Covenant whilst you need not fear for the protection of the remaining Human Worlds as the Imperium will guard them with out fleet but we cannot let this threat go unnoticed, of course slowly we will send more ships but for now you must commit any offensive alone, my friend".
The Admiral once more looked down with a weary sigh, "We cannot do this alone, we need help" The last part barely came out but the Overseer heard. And the Overseer disagreed.
The Overseer narrowed his eyes and spoke sharply, "Look at you! All depressed that you cannot beat a bunch of uppity zealots, Once Humanity fought the Forerunners themselves to a standstill, they conquered the lofty might of the Flood, cured the incurable, YOU are the Reclaimers, the heirs of the precursors and the inheritor of a legacy so old entire stars have burn away since its age, it is not a question of can or cannot, you shall persevere and you shall be victorious!" The startled Admiral looked into the eyes of the the Overseer which had lit up with a familiar fire, a fire that the UNSC once held before it was nearly squashed out by the constant humiliations, the constant defeats and then he remembered, how they cheered when the imperium attacked, when they won at Harvest, at Sigma Octanus IV and then he smiled at the Overseer, "and besides help'll arrive soon enough".
Admiral suddenly stood up and saluted the Overseer, "Thank you, Lord Aurelias, Humanity has survived alone whilst defending so far, you have already helped us great deal, we'll rebuild and together the Allied forces once more defeat this evil of fanaticism, much like our ancestors, our demands shall remain unchanged- Unconditional Surrender!" The Admiral finished with Determination in him eyes, and a new fire in his veins.
The Overseer smiled as he stood up, he still had his abilities of inspiring nudges, "That is the fire I wish to rekindle", still smiling the Overseer pulled out a data disk and handed it to the Admiral. "You still use Fusion engines Admiral, I think Antimatter is two grades above what you regularly use, now I should not be uplifting the UNSC without the proper arrangements being made, and they are being made, but if I accidentally leave it here, well who knows ?" The Overseer playfully winked at the admiral before walking out towards the shuttle bay, to once more await the UNSC Diplomatic team he was promised.
The Admiral smiled as he took a look at the data disk in his possession, "Who knows indeed" He turned to John-117, "Get this to our shipyards at any cost".
The Spartan nodded before taking the datadisk as he and the rest of the blue team exited, heading for the Forward unto Dawn as they prepared to make the random slipspace travels required to go to Earth as per Cole Protocol.
UNSC Cairo Station, Meeting of the Diplomatic Team with Lord Terrence Hood and Admiral Parangosky
The acting president looked onwards firmly as the Diplomatic team got briefed on their mysterious allies, "As your brief says, you are to initiate diplomatic talks with this Imperium and negotiate for trade treaties, if the Imperium is telling us the truth about their extent then they might be the saving grace of the UNSC".
The Diplomatic team nodded to the president and started filling out whilst Admiral Parangosky waited for them to leave before starting the second part of the President's briefing, of course ONI only told the President what they wanted to but both had Humanity's best interest at heart, the president, however, beat her to it, "Admiral, I understand your concerns about humanity blatantly putting out faith in the hands of a foreign power" The President turned around, looking towards the planet that below the mighty station, "This is all we have left Admiral, our colonies are burnt husks of their former selves, our 'Eternal -here the President scoffed scathingly- Fortress' is aflame due to the Covenant. We cannot lose this, as long as Humanity holds on to Earth, the eternal home of humanity, we shall rebuild, so I understand, in fact I agree that we should not afford so much trust so casually but it is our last hope, we must act cordially, at least until Infinity is out of the Shipyards, then perhaps we can negotiate with more propriety with our kin".
The Admiral herself looked like she had swallowed a bitter pill, "You are quite right Lord Hood, but that was something I had already grudgingly deduced. Nevertheless I was about to tell you of the gift they gave us" Her eyes glinted before she rolled her eyes, "and yet something tells me you already know" Lord Terrance allowed a brief flash of smugness pass through his eyes, "As is stands, the Imperium has already begun to form a protective influence around all remaining Inner Colonies, Spartan Team Blue has been redeployed under the command of Spartan-117 to an interesting destination cordinates we found in the wreckage of the Covenant fleet. ONI estimates this discovery alongside the new antimatter engines might win us the war." Admiral Parangosky nodded to the President who was deep in thought, "That's all President Hood".
The President shook himself out of his thoughts, "Thank you, admiral, you may take your leave" Parangosky saluted the President and left for her office.
Many, many light years away a UNSC Battle Group moved swiftly towards with the highest morale Humanity had held in decades. The UNSC's naval core which despite suffering heavy casualties remained fairly intact due to timely help from the Imperium in the Battle of Reach. So Battle Group Carthage kept going towards Installation-04 to hopefully find a way to put an end to the Covenant.
Admiral Parangosky's Office, Earth
Parangosky calmly sipped contemplating the image of Imperial Power Armour before finally pressing a button on her datapad, "Move the Spartan-IV Program further up the line, I want the first batch in the field in two months" Before a reply could come the Admiral had already cut the comms.
Behind her Serin spoke up, "They might not be ready in time".
The Admiral just stared back at him with a glint in her eyes, "The Covenant won't be either".
INC Isabella,
The Overseer sighed, honestly so much to do, so little time. He nodded at the aide to continue the report on the first of the many Imperial Humanitarian aid to be provided to the UNSC, "Lord Overseer, the food shipment from the Imperium have arrived through our recently deployed gateway. We have prepared more terraforming teams to start Terraforming the various glassed planets of UNSC, am I to do another task my lord?".
The Overseer shook his head, "you may leave" He mentally summoned the Captain as he looked over more reports of minor skirmishes between his forces and Covenant patrols. So far the Imperial senate had not convened to pass the sentence but the destruction of their state was already assured for their crimes as per the Prometheus Convention signed between the Imperium and their allies as the War in Heavens started with two fallen empires clashing with their titanic strength, Humanity being the third strongest in the galaxy in that time was quick to scavenge the Fallen technology, by the time the war in heaven was over the Imperium stood victorious but the Fallen ravaged half of the galaxy which fell quickly to their forces. Surprisingly he felt little guilt for condemning Hundreds of Billions by intervening so late into the war, he noticed the Captain standing for the last thirty seconds, patient man that captain, "Captain gather prepare a bio-hazard team." The Captain nodded however before he could go off the Overseer changed his orders, "Change that Captain, we need more Elite Power Armour (PA) Soldiers. And an army of neurological doctors and scientists".
The Captain was looking slightly nervous now, "And may I ask Lord Overseer, what do we need such impressive forces for? Not a plague I hope?".
The Overseer smiled the brightest smile at the Captain, "We're going out to hunt captain, more specifically we're hunting a Omega-Class Bio-Virus to try and turn it back into what it was supposed to be!".
The Captain tried to stop himself, he really did, but his eye twitched regardless, the tone used by the Overseer might as well suggest they were off to tell tales of the wondrous space to orphans, "Can't do something that doesn't include Galactic or Genocidal threats once in a while? I wouldn't mind fishing once in a while" The Captain continued mumbling going back to the CIC to relay his Lord' will to the Imperium.
In his chambers the Overseer was having his own conversation with the President, "President, do you know any nice fishing spots on Nova Terra ?".
The President was slightly confused, and drowsy, but readily replied in her sleepy state, "There are plenty of fishing ponds on the moon Titan, in the Sol System".
The Overseer hummed, "Thank you President, now back to work you go, it is rather unbecoming of the President to sleep on her duty".
The ship a.i beeped before vocalising the message for him, "My lord the UNSC diplomatic team awaits you".
Imperial-Planetary Capital Complex, Presidential Chambers
The President woke up rubbing her eyes, "I must've fell asleep again, that was the most vivid dream I've had in while." The President sighed and prepared for the next conference with the Admirals and the Grand Marshal about their final assault to seize the Contingency ring world, the Imperium never built Ring Worlds, believing them to be a waste of resources in relation to the far cheaper and accessible voidborne habitats build in orbits around celestial bodies, but seizing an active ring world was hardly something they would ignore, their fault for attacking the Imperium when they had something to lose, with a smile at the thought of the first Human Ringworld she pressed the comm button on her datapad and called in the War Council.
INC Isabella,
The Overseer looked passed his gaze over the map of the Installations, it was pressing to make sure no one had access to them, destroying them seemed to be like the only feasible thing to do, he never liked Galactic Omnicide anyways.
A combined UNSC-Imperium operation sounded nice, it was only right, it was their universe after all. His gaze moved on to the more pressing issue, a cure for the flood. If found, the Precursors, who were supposedly nice (far more so than the forerunners), would be revived, quite obviously not enough to ensure the survival of the species, without protection, but with near immortality that was a concern for the later generations to worry for. A cure was hardly impossible, the Humans found one, never implemented it, but they found it. If they could do it then he'd be damned if he couldn't. More so his hopes on a possible cure hinged heavily on reviving the Precursors, he was forced to rest most of his eggs in the same basket.
Then came the biggest challenge, to contain the flood, ideally they would be able to seize control over the holding facilities of the flood. He sighed, even if Murphy favoured him that plan would be hard to pull, the forerunner a.i would be hostile to any form of help to the Precursors.
He moved onwards to the last problem, one Mister Henry Williams sent by the UNSC to be his diplomatic contact with him, with a grunt of annoyance he settled down on his desk, closing the relevant star maps and details as the door slid open to reveal a blonde with blue eyes, much like their president, who was cheerfully smiling at the Lord Overseer, "Lord Aurelias, a pleasure to meet the saviour of Reach, a catchy title if I say so myself" He extended his hand, "I'm Henry Williams, I'll be your diplomatic envoy to the UNSC, anything you wish to convey to my superiors I shall do for you".
The Lord Overseer looked at his hand curiously, the first human to offer him a handshake he looked after them since they were in their cradles, so little reason for them want to shake his hand (rather they wanted to worship him, but that he ended quickly), he shook his hand before allowing the diplomat to settle in front of him, "The Imperium has seen the plight of the UNSC and whilst we are otherwise engaged in our galaxy we shall provide all the food required by the UNSC" The Overseer smiled and slid his datapad over with the relevant amount of Food displayed on it.
Henry was a trained ONI agent, a diplomatic one but a trained one nonetheless, so he suitably hid his gasp with a well timed cough before stealing more glances at the figure, he finally turned his gaze to the Overseer, "I- This is, this is great Lord Aurelias, I cannot say even begin to mention how grateful the UNSC is for this, you have saved a great many amount of people from starvation my lord, and you have my thanks for that".
The Overseer just smiled amiably, "It is all but proper for us to help our fellow kin in their time of need" The Overseer put the next bit down carefully, "We have discovered….some rather sensitive information, the Imperium acknowledge the UNSC governance in this universe as such I find myself in want of a combined UNSC-Imperial operation to capture an ancient Biohazard, we need to act quickly as the fate of the galaxy may depend on this operation" The Overseer finished grimacing, seeing as the Diplomats face himself turned more serious from his earlier cheer.
The Diplomat nodded once thinking over the issue, "Lord Hood will hear of your proposal, in all likelihood we shall be accommodating Spartan Team Red for this operation" The Diplomat smiled, "they are the best humanity has got".
"I shall trust your word, envoy Williams" The Overseer procured three datadisks from his desk, "I have here the technology of how to efficiently Terraform, make Habitats and make Advanced Droid Bombers and Strike Craft" The Overseer passed them on the Diplomat who was very wary of the catch, The Overseer rolled his eyes, "There is no catch, envoy, It was not me who decided to grant you this gift but rather the Imperial Senate that decided the UNSC was in dire need of this grant".
The Diplomat was already getting up and nodding, "The Senate's observatory skill cannot be understated, I must take my leave to sent this generous gift to Intelligence, by your leave Lord Aurelias?"
The Overseer smiled at him and gestured towards the door, "Feel fre-" the Diplomat was already off, the Overseered just smiled, "To be young again".
Soon enough he did return to actually formalise the agreements, this time with an actual delegation, it just left, agreements were established for wartime aid and economic transitions while he insisted on none they were quite against the debt of such and they reached a relatively cheap agreement.
The Overseer sent commands for clone vats to be set up in the Weeping Angel Facility, with that one he finally looked ahead, as the sun pulsed brightly the Overseer smiled at the Planet of reach, where rebuilding had finally begun. It was a symbol for times to come, the Rebuilding had finally begun.
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themisticShroud
The Red King And His Court
- Location
- The Red Court
Amazing update my man! Keep It up.
- Location
- Liverpool
Cool never seen this before... I want more
Map of the Milky Way on the onset of the UNSC-Imperium Expedition
- Location
- Minas Tirith
Whilst the Covenant looks bigger it is barely holding onto it's territory as one reddit user said, rightfully so, "They're a bunch of disputing warlords united barely by a theocracy". On the other hand the Human space is small but their population is far more condensed, especially so with 2/3rd of it being toast.
Also the Covenant Sphere of Influence, the area which they either nominally owned or could theoretically have flexed their military arm into has also decreased by a fair margin due to their sustained losses in the Allied-Covenant [formerly UNSC-Covenant] war.
The Covenant are also near total fiscal and political collapse due to the prophets not paying proper attention to the ongoings of their empire and you know, constant warfare for 28 years have put unimaginable strain on the once civilian economy.
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- Location
- Minas Tirith
I had to ask something, would everyone be fine with 2.3k~ish chapters ? they'll come out quicker than the 3k+ chapters but will be somewhat shorter.
Chapter 2
- Location
- Minas Tirith
"You lot? I hold no love for you, did you expect any different for someone so inclined to genocide?" - The Overseer confronting one of the last Forerunners on Requiem
AN Before the Chapter : The Overseer will participate in some land campaigns as the main worry of him dying is inconsequential due to his inability to truly die, they can just give him a new body. He mostly does it due to wanting to experience something he has not experienced in his long, long life.
Fleet Composition of an imperial Battle Group:
All Major Spartan Teams after the Miracle of Reach:
Chapter 2 - Never should Murphy be named
INC Isabella,
"Lord Overseer we have established a hyperlane to the Relictum System 10 UNSC Corvettes have docked with our ships, preparing to jump, with your permission sir ?" The Captain said smiling amusedly as Spartan Team Red discretely looked around to find just where the Lord Overseer was, 'Permission granted, keep the shields enabled and prepare to kill their comms' The Overseer sounded, as usual, excited for their newest adventure across the Universe.
Their jump drive charged as the Captain finally spoke for the Red Team's benefit, "Permission granted, strike craft and bombers prepare to launch post jump"
And with that the five Citadel-Class and one Annihilation-Class jumped into the opened Gateways, The UNSC security fleet watched as the 1st Expeditionary Flotilla [the fleet was divided into many Flotillas to spread the Imperial forces in defensive positions along the UNSC space] entered into the Gateway and headed out into the unknown.
Near Heian, Covenant Space
The Covenant ships in the Heian system were at ease, this was one of the most peaceful regions of the Covenant despite the important logistical base in System, the Covenant fleet here expected a lot of things daily, the Sangheili would get into mock fights, other species would roll their eyes and continue their watch. The Prophet would wake and give sermon, all nice and normal things a bunch of fanatic xenophilic yet humanophobic militarists did on the side. The point remained they expected quite a few things to happen.
The First Expeditionary Flotilla was not what they expected. Not at all. The Flotilla jumped near the debris ring of the Planet, within moments the majority of the Covenant fleet felt much like the UNSC ships had so far, helpless as the very first volley of Imperial energy weaponry ripped the defense fleet into smithereens. Soon enough the planned blockade of the Planet was in effect as Spartan Red Team and the 4 Assault Android Armies prepared to drop from Isabella and the 5 Serres-Class ships.
Inside Isabella all UNSC personnel watched the destruction of the Covenant fleet with smiles, none felt the tiniest spark of sympathy or empathy for the Covenant.
The Overseer marched out with his own security team, despite the initial trouble, the Imperium had finally sent over the Chimera Mk II Armour to Isabella, and no he did not regret making the entire Imperial Military-Industrial complex work on some suits of armour that looked fearsome. He regretted many things over his long life, this light act of indulgence that had a net benefit was not one of them.
The Spartans themselves were kitted out in Mk VI Mjolnir Armour, all of them stood up as the Overseer and his 5 Chimera wearing squad came in the Hangar bay, "I presume all of us are familiar with High Altitude jumps?" After receiving confirmation the Overseer continues, "Good then, our Assault Armies are already dropping near the Covenant Forces establishing a forward base, we however shall be dropping far closer to the Covenant, on top of their head in fact. Spartan-029 and Spartan-053 will be leading two squads, subdivisions I leave for you to decide. Our main goal will be to disable the Planetary defences against aerial support after which our non-capital ships will provide orbital support without indiscriminately destroying the ruins on the Planet."
The reason was quite embarrassing for the Imperial ships to stay in the Orbit, they simply had no gun weak enough that would be able to properly precision bomb, added to that all their carriers were out on duty. Thus the UNSC ships were chosen to accompany the small amount of strike craft mustered by the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet, lasers were not meant to meet surface, t'was not a match made in heaven, or even the purgatory.
"Understood, Sir" Spartan-029 said before the Spartans rearranged into two six man squads, "Alpha team will head out second, Beta team will follow. Change drop points according to the situation on ground." With that the Spartan nodded to the Overseer who nodded back before signalling the Drop Bay opening.
Inside his helm the Overseer nodded to his own squad, "I'll see you on the ground then" With that the Overseer jumped of the ship followed by his squad and soon enough the Spartans.
The Covenant mean whilst were busy fending of the probing and attention seeking attacks from the AA Armies of the Alliance, it was much to the dismay of the Covenant forces as after looking at what was dropping from the sky they started hoping for it being a MAC.
Unfortunately for their wishes the gift that was dropping were 'demons', with a great cloud of dust Strike Team Prime slammed into the ground and before even the Sangheili could react they found themselves slot in the gut by the 6 foot long plasma lance-rifles wielded by the Strike Team swiftly dispensed the greetings of the Imperium to the Covenant. (at this point it was safe to say the Chimera's were carrying small emplacements, which they liked to call 'guns')
The Overseer gave the smallest smile of satisfaction before he and his Team moved towards the Generator Complex, tearing the Covenant resistance apart.
So busy were the Covenant with the opposing Strike Team they were caught mostly unaware as two more Spartan Teams jumped on the enemy's undefended heads.
Spartan Red Team Alpha Squad,
Heavy firing took place as the surprise wore off and the Covenant reorganised themselves and slowly withdrew within cover to offer better resistance to the Spartan Team.
029, 043 and 059 slowly moved forward whilst 044, 039 and 030 secured their flanks. The Covenant were slowly pushed back.
Beta Squad followed up the Alpha Squad to enter buildings and empty the residences of any xeno presence, Covenant forces briefly pushed them back as the Sangheili Warriors joined the fight.
Soon Alpha Squad slowly withdrew in good order, killing waves of Covenant troops whilst their armour shrugged most of their oppositions attack, it was only when two Sangheili Ultra rushed were they forced to abandon their retreat for a more hasty one.
The Spartans still managed to retreat to the circular forum like opening of the Covenant base where they entered a building, from where they hopped onto the roof and jumped off towards one of the Surface bunkers.
All this happened whilst the Beta Team took the opportunity to stealthily slip to the back of the main Covenant position and begun to breach into the HQ of the Covenant, the singular Covenant soldier found in this location was easily dispatched by the Spartan Squad who moved towards the Spaceport which was the secondary target of the operation.
Strike Team Prime,
The Overseer meanwhilst led his squad using the brute force provided by the Chimera over the Normal Imperial PA, the squad squatted away quite a few soldiers and melted most cover using heavy infantry energy weapons.
Well at least they made half their journey before facing the first threat, a Sangheili fired a Bunker Buster class missile on the Overseer who, unlike his trained squadmates, was not able to dodge the blow completely as it hit his right arm, the result of which was shown as the Overseer was thrown back greatly. Not to great effect though, as the armour held up to the missile and soon enough the Overseer was grunting and heaving whilst pushing himself up.
Prime-2 made swift work of any who dared to come near the recovering Overseer and Prime-3 and 4 used boosters to jump over the Anti Air emplacement (as a result they almost got shot but barely managed to avoid the missile), what they found on the other side was the remaining two Ultra' on the base.
The Overseer peaked out of the cover he was dragged to gaze at the Anti Air emplacement again before grimacing, "Prime-1 to all forces, ground and voidborne, reduce precision strikes to deployable strike craft. Avoid any severe structural damage to the buildings, the Fanatics might have unwittingly discovered just what we're after" confirmations were sounded on the comms and then fell silent as he switched back to the Task Force comms
"Sir, I thought we're here to destroy the supply base?" The voice of Spartan-029 sounded out, curiosity in his voice.
The Overseer thought about it, to lie or to tell before shrugging the matter away, it was their inheritance not his, (internally a part of him smugly scoffed, he was a far better inheritance for the Imperium after all) "Our Secondary objective is to deliver freedom to this planet to rescue it from the cruel despotic hands of the Fanatics, the Primary objective" the Overseer grinned, "is too excavate ruins and hopefully find some new armour for you lads"
The Comm link stayed for a while, before the Spartan replied, "Forerunner armour would be a welcomed addition"
The Overseer smiled, "Who said anything about the gits?" and peeked out only to whelp as Prime-3 blasted through the emplacement carrying an Ultra in her hands.
"Prime-2 move in and help Prime-3" His companion nodded whilst he moved on to cover the squad by blasting at the Covenant troops again.
With Prime-3 and 4 during conversation,
Prime-4 shot forward ignoring the two shots the Ultra managed to get out before he withdrew his Energy sword to parry the Human's own Plasma sword, the Imperial was quick to slice down and kept pushing the Ultra back, only to receive a rude shock when during one parry the upswing of the Ultra almost lifted the Soldier who weighed nearly a ton, "Can't you just die xeno?" The ultra did not respond rather choosing to press his attack on the recovering Imperial.
Prime-3 took things differently, unlike Prime-4 she fell back and shot at the Ultra multiple times, although the shields of the Ultra faced depletion, here it was the Ultra that chose to rush the Imperial, wielding his own sword and pushing Prime-3 back as she (or at least try to).
Prime-3 was quickly pushed back but managed to dodge the first three strikes and used the deflection of the fourth jump above the Sangheili placing the Ultra between her and the Emplacement which stopped firing as Prime-1 and Prime-2 had entered cover, She too was taken unaware by the Sangheili' strength as it pushed her back despite their blades never touching each other.
It was here the Ultra lost himself to battle and continued deflecting and prodding the defenses of the Imperial, thus it was for the first time in the Ultra's life that he found himself shocked as the duel ended just when he had managed to knock Prime-3' sword out and had sliced the Visor, barely missing her eyes, the Imperial wasted no time in speeding up and throwing herself and the Ultra pushed through the emplacement using the Ultra as a shield, not to say the Ultra was dead, it got up and continued his fight with the Chimera but as his was on his eighth shot Prime-2 stabbed his own blade through the neck of the turned Sangheili that slumped down, now finally dead.
The Overseer, finally done killing the Covenant forces near them got out of his cover and seeing the visor-less Prime-3 came over, "Prime-3 get to cover and patch your helm, Prime-2 provide lookout, I'll head join Prime-4 and press forwards towards Secondary Objective"
The duel with Prime-4 was far less interesting than his comrade, he unlike Prime-3 had the initiative and except three strikes never lost it, there onwards it was fairly easy to keep attacking the Sangheili and keep up the pressure till the Sangheili fell for a feint and lost his life to the Imperial soldier.
Rather than follow up on Prime-3 he followed their objective and breached the emplacement ripping out the Covenant operator, swiftly killing him before moving forwards and starting his barrage on the remaining Covenant defenders, soon he was joined by the Overseer and they swiftly continued on their path to the Base Generators.
Rejoined by Prime-3 and 2 the Squad moved onwards taking out the rest of the demoralised Covenant forces who saw two Ultra's dying in front of them.
From there on the Imperial Squad made good time to reach the Generators where they found a minimal garrison, the majority of the garrison were engaging the Imperial Armies while the entirety of the remnants of the internal guards were either massacred or were chasing Spartan Red Team, all this time Beta Squad had managed to arrive at their objective and carried out the disassembly of any usable long range Covenant comms and set up minor explosives in the armoury, the entire HQ was easily infiltrated as the Covenant was too busy fending off the other squads and more importance was given to the team headed for the generators.
Joshua-029,
Finally after nearly 10 hours of active combat Strike Team Prime had blown the generators, his team had run out of ammo soon after the 3rd hour and had to switch to their host provided energy weapons, constantly moving the Alpha squad had taken the heat for the mission and as a result 044 was wounded-not critically but definitely out of commission for the mission due to that they spent nearly 2 hours holed up in a multi-story building.
The Imperial squad was now in retreat and the Overseer was grinning, "Prime-1 to all teams, rendezvous point is now displayed on the tactical hud, bombing will commence in 10 solar minutes, if you're caught in any area during the bombing and strafing then ping your location and stay very still. Prime-1 out, I'll see you at the rendezvous"
"Understood" Echoed the team leaders, Beta team moved for rendezvous. Alpha team on the other hand had some problems, though the base defenders were by now subdued as they shifted around trying to fix the generators and bring at least some of the Anti Air guns the six man squad was effectively reduced to four due to 044 being carried by 043, and so the Alpha team only managed to reach the Safe Zone a minute into the bombing run, still they were close enough to barely run into cover before they saw the troops and remaining Covenant emplacements (that were actually made by the Covenant) were ground into fine dust by bombs dropped with extreme precision.
The Overseer confirmed their coordinates and soon enough a shuttle was descending on their position soaring through the thousands of strike craft and bombers dominating the sky, the few Covenant craft that managed to rally were swiftly brought to the heel.
Back on Isabella,
The Captain glanced nervously at the aide that looked back towards the captain with the same nervousness, "You're telling this to him" The aide frantically shook his head, "It's the job of the Fleet Commander to report to our lord, you tell this to him sir" before the Captain could push the duty back onto him the aide retreated smoothly through the doors, "Coward" hissed the Captain at the back of his aide, before snorting a laugh out.
The Captain firmly gazed at the mission report of the Battle of Installation IV, the Overseer was sure of the result. He firmly believed the UNSC would achieve a decisive victory.
He was right, the UNSC did win, but decisive it was not, they managed to destroy the Halo and kill all the xenos there that too with dismissive losses due to the presence of a Citadel-Class ship. Even worse Earth was detected to be under threat, and it seemed like a fleet was already heading there that would all have been fine but Spartan Blue team had gone onto the deep end somehow stumbling onto Installation 05, a Class Omega threat as per the Overseer. The UNSC A threat to be fought at least in an year from now, Isabella would detach and make for Installation 05 with the Overseer their excort would go back to Sol to beef up their defences- Battle Group Lutetia, Imagine that! A full fledged Imperial fleet would be joining their brothers in defence.
Honestly he knew that no plan survives contact with the enemy but he was flabbergasted at just how badly the plan went awry.
'Lord Overseer, you know. Right ?' The Captain could not hide his nervousness.
The Overseer sighed his annoyance and the subsequent eye twitching at the absurd misfortune and fortune of John-117 was felt by all Imperial humans in the Galaxy (thankfully not on the other side), before he sighed, 'It's okey Captain, I forgot to include the factor 'humanity' into my plans, be prepared to rush of to the haven of the virus. We might be able to stop the worst of the threat right there if Murphy stops looking a- I apologise, be ready for departure. Our Dreadnoughts in the system will join us after this system is regained, tell the armies to collect the AHPA stored in the underground vaults.'
'Understood' with that the Captain moved onwards to do his duties and used a shuttle to go to INC Thessalia, a Dreadnought, to make good on the orders he received.
As soon the Overseer's shuttle entered the hangar of Isabella the ship ricocheted into hyperspace to jump to Installation 05, there was no rest for the weary.
Prophet of Regret,
The Prophet smiled, recently the Oracle had given them the location of a new ring of the gods, he smiled as he gazed out of the bridge onto the ring, not knowing about the Spartans already there, "soon, all shall embrace the great journey".
UNSC Battle Group Carthage,
The Battlegroup had followed Spartan Blue team through the Hyperspace, however it would still take them 3 hours to reach the system, even with the improved hyperdrives gifted to them by the Imperium they still needed time to adapt to the new system.
Installation-05,
The gravemind would have smiled if he could, finally after such a long rest the Reclaimers had arrived. Only time would show them of the ruin they would release on the galaxy on this day.
Epsilon Eridani system,
With a vivid flash in the Epsilon Eridani system the Battle Group arrived in the system through the gateway constructed by the Imperial forces, the UNSC naval personnel looked in awe at the absolutely massive fleet came into the system from their allies, and for the first time perhaps they truly understood what the Imperium meant when they said 'we rule our galaxy'.
INC Agincourt, Annihilation Class Flagship,
The Fleet slowly drifted towards Tribute the Admiral of the fleet sounded sunny, "Broadcasting at all frequencies, this is Fleet Admiral Adrian Dorsey, Help has arrived"
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Welp here's chapter 2. Boy editing is taking it's time.
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themisticShroud
The Red King And His Court
- Location
- The Red Court
You story really brings in the good details. Especially how amazing the fights are.
Chapter 3 - Battle of Sol
- Location
- Minas Tirith
"I have lived a long life and seen horrors that ate Galaxies for breakfast, Space Cuttlefish and it's Glorified Gyarados master are not going to scare me any more than *Redacted*" The Overseer to *Redacted* before the Battle of *Redacted*
Chapter Three - Battle for Sol
Installation-05, Coelest System.
Spartan Blue Team had moved swiftly to set up shop in one of the many safe rooms provided to them by the forerunner ruins, and preparing to sit out there as per their updated orders (which were updated due to the true reason of the Halo installations being revealed by the Overseer) awaited aid to arrive, unfortunately for them the only ships they saw in the orbit were the Covenant ships accompanying the Prophet of Regret who were setting up their own base around a temple.
Spartan 087 sighed as she and 104 continued observation of the Covenant base while 117 and 058 went around to capture or assassinate the Prophet, but for them it was another hour of painstakingly watching the covenant dig in near the transport.
Unknown to them Tartarus had already infiltrated the containment area and lifted the quarantine that had kept the flood contained for years, soon combat operations begun between flood forces and Covenant forces who advanced to attain the index.
In the Orbit the Covenant forces received a sudden surprise as they faced heavy fire from two sides, Isabella arrived alongside the UNSC fleet, but the Annihilation-Class vessel had almost melted it's hyperdrive core having taxed it to the extreme and would need hours of repair, of course the weapons blasted the enemy all the same though the Peredition laser was rested.
The Overseer sighed in relief as the most Covenant ships were destroyed and those that weren't fell back to the surface, where Spartan Blue team was preparing to enter combat to retrieve the Index. Admiral Keyes (Former Captain) had begun to deploy his troops only to be stopped by the Overseer.
The Captain was understandably twitchy the moment it was discovered the flood was down there, and free to kill and butcher.
INS Isabella,
The Overseer looked over the tactical map as the rest of his fleet- all of the expeditionary fleet- slowly assembled as they jumped into the system, 2 more ships detached from the battlegroup had been sent with proper hazmat units to do what needed to be done.
"This is the overseer to all units on ground, the Gravemind is a class-a priority. We need it alive and in captivity. Spartan Blue Team assassinate Regret and get to reinforcement zones, PA Infantry and Spartan Red Team will be deployed to combat flood forces as the Hazmat infantry and scientists take them under, I cannot stress this the capture of the Gravemind is very important"
Installation 5,
The Covenant forces were getting overrun very swiftly but managed to maintain a good orderly retreat in the face of Flood forms, the Prophet however was not prepared to face Spartans who stealthily crept forward towards their target, two of them went for the guardsmen while 087 took on the Prophet and the token guardsmen around him, all the while 117 snuck around aided by the Gravemind to regain control of index which was taken by Tartarus.
It was then the centre of Covenant, the living breathing heart of the Covenant, High Charity entered realspace right above Installation 05. The Overseer continued with Plan-B, Hazmat Infantry were deployed the entire Covenant Defence Fleet- nearly 1500 Vessels were engaged by the combined 350 Vessels of the Alliance, more ships were en route but it would take an hour before the Allied fleet could challenge Covenant Fleets.
And that is why they didn't plan to fight longer than necessary, they would fight tooth and nail for each inch, the heavy ships of the Imperium would take the heavy hits whilst the rest would snipe any Covenant troops entering the Halo' orbit.
INS Isabella,
The Overseer hummed an old melody to himself as he looked at the tactical map, "How long can we hold Captain?".
The Captain looked onwards with grim determination in his eyes, "I'd give ourselves 8 hours before we'd have to put in replacement orders for our heavy ships, this is of course presuming we manage to coordinate the tanking ships with the highest efficiency".
The Overseer tapped the comms overlay, "Lord Overseer to ground team, you have 4 hours to take over the Gravemind, another 2 to bring it back on board INS Capua. (A Corvette with downgraded equipment and a separate database that was heavily low tech in comparison to any other Imperium vessel)
"Understood, My Lord" Came the calm reply from Commander Hadrian, Ops leader for the strike force sent to bring back the Gravemind.
Outside Installation 05,
The Capital ships of the Allies navy bravely endure the fierce fire laid down upon them by the Covenant Defense Fleet and High Charity itself, any Phantoms were shot before they could reach the surface of the Installation.
Even then, outnumbered 1:5 the Allied fleet let through a significant amount of enemy Sangheili made it to the ground, not that it mattered, the Prophet of Regret was dead and so were majority of the Covenant assault forces on the Installation.
On the other hand retrieving the Flood Gravemind was not going smoothly, though the Gravemind had sided with the Strike Force, for now, as the Covenant seeked to fire the Halo (which'd turn out to be deadly for the bio-virus/omnicidal maniac). Now however with their new shiny gear (Hellcat Armour and Hazmat Infantry) the Strike Force broke through the Flood Defenses within the hour and whilst one squad was retrieving the index, Tartarus was rushing to escape the death trap of the Halo.
Outside the Halo the remaining 4 Flagships and the Expeditionary fleet had arrived to slowly, but surely turn the defense towards a Allies as their shields now got the time to recharge. It was at this time many Flood forms managed to get onboard High Charity by hijacking a wholesome amount of Phantoms.
Tartarus had managed to escape, but without the index which was now in possession John-117, the Gravemind was captured during the third hour of combat by when majority of the Hazmat Infantry deployed were dead and quite a few Spartans were undergoing medical treatment aboard the Barium, the Sister corvette of the Capua (not downgraded though), Soon enough the Keyship alongside the last Prophet, rushing to Earth. They were followed by the Allied fleet who had glassed and destroyed installation 05 after the Gravemind was retrieved by the Strike Force, their casualties and some capital ships remained in system as the minor ships were repaired and then prepared to be towed to Sol.
The Battle of Coelest was a firm reminder for the Allies, though they were superior they were not invincible it was the first defeat for the Allied forces, who now retreated to Earth where Colony Ships of the Imperium carried out massive evacuation of the Planet to Lenora Prime, the base of Imperial Operations. Heavily defended by countless Space batteries the System was one of the most well protected systems in Allied space and most certainly the safest place the UNSC refugees could leave for.
Battlegroup Lutetia had taken to garrisoning Sol where they had certain information the Covenant would come back to. The Expedition had failed in their primary task, the Flood was out there and it was coming to get the juiciest of targets- Earth.
The allied forces were now shoring up the defences of the solar system, the Imperial Battle Group had arrived and was already preparing for their biggest engagement after the Crassinian Rebellion (s). They had evacuated all but 1.2 Billion civilians of Earth, Lenoria Prime was being turned into a fortress world where Battlegroup (s) Constantia and Valencia were already recalling detachments to gather their strength and leave to reinforce the Allied forces.
Cairo Station, Sol System
The Overseer sat as serene as ever, with Lord Hood, Admiral Dorsey and Admiral Preston Cole, who himself was pursued to fight again in the war- ONI had spun a tale how Cole managed to get his ship into an emergency slipspace and was discovered by the Overseer, in front of him, there would be a secondary meeting between the Alliance officials after they were done planning for the upcoming battle, though the remaining Admirals were allowed to listen in.
Both the UNSC leaders looked at the Overseer, "How many contacts should we expect ?" Admiral Cole was direct, he was well liked for it. The man was a tactical genius and he showed it in the war.
"Our estimated stand at 7000~ ships, the risk is that the flood might gather more of their strength that managed to withdraw before the Forerunners fired their weapon, furthermore they pose a threat as each ship that rams or breaches the hull is as good as lost, most ships do not have the recommended space for the detachment of a division of Hazmat Infantry (1000 men) any ship breached has to scuttle itself without delay, a loss of trained crew and material is something we'll have to watch out for" The Overseer did reveal that as they talked ten million clones were being equipped with mass produced power armour, he would drown the Flood in rivers of Blood before giving up Terra, "If we manage to hold for a week we should be reinforced by other Imperial Battlegroups that are rapidly mobilising to aid us"
"Then we must hold, the allied fleet should hold the numerical advantage at the beginning of the battle, but time and attrition will be on our enemy's side. We must defend at Earth till we can evacuate more civilians to Lenoria, the Capital ships will aim to soak up the damage, Flood ships will also find it hard to breach 6 kilometre ships rather than the smaller ships. Our screens and cruisers will have to change their tactics, they can not afford to be boarded thus they'll have to adopt knife-fighting and hit and run tactics, hiding behind the behemoths of the Allied navy." It was tantamount to Admiral Cole's ability that he managed to gather his wits and prepare a plan.
"That is an agreeable plan, I'll take my leave now Admiral" the Overseer nodded, "Lord Hood" the Overseer left going into his shuttle as he made for Isabella.
"Do you think we can make it ? The Overseer told us, not even the Forerunners won." Lord Hood had clear doubts about their victory even with the Allied fleet numbering over 10000~ numbers (2000 UNSC vessels and the Imperial Battle Group).
Admiral Cole looked at the vessels of the Allied navy, at the evacuation and the pictures of the Gateways the Imperium used, the countless men and women of all sorts and origin working together hand in hand to stop the upcoming evil and he smiled as he saw the comms, they were still active, "I have faith, that no matter how hard our losses, how deep our casualties, how hard our lives, humanity has always fought on for their ideals- be it the American Civil War, the Second World War and all the way into this devastating war against the Covenant, thus I have faith, no matter the circumstances, no matter our failures and successes- both the Imperium and UNSC shall continue to fight till this new threat is dealt with. Through these Storm ridden nights and Hail laden days, We shall not flag or flail. We shall go on to the end. We. Shall. Never. Surrender."
The Chambers of the other admirals burst into roaring cheers of determined to either die or make the flood die for daring to lift their eye at humanity.
Sol System,
The Allied fleet slowly moved into formations easing into their designated positions, as this happened 5 Corvettes left for the Tigris Facility (Formerly Weeping Angel Facility) it was there the Clone army of the Imperium was boarding the Expeditionary fleet and the Gravemind was being invasively studied and dissected, psionic science teams were looking into the brain of the gravemind. It had claimed to possess knowledge of Precursors. It was determined all important knowledge, including the necessary knowledge of how to revive the Precursors, was there- waiting to be found.
The psionic commandos snapped to attention as the Overseer entered the facilities, ever since he had discovered his psionic powers the Overseer had expanded upon the base he had in it, as these powers were mostly powered by willpower and the body's ability to be an able vessel he had quickly attained power fitting a being of two centuries and was moving towards his actual goal of a millenia, for which a new super body was being made in the Imperium (as it turned out making powerful soulless bodies was far easier than just cloning troops who needed souls)- his commandos still outpaced him in experience though he was only a beginner in the field of psionics.
The chamber doors slid without a sound as he entered the Gravemind's prison, "Come to gloat monster?"
"The only monster is you, mangled remains of a mutt. I've finally found myself dreadfully short of time and the moment has come that I no longer possess the liberty of letting you off easy" The Overseer took a deep breath as his power gathered within his mind, unknowingly glowing golden.
"You call this-" The Gravemind was cut off by his own roar of pain as the Overseer ripped into his mind ripping his shields that had kept his teams out of the inner core of the beast, swiftly beating down tendrils of the remnants of the psyche of the Gravemind he hastily moved deeper leaving the cleanup for his psionic team.
Tearing through millennia of Flood knowledge the Overseer finally came to what he identified as the imprint of a conscious being's mind in it's last moments before the Flood absorbed it- or it became the flood. He disposed Forerunner imprints to the back of his own mind, he had no need of them.
He kept digging, unknowingly his body was slowly eroding due to the massive amount of energy coursing through it, the psionics were looking at his body in awe, before snapping to movement as the basic humanoid structure of a Precursor body was sent to them, they immediately set out to begin the cloning process.
The Overseer meanwhilst skimmed through the earliest imprints of the Flood which included the animals that begun the flood before finally striking what he wanted- the imprint of a precursor, many intact remains, to his count nearly all of the 1600 Precursors that survived were absorbed or lost themself to the Flood, most represented what he though- intense pacifists who were so focused on civil technological applications they were not ready for the Forerunners to react to not getting the mantle in favour of Humanity with genocide and why would they? They had raised the Forerunners to do the opposite, at the very least those who were pacifists were retrieved with the intention of being revived. On the other hand the imprint of this Primordial and those like him were purged. Removed from even memories.
The Precursors would be revived and hopefully they would have a cure to the Flood that was better than 'lets kill everything and hope for the best'.
It was then he finally returned to his senses, almost gasping in pain but holding the pained gasps in as he sat down on a chair, "I've sent 1264 Imprints to the Cloning teams, go and see to it they are back I need them assembled in the meeting room in 6 hours"
The soldiers saluted with a new reference in their eyes- only divinity could pump out so much power and still stay so unwinded.
The Overseer looked at the Gravemind, that laid in its prison as a broken mess, it's mind so completely shattered even the flood didn't know what to do to help him, "Kill the monster, no cell should survive" with that he marched back to his chambers to rest for sometime letting his body recover. The Expeditionary Fleet in its entirety was stationed at the planet of the secret base that was built into a planet terraformed into a tomb world.
Flood Forces in transit to Sol,
The Flood had scavenged nearly 9000~ Covenant ships and 300 Forerunner ships that were all of the surviving flood that managed to leave the range of the Milky Way, while originally more had survived the initial purge with no food to feed on the Flood fleet of 4000~ Forerunner vessels almost made it to Andromeda before failing due to lack of adaptation to intergalactic travel. However the Flood still possessed with them one Fortress Class Vessel measuring at 50km. The flood had continued to infect the remnants of the Galactic North that held various little species that had once been independent client states of the Forerunner Empire (before HALO firing of course).
They would begin the 'final test' of Humanity in a week.
Greater Galactic Situation,
The last two prophets had originally planned to go directly to Earth but had taken a small detour to check on the Covenant only to find the Covenant nearly shattered with the Covenant remnants being the 10 odd fleets (10,000~ ships) that were keeping the very core of the Covenant safe. The remaining CSO-Class Super Carriers were thankfully (?) in the hands of the Covenant Remnants, all the while they (Covenant) could only afford to operate 3 of the Super Carriers whilst the rest were more or less mothballed as they could not be maintained. Therefore the Prophets were now stuck revamping the Covenant as the Covenant Civil War begun finally with many former Covenant planets and races seceding and entering a feuding state.
Just like that the Covenant lost most of their hard power and was forced to regroup and restructure to fight the allied fleets that would surely come after them as soon as they figured out where exactly the Covenant space was.
Tigris Facility, Unknown System
The Overseer yawned as he walked towards the main lab, he settled back into his serene face as he entered the lab to look at the Precursors, so far all were stable more so they were all informed of their 'progeny' and were horrified to various degrees about the misdeeds they had spurred, the search for a cure had begun immediately and if resulted fairly quickly and easily obtaining one, they were the ones who made the Flood by accident and the reverse process while fairly hard would only take a month.
"Lord Overseer might I ask what is to happen to us after we find a cure ?" The Precursor he had identified as their leader questioned him, drawing attention of the other Precursors.
"As per the Humanitarian Aid Act and Endangered Racial Diversity Protection Act you are requested by the Imperium to settle in our galaxy and rebuild your civilisation as a part of the Imperium, on a planet of your choice. Once a stable population has been reached the Imperium will hold a plebiscite on your wish to stay in the Imperium or leave for other waters. Of course we would request even if you leave the Imperium you stay in the Galactic Confederation." He smiled as the Precursors eye lit up.
"That is a most generous offer, I believe once we replenish our numbers and civilisation we shall think on the later matters" The Precursor excitedly moved back to gather something from the desk, "Lord Overseer it seems the issue was overstated the mistake that made the flood was a fairly simple one as it is we have developed immunisation vaccines but the cure still avails us, we shall aim to have it by the end of the week."
The Overseer just smiled gently, "That is most pleasing, Commander send orders for mass production of the Vaccine" He looked at the Precursor again, "I shall take my leave then, I have to get back to Sol after all"
Battle of Sol,
The forces of the Flood came in a massed rush, the allies were ready they fought back, valiantly. The Capital ships of the Imperium pushed back initially the momentum of the push allowed the allied fleet to push the Flood, however soon the disparity of doctrines showed itself, though damaged the Flood had more capital ships of which 300 were Forerunner made, it was then Admiral Dorsey abandoned the plan- they were losing, already they had lost three tenth of their fleet with nearly another tenth knocked out of the battle in relation to the flood had lost four tenth of their fleet but all were rather unimportant Covenant vessels.
[font=Calibri, Corbel, sans-serif]It was then the greatest manoeuvre of the Allied-Flood war would begun, "This is Admiral Adrian Dorsey of the Imperial Battle Group Lutetia. We have fought with valour, with courage and great unyielding spirit and now it is once more the time for our brave men to show their valour and make the impossible seem like the likely, the Flood does not have families, they do not feel, they do not fear, they do not innovate, and I have faith that they did not see this coming, All Imperial vessels of length above two kilometres arm your shield at 150% power and prepare to ram and board the Flood, let them see that we do not go silently into the night!"[/font]
The Imperial fleet with renewed morale did something that made Admiral Cole and Lord Hood laugh in joyous mirth. They raised their shield above safety limits, and rammed into the Flood ships especially the 300 Forerunner ships, boarding actions soon begun and contrary to the warning belayed at the beginning, don't let the Flood touch you, it was the flood that tried to run- to somehow get away from the jacked up monkeys that were now protruding out nearly 5000 Flood ships the remaining flood vessels originally went to target the remaining allies only to freeze at the arrival of the Expeditionary Fleet that joined the fray with their lasers of death.
As soon as the Fortress Class ship, which had destroyed a Flagship and 7 Titans and numerous other small ships, fell to the Imperial boarding parties that had sent in power armour infantry after cleansing the halls with many toxic gases and flames they retreated en masse, only 2600 Flood vessels managed to retreat and they were chased by 2000 Allied ships led by Admiral Dorsey.
More than 16000 Ships lay in Sol, 14,000 dormant or derelict, awaiting to be towed to be cleansed and repaired. Realistically had the Covenant attacked now the Allies would have lost Sol but they were themselves busy keeping their planets safe from the rebels, not that their economy could tolerate this any more the Covenant financial sources and suffered utter collapse.
Though the Allied fleets were immensely weakened they had managed to survive the attack by the flood and seize the largest ship they had ever seen leading to the development of the largest Imperial ship, the Aquilae-Class Super Dreadnought.
As it turned out the Clone Army of the Imperium was not required, yet that is. Unknown factors still permeated the air, and the Covenant still coveted the death of Humanity.
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Reason for Late Update + Milky Way after Battle of Sol
- Location
- Minas Tirith
The reason the update was this late was I had my finals and then interviews for club positions, I'll try to have them be at an update a week regardless of what I have to do, we're just about done with the Haloverse
Pink - Flood remnant
Green - Feuding Covenant Break Aways
Red - Covenant Revolutionaries
Magenta - Covenant Loyalists
Black - UNSC
Pink - Flood remnant
Green - Feuding Covenant Break Aways
Red - Covenant Revolutionaries
Magenta - Covenant Loyalists
Black - UNSC
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themisticShroud
The Red King And His Court
- Location
- The Red Court
An amazing update and well worth the wait. I really am loving these battles you set up their pretty awesome! Here's hoping for another.
Chapter 4 - No Hearth like Home
- Location
- Minas Tirith
"Personally, I think I've done a marvellous job of weaning them off religion and establishing peace and progress, wouldn't you agree, Emperor ?" Overseer to *Redacted* at the signing of the Treaty of Procyon.
Chapter Four - There exists no Hearth like Home
Sol System, a week after the Battle of Sol,
The UNSC had to finally come clean about the actual threat of the Covenant after the Battle of Sol to their population, no longer could they hide the (former) severity of the threat when debris floated in the system and the orbits of various planets held various damaged vessels tugged to safety for repairs, out of the 16000~ vessels only 3400 of the Imperium and only 900 of the 2000 UNSC ships remained salvageable, though from the start of the war due to concentrated ship constructions the UNSC had managed to scrape together a navy of nearly 5000 ships, an enviable feat.
The Allied Fleet under Admiral Dorsey pursued the Flood before finally noticing the pattern of travel and using their better hyperdrives to set up an ambush to destroy the remaining flood vessels.
Germania System, Battlegroups Rostov and Sarissa;
Over the last year since the Overseer had descended the Imperium had seen quite a few things, monsters that would have destroyed them; alternate universes and seeing the status of Humanity within these alternate realities as the bottom of the chai- cannon fodder for testers, it had stroked nightmares deep buried within the psyche of Humanity, of the terrible losses of the Extra-Dimensional war, how Earth was nought but wasteland by the time Imperial forces reached it and how millions had died to deny the same fate to Nova Terra (System: Caput Imperatoria).
An ugly frown descended upon Admiral Josephine Cherson as she remembers the report on what the flood and the forerunners were doing, before a smile flashed through her pondering, the Imperium had long been on peace footing it's mighty fleets had been slowly disarmed as only 8 Battlegroups remained active on the eve of the Overseer's landing, then this happened.
Now for the first time since the Extra-Dimensional war the Imperium was rearming itself, polishing its teeth, old fleets, mothballed long ago once more sailed the void. Battlegroups decommissioned due to a lack of need were being refurbished to once more serve the Imperium.
Sarissa was the very first Battlegroup to be entirely crewed once more, She was formerly an Admiral on the advisory board, relegated there after her battlegroup was decommissioned due the economic crisis of the post dimensional-war.
She finally sat back in her seat, before activating comms, "Helm prepare for transfer to UNSC system Epsilon Eridani".
"By your command admiral" The Fleet slowly moved towards the gateway before being sucked in by the gateway and deposited on the other end.
INS Londinium, Battlegroup Rostov
Unlike Sarissa, Rostov was an active battlegroup, hence except the core of the Fleet most of their ships were on constant patrols across the Imperium or on other duties to garrison planets relatively far away from their main fleet. Therefore it had taken somewhat longer to actually gather their force to Germania and actually enter the UNSC-Covenant conflict, it would take an entire month for the whole fleet to arrive in Germania.
Caput Imperatoria, Nova Terra, Cabinet Meeting,
Admiral Tubrek was grinning like a madman, though he had arrived into the Imperium in it's later years the Imperium possessed a mighty navy much like any Fallen Empire before the War in Heaven, it pained him greatly as many fleets were scrapped by that Ionnes, bloody Pacifist, the President had presided over the greatest disarmament of the Imperium, he stood up, shaking off the thoughts that had entrapped him, coughing to get his colleagues attention, "A very good morning to the cabinet" The Cabinet represented the Imperial demographics, mostly human with some synthetics and two aliens, "We are gathered to discuss the upcoming rearmament, possible re-settlement of the race designated 'Precursors' and the security issues alongside a possible Omega Plan for them should they threaten the Imperium and her people" The Admiral looked around a few eyebrows were raised at the mention of the Omega Plan- plans made to kill a species off should they do more harm than good, though it was only planned in contingency and avoided at all costs, they had read the reports. Both the Precursors and Forerunners were volatile, one was genocide prone and the verification of the flood being a 'mistake' had never came.
Lord Percival, Minister of Defense - one of the strongest ministries- raised his hand, Tubrek nodded, "Recognising Lord Percival".
The Lord looked around before grunting in satisfaction as his colleagues awaited his words, "The great forges are being reactivated in their full capacity, Imperial forces are rapidly being pulled out of planetside duties and crews are being re-assigned to their ships, all of our 20 Mothballed Battlegroups will regain full functionality in an year, after which we shall start constructing more ships. The new Aquilae-Class design is excellent, as expected of our Lord, we have already begun construction of 33, one for each of our battlegroups and one for the Grand Martial and the Lord Overseer." A satisfied grin became apparent on the visage of the usually steely old man, "The Imperium will regain it's might very soon, that is all" The Minister nodded at the Grand Martial before settling down.
Tubrek saw the next agenda and silently sighed, the Minister of Science was a wise one, but as a Martial leader he never found her talks interesting, "Recognising Lady Allison".
Tubrek nodded and the Lady smirked at him before smiling more genuinely at her colleagues, "No need to be so sad Grand Marshall not all of us are prodigies" The admiral snorted, "Human beauty my arse" He grumbled sitting down again.
The Minister almost snorted before coughing to catch it, "The Ministry of Science has already looked into training more Psionics, as it stands we have around a million Psionics trained- far too few, to remedy this we are using new methods of training to train more in lesser time, the military will have to refine them though." She flashed a small 'I'm Sorry' smile to Percival who just sighed, "We also checked in on all our Dyson sites and Industrial Centres all are fully functional. Our newly, er, acquired Ring World" A snort did come from the Grand Admiral this time, "has been repaired and is being colonised rapidly by Imperials and the rogue synths have been disabled for us to look over".
The Minister looked as if she was thinking before shrugging, "That's pretty much all we're doing that I can assure you we're not developing any new weapons of planetary destruction nor reactivating the former weapons that were decommissioned, promise." The Minister sat down with far to much obliviousness to see the Grand Admirals narrowed eyes and Percival's grin at the mention of the deadliest weapons created by the Imperium.
The Grand Admiral looked at his list before cursing the President, so many agendas to go over, "Moving on to petition for all petting zoos to be close- how did this even get here ?!".
Somewhere Synthetic General Hera and the President were chortling over the Grand Admirals outrage.
Erde-Tyrene, Imperial Embassy,
The Overseer, his Captain and the two Admirals were assembled in the meeting halls, Adrian had finally returned from his frantic chase and subsequent destruction of the Flood Fleet whilst much of Battlegroup Sarissa was slowly boxing in the Flood by going planet by planet and glassing the Flood Worlds, the cure was already spread far and wide- even the Overseer was injected with the vaccine, "Welcome to Erde-Tyrene Admirals" The Overseer smiled, "I found your last minute maneuvers quite intuitive Adrian, though one wonders what made you ram your ships into the flood ?" The Overseer was curious while unorthodox tactics weren't rare, completely ignoring the higher ups was quite unique, especially if you were an admiral.
The Admiral just grinned, "We were losing, I was told to win." The admiral grinned even further as the Overseer also grinned at that, "So I won".
The Overseer laughed, amused at the blunt statement while Josephine twitched, not letting the chortle escape all the while the Captain just started blankly at the three Imperial Officers (Well two officers one celestial), these were the elite of the Imperium, there best of the best. He coughed loudly, "Omnicidal virus, lord Overseer?".
The Overseer blushed before settling in, " Ah yes that." Before looking at the two Admirals, "Considering I'm no admiral, Adrian, take your battlegroup for repairs. Josephine take Sarissa to blockade and kill the Flood planet by planet, I'll send Rostov to do the same. Captain, what can you tell us about the Forerunner Ship?".
The Captain nodded before pulling out the report of the ships captured, before flicking over to the 50km ship, "It's big." The Captain snorted, "and very inefficient, the amount of weapons and shields it has can easily be compressed, honestly it's almost like the species likes overcompensating and wastes resources to make it bigger and inefficient, their drives on the other hand are very good, then again they literally choke alternate universes in their womb to power those so they have to be very good." Noticing the slightly concerned look of the Overseer, "And yes that is morally negative for some people, their hyperdrive is not better than ours, slipspace can not take you to other galaxies. Not without killing you, ours on the other hand take a second to go from one point to another, though ours need to recharge if used to travel the maximum safe distance of 9600 Parsecs considering the cool down time of 30 minutes if we wish to use the drive like this we can reach the Andromeda in 80 Hours" The Captain put down the dataslate, "Simply putting it the forerunners, even at their peaks had the technology of someone so adjusted to being given everything, resources, power and positions that they never bothered to research the more efficient and easy methods to do anything, probably why they became the gits they were before hitting it" The Captain finished with a nod towards the Overseer, who had a look of realisation in his eyes.
"The Precursors" The Overseer muttered with grim mirth in his voice, "They were killed by their children because they raised the Forerunners to be brats, I almost feel bad for them" Before shrugging, "Well with the Forerunners are gone and the current inhabitants of this galaxy can't pose a threat to us, continue on with your missions, you probably will not find any difficul-" A common look of growing horror was shared between him and Adrian before he stampe it down, "I regret nothing" He stated with finality before leaving the room with as much dignity he could.
The Captain went after the Overseer, as soon as he was out of the room Adrian fell down gasping as he laughed, "Oh lord he truly represents the best of us!" Josephine chortled as well before lightly nudging him in his ribs, "Get up Dorsey, we have things to do, you have to meet Lord Hood, see you at my triumph" Josephine rolled her eyes as the grunt of despair Adrian let out at the hints of meeting the UNSC let out.
Adrian pulled himself to his feet calling out one last thing to his comrade, "It's good to have you back Josephine!".
Josephine smiled, "Yeah my back was getting stiff sitting on that chair all the time".
Presidential Chambers, Erde-Tyrene
Lord Hood kept working even with Admiral Parangosky had been sitting in front of him for five minutes, he had to write a speech, and remember all the names of those who received honours even those that died in the battle, it was the least the aged admiral could do for the fallen and the brave men and women of the UNSC who kept fighting regardless of the situation, perhaps Parangosky understood, and thus stayed silent for a legendary time.
Admiral Parangosky just shook her head, "You need to get out of your slump Terrence, there are times to mourn, this is not one. For the first time in the war our fleets are the ones doing the hunting, we are the ones seeing new planets and colonising lost colonies, cheer up" Parangosky's visage was lit up with an uncanny smile that did not belong there, "Humanity didn't die, as far as the UNSC is concerned you've succeeded Lord Hood"
Lord Hood sighed and finally faced his fellow admiral, "⅔ rds of our population is dead, most of our industrial base has collapsed and if it weren't for our allies we would be dead, Admiral I know you mean the best for Humanity but even now we are further indebted by our allies, they are the ones who are repairing our crafts and letting us have even that giant ship, we have literally been carried by the Imperium and the moment they let go- we die" Lord Hood took in a deep breath to calm himself, Admiral Parangosky just roller her eyes, "I know that, but what you should know by now somehow we're in a better place, the Covies are in a blown out civil war alongside their sphere splintering into nearly ten different factions"
She smiled as she looked at the map, "All we have to do is rebuild and prepare to sweep through the house of cards, as our ancestors said it- we have to manifest our own destiny"
Lord Hood gazed intently at the map, it was true after all the Covenant was fighting the fight of their lives in their civil war, some Sangheili started claiming he found a forerunner's location and they went crazy, though apparently said forerunner was in UNSC space, barren UNSC space. An allied detachment was already waiting a system away to trick the Covenant- any Covenant- to come and try to take whatever was in the system, the Overseer seemed to know though, as he had put an Omega label on it and forbid any Allied interaction with the system after putting fifteen different quarantine orders on it, his attention was grabbed by Parangosky again as she snapped her fingers to get him out of his head, "I understand what you mean Admiral, there is no need to worry. I too am happy" Lord Hood finally gave the tiniest of tight lipped yet satisfied smiles, "by the recent turn in this war, and soon enough with growing strength and aid from our foreign allies the power ofPreston Cole humanity shall expel the great evil that the Covenant and once agains the light of humanity shall illuminate our realm from the birthplace of humanity".
"Good speech, you should write it down" Parangosky smiled before taking her leave, noticing that Lord Hood was finally out of his spunk, he was already working on his speech before finally deciding to take a break and meet Admiral Cole again, it was nice to talk to his old friend after years.
One Month Late Charrum Hakkor, INS Pride of Terra (Aquilae-Class Super Dreadnought);
The Overseer, Captain Marcellius and Admiral Cole gazed at the mostly barren planet in front of them the Overseer gave a nod towards his companions, "Behold! Charrum Hakkor, once capital of the ancient Human Empire, a planet of dreams, nearly unassailable. It was here the Humans held of the Forerunners for 50 years despite being utterly exhausted from the Human-Flood war".
He couldn't help it, somewhere inside of him, something cried out for the planet below the Expeditionary Fleet, it cried out at the dignity of the planet being desecrated by its condition, He gulped heavily, "W-What is it that I'm feeling ?" He looked pleadingly at the Overseer to explain the Spartans and Admiral Parangosky looking on curiously as well, Infinity had com along as they were going to a battle UNSC-Imperium vessels were in a small Allied fleet.
The Overseer laughed mirthfully, "Oh you humans always show the most wondrous emotions!" Getting some raised eyebrows as he revealed he wasn't human, "That, Admiral is an instinctive psionic connection this planet has with the entirety of the Human species, for millennia Humans called this planet home! They lived their lives, raised their children the very pride of Humanity it's proof that all their strife was for this! This prosperity- a golden age for their children and the children of their children!" The Overseer grandly opened his arms pointing towards the Planet, "Your minds have forgotten, hearts no longer feel the ache for a home long lost, bodies have long since moved yet your souls, they still yearn for that warm embrace of home, of your eternal (1) hearth. Even if there is nothing here now, once everything was to be found here." The Overseer finished his impassioned address sombrely, the hearts of the Humans panged as if they just remembered what they had lost.
Unknown to the Admiral a lone tear slid down his, he only realised it was his tear of sorrow as he reached up to touch it before snapping to attention, "If this was our last stand then the very least we could do is give a last salute to the tomb of our ancestors, they died fighting, for life to continue" The air was breathable despite the hardships faced the planets, it could be fate. Or the Overseer both were not that different at all, "Spartans be at planetside in half an hour, ceremonial uniform, prepare for a three volley salute" The Admiral marched back to his own quarters, letting the Overseer mull in though.
Admiral Parangosky saluted the Overseer, "I'll see you planetside, sir" with the Admiral and the Spartans already gone to change the Overseer was left alone with his trusty Captain, "Prepare a seven ship formation- Pride of Terra and six Serres-Class ships. 3 volleys of explosive rounds, trigger in 1 minute, shoot in sync with the salute".
The Captain snapped to attention, "As you wish" The Captain was a little bit more hesitant in the next bit, "Should our officers be present at the salute?".
The Overseer thought about it before shrugging, "It will be their choice, both salutes are after all a tribute to the same thing".
Half an hour later, Charrum Hakkor, Salute grounds
Admiral Cole looked at the gathering of allied officers and took in a deep breath, the planet still called out to him, if anything the call was stronger, "We are here today, to offer a salute to our fallen ancestors, those that did not hide in face of a Galactic Empire, when the Galaxy did wrong they still fought on for their ideals, under threat of everything they saved this galaxy, due to their efforts life still exists. Let us move to the future, but we shall not forget our past again, let us forever remember those noble few who sacrificed all for those who could not have or did not fight, let us remember our ancestors, whom like us never bent against the shadow of evil tyranny!" Admiral Cole exclaimed much to the general cheer of the officers and rank and file present for the ceremony.
Lieutenant Spartan-017, forcefully promoted though he refused the original rank of a Captain, bellowed, perhaps for the first time in his life expressing his voice this loudly, "PRESENT ARMS!".
The seven Spartans snapped to attention raising their guns and letting off a volley.
No action this Chapter but I would like some feedback for this chapter as I tried something new.
Next Update: 1-2nd June
Chapter Four - There exists no Hearth like Home
Sol System, a week after the Battle of Sol,
The UNSC had to finally come clean about the actual threat of the Covenant after the Battle of Sol to their population, no longer could they hide the (former) severity of the threat when debris floated in the system and the orbits of various planets held various damaged vessels tugged to safety for repairs, out of the 16000~ vessels only 3400 of the Imperium and only 900 of the 2000 UNSC ships remained salvageable, though from the start of the war due to concentrated ship constructions the UNSC had managed to scrape together a navy of nearly 5000 ships, an enviable feat.
The Allied Fleet under Admiral Dorsey pursued the Flood before finally noticing the pattern of travel and using their better hyperdrives to set up an ambush to destroy the remaining flood vessels.
Germania System, Battlegroups Rostov and Sarissa;
Over the last year since the Overseer had descended the Imperium had seen quite a few things, monsters that would have destroyed them; alternate universes and seeing the status of Humanity within these alternate realities as the bottom of the chai- cannon fodder for testers, it had stroked nightmares deep buried within the psyche of Humanity, of the terrible losses of the Extra-Dimensional war, how Earth was nought but wasteland by the time Imperial forces reached it and how millions had died to deny the same fate to Nova Terra (System: Caput Imperatoria).
An ugly frown descended upon Admiral Josephine Cherson as she remembers the report on what the flood and the forerunners were doing, before a smile flashed through her pondering, the Imperium had long been on peace footing it's mighty fleets had been slowly disarmed as only 8 Battlegroups remained active on the eve of the Overseer's landing, then this happened.
Now for the first time since the Extra-Dimensional war the Imperium was rearming itself, polishing its teeth, old fleets, mothballed long ago once more sailed the void. Battlegroups decommissioned due to a lack of need were being refurbished to once more serve the Imperium.
Sarissa was the very first Battlegroup to be entirely crewed once more, She was formerly an Admiral on the advisory board, relegated there after her battlegroup was decommissioned due the economic crisis of the post dimensional-war.
She finally sat back in her seat, before activating comms, "Helm prepare for transfer to UNSC system Epsilon Eridani".
"By your command admiral" The Fleet slowly moved towards the gateway before being sucked in by the gateway and deposited on the other end.
INS Londinium, Battlegroup Rostov
Unlike Sarissa, Rostov was an active battlegroup, hence except the core of the Fleet most of their ships were on constant patrols across the Imperium or on other duties to garrison planets relatively far away from their main fleet. Therefore it had taken somewhat longer to actually gather their force to Germania and actually enter the UNSC-Covenant conflict, it would take an entire month for the whole fleet to arrive in Germania.
Caput Imperatoria, Nova Terra, Cabinet Meeting,
Admiral Tubrek was grinning like a madman, though he had arrived into the Imperium in it's later years the Imperium possessed a mighty navy much like any Fallen Empire before the War in Heaven, it pained him greatly as many fleets were scrapped by that Ionnes, bloody Pacifist, the President had presided over the greatest disarmament of the Imperium, he stood up, shaking off the thoughts that had entrapped him, coughing to get his colleagues attention, "A very good morning to the cabinet" The Cabinet represented the Imperial demographics, mostly human with some synthetics and two aliens, "We are gathered to discuss the upcoming rearmament, possible re-settlement of the race designated 'Precursors' and the security issues alongside a possible Omega Plan for them should they threaten the Imperium and her people" The Admiral looked around a few eyebrows were raised at the mention of the Omega Plan- plans made to kill a species off should they do more harm than good, though it was only planned in contingency and avoided at all costs, they had read the reports. Both the Precursors and Forerunners were volatile, one was genocide prone and the verification of the flood being a 'mistake' had never came.
Lord Percival, Minister of Defense - one of the strongest ministries- raised his hand, Tubrek nodded, "Recognising Lord Percival".
The Lord looked around before grunting in satisfaction as his colleagues awaited his words, "The great forges are being reactivated in their full capacity, Imperial forces are rapidly being pulled out of planetside duties and crews are being re-assigned to their ships, all of our 20 Mothballed Battlegroups will regain full functionality in an year, after which we shall start constructing more ships. The new Aquilae-Class design is excellent, as expected of our Lord, we have already begun construction of 33, one for each of our battlegroups and one for the Grand Martial and the Lord Overseer." A satisfied grin became apparent on the visage of the usually steely old man, "The Imperium will regain it's might very soon, that is all" The Minister nodded at the Grand Martial before settling down.
Tubrek saw the next agenda and silently sighed, the Minister of Science was a wise one, but as a Martial leader he never found her talks interesting, "Recognising Lady Allison".
Tubrek nodded and the Lady smirked at him before smiling more genuinely at her colleagues, "No need to be so sad Grand Marshall not all of us are prodigies" The admiral snorted, "Human beauty my arse" He grumbled sitting down again.
The Minister almost snorted before coughing to catch it, "The Ministry of Science has already looked into training more Psionics, as it stands we have around a million Psionics trained- far too few, to remedy this we are using new methods of training to train more in lesser time, the military will have to refine them though." She flashed a small 'I'm Sorry' smile to Percival who just sighed, "We also checked in on all our Dyson sites and Industrial Centres all are fully functional. Our newly, er, acquired Ring World" A snort did come from the Grand Admiral this time, "has been repaired and is being colonised rapidly by Imperials and the rogue synths have been disabled for us to look over".
The Minister looked as if she was thinking before shrugging, "That's pretty much all we're doing that I can assure you we're not developing any new weapons of planetary destruction nor reactivating the former weapons that were decommissioned, promise." The Minister sat down with far to much obliviousness to see the Grand Admirals narrowed eyes and Percival's grin at the mention of the deadliest weapons created by the Imperium.
The Grand Admiral looked at his list before cursing the President, so many agendas to go over, "Moving on to petition for all petting zoos to be close- how did this even get here ?!".
Somewhere Synthetic General Hera and the President were chortling over the Grand Admirals outrage.
Erde-Tyrene, Imperial Embassy,
The Overseer, his Captain and the two Admirals were assembled in the meeting halls, Adrian had finally returned from his frantic chase and subsequent destruction of the Flood Fleet whilst much of Battlegroup Sarissa was slowly boxing in the Flood by going planet by planet and glassing the Flood Worlds, the cure was already spread far and wide- even the Overseer was injected with the vaccine, "Welcome to Erde-Tyrene Admirals" The Overseer smiled, "I found your last minute maneuvers quite intuitive Adrian, though one wonders what made you ram your ships into the flood ?" The Overseer was curious while unorthodox tactics weren't rare, completely ignoring the higher ups was quite unique, especially if you were an admiral.
The Admiral just grinned, "We were losing, I was told to win." The admiral grinned even further as the Overseer also grinned at that, "So I won".
The Overseer laughed, amused at the blunt statement while Josephine twitched, not letting the chortle escape all the while the Captain just started blankly at the three Imperial Officers (Well two officers one celestial), these were the elite of the Imperium, there best of the best. He coughed loudly, "Omnicidal virus, lord Overseer?".
The Overseer blushed before settling in, " Ah yes that." Before looking at the two Admirals, "Considering I'm no admiral, Adrian, take your battlegroup for repairs. Josephine take Sarissa to blockade and kill the Flood planet by planet, I'll send Rostov to do the same. Captain, what can you tell us about the Forerunner Ship?".
The Captain nodded before pulling out the report of the ships captured, before flicking over to the 50km ship, "It's big." The Captain snorted, "and very inefficient, the amount of weapons and shields it has can easily be compressed, honestly it's almost like the species likes overcompensating and wastes resources to make it bigger and inefficient, their drives on the other hand are very good, then again they literally choke alternate universes in their womb to power those so they have to be very good." Noticing the slightly concerned look of the Overseer, "And yes that is morally negative for some people, their hyperdrive is not better than ours, slipspace can not take you to other galaxies. Not without killing you, ours on the other hand take a second to go from one point to another, though ours need to recharge if used to travel the maximum safe distance of 9600 Parsecs considering the cool down time of 30 minutes if we wish to use the drive like this we can reach the Andromeda in 80 Hours" The Captain put down the dataslate, "Simply putting it the forerunners, even at their peaks had the technology of someone so adjusted to being given everything, resources, power and positions that they never bothered to research the more efficient and easy methods to do anything, probably why they became the gits they were before hitting it" The Captain finished with a nod towards the Overseer, who had a look of realisation in his eyes.
"The Precursors" The Overseer muttered with grim mirth in his voice, "They were killed by their children because they raised the Forerunners to be brats, I almost feel bad for them" Before shrugging, "Well with the Forerunners are gone and the current inhabitants of this galaxy can't pose a threat to us, continue on with your missions, you probably will not find any difficul-" A common look of growing horror was shared between him and Adrian before he stampe it down, "I regret nothing" He stated with finality before leaving the room with as much dignity he could.
The Captain went after the Overseer, as soon as he was out of the room Adrian fell down gasping as he laughed, "Oh lord he truly represents the best of us!" Josephine chortled as well before lightly nudging him in his ribs, "Get up Dorsey, we have things to do, you have to meet Lord Hood, see you at my triumph" Josephine rolled her eyes as the grunt of despair Adrian let out at the hints of meeting the UNSC let out.
Adrian pulled himself to his feet calling out one last thing to his comrade, "It's good to have you back Josephine!".
Josephine smiled, "Yeah my back was getting stiff sitting on that chair all the time".
Presidential Chambers, Erde-Tyrene
Lord Hood kept working even with Admiral Parangosky had been sitting in front of him for five minutes, he had to write a speech, and remember all the names of those who received honours even those that died in the battle, it was the least the aged admiral could do for the fallen and the brave men and women of the UNSC who kept fighting regardless of the situation, perhaps Parangosky understood, and thus stayed silent for a legendary time.
Admiral Parangosky just shook her head, "You need to get out of your slump Terrence, there are times to mourn, this is not one. For the first time in the war our fleets are the ones doing the hunting, we are the ones seeing new planets and colonising lost colonies, cheer up" Parangosky's visage was lit up with an uncanny smile that did not belong there, "Humanity didn't die, as far as the UNSC is concerned you've succeeded Lord Hood"
Lord Hood sighed and finally faced his fellow admiral, "⅔ rds of our population is dead, most of our industrial base has collapsed and if it weren't for our allies we would be dead, Admiral I know you mean the best for Humanity but even now we are further indebted by our allies, they are the ones who are repairing our crafts and letting us have even that giant ship, we have literally been carried by the Imperium and the moment they let go- we die" Lord Hood took in a deep breath to calm himself, Admiral Parangosky just roller her eyes, "I know that, but what you should know by now somehow we're in a better place, the Covies are in a blown out civil war alongside their sphere splintering into nearly ten different factions"
She smiled as she looked at the map, "All we have to do is rebuild and prepare to sweep through the house of cards, as our ancestors said it- we have to manifest our own destiny"
Lord Hood gazed intently at the map, it was true after all the Covenant was fighting the fight of their lives in their civil war, some Sangheili started claiming he found a forerunner's location and they went crazy, though apparently said forerunner was in UNSC space, barren UNSC space. An allied detachment was already waiting a system away to trick the Covenant- any Covenant- to come and try to take whatever was in the system, the Overseer seemed to know though, as he had put an Omega label on it and forbid any Allied interaction with the system after putting fifteen different quarantine orders on it, his attention was grabbed by Parangosky again as she snapped her fingers to get him out of his head, "I understand what you mean Admiral, there is no need to worry. I too am happy" Lord Hood finally gave the tiniest of tight lipped yet satisfied smiles, "by the recent turn in this war, and soon enough with growing strength and aid from our foreign allies the power of
"Good speech, you should write it down" Parangosky smiled before taking her leave, noticing that Lord Hood was finally out of his spunk, he was already working on his speech before finally deciding to take a break and meet Admiral Cole again, it was nice to talk to his old friend after years.
One Month Late Charrum Hakkor, INS Pride of Terra (Aquilae-Class Super Dreadnought);
The Overseer, Captain Marcellius and Admiral Cole gazed at the mostly barren planet in front of them the Overseer gave a nod towards his companions, "Behold! Charrum Hakkor, once capital of the ancient Human Empire, a planet of dreams, nearly unassailable. It was here the Humans held of the Forerunners for 50 years despite being utterly exhausted from the Human-Flood war".
He couldn't help it, somewhere inside of him, something cried out for the planet below the Expeditionary Fleet, it cried out at the dignity of the planet being desecrated by its condition, He gulped heavily, "W-What is it that I'm feeling ?" He looked pleadingly at the Overseer to explain the Spartans and Admiral Parangosky looking on curiously as well, Infinity had com along as they were going to a battle UNSC-Imperium vessels were in a small Allied fleet.
The Overseer laughed mirthfully, "Oh you humans always show the most wondrous emotions!" Getting some raised eyebrows as he revealed he wasn't human, "That, Admiral is an instinctive psionic connection this planet has with the entirety of the Human species, for millennia Humans called this planet home! They lived their lives, raised their children the very pride of Humanity it's proof that all their strife was for this! This prosperity- a golden age for their children and the children of their children!" The Overseer grandly opened his arms pointing towards the Planet, "Your minds have forgotten, hearts no longer feel the ache for a home long lost, bodies have long since moved yet your souls, they still yearn for that warm embrace of home, of your eternal (1) hearth. Even if there is nothing here now, once everything was to be found here." The Overseer finished his impassioned address sombrely, the hearts of the Humans panged as if they just remembered what they had lost.
Unknown to the Admiral a lone tear slid down his, he only realised it was his tear of sorrow as he reached up to touch it before snapping to attention, "If this was our last stand then the very least we could do is give a last salute to the tomb of our ancestors, they died fighting, for life to continue" The air was breathable despite the hardships faced the planets, it could be fate. Or the Overseer both were not that different at all, "Spartans be at planetside in half an hour, ceremonial uniform, prepare for a three volley salute" The Admiral marched back to his own quarters, letting the Overseer mull in though.
Admiral Parangosky saluted the Overseer, "I'll see you planetside, sir" with the Admiral and the Spartans already gone to change the Overseer was left alone with his trusty Captain, "Prepare a seven ship formation- Pride of Terra and six Serres-Class ships. 3 volleys of explosive rounds, trigger in 1 minute, shoot in sync with the salute".
The Captain snapped to attention, "As you wish" The Captain was a little bit more hesitant in the next bit, "Should our officers be present at the salute?".
The Overseer thought about it before shrugging, "It will be their choice, both salutes are after all a tribute to the same thing".
Half an hour later, Charrum Hakkor, Salute grounds
Admiral Cole looked at the gathering of allied officers and took in a deep breath, the planet still called out to him, if anything the call was stronger, "We are here today, to offer a salute to our fallen ancestors, those that did not hide in face of a Galactic Empire, when the Galaxy did wrong they still fought on for their ideals, under threat of everything they saved this galaxy, due to their efforts life still exists. Let us move to the future, but we shall not forget our past again, let us forever remember those noble few who sacrificed all for those who could not have or did not fight, let us remember our ancestors, whom like us never bent against the shadow of evil tyranny!" Admiral Cole exclaimed much to the general cheer of the officers and rank and file present for the ceremony.
Lieutenant Spartan-017, forcefully promoted though he refused the original rank of a Captain, bellowed, perhaps for the first time in his life expressing his voice this loudly, "PRESENT ARMS!".
The seven Spartans snapped to attention raising their guns and letting off a volley.
~o~o~o~o~o~
In space the Seven Imperial ships opened fire for their first volley in cohesion with their allies, visible from the edge of the system as their ammo exploded, if only for a moment, brightening the void endlessly.
~o~o~o~o~o~
Somewhere, the former human soul of 343 Guilty Spark felt an odd sensation of satisfaction.
~o~o~o~o~o~
In the entire galaxy a surge of hope and new wonder filled the hearts of mankind, the effect emboldened by the Overseer's power.
~o~o~o~o~o~
Admiral Cole looked on as his men begun the second volley, there the war weary veteran decided on one thing firmly. Hearth, Hearth felt good.
~o~o~o~o~o~
(1)After Millennia of being the home of Humanity the Planet and they formed an innate link with each other
No action this Chapter but I would like some feedback for this chapter as I tried something new.
Next Update: 1-2nd June
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