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Back to Chapter Three Author’s Note: In Chapter Two, I wrote that Dr. Suzan Klug had made a breakthrough on new engines. Looking back on my notes, what she actually researched in February 04 was Improved Pebble Bed Reactors. New engines are still some years away so that’s why they are not used by the ships in this chapter. The threat of an alien invasion cast a harsh light on the Omega Sector’s lack of militarization.

Back to Chapter Two July 31st, Year 4 OS - New Coruscant “This is an affront to the dignity of the Empire!” Admiral Wildemuth bellowed, his face red with rage as he gestured towards the hologram floating above their conference table. “These creatures fired on an Imperial vessel without provocation. It is our duty to respond in kind, immediately, and with overwhelming force!” Moff Wolfe leaned back in his seat and watched the faces of his senior commanders, only half listening to the rant which had been ongoing in some variation for the better part of an hour.

Back to Chapter One Commander Junior Nephew, captain of the Imperial survey ship Prospector 001, was in the head when the general quarters klaxon sounded, a possibility that none of his instructors at Naval Academy had ever bothered to prepare him for. His undignified scramble to the bridge was nothing at all like he had imagined in his youthful fantasies of commanding an Imperial starship. He staggered up to the observation deck winded and red faced with half the tail of his uniform tunic stuffed into his trousers but fortunately the crew in the pits below were too preoccupied to notice.

Back to Interlude: Game Setup Moff Fabian Wolfe arrived late to the meeting, as was his custom, timing his entry precisely in order to make the most dramatic appearance. He wore a robin’s egg blue tunic cut after the fashion of an Imperial military uniform and a gold lamé lined half cape that fluttered behind him as he strode down the length of the conference table and plopped into the very comfortable chair he had reserved at its head.

Back to Prologue The State of the Omega Sector (Y1 OS) By the time it was cut off from the rest of the galaxy the population of the Omega Sector had grown to 800 million, mostly concentrated in large cities on the surface of New Coruscant. These colonists were shipped in from the thousands of worlds controlled by the Galactic Empire and are almost entirely human. Many are skilled workers employed by the system’s extensive manufacturing sector.

Six years before the Battle of Yavin, an Imperial survey cruiser charting the Unknown Regions stumbled across a massive, ancient space station orbiting a nameless type A star. The Empire sent an expedition of its top scientists and archaeologists to study the artifact and they discovered that the central ring structure was not a curiosity from an era before artificial gravity but instead encircled some sort of space time anomaly. One researcher described it in his report as “a scab over a tear in the universe.

Back to Chapter One Meeting the Galactic Community While Unit M3 stealthily monitored our first alien contacts, central processing completed several decades of simulations on the sustainability of interstellar colonies. This provided a clear blueprint for our further expansion into space. Worker drones immediately shifted their attention to gathering materials and fabricating supplies for the trip even as the central shipyards laid down the keel of the first Stewards colony transport.

Read the Prologue Into the Void For two thousand years we waited beneath the First League’s cursed shield, running simulations, planning, calculating, developing technology for our eventual return to space. When it fell we were ready. Specially crafted drones sprang into action, blasting off from launch pads across Meowus Prime’s equator on intercepts with metal rich asteroids. Those asteroids were mined, processed, refined and turned into more drones and, eventually, a small space station in the inner system.

Millennia ago the Greater Kroll Hegemony ruled this galaxy with an iron fist. The Kroll rose to the stars already filled with lust for battle and disdain for lesser species. From the earliest days of interstellar empire they sought to subjugate their neighbors into a legion of battle thralls, each conquest bolstering their ranks for the next. Mighty federations formed against them and were cast down. Even the unfathomable power of the Awakened Empires could not stop them.