Posting Schedule, Teaser and Dramatis Personae:

Episode 1 - "Matters of Honour" - 12 Oct '18
The Crew of the Huáscar is assembled and promptly put into an uncomfortable position as loyalties and ideologies are tested against the unsolvable knot of the Telepath Question in E5B1; Commander Saumarez is put to the test on the question of Psi-Corps versus the political objectives of the Alliance Government, as the Telepath Resistance presents itself with a stunning terrorist attack on Mars.

Episode 2 - "God Bless the Ottoman Empire" - 3 Nov '18
In the wake of the fall of the savage and horrifying Nazi Reich, former Nazi subject races are locked in bitter ethnic struggles as the terrible legacy of Nazi divide-and-conquer rule. On the world of Drachenfeldt the liberated peoples engage in ruthless reprisals against the German minority while arming to fight against each other for control of the world. Into the toxic mix, the Huáscar holds the high ground in a peacekeeping mission bedeviled by genocidal radicals eager for ethnic cleansing, threatening to go hot at any moment!

Episode 3 - "Case Armageddon" - 17 Nov '18
During explorations of a newly discovered universe, Commander Abebech Imra makes a single impulsive decision over an Earth with an utterly unique history which alters its fate and course forever. In a heartbeat, the Huáscar is plunged into the heart of Case Armageddon: The objective, to stop the killing in a state of savage total war!

Episode 4 - "The Border Patrol" - 1 Dec '18
Deployed on a routine mission to serve as the Guardship for an Alliance member world in the notorious Triangle region of S5T3, Lieutenant Arterus tr'Rllaillieu finds out that his cousin, the Pretender to the vacant throne of the Romulan Star Empire, is being threatened by the Tal Shiar on a remote world in the Triangle. He requests permission to launch a mission to save her as the Huáscar stands poised on a knife-edge for combat while around them the threat of the Alliance tumbling down into total war runs them ragged.

Episode 5 - "Big Iron" - 15 Dec '18.
Hunting clues in a universe where humanity appears extinct, the Huáscar finds herself confronted with a desperate uprising in a troubled star cluster against a totalitarian government that is guilty of brutal experimentation against its own people. Commander Saumarez organises a mission to rescue experimental telepaths from the heart of government territory as Captain Zhen'var prepares to unleash the Big Iron on her hip - the mighty Huáscar!

Episode 6 - "Principles" - 29 Dec '18
Operating in Universe S0T5, the Huáscar is pressed into an unlikely alliance with NEUROM to save a planet of Espers from genocide. The morality and principles of the crew and their loyalty to their orders and government will be put to the edge as they collaborate with the murderous totalitarians of the Ministry of Fate toward the singular objective of stopping ethnic cleansing.

Episode 7 - "Golden Triangle" - 12 Jan '19
The Huáscar negotiates a withdrawal by the League of the North in A2M6 from a planet wracked with a bitter insurgency against the Colonial troops of the League, just to find the insurgency has been funding itself with horrifying drugs, bringing the Aururian Empire calling to assert order and put to the test the distinction between ideology and law in Alliance policy.

Schedule for the second half of the season will be decided later.

Some character introductions, in order of seniority:

Captain (substantive Battlemaster) Zhen'var, f/k/a/ Zhengli Varma - adopted daughter of the legendary explorer Captain and Tulu kshatriya Kaveri Varma. She commanded the EAS Huáscar during the Tira Crisis in episodes 3-5 and 3-6 of the main series. After the mutiny by her XO which led to her being locked up, she had a nervous breakdown but still managed to regain control of her ship and help win the Battle of Tira against League forces determined to finish off the Dilgar survivors. The Earth government refused to sanction her actions, so the Huáscar traveled to Tira, where part of the crew took Union of Tira and Rohric (Modern Dilgar state) citizenship and part immigrated to the Alliance. The psychological impact of this experience led to her seeking out surgical modification into a Dilgar, which her much younger stepsister (her mother having married the Dilgar Warmaster Shai'jhur on the basis of their wartime relationship) Surgeon-Commander Nah'dur assisted with retroviral treatments to make at least partially into genetic fact. Considered insane by many, Shai'jhur gave her command of a lend-lease cruiser during the Reich War and, convinced of her stability for command, Admiral Maran was impressed upon to give her the new Huáscar in a joint-crewed ship as a gesture of Dilgar-Alliance friendship.

Colonel (substantive Battlemaster) Fei'nur - Commander of the Marine Regiment on the Huáscar, she is the last survivor of Warmaster Jha'dur's famed Corps of Spectres, the genetically, biochemically and cybernetically modified shadow assassins of the Dilgar Imperium. Every single other remaining Spectre was killed in operations around the Battle of Third Balos, but Fei'nur was more stable than the other Spectres, who had been mostly recruited from broken men, those who had killed their officers, serial killers, and other psychopaths. Fei'nur was a regular Dilgar recruit who had improbably killed an entire squad of Drazi in hand-to-hand combat with an entrenching tool. She was too badly wounded to ever be returned to service or even have much of a life, but with Jha'dur's Spectre modifications could return to the field and the Dilgar War. Having the practical perspective of a ranker, she realised the situation was lost and escaped to do SERE on the surface of Balos, where she survived on stolen rations and sometimes eating bodies, staying quiet and only murdering when needed to, until she could escape to look for other Dilgar resisters. Unfortunately her escape was too late to warn Warmaster Shai'jhur about Omelos' sun. She was responsible for organising the stealth evacuation of less than two million survivors from Omelos in the short hours between the withdrawal of the League and the sun decoupling. Had a brief relationship with Warmaster Shai'jhur in the aftermath of that which they are both embarassed about but which helped keep her from killing herself. Helped raise Shai'jhur's children, but in Dilgar, who lack an effective psychological mechanism to classify non-biologically related Dilgar as relatives, that hasn't stopped Surgeon-Commander Nah'dur (homosexuality being biologically mediated in Dilgar like in humans, she got it from Shai'jhur) from having a massive crush on her that she doesn't reciprocate, the girl literally being young enough to be her kit.

Commander Abebech Imra - a formidable mercenary from the weird S0T5 (Solarian/NEUROM/Fracture) universe who personally takes great advantage of the lax uniform regulations of the Alliance. Is perpetually seen in public in sunglasses and gloves and with sharply pulled back hair. Is probably of Ethiopian or Eritrean extraction. Dignified, cultured, and utterly fearless, her attacker the ASV Heermann is named after a WW2 Destroyer famous for its actions at the Battle off Samar and is the attached parasite ship of the Huáscar. Does not talk about her background. Lt. Commander Saumarez suspects she is an Esper, which is common in S0T5, but Imra is profoundly isolate for one. The strict disciplinarian is nonetheless a brilliant shiphandler who has already established a long record of success. She helped in the rescue of Lt. Commander Fera'xero and other slaves from a Batarian cruiser while on the MacArthur, an old dreadnought given by one of the Alliance member states to the new Federal Navy, along with Lieutenant Daria Seldayiv. The MacArthur was lost in action against the Reich and Imra was the ranking officer who led the survivors of the crew in SERE against Reich attempts to capture or execute them.

Commander (substantive Colonel) Will Atreiad - Colonial Navy officer on the Galactica under Admiral Adama who was responsible for a critical part of the operations against the Cylons during 3-02. Transferred to the Alliance due to the fact the Colonial Navy only has two ships in service (Galactica, Pegasus). Was given command of the Koenig when Commander Zach Carey was removed as a medical casualty and participated in operations with the Aurora and during the final months of the war against the Nazi Reich. Huáscar's XO. Has some measure of survivor's guilt over the fact he has a comparatively intact family on New Caprica (Secundus). Token blue-eyed blonde white male.

Surgeon-Commander Nah'dur - Daughter of Warmaster Shai'jhur and a Distant Relative of Warmaster Jha'dur, the auburn-haired Dilgar is barely more than a teenager, but is already a qualified shiphandler and a Surgeon-Commander, a military specialist doctor in Dilgar terminology. She is the Chief Medical Officer of the Huáscar and a highly talented geneticist and surgeon. She is very pleased with the trust placed in her by the Krogan to engineer a cure to the genophage, and loves biological tinkering, including that which turned her older stepsister into a proper Dilgar. She feels that the Alliance medical establishment is incompetent and has been unable to adapt to the true potential of combining medical technology and talent from dozens of universes, so she's going to do it herself. Because of her complicated single-mother upbringing, she idolises Fei'nur in a somewhat inappropriate way and wants to establish a political organisation to encourage solidarity between felinoid species. Is very enthusiastic about the Old Imperium Days and sometimes evidences a bit less of a moral code than her elder sisters. Got promoted too fast.

Lt. Commander Anna Poniatowska - former Engineer of the Koenig, Anna Poniatowska is an 1850s Szlachta woman and descendant of a King of Poland, from the Russian dominated Kingdom of Congress Poland whose family was exiled to Siberia for opposing the Tsar, where the crew of the Aurora rescued her before the Aurora was even in service. She is the Chief Engineer of the ASV Huáscar, having used a combination of Darglan neural flash-learning ("brain wave infusions") and the practical, hands-on experience of working for none other than Engineering Captain Montgomery Scott to educate herself in modern Alliance technology and become a competent and detail-oriented Engineer. With her homeworld a postapocalyptic nightmare after the attacks by the Avenger she is not sure if she has any living relatives and is part of the "Victorian" contingent of refugees from 1850s Earth on the Huáscar.

Lt. Commander (substantive Battle Expert) Elia Saumarez - was the P-9/10 military department telepath of Psi-Corps on the EAS Huáscar. Zhen'var was the only person in the crew who reliably treated her like a human being, and they became friends. At considerable risk to her own life because the Corps would have to disavow her for involving herself in abrratry and politics, she participated in the mutiny against Major Foster that led to Zhen'var regaining control of the EAS Huáscar at Tira, and was critical in its success. Zhen'var made her an Acting Ensign in Earthforce at that point-one of the reasons for the disavowal of her actions by EarthGov. Elia immigrated to Dilgar space with Zhen'var, where she joined the Mha'dorn, the Dilgar telepath organisation, and the Rohrican military. She stayed with Zhen'var, and when Zhen'var accepted commander of the ASV Huáscar, went ahead of her to be the commander of the naval acceptance team for the Alliance for the Huáscar and the commander of her plankowners. Was a first-rate Cricketeer who could have played professionally on the women's circuit if telepaths weren't banned from professional sport in the Earth Alliance. Is a descendant of the famous Saumarez (also spelled Sausmarez or Sausmares) family of the Channel Islands including a direct descendant of Admiral James Baron Saumarez of Algeciras, and grew up reading Aubrey-Maturin and Hornblower novellas and always wanting to serve in the Navy, another thing that telepaths were banned from doing in the Earth Alliance. She still feels loyal to Mother and Father, which makes others uncomfortable. Has a child in the Corps who she gladly left to the cadres because never wanted children or marriage, and a loveless marriage she actually went to the effort of obtaining a rare divorce inside the Corps over.

Lt. Commander Fera'xero - Quarian who on pilgrimage was enslaved by Batarians and forced to work as a machinist even though he was a scientist in training. Developed a way to modulate the FTL drive to send a distress signal, which was found by the ASV MacArthur, which rescued him and the other slaves in the crew of a Batarian cruiser. The rescuers included Commander Abebech Imra and Lieutenant Daria Seldayiv, the later before she transferred to the Aurora. Is a highly capable scientist who maintains a side-hobby in watching foreign popular broadcasts and is a source of information for the crew. Quietly grieves over the loss of the MacArthur against the Reich and is very committed to the Alliance's ideals and personally to Abebech and Daria as some of the few survivors of those who saved him from slavery.

Major (Substantive Battle Expert) Lar'shan - Eldest son of legendary Dilgar Champion Battle Expert (now promoted to Battlemaster by Warmaster Shai'jhur) Ari'shan, the famed Dilgar knight of the spaceways and one of the few Dilgar pilots who could use a Thorun to fight a Starfury. Ari'shan became governor of New Eden and afterwards, mated and had a family there. Lar'shan was taught to fly in a reproduction Sopwith Camel trainer that his father's friends arranged for his father and him to have since otherwise the Dilgar on New Eden (circa 50,000) were banned from spaceflight. Eager to prove himself and unfailingly polite, his upbringing means he has more of a connection to humans than most of the Dilgar aboard the Huáscar. He fought in action during the later months of the Reich War and is already an ace against the Reich space forces when assigned as wing commander to the Huáscar, where he is the subordinate in flight operations to Commander Imra.

Lt. Commander Jonathan Goodenough - A Gunner (Warrant Officer and head of the Gunner's Mates, who were Petty Officers) in the Royal Navy of the 1850s. The Royal Navy offered him an opportunity for a stable career as a mulatto man from the West Indies in the era. In the chaos caused by first the Aurora and then the Avenger led to Goodenough falling in with the Aurora's crew before contact with the planet was cut off. He went through education and brain-wave infusions on New Liberty and then joined the new Alliance Stellar Navy where he served on several ships before, with the Reich War raging, he became the XO of the Attacker Heermann. Abebech Imra appreciates his rigid, mid-19th century approach to the naval profession, and he respects her competence and iron will, uniting the talents of a woman from thousands of years in the future and a man who literally served under one of Nelson's officers early in his two-decade career in the Victorian Royal Navy. The multiverse is wild, dizzying, and sometimes uncomfortable, but people still form navies and fight in ships, so he's got something to do. Wears his hair in a long early-19th century sailor's pony tail still, and like the Dilgar and Imra thinks the Alliance uniforms are ridiculously plain.

These are the senior commissioned officers. The Department Heads and senior warrants and noncoms will follow.

Character Introductions, Continued:

Lieutenant Daria Seldayiv - A cross-trained tactical and security officer and Dorei woman faithful to the Goddess, she participated in the rescue of Fera'xero on the MacArthur before transferring to the Aurora before the MacArthur was lost in action against the Reich. She grew up in a rural, humble family in a high mountain vale far from the great temples, which is part of why she wasn't discovered as a sensitive to the path of light (swevyra in Gersallian) until much later, when her abilities manifest under stress while fighting Cybermen on the Aurora during the orbital portion of the Battle of Canary Wharf. She then spent several months studying at a temple before deciding her course in life was to continue serving as an officer in the Alliance. Feeling overwhelmed at times by the attitudes of the crew of the Huáscar, she's been trying to fit in while striving to follow the path of her Goddess as a sensitive once she was, to her surprise, assigned to the new Huáscar on her return as the head of the Tactical Department (Weapons).

Lieutenant Arterus tr'Rllaillieu - Cousin of the Pretender to the Romulan (Rihannsu) Star Empire's vacant throne and descendant of the legendary Ael t'Rllaillieu, first and last Empress of the Rihannsu. He briefly served in the Rihannsu military before being forced out by the Tal Shiar, who planned to permanently eliminate the Imperial family's descendants. With the help of a human woman operating under the code name "Charlotte Corday", he helped his cousin escape from Rihannsu space to the Triangle. Once there, she encouraged him to seek his honour and glory by serving in the Alliance military against the Reich, to which assented and enlisted for officer's training and served in action in the last months of the war against the Reich. He was assigned as the Huáscar's Astrogator.

Lieutenant Abel Veeringen - The Chief Engineer of the Heermann, he is an assiduously competent engineering genius from a long multi-generational shipboard family in D3R1's Colonies, and is stereotypically a fanatical libertarian. Abebech tolerates him because he is very, very good at his job. Commander Goodenough wonders why he "talks about bloody economics" all the time. Something of a loner compared to the rest of the crew, he doesn't care who or what you are, but he is very worried about the tendency of nanny-statism in the Alliance. This manages to occasionally irritate even Abebech.

Lieutenant Violeta Arterria - Sirian mild gene-mod woman who joined the Alliance out of idealism from one of the Sirian worlds in L2M1, the Alliance capital's universe. Was a helm ensign on the Aurora for a sustained period of time before being promoted to Lieutenant and put in commander of the Huáscar's helm rotation. A self-described nerd with an interest in holo-games she's found the fit under Zhen'var's extremely military leadership to be somewhat rough, but has from the start performed well as a capable helmswoman and good leader of her detachment. Caterina Delgado's ex-girlfriend.

Lieutenant (substantive Combat Master) Va'tor - Ship's Mental Hygienist. Many human crewers are uncomfortable with going to the Mental Hygienist, but Va'tor, a Mha'dorn professionally trained on Tira, is happy to help anyone of any race be their personal mental best with any psychosurgery and integrative therapy required to fix their problems and help them fit into their society and responsibilities in life. She's a bit confused about why humans have such a disorderly view of mental hygiene when they are the creators of the legendary lockstep fleet which broke her people in the Dilgar War.

Lieutenant Abdulmajid Mehmet - often incorrectly shortened to Abdulmehmet, he bears this with bemusement. Another 1850s refugee, this time from the Ottoman Empire, he, like Abel, keeps to himself, but his a bit wild and melodramatic in combat. And very, very gay. He makes no secret that he thinks Commander Goodenough is cute, with the Commander wishing the Turk would mind his damned business. The Heermann's tactical officer, Abebech tolerates his quirks for his respective demeanour to her and his extreme competence at his job.

Lieutenant (substantive Combat Master) Ca'elia - Helmswoman of the Heermann, this Dilgar woman from New Eden was raised on 20th and 21st century British movies by Police Inspector Martha Whittaker, a Scotland Yard Detective who was responsible for training the Dilgar police force of Ari'shan's Governorate. Since the Dilgar there were not allowed lethal weapons, she was skilled in the use of batons, stun guns, morph gas projectors, glue guns, sonic guns, and water cannon, as well as martial arts. Her great love however was the sea, and she took the name Catherine Amelia and created a detailed persona as a Brit while commanding the sole Police Cutter the Dilgar had on the seas of New Eden. She is a highly disciplined, stiff-necked eager go-getter who could compete at the Olympic level in gymnastics if she ever had the chance and fits Abebech Imra's command style perfectly, having already proved herself a highly capable helmswoman.

Ensign (substantive Combat Captain) Aur'ma - a tactical officer on the Huáscar, Aur'ma is an Islander, a Valangar, one of the few noticeable (surviving) Dilgar ethnicities. Like Warmaster Jha'dur's flag captain, Battlemaster An'jash, she is a silver-blonde furred and haired Dilgar with violet/pink eyes, but in bone structure a Prime Dilgar, which is what saved the population of her peoples' native islands from genocide. The only Islander on New Eden, she was raised by Ca'elia's mother as a rare act of decency toward an orphan encouraged by the human occupational authorities, and occupies a definite space of her own as Ca'elia's exasperating goofy little sister. By the present she is part of a community of around 1,900 surviving Islanders trying to keep their unique culture alive among the other Rohrican and Tiran Dilgar.

Chief Warrant Officer Anastasia Héen - The highest ranking warrant officer on the Huáscar and Heermann, she is from the same Earth as the Alliance founders. A down on her luck mariner who had had her fishing purse seiner foreclosed on after trying to fish for a living after being laid off from the Alaska Maritime Highway System, Robert Dale's cousin Beth Rankin had brought her into the facility solely because she needed a job That Badly and had been Beth's friend for a while before the Darglan Facility was found. A highly experienced civilian Mate on Automobile Ferries in the Alaskan Inside Passage, with an unrestricted 3,000 ton Master's license, she still never served as an officer on the Aurora because she didn't want the unimaginable responsibility of a ship that could single-handedly nuke the planet. Instead, she served as the ship's Chief of the Boat, a position where she felt ignored by the Aurora's command staff, ultimately requesting a transfer to a shore training establishment to help train the massive intake of volunteers during the Reich War. She was promoted to Master Chief Warrant Officer after completing Air Operations Training and is essentially the Chief Air Traffic Controller for the Huáscar, managing both on-deck handling of parasite craft and traffic control and fighter direction duties in space as "The Queen of PriFly". Her background is indigenous Tlingit, Raven Moiety, and she is a strict teetotler and a (very badly) lapsed Russian Orthodox Christian. "Just call me Stasia". Usually found with a 24-oz replicated knockoff of a classic Alaskan beverage, the "drive-up stand latte".

Master Chief Petty Officer Richard "Rick" Dugan - The Bosun's Mate from the EAS Huáscar, he was a twenty-year veteran of Earthforce who had joined up after getting laid off from his job as a Fuel Cell Repair Technician and then proceeded to stay loyal to Captain Zhen'var during the mutiny at the cost of his career and his home, and then joined up with the Alliance after the Tira Crisis because "If you can't kill Nazis, who can you kill, man?". A caucasian with sandy brown hair with flecks of gray and an utterly impressive 80s Cop mustache, he is the Chief of the Boat on the Huáscar, the ranking Noncom. Good professional friends with Stasia Héen, the two Chiefs make sure that the ship runs like a Navy vessel whatever the hell the wishy-washy Alliance regs say, and try to keep the Dilgar ratings' illegal stills under control. Master of the knife-hand and capable of terrorizing any rating into a pile of goo without opening himself to an EEO complaint, he has purely blue collar interests, respects Captain Zhen'var despite the fact she went a little crazy, and is never found without a 32-ounce coffee in hand. In combat he stands ready with the critical and highly dangerous EVA Damage Control squad. Says Stasia drinks fancy coffee because she's a girl. She started brewing pots of diner coffee in a real dinner coffee machine in PriFly in retaliation. Was friends with Elia on the old Huáscar and still calls her "Leather" when he can get away with it, except now with "Ma'am" added, in reference to her gloves.