Greetings, miners of Cruor and radical terrorists of Epiphany! Larry here, ready to answer some reviews you've left. COMSEC filter is on, so do beware.
A - Why thank you very much, good sir! I am glad you like both the interactions and the story so far.
To answer your concerns ground-wise, I will be taking the liberty of adding ground-based tech for the Hegemony, basically bootlegged Domain-era mechs and whatnot.
As for your second question, yes, the Hegemony has just enough resources to fortify their system and set up heavy industry. As well as a couple of Gamma Cores to aid them in opening some Jump Points (Desperate times call for desperate measures).
And trust me, while Starcraft's ships may be built faster, better and with superior weapons, Starsector has a few (slightly unfair) advantages. You'll see them soon enough. Just remember the Doom-class and how uh... big, the ships can get.
B - Yessir, other mod factions may be name-dropped and/or included, depending on what path I decide to take this story in.
Oh and do excuse how late this is. Other projects drew my attention away, and then I accidentally took a massive hiatus off Starsector so I had to recap myself on the lore and stuff.
UNCHARTED SPACE: DOMAIN CRYOSLEEPER SHIP ARTEMIS-4, UNKNOWN SHIPBOARD TIME
THREE HOURS AFTER DISTRESS BEACON ACTIVATION
The steady beat of klaxons rang throughout the deteriorating hull of the ship, colour-based alarms firing off after over two-hundred-and-fifteen years of dormancy. Over seven hundred, unmarked cryotanks, slowly opened, revealing a plethora of individuals, each one wearing a black jumpsuit, and each one handpicked by Sector Command itself to be put in cryosleep, and wake up once they were at their destination... or when the external defenses failed. As it stood, the seven hundred individuals were slightly confused, yet the sounds of alarms going off woke them up from their daze. One man, with short black hair, straight posture, rough and commanding voice, observed the areas around him. The Cryosleeper Ship was in complete disrepair: it was a wonder none of the cryotanks deactivated.
"Alright, people, listen up! I want each of you to get your gear and head straight for this sorry ship's bridge! Pollux Armaments was generous enough to give us Mark IV Tactical Assault Armour, so use those instead of the Mark IIIs we were issued! Now get moving!" Barked out Stefan Slavik, a Polish man of thirty-six, who was raised in the Canadian region, prior to his departure from Earth to join the Domain Armed Forces. As his men eventually got to the Armoury, they found it relatively intact, and as such, all eight hundred units of Mark VII Armanti Gauss Rifles, alongside their ammunition, including the Pollux Armaments armour, were intact. Such was the efficiency of these select few from the Domain, that they were all but ready for combat within ten minutes. As Slavik started ushering his men out of the Armoury, he decided to activate the ship's broadcasting system, give the intruders a little scare.
"Alright you shitheads, listen up! You've just made the worst mistake of your sorry lives, that no amount of cryosleep will fix! Once we're done here, we'll get your Domain IDENT Chips, scan 'em, and then either airlock you or give you a semblance of hope in the form of trial. Those who resist will be shot, those who shoot back will be fucking erased from existence. Because ready or not, here we fucking come!"
The threat, in theory at least, should have left the combat-ready enemies confused long enough for his Shock Troops to 'pacify' them. Slavik ordered three of his men to follow him, as they went separate of the main groups, intent on making a sweep of the outlying sections of the ship. As they passed through the heavily damaged areas of the Cryosleeper Ship, their eyes eventually landed on confused scientists in white protective suits, attempting to open up one of the many cryotanks. They had a man, clad in red power armour, protecting them, but the element of surprise left even the mightiest of foes at a disadvantage. Firing off three shots, one of Slavik's men managed to blast through the enemy's visor, sending the bulky marine to his grave, and eventually the floor. One of the scientists, a young lad, spoke up.
"P-Please don't kill us! I beg you!" He begged, yet it only partially fell on deaf ears. The man was slammed to the floor, one of the Shock Troopers searching him vigorously, whilst the other two men, and his superior, held the scientists at gun-point.
"This guy is empty! No IDENT Chip!"
"Fuck!" Swore Slavik, as he clutched his radio swiftly, turning it on.
"All units, this is Colonel Slavik speaking, don't bother searching for IDENT Chips, fuckers probably don't have them! If you see men with bulky power armour in red, shoot them in the visor! If you can't, aim for the joints and bring them down!" Commanded Slavik, turning off his radio, spun around to look at the scientist who had begged for his life previously. "And now you, egghead. What the hell were you thinking, attacking a Domain Cryosleeper Ship!? You had to slog through some serious defenses to get on-board, since this is a vessel with high ranking military personnel!"
"I-I don't know anything! I was assigned to this ship to see what interested Raynor so much, and then the distress signal came and we started jamming it to keep pirates away-" The balding scientist couldn't even finish, before getting hit in the face with the butt of a Gauss Rifle, the others staying silent. Once more, Slavik went for his radio.
"This is Colonel Slavik speaking, we have a confirmed jammer on-board. Reform Wolf Pack Paxis." Slavik said coldly, before slamming the radio back into its position on his armour. "Bring these idiots to the bridge once its cleared out. We have a ship to shoot down."
UNCHARTED SPACE: DOMINION BATTLECRUISER "VALIANT", 9:12 AM SHIPBOARD TIME
30 MINUTES SINCE CONTACT LOSS
"Admiral, the jammer has just been deactivated." The lieutenant declared, with the aging admiral frowning. Something had happened on the unknown ship, and he knew almost nothing. He pondered on the design of the ship a little more, observing it from the Battlecruiser's bridge. It was a rather utilitarian design, all things considered, which favoured safety and capacity over aesthetics, and even weapons. As a matter of fact, the ship wasn't even under escort, which was rather strange for something which was transporting, if reports were to be believed, humans frozen in cryostasis.
The Minotaur-class Battlecruiser kept its distance from the enormous transport ship, its size rather easily dwarfing that of the Battlecruiser, and its inoperative escort ship. Anything of this size to be made by anyone in the Koprulu Sector would not go undiscovered, and then there was the ship before him. Its size was monstrous, dwarfing even Zerg Leviathans in their prime, and they were over six kilometers in size. He didn't believe it was ever seen before, let alone even rumored to exist, but he did recall something from the days of the former Confederacy. It was mostly hearsay, but some of their officials spoke of 'old ships of massive size', yet that was merely legend, and they most likely fabricated it to fit their agenda.
"Lieutenant, any progress on analyzing the ship?" The admiral finally asked, his lieutenant nodding, he himself beginning to speak.
"Aye, admiral. Electronics of the ship were concealing the contents, but after some tuning, I've managed to get past it. Scanning now." He declared, activating the scanners that the Valiant possessed. Even with the scanner being fine-tuned, results came with a considerable delay, something all the bridge crew understood, and knew very well. However, as the first trickles of scan feedback came in, and were displayed on the monitors of the bridge, a silence befell the room.
One million. Two million. Three million. Four million. The feedback began skipping numbers, reaching up to twenty million. The shock on the bridge crew's faces grew with each new number, the admiral himself staring silently at his screen; one hundred million and counting. That didn't make any sense; the distress signal stated only three hundred were alive. Could it have malfunctioned?
"Admiral." One of the female officers spoke, looking at the admiral with a worried expression. "We have an unknown contact headed our way."
He nodded in acknowledgement, recomposing himself for the eventual identification of this contact. He was almost sure it was Raynor approaching; he was always crafty, that bastard. He had activated the ship's broadcasting system, and soon enough, he had begun calling out orders. "Attention all personnel, man your battlestations. Unidentified contact approaching." He calmly said. All that was left was to wait until the ship got into weapons range. He could almost feel it, taking in Raynor, bringing him to Korhal for sentencing, and his promotion to Grand Admiral. What was to stop him? Raynor? He had studied him ever since the Brood Wars ended, there was no trick Raynor could pull that the admiral didn't study about. If only it was Raynor approaching.
The ship was now in visual range, and it looked nothing like a Battlecruiser. As a matter of fact, it looked nothing like anything in the Sector. It was, to him, a mishmash of various components, modules and metals, all standardized to form this monster. It was wide, very, very wide, and where ever he looked, he could see one weapon or another, all trained at the Valiant. And the speed... it was speeding toward them. No, it was on a- "IMPACT!" Yelled out the admiral, the bridge crew heeding his command almost instantly, holding onto anything they could. Each second it came closer and closer, until finally, it slammed directly into the Battlecruiser. The crash was a calamity, knocking out multiple systems critical to the ship's operation, save for the artificial gravity generator, and the life support systems.
Parts of the Battlecruiser were penetrated, launching crew members inside of those compartments into the cold void of space, before promptly being sealed shut. It was funny how fast the tables had turned. The Dominion's finest ship, beaten so quickly and effortlessly by such a mismatched ship, likely the result of a sadistic engineer wanting to make as big of a logistical nightmare as he could before being sacked. The male intelligence officer was among the first to wake up from blacking out, looking around the bridge in a daze. It had only been minutes since impact, but the repercussions of said ramming maneuver were easily magnified tenfold, simply by the sheer size of the enemy ship.
"Fuck..." He muttered out, still dazed, as he saw his commanding officer laying in a forming puddle of his own blood, most likely having hit the edge of a console with full force. He tried making a few steps, yet the alarms kept blasting into his ears, the pounding headache only becoming worse. The man desperately tried to turn them off, if only to offer himself brief respite before coming to terms with the situation which was most dire.
He soon noticed the communications array spewing static, having caught onto a signal, either from within the ship, or outside. Still dazed, the man gave into his curiosity, listening in, hoping beyond hope that it was another Dominion ship.
"... Colonel, I need a SITREP, now. I'm seeing an unknown ship which got rammed by a Wall-class, what's going on? ..." The distinctly male voice asked, the Dominion officer's eyes widening as he realized what this meant. Had the comms array managed to tap into the enemy's communications? He had to know more.
"... I don't care, set up aquaculture and farming facilities planetside, we need the infrastructure set up rapidly. Recall the ships from hyperspace and disassemble them to get proper facilities operational as soon as possible- ... Yes, I am certain. We can't keep them in suspension, not after this supposed attack. Prioritize a Cryorevival Facility as soon as the food infrastructure is ready. Rip out the Beta Cores from some of the ships and begin constructing a Von Neumann probe the moment we have shipbuilding facilities operational, any defects will be repaired by it."
"... how many fighter bays do we still have operational? ... Excellent. Launch all Baileys, and prepare the emergency Kite-class Shuttles for a boarding action." The equipment gave in, broadcasting the last snippet of a broadcast from the massive ship, before promptly shutting down, losing its power supply.
ARLON SYSTEM: HSS "PRIDE OF EVENTIDE", 1:33 PM SHIPBOARD TIME
ALEXANDRA MOORE P.O.V
The meeting room was getting more populated with each minute. So far, there were over twelve officers eligible for COMSEC assignment present, with three more on their way from the HSS "Valhalla's Hammer" and the TTS "Shadowstrike", of all ships, due to the officer being assigned to maintenance duty an hour before. She continued observing the officers already present, reviewing the topics of the meeting on her TriPad once more.
"Ma'am." One of the approaching lieutenants spoke out, saluting her as he came into the meeting room. "Captain Jacobson regrets to inform you that repairs of the TTS 'Shadowstrike' are taking more time than projected, and will miss the meeting." He relayed, with Alexandra sighing in frustration. That was one who wasn't coming...
"Very well, lieutenant. Inform him that he will be briefed on the contents of the meeting as soon as it is done." She ordered, the lieutenant saluting her, before moving out of the room.
She observed the men one last time, taking note of the remaining two to have entered, with Captain Eckley locking the doors, so that no one could disturb them. She waited a few more seconds for the two to take their seats, tapping her TriPad several times, the holo-screen lighting up in response. "Gentlemen." She called out, the room falling silent, all eyes trained on her. "We are facing a dilemma we have not seen since the Collapse. And that is a new beginning. But this time, we don't have the luxury of pre-planned Domain-era infrastructure, however bare-bones it was." She spoke firmly, the holo-screen finally presenting the marvel of engineering that was the Gate; a ring of adamantite that dwarfed anything previously built by the Domain, connecting the Domain from the Sol System to the Orion Constellation, from Sagittarius to the shores of the Perseus Arm. Yet despite its impressive size as of now, many could see it is incomplete, abandoned midway through construction... yet much of the orbital platforms remained, and presumably, much of the equipment.
"We have reason to believe that, with enough work and reverse-engineering, we can finish construction of the Gate. Considering it was offline when the Collapse happened, its systems shouldn't be compromised by whatever caused it." Alexandra stated, some hushed talk beginning to be heard as the officers discussed the potential ramifications of what was being implied. Questions would be asked shortly, and Alexandra instinctively knew who would be the first to ask them.
She was around Alexandra's age, a woman coming from the shipyards of Kazeron, unhappy with how the Persean League handled things in their corner of the Core Worlds. Long, blonde hair tied into a ponytail, her uniform crystal clean as it brandished three pins, the first one being the Tri-Tachyon logo turned upside down; her first notable kill in her career, the TTS 'Carmania', an Astral-class. The other two were of the PLS 'Althuf's Hero' and the last one, most curiously, belonged to her now deceased relative whom had taken part in the battle for Mairaath; the MNS 'Raven Claw'.
"Ma'am, if I may." She spoke up, Alexandra giving her the go-ahead, prompting the woman to continue. "I have my concerns for the operational secrecy of this undertaking. If this Sector was indeed under full control of the Domain, then we can expect some level of escalation from whatever secessionists may exist. They know this Sector more than we do." She pointed out, bringing forth an argument which many in the room agreed with.
"I'll answer that." Eckley motioned toward Alexandra, continuing to stand near the doors. "From our brief conversation with the secessionists, they have no idea that the Domain was even a thing." He paused, gauging the reactions of the officers present. "They know very little, and even what they know they admitted was hear-say. I hope that answers that, Lieutenant Adoren."
"It does, Captain. Thank you." The lieutenant stated, having no more questions to ask for the time being. Eventually, Alexandra continued on with her presentation.
"Now, next to the Gate, we had also found evidence of terraformation attempts made by the Eridani-Utopia Corporation on the planet, more than likely completed, but then abandoned mid-way, given that some terraofrmation equipment is still present. With that in mind, the planet is ideal for immediate colonization, with enough resources to build enough of an industry to reach self-sustainability in a relatively short time. Anything of quality, however, will have to wait for a while, and will more than likely be somewhat ahead of the Gate's construction, but nonetheless proportional to it." She explained, showing the results of the preliminary analysis the fleet had performed prior to the meeting.
"With all that said, I summoned all of you here to discuss matters of Sector Security. By now I know you came to the conclusion that we will be invoking Restoration Protocols, but not how. We plan on creating a buffer zone around this system and protect it heavily, keeping the Gate a secret until it is complete, and ready for activation." Alexandra began, outlying the plan for the Hegemony's restoration of the old Domain.
"Ma'am, if I may." A male officer spoke. "Without COMSEC, I don't imagine this will be possible. And so far, you are the only COMSEC member in the entire armada." He told Alexandra, the woman giving the room a rather small smile, only Lieutenant Adoren and Captain Eckley noticing it.
"I am glad you asked. As of this moment, all present in this room will be admitted into COMSEC, while I act as standing Director until contact with the Hegemony proper is re-established. All of you will be receiving Delta-5 clearance, and will be acting as our eyes and ears in the Sector. The secessionists will be utilized to spread our information network as we begin infiltration into any factions which exist in the Sector, subtly manipulating them to achieve our goals. Please inform the secessionists that they are to report to the Quartermaster to obtain their Domain IDENT-Chips. Dismissed."
