The tall man looked at the decomposed corpse at his feet. Long dead, the body still had most of it's battle armor on, this was surprising, for with all the chemicals in Malchen IX, most clothing quickly deteriorated, if not kept in good care. Examining the body for anything of value he found an amazing discovery: A book. This was surprising; for, thousands of years ago books had been replaced by more sophisticated Datapads. Flipping to the book's cover the man read: Gen. A. Snipe, 3rd Regiment, Mars Defensive Unit, March 23rd The year 2277, as the earth turns.
If this date was correct, then this book was more than twenty-five thousand years old, dating back to about the time of… Hearing a loud clang coming from the sound of the front entryway. Grabbing the long metal canister at his waist, the man slowly rose to his feet, but he already sensed that the noise had come from a stray payipen, something that resembled a small dog, only with small horns on it's head. Heaving a sigh of relief, the man returned to the corpse where he had left the book, opening to what seemed to be the first page and read: May 29th 2076: I have been decided to keep this journal as a reminder of all that happens while I have command of armies during The Great Surtin/Mandalorian War. The fighting started shortly after the Surtin armies invaded the Earthian planet, Pluto. Many thought that it was because Pluto had nearly stopped all trade with Malchen I, the Surtin homeworld, so they decided to block all incoming trade. Others thought that it was because the Surtin's farmland planet Malchen IV recently suffered a series of fires that nearly destroyed all of it's produce and caused it's inhabitants to flee to the nearest planet, Pluto, but I know that the real reason was that the Surtin's were so bloodthirsty and violent, that they had to pick on the weakest planet they could find, which sadly happened to be Pluto. Pluto, which is known for it's almost unlivable conditions, is also well known for a rock that is found there called Thagreium, which when broken down can be used as a fuel source, what is also unique about Thagreium is that no matter how much is mined, there always seems to be more the next day. So, to the Surtin's, a planet with limitless fuel, able to power their vast warships, it was the perfect plan: Attack a relatively weak planet on the outskirts of the Cronus System and receive a limitless source of fuel.
Well, of course, Earth would not just sit by and let the Surtin's take over one of the Core Planets. So it sent several Saturn strike teams in to try to detonate several of the fueling stations on the surface. Although this would mean destroying almost a years supply of fuel, it would also mean the Surtins would be crippled there. What followed is what is known as The Pluto Massacre. Not only did the Saturn strike teams fail, (Saturn soldiers are trained entirely for Special Operation missions, and are well known all throughout the galaxy) but not one Surtin was killed. What happened was when the Surtin's had learned of the attack, they positioned numerous Gylen beasts around the entrances. The tall man shuddered, he had met Gylen beasts too many times before, and he knew just how dangerous they could be.
Gylen beasts are generally trained to guard only the highest security prisons, for if they get too excited or angry, they can use their three reptilian heads to tear apart the durasteel used in the armor plating in battleships.
Returning to the book, the man read: When the teams reached the entrances, the beasts were waiting for them. Of the 112 men sent to Pluto, only two survived. And even then, they only lived long enough to send a message describing what happened, for the Surtin patrol teams found them and immediately executed them.
Several more events such as this happened; the desecration of Jupiter, the conquering of Malachor, and the destruction of Titan. Although there were many planets lost to, or destroyed by the Surtins, but there were also many victories on our side. We recaptured Pluto, but at a cost. We also captured Malchen VII, one of our biggest gains.
After about two years we had almost defeated the Surtins, when their leader, Slein, died in a terrible hovercar accident. Many thought that this would be the end of the war, but the worst was yet to come, the new Surtin leader was more brutal and bloodthirsty than Slein. Mandalore re-trained all the soldiers in the Surtin army to fight differently, they used portable stealth generators, making them nearly impossible to find and kill. He also completely redesigned their armor, it changed from just basic combat suits, to full head and body armor with built in breath mask, heat sensors and numerous other devices. He also removed the title of "Surtin" from all his people and renamed them the Mandalorians.
Many wondered how he could afford such advancements without going bankrupt. The answer quickly became clear: on one of his newly conquered planets, Ordo, there was a valuable gem that is used in making armor and weapons. And, just like Thagreium on Pluto, it reappeared very rapidly, giving Mandalore a limitless supply of battle supplies.
The man read more about the war, skimming through reading about the Mandalorian regenerative powers, and how they could live much much longer than any human could ever hope to. This he knew already, but it was still interesting reading it from an historical point of view.
He continued to read until he reached a series of entries called: The Rakata War
At this time, we have only been able to reach and communicate with two other star systems, the Malchen system, controlled by Mandalore, and the Ondin system, a system renowned for it's lave traders. One day a small scouting fleet was exploring on the edges of The Known Regions, when they received a transmission from an unknown source, in an unknown language. After many months of trial and error, we managed to decode the message, it read: Unit twelve, assemble with units three through six. Wait for units one and ten, and then attack the "Earth" cluster.
Not knowing what we were getting ourselves into, we assembled an army of about fifteen million, and that was just for Cronus System, we had another five million for the Odin system. We still don't know how many men the Mandalorians had assembled, but to call it "massive" would be an under-statement. When the Rakatans arrived, none of us were prepared for what happened. Expecting them to be a small group of space pirates, we gave most of our men nothing more than simple combat suits, that was one of our biggest mistakes. The next was thinking that they would be human. We had encountered aliens before, Gylen beasts. Payipens. Mynochs. We had seen animal-like aliens, but never other humanoids. Standing at about seven feet tall, with cone-shaped heads and eyes that were outset on the side of the head, rather than inset on the front of the head, they were nearly unstoppable, killing our men like we would kill a simple earth fly, our numbers quickly dwindled. Only the Mandalorians stood a chance, but even they could not stand against the seemingly unstoppable army. For about 8 months this went on, sadly an estimated 84 of the casualties were our own men, with 11 Mandalorians and the rest Rakatan. Then something incredible happened, we had surrounded a small Rakatan fleet and surely would have killed them all, when suddenly the turned so that their engines faced us and right as were going to destroy them, they seemed to stretch and then disappear from all sight. This caused confusion amongst the soldiers; if they could disappear instantly could they re-appear in the same way? The answer: Yes.