I have reviewed the previous topic about the futurecraft lore. Discovered that the official lore somewhat lacks depth while mine was a total bull**** . I gave it a new try, now more seriously. I still kept the zenithian concept and the rebellion but the rest is new, now without random coping from freespace ( I couldn't find a good replacement for the rebellion as without war terrans won't have point in building a fleet, but without a fleet the terrans will surely loose to the aliens Ill talk about later).
“We were once a glorious civilization. We were always proud of ourselves, our technology, our society. Long we were travelling in our space and expanding our world. We went deeper and faster to the reaches of the void and we saw the days when we reach the bounds of our system and we will have nowhere else to go. Soon, we discovered the hyperspace. We went deeper and faster. We saw other advanced life. We conquered system after system leaving a trail of ruins behind. With hyperspace our empire will have no limits. "
In 2175 the humans finally found a way to unite after 10 years of civil war and in 2236 they were already travelling in space, a short period in galactic measures. Though humans were sending manned and unmanned ships to the farther reaches there wasn't so much travelling before now. The inventing of the deuterium fusion engine has allowed mass travel at small price with no need of rockets for the leaving orbit. The companies which understood the high potential of Sol's planets started building colonies on mars and Europa. Space stations were created on the planets' orbits which allowed cheaper transfer of materials and people from the planets' surface to the space. Now instead of wasting tones of fuel on taking off and landing, terran transports could pick the stuff from the orbital stations while special cargo shuttles could transport the cargo from the surface itself. Besides saving fuel, the companies could also save some money on different components such as thermal plating which was not suited for long space travels and tended to wear off quite often. In other words - the solar system was flourishing.
We don't really know when hyperspace was discovered. The wormhole theory existed long before us and that discovery was kept as military secret for quite long, what we know for sure that this tremendous discovery was leaked somewhere in 2258. We now know that most of the star systems in our galaxy create powerful magnetic fields and if those fields collide a potential hyperspace node is created. Those nodes allow us to travel through huge distances without wasting allot of fuel. Of course this technology could be used to create temporal hyperspace portals that allow us to travel inside the start system. Further jumps will require significantly more fuel and more powerful gravitational field so for travelling between systems we used the nodes. The discovery of hyperspace allowed us to colonize more worlds. The jump node that we discovered laid near Pluto’s orbit. We used it and we discovered a star behind it, we called it Antares . Unfortunately not everything is all that smooth, and as said 80 years is still a short period in galactic measures...
Later this year, the remnants of our past captured themselves a fleet of different ships, armed them with cannons and ran away through an uncharted jump node, they called themselves the Neo-Terran Alliance. Yes, they were the same fanatics that once caused the civil war. For long they were planning and with the hyperspace in their hands, they could flee to create their fleet. We were not prepared for that, we didn't see the need in a fleet, even after that rebellion. For one year nobody saw them. We forgot about them but they didn't forget about us. Soon we saw warships attacking our transports. We could only watch and fear as a small but well armed fleet closed on us. In a month the NTA took every system under their control. They didn't touch the colonies, thought they'll need them once the re-capture Earth. Meanwhile every single transport in sol was armed with whatever we could find. From scratch we collected our own fleet and went to protect our home. The battle took place near the Sol-Antares jump node. The NTA's ships were superior to ours simply because they were suited for combat, but eventually we won by sheer numbers loosing many ships. The rebels retreated back to their base, wherever it was and we were left to lick our wounds.
We knew that we had to create our own fleet to protect our colonies. Our top scientists and engineers created our first line of all purpose cruisers to protect our colonies. They were durable, cheap , reliable, perfect for mass production. They became the bulkhead of the United Terran Navy. In addition, our tacticians came to conclusion that groups of small portable units can efficiently protect our convoys from attacks and assist in assaults, so the first line of all purpose fighters was created, too . For 4 years we fought a bloody guerrilla war. They came from nowhere, destroyed our convoys and fled back to the unknown. Eventually we found Sirius. A strike team was prepared fast and the First Fleet of Sol went to there. The advantage was now in our hands. With superior numbers and power we destroyed the rebels and took their planet. 600,000 Troops landed that day to defeat the last remnants of the Unification war. They found there a big colony with farms, factories, labs ... the NTA was well organized.
The NTA's agenda had a bit of truth though. They believed that the unification was part of a plan of tyrants to take full control over earth. Different speculations about whole organizations controlling earth were widespread even before the war, and some facts pointed towards that direction, but does it matter as long as you live well ?
" When we discovered the destroyers we attacked. We were always the best, the strongest , and they ... we saw them like we saw the others - strange, cold, resisting... but they were different - they were not dying. We fought them long, we spared that star and moved on, but they followed us. They weren't like the others, they didn't need our territory, recourses , technology. They kept following and we made our first retreat " .
The universe is a big place to be in, though with a bit of bad luck it's easy to find yourself in the wrong place. Was our place wrong or just the threat spread too far ? We yet have to find out.
Signus prime is a remote uninhabited planet with no atmosphere or valuable resources. It had nothing to offer us, but for the sake of curiosity we landed there. Our curiosity was rewarded - on the surface we found a weird structure of unknown origin. After that the system went under tight SOF control. I don't know exactly what the scientists were doing down there, but guarding them in a middle of nowhere with supplies coming once a month wasn't the best of my cruises. On the good side this cruise lasted only 2 months. Though I don't know what they did down there, I know that they succeeded in whatever they did. When patrol beta stopped responding we sent in a reconnaissance flight. I had bad feeling about that day so I personally monitored their progress. After entering the asteroid belt the reconnaissance flight monitored abnormal disturbances on the radar. In mere seconds our sensors showed hundreds of unknown energy signatures all over the asteroid belt. After that we received a minute of footage from the recon flight, showing fighters the kind I've never seen before. As a young pilot in the rebellion war I knew what a good fighter is, those fighters were simply superior to ours. They were fast, manageable and well armored, though the most threatening of their qualities was their firepower . It was soon over, we knew why the recon team vanished from our radar. We tried to contact the ground base but we've lost contact with them. The comm canter was not answering too. As the superior officer in the sector I ordered full retreat from the system.
When we finally arrived from Signus I immediately contacted NavCom. I was surprised when they weren't surprised from the footage I gave them. In the past 24 hours terran ship were attacked by those unknown vessels in all outer systems. Contact with N673 and Theta Aquarius was lost. We were soon assigned to operation Blue Light. Our primary objectives was to collect information about the nature, technology and tactics of the new hostiles. We knew that the best place to start our search from is Signus, but NevCom believed the area is too hostile so we were sent to N367 to find everything we can about this enemy. When we arrived in the system we were surprised to detect almost no enemy presence. We did find there something more important - supply depots. A big field of containers was protected but small platforms , some fighters and a frigate. I didn't know the full power of those vessels so I sent in 6 wings, twice the size I had to. It was quite a relief when our fighters defeated the enemy ones and the frigate retreated . They were well armed but not as experienced in combat. I soon ordered our transports to pick up the cargo. This cargo will soon play his role in this war, time will show how good was that idea. The convoy was quite long so we preferred to keep our fleet at the Hyperspace node and blockade it instead of protecting all of the transports. Some fighters were dispatched though to provide cover. One of those convoys was soon attacked by the enemy. I don't know how they passed our blockade but soon the convoy stopped responding. From the footage we received I saw more fighters, only those were bigger, faster, better armored and armed. I understood that the first fighters we encountered were actually closer to recon ships then true fighters in their standards, the possible powers of those ships were terrifying.
As soon as the convoys left the system I ordered a full retreat again. The information we brought NavCom was pleasing. We could soon identify their energy signatures properly and target their ships. Their shields were powerful but amazingly simple, so NavCom believed we will be able to mimic the technology soon. What still remains a mystery is their weapons and communication systems. None of what we brought indicated anything about the nature of those aliens.
After a short resupply we received our new orders. As a pilot I knew those fighters couldn't survive alone in those systems. They had a mothership and NavCom wants to find it. And so we found ourselves heading back into the lion's den.
Is it worth anything ? Is it still crap ?
Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:45 pm
