Faction Spotlight: The Aurora Legion
”Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come!" I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.”
The Battle of Terra and the subsequent Rahaam war dramatically destabilized Terragov, its political hold on its outer colonies slipping as the TDF reeled from catastrophic losses. The loss of the GIA also left the state partial blinded, and so when a disgruntled colonist, proclaiming that Terragov had failed its duty to care for its citizens, shot the speaker of the house, it was the death knell for what remained of earths empire. Sol slipped into chaos as rival politicians, gangs, naval fleets and military units each tried to fill the power vacuum. The resulting humanitarian crisis forced the Aurora legion to step in.
The freshly minted admiral of the Legion, Tyler Jones, was faced with impossible choices on all fronts. The galaxy was burning, hundreds of worlds uncontactable, the organs of trade shattered, the economy in open free fall. Millions starved on colony worlds, convoys carrying essential supplies failed to appear, renegade warlords from every military carved empires into petty fiefdoms, and industry ground to a halt. It was in light of this that he ordered whatever remained of terragov to be subsumed into the legion, and the core worlds and inner colonies were reorganized into the Aurora Protectorate. The TDF was likewise reorganized, and the draft was begun for the first time since the Terra-Trask war.
Whatever resources weren’t consumed by the fleet were poured into Aurora labs, in the desperate hope that a solution to the mass destruction of the fold gates could be found, under the code name Project Returner. A side project, initially intended to use Eshvaren Crystal as a telescope to observe cut off systems, stumbled upon the ability to recover individuals from the Rahaam Cluster. Upon this discovery, the project staff was brought under the direct command of Finian De Karren De Seel, and thereby Admiral Jones. 3 attempts were made to recover individuals before crystal reserves were exhausted.
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Transcript: Project Returner Test Logs
Results: Target returned, but damage due to violent neurological takeover led to subject expiration after 3 minutes
Target: Cathrine Brannock
Vessel: Genetically identical clone, No higher brain activity
Results: Target Return Failed
Target: Cathrine Brannock
Vessel: Genetically Identical clone, no higher brain activity
During a scouting expedition for Eshvaren Crystal, the ship containing much of the project research, as well as multiple scientists including Finian DeKarren De Seel and his Fiance Scarlett Jones vanished without a trace during Fold transit. No debris was ever recovered, nor any distress signal received. In light of these catastrophic losses to the project, it was canceled and all materiel transferred to other labs. The single success of the program was classified, and all mentions were struck from the records.
the now Revived Catherine Brannock could not be revealed to the public for fear of massive backlash, and so she was appointed by Admiral jones to the Position of Spymaster, to attempt to rebuild the intelligence apparatus of the Terran state into the hidden dagger of the protectorate. Old sleeper cells were reactivated, hidden bases brought out of hibernation, and operatives frozen in cryostasis were revived. Pulling strings through layers upon layers of proxies, only the two admirals of the Legion know of her true identity, and only those with the highest clearance know of her existence.
to deal with the ever expanding threats of the ruined galaxy, the legion has had to grow increasingly militarized, ideals of diplomacy and progress crushed under the weight of necessity. Most missions are now anti piracy, with squad retirements postponed indefinitely and all but the most dire of humanitarian crises ignored. The legion is a shadow of its former self, no longer the shining peacekeepers of a tranquil galaxy, but the increasingly desperate defenders of one of the final bastions of stability.
The present is bleak, and the future bleaker still, but all hope is not lost. Every day, TDF units and Legion squads thought lost return, refitted and held in reserve for the coming campaign to reunite with Trask. Operatives are activated in pirate ridden systems to sabotage whatever they can, while holdouts are told to hang on for but a few weeks more, and across the Orion arm, the call goes out, reminding those who hear it of a better age
“If you can hear this, help is coming, Terra and Aurora yet stand against the darkness, so stand and fight! Do not go gently into that goodnight and rage! Rage against the dying of the light!”
A/N: I wrote the second one before this one, so it should be up by tomorrow. Loosely based on an old idea for an AU I posted about. 1/4. We are so back
