Throne Room
The Dark Ascent
Arx
35 ABY

The Grand Master of the Dark Brotherhood listened to the Dark Council provide updates on the war against the Collective. The rhythm of their cadence lulled his senses until his eyes closed and he drew upon himself. His consciousness expanded from the chamber they were in, to the space beyond Arx, and then eventually to the planet of Nancora. His mind pulled at intersecting strings and eventualities derived from the actions of countless variables. He sensed familiar figures; Grand Master Ashen, Dacien Victae, Bloodfyre Tarentae, and many others. Darkness from their intentions colored the Force and the future, but there was something else. Something the Grand Master had underestimated.

Light. Within the myriad of dark tangles, a singular band of light emerged. The strand rolled upon itself, braided, and then offered its own potential futures. The Grand Master pulled at the strands until visions of a Command Center dominated his sight. Turel Sorenn and Satsi Tameike stood facing one another, their voices raised as heated words were exchanged.

The Grand Master could not identify the words that were spoken, but a singular feeling resonated within the Force. Danger. Not to the Dark Council, but to the Dark Brotherhood as a whole. The Collective sought an end to the war by destroying the very heart of each Clan.

Darth Pravus opened his eyes and raised his hand signaling the end of the Dark Council’s update. The tone of his voice was unmistakably that of a command.

“The Iron Navy’s Command Battle Group is complete and ready for mobilization above Arx. Dark Councilors, where able, will deploy to their former Clans in preparation for a defense of their systems. Each of you may engage your former Clan leadership as you deem necessary to avoid any misunderstanding as to our intentions.”

The Dark Councilors rose from their positions and exited the throne room in an orderly fashion. Farrin Xies, Headmaster of the Brotherhood, waited patiently for the line of Councilors to exit the facility until it was his turn. Stepping forward, he found his way barred by two black-clad royal guards.

“Warlord Xies. Might I have an additional word?” the Grand Master’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. “I would appreciate your experience and wisdom in helping coordinate the defense of Arx.”

“My Lord,” Farrin replied carefully, but was unable to hide the frustration from his features. “Clan Tarentum is out of position. There is no way they can hold out without reinforcements.”

The guardsman, clad in black Elite Royal Guard Praetorian Armor, activated the electro-plasma filament that would shield their blades from the bite of a lightsaber. Neither looked inclined to let the Headmaster pass.

“Warlord Xies, Clan Tarentum has suffered devastating blows throughout this war. There is nothing left to save.” The Dark Lord’s eyes were cold and sharp as cut glass. With a calm gesture, he motioned towards the guardsman. “Escort the Headmaster to his shuttle.”

Click here to read the full fiction

Written by: Grand Master Pravus & Voice Marick Tyris.

Summary

I apologize in advance for this.

• FLASHBACK: Pravus, not happy with how things panned out. He is probably still upset about his flagship being blown up, too.
• SMASHCUT: Pravus in the present (of this story). He is not expecting Consul's Turel and Satsi to share the information they learn with the rest of the Brotherhood. The Sith Lord underestimated the "Light".
• After realizing that the Collective used Nancora as a trap for the Brotherhood, Pravus prepares to deploy Dark Council and Arx assets to aide the rest of the Brotherhood.
• Pravus tells the Dark Councilors they are free to aide their alma mater Clans. Except for Farrin...
• Two guardsman stop Farrin. I totally did did not add this beat in to pimp out the new unchanging guardsman of the Grand Master’s Royal Guard. I’m actually really happy with how they came out.
• Pravus tells Farrin that he is needed here on Arx, and that it is too late to save his former Clan: Tarentum.
• CUT TO: Bloodfyre realizes that he is too late to save Tarentum’s homeworld. While the defensive navy manages to land some critical hits, the Collective is just too powerful and the defenses do not hold. The Collective pushes to wipe out one of the Brotherhood's oldest and darkest Clans.
• Sith Bloodfyre, the last Consul of Tarentum, makes the choice to save his Clansman (and women) by ordering the surviving members into escape pods. The members of once Clan Tarentum will never forget, but would live on to fight future battles.
• CUT TO: A Plageuis ship named the Wrath. This is amusing because that is the same name of the Fist's Flagship Resurgent-class SSD. Thank you Laren for helping me with this segment, and thank you for helping me make this joke work within the narrative. salute
• Plageuis is ready to take on the Collective on home turf. Still, there are a lot of Collective ships. Just as Laren muses that they might win, but at a cost, a deus-ex Dracaryis shows up to help turn the tides of battle. Surely this will lead to interesting development between the Ascendant Clan and the current Fist of the Brotherhood.
• CUT TO: CSP Flagship, which is of course named the “Sidious”. (Do you notice the theme with their fleet? Do you!?)
• Consul/Empress Elincia ponders the state of life, the universe, and everything. (Hopefully she has one of the new nerf-wool towels in the recent possessions update.) While CSP is able to withdraw effectively form Nancora, they don’t have much of a home to return to. They still have to fight against the Meraxis Empire to claim a true foothold in the Caperion system.
• To add more fuel to the fire, intel is leaked that Collective agents have made contact with the Meraxis Empire and are willing to work with them to prevent the spreading of any tricksie Jedises or Sithses
• Just when Elincia thought, we’re going to need a bigger ‘boat’, a familiar face arrives to lend a hand.
• It’s Evant, former Proconsul of CSP and since Regent of the Brotherhood! He offers the aid of the Iron Bank of Bravos—I mean the Brotherhood’s capital resources—in an olive-branch like move to help repair relations between the DC and the independent Clans.
• CUT TO: A random Collective NPC! This NPC—Nuy Vexus—actually, was created by our very own Anubis for the Collective Chronicles competition. I was not kidding when I said that characters made for that competition had the potential to show up in future fictions ;).
• Vexus, like all the good zealots in the Liberation Front, is ready to take the fight to the Clans of the Brotherhood. Their target? Sepros, the home of Clan Naga Sadow. Dun dun dun. Sang will pick up from this for your next event, or so I’m told. ph33r and stuff.

And I’m spent. Please read the fiction, and feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Dark Brotherhood Storyline: Update

Really quickly, I wanted to again thank Sarin for letting me use what he had been working on to finish this story in a way that I feel gives it proper closure and justice. I’ve spent the last three years working with Sarin on fiction updates for the club, and am grateful for all the work he’s done to help move our club forward, often times at the expense of his own feelings while being fully conscious of how his decisions affected the opinions held by different groups within the club.

With that said, this fiction brings an official close to the Twelth Great Jedi War. The first two segments were written by Sarin, with me picking up the remaining few pages. Even before this, I’ve personally invested a lot of my own blood, sweat, and tears into this storyline. I hope that everyone was able to make the most out of it and were able to focus on the positive elements we established such as featuring member-characters that went above and beyond (Plus Ultra), communicated drafts with Clan leadership, and did our best to make sure that recaps and summaries were provided to help aide members in digesting the plot developments. Thank you again to everyone who has been engaged with this arc, even if you had other ideas or opinions or directions you felt we could have went. I appreciate you.

We will now move on to our next arc (taking place in the current 36ABY), which we will be simply calling “The Collective”. This is not to say that the Collective will be the day-in and day-out storyline for the club, but we do want to make it clear that they will be a large part of the larger, ongoing macro-level storyline for the club. Units will continue to create and manage their own micro storylines. As Voice, I will be working carefully and available to work with any unit leaders to aide in this cohesion.

In the meantime, the first fiction of the new arc will revolve around the transition of Grand Masters and how the Dark Brotherhood will move forward, structurally, under its new leadership. Expect a fiction update from Deputy Grand Master Vyr coming soon.

For more information, make sure to check out the Fiction Center for your latest databank and recaps of previous storylines!

My monthly Voice Report up within the next week or so as I get back onto a more regular schedule.

Thank you.