Few months before The Collective arrive…
Uncharted System
Uncharted Planet
7 clicks from touchdown
The Human clutched his blaster, sweat dripping from his hands down the barrel pooling on the red sand below him. Leaning against a large rock, he looked around the corner.
WAP!
The rocks near his face cracked and spat to the ground next to him. They were pinned. Dek Ironius II looked around at the other Shadow Guards as they awaited his orders. Some grasped their sides to prevent bleeding, others huddled in clusters as to makes themselves look smaller than they appear; both as a tactic and from fear of being shot.
The Commander looked at his datapad and whispered to himself, “This was supposed to be a barren land. No opposition whatsoever.”
Kyro, a Force User, overheard him, “Does that make you fear them?”
Them, thought the leader. They were clad in red, dusty armor. They had slugthrowers and blasters. They also had dual jagged, pin-pointed knives clasped to the sides of a belt. An insignia of a circle with stars around it appeared along their helmets, torsos, and other areas. They clearly were warriors, but it was unknown what their ultimate capabilities were. No sign of a leader either.
ROOOAARRR!!!!
The rear position hand been compromised! Fire erupted at them again, forcing them to cluster even closer together, blasting randomly in different directions. Surprised again, a hulking creature appeared at the rim of the crater they were in and unloaded rounds into the flesh of the Shadow Guards. Dek aimed his blaster at its head, but the creature reached out its hand and pulled it from the Commander’s slippery grasp.
Kyro had already activated his saber and sliced a few of the bullets away. Upon seeing the bulked figure harnessing his midicholorians, Kyro launched his saber at the attacker, plowing him in the torso. A few stun rounds had fallen to their direction, knocking Kyro and a few others out.
Dek turned heel and ran, but felt a pulse through his body and collapsed, unconscious on the red ground.
Slowly, as his eyes opened wider, a dim, bright blue light struck Dek’s eyes. Reaching up to rub his eyes, he felt the cuffs between his hands. Awakening, he leaned up on his elbow and watched as a long, brown haired male with scars on his face, wearing the same armor as he had seen from those gunning the Guards down, grasp one of the jagged knives from his belt and placed it on the throat of a member of Shadow Guard. Dek gasped.
“Kleg!” one of the soldiers shouted to the knife wielder.
“I’m in the middle of something,” Kleg smiled sardonically.
“The slide-fingers is awake,” the soldier spoke again, clearly referencing Dek.
The knife on the Guard’s throat slid across his jugulars, spitting blood on Kleg’s armor. Dek hadn’t noticed it before, but much of their armored legs were covered in spotted amounts of red blood. Dek winced, looking at the skin and muscle that frayed from the mortal wound.
“What kind of a leader are you,” questioned Kleg. Dek thought he was speaking to the soldier.
Kleg smiled, and stared directly at Dek, while still holding the life-driven head that was slit. Kleg pointed the knife was Dek. Leftover blood on the blade flung across and hit Dek on his cuffed hands, “You! That was to you!”
Dek stuttered, “I...I...don’t understand.”
Kleg threw the half-headed body to the side and strode up the Dek, pointing the knife at the direction of his eye, “What kind of a leader are you, that you cannot lead a person into battle, and cannot watch them die?”
Dek couldn’t answer. He had just awoken and was thrown by the question itself, “I’m on a mission to discover...”
Kleg interrupted him, “...new worlds, become friends with people, bakka bakka, shodda shodda, carry on with your blubbering.”
Kleg tossed the knife towards other members of Shadow Guard and questioned, “I wonder if any of them would want to take your place? Do you think they would enjoy the thought of your death considering you lead so many to it?”
The Commander of Shadow Guard couldn’t think properly. He was stuck in this situation, and was thinking through ways out. Kleg, on the other hand, reached behind himself and pulled out a lightsaber.
“That’s mine,” Kyro, who had seemingly been beaten into a bloody submission, pronounced.
“Ah! You carry this ancient weapon! The weapon of the ancient Molds, before we dismantled them and scattered their remains into the sun,” Kleg stated.
Dek wanted to inquire whether he meant the weapons or these Ancient Molds, but he assumed that Kleg’s sly grin already gave him the answer he needed. Instead, he kept his lips tight, staring down Kyro intently, hoping the Force User would read his mind.
“Welcome to Moldren 12!” Kleg commanded loudly, “The last planet of the Moldren system, and the first foreign colony of the Kleg Moldate!”
“The Kleg Moldate?” Dek asked, knowing the answer might be returned with violence.
Kyro nodded in Dek’s direction, assuming he knew what Dek was doing.
Kleg laughed, “I am Mold Kleg, the leader of this Moldate. I serve myself and my family and come from one of the greater Moldates in history. However, we all owe allegiance to Mold Koln! Hail the Grand Mold!”
Dek became more aware of his surroundings at the roars of, “Hail the Grand Mold,” behind him. Looking back, he saw fifteen more soldiers still armored, as well as many bodies of his former Shadow Guard members. Kyro, Kyo, Drake, and other members were still alive in cuffs near where Kleg threw his blade.
“We control this system! Hail our victory!”
“Hail our victory!” roared the soldiers.
“We dominate our enemies through superior tactics! We don’t run from our systems! Maybe even one day we’ll conquer the lava fields of your forgotten Cocytus system!”
How does he know, Dek wondered. The other Shadow Guardsmen beamed towards Kleg, sharing similar thoughts to Dek..
Kleg kneeled over and held Dek by the chin, lightsaber still in hand, “Your ship was easy to spot. Whatever your purpose, whether it is to find a new home or to conquer a new land, we are here to welcome you. And we welcome our unwelcome guests by a greeting of blood. Not ours, but if need be we will drain it. You have much to spa...” the lightsaber bolted a small distance into the hands of Kyro, who spun around and slapped both the cuffs of Kyo and Drake. They immediately attacked their guards. Kleg, grasping for his blaster, felt a kick to his groin. The Mold keeled over in pain, suddenly face to face with Dek. The Commander lauded, “Your blood more than ours.”
Dek continued with another clumsy kick to the face of Kleg. But the Moldate shook it off and ignored the Commander, who was slowly coming to his feet.
Kleg slugged his clamped-knife fist into Kyo’s face, knocking him back onto the ground. As Dek peered behind him again, it seemed that the warriors were suddenly fighting another enemy from the rear.
Similar armor, but different colors and symbols. This must be the people they had attacked.
Kyro met Kleg head-on, swiping ferociously at his opponent with his red blade. But Kleg had easily leapt out of the way of every single one. Kyro’s anger was in full throttle, not backing down. And in his moment of weakness, he let Kleg’s knife satiate it’s metal hunger, feeding yet again on another mislead soul.
Dek had gotten to his feet finally and swung his cuffed hands in the direction of Kleg, easily missing him. Kleg heartily laughed at Dek’s futile attacks. Kyo and Drake had both been embattled with their own opponents. Suddenly, the loud call of retreat sounded, catching Kleg off guard. The Moldate rammed into the Commander, slamming him to the ground whilst running past him.
“Who’s calling the retreat?!” He angrily burst out.
Another Moldate had used Kleg’s exposition as a way to catch him off guard. Kleg sneered and fell back, looking at Dek as he ran, “Never return, ground-blooded!”
Dek immediately grabbed Kyro’s tags, and grasped the last few remaining Shadow Guardsmen as they retreated as well to an adjacent position.
“To the ship! We must avenge our fallen comrade,” Dek huffed as they ran back to the ship to see what was left of it.
Somehow fate had delivered the sole battleteam of Imperium a second chance.
Welcome to my April Quaestor report. We have a few things to talk about. Firstly, the fiction above. It’s a fiction that takes place before The Collective arrived. At that point Lexiconus Qor was still Quaestor, I will Battleteam Leader of Shadow Guard, and there was no Aedile. That is why for fictional purposes we used Kell as a kind of de facto leader.
It’s also the first chapter in many of future fictional developments.
Secondly, I’ve been working on all of the input you all have given me. The survey is still technically open, but I think we’ve all made something that we can work towards. Here I am presenting a new vision for Imperium and what it means for our House.
Imperium’s identity needed changing. We were stuck in a rut between Clan and House identity that wasn’t working for us. In response, a survey was taken by members in order to attach ourselves to some form of idea and identity. The results of the survey are such (on a numbers standpoint):
Rate interest in future of Imperium: 4.2
People want to stay here and they want to be here. They want Imperium to succeed.
Rate House Summit since new year: 3.2
Understandable. A very middleground rating overall, where we have done some but not much.
Rate fictional dev. of past year: 2.4
Below average. Yep. Agreed 100%. I hope the survey and fiction above are starting to help that.
Rate desire to stay: 3.9
People want to stay for the most part.
Desire to stick to BSG storyline: 2.25
I think it’s safe to say the grand majority of people were either indifferent or did not want to continue the storyline from before. This makes sense. Newer members, newer people, newer identity.
From the questions on what fictional universes you liked, what points in history you liked, and what you expected from the future of Imperium fiction-wise, I think I’ve made a good skeleton of what could become of our House.
So I present: House Imperium.
The main function of House Imperium would be to serve as an exploratory and knowledge orientated House. Excidium serves in the shadows, dealing in criminal and black market activity. Imperium deals in the distant and forbidden. Our House will be lead by the Imperial Cult, a group of Summit members and relevant House NPCs (one of which you saw earlier, Bridge Commander McElroy), who will deal in the affairs of keeping the House in line.
We will have three pillars of focus to keep our minds attended to. These are not character attributes. These are guideposts for the House to work with in order to help discover new identities. Characters can attach themselves to one, two, or all of the pillars if they wish:
Those attracted to the pillar of knowledge not only seek it out, but want to use it. They want to learn from it, catalogue it, decipher it, etc. They may be highly intelligent or simply want to obtain higher paths of intellect. They also guard the knowledge itself. We are potentially in the process of building a future vault for our knowledge, and would need people to help secure it in all forms. The biggest idea I had in mind in creating this was ancient Egypt and Egyptology. The mysteries and hidden crafts and rituals of that civilization came up three times when people were surveyed.
Those attracted to exploration, the frontier, or putting themselves into the boots of an adventurer can find a place here. You may like to find information and secrets, you may like to check out rumors, or go exploring in various parts of the universe or in Caperion. You bring knowledge to others and to our vaults. How you craft your exploratory identity may be more of a bounty hunter type, pilot type, or pure explorer type. All are welcome. A few mentioned the wild west, the American frontier, and such places in history. I pulled this from those times. Gun fights, towns on the edge of colonial civilization, exploration and US marshals hunting down criminals, etc. are things I pulled from (no matter how real or fictional they were).
Of course, we still have people interested in only battle, or at least smaller aspects of it. The pillar of battle is for those who wish to explore the combat sides to themselves. They will help defend the vaults, be security personnel, and also work with the CSP military in capacities such as a forward military force, tactical operations, and field command. I pulled this mostly from the DJB and Shadow Guard’s identity. Of course, I have my own twists to it, but I didn’t want to totally abandon the war aspect of the House. It’s here, and people can use it.
Krennic still serves its function as an inner House military type. Pallaeon works more in the intel sector. These teams are still relevant and are above the pillar system put in place. They work from above these elements.
I hope to have more in the future on this subject. I hope there is discussion on the issue and we come to a greater understanding of how to go forward. This is not the end, but rather the beginning.
Tales of Caelestis City - A fiction competition in which you are supposed to write a small fiction about a tale that happened to you, or an NPC, in Caelestis City.
Propaganda Poster - A graphics competition where you must create a propaganda poster for Imperium.
I Went to the Revolution and All I Got Was a Dance Off - A flash game where you play a song and try to get the highest score (remember to screenshot).
We’ve had an influx of newer members recently. If you’ve just joined us, welcome! We love it when new members are brought to us to work with them. You are in a position where the House is still working out its kinks and such.
Further, until May 13th, I will be mostly unavailable. My lovely girlfriend (who I haven’t seen in almost 5 months) is coming to visit me and we are going to have a grand time together. Which means for the most part I will be quite busy.
If you have any minor Qs or problems, Aeternus will certainly help you, as well as Reiden and Lexiconus of course.
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a TG message or email message, although it might take a bit to respond. When I get back, we will be having grander discussions on the perspectives of our new House.
Sorry if this feels a bit rushed, but I am myself a bit rushed for time as of this moment.
Glory to the Empire!
Dek Ironius II
Imperator of Imperium
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Great report, I think Imperium is in good hands.
Great report. It'll be fun seeing how Imperium operates moving forward and espcially how these pillars will fit into the story line of the clan as a whole
Looking forward to seeing imperium take wing again! Good job, Dek!