Final Fleet (Galactica-esque, troupe play)
By 2153, we had colonized much of our solar system, but Terra was still our home. Sure, there were Earthers and Martians and Moonies, but the overwhelming majority of us looked fondly upon the blue orb that floated third in our system, the birthplace of our race.
Conflicts followed us into space, unfortunately; it is the human condition. The Solar Defense Force was founded to keep order among our settlements, and defend the trading and mining ships that plied the space lanes around Sol. This worked well for almost a century, ushering in stability and uniting our people in the quest for further expansion.
The speed if light is a harsh mistress, though. We could find no viable way to explore the stars in person, in any acceptable time frame. So, we colonized our solar system, we researched, and we prospered.
In 2247, a scientist named Leo Tsubarev discovered a radiation source that we had not encountered before, in a gravitationally stable orbit near Uranus. A probe, approaching the area, was swallowed by what appeared to be an event horizon. Widespread panic ensued, as theorists rushed to posit what such an anomaly meant for our stellar neighborhood.
Three weeks later, no closer to an answer, the probe reappeared. Slightly worse for wear, looking like it had braved high radiation levels, the probe surrendered its data to the scientific community before expiring. And what data it was ...
The probe had traveled hundreds of light years, capturing images of another system on the other side of the anomaly. Excitement in our society was high, as we had unintentionally found a way around the universal speed limit: we could again expand!
Three years later, as probe after probe was sent through the rifts, we found a way to detect another rift in the system we had dubbed "Salvana". From there, the automated probes found six more systems, ushering in another golden age of exploration.
In an additional four years, we had found a way to shield our ships from the highly energetic radiation, and were ready to begin a way of exploration and colonization never before seen in our history. The stars were ours! Most of the defense fleet ships were stripped of weapons, and jury-rigged shielding was installed to allow them to be at the forefront of our exploration. A prototype of a larger shield was fitted to the Humanity, a large craft dedicated to exploration.
At 15:45 on June 11, 2254, our furthest probes began to go dark. Some have guessed that it began from "Jursitan", a system named for one of the researchers that created the radiation shielding. Four jumps away, the probes there appeared to go silent first. From there, it was two days before all probes went dead, and we lost contact with the defense force ships that had been sent through to explore four of the six new systems.
The Humanity was ordered to retreat from the rift, but the orders did not come in time. It, and the ships surrounding it bore witness to the arrival of a large fleet of alien ships. Suspecting what was to come, Simon Cowl, the captain of the Humanity, ordered it to enter the rift. Behind it, the crew of the Humanity saw ships being incinerated, and a group of both spectator and defense force ships heading for the rift at full speed.
What would they find waiting for them in Salvana? What was happening to our solar system behind them? This is their story ...
This message was last updated by the user at 16:19, Fri 05 Sept 2014.
