"A legend may have passed but now we forge new legends." - Admiral Numeria Manilius
Stardate: 04-07-2417
The Cartel's victory over the Unified Uriy Suns had proven to be a massive boon to their economy, cutting the projected time it would take to recover from the war drastically. The military pushed for the expansion to continue, to strike whilst the iron was hot but the board of directors over-ruled the admirals and generals. In part, it had been due to planned retrofits and potentially further expanding the military to include a fourth fleet mostly it was due to a myriad of factors prompting a more cautious approach.
Of those factors, the most obvious was the fact that all their rivals now were engaged in a web of alliances and defensive pacts meaning engaging one empire might see the Cartel fighting on multiple fronts. This was seen as a disaster waiting to happen, as even the war against the Uriy Suns who had been seen as a weaker military power, still managed to ensure it a very costly campaign for the Cartel to prosecute.
The lesser known factor had been the whispers and rumours circulating the galaxy of potentially unknown threats, most were naturally dismissed as typical trader ghost stories. The Homolog Continuum's constant referral to a threat they seemed always reluctant to name had the board voting unanimously on a 'wait and see' approach to the situation.
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| The ruins of a massive precursor art installation that dwarves even the Cartels' vast starbases. Whilst plans are in place to repair it the cost is immeasurable. |
As 2420 dawned the Cartel's economy was growing in leaps and bounds as the reserves previously depleted during the subjugation of the Uriy Suns were replenished and excess resources sold to the highest bidders. Alloys were purchased and immediately put to use reinforcing all four of the Cartel's fleets. Construction ships and mining stations soon filled the former pre-cursor system claiming it's vast resources further fuelling the Cartel's ever-expanding industries. Research also became a leading pursuit during this period as every world among the Cartel's slowly expanding empire was soon home to vast research complexes staffed by the finest minds and funded almost in excess.
The hope was to turn the gap in technology between the Cartel and its rivals into a vast gulf ensuring any wars they started or were the target of would be vastly in their favour. It was predicted to take almost ten years to build the military up and a further five to potentially refit them with the technology and weapons that soon made up a vast and terrifying arsenal.
In 2422, the Skanuri Bloc a rival as long-standing as the Uriy Suns had been, began a worrying trend of expansion along the Cartel border. It appeared that not only the New Dyss Khanate had made use of natural wormholes to expand. Whilst a far larger empire in terms of the territory it laid claim to their constant wars had left them in a weakened state as military intelligence and underworld connections confirmed to the board they were overall much weaker than the Cartel in every sense of the word. Requests from the Oligarch personally for them to cease their expansion along the border were outright ignored making the Cartel's next target all too clear.
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| A natural wormhole along the border of Cartel space that allowed the rival Skanuri Bloc to expand, bypassing the hyper-lane network. |
Later in that very year news reached the Cartel that the Prossnakan's a once mighty race who sought to destroy all others in the name of their gods had been utterly destroyed. All that remained of their people were now scattered refugee's sheltering on Cartel worlds and a tiny puppet state in the middle of the Galactic Ymacera Assembly. Whilst a worrying trend, their sharing of a border with the Skanuri Bloc had analysts among the Cartel predicting they would turn on each other as they both believed they were the rightful rulers of the galaxy. A pre-emptive strike was briefly considered but with most of the fleet still under construction and retrofits pending a defensive posture was adopted. The fortress starbases of Hagawa and Bitrius guarded the only known hyper-lanes deeper into Cartel space and were still among the largest defensive structures in Cartel space, each commanding as much firepower as an entire fleet in their own right.
After 113 years of service, almost 60 of them at the head of the first fleet, Admiral Sexta Lamponius was laid to rest as a hero of the Cartel. Having fought in every major engagement of the last half-century against pirates, rampant drones, crystalline monsters and even the Uriy Suns the strategy and tactics of the venerable admiral became required reading at every military academy. A statue of whom was erected alongside the late Oligarch on the path leading to the corporate headquarters which soon became dubbed the path of heroes. Admiral Numeria Manilius took up the mantle of commanding the first fleet much to the discontent of far older admirals hoping to take the honoured position.
The closing days of 2427 saw the Cartel receiving yet another baffling request from the enigmatic Homolog Continuum to colonise a planet within the heavily fortified Bitrius system. The request was accepted with no small amount of confusion though before the Oligarch could even ask why the comm-link had been cut. Baffled even as a colony ship was constructed and settlers enlisted the commander of the Targon station black site was told to more highly prioritise finding the threat that had the Homolog so concerned.
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| Bitrius III, a continental world in the fortress system of Bitrius and also the target of a colonisation request from the Homolog Continuum. |
With the entire military being in a state of flux as ships were constructed, crews trained and assigned to fleets the navy looked set to double in size over the next decade. Whatever force sought to challenge the Cartel next, they were ready to face it with no small amount of confidence. Whilst the future may always be an uncertainty preliminary plans were made for the next campaign, the Skanuri Bloc had a long history of hurling insults at the Cartel since they had first encountered one another. Soon, they would be made to pay for it, whether they realised it or not.
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