12: Long Engagement

Some of the computer techs have been analyzing the terminal readout errors the teleport computer was spitting out for those mysterious 3 days you spent mucking about in hyperspace, and the results back from the lab illustrate some sort of super radiation exposure decay going on. They also concluded that large quantities of antimatter disrupted your teleport signal. Interestingly, they compared these results with other test results from the blasted hull of the Himilia, where they found the same type of radiation that broke you apart. Doesn't sound like they know what this means yet.

Just recently, the IFC sent an official address to the UESC council. A cease fire is being requested by the IFC, but under the condition of the UESC removing their ground troops entirely from Pfhor Prime within the next 23 days. If the UESC complies with the terms of this cease fire, the IFC will relocate to a nearby system. If we do not comply, the IFC will "...continue the war, stepping our involvement up to a full scale format." The man in the picture is the president of the IFC's Triple-Tac Division, a PMC division bought out by the IFC many years ago. Apparently we have only been fighting against Triple-Tac, not the entire IFC forces, so a full scale war looks to be more than we expected out of them.

The IFC started up as a rouge militia nation in the year 2396. It's spent the last 470 years independently developing itself, mostly militarily. Remember, what we've been seeing so far is just one of at least seven or eight divisions of the IFC.. The UESC isn't interested in seeing the whole beast wake up, and really wants to keep the Pfhor out of another galactic war. Our military must assure the safety and stability of the Pfhor home-world; without the IFC on it. Grab your goodies from the armory and come back here, and I'll brief you on the UESC's next move. It involves mystery, intrigue, stealth, and blowing all that away with an anti-tank gun.

Personal Log 7-36-2862 Pitser Williams ------------------------------------------- I might not know too much about the IFC's back story, but man, their troops seem like they're fighting for something! Maybe it's I'm not used to bullets coming back at me like that; I've gotten so used to Pfhor projectiles and energy bolts and other slow moving stuff that human weapons are still a shock to me. I was watching the news today; that IFC El Presidente guy is preity creepy; looking at that photo makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach. ------end log------------------------------

Personal Log 7-36-2862 Wolfgang pleche ------------------------------------------- We dropped down into Gamma front to inspect the bunker quality of the IFC structures. Standard concrete mix, nothing special, but we did find core soil up rooted here and there around the bunker facilities. Core soil is only found 80 feet below ground level on the Pfhor planet. The difference between core soil and crust soil is very subtle here due to the very stable, non seismic architecture of the planet, but core soil looks strangely more yellow than the normal crust like sand. The short of it is that somebody's been digging very deep lately. -----end-----------------------------------

Personal Log 7-36-2862 Craig Leat ------------------------------------------- Today, we ripped apart the IFC LMG .30 cal weapon. It fires a rate of 1500 rpm with minimal heat issues. Despite its thick cowling and metal plating, it provides the appropriate mass for firing it at your hip accurately. The propellant used in the weapon appears to be some sort of highly explosive foam-like charge which only detonates when the primer sets it off. We were unable to find any other way to detonate the foam. When the foam decides to go off, it creates a quick and powerful blue blast. It appears to make this gun fire smoothly without jams. Old sliding bolt mechanism though... unadvised.

------------------------------------------- UESC Weapons Research project sent us the latest Anti-Tank rifle in crates today; 1,800 rifles and 7,200 AT rounds. These things are cheap and indestructible, just the way we ordered them. The projectiles in the AT rounds are magnetically propelled. The design of the projectile is interesting; it uses a duranium-lead core AP (armor piercing) case and a PLToxide-43 explosive. This explosive type ignites after primed (via magnetics) in a very controlled powerful burst, designed to knock through 5 inches of metal and burst midway to open up holes in armor. ----end------------------------------------

Although UESC troops took heavy casualties today, they pushed through over 7,000 square miles of IFC territory. Some see this as a success which proves our military strength to the IFC while others describe the situation as a show of great hubris on the part of the UESC, and a foolish move overall. The UESC is holding firm in its intent to return Pfhor Prime to its original state; free of human interference and under total Pfhor control, no matter how difficult the IFC make it for them.

The IFC pulled their forces back and is slowly calling off the artillery strikes as the head manager of the IFC division 'Triple-Tac' pushes a cease fire in return for UESC forces abandoning the Pfhor Homeworld. If the UESC complies with the cease fire, the IFC division on the Pfhor prime will "consider" relocating to a nearby planet within the Pfhor system. The IFC hinted at a new weapon that would be utilized in retaliation if their needs were not met, but stopped just short of actual threats. The UESC council did not approve of the IFC demands, despite an IFC retreat from a major portion of the bunker property on the primary battle front.

In the year 2370, the UESG was the greatest and strongest nation both militarily and economically among the nations spearheading the human interplanetary colonization era. Its industrial-military complex was able to overpower those of other fledgling nations without difficulty. As years passed, competing nations and Rouge enterprises worked hard to meet military standards similar to that of the UESG's strength, with limited success. Independent planetary nations like Canadia, Vanwesian Union and Greater Andromeda agreed not to compete in the military race development with other nations, creating the the UESC union, which primarily served as a defense contract. Most of the other smaller nations worked to privately develop their military strength to prepare for potential UESG invasion.

The nation of Chorpux (a rouge nation with heavy influence in MIDA politics) began development of large destroyer ships equipped with heavy arsenals, making massive profits exporting their war material to nations in similar situations in the shadow of the UESG. After 6 years of steady arms development across the Humanic universe, Chorpux finalized a crude nova bomb that simulates a collapsing star with an explosion of 88 megatons. Although the Chorpux weapons and military development department was inexperienced and had low quality and safety test standards and weak regulations, the fact that Chorpux achieved a warhead the strength of a nova blast frightened the UESG government into action.

In a backfire of caution, UESG began a branch project under the Department of Home Defense, the BWP (Baker Weapons) project. Private contractors (such as the Dangi Corporation) continued development on wholly secret projects. For 4 years, BWP's weapons development was completely undercover, developing the latest technology in military warfare. One of the secret projects in development was the continuation of the Mjolnir “war machines” despite the ban on the development of such creatures by the United Interplanetary League since the Marathon was launched. Another project that the BWP worked on was a warhead of equal strength to the Chorpux's bomb. After the 5th year of undercover development, UESG revealed their weapons project publically and changed the name to the UESG Weapons Development Division.

The UESG termed the WD division as a “branch project” to save face, but in reality the WDP had become a private military company within the UESC economy, allowing unregulated weapons development. When word reached other nations that private, unregulated military contractors were working within the UESG, the pace for arms development increased dramatically due to sudden surges of interest in rouge PMC's on the part of most nations. Chorpux benefited greatly from the sudden influx of investors striking up deals with them. To maintain a high rate of production, Chorpux spawned branches and even entirely new PMCs to work under their wing until their military development strength was equivalent to that of the UESC.

Chorpux soon expanded into other economic areas like food distribution (Mutech) and mining (Gelpodes). In, the year 2396, Chorpux reorganized itself as a state, running under a full working government and a unified work division. A new nation was born; Chorpux had become the Intergalactic Federation of Commonwealth.