Excelsior: Onward and Upward (Excelsior Arc Mega Thread)

[Kazkin]

Battle at the River Forest (Event 6)

Once more, the combined efforts of the blackshield, marshals, and prospectors have shown that the excelsior, experts at subversion they may be, lack the ability to win an open conflict against Nadezhda. Through a series of investigations, captures, and interrogations over the last two weeks its been discovered that the excelsior are gearing up to make an open conflict against the colony, one which higher ups suspect would be difficult to win even with the colonies repeated victories repelling the communist attackers. However, efforts by the marshals and blackshield have managed to capture what was once an excelsior asset, a mercenary known as Deadman, against them. This mercenary is now employed by the Soteria Institute and through his efforts managed to track down and kill Laurel, a known excelsior synthetic. Using the damaged and low fuel ship once owned by the synthetic, Deadman sent Laurel's synthetic brain and shuttle as close to the colony as he could manage for retrieval.

The purpose was that Laurel knew the location of the excelsior fortress somewhere on planet, as a result this information is key to a counter attack against the excelsior. This bunker is known to not only be the excelsior's stronghold on Amereth but as the supply and resource shelter for all operating cells in this sector. It's destruction would not only damage the excelsior so heavily that they would risk being ousted from this sector of space entirely, but would damage their operations everywhere. The inner party, the controlling hand of the excelsior, know this and took great steps to attempt to recover Laurel's ship and more importantly, his brain, before the colony could.

Thankfully, as the shuttle was launched by Deadman and arrived in the River forest, members of the colony got there first. Deadman, worrying that this would not be the case, lured a massive infestation of spiders onto the ship in the event that the excelsior arrived first. However, having warned the colony, Soteria genetics modified the genome of active combatants, making spiders see them as friendly and thus ignore their presence. This in turn, proved a valuable asset as excelsior agents arrived in numbers to attempt to wrest control of the shuttle. In a surprising turn of events, it was a one sided slaughter, with the colony wiping out all of the excelsior agents with zero casualties and few injuries. The shuttle thus recovered, it was launched to the colony landing zone while the excelsior, scrambling to salvage the situation, sent a second strike force towards colony walls.

This second attack proved more dangerous, resulting in two colony deaths, but was likewise wiped out when the Soteria Institute fielded a durand to repel excelsior attackers. In the aftermath, Laurel's brain was given to the Soteria to decrypt and gather whatever information they could about our potential next target. While details are not being fully released yet, rumors are the colony is now preparing for a full blown assault against the excelsior with the plan to level their seat of power through overloading a suspected anti-matter engine powering the facility. More will be revealed in time.

[Kazkin]

When violence does not work, apply additional violence. (Event 7, Finale)

The rite of conquest has and always shall be the way of empires. From the beginning of the terran federation, the mar'qua homeworlds, and the millions and billions of other lesser empires, each and every one is united in the idea that the strong do as they will and the weak suffer as they must. With the excelsior, their strength lies in their infiltration and tactics of terrorism, seeking to undermine and subvert empires from within. To deny that this is their veritable 'big stick' is a fool's errand. In areas, ships, planets, and stations where they maintained initial and a strong presence the excelsior are a massive threat. In other places, the mental protections and large size of populations causes infiltrators to go about their business unnoticed, that agents of this cult may subvert various levels of society with impunity to push the populace, slowly and bit by bit, towards their way of thinking so that when mass implantation and the revolutions come, little can stop them. The excelsior's inner party are masters of this, who will play the long game and will wait years, even decades to subvert a population center. Large and viable targets are ever a target of this cult on the frontier and Nadezhda was no different in their aims. However, unlike other worlds, Nadezhda had greater technology than the excelsior.

From the colonies cruciforms, cht'mants, psions, or simply modified synthetics, a large portion of the colony is inherently immune to the mechanical implants of the excelsior. This proved a shield against many levels of subversion, coupled with the colonies advanced medical systems, body scanners, and other technological detection methods it made a slow and patient subversion impossible, as agents would inevitably be detected and removed or unimplanted. As our investigation increased with the greater threat of the excelsior, it became clear that they were preparing to do things the more immediate and bloody way. Repeated attacks and attempts at more direct subversion became commonplace, fights and conflicts went from external and outside the colony to internal and ruthless. The ever increasing conflict resulted in more conceited efforts to discover why the excelsior was so hell bent of conquering Nadezhda so quickly.

Through investigations by the marshals, blackshield, and with some help of the Soteria, the reason became apparent. The excelsior use teleportation technology, the last functioning long range portal tech left in the galaxy as far as the colony is aware, to portal materials, troops, and supplies between various cells and outposts. This allows them to set up and live virtually anywhere, making it an extensively difficult task to find where they are located. However, it rarely ever occurs to anyone that these supplies teleported in must come from somewhere. Through extensive police work, it was discovered that the depot from which the excelsior supplied not just the planet of Amereth but this entire sector was located within a relatively short flight from the colony. The excelsior wished to destroy the colony so rapidly not just to gain its resources and destroy the methods we have to prevent subversion, but because if the colony succeeded in discovering their depot it would spell the end for all cells and operatives on both Amereth and within the nearby kriosan confederacy. By pure chance, we were in a position to be their greatest potential asset and their most likely destroyer and all because we shared the same planet with them.

Naturally, upon discovery of the depots location planetside, the colony went to work in preparation to destroy it. Using the recovery of excelsior agent Laurel's ship through the employment of a mercenary code-named Deadman, Nadezhda was able to take their shuttle directly into the depots hanger on planet. This attack was well known by the excelsior in advance, however, and so both sides came prepared with the biggest guns, armor, and tech they could field.

After Action Report: Crucible at the Red Gate
Date: March 19th

Belligerents
-Unified factions of Nadezhda
-People's Republic of the Excelsior

Forces
-Nadezhda
* Six mechanized combat suits.
* One strike force consisting of over fifty fighters from various Nadezhda factions.
* One mercenary class transport shuttle.

-Excelsior
* One dreadnought class mechanized combat suit.
* One atvomat super-heavy robot.
* Nearly three hundred slave soldiers.
* Seventeen inner party squad leaders and loyalist commandos.
* Legions of automated AI controlled turret systems.

Losses
-Nadezhda
* Four of the six mechanized combat suits destroyed.
* Several casualties, some of which could not be revived through Soteria medical care.
* Weapons, munitions, and medical supplies.

-Excelsior
* Inner Party Leader, Warhound Gloria, killed in action.
* One dreadnought class mechanized combat suit destroyed.
* One atvomat super-heavy robot confirmed killed in action.
* Nearly three hundred slave soldiers killed in action or missing in action after the depot's antimatter engine detonated.
* Seventeen inner party squad leaders and loyalist commandos killed in action, several brains recovered, placed in MMIs, and interrogated.
* Complete and total destruction of the depot after the antimatter engine was detonated.
* Massive pools of material resources re-appropriated by the colonies prospectors.

Outcome
Crushing strategic Nadezhda victory.

Full Breakdown
The conflict began the moment the colony shuttle touched down in the excelsior depot. A fortification by the excelsior had been created along with preparation to deal with the colonies mechanized armor division. The moment the shuttle doors opened a small squad of excelsior slaves rushed the firing line as a distraction while squad leaders began to lob EMP grenades. The mechs proceeded to unleash hell on the slave soldiers, blasting through the line to reach the fortifications behind them. Initial mechs took heavy damage securing the shuttle pad as several colony operatives moved out to aid them. This resulted in several casualties as automated turrets began firing at Nadezhda agents. Despite this, the numbers and force of the mech units forced the excelsior from the hanger, communist soldiers instead performed a fighting retreat, securing the hallways behind from a security check point reinforced by a force shield and an atvomat super-heavy robot. With the hanger taken by the colony, mech units began to advance on the excelsior position before being halted in their tracks. A combination of anti-material rifles, rocket propelled grenades, EMPs, and suppressive fire halted the advance and destroyed all but two of the colony controlled mech units.

As the battle became less hectic and firing lines were established, each side began taking pots shots at each other while the colony began to directly tunnel through the walls to flank the fortified position. The remaining armored units and heavier weaponry was brought out by on the colony side, shelling the area heavily while flankers drew excelsior squad leaders to reinforce the newly opened tunnels. Slowly, the toll began to be taken on the defending excelsior, as the exceptional methods of healing and revival that Nadezhda brought allowed them to mend, restore, and send wounded fighters back into the action. Steady attrition eventually caused the excelsior to slowly lose ground as legions of slave soldiers were gunned down, automated turrets blasted apart with grenades, and even their super-heavy robot succumbing to its mounting damage before powering down. Colonist advanced the lines, taking over various fortifications while disabling security systems and shutting off different parts of the excelsior's power grid.

This rolling tide of armor only ended when they reached the main fortification hub for the excelsior's base, a large and well structured defensive position that took advantage of the excelsior's long range weaponry, but even this could not stop the flood of various fighters now splitting apart into different halls to search for flanking positions and potential reserve fighters they could ambush. One by one, the colony seized control of each hall and each room, even taking control of the excelsior's material supply depot, their armory, and their medical bay. With most of the excelsior squad commandos dead or MIA, the mechanized leader of the excelsior, Warhound Gloria, attempted to use her dreadnought to protect the bases anti-matter engine before being blown apart by the last remaining durand's hydrogen-plasma cannon. With their leader dead, all teleporters destroyed, and their legions crushed or routed, the excelsior buckled under the onslaught.

In what is believed was a last ditch effort by the excelsior, the anti-matter engine was sabotaged as the Soteria began to make preparations in causing a planned detonation. This sabotage made the anti-matter engine become unstable far faster than it should have, overloading it while the colony panicked and rushed to escape on their shuttle. By pure luck, only one person was left behind as the colony lifted off. The explosion was reported as being so close before the launch that scorch marks were left on the exterior shuttle, leaving little question as to just how narrowly the entire strike team escaped certain death. The only person left behind, a soteria roboticist, managed to survive the anti-matter engine going nuclear by virtue of being inside a phazon class mech at the time. Though multiple unrevivable casualties were recorded, the battle has ultimately been declared a crushing strategic victory for the colony.

Aftermath
With the destruction of the excelsior's depot in this sector of space, the communist cult has ultimately been weakened to the point of irrelevance now. What was formerly a potential powerful threat has had the proverbial rug pulled out from under them, ruining what potential power structure they could build to not just stand against the colony, but other factions in this sector. This sudden power vacuum now further secures the remaining groups in their relative bastions of strength. The excelsior no doubt remain in operation both here and in far off territories, but they now have lost whatever potential backing the inner party could give them here and now. The head of the snake has been cut off and with it another threat to the colony has had its skull added to the ever growing pile. For now, the colony is picking up the pieces, as recovered materials, research, and data is being taken apart and repurposed. To the victor go the spoils and rumors are abound that the colony has all the more to add to its growing strength.