“Hope y'all didn’t miss me too much? I know, I know, y'all don’t need little ole me to come save ya. After feeling that quake, my imagination started running the numbers you see? And I’d be damned if I didn’t come in after y'all! I thought I’d find y’all at death's door, I even brought a shovel to dig y'all out! Now before y’all start your reprimanding, I wager this shovel can pry that thing open?”

Roy unceremoniously blurted out, a surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one nonetheless. Of course, as they began prying the massive bulkhead door he realized something was blocking their way. His solution for this was a gravitation grenade..

Strictly speaking, he had ‘found’ it during weapons testing and hadn’t given it back.

So to say it was likely mothballed due to it reaching a certain threshold would explain a great deal, even more so after he calmly placed it into the small gap, and advised everyone else to take a few steps back.

…

After what was described as utter nonsense, showcasing ‘why’ it was mothballed. They soon entered, what was previously blocking the door was a prototype mech designed to replicate a Terrormorph that had unceremoniously fallen into a.. now dead ‘plum’ blossom tree of all things?

In addition to the fact that the bulkhead doors were now mangled and permanently open to a degree, Alpha on the other hand didn’t want to explain how or why that was, leaving much of it a mystery, a mystery Roy felt especially proud of.

…

The Command Center was rather pristine and kept much of The Old Curator Design and Decor. Where previously the walls resembled fountains that fed into underneath where they stood feeding the plants.

The fine art, and priceless relics of The Golden Age remained untouched and untampered. Left sorely in the dark without protection or proper lumination. Unfortunately, as Specter One made his first step inside he soon heard the breaking of glass?

Not only had Mercer cloaked, but he was the second person inside. And what for one may ask? Said priceless relics, if that wasn’t all he did so openly as poor Roy who wanted to get back into Specter One’s good graces stayed ‘sneaky’ and the like.

“Mercer.. you shameless bastard! Get back over here before you ‘wake’ something up! I can’t save ya if something pops up and atomizes half of ya before I can blink! Hell, I don't think those Curators would be all too ‘agreeable’ to learn that some ‘egghead’ with a cloak decided to make a mess in their old abode?!”

Roy privately informed in a separate channel, not wanting to get into any more trouble with Speaker ‘Leader’.. if anything this was the only place Roy saw that wasn’t a mess and here Mercer was not giving a damn!

Of course, if anyone saw what Mercer was taking, ‘without’ anyone around, outside of the present company included.

They’d ‘also’ want to take Golden Age of Technology Experimental Prototypes, such as shield prototypes, data modules that may or may not contain schematics, and A.I Chips and rejuvenators that weren’t exactly ‘Curator’ in origin.

…

Not only making them relics belonging to Pre-Curator Uprising.. but relics left ‘untampered’ by The Curators themselves.

Humanity simply didn’t ‘trip’ and fall into The Dark Age of Technology, they lost much of their own Ascendant A.I, and the few remaining could only protect so much.

Slipspace Drives, Medical Technologies, Laser Weaponry, Sheilds, Hologram Technology, and even A.I Creation. Some Curators believed in The Extension of Humanity’s Dark Age, and if not for them nearly going extinct a second time by The Covenant due to the lack of ships and materials.

And Arcadia coming from the woodwork and donating thousands of ships, billions in equipment, and trillions of credits, all of which they themselves viewed as ‘outdated’ relics from a bygone era, humanity would have been cut in half once more.

However, that in itself didn’t come about without certain ‘restrictions’. The Arcadians didn’t want Humanity to kill themselves with another pointless war with The Curators now that they had ships and equipment that could contend with them.

Leaving what remained of Humanity to solely focus on The Covenant and their survival and allowing them to finally have hope again after a several century long war. A war humanity had won, and a war that allowed humanity to extend into the greater part of the universe and claim Covenant Systems.

Thus allowing Humanity to thrive once more and ‘attempt’ to reclaim lost technologies till this day, so to say Arcadia only got involved when humanity met a certain threshold of failure was a practical observation.

What’s more, The Arcadians only ‘gave’ outdated surplus and ancient ships they viewed as derelicts and scrap when in actuality they may have forgotten the miniscule little fact that The Human Federation had the inferior equivalent..

Naturally what remained of humanity who were given such weapons, and ships many of whom were remnants of The Federation at its height realized The Arcadians had given them state of the art ships more advanced than what they had in their war with The Curators.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It took them years to realize this fact, and humanity to also realize that The Arcadians weren’t being benevolent and sacrificing their own strength ‘for’ humanity. Rather, Arcadia was merely throwing them a bone they found after digging in their backyard..

A humbling experience that served to both subtly and unknowingly ‘educate’ what was left of The Federation. Who fractured into a dozen or so factions, some more elusive than most like The Sol Enclave, who unfortunately lost The Sol in their name after Sol was lost to The Curators.

There was The Systems Alliance, appropriately nicknamed as The Commonwealth of little what remained of The Federation’s Organization and Systems after The Uprising, United Colonies who were Federation Colonies who broke off during The Curator Uprising and stayed neutral during The Uprising.

The Freestar Confederacy who were The Explorers, Frontiersmen, and Survivalists whose corporations despite being declared Monopolies by The Systems Alliance and United Colonies allowed hard work to pay off and more freedom for its people overall.

Whether it be bureaucracy nearly being done away with, lack of Corporate Dominions within their space, and most of all no unrealistic taxes or income tax.

Hell Roy said it better himself; you can land a ‘sizable’ Dreadnought into a field, get a beer, and fly away and as long as everyone laughs it wasn't ‘illegal’ per say unless it was someone’s crops and house, and as long as no one died, you’d just have to pay reparations.

Or help clean up the mess, marry off a couple, or at most owe someone a favor? The Freestar Confederacy despite being labeled The ‘Wild’ West was not only unusually civilized, but were well mannered, considerate, and helpful.

A wild frontier world was still a wild frontier world after all, but at least it could be said that if a Freestar Hunter found you lost in the woods he’d invite you to join him or her for a meal and guide you back to civilization. Their hospitality was unquestionable, as was their marksmanship and hand to hand combat.

As for the other factions, there was The Novenary States. They were the least impressive out of the bunch and their population alone made their people cheaper than machines leading to many being outsourced in what they viewed as lucrative contracts but in reality, was viewed by most as cheap labor.

They also produce enough industry copying lucrative trades with their inferior copies, whether it be ships, illegal schematics, and anything in between. The cons however was the fact that they only spoke an ancient tongue of Old Earth’s Asia and claimed systems not their own.

Any faction with enough sense heavily restricted their market until it didn’t become a worthy investment, allowing their already cheap goods to be sold for even cheaper even while outdated. On the other hand, they did have a specialized but equally expensive industry that was allowed to sell openly..

That being Ship Hulls, and anything else for that matter that could be left ‘unfinished’. Their mass-produced ship hulls, at least in the only market they didn’t copy or attempt to were especially cheap all the while remaining ‘durable’ enough that quality checks revealed were average and met the valid criteria requested by the buyers.

The Novenary States were ‘fast’ and if you give them schematics to a hull or anything of the like, in addition to materials and an observer and several private quality checkers, they would happily create as many as you would like.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t at the very least make crude copies, however in the end that was simply the cost of doing business with that particular sector. There was also The Sovereign Colonies, a mix of both The United Colonies and The Freestar Confederacy.

They not only survived The Covenant, The Curators, and The Parasite. But they did so while not being a part of The Federation, and much like The Arcadians, they simply didn’t involve themselves and they were far enough away only to deal with the much weaker shockwaves and their stragglers.

With that said, The Novenary States once attempted to ‘claim’ and ‘repossess’ systems not their own under the belief that ‘they’ were theirs.

As a result, The Sovereign Colonies ‘released’ The Parasite and used it as an excuse to neutron bomb several dozen worlds and claim the systems where they resided.

It wasn’t that The Novenary States didn’t have ‘serious’ Fleets with enough ships to darken several ‘small’ worlds. However, The Sovereign Colonies were a mix of The Enclave and The Freestar Confederacy.

The Enclave itself was a rogue faction even during The Days of The Golden Age of Technology, they were also responsible for illegal super soldier projects, mass producing federation era power armor, extensive spy networks that rivaled with some Curators, and generally ‘forbidden’ technology.

Earning them the title of both boogeyman and shadow organization, hell if ever confronted they’d stare down a Curator Fleet and take them on into a head-to-head battle. If the battle was deemed lost, then the system in which it took place was deemed an ‘appropriate’ sacrifice.

The Freestar Confederacy had similar ‘tenacity’ only far tamer and civilized in comparison. However, they too would see a world taken over by Terrormorphs with enough psychic power to make the system they reside a headache for anyone who thought of passing through.

To them, they saw that world as a weapons testing ground, and a hunter’s paradise. It was common to see fleets of hundreds using it as a ‘source’ of training, and tens of thousands of infantrymen cycling out every so often.

The Sovereign Colonies took the best of both worlds from both in that regard, it also didn’t help matters that they would occasionally ‘poach’ talent from either. They would simply show up when The Enclave Cell didn’t have an escape and was about to fall prey to a superior force and swoop in and snatch them.

The Curators and Arcadians viewed them as shameless interlopers, however, The Sovereign Colonies had only ever stared down The Curators, they would occasionally attempt to poach Arcadians but that’s as far as they went.

Even then, The Sovereign Colonies weren’t fond of either, and when The Freestar Confederacy got into a war with The Systems Alliance ‘Commonwealth’, and The United Colonies with The Novenary States attempting to tag themselves in.

In turn, The Freestar Confederacy was touch and go for a while, as a result The Sovereign Colonies finally appeared and unlike The Arcadians, they evidently didn’t give a damn and bombarded The Core Worlds of The Novenary States as if for the mere hell of it.

They also assisted The Confederacy by destroying several Steward Fleets who targeted its secret installations and weapons testing grounds.

To say it allowed for a proper war in several galaxies until The Covenant attempted to poke their heads into it only for The Sovereign Colonies to drag them kicking and screaming into the war, albeit temporarily just to add ‘diversity’ before they apologized and returned to Covenant Space.

It was a wild time and only ended recently, The Sovereign Colonies wanted a universal war where everyone was involved to some extent. Whether it be The Covenant realizing their error to The Stewards, Wardens, and anyone else who ‘mattered’.