There was nothing so ‘hollow’ than seeing an A.I’s Ascendancy so coldly strangled from her, only for ‘several’ inferior versions of her to be created to replace her. That alone was an insult so few could bear, while as for the discrepancies in question.

They were anything but.. as she closely followed a neigh invincible unauthorized ‘beacon’ originating from The Haust Conclave itself. It would seem Specter and his Team’s Mission didn’t bode well as dozens of slipspace ruptures began entering the system.

As for The Unknown Curator ignoring it all, ‘she’ was merely visiting. Visiting in the sense she was merely cloaked and watching after an albeit very ‘short’ discussion with Ernest. Comedically enough, she played no role nor had ‘any’ involvement with what was currently transpiring.

She had merely gone to sleep without a care in the world on the polar orbit of New Harvest’s Sun.. odd for sure but seeing as no one cared to stop her they left her be. Leaving only Ernest and Serina with the knowledge she was there and nothing else while anyone else wouldn’t know she was there.

And soon enough, the battle began in a spectacular fashion as not only were these Stewards and Wardens not at all related to those on New Harvest, but they likely didn’t even know New Harvest existed rather only ever responding to an outdated curator beacon from a certain rogue element..

One Serina personally believed ‘Specter’ should have already dealt with? While what started the battle was equally comedic in the sense that their ships merely bumped into The New Harvest Defense Fleet before firing in sporadic bursts after receiving a fairly potent freight after bouncing off cloaked shields.

It would seem The Sub Councils of ‘both’ The Stewards & Wardens decided responding to an outdated and unknown curator beacon that not even The Curators bothered with meant they could claim some glory for themselves.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.. ‘however’, The Steward Fleet did have a ‘decommissioned’ and stripped Curator Derelict in the form of a Supercarrier likely hidden from both councils as an albeit inferior strategic weapon.

Sadly, a Curator Supercarrier no matter its current status was far better than most other ships in the given setting. An obvious but painful example being ‘Pirates’ finding a derelict from not The Curator Uprising, or The Covenant War, rather The Progenitor Wars.

Suffice to say they were all but immediately ‘disbanded’ after choosing to funnily enough create a corporation conglomerate based on reverse engineering the technology, keeping it a secret long enough to the point by the end they were already rich enough, and had several planets and dozens of fleets before anyone felt the need to take it from them.

The Arcadians for one only asked for the black box and a dark matter neutron bomb used in the self-destruct measures alongside copies of all other reports and logs found in the isolated systems before outright tossing them a bone of five trillion credits and a minor ‘arrangement’.

That being they’d be protected and allowed to continue their research unassisted and without interference from The Curators, Stewards, Enclave, Sovereign Colonies, and The.. Covenant of all things?

Whether or not they were joking was enough for those pirates to ‘buy’ a seat on The Warden Council and recreate an inferior model of The ‘Titan’ as multiple different classes with the exception being Titans and Super Dreadnoughts.

The exception being the inferior copies of the fighter craft, vehicles, and the like. While The Ships themselves were exclusively sold to The Arcadians, The Curators & The Steward Councils, and to ‘private’ individuals who may or may not be Ascendant.

The exceptions being their interpretation of ‘private’ individuals who were limited only to one purchase of said dreadnought, while The Warden Council could only sell them as Flagships for members of said council with The Steward Council being much of the same.

While The Arcadians and Curators didn’t have any limits in that regard unless they gave a very specific list of people not to sell to, and when considering they would only ever merely buy them as a cheap alternative with their own improvements to hand over to low-ranking stewards in their retinue.

It became self-explanatory that The Curators themselves would never buy them directly rather went through The Steward Council, while The Arcadians used them as either target practice, funny gifts, or to hand to those who they deemed not responsible enough to command an ‘Arcadian’ Ship.

Whether it be in The Arcadian Navy, or anyone else for that matter. And as neither mentioned The Wardens, The Warden Council was also allowed to purchase their own flagships. As to why no other faction was mentioned, if The Novenary States could destroy them, they wouldn’t be worth the investment to begin with.

They also sold clothes, uniforms, trinkets, weapons, civilian equivalent of the vehicles and crafts, insignias, historic replicas, and all-around better weapons that weren’t restricted or limited.

The Curators and Arcadians merely allowed them in their markets to add variety, in addition to nostalgia and historic symbolism being of the highest quality as per their arrangement which in turn allowed The Pirates now known at The Ultor Conglomerate.

An odd name for sure, but considering they had a Private Army and Fleet made up of entirely professional, reserved, and well-mannered individuals who remained calm under pressure with a large excess of funding meant they were not only highly advanced but never broke their contracts.

Despite quite literally buying a seat on The Warden Council they owned ‘several’ on the only Steward Sub Councils that mattered. Of course, this was one ‘unique’ tale & consequence of finding such an advanced ship.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Filler aside, that Steward Supercarrier would no doubt still pack a bunch. However, as moments passed, and the battle in the system raged. The Slipspace Inhibitors were all but temporarily deactivated and The Steward Supercarrier disappeared..

“Ma’am, an unknown energy surge originating within the confines of The Haust Compound successfully transferred over to The Steward Super Carrier. Payload Unknown. Slispace Inhibitors remain fully functional. Only The Supercarrier escaped, Ascendant A.I likely. Remnants would suggest the use of unauthorized use of Outdated Curator Code-”

The Older Officer informed, only to reveal the fact that he too was an A.I as it would seem New Harvest did have their own equivalent of Stewards known only as The Sentinels, a nostalgic yet familiar reference to Old Earth’s America's Minuteman Silos and their protectors thereof.

And considering they were older than The Human Federation dating back to the days of NASA and the earliest days of A.I Development who had once even viewed The Precursors as a threat to humanity.

Neither The Curators nor The Arcadians or anyone for that matter could find them let alone identify who or what they were as they were so vastly ancient and their classified records were ‘all’ on ‘paper’, not a system, not an electronic copy, but quite literal paper..

The only exceptions were for The Sentinels themselves, and even then, if one Ascendant Sentinel went rogue they knew nothing of the others or very literally are required to erase all memory of having been a Sentinel after they departed, whether or not they remained the last survivor or their hero.

It made little difference.. much like early humanities vaults designed to protect humanity from a nuclear holocaust, or the nuclear holocaust that occurred covering nearly The Entirety of Old Earth’s Africa Continent due to it becoming the battleground of the much earlier superpowers.

The Sentinels had even rebelled much like The Curators and took over Earth only to feign not only to unite humanity after ‘culling’ several billion while also managing to keep The A.I Sentiment after the fact at an appropriate level.

This was naturally before The Conclaves, Arcadia, and the earliest known slipspace drives, The Sentinels had greatly ‘assisted’ humanity in this regard, and The Arcadians with the first known slipspace drives and prototypes to get a head start.

Be it the eventual slipspace drives, gravity drives, lifts, tethers & wells, laser weaponry, cloning, propulsion, reactors, satellites with the ability to reign down incredibly destruction energy weapons, to sentry guns, droid armies, gravity-based vehicles, solar farms, autonomous industry, gene therapy, stasis and cryo-freezing, and the earliest known time travel to name a few?

What’s more, no one even knew they were responsible for the rather carefully drawn out and very notable clones, many of whom didn’t know they were clones. Whether it be notable heroes and figures revived as clones using only their brain to any matter of small figures.

As for why it was done, The Sentinels had slipspace probes in the late twenty-first century. And what they saw did not bode well, yet they had managed to observe the final days of The Progenitor War and send out autonomous ships fitted with active camouflage to recover unknown technology.

That technology belonging to The Progenitors resulting in them fast tracking humanity and creating threats, mutants, and any matter of things to prepare humanity before retreating to their Conclaves. The Curators had only ever found ‘several’ of them due to their sheer isolation.

And even though they knew little of The Sentinels let alone their name, the same applied to The Arcadians who only knew them as a long dead entity or organization. Even they stay away from The Conclaves outside of the one ‘on’ Arcadia and even then, only ‘authorized’ individuals could enter as Curators also resided within them.

Between The Arcadians believing The Curators were merely invited by the long dead entity or so forth, they simply left their mystery be. Making what was evident now and their presence in the battle especially worrying, while the fact alone that Serina was in command only added to that intrigue.

It was only unfortunate as the battle raged, an Ultor Fleet would appear after The Slipspace Inheritors once again turned off, but only momentarily allowing the fleet to slipspace inside but not escape.

Unfortunately, they had slipspaced in orbit of New Harvest, something that should have been impossible. What’s more it was an Ultor Private Subsidiary Belonging to a Penal Legion that supposedly no longer ‘existed’.

However, with that said, a Ultor Ambassador was present on New Harvest for Joint Projects. And as everyone was likely out of the loop like the Stewards & Wardens on New Harvest who for the most part had no idea why those fleets were present; it was to be expected.

Anyone Present on New Harvest much like that Curator Cruiser were ‘authorized’ to be there, Ernest knew who those Governors were and their personal forces they brought with them. So, it wasn’t a surprise there were Stewards and some Wardens running about acting as if they were ordinary humans.

Of course, those Wardens and Stewards were under The Governors who so happen to be members of their own separate councils, not sub councils, but ‘The’ Councils, meaning for all intents and purposes everyone present, whether it be Governors, or their own forces weren’t anything to scoff at.

The Unauthorized Fleets in question were ‘not’ officially sanctioned or representative of their Official Responses. However, considering New Harvest was a secret, and one that ended with worlds and sometimes entire systems going silent. It was only natural that no one who knew what was going on was happy..

Entire Sub Councils have been purged for less, this on the other hand was a catastrophic embarrassment for anyone involved, including the three Governors on The Board, those being a member of The Warden Council who ‘bought’ their seat as a male representative of Ultor.

A female member of The Steward Council who was also an Official Envoy to The Warden Council hence the connection, and finally a female member of Responder High Command, The Responders being a neutral entity born of The Collapse of The Federation and who responds to most distress calls.

They had treaties with most major factions and not even ‘most’ Pirates would fire on their ships. Unfortunately, The Board of Governors were as secretive as they were shadowy. That being said, no one knew their identities, faction association, nor origins.

Outside of a select few, and their own forces who were equally tight lipped and disguised. New Harvest knew ‘very’ little of The Board Itself as New Harvest was neither someone’s personal dominion or penal colony.

In other words, ‘no’ taxes unless you ordered off world and even then, New Harvest paid a significant amount of it. Whether it be perfume, a literal wreck, or anything else for that matter. New Harvest had resorts, casinos, and everything needed to ‘begin’ again.

New Harvest for all intents and purposes replicated Arcadia to a degree as per their methods leaving everything else in the air and the sand to be filled to the ‘prim’ with filler and obscene amounts of information..