If you were to take a look at this world, you would see nothing unusual. An ocean covered planet, who's 10 percent of landmass is mostly swamp. Primitive life forms with no form of intelligence. At first glance. The secrets of this planet lie in the deep. A dead civilization, long extinct crustacean-like beings, which live on the bottom of the endless ocean. It's technological secrets are sought after by treasure hunters, government agents, and researchers. They don their expensive suits and their equipment and search for the relics this race left behind.
However, beware the unknown! The deep holds many foreboding creatures, and the abandoned ghost cities are still patrolled by the crustacean's deadly autonomous security drones.
Possible Rewards:Civilizations who explore here have a chance of finding technology boosts to Genetics, Cloning, Advanced AI, Wormhole technology, and rare metals.
Nations Involved: None.
Alien
Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Sun Jan 12, 2014 2:59 pm
USS Virginia Registry Code: Unregistered Operator: United Systems Special Operations Command Mission: Classified Status: Aerobreaking Maneuver
"Fourty percent of our kinetic energy has been bled into the atmosphere, we need to shed another twenty percent to get our periapsis on target, Colonel."
Colonel Melissa Redfield was a patient woman by all accounts, and for good reason. She had served for over ten years in the United Systems Navy aboard ballistic missile cruisers, first as a weapons officer and then as the XO, and part of the job was waiting for days, trying to slip into Zeneliyan territory undetected, doing a few missile drills and then getting out. She was used to long hours standing in the CIC, the boredom of staring at numbers scroll past the displays and the emptiness of the RADAR display. But if she had to wait through yet another orbit before the navigations officer declared they could land, she was going to kill the first person she saw, and it might as well have been him.
Their mission was already a bug hunt by all reports. Her superiors at SpecCom had kept her in the dark about the details: all she knew was that she had to enter grid sector 02-A under the cover of stealth, land on the planet XE-52 and let the scientist team do their job. She really didn't even know what that job was: they had a lot of heavy equipment with them, enough that several of the ship's nukes had to be unloaded from the cargo deck to fit, and she was pretty sure she had seen several tanks among the vehicles. And not just any tanks either: they had a Tiger with them, which meant that they either expected to fight an enemy brigade, or the mission wasn't as simple as she had been told.
And they also had a celebrity with them. Colonel Rockwell, the most famous scientist in the Coalition and the cockiest son of a bitch she had ever met. He had instantly started to give orders around as soon as he got onboard, and she had been instructed to do everything he said to the letter, least she find herself being dishonorably discharged.
The line of thought was interrupted by the beeping of the navigation console, and the window shutters slid open to reveal the planet's skies, high above the cloud cover. The XO confirmed it right after: re-entry successful, landing maneuvers plotted. They were coming in for a rocket-assisted landing somewhere in the southern hemisphere, under the cover of night, in a shallow patch of sea. Deep enough to get them close to their target, but shallow enough that the ship wouldn't have trouble taking off afterwards. Orbital scans indicated that there was an abandoned city just ten kilometers away, and Rockwell had almost drooled when he saw the differential comparison images. They were faint, but there was undoubtedly movement down there.
"Very well. Lieutenant, take us in, switch engines to aerospike mode. Nice and easy, lets not wake up any of the locals."
Alien
Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:37 pm
USS Virginia Vehicle Bay
"Company, attention on deck!"
At the Captain's order, all one hundred of the SpecCom operators working in the vehicle bay instantly stopped their preparations and spun around, offering a crisp salute to the lone man who had just entered the massive vehicle bay: Colonel Rockwell, commanding officer of the Special Operations Command's R&D Department. The short man was wearing nothing but a night camouflage battle dress uniform and a light combat vest, the kind worn by officers serving inside tanks and command vehicles, and his only visible armament was the simple sidearm attached to his hip with a holster. He returned the salute somewhat less officially, as if he was trying to get through with it.
"At ease men." he exclaimed, and the soldiers lowered their hands; most of them were already clad in a strange armor painted in black, while the rest were either in the process of putting their own suits on or wearing vehicle crew uniforms similar to that worn by the Colonel. "We have spent several hours surveying the surrounding area with our sensors, but none of the results are conclusive. There is an abandoned city a few clicks from here, but heat signatures are erratic; there may be active hostiles in there. So we are going in hot: tanks, APCs, I want everything checked and double checked within the hour. That's when the recon probe launches, and once it's in position, it's going to bang with it active SONAR for as long as it can before it's shot down."
"You see anything that looks even remotely threatening, shoot to disable. Remember, we are not here on some good will cleaning mission, we are here to try and find any technology that the Coalition can use. Nobody but a few Generals know we are here, but if we do get any 'friends' from Kuteznagrad, the Virginia has orders to shoot them down with her nukes. So be careful out there. That's all, get prepped for deployment. Dismissed." he explained, exchanging another salute with the company's soldiers before he turned around to enter the nearest 'Hyperbadger' APC, the M51 variant designed by the Special Operations Command for operating in extreme pressure environments such as the bottom of an ocean.
Zombiedude101
Posts : 38 Join date : 2014-01-05
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Sat Feb 08, 2014 9:30 pm
XE-52 Low Orbit
In orbit of the planet, HMS Trident departed from its precisely mapped-out FTL jump which had enabled it to drop in orbit of the planet without placing the vessel at risk. Considered to be a state-of-the-art vessel, the Trident was a stealth cruiser fresh off the Elizabeth II shipyards in orbit of Mandela and had been deployed only a few times in the past twelve months, with this mission being the first to be considered of high importance to the Commonwealth. For the most part, the crew of 340 had been kept on a need-to-know basis about their mission though the fact that both a Special Forces unit and a Research Team had been assigned to the vessel for the duration of the op indicated that it was something important. The Captain, one veteran officer Thomas Gilbert, had been given the courtesy of what was truly happening; the planet below was of significant value to the Commonwealth in both the fields of science and military - and advance scans of the surface beneath the vast oceans indicated a large area of city, presumably the target for the Commonwealth who in recent years had been prioritising the discovery of new technology in such places.
He'd been hearing rumours about it in the upper circles of the Navy for some time, but now it had been all but confirmed - especially given the presence of the Special Forces unit - a collaborative effort between the SAS and SBS - and the unusual appearance of the Research Team - scientific personell from the Darwin Institute of Science and Technology, though for the latter he'd learned why. Unofficially, the MoD had received a rather large sum of money from the Darwin Institute of Science and Technology as an incentive to grant one of their research teams access to what would've normally been government-classified sites of technological and scientific value, and so it had been arranged under the full knowledge and approval of the higher levels of the government.
HMS Trident Hangar
Alongside the as-of-yet neglected vehicles awaiting deployment, a unit of Special Forces members - including troops from the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service - and members of the Research Team from the Darwin Institute of Science and Technology had assembled in the hangar, awaiting their final brief from Colonel Markus Taylor of the Special Forces - sent in under direct orders from the DSF. Both the troops and the scientists were wearing state-of-the-art powered armour intended for use in E.V.A and other hostile environments As expected, the Colonel stepped into the the hangar whilst dressed in BDU's, offering a quiet nod to the men assembled before him as they stood to attention and offered their salutes. Clearing his throat, he addressed the men with an authorative tone, emphasised by his Afrikaans accent.
"We've an E.T.A of only ten minutes before we land so I'll breeze through the formalitites. As you've already been briefed, this op is to deploy a team to the subsurface civilisation and recover what assets are possible, with the aid of our friends from the Darwin Institute of Science and Technology."
For a moment, he gestured towards the Research Team stood to the side of the room, before continuing.
"Intel reports indicate that there may be active hostiles down there which will need to be pacified and-or destroyed - also why you will be going in with armoured vehicles and automated drone systems as support. As another note, we may be facing external intrusions from both foreign nations and private endeavours - I expect you to avoid them when possible and fire only when fired upon - the Trident is also equipped with enough nuclear warheads and other arnaments to hold its own if necessary. I also expect you to provide security coverage for the Reseach Team at all times, and in return I expect the Research Team to follow the orders of the unit at all times, for their own safety of course. For the duration of this op, Major Isaac Hastings of the SBS will be in charge of the field unit whilst I will co-ordinate your movements from the Trident. I expect you to be ready for full deployment within the hour - there won't be any margin for error here, so the sooner you're in the better. That'll be all. Dismissed."
XE-52 Landing Site
Descending towards the planet below at an acceptable speed, the Trident's destination was a small patch of swampland which bordered a deep stretch of ocean where one of the aforementioned underwater cities had been detected on the planetary scans. Eventually the vessel decellerated to a slow pace as it edged further and further towards the landing patch, the unstable terrain providing little to no challenge for the skilled crewmembers and the ship's AI. With a sigh of relief at having pulled off the feat, the Captain gave a silent nod of approval to the XO to pass on the knowledge to the men in the hangar.
Thimble
Posts : 159 Join date : 2014-01-12
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Thu May 01, 2014 9:19 pm
Low Orbit Type 60C FFL-72 'Stealthship'
As part of the Commonwealth's recent aggressive drive to exploit potential technological opportunities this vessel was specially designed for the scouting of potential worlds for research exploitation. 'XE-52' was a prime target due to it's neutral status and lack of national jurisdiction which the Commonwealth sought to immediately take advantage of, hopefully with far less of a ruckus this time. "Alright lads, we're landing not taking a fuckin' bath down there let's pick up the pace."Major John Doyle shouted to the men of his company as they struggled to suit up. Imperial Power Armor was difficult to suit up in compared to it's counterparts but it allowed to greater versatility than it's USC and Zeleniy cousins in which the majority of the designs were stolen in the purposes of creating a much more practical suit which resembled a mutated exoskeleton moreso than it did the hulking mass utilized by other armies, yet combat performance so far had been stellar and the brass certainly wouldn't bat an eye if a few marines found it uncomfortable so long as it continued to produce results. Before long over one hundred men had embarked on large landing shuttles and rapidly made their way towards a popularly designated area of the planets swampland where a potential city of interest lied only about 150 kilometers away.
As the men rapidly disembarked, their craft no doubt potentially drawing the attention of nearby forces, they swiftly moved to secure a perimeter on top of what they deemed 'high ground' but instead resembled more an overgrown clusterfuck of vines, sudden drops and even more unfriendly foliage. In other words: the perfect place for a FOB, if mother nature could be tamed first that is.
Alien
Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:45 pm
USS Enterprise, CVN-91 Carrier Strike Group 3 Combat Information Center
"Jump complete. All Strike Group ships are reporting in, General."
For the past several minutes, the entire chamber had been filled with one very annoying, very persistent sound: the tapping of a steel boot against the floor. Most of the crew in the room were wearing headsets and communicating either with each other or with the various departments on the ship, so they didn't seem to have noticed, but Colonel Nelson could sweat that if the General did not stop the obnoxious rhythmical tap, he'd have to be court martialed for crimes against humanity. Perhaps with the jump into the system complete, the General would finally stop doing-
"Bring weapons online and scramble fighters to cover the Goliaths and Galaxies setting up the satellite network. We have twenty-four hours to get this done, so hurry up."
...and then the General resumed the tapping, much to the Colonel's disappointment. Truth be told, the General was strange, or at least far stranger than the norm for Special Operations Command officers. Really, who would deny a cloned eye or a mechanical replacement in favor of an eye patch? And why did he have to be so rude and aggressive all the time? "Sir, perhaps we should consult with the civilian government first, our treaty with-"
"Our treaty was with the Zeleniyans, Colonel. As far as our government is concerned, it's no longer valid. XE-52 is just another system, and one close to us, for that matter. Continue."
With a dull 'aye', the Colonel returned to his work: overseeing the fighter and bomber launch. Along with the combat spacecraft, several dozen Goliath and Galaxy transports, modified for satellite deployment, had begun taking off from the hangar bays of both the Enterprise and the several portable engineering transports, Marine assault cruisers and the weird commercial aircraft carrier that Lockheed Martin had apparently provided to the military for the mission. Within minutes, these craft had begun deploying defense and surveillance satellites in low orbit around the planet, while Marine gunships proceeded towards the surface. A few minutes after that, another satellite was finally deployed: a faster-than-light and local radio beacon. It begun broadcasting an automated message to the entire XE-52 system and the regions surrounding it.
<"This is an automated transmission. This system, sector coordinates zero two alpha, has now been annexed by the United Systems Coalition under section 18 of the Armistice Territory Regulation Act. Trespassing vessels and personnel will be subject to offensive action under the Territorial Defense Clause. All foreign expedition teams currently in the system must immediately report their identification, nation of origin, location and force size, and may be evicted selectively. This has been an automated transmission.">
At the same time, the ships in orbit begun a very thorough scan of the surface using their optical, radio, x-ray and infrared telescopes, searching for both signs of movement, civilization and technology.
Last edited by Alien on Sat Sep 06, 2014 9:55 am; edited 1 time in total
Thimble
Posts : 159 Join date : 2014-01-12
Subject: Re: XE-52, 02A. Thu Aug 07, 2014 7:45 pm
XE-52 Forward Operating Base 'Vostok', Unit 361
The men worked silently as the USC's ultimatum rang out over their comms, the machinery and vehicles used to excavate and dig into the hill that weren't able to be extracted in time before their mothership's departure were being covered up with camouflage nets and special nano-fiber matting rendering them undetectable to air coverage and shipboard sensors. Further inside the established base hidden beneath the ground within a series of tunnels the more technically-inclined members of the Battalion were running final diagnostics on the Perimeter Signal Jamming Devices which would render the signals and other metaphysical aspects of the FOB virtually undetectable, the only way the men on the ground would be detected at this rate was through visual line of sight which they took great care to ensure never happened.
They were five hundred in all and each a veteran of the desert's and jungle's of Heraklios where they fought the excessively brutal and crafty Heraklian's, beating them at their own game. Assymetrical warfare was more a game of wits than it was one of armaments and they were masters of the craft, for over five years they fought their reptilian enemies always paying them back in kind: bomb for bomb, bullet for bullet, murder for murder. As he toiled to secure one of his Unit's many dispersed weapon caches in the swampy woodlands of XE-52 Major Doyle recalled his introduction with the soldiers of the notorious Warlord Heaucha Nushub near the Tahari Frontier:
Several of his battalions had besieged a small Terran Gendarme garrison forty-seven miles from Ulqao, one of the primary Tahari settlements and a leftover of their own occupation of the planet several decades prior. The garrison itself consisted of a small walled compound reinforced with sandbags and other light fortifications and was defended by about one hundred Gendarmes. The 'fort' was yet another leftover from the Tahari Occupation and had only been briefly modernized by the New Terrans for the purposes of guarding logistics convoys on the roads between nearby Ulqao and the town of Nesir farther to the Southeast.
The guerrillas, about eight hundred strong, surrounded the fort and kept it under near-constant fire from the adjacent woods and hills. The Ghar Tushan(Searing Blade) battle commander was hoping for an expedient victory, he lined up forty human prisoners almost two hundred yards from the fort in sight of the garrison, he sent a message to the young Lieutenant of the garrison demanding his immediate surrender otherwise he would execute one prisoner every five minutes.
True to form, the Heraklians went through with the executions in a most horrible fashion hoping to intimidate the garrison. They chopped off the arms of their captives and broke their legs with iron bars before shooting the men in the head one after another. After brutally murdering ten of his prisoners the Heraklian commander allowed the Lieutenant an hour grace period for him to consider the demands. The experience was shattering for the poor Lieutenant who had only just arrived at his post a few months prior, this being his first experience with the dreaded Ghar Tushan. The Lieutenants own troops were also traumatized, several Gendarmes had suffered a nervous breakdown and were crying like children whilst others went berserk and had to be physically restrained, the Heraklian commander was succeeding in his task.
Until Doyle's unit arrived.
Ordered to utilize 'any available means' to lift the siege, him and only a hundred of his men rushed into action and by the time they had made it to the area sixteen captives had been executed by the Heraklians and the Lieutenant was preparing to surrender the fort over to the enemy. Knowing that a direct assault would be futile, Doyle and his men descended on the nearby villages which had been conveniently devoid of their male populations, their locations at the time being quite obvious. The village Chief was led forward to Doyle who wasted little time,
"Point out the local Guerilla Commanders and list all those besieging the Garrison!"he shouted, surrounded by his men and a growing crowd of villagers. The Alien remained silent. Doyle repeated himself, this time his pistol against the Chief's skull. He waited for only a moment before pulling the trigger, executing the Chief in front of his entire village. 'Bring me his children!' he commanded and in a short moment three young Heraklians were escorted in front of him, their mother ran deliriously to save the lives of her children and swiftly confessed, her eyes full of tears.
Fifteen minutes later they made it to the perimeter of the fort, this time with over seventy relatives of Ghar Tushan fighters in tow. Doyle sent one of his hostages into the jungle to contact the Guerilla Commander, his terms quite simple: they would surrender immediately or he would begin executing their family members at five minute intervals. He had shown the Heraklians that terror, brutality and murder were not their exclusive privileges, to Doyle they understood no other language than that of violence.
After displaying his own hostages on a well-defensible hillside all Doyle had to do was wait, the Commander was willing to sacrifice his own family but his fighters had other ideas and a mass mutiny broke out as they began to shoot their own officers to avoid having their family members killed and shortly thereafter they promptly surrendered themselves and their human prisoners. Doyle's actions saved the lives of over twenty human prisoners and lifted the siege, he allowed the hostages to return home but every single guerrilla who had surrendered to him were executed at a riverside a few miles North, their bodies thrown into the water.
This was the nature of Major Doyle, a legend in his own right: unrelenting, uncompromising and utterly devoted, the perfect man for the job.
Within seconds several signal jammers came online simultaneously as over five hundred men bled out into the wooded swamplands, the great game had begun.
Subject: XE-52, 02A. 
Sun Jan 05, 2014 8:00 pm
