IN THE BEGINNING

Strategic Command was first established in 2946 under the Militia Mobilization Initiative. The demanding needs of the Vanduul war had left gaping holes in the Empires civil defenses. In response civilian run militias were sanctioned by the UEE to protect and serve in the growing absence of a stable military presence.

2946 CRUSADER

Crusader having been already overrun by marauders took it upon themselves to be the first Planet in the Stanton system to take advantage of the MMI. Shorty after its ratification Strategic Command was ushered in and given use of Port Olisar to act as their main base of operation.

STRATCOM pilots patrolled the abandoned UEE assets that orbited Crusader to prevent them from becoming a nesting ground for the invading Nine Tails and other pirate groups. These points of interest included the decommissioned Security Post Kareah and the partially destroyed Covalex shipping hub. They were also tasked with standing watch over Crusader’s network of Com arrays and provided assistance to the ICC probe whenever necessary.

The militias success at holding back the Nine Tails advance earned them a well deserved promotion. Their charter was expanded to include Crusaders four moons. The militia’s number of active pilots was increased, and as an extra bonus they were granted permission to mine and trade within Crusaders boarders.

2947 HURSTON

The Hurston Corporation was well acquainted with the typical kinds of problems that came along with owning their own planet. Organized crime, corruption and political dissidents were among the worst of the threats to their social order. But now they’d found themselves beset by something that made all of these other problems seem pale in comparison.

It began when the ports that were set up along the outer most edge of Hurstons shipping lanes started to go silent. Search and rescue teams were quickly dispatched to the site to provide aid, but by the time they arrived all that was left of the outposts were nothing more than charred remains. The level of destruction that had been wrought upon these settlements was frightening enough, but there was something else that was even more disturbing about the attacks. All of the stations interiors were left drenched in blood, but yet not a single body was ever recovered from any of the sites.

The group of marauders that were responsible for these vile acts made no claims or threats, they issued no ultimatums. Their attacks didn’t seem to be politically motivated or vengeance stricken, even though the severity of their actions would have suggested otherwise. They appeared out of nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously back into the darkness of the void. This group was truly a nightmare given shape and the people of the UEE had bestowed upon them a fitting name. The Reavers. This term came from a myth that pre-dated quantum travel, referring to those who had stared too deeply into the emptiness of space and in their madness had offered up their humanity to it.

Hurston responded to these attacks by becoming the second planet in the Stanton system to ratify the Mobile Militia Initiative. They contracted STRATCOM, which had already gained a fair amount of notoriety for its battles with the Nine Tails, to eliminate the Reaver threat where ever it could be found. So with the stroke of a pen Strategic Command was given permission to start running patrols anywhere that fell within Hurston’s jurisdiction.

By this time STRATCOM had reinvested a good portion of their funds back into the Org. As a result it had exponentially increased in size as they continued to add more of the ships that were necessary to the ongoing survival of the fleet. They constructed a network of support ships then moved on to acquire a small flotilla of mining vessels and cargo haulers so they could start taking advantage of the shipping and mining rights that their protectorates had recently bestowed upon them.

2948 ARCCORP

Statcom’s tacticians studied the Reavers previous attacks and used every last modicum of information that they muster from them to calculated what the Reavers next target would be and what path they would be using to attack it from. Stratcom’s military would then set up huge blockades to counter their next assault long before they could reach their intended target. Using this method they successfully locked down their invasion of Hurston forcing the Reavers to look else ware for new foes to lash out at.

These unfortunate new victims ended up being the denizens of ArcCorp.

Not to be out shined by Hurston Dynamics, in 2948 ArcCorp decided to sanction the Mobile Militia Initiative becoming the third planet in the Stanton system to officially ratify the MMI. Immediately afterwards they welcomed STRATCOM to be the first private militia to work hand in hand with their own local security forces. The Org was now responsible for overseeing three quarters of the Stanton System and the group had to expand again in size to keep up with its growing needs.

The Military force was built out to include missile boats, heavy fighters, stealth ships, bombers, gunships and a hand full of capital class vessels. The Industrial branch started diversifying into every career path that was available and a Search & Rescue team was added to support staff which now was bigger than the rest of the Org’s ships combined. Their once rag tag conglomeration of fighter was now a fully fledged armada lead by a capital class frigate.

2949 MICROTECH

Finding itself in danger of being the only planet in Stanton that was without Militia protection against the Reavers, MicroTech had embraced the MMI and decided to also enlist STRATCOM’s help. Strategic Command were becoming known as specialists when it came to fighting the nightmarish hoard of Reavers. An agreement was signed that gave STRATCOM the right to protect their territory from all aggressors, and as an extra incentive, to be able to commence trading runs and mine surface level ore from it’s various moons.

In response Crusader industries removed the “no fly zone” limitations that it had initially placed on all militia affiliated ships granting them permission to patrol within low orbit of the planet and assist local law enforcement with hunting down the criminals who were operating out of New Babbage. They also gave exclusive Salvage rights to members of the Strategic Command Organization so they could clean up the pirate debrief that their battles were starting to choke the shipping lanes with.

This final expansion allowed Strategic Command to grow into the fleet that it is today. Their Vulcans had been replaced with Crucibles and Starfarers. The search and rescue teams that once consisted of a few Cutlass reds was now a squadron of Apollos and Endeavors. Their small collection of mercantile ships has since became a convoy of Hull E’s and Merchantmen and their meager group of second hand Prospectors were traded in for a series of Orions.

The last and most triumphant addition to the fleet was a fully operational Javelin that now acts as the ORG’s mobile command center.

2950 PYRO

Over a decade ago the pathway leading from Hurston to Pyro had swallowed itself like an Ouroborosian snake. In laymen’s terms all of the jump gates that connected Pryo to the surrounding systems had simultaneously collapsed cutting off its access to the rest of the Empire. Travelers still use this tragedy as a cautionary tale for why people shouldn’t be so reliant on jump gates. The event sent waves of speculation, conspiracy theories and recriminations to cascade across the UEE as to how this could have happened and who they were going to blame for it. Almost overnight the gates became an epicenter for anyone with an agenda including reporters, protesters, looters and a sea of opportunists who were there to simply take advantage of the chaos. Minor conflicts quickly escalated into acts of violence.

In response the Navy declared the lifeless gate to be off limits until further notice. Its beacon was shut down and the gates connection to the com array network was severed to prevent anyone from using the signal to home back in on its location. Military patrols would regularly check on the gate and sweep the surrounding area for illegal beacons. But as time passed things began to calm down and peoples memories of the incident would start to gradually fade away. Little by little the patrols became less frequent and eventually would stop all together. Slowly over the years this sector of space would become a dead zone, forgotten about by the general public and even the military that used to protect it.

A NIGHTMARE LIKE NO OTHER

When the jump gates that connected Pyro to the rest of the Empire had collapsed it was sudden and without warning stranding thousands of colonists, their families and an untold number of refugees within the Pyro cluster. The fate that befell them would become the thing of nightmares and legends. The combination of isolation and dwindling resources forced the people to turn on each other committing horrible acts of barbarism to survive till not a shred of humanity was left within them.

It is unknown when exactly the jump point that connected Stanton to Pyro had re-awakened. But even after decades of silence the gate automatically sprung back into life as soon as its presence was detected, stabilizing the connection and solidifying the path that lay between them. The newly awakened gate shone like a beacon, unguarded and laid bare before an army of blood thirsty cultists who eagerly came flooding back into Stanton with a ferocity that made even the most vicious Vanduul attack seem tame in comparison.

For years the region of space that surrounded the Jump point had remained a dead zone. It was a swatch of unmonitored space that the overlapping network of com arrays didn’t cover and none of the active shipping lanes ran anywhere near. It’s exact location was now only known to highest ranking members of the Navy, while the Advocacy and the local inhabitants of Stanton would continue to remain blissfully unaware that it had revivified or that it even still existed. The Rumor among the general public was that the jump gate had been dismantled some time ago, and most people tended to believe that this was more truth than rumor.

THE BATTLE FOR PYRO

Thanks to the perfect storm of bureaucracy and incompetence the source of the Reaver invasion may have remained hidden forever if it wasn’t for a lone bounty hunter. They happened to stumble upon the gate while pursuing a Banu slave trader into deep space. The Navy quickly responded to the hawks warning by sending in a blockade to prevent any more raiding parties from filtering back into Stanton. While the Advocacy and a number of private militias mounted a massive counter offensive to assault Pyro and crush the Reavers once and for all. Strategic Command was asked to lead the attack.

The Reavers proved to be fierce warriors but they had no mind for tactics. Whenever they saw a target they’d obsessively chase it down with no regard for their own safety. STRACO had already learned how to use that blind ferocity against them. The Militias banded together forming huge kill zones and sent in decoys to bait the Reavers into flying right down the center of them. The Reavers would continue to mindlessly throw themselves one after another into the kill zones even after having watched the ships that were right in front of them get reduced to scrap. It was almost as if they welcomed the sweet release from their torment that he militias guns provided.

IN THE WAKE OF BATTLE

Even after the last of the Reaver fleets were wiped out Pyro would remain a lawless system. No one would ever risk trying to set up a permanent colony in it again after seeing first hand what had happened to its previous denizens. The planets were inhospitable and the sun emitted such high levels of radiation that an unshielded ship wouldn’t survive traveling through it for very long.

But despite all of these hazards Pyro still proved to be an invaluable resource. Stanton may have been the first of the gates to reawaken, but not very long after its discovery one by one the other gates started to came back to life as well. Pryo had once again become a short cut that connected some of the most lucrative trading centers in a way that’s been denied to the Empire for decades. Every major corporation immediately vied to be the first to start running goods through it and almost overnight turned it into one of the most widely trafficked travel lanes in the empire. Huge convoys of Reclaimers and Orions had also started making their way to Pyro after surveyors discovered vast fields of untouched ore deposits and, thanks to the war, an unprecedented amount of scrap that was just waiting to be salvaged.

It attracted something else as well. Nearly every pirate from the 5 adjoining systems had started flocking to Pyro in droves. After all there were more than enough cargo haulers to go around and more unmonitored space then any group of pirates could hope to cover on their own.

The corporations considered ship jackings to be just another cost of business and as long as the profits continued to outweigh the losses they would keep running freighters through Pyro. If a haulers captain wanted to hire an escort ship they were free to do so using their own UEC as collateral. But most of the traders found that it was cheaper to pay off the pirates then it was to hire an escort ship. Pyro had become a Shangri-La for pirates. It was a place were a never ending chain of cargo vessels would offer up their goods without so much as putting up a fight for them in order to get it.

The outlaws eventually coalesced into five major factions, one for each of the gates that connect to Pyro using the last remaining structure in the system that could still support life to acts as the capital for their makeshift alliance. Capital might be too strong of a word to use for what Ruin Station was, being more of a neutral hub where all of the factions could meet and trade at. But that didn’t stop them from constantly fighting over who had the right to claim it as their property. Complacency in their trade had seemed to make them eager for conflict. And the factions were constantly clashing over control of it.

STRATCOM continued to escort high profile ships and caravans safely through Pyro until a tragic event hit the Org, one that would forever change the course of events for them.

2951 A NEW DIRECTION

In the fall of 2951 the founder of Strategic Command passed away bequeathing ownership of the ORG, not to his second in command, but instead to his closest living heir. This was based on the condition that they would take immediate steps to shift it’s focus from security to exploration.

The following excerpt from the founders last will and testament clearly stated his intent,

I still have nightmares about the things we did in Pyro. It seems that for far too long all I’ve done is fight, kill and try to survive as best as I could, but to what end? When I was a child I’d spend hours lying under the night sky gazing up at the stars and dreaming about the secrets that each one of them held. But somewhere down the line I’ve lost my way and allowed our organization to become just another sword in the war to defend Stanton from the never ending onslaught of pirates and xenos that seemed to be forever bent on tearing it down. Those fond memories of my childhood are a stark contrast to the nightmares of my adulthood.

I’m not saying that acting as a shield for others isn’t a noble profession, but I want so much more for you. So I’ve spend my life building an army, a vast array of support craft, a network of industrial ships and a fleet of exploration vessels. Now I want you to lead them to the stars.

You’ve always shared my vision for exploring the cosmos and I couldn’t think of a better person to help forge this dream of ours into a reality. Do what I never had the courage to accomplish and see all of the sights that my myopically focused ambition kept me from seeing.

This is my final wish.