Blue Planet intelligence data

The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the FreeSpace universe.

This page references Intelligence entries of the techroom in Age of Aquarius and War in Heaven.

Back to Blue Planet Tech Room data.

See also: Vishnans

The Second Incursion

The GTVA entered the Second Shivan Incursion with the caution and contingent planning appropriate to second contact with a xenocidal alien species. The initial Alliance containment effort was overwhelmingly successful.

No unclassified source has ever explained the decision to enter the Knossos portal and attempt to press the Shivans on their own ground, but all signs suggest that the Security Council and High Command elected to test Shivan strength in order to gather strategic information and perhaps secure a permanent resolution of the Shivan threat. This decision was bolstered by GTVI's initial threat reassessment, placing the Shivans at technological parity with the GTVA.

This bold offensive strategy succeeded longer than pessimists had predicted, and the destruction of the Sathanas juggernaught was seen as analogous to the elimination of the Lucifer 32 years earlier. Shortly afterwards, Vasudan combat elements began to inflict severe damage on what were believed to be Shivan rear-area targets. True strategic victory against the Shivans appeared to be in sight.

But Shivan strategic organization did not collapse after the destruction of the Sathanas, as had been predicted. An overwhelming counterattack made it apparent that the true extent and capabilities of the Shivan species had been vastly underestimated. SOC recon elements supplied evidence that the nebula beyond the Knossos was perhaps only a perimeter element of Shivan space.

In the wake of the destruction of Capella, the Alliance was left reeling. In spite of a modestly successful evacuation effort under severe pressure, civilian confidence in the military was shattered by the sudden strategic turnabout. But the blow was felt on a deeper level.

Humanity, as a species, saw the destruction of Capella as a sign of its own cosmic insignificance. The Lost Generation's dreams of defeating the Shivans and mastering thirty-two-year-old fears were crushed. The Destroyers had brushed mankind aside like a tick and detonated a star with almost playful ease.

Broken, bleeding, and discouraged, suddenly terrified of the vast and impenetrable emptiness and the things waiting in its shadows, mankind turned its attention towards returning to its birthplace.

The Post-Capella GTVA

The Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance (GTVA) was formed in 2345, ten years after the Great War. This treaty organization recognized the autonomy of its constituents as it provided a framework for trade and mutual defense. The Great War had transformed the enmity between Terrans and Vasudans into a lasting fellowship.

As the industry and economy of the Terran-Vasudan systems recovered, support for a more powerful GTVA gained momentum. In 2358, delegates signed into existence the Beta Aquilae Convention (BETAC), named after the system where the constitution was drafted and ratified. BETAC dismantled the governments of the Terran blocs and recognized the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Vasudan Imperium as the supreme authorities of Terran-Vasudan space.

The General Assembly (sometimes referred to as the General Terran Assembly, in a reference to the old GTA) represents the Terran civilian government, while the Vasudan Imperium mirrors its function for the Vasudan species. The Security Council, which includes representatives of both species as well as elements of GTVA High Command and the Admiralty, sets long-term strategic goals, handles military matters, and defines responses to crisis situations.

The GTVA was a state that encompassed billions of diverse peoples and hundreds of cultures, but it was never a nation. It offered its citizens the promise of security and of a future built from hard work, safety, exploration, and vigilant defense. It was an appealing promise, and strategically wise, but it was insufficient to soothe the nihilistic anguish of the Lost Generation. The NTF rebellion exploded out of the Terran need for something to believe in, something more substantial than constant vigilance.

Capella shattered the icons of GTVA security. The Colossus, as much propaganda coup as strategic asset, died in a few inglorious minutes, disabled by a Shivan tactical strike and outmatched by a single Shivan juggernaught. Citizens all across the Alliance saw civilians die by the tens of thousands as the overstretched GTVA tried to protect refugee convoys.

It is debatable whether the GTVA deserved condemnation - its failures were the result of bad intelligence. But, in the wake of Capella, the population turned against the Security Council. Pundits condemned the GTVA as hubristic, militant, arrogant, and bombastic. The phrase 'gambling with the fate of humanity' was thrown about.

The GTVA had offered security. Now, in the popular eye, it was a paper aegis against an unstoppable fire - or, worse, a military junta that had tempted extinction in order to satisfy its own pride.

GTVA analysts saw in this upswelling of discontent a potential end to the GTVA. Conditions across the Alliance echoed those which had preceded the NTF rebellion.

Into this gap stepped the Petrarch Doctrine, the centerpiece of which was the promotion of a return to Earth as a beacon for human salvation. The GTVA offered this plan as a way to placate its constituents. For the past eighteen years, the plan has moved forward, even as discontent stirred on Terran worlds and relationships with the Vasudans grew frosty.

The Rift, Parts 1 and 2

The eighteen years that followed the Capella supernova were not kind to Terran-Vasudan relations. The reasons for this were as much psychological as political.

As the post-Capella economic collapse accelerated, secessionist movements and brush wars sprang up in outlying GTVA systems. Following the pattern established by Marcus Glaive’s GTI insurgency and Bosch’s Neo-Terran Front, these conflicts disproportionately targeted Vasudans as symbols and perpetrators of humankind’s economic and ideological disintegration. The reasons were not complex - fringe demagogues and seditious militia leaders saw the Vasudans as an easy way to unite disaffected Terrans. Alliance citizens were often initially unwilling to revolt against their own government, but found it easier to accept passive resistance or armed uprising when their hostility was steered towards the Vasudan elements of the GTVA.

The GTVA response to these brush wars was initially coherent and coordinated. However, the Vasudophobic nature of the conflicts presented new challenges. Terran elements of the GTVA fleet had suffered more casualties than their Vasudan counterparts during the Shivan incursion (despite extensive Vasudan operations in the nebular theater). Moreover, the Vasudan Battlegroup organizational scheme was more flexible and versatile than the Terran Fleet model. This meant that, in many cases, GTVA High Command deployed Vasudan warships to take up patrol and intervention roles that would normally have been filled by Terran ships and crews. Perceived Vasudan ‘meddling’ in border conflicts only deepened Terran fears of the economically prosperous and militarily intact Vasudans, exacerbating growing ideological rifts and prejudices. Meanwhile, Khonsu II’s willingness to put Vasudan ships and aid workers in harm’s way in missions to stamp out Terran brushfires led to some degree of discontent amidst the Vasudan technocrats and politicians of the General Assembly. This tension inevitably began to contaminate relations within the General Assembly, even between Terrans and Vasudans who had once been friends and political partners.

By 2370, these political effects were boiling over. Vasudan warships on peacekeeping missions were frequently targeted for attack, and in at least one incident, a clever separatist ploy led a Terran corvette to assault a Vasudan cruiser in ‘defense’ of what the Terran captain believed to be a innocent refugee convoy. Meanwhile, Terran politicians continued to bicker over the terms of Vasudan aid in post-Capellan reconstruction, unwilling to either accept too much Vasudan aid (for fear of angering anti-Vasudan constituents) or too little (simply because Vasudan aid was necessary and vital). Admiral Petrarch’s drive to devote funding to the return to Sol rather than to reconstruction efforts frustrated Khonsu II, who accused the Admiral of ‘looking to the past instead of to the stars for answers.’ In return, Petrarch, once a staunch advocate of Terran-Vasudan military integration, accused the Emperor of petty jealousy over the prospect of the Terrans regaining their homeworld where the Vasudans never could. Khonsu handled the personal affront better than most Vasudans might have, but the damage was done.

Within the next two years it became apparent that Terran-Vasudan relations were decaying. Political chill crept into the military, and officer exchange programs tapered off. In the Capellan era, the GTVA had been on the verge of becoming a truly integrated society. The ‘frog calls’ of Vasudan intercom chatter were becoming a welcome sound on Terran destroyers, and Vasudan society in general had begun a sharp turn away from ritualized, formulaic protocols and towards a more Terran model. These social changes reversed themselves with startling rapidity, born out of growing Terran pessimism and the (ironically reversed) Vasudan perception that the Terrans had become backwards-looking, superstitious, and hidebound.

On the Vasudan side, animosity towards Terrans grew as they continued to devote resources to their return to Sol. The prosperous, cosmopolitan Vasudans of the post-Capella era looked down on the Terran fixation with their homeworld and resented continued Terran xenophobia towards the Vasudans. In Vasudan eyes, the Terrans were petulant, tribal, fractious, immature, overly focused on a return to their planetary womb, and devoid of the kind of racial pride that the Vasudans felt towards their Emperor.

While Vasudan contractors continued to build warships for the Terrans, and Vasudan engineers and tacticians worked closely with Terran friends on the design of a new generation of warships and weapons to counter the Shivan threat, the GTVA military began to segregate. Khonsu II reinstated the Medjai, a close-knit band of military leaders and admirals who reported directly to him. The Medjai began an ambitious restructuring of the Vasudan military in order to create a totally self-sufficient and powerful force capable of power projection, sustained counter-insurgency operations, and node denial. The Terrans, who were still struggling to get their own new warship program off the ground in the face of massive debt, were not pleased to see themselves so thoroughly eclipsed. Terran elements of the General Assembly accused Khonsu II of planning this move even before Capella, citing the Vasudan insistence on developing and deploying their own Setekh AWACS instead of adopting the superior Terran Charybdis.

Joint Terran-Vasudan military exercises continued in a cursory fashion for the next several years, but only in the form of planned responses to Shivan incursion. No counterinsurgency operations in either Terran or Vasudan space were gamed out. Officer exchange programs did not resume, simply because the political will for such a reconciliation did not exist. The Vasudans had found their place amongst the stars, and the Terrans were busy trying to go home.

Vasudan Mysticism, Parts 1 and 2

While relations between the two species deteriorated, Khonsu II was taking counsel with a new power in the Vasudan court. The demonstration of massive Shivan power that was Capella triggered a resurgence of the dormant Hammer of Light ideology in a number of (variably militant and virulent) forms. Khonsu II moved to discourage this type of thought, seeing in it an echo of the Terran ideological collapse. During this ideological normalization, he encountered a very unusual new figure: the Jester Nabirasul.

The Vasudan species had always taken a different attitude towards mysticism than the Terrans. Vasudan society had, from its earliest days, failed to make a significant distinction between science and religion, not because religion was allowed to dictate scientific findings, but the reverse. Mysticism was simply viewed as a less precise tool for measuring the cosmos, one that blended neatly into science as new discoveries were made.

Terrans often found (and continue to find) this aspect of Vasudan society difficult to understand. In Terran circles, science was viewed as a useful, rigorous, ‘hard’ way to achieve answers and results, whereas mysticism (including the belief in ‘ascended life’ or ‘energy beings’) was simply a form of self-deception combined with coincidence. Vasudan society, however, was built on myths of a powerful ancient race that had visited and touched their homeworld ages ago, myths that were largely substantiated by the discovery of the Ancient civilization. To the Vasudans, the existence of higher powers in the universe had always been a given, and the belief that communication with them might be possible was seen as reasonable rather than mad. The Vasudans did not believe that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic’. They believed that magic had always been sufficiently advanced technology.

A central part of Vasudan culture was the value of bloodlines. The Vasudan worldview included a nonlinear perception of time with moral and social implications. A Vasudan believed that she existed in the same overall spacetime as her own ancestors and descendants, and therefore, her actions would be judged both by her forefathers and her progeny. This lent both an air of fatalism and a willingness to heed prophecy to Vasudan culture, and it was often credited as a contribution to the Vasudan talent at analytical foresight. The great Vasudan successes in economic and cultural fields were often based on the ability to deprecate near-future gain in favor of long-term planning. Even the tragic loss of Vasuda Prime was cushioned by the belief that distant ancestors remained a living part of Vasudan culture.

No Vasudan mastered the union between the mystical and the secular more completely than Khonsu II. The Emperor took divination and mysticism into consultation as he planned the movements of battlegroups and the regulation of his prosperous economy. Terran scientists flocked to observe this phenomenon and concluded that Vasudan ‘prophecy’ was in fact startlingly reliable: perhaps an inbuilt, powerful form of analysis and intuition, capable of ingesting and synthesizing vast amounts of data in order to determine trends. The Vasudans, however, stubbornly maintained that prophetic abilities amongst their species, including those once claimed by members of the Hammer of Light, were in fact the result of communion with powerful alien beings. The term ‘supernatural’ is never used in Vasudan mythology. The Vasudan view is that anything which occurs is natural and scientific.

As Khonsu reined in the briefly renascent Hammer of Light sects, an extraordinary new prophet came to his attention. This so-called ‘Jester’ Nabirasul, a military analyst and former warship commander, veteran of the nebular campaign, completely unaffiliated with the Hammer of Light, claimed to have achieved a vague sense of communion with the Shivans, foreseen the destruction of Capella, and understood its dread purpose.

Khonsu took this claim seriously and immediately drew the Jester into his confidence. The reasons for this apparently startling move can be traced back to a GTI project unearthed after the failed Hades Rebellion: Project Nagari.

Project Nagari, Parts 1 and 2

As the Great War careened towards its momentous conclusion, elements of Galactic Terran Intelligence found themselves with a difficult question to answer. As if the Hammer of Light fanatics were not enough, some members of the GTA military began to report feelings of nonspecific, fear-inducing emotional contact with Shivan forces. The first report was based on analysis of flight data recordings from the massacre at Riviera Station. Lieutenant Ash, the last survivor of Terran Patrol Wing Gamma Three-Niner, claimed to ‘feel’ Shivan forces following him. This was initially attributed to post-traumatic shock from the Shivan encounter, but GTI scout wings had been following Shivan movements for weeks prior to the Riviera attack, and other pilots began to report similar sensations of nonspecific mental contact.

After the McCarthy defection, post-trial interrogation of McCarthy by GTI operatives suggested that he, too, had become convinced of the Shivan threat after communication with a Vasudan captive who related the Hammer of Light ideology and stories of transcendent contact with the Shivans by meditating Vasudans. The Vasudan captive did not attribute this communication to any supernatural force, but to some form of detectable communication in use by the Shivans. Project Nagari was initiated to isolate this means of communication, determine which humans were Sensitive to it and why, and attempt to create a countermeasure or even a form of communication.

Project Nagari was only entering its initial stages when the Hades Rebellion came crashing down. But its conclusions fell into the hands of the Vasudans, and Khonsu II read its initial postulates, regarding quantum-pulse transmission and Shivan behavior, with great interest.

When the Jester stepped forward in the wake of the Capella massacre as another example of such ‘sensitivity’, Khonsu had already prepared contingency plans to verify the trustworthiness of such a prophet. Although the Nagari research was incomplete and uncertain, initial testing suggested that Nabirasul possessed the profile of a possible P-sensitive individual.

Neither Khonsu II nor Aken Bosch (who first replicated this natural communication ability in artificial form via Project ETAK) were aware that other sensitives had played, or would soon play, a critical role in Terran-Vasudan history. Two already mentioned here were Samuel Bei and his father. Another, lesser known, was the pilot who destroyed the Lucifer, who received not only a sense of the purpose of the Shivans, but in fact later reported full-length audiovisual hallucinations of an Ancient narrating the rise and fall of their empire at the hands of the Shivans. Although this pilot was trapped in Sol, and so never came into contact with Project Nagari, he was debriefed extensively. These reported visions were discovered to align perfectly with the myths and legends that the pilot’s Vasudan comrades (also trapped after the node collapse) remembered about the ancient race that had once visited Vasuda Prime.

It is not entirely possible to confirm the notion that this pilot’s visions served as one of the focal points of the Ubuntu Party’s rise to power. Certainly the claims by some that the Elders maintain contact with advanced alien species are similar to this pilot’s visions. What is almost certain is that the Vasudan pilots who accompanied this Terran into Sol vanished into the ranks of the mysterious, semi-mystical Fedayeen black ops force at some point after the Ubuntu Party solidified its power. It is believed that these pilots remain alive today.

The inescapable conclusion of Project Nagari was that elements of the Terran and Vasudan populations were capable of decidedly non-mystical communication with alien species via the detection of modulated quantum pulses. What was not clear was whether the Shivans (and their lesser-known counterparts) were simply being eavesdropped upon, or whether they were intentionally reaching out.

The Prophecy

The Jester’s visions were incomplete and incoherent. What became clear to Khonsu II was this:

The Shivans were a vastly more alien, powerful, and extant force than anyone had at first believed.

The purpose of the Shivans was discernible and definite, but incredibly vast, and somehow linked to something the Jester referred to as a ‘broken trinity’.

The Jester was fixated upon something he called a ‘deepness’ which he could not describe.

Something unspeakably terrible would occur within the next fifty years.

At least one vision concerning this latter point left the Jester in need of antipsychotics before he could regain the faculty of speech.

It was at this point that Khonsu II elected to reform the Medjai and begin preparing the Vasudan race to fight the oncoming apocalypse. When, in later years, he became aware of the imminent Terran invasion of Sol, he elected not to intervene, simply because he could not afford to weaken his own military in the face of the unknown threat.

When the initial Terran incursion into Sol stalled, elements of the Terran High Command approached Khonsu and proposed the beginnings of a new reconciliation centered around Vasudan logistical support for the Terran invasion. Khonsu presented the idea to the Medjai and the rest of the Vasudan government, suggesting that it might end the war and bring the Terrans close again in time to face the new threat.

As the civil war ground on, deliberations began. Khonsu II was faced with a fateful decision: would he cast his lot in one side of the Terran civil war in order to safeguard his people against future catastrophe? Or would he maintain his independence and the moral high ground, and risk extinction?

The Reunion, Parts 1 and 2

The initial GTVA foray into Federation space was a disaster for both sides. Admiral Morian, disoriented by the events of the past few days and the sudden departure of his commanding officer, bungled initial contact with the Renjian so badly that he was almost immediately relieved of command.

GTVA High Command’s intention had been to position the 14th Battlegroup throughout Sol and only then demand surrender as additional GTVA forces from the Fourth Fleet poured in through the node. During the time that the 14th had been absent (between the initial transit and its abrupt return several days later), GTVA High Command had moved the waiting Fourth Fleet into a defensive posture, believing that the UEF had destroyed the 14th Battlegroup. The fear was that the Elders, having interrogated GTVA survivors, might be preparing a breakout towards Beta Aquilae. When the 14th reappeared, Command ordered the Orestes to carry out its standing orders immediately – meaning the execution of the plan to disperse throughout Sol, assume bombardment positions above major capitals, and only then request surrender. The GTVA 4th Fleet was ordered to scramble to the Sol node in Delta Serpentis and begin a crash transit.

Admiral Morian, meanwhile, was exhausted and agitated after the 14th Battle Group’s odyssey into unknown territory. His service in Capella had left the man with a deep-set but largely unrecognized fear of the Shivans, and recent events had exacerbated this phobia. Under pressure, he (incorrectly) assumed that the order to ‘execute standing orders’ meant that the Orestes should refer to standing timetables for the Sol invasion – and since the invasion had been scheduled to begin days earlier, he immediately commenced hostilities. Popular historians have frequently condemned Morian’s actions as unprofessional and rash. But, arguably, Morian made the correct choices based on limited information: in the face of the desertion of his beloved Admiral, and a sudden and shocking return from a veritable nightmare, Morian used the schedules and plans that he was aware of to adapt his actions. In a time of tremendous crisis, Morian fell back on his training.

For the UEF’s part, the arrival of the 14th was not unexpected. The Elders had greeted the sighting of GTVA probes with open arms, and in spite of a Fedayeen (the paramilitary black ops unit reporting directly to the Elders, often - and arguably correctly - labeled 'state sponsored terrorists' by the GTVA) report suggesting that the probes were stuffed with sophisticated ELINT gear, prepared no military contingencies for the GTVA’s arrival. The widespread assumption was that Earth’s lost brethren had achieved a degree of peace and enlightenment similar to that which pervaded Sol (barring certain elements of the Kuiper periphery and the military). The coexistence of Terran and Vasudan technological elements in the probes scanned by the Fedayeen was cited as evidence for this view.

Only when the newcomers failed to arrive in a timely manner did the Fleet Admirals (Calder, Byrne, and Netreba) convince the Council of Elders to prepare a limited military response. Admiral Calder also initiated a ‘training exercise’ for the Third Fleet, loading several frigate divisions with live ammunition and practicing quick-response jumps to various points in the system. When the 14th finally did arrive, the Renjian responded to reports of a massive subspace transit with conflicting orders. The Elders’ standing request was that the visitors be escorted directly to Earth. Admiral Calder privately requested that Captain Leicester hold the newcomers at the node as a measure of caution.

When it became apparent that the newcomers had hostile intentions, Captain Leicester reacted rashly. Believing the GTVA warships comparably armed to his own Karuna, Leicester engaged the Orestes while calling for the 3rd Fleet to respond. He promptly found his ship gutted by the Orestes’ plasma beams – the first occurrence of a tactical nightmare that would plague the UEF for the rest of the war.

Calder deployed four frigates to the node but wisely held back his destroyer, the Toutatis. The loss of a second frigate to beam fire from the Orestes convinced Calder to avoid committing the rest of his assets, and his ships retreated, leaving the node uncontested. Meanwhile, the Council of Elders had gathered for an emergency meeting and authorized unlimited defensive action by the military. In retrospect, if the UEF had attacked at this point, victory would have been nearly assured - the Temeraire, Duke, Labouchere, and Miranda were all out of action due to mutiny and other vessels were operating at degraded crew levels.

At this time only two hours had passed since the arrival of the Orestes in Sol. Unbeknownst to the UEF, widespread mutiny was underway amidst the 14th Battlegroup. Some ships defected wholesale, command crews intact. Others were rendered inoperable by onboard sabotage. Had the UEF pressed its advantage at the moment, they might have captured the node (if only temporarily). However, Calder, Netreba, and Byrne were still trying to deduce the capabilities and motives of their opponents, and most of their warships were still loading up for combat at this time.

Two hours later, the Fourth Fleet began its transit into Sol. The 13th and 16th Battlegroups, under the GTD Meridian and GTD Requiem, consisted largely of Capella-era warships, but their Deimos and Hecate combatants – if lacking in the overwhelming shock power of the newer warships – were an easy match for everything in the UEF arsenal. These ships relieved the remaining warships of the 14th Battlegroup and plans were drawn up to assault Neptune.

Although their available assets included two destroyers and multiple corvettes, these vessels were not committed simultaneously. Both GTVA and UEF military doctrine recognized that a warship in reserve was more powerful than one in the field – capable of jumping in and attacking a committed enemy from a weak direction. Moreover, broad deployment of capital or fighter assets left rear-area targets open to attack, including (in this case) the Delta Serpentis node itself. For this reason, both sides committed no more than six or seven warships to an engagement at one time, a policy that would continue for the remainder of the war.

The 13th‘s initial assault on Neptune was repelled. While the defending force, two frigates and four cruisers, was annihilated by beam fire, the UEF fighter corps ripped apart the 13th’s screen and close-assaulted the GTD Meridian with gunship-mounted weapons, demonstrating the UEF’s main advantage over its GTVA counterparts. The Meridian withdrew, losing a Deimos escort in the process.