Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 20:26:20 GMT
Commander Nathaniel Autumn became captain of The Fifth Horseman two years into the open war between the Tenebraen Collective and the Flux Ascendancy, when his predecessor Captain Wesley Brough was killed during an engagement with Flux forces while bombarding the Immortal Empire colony on Wisch’s Tell. From that point on and until his disappearance four months later, Commander Autumn lead the crew of the Fifth Horseman through the dying embers of civilization.
Born on Earth, Autumn’s parents immigrated to Ancerious within the first decade of the Tenebraen’s establishing of their first colonies in that galaxy. Like his father before him, Nathaniel enlisted in the navy at a young age, and rose quickly through the ranks; a career choice followed by his two younger brothers Henry and Robert as well. His sister Elizabeth, a nonconformist, dropped out of the academy and was last heard of several years before the war began, when she wrote a letter to Nathaniel telling him that she was signing on with a contracted escort fleet and becoming a privateer.
The divergence point between Commander Autumn’s timeline and the Ancerious “prime” timeline is difficult to pinpoint. Key early events appear to have unfolded in a near identical fashion—the surprise attack on Exceion, the Vexation, Ambrosius and the Silent Invasion all unfolded in near identical fashion. One unique divergence however is that the Fortunate Son survives the Altman Incident and reports on the Sciasteonos Centum’s capacities earlier on in the conflict. Much like what will shortly occur in the prime timeline, a shadowy cease-fire was negotiated by Chaw’Sah’Voh and the bald woman through Our Superiors, thus leading to an uneasy peace being negotiated by the Immortal Empire and the Tenebraens; without the support of their proxies, the Ascendancy’s war was inconveniently put on hold, though with Chassovo’s assurance that the DCI would not retaliate against them
However, six months after the war’s end an unknown force (Shaw) lead a second raid on one of the Ascendancy’s Silent Bastions. With 40% of their population killed, and now having been evidently attacked by the Tenebraens in spite of Chassovo’s assurances, the Ascendancy remnants launched FSEMCE strikes on the DCI; the DCI, unaware of the massacre of the Ascendancy’s civilian population, assumed that the Immortal Empire had betrayed their peace treaty and launched a counter-attack with Immortal Empire assault.
However, a key difference occurred: the Flux, believing themselves known and exposed to the Tenebraens, no longer had a reason to stay in the shadows. The War thus began in earnest.
The Fifth Horseman, launched incomplete as Transire Hull 28, is believed to be the last of the Transire class battleships to be completed before wartime conditions curtailed further construction efforts. At the time of its presumed loss, The Fifth Horseman was the largest of the sixteen remaining capitol ships in the Combined Resistance Navies, and in spite of her uniquely handicapped beginnings represented the last best hope of the CRN.
Transire Hull 28 was launched incomplete less than a week before the Ascendancy directed FSEMCE strikes against the Ingranis sector, and was towed out of the area with her propulsion system incomplete by the cruisers Luck of the Draw and Pathfinder. While her engines were incomplete, she was installed as a defensive battery around the recaptured shipyards at Tau Volaris, and was crucial in providing long range fire support against Aberration infected forces attempting to retake the planet. While her engine components were unavailable, Hull 28—already informally dubbed as The Fifth Horseman by her crew—was equipped with an underpowered propulsion system and commissioned in spite of engineer’s concerns due to critical wartime conditions. Under the command of Captain Brough, The Fifth Horseman was directed to rendezvous with Admiral Hargun’s 2nd Combined Fleet at Ambrosious and commence a deep penetrative action into Immortal Empire space.
However, a serious reactor failure which killed a number of her crew via radiation poisoning delayed the arrival of The Fifth Horseman, and so the battleship was not present when Admiral Hargun commenced his assault. By this twist of fate, The Fifth Horseman escaped the massacre that was the Third Battle of Ambrosius where an increasingly desperate Immortal Empire evidently deployed Aberration weaponry at point blank range; for reasons still unclear, the Flux Ascendancy failed to follow up the Aberration deployement with the customary FSEMCE sterilization, thus leaving nearly two thousands Aberration ships sitting on the border between these two warring empires.
Following this cataclysmic battle, the Fifth Horseman proceeded without escort towards the fleet’s fallback point, only to find that the fuel tenders it had expected had been waylaid by raiders who had become increasingly dangerous as the Tenebraen Empire diverted more and more of its policing force to the conflict raging between the Allied Bloc and the Immortal Empire. Ultimately, Captain Brough lured in raiders to the ship by claiming to be a tanker in distress and captured fuel reserves from them; Elizabeth Autumn turned out to be one of the raiders and is believed killed during this engagement.
Born on Earth, Autumn’s parents immigrated to Ancerious within the first decade of the Tenebraen’s establishing of their first colonies in that galaxy. Like his father before him, Nathaniel enlisted in the navy at a young age, and rose quickly through the ranks; a career choice followed by his two younger brothers Henry and Robert as well. His sister Elizabeth, a nonconformist, dropped out of the academy and was last heard of several years before the war began, when she wrote a letter to Nathaniel telling him that she was signing on with a contracted escort fleet and becoming a privateer.
The divergence point between Commander Autumn’s timeline and the Ancerious “prime” timeline is difficult to pinpoint. Key early events appear to have unfolded in a near identical fashion—the surprise attack on Exceion, the Vexation, Ambrosius and the Silent Invasion all unfolded in near identical fashion. One unique divergence however is that the Fortunate Son survives the Altman Incident and reports on the Sciasteonos Centum’s capacities earlier on in the conflict. Much like what will shortly occur in the prime timeline, a shadowy cease-fire was negotiated by Chaw’Sah’Voh and the bald woman through Our Superiors, thus leading to an uneasy peace being negotiated by the Immortal Empire and the Tenebraens; without the support of their proxies, the Ascendancy’s war was inconveniently put on hold, though with Chassovo’s assurance that the DCI would not retaliate against them
However, six months after the war’s end an unknown force (Shaw) lead a second raid on one of the Ascendancy’s Silent Bastions. With 40% of their population killed, and now having been evidently attacked by the Tenebraens in spite of Chassovo’s assurances, the Ascendancy remnants launched FSEMCE strikes on the DCI; the DCI, unaware of the massacre of the Ascendancy’s civilian population, assumed that the Immortal Empire had betrayed their peace treaty and launched a counter-attack with Immortal Empire assault.
However, a key difference occurred: the Flux, believing themselves known and exposed to the Tenebraens, no longer had a reason to stay in the shadows. The War thus began in earnest.
The Fifth Horseman, launched incomplete as Transire Hull 28, is believed to be the last of the Transire class battleships to be completed before wartime conditions curtailed further construction efforts. At the time of its presumed loss, The Fifth Horseman was the largest of the sixteen remaining capitol ships in the Combined Resistance Navies, and in spite of her uniquely handicapped beginnings represented the last best hope of the CRN.
Transire Hull 28 was launched incomplete less than a week before the Ascendancy directed FSEMCE strikes against the Ingranis sector, and was towed out of the area with her propulsion system incomplete by the cruisers Luck of the Draw and Pathfinder. While her engines were incomplete, she was installed as a defensive battery around the recaptured shipyards at Tau Volaris, and was crucial in providing long range fire support against Aberration infected forces attempting to retake the planet. While her engine components were unavailable, Hull 28—already informally dubbed as The Fifth Horseman by her crew—was equipped with an underpowered propulsion system and commissioned in spite of engineer’s concerns due to critical wartime conditions. Under the command of Captain Brough, The Fifth Horseman was directed to rendezvous with Admiral Hargun’s 2nd Combined Fleet at Ambrosious and commence a deep penetrative action into Immortal Empire space.
However, a serious reactor failure which killed a number of her crew via radiation poisoning delayed the arrival of The Fifth Horseman, and so the battleship was not present when Admiral Hargun commenced his assault. By this twist of fate, The Fifth Horseman escaped the massacre that was the Third Battle of Ambrosius where an increasingly desperate Immortal Empire evidently deployed Aberration weaponry at point blank range; for reasons still unclear, the Flux Ascendancy failed to follow up the Aberration deployement with the customary FSEMCE sterilization, thus leaving nearly two thousands Aberration ships sitting on the border between these two warring empires.
Following this cataclysmic battle, the Fifth Horseman proceeded without escort towards the fleet’s fallback point, only to find that the fuel tenders it had expected had been waylaid by raiders who had become increasingly dangerous as the Tenebraen Empire diverted more and more of its policing force to the conflict raging between the Allied Bloc and the Immortal Empire. Ultimately, Captain Brough lured in raiders to the ship by claiming to be a tanker in distress and captured fuel reserves from them; Elizabeth Autumn turned out to be one of the raiders and is believed killed during this engagement.