##### What the hell is really going on? - Demeter citizens discover gate. Use it to found Jericho under Council's nose - Jericho secretly arms the separatists of Canto, Foxglove, and Grove to spur on the Unification War - Jericho discovers ancient alien tissues, some interesting technologies emerge, including AGI and a number of complexity theories involving neuroscience, start actively farming arnite in Foxglove under a shell company to "feed" their gate's presumed repairs - Aiden and Wei's scout ship is wrecked by gravitic phenomenon at Solace - Follow-up WDF expedition to Solace finds a crashed probe that had been buried there for thousands of years, from which, a number of artifacts are discovered: - A "gravitic" drive system that manipulates spacetime to move a ship and provide artificial gravity and other wonders. "Golf" - A non-functional jump drive. This drive follows the same basic science as the MM drive, but it can traverse significantly longer distances at the expense of burning hydrogen fuel as reaction mass. "Juliet" - A communication system using quantum entanglement. This led to an immediate breakthrough by the Council to reproduce the tech (and its subsequent theft by Jericho). There remain enough entangled particles to communicate with...someone somewhere. "Quebec." - A dedication plate, written in English, indicating it had launched in a terran imperium thousands of years after everyone thought earth destroyed, the scientists who launched it hoped to provide the colonists a line back home once they arrived. "November" - The artifacts are taken to a research site at U-Grove for study. - Task Force 7 is formed by the WDF in secret with only the BioGen and University of Whistler seats on the Council. Their charter is to secure, discover, and catalogue these artifacts. An operating base is established in the Serenity system. Then Vice-Admiral Halsey is put in charge. - Felicity Randall is recruited by Jericho SECOPS, is assigned to watch Aiden to follow the leads to the artifacts. - Stephano Wren is elected to the Council Seat For The Miners and quickly realizes that the majority of the Counselors are receiving orders from the boards of only a few founding firms. His alarm at evidence of the permanent oligarchy causes him to conspire with Malachai Wheeler and [[Nicole Wahpetonwan]]. - Jack ends the Grove resistance before the Council bombs Grove. - Jack begins smuggling aid to Foxglove. - Several of the artifacts are relocated from Grove to Serenity. November and Golf remain for study by the brightest minds in n-dimensional physics. - Wei Zhang and Izzy Cordova are recruited by Anderson Exploration, whose scientists have detected certain patterns in the astronomical structure of the Reach and suspect finds on Helena (which they nearly own) and Demeter and Jericho (which they can't get to). - The Grove Uprising (funded by the Sons of the Reach, RoJ, and the Council Seat for the Miners) destabilizes the Council's hold. - Felicity Randall follows Aiden to Grove and extracts the artifacts hours before Aiden's own Team arrives. To Task Force 7, all evidence points to IBI and Dauntless is dispatched to intercept using a a gravitic inhibitor developed based on artifact Golf. - T7 dispatches Endeavor on Halsey's behalf to pick up the crew and kill them in transit. - Halsey calls off the search for IBI after discovering that Jack is clueless about the theft and there is intel tying Randall to Jericho. - The artifacts are smuggled to Demeter. Following intel about the IBI crew, Dauntless arrives and confirms the artifacts are on Demeter and in motion (to the gate). Dauntless destroys the convoy and escapes with the artifacts to Serenity. - The Sons of the Reach (again with support from RoJ and others, including The Council Seat for the Miners) begin pirating raw materials from companies with close ties to the Council - especially those that have exploited Foxglove and Gove. Consolidated is one such. They take the materials to one of several deep space staging locations. - RoJ helps the Sons of the Reach develop the Sierra Virus. Allowing The Great Theft. The ships are remanded to the staging locations set up by the Sons of the Reach for refit. - Izzy and Wei find the Helena gate. Izzy's latent psychic ability is activated. He uses the gate and sees something. He accidentally kills Wei, then causes the collapse of the tunnel. - Cordova sees the "shape" of the reach that the AEX researchers could only hope to see. He's aware of the original configuration of the artificially-manipulated stellar bodies of the reach. He's terrified of "the monsters in the deep" and thinks that the ancients were building a way to protect themselves. The constant perception of spacetime is breaking his brain a little bit. He's drawn to a device at Trilby. - Cordova escapes by stowing away on [[ITC Marginally Better Than Prison]]. In transit to Storey he is discovered by Piney Newton and kills him. - To relieve political pressure after The Great Theft, Halsey is publicly stripped of command, takes personal command of T7 in Serenity. - RoJ finds another genetic inheritor of psychic abilities and uses them to trigger navigation of their gate to others, notably Helena. They move in equipment to dig their way out. - Cordova stows away on a ship in Storey headed for Whistler. He's attempting to find a ship to take him to Trilby, but gets sidetracked by investigating Cartwright. - The Council grants Anderson Northwinds sovereignty. AEX loses their mind, they *know* Wei and Cordova found something, but can't figure out how to touch the colony, and they're not willing to give it up to the Council quite yet. - The Sons of the Reach prepare to liberate Grove with their fleet, as well as plot the destruction of the Damocles. - After understanding that Cartwright and Toussaint are essentially a massive interstellar gravity generator, Cordova hijacks [[ITC Xiwangmu's Moist Peach]] at Trinity and takes her to Trilby. - Jack drops off the grid in attempt to find out what happened to Halsey. He doesn't discover Task Force 7, but uncovers the Council's plans for Grove, Foxglove, and, eventually, Jericho. He ensures his links to IBI are severed to allow the crew the ability to make their own choices, and defects. - The 1st Fleet arrives at Foxglove and the Council enacts an immediate embargo on all trade with the system. Damocles scuttles Sunrise Bay. The economy collapses and starvation takes hold almost immediately. Grove is blockaded and Jericho is too far away to help. - Jack takes command of the Sons of The Reach fleet. - After Damocles leaves Foxglove The [[Foxglove Liberation Party]] ambushes the remaining Navy forces, destroying [[WDF Heracles]] and numerous system patrol craft, demonstrating their ability to harm the jewels of the fleet. An offering of peace from the insurgents is denied, and the Reach once again goes to war. - Grove and Foxglove formally incorporate the Whistler Union. This new government is immediately recognized by Jericho and denounced by the Council. - On July 30th, wy603, the crew of Legitimate Salvage activated an ancient alien device and extended a gravitic bubble a parsec around Whistler, completely ending the ability of [[Mao-MacGregor Jump Drive|M²]] drives to function within it.