The Nameless are mysterious and utterly alien, the Nameless are a bizarre menagerie of tentacles, claws and talons. They have recently turned hostile and begun to invade GCPS space, attacking outposts with their powerful technology and strange abilities.
About
Synopsis
The GCPS typically swallows up other races and their territories without hesitation. But this has not yet been the case with the mist-shrouded collection of planetoids and moons known as the 'Nameless Worlds'. Because, if the Council of Seven could be said to fear anything, it is the unknown.
Their language is unintelligible to most other races and they take so many shapes and forms, that researchers at the Exo-Threat Counteraction Unit, ETCU, aren't even sure exactly how many species actually comprise 'the Nameless'. It is clear they are largely aquatic and that many Nameless possess 'powers' related to their biology; hallucinogetic pheromones, purely psychic abilities, and so on. But, most importantly, the Nameless' military strength and long-term galactic ambition remain worryingly undefined.
Officially, the GCPS and the Nameless are at peace. Many Nameless come and go practically freely in corporate space. They even have some of the most successful DreadBall teams in the Five Spheres. Behind the scenes though, the Council is highly proactive in its surveillance of its tentacled guests. Corporate spy agencies, including Enforcer Special Operations Command, continually monitor the Nameless as they try to divine their true intent towards humanity - and their weaknesses.
It is a key desire of the Council not to provoke the Nameless though. Not yet. Humanity has learned in the past, to its great cost, not to start a fight it does not know it can win. So when trouble does flare up, when the occasional, possibly rogue, group of Nameless does intrude on corporate space, the Council has decreed this should be treated more as an opportunity than as a threat. It is a chance to cross swords with an inscrutable enemy and learn how it fights. What, exactly, it can do. Ideally, of course, this should not be done by identifiably corporate troops. Someone completely deniable and expandable is a far better choice. Mercenaries and criminal scum are perfect for a job like this.
A Fragile Peace
At the eastern edge of the Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere, a fragile peace stands on the verge of collapse. Since the beginning of Fifth Sphere expansion, the Mariana Curtain has acted as a barrier between the GCPS and the Nameless Federation. To this day, the baffling powers of this murky nebula still prevent corporate explorers from reaching the worlds that lie within it. But starships - and beings - can travel the other way. And so they have, using unconventional alien technology to first attack GCPS worlds along the Mariana border, and now sites even further into corporate space.
The Council of Seven have responded in the only way they can - ordering the sites of the Nameless incursions to be cut off from the rest of the GCPS. Each one has become a Deadzone, isolated behind a barrier of Enforcer warships and Strike Teams. As the Nameless invaders fight to hold onto the territories they have claimed and corporate troops battle to push them back off, other galactic factions rush in to take their share of the spoils. It is a dangerous time to travel the stars anywhere near Mariana. Those that do so risk being trapped there forever.
Endless Nameless
Creatures hailing from the Nameless Worlds have been visiting the GCPS for nearly a full G-standard century. They come in a highly diverse range of shapes and sizes, from enormous Orthocs, many of whom have found great fame and fortune on neodurium DreadBall pitches, to the much smaller and more numerous Undulans and Caratids. Some are hard-shelled, others resemble little more than a mass of tentacles. But their odd appearance was no barrier to life in corporate space where countless forms of alien life already live.
Communications have never been easy though. The sobriquet 'the Nameless' was initially coined simply because human being cannot physically pronounce the bubbling squawks and hisses of the Nameless language. After a few tense meetings between armed GCPS representatives and alarmed Nameless emissaries, it was found that some Argolean specialists were able to translate most of what the gurgling aliens were trying to say. Still though, many of the answers the Nameless appeared to be giving to corporate questions barely made any sense.
For one thing, the Nameless seemed to be saying that they were all part of the same race, regardless of the obvious physical differences amongst their members. How many Nameless there were or how many worlds they occupied beyond the Mariana Curtain proved similarly difficult to establish. The Nameless concept of mathematics is entirely different to that of mankind or any of its allies and the Argoleans were unable to directly translate the numerical answers their subjects gave. The closest, best guess answer the ETCU's most sophisticated minds could come up with to the question of how many worlds the Nameless lived on was 'lots'.
They were prepared to vouch for the peaceful intentions of the new arrivals though, and, for the Council of Seven, rulers of the GCPS, this would have to be enough.
We Do Not Come in Peace
The vast majority of the Nameless live as members of the sects that dominate their worlds. Many of these groups are ancient and of religious origins but today their power is based largely on geography. Control of some Nameless worlds is split amongst several of these groups, but the majority are held by a handful of the largest, most prominent sects. The Federations as a whole is served by a central governing authority to which sects elect members and pay a tithe.
Previously thought to be a benign and peaceful race by the GCPS, many are starting to change their minds about the intentions of the so-called Nameless. Occasional raids on outposts and lone starships were written off as pirate activity, however it soon became clear the seemingly gentle Nameless had hostile intentions.
Though makeshift translation, it has emerged that back on the homeworlds of the Nameless, a religious rift is splitting the species apart. The vast majority of the Nameless live as members of the sects that dominate their worlds. Historically, the Federation of these groups has largely seen humanity and the rise of the GCPS with total indifference… but that has begun to change.
A particularly vicious group – known as the Ul-Ug’urub – has come to the conclusion that the GCPS is vulnerable and ripe for conquest. To the Ul-Ug, the GCPS is like the near-dead mass of a stellar whale. It is a floating feast, one that struggles feebly against the galactic tide, knowing that it will, eventually, inevitably, succumb to a circling predator. Many are already nibbling at its corpse. There is blood in the water, according to the Ul-Ug, and they have begun a movement to devour it.
The Federation as a whole though is not yet inclined toward war with the GCPS. But the Nameless tend to swim in a shoal. As long as the upstart sects continue to win victories against the GCPS, claim more territories and resources for themselves, their movement will grow. If they are not stopped, all-out war is inevitable.
Massacre
The attacks started out small in scale. A prospecting outfit disappears. A deep-space listening station is found abandoned. A starship is recovered, drifting and missing its crew. Incidents that, at the time, were easily attributed to pirate activity or simple inter-corporate warfare. Before long though, the size and seriousness of the attacks escalated. Clearly, not all the Nameless were benign in their intent.
An Enforcer patrol group responding to a distress call from a fortified mining outpost on a fringe world near Mariana arrived too late to prevent a massacre.
Something had changed. While most Nameless still seemed content to visit the GCPS, frequenting its Buy-M-Alls and mega-stadiums like every other tourist species, others were bringing with them death and terror. The Council of Seven ordered its intelligence agencies to find out why.
"We found most of the miners holed up underground. They were alive. Cold, and scared, but alive. The garrison that was supposed to protect them was a different story. Two hundred marines, all dead. They'd put up a hell of a fight before they went out though. Bits of alien bodies all over the place. I couldn't make an exact count. Pieces were too small. But I had a good idea who they were. What they were. Figured I had to be sure before I started a war. So I called in ETCU" - X0989, On-Site Commander, Enforcer Patrol Group, Empyrion V
Interests of the State
The section of ETCU tasked with the study of the Nameless has historically been a small one. As the number of Nameless attacks has grown in number and frequency, it has expanded rapidly. To answer the Council's questions, ETCU began to offer significant bounties for the capture and return of live hostile Nameless specimens. The agency's interrogation suites were very quickly filled.
Known for bringing in dead and alive Nameless were the Eiras Contract Mercenaries after defending Blaine's personal ship, the Dictator, from a Nameless attack. They also encountered and thwarted the Nameless' plans on Argolis.
The detained Nameless did not tell the GCPS everything it wanted to know, but they did reveal chilling details of what lies beyond Mariana. To their consternation, ETCU's researchers learned that the attacks that had been seen so far were only the first steps of a campaign to defeat the GCPS itself.
The Response
For the Council of Seven, the news from ETCU was as alarming as could be imagined. They still had no idea of the true strength of their alien neighbours, nor a way to completely curtail their incursions into GCPS space. But, if what they were being told was correct, they could no longer tolerate or ignore the threat to their border. A message had to be sent.
The GCPS would not show a vulnerable underbelly. It was no easy prey, the Council would show all comers that it was the most dangerous predator in the galactic sea.
The order was immediately relayed to Enforcer Command. No unauthorised alien visiting the GCPS and trying to take its property would ever be allowed to leave again.
Deadzone protocols to halt any Nameless attack on corporate territory should be drawn up immediately.
Gallery
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The Nameless Banner -
The Nameless Model
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