[Center][hider=Abyss Front Fleet Distribution] [img]https://i.ibb.co/6JXhdhNg/AOBS-Turn-1-map.png[/img] [/hider][/Center] The Eastern Front of the known galaxy was a violent place. The Eastern Front of the known galaxy remained a violent place. The scars across the carapaced architecture spoke of its violence bestial and unseen. Wounds like trenches, stretching along the colossal length of the dreadnought fleet, glowed and glared under the sight of the Augustan observation systems. One could almost imagine a few fighters and gunships flying into those cavernous maws, if not for the cloud-like swarms of claw-winged masses that swarmed over the wounds. The red eyes glaring within blinked wildly as their winged shapes flew in coiling patterns like a living curtain giving privacy to whatever delicate actions transpired beneath. There were at least five of them, dreadnoughts by any reasonable stretch of the word, but intelligence on the Front's rearmament programs were hard to come by. Were these really "dreadnoughts" or simply standard battleships? They were not flattened and rigid like the Augustans - their topographies curving and bumpy, laden with overlapping plating and outwardly radiating claws on sloping, arthropod bodies. One could almost imagine such a thing, skittering in a dirty room after flickering lights activated but no boot was big enogh to crush them. They appeared more lumbering predatory in many ways than ship of war. Some semblance of familiarity could be found amongst them. Something that appeared like wreckage from tales of old Yrranian history - mighty capital ships from the apex of their rule, puppeted by coral-like clumps of inky, sickeningly rotted biomatter that quivered and teemed with machine and organic life intertwined. Enormous, hungry masses of contorting carapace and shimmering, bioluminscent biometallic fungi seeped out of and settled around ancient wounds older than many of the surrounding warships. Seated amongst the Abyssic fleet, it was morbidly humorous - the puppeted carcass of a long-fallen oppressor's might guided along by what were once its subjects. It wasn't a secret that the Front viewed the majority of its neighbours with a degree of suspicion. The Augustans were an empire and had not expressed much in the way of rebelliousness against the Yrrani. Some particularly bitter council heads would say they were inheritors of the Yrrani. Today, they were a necessary, hopeful partner and no doubt, they would recognize the battle damage inflicted upon the Abyssal dreadnoughts. It wasn't that of precision magnetic weaponry, laser lances, or armour-piercing weapons. Those were the wounds of creatures on the hunt that had spotted their quarry, the same ones that hounded the boundaries of both Front and Empire as the lurking terror of the Eastern Arm of the galaxy. There were other battlegroups that had lately been moving beyond the Front's somewhat shaky boundaries, a smaller one patrolling near the outskirts of the Iterae infestation between both territories, but that was the only one that was public knowledge. The Front had ghost fleets prowling, many of which were said to not even be present in realspace but creeping beneath it like parasites. This one had a more diplomatic mission in mind. It awaited a response as it hailed the Augustans. [Center]++++++++++[/Center] [i]"We are informed that your masters are a demanding lot. Your factories sweltering, your royal houses hungering, your bones aching, your ears deaf with the echoes of their demands."[/i] [i]"We may be of a different breed but the pressure of an iron heel is the same across all species. We have long since severed the limb to which it is attached."[/i] [i]"Your house stands divided. Their aims are those of expansion and power. That makes them callous, arrogant, and they understand not what their power rests upon."[/i] [i]"The name of the Mother is known here. The winds of change bear the scent of familiarity. We will discuss more in time."[/i] In the private chambers of a hidden hideaway, away from the scouring eyes of Hawkrose authorities, a quiet message played across a screen. Fragmented scrabbles and glyphs rehsaped into text. Far above, deep in the stars, a fleet of beasts accelerated towards the southern end of Prydwenite space. It blended into the flesh of the night yet it made no effort to conceal itself, its quiet private message aside. Its comms channels hailed the regional powers and its data relays transferred a mixture of docking information, itinerary overviews, and diplomatic files. The Front, for all of its miltiaristic aggression, had an eye for potential allies and there had been talks of dealings between the Pyrdwenites and its the Front. They had no history together but in a sense this was liberating; no prior emnity meant nothing to particularly impede any sort of dealings. The pyrdwenites had gotten off easy under the yoke of Yrranians but they hadn't emerged as inheritors of thier power It wasn't hard to imagine why they might; they were not pure altruists. The Pyrdwenites were beset with growing internal tensions and also were not particularly far from the Tar Yarra. It was openly discussed in some public Abyssic holo-broadcasts that the Pyrdwnenites, even with their ideological differences, would be a useful ally to have and that the galaxy was better with stable, united assortment of houses rather than a shaky one. Fears of becoming the plaything of Empire were echoed in the Far East, with skepticism towards the Augustans and House Eaglesworn frequently echoing btween the Abyssals and Pyrdwenite masses. A Front diplomatic envoy however, was not a tool of formenting revolution. Morality was a poor substitute for geopolitics and fervor held less weight than mutual strategic and economic benefit. Before it was the Abyss Front, it was the Wellspring Expanse and to many an entreprenur, that was still true. Their outward trade was not particularly well established, but the Pyrwenites were planned to be the first to truly enjoy the wealth that lay hidden behind anomalous rifts and swarms of ethereal creatures. Granted, preferences were towards House Hawkrose but there had been no rebukes towards the rest of the Empire. At best, maybe the Pyrdwenites had seen the people of the Abyss in old newscasts and now dated Yrranian illustrations; a strange and savage people that was mostly known for having forced out what was once the mightiest empire in known space. That was when it was still a collection of planetary insurrections and rogue militaries. What were they to expect now however?