ARK Mandate

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The ARK Mandate is a pan-galactic cultural and natural preservation project established by the Aglostarros University Museum, with the stated mission goal of “preserving and protecting the rare and unique”.

The ARK Mandate comprises a number of teams operating out of retrofitted *Zius*-class starships, tasked with visiting endangered and terminal worlds to retrieve unique organic speciments for preservation, on bespoke space stations located throughout the galaxy. The Mandate’s fleet of modified starships includes the *Venture*, which is crewed by former Motherlode Mining employees Alther, Umi and captain Orin Drace. The teams are expected to contend with natural disasters such as climate decline and stellar anomalies, as well as opposition from from other sentients. ARK’s operating structure also includes waystations to monitor missions and receive specimens and artefacts for preservation. ARK starships are required to check in with their assigned waystation to ensure their safety.

The Mandate was established approximately one month after the destruction of the planet Harthoe, in direct response to the catastrophic event. It was spearheaded by the Curator of the AUM, Endelle Stroth, who justified the Mandate by claiming that the galactic community had a duty to defend the wonders of the galaxy from those who would threaten or hoard them. In this context, the ARK Mandate was seen by some as a rebuke of private collectors such as Baroness Dorn Oramande. Stroth also clarified that the Mandate was separate from Project Centennial, but that the two were “connected in spirit”, the former a logical progression from the latter, and also that it had no ties to the widespread militarisation in the Conglomerate Exploration Zone.

Though the AUM took the lead on developing the ARK Mandate, it was also seen as the first major colleboration between the member states of the Trifold Union. Upon the project’s launch, the AlTime news network ran a feature exhibiting fold-out diagrams of ARK starships and stations.

The ARK Mandate is opposed by the Galactic Liberation of Wonder movement, which percieves ARK’s mission as a form of colonialism and “the monopolisation of cultural preservation”. As part of GLoW’s campaign, it used limpets to commandeer at least six of ARK’s starships, including the *Venture*, and direct them to new coordinates. The hijacked ships also included one which visited the Reush Cluster shortly before it was devastating by a local supernova. The ships were believed destroyed by the Museum personnel overseeing the ARK Mandate.

At the time of the losses, GLoW had yet to issue formal demands, leading Curator Stroth to label them “dishonourable anarchists” resorting to “scare tactics” in an emergency meeting with ARK’s investors. Despite her reassurances, the investors’ confidence was shaken, leading the Mandate’s funding to rapidly dwindle. Without this, it could no longer replace the starships it had lost. At a memorial for the crew of the *Venture*, Erea Drace called on Stroth to terminate the ARK Mandate, despite its good intentions.

ARK retrieval teams later visited the Serinyr star system in the Medial Ring, where they searched the remains of the planet Orakle for any artefacts that might have survived the planet’s destruction at the hands of a ‘Heartbreaker’ Bomb. One of the few items they recovered was the Sceptre of Viriath, along with some accompanying records of the Viriath Imperium’s history.

The ARK station holding the Sceptre was later attacked by GLoW, and the relic was believed destroyed. In reality, the Sceptre was taken to GLoW’s headquarters, to be rehomed with the nearest neighbouring civilisation to Orakle which would promise to treat the artefact with respect, as explained by Emret to Alther. Emret also noted that GLoW only ever aims to disable ARK Mandate targets, and never to kill.

Within the text of their Manifesto, the Galactic Liberation of Wonder movement accused the ARK Mandate of “hoard[ing] the vestiges of lost worlds, depriving them of the respect they are due.”

Press reports suggested that GLoW’s attacks on the ARK Mandate were among the many threats to galactic stability to be addressed at a meeting between representatives of the Trifold Union’s member states and Curator Stroth, at the Threshold of the Ninth Plane on Andar Prime. These reports indicated that certain ARK, mercenary and Queil military assets could be merged into a unified defence force to solve such threats. Privately, Stroth speculated that ARK’s presence in the galaxy, along with other expansionist projects such as the founding of resort worlds and the movements of the Centurions themselves, may indeed have invited the challenges and disasters now faced by the Union.

Following GLoW’s escalation of its attacks against Trifold Union targets, the ARK Mandate moved from the purview of the Aglostarros University Museum to become part of the Union Defence Alliance, alongside certain Queil military assets and most private colonial security forces, with a headquarters on Kidan. ARK teams continued to operate in this framework, but increasingly reported that GLoW was preempting their operations and awaiting them on terminal worlds.