The Ascendant Saber Crisis

## Background

After the Second Dark Vanguard was defeated in 4675, there were 20 years of uninterrupted peace in Alliance Space. However, on November 23rd, 4695, a shipyard of unprecedented size was detected in the territory of the Darkguard. In it was the *Ascendant Saber*, a vessel of a scale never before seen, measured by Alliance remote detection software to be 100,000 kilometers long, dwarfing the largest known vessels at the time, the Alliance SuperDreadnought *Heroic* and the partially constructed vessel of the same class, *Defender*, both of which measured in at only 1,000 kilometers.

## Crisis

The *Ascendant Saber*'s construction had only just begun when it was detected, but the Darkguard had spent the 20 years of peace to construct a powerful navy of over 16 million capital ships, and 10 times as many destroyers and frigates. As soon as the new Darkguard war machine was discovered, the Alliance immediately began attempting to come up with plans to destroy the ship. However, these were limited by the fact that once the ship's newly designed armor was in place, the ship would be able to resist any assault. Additionally, the Alliance's forces were still recovering from the war 20 years previous, with the Alliance's navy strength totalling only 1 million capital ships, and 3 million destroyers and frigates. Alliance's command staff, knowing that in a full assault their forces would be annihilated, had to think of something fast, or the entire Alliance would be destroyed. Eventually, a plan was devised by Ultra, Krypt, Felis, Jayfeather, Shadow, Ender, and Amber to do something that was a vast break in the usual protocol for situations like the current emergency.

## Stage 1

On December 21, 4695, the Alliance launched an attack against a Darkguard world that served as one of their main frontline naval bases, destroying the facility along with several hundred warships posted there, before retreating to Alliance space far ahead of Darkguard reinforcements. As this attack occured, an infiltration team managed to obtain blueprints and other data for the *Ascendant Saber*. This was followed by over a dozen other attacks on important Darkguard facilities near Alliance space, costing them immense amounts of material, along with a total of 7,298 warships. These attacks were carefully planned to make the Darkguard redirect more and more of their combat forces to defend the *Ascendant Saber*'s shipyard, where the mighty vessel's armored hull was nearing completion.

## Stage 2

Eventually, 97% of the Darkguard's military was concentrated at the shipyards where their newest weapon's hull had been completed on November 18th, 4696. Meanwhile, the Alliance's second SuperDreadnought, the *Defender*, had been completed, being an instrumental part of the Alliance's plan. The vessel was filled completely with high-yield antimatter explosives, which were rigged to trigger at the end of an incredibly sarcastic message recorded by Ultra, Krypt, and Jayfeather, that would be transmitted out to the Darkguard. The *Defender* was then remotely piloted through FTL, exiting in the middle of the defending forces of the shipyards. The message was played over all comms channels, and then the explosives detonated, destroying the opposing fleet, shipyard, and 12 previously unknown Alchon V defense platforms, but leaving *Ascendant Saber* untouched thanks to its experimental armor. The ship was quickly moved to Alliance territory, where it was upgraded with GDA technology, and its construction was completed, giving the Alliance a powerful new weapon while also having eliminated almost all of the Darkguard military.