Scaris "The Grinder"

## **Founding and Development**

Scaris in the present day and its shattered moon Illious

One of the first worlds colonized by the Empire during their reach out into the Nova Expanse, Scaris was a gorgeous planet perfect for colonization. It was the deepest world in the Expanse the Imperials settled on and would make the perfect jumping off point for further efforts. They would also discover it was the center of multiple ftl lanes. This made a potentially fantastic hub for trade and travel in and out of the Expanse. The discovery of a Forerunner installation in 2560 only furthered the world’s value to the Empire.

Scaris would see steady development through the Golden Age and even survive the Reaper War completely unscathed. Concern would grow, however, when in 2576 reports came of unknown alien vessels probing the fringes of the system. Worried of a possible Karasi attack, a force whom the GA had been aware of for some time, the Empire constructed an orbital shield gate above Scaris, anti-orbital defenses around its cities and a massive super garrison base on its moon of Illious along with additional anti-orbital defenses. During construction of this bases’ underground tunnels later in the year, the Imperials would unearth a small Forerunner facility with caches of data and an artifact of unknown purpose. The Imperials theorized this facility to have some connection to the larger installation on the planet surface and sent the artifact to a lab setup nearby the installation while recording the data cache at the garrison base for later analysis. Further seismic scans would also reveal a massive object of some kind buried beneath the moon’s surface near the base.

## **First Contact and Invasion**

Any excavation plans the Imperials had would be abruptly put on hold in early 2577 when the unknown alien force that had been spying on the system revealed itself. This would mark the Empire’s first encounter with the Vaylex faction known as the Vexien Star Order who would immediately launch a massive invasion of Scaris. The VSO had already scouted the system years before the Empire’s arrival and had made plans for their own colonization once they were satisfied with the development of the neighboring Gelmia system. When the vaylex found the Imperials had already set up on the world, they were infuriated and immediately drew up plans to drive the aliens off what they saw as rightfully theirs. While the VSO would engage the Imperials on a few other fronts shortly after this first encounter, the conflict at Scaris would be the highlight of this new war. The orbital stalemate above the planet would last over a week and only got more complicated when the Karasi Dominion joined the conflict. The Karasi had been eyeing the system itself for quite some time and were also aware of its strategic value. The Empire knew that if they lost Scaris, the rest of the Expanse Colony Sectors would be at risk. If the VSO or Karasi took Scaris, it would allow them to further their own conquests outward.

The Empire would hold steady for the first stages of the battle with their anti-orbital defenses catching the enemy fleets in a near crossfire along with the Imperial garrison fleet proving quite a match for the two reckless attackers. Though it was a three-way fight throughout, the vaylex would focus their efforts more on breaking the shield gate while the Karasi went after the Illious base. The Dominion was eager to establish a staging area on the moon and began landing troops to take the base directly. The Imperials were well-ready for such an attack and fended off wave after wave of attackers despite relentless bombardment from the Karasi fleet. Eventually the Karasi realized their mounting losses would have an impact on their ability to take the planet itself. They assembled a final, large strike team to deliver a bomb into the base interior in the hopes such an assault would swiftly remove the city-like fortification. Due to an overestimation of the explosive required to destroy the Imperial base, a rare occurrence for Karasi commanders, a bomb of far greater power than needed was deployed with the team. Poor communication amidst the chaos also left the team deploying the device as unaware of its strength as their Imperial foes. The Karasi would sustain heavy casualties during this assault, but eventually place the bomb. Before they evacuated, they would also pry into many of the base’s data stores in the hopes of acquiring intel to aid in their surface invasion. The Karasi would get away with not just this, but also the Forerunner data from earlier the Imperials had yet to analyze.

## **Destruction of Illious**

When the Karasi activated the bomb, the battle would take an apocalyptic turn. The bomb was strong enough to completely scatter a large asteroid, this combined with its explosion rupturing in the garrison bases’ hypermatter reactor, causing it to overload would result in more than a quarter of Illious being shattered. The explosion would throw all sides of the battle into disarray as any forces near the moon were vaporized and debris from the blast was sent flying towards Scaris. Chunks of the planetoid would smash through ships and orbital facilities including the Imperial shield gate. With its only protection from the cataclysm destroyed, Scaris would bear the full onslaught of debris raining down from ruined stations and ships to parts of its own moon. Over the course of a single day, entire continents were rendered uninhabitable, seas boiled and the planets’ population was halved. In the following days, the Imperial forces were almost completely routed as the Karasi and VSO punched through what scraps remained of the garrison fleet and poured planetside. There was little the shaken Imperial defenders could do to stop them as they rallied what forces they had left to shore up any point that was defensible. When the invading alien forces moved into the broken cities, Imperial disaster relief efforts mixed with brutal urban fighting with first responders having to dodge both debris and weapon fire. Along with planetary devastation, the moon explosion had also unveiled the large object buried under Illious’ surface to be a Forerunner megastructure. What made this even stranger was when the structure, miraculously intact from the blast, moved itself into geosynchronous orbit above the small continent of Cydell specifically right above the Forerunner installation the Imperials had uncovered over a decade prior. This strange occurrence gave all parties a vested interest in the continent the station orbited above as to find out what connection the two relics had. The Karasi in particular took an uncanny amount of caution in its operations around the continent. The preservation of the landmass by the least caring of the three parties led the VSO to also minimize collateral damage to it. Lastly, the lack of attacks and damage being done to the continent gave the Empire the perfect bastion to hunker down and coordinate further defense.

## **Attrition and Stalemate**

The irreparable damage caused to the world they called home for years infuriated what remained of the civilian populace. Rather than hide in evac centers and bunkers, many citizens formed militias with the Imperial armed forces and fought side by side with the soldiers defending what was left of their home. Though the effort was noble, it would be futile as the next year saw the Imperials pushed back city by city and field by field. Though grim as the situation was, Scaris’ plight was far from unnoticed with the Empire sending continual resupply fleets that would punch through enemy blockades to evac civilians, restock equipment and rotate troops out in cycles. Even if it was a losing fight, the Imperial defense remained stubborn, forcing the Karasi and VSO to painstakingly root out every last fighting body with trench warfare and guerilla tactics becoming commonplace. Eventually the Karasi grew tired of this and began haphazardly slagging Imperial and VSO strongholds through bombardments without care of the galaxy’s forbidding of such ecologically devastating acts. This only further damaged Scaris’ environment and by 2578 ruthless bombardment and bloody fighting had reduced the Imperial defense and any land worth living on to the tiny continent of Cydell, the only landmass left mostly untouched by the attackers through the invasion.

## **Cydell's Last Stand**

Aside from the insignificant pockets of forces dotted around them, only two Imperial strongholds on Cydell stood in the face of the overwhelming invaders. These were the planet’s capital city of Iveron and the large garrison base around the Forerunner installation known as the Cydell Keep. By this point all remaining Imperial leadership on Scaris had deteriorated save for one man, an eccentric, battle-hardened and slightly mad Imperial Army Colonel by the name of Hal Rowen. Colonel Rowen would rally the scattered pockets of forces around the two strongholds and divide them up equally between each one leaving only small scout posts as early warning from the inevitable final attacks that were to come. Much to the defender’s relief, the latest reinforcement fleet had arrived to evacuate the last of the surviving civilian population from Iveron. While the VSO readied themselves in front of Iveron for a full frontal assault, the Karasi would bide their time and set up bases around the rear of the Cydell Keep. The Dominion simply lay in wait for their two foes to wear themselves down.

On January 27th, 2578, the Star Order would begin their assault on Iveron. Wave upon wave of vaylex descended onto the city as Imperial forces fought tooth and claw to cover the retreating civilian population. Though the citizenry and been totally evacuated in a couple of days, the vicious fighting continued as the defenders of Iveron bought whatever time they could for Rowen to pull in every last remaining unit for their last stand at the Cydell Keep. Over the two week battle for the city, the Imperials would eventually expend all of their ammunition before the VSO assault force ran out of troops. This led to the Imperial troops making a final stand in hand to hand fighting with whatever they had left. They managed to hold onto the city for another three days before finally being completely overrun and wiped out. Any survivors fled to the Cydell Keep and its defenders hunkered down for the coming storm.

By this point, the Cydell Keep had become a nearly impregnable fortress and web of defensive networks. Trenchlines, vibrobarbed wire, durasteel walls and fortresses layered around the land around the Forerunner installation as the hardy and vengeful Imperial defenders dared their foes to come try to root them out and so they did. For nine months the VSO and Karasi would continuously launch attack after attack at the trench lines, however, the Empire would manage to repel every single one. During one of these attacks, a team of VSO infiltrators would manage to steal the artifact the Empire had recovered from the small Forerunner facility on Illious before its destruction. This artifact would be quickly shipped off to the VSO world of Gelmia for further analysis.

## **Present Day**

The stalemate of routine assaults has continued until late September of 2578 where the outbreak of the Second Galactic War has diverted Imperial resources elsewhere, significantly delaying the scheduled reinforcement fleets. Currently, Colonel Rowen and his forces continue to hold the line, but are gradually being whittled away and suffering from heavy battle fatigue. The area in and around the Keep has been reduced to an apocalyptic hellscape of trenches, mud, blood, fire and metal. Against all the odds, however, one thing is certain: so long as the Cydell Keep stands so does Scaris.