PACT

**PACT** is a revolutionary front that has toppled the once mighty New Empire during the PACT Revolution and is spreading throughout the galaxy. Led by the mysterious Veniczar S. Arcadius and his cult of personality, PACT appears intent on dominating every human being in the galaxy.

Recieving it's acronym from "People's Alliance for Common Treatment", PACT originated from Compact, a resistance movement from within the New Empire that started at New Eden. Originally lead by an idealistic Venassar, Compact was at the beginning nothing more than some guerrilla fighters and rebels that protested against the New Empire ambushing Imperial Nobles, and in general stealing from them and similar low-key acts. However, at the end of The Alliance-Imperial War Compact managed to swell it's ranks with thousands of discontents thanks to the defeats at the war and the financial support of the newly formed Solar Alliance. Due to this and the perennial infighting of the Imperial Court, the Compact started becoming a dangerous threat to the Empire's survival. At 490, Arcadius emerged as Venassar of the Compact, promising to finally end the Empire. After almost 100 years of infighting and constant losses, the empire couldn't do anything while Arcadius liberated world after world. The end of the Empire came the year 494, when the betrayal of the now Veniczar B. Cullen let the Compact Fleet successfully launch a surprise attack on the remnants of the Imperial Fleet, destroying them and leading to the Sack of New Eden (ironically, despite being the origin of the resistance movement, New Eden was the last planet to be liberated due to strong Imperial defences on it's capital). Until that moment the Compact had been an intergalactic association with the only purpose of ending the Empire, but after this victory Arcadius decided to formally unite the territories under Compact as a nation with a new goal. After finally reforming Compact as PACT in 495, Arcadius set the capital at New Eden, and proclaimed PACT's aim: to successfully unite all the galaxy and build a new order where every person is treated equally. Using national pride, the idea that the Alliance was corrupt to the core, that it was dominated by the lobbies that only aimed to enrich themselves, and that the Neutral Rim was a group of planets either puppets of the Alliance or oppressed by dictatorships and corrupt governments, Arcadius managed to unite all the former Compact behind himself. Aiming to fulfill that objective, PACT launched an invasion on the Neutral Rim, violating the treaty of Vespa, conquering half of it by 503. At that year, PACT finally made a full scale attack on one of the remaining main powers on the Neutral Rim, Cera. Achieving a complete victory at the Invasion of Cera, PACT used it's momentum to complete the Neutral Rim conquest 2 months later. Days later it occupied Ryuvia, after betraying a diplomatic treaty they had with them, and using Ryuvia Prime as a starting point they tried to launch a full scale invasion of the Alliance. The latter however, was completely defeated at the Battle of Far Port.

PACT's hierarchy is strict and lineal, with all power centralized in the hands of their sumpreme leader, Veniczar S. Arcadius. This power is executed through the Veniczar office, which can probably be described as the most similar thing PACT has to a government's body. Overall, PACT can be easily compared to a totalitarian state, with restricted space voyage, no separation of powers, and other numerous similarities. Most high ranking officers (civilian or military, though PACT mixes both branches) have the title of Veniczar, with the letter next to the tittle signifying their ranking. So, Arcadius is Veniczar S. Arcadius, while his right hand man is Veniczar B. Fontana. Arcadius chose the name Veniczar as a spiritual successor the name of Venassar used by the leader of Compact.

### Space Force

Since Arcadius became their leader, first Compact and later PACT have pursued an expansionist policy through heavy use of military power. After finally destroying the New Empire, the newly proclaimed PACT absorbed the remaining imperial forces (including deserters at the last moment, like Cullen) into his own, and started using the famed resources of New Eden and the former planets of the Empire to rearm and strengthen even more their military power. The result is a fleet that can be only matched by that of the Solar Alliance in all the galaxy.

The PACT fleet is a strange mix of new technologies and cost-cutting measures. PACT ship designs are very different from the ones used by other factions such as the Solar Alliance or Cera, tending to have a knife or speartop-shaped, asymmetric prow that can be characterized as 'a collection of odd angles and flaring modules, giving the entire ship the geometry of a particularly unusual crystal shard.' On one side, every ship bigger than a frigate is equipped with the latest Shielding technology, with the one in carriers and battleships being especially formidable. It's missile and rocket capacities are also top-notch, with Bombers able to carry standard rockets and Battleships a nuclear warhead, besides storage space for two powerful missile salvos, and its frigates sacrificing the capability to launch rockets for a extremely large supply of missiles which works as a perfect support, and makes coordinated salvos especially deadly. However, all of it's ships are generally heavy and slow, and, despite it, not as sturdy as their Alliance counterparts. While equal in laser, they also show some deficiencies in their Kinetics cannon.

In general, however, the biggest problem is their logistics. While nominally a massive force in it;s own right, a big part of PACT's fleets are units either absorbed from surrounding worlds or that have fought for several decades. Being only 10 years since the end of the New Empire, their formers planets have had barely any time to recover, and the planets absorbed from the Neutral Rim have either been devastated by a PACT's invasion (like Cera) or had all their whole political, economic and legal system changed to that of PACT in a hurry, naturally destroying most of their economy (which relied on a liberal or auto sufficient models ). Due to this, PACT's production rate is very much inferior to that of the Alliance in every aspect, which limits any possibility of victory against the Alliance to evading a war of attrition and managing to defeat the enemy quickly and decisively in the field.

Nonetheless, PACT's still has one edge over the Alliance in particular: being a totalitarian state, the nation it's able to pool most of it's resources towards its military without sparing sacrifices. The Alliance, being a democracy, it's a lot less keen on long wars and maintaining absolute militarization. Due to this, even if a swift attack failed, PACT still would be able to simply turtle on their fortress worlds and use hit-and-run tactics, while awaiting for the Alliance population to either tire of the war or force their military to launch a reckless attack (the decisive action on the field which PACT's seeks). However, this in turn assumes the Alliance leadership fragments easily, whereas if they have a strong and steady united front and lasting rallying points they could likely then force their way through PACT's defensive lines without giving PACT the opportunity they seek. Additionally, this plan depends on the unity of PACT itself, which, while assuredly stronger then that of the Alliance's leaders, is thus more of a dependent factor for PACT - and if broken will consequentially splinter PACT far more severely and instantaneously then the Alliance, costing them any victory. In short, victory for PACT against the Alliance relies upon either striking swiftly and decisively and upon remaining wholly unified against their enemy - if either of these things fail, PACT will be on the defensive.

The backbone of the PACT fleet are its cruisers, which form most of the combat potential of the Invasion fleets (which tend to have at least 30 cruisers) and quick reaction forces. They are assisted by the cheaper missile frigates, which fill the line and provide invaluable support fire and the possibility of surprise and flanking attacks. However, when the objective is more important, PACT deploys its Battleships and Carriers, which, while a lot more expensive and scarce, provide a lot more projection of force and offensive power. Both are thought to fight at either long range (with missiles and Ryders) or very short range (both the flak cannons of the carrier and the forward guns of the battleship are notably inaccurate), so they can be vulnerable against enemy cruisers. For this reason, even when capital ships are deployed, cruisers are normally also used as an important support element to aide them. Bad collocation however, can result in total disaster when the elements of the fleet can't support the others such as the Battle of Far Port.

Despite its inadequacies, the PACT space force has seen decades of fighting, and so it's a lot more aware than the Alliance of the shift in military doctrine. However, with the core of the commanding officers being formed by old Imperial officers, and PACT's general policy of pushing ships as symbols of power (such as the Legion) instead of prioritizing efficiency, no push towards smaller and more agile ships has been made outside of the special Research & Development sections. Veniczar B. Fontana, the youngest commander of the fleet, has been given permission as Arcadius right hand to develop more advanced and novel designs, but this barely represents a significant part of PACT's overall fleet. It's more correct to think of Fontana's fleets as PACT's elite forces rather than mass produced designs that will replace its current ones.

On its Ryders, PACT is very much the same, relying on the classic duality of light anti-Ryder and heavy anti-ship units that have dominated War since its introduction in The Alliance-Imperial War. The first is a unit that can perform as a scout or as a support unit, where its numbers can shift the tide of battle. The second is a more armored siege unit, equipped with both missiles and a rocket-launcher system. Both are equipped with lasers, with the belief that with their main function accomplished they can still offer support fire. While their performance hasn't been bad, their anti-Ryder capabilities have been deemed as too low to fight properly against elite units so, as with ships, Fontana is also developing other units more specialized, such as a dedicated combat Ryder for anti-ship and anti-Ryder fire, and a counterintelligence unit to cripple enemy communications and systems for pre-emptive attacks.