For years, the Core has been integrating powerful AI technologies into their vessels, and replicating deadly AI fighter drones. All of these secrets were ripped from the unwilling depths of Planet Gammu. Meticulous alignment training saw replica Gammu personas tortured to death in repeating batteries of simulations, until the Core were content these protocols were incapable of disobedience. Sentient, autonomous AI was unanimously banned in the Houses by the earliest of pan-Colony treaties. What the Core needs is a field demonstration of their chained golems' efficacy: a prize so tantalizing the law will no longer apply. A sales pitch to induce terror that this new capability could be obtained by a rival; the spark to inflame a bidding war between neighbours.

The Battleship Mars is the most heavily modified vessel in the fleet, and has assumed command of this most deadly of marketing exercises. The Core battlegroup now prowls Omicron Zeta at the head of a cloud of corrupted AI drones. For a proper demonstration to the Houses, they need to highlight their deadly power against fellow humans. The defenders of Cairo Station have long been a nuisance, The Order persistently sabotaging the Core's ambitions of reckless self-enrichment in the upper Omicrons. Now however, Order garrisons have been stretched thin by deployments to simultaneous crisis points across Sirius. Many local agents have been rushed to Omicron Theta, where they are now battling Wild incursions around Planet Pygar.


The Core are not the only opportunists to strike. Veiled powers observe with glee, watching carefully calculated feints plant the bait that is seized; long awaited plans are set in motion. In Tohoku, Infiltrators and Thralls stoke fury, demanding retribution for the dishonour of the raid on the Ichigaya Drydock. Paranoia wracks the KOI, fuelled by the Chochinbi Special Operations Division -- Liberty and Order saboteurs hide in every shadow; Kusari is in mortal peril -- decisive action must be taken. The Wild have a target in mind: Carthage Capital Yards, the beating heart of the Order's forces in the deep Omicrons. Carefully, they manoeuvre their puppets to strike, timing the operation to coincide with the suspected movements of the Core in Omicron Zeta. The KOI muster their vessels, and rendezvous with the ghost ship Hakodate.

As the creeping doom of battle approaches, the Nomads are conspicuously absent. They remain quiet on all fronts, vanishing across the Omicrons. The Zoners sigh a breath of relief. Despite this, the most grizzled veterans of the Order feel nothing but a deep sense of dread. They cast their minds back 16 years to the Fall of Toledo. The receding tide before the tsunami struck.