Corona Battlegroup - Printable Version

The Corona Battlegroup was first founded in 400 A.S, by a Captain Jonathon Charles. Its initial purpose was to stave off invasion of Liberty through Colorado, during one of Liberties more paranoid times, during which, the original fleet saw very limited action, mainly hunting down pirates and terrorists. Liberty, at last deciding that their borders where safe, sent order to recall most elements of the fleet, but left several capital ships and fighter support there to patrol the systems. The diminished fleet of ships kept their call sign and the title Battlegroup, despite their vastly reduced numbers, more out of affection than operability, and spent the next twenty years continuing their standing orders to the best of their ability, until a flight of fighter craft followed a trio of pirates into a Jump Hole, and emerged in a cloud of radioactive gas in Kepler.
One the flight flew into the cloud, they found their instruments began to malfunction, giving off ghost contacts, and obscuring the real signals, and after a pair of the Patrols wingmen near collided due to poor visibility, the flight returned to the Jump Hole, and abandoned the chase. Arriving back at their base of operations, and having given their report, the pilots returned to duty, however the mechanics grounded their craft. Some of the colourful dust from the cloud had clung onto their hulls, apparently highly magnetic, and instruments brought near the fighters shorted out. Seeing the military applications of stealth ships that could not be spotted by any form of electronic device, the Commander of the Battlegroup reported to the Liberty Navy, and after LN scientists confirmed the dust had strange effects, a full science team was sent to the group to study the phenomenon. After several decades, there had been no breakthrough in the stealth craft technology, the dust would fry any guidance systems of craft it was applied to, regardless of protection, and the project was abandoned. During this period however, the Battlegroup and the Science team had become intertwined and reinforced, with scientists having set up small labs on some of the bigger Battlegroup ships. Seeing this, the LN decided it would be more prudent to leave the Battlegroup in its current condition, at least, until paperwork was filed, and the entire force, scientists included where re-positioned to Magellan. During the next 8 years, the LN decided to try to cut back on funding, slowly withdrawing supplies and giving the division more cargo craft, to trade for supplies. Its commander purchased several goods transport craft to supplement these, and gave them to several of his pilots, who began to trade between nearby planets and bases. At this time, due to skirmishes and pirates, the Transports and science vessels outnumbered the warships, and even those had been refitted to carry sparse Labs.
When the LN finally remade contact with the group, in 817 A.S. it was already mostly self sufficient, and thus it was decided it would be easier to organise the force, than to disband it and relocate resources. Assigning a new Commander to the several century year old group, they added it back to their files, and it continued in its newly formatted, resupplied and efficient state under the command of Captain Scarlet Orias, for less than one year. Due to cuts in funding by the Government, the Corona Battlegroup was disbanded, and its officers given a honourable discharge. However, it was also given a one lump sum of credits, to reimburse the original commanders private investments, which the discharged officers decided to use to expand the Logistics Division, and set themselves up today in neutral Space as a private Research and Development Company, continuing the same work, for different bidders.