Major Faction Thule Thrashed | Invasion Victory

Detailed Description

In the wake of their success at Felucia, the Brotherhood of the Maw had gained access to vital nysillin, foodstuffs, and warbeasts seized during the raid. These resources would go a long way toward rebuilding their badly-depleted ground forces, which had seen horrific casualties on Csilla and Ilum. However, none of it would address the problem of the badly battered Maw warfleet, which had been almost entirely destroyed in the Csilla system and then harried all the way back to the Nihil Retreat by vengeful pursuers. While the shipyards of Osseriton and O'reen were working overtime to replace the lost ships, they desperately needed more fuel for their forges in order to continue.

Again, these resources could have been seized from the reeling words of the Chiss Ascendancy or the isolated planets of the far Unknown Regions... but the rising New Sith Order had other plans. Darth Solipsis, the Dark Voice secretly controlling the Brotherhood, intended to prove that such secret manipulations were the true Sith way, rather than the open rule heralded by so many other Sith Lords of this chaotic era. Having declared all Sith who refused to join his New Sith Order to be heretics, he had already proved the strength of his belief system against the Sith Eternal. Now he wished to do so against the mighty Sith Empire, the largest and most powerful Sith government in the galaxy.

This led the Brotherhood to target the Thyrra system. Their reasoning was manyfold. First, the system contained the forested world of Enenpa, where the Empire operated strip mines and logging camps that fueled their war machine. Capturing the raw materials held in the planet's industrial depots would enable the Maw to feed its forges for some time. Second, the system contained the dark planet Thule. Although the planet had been utterly depopulated in a horrific ritual manifested by the former emperor Carnifex, it was still home to the ancient Sith Ziggurat at the center of the now-empty city of Hurom. The vaults beneath the Great Ziggurat were full of powerful Dark Side artifacts.

Finally, the Thyrra system was a key element of the Empire's border defenses. Destabilizing it would create chaos the Brotherhood could exploit, and prove the power of the New Sith over the established Sith regimes.

Once again, the Brotherhood could not mount a massive invasion; they simply did not have the ships. Instead, their plan was to strike fast and hard, then vanish along secret Hyperspace Paths before one of the vast Sith-Imperial armadas could pin them down and destroy them. With the Empire at war with the New Imperial Order in the region, its attention distracted by the NIO assault on Vjun, those vast fleets would take some time to respond to a different threat. Taskmaster Tu'teggacha deployed a small raiding fleet of five ships, three capital-class vessels and two escorts, to the system. They immediately moved to blockade the Sith military base on Sivvi, Thule's asteroid moon.

While Brotherhood transports streaked toward Thule and Enenpa, the raid fleet moved into blockade positions. At first it seemed that they might be totally unopposed, the system's defenders drawn away by other conflicts. But this was actually a clever ruse, and when the Taskmaster's little flotilla moved in, the system defense fleet emerged from Thule's shadow to trap them against the guns of the Sivvi moonbase. Pressed hard from both sides, the flotilla began to take heavy damage, and even losses. Only the timely arrival of Admiral Aldo Garrick of the neo-Imperial Final Dawn allowed them to hold out, desperately fighting to prevent reinforcements from reaching the raid's real targets.

Meanwhile, raiding parties of marauders streaked down upon Enenpa. Hiding in the planet's industrially-poisoned forests, they launched surprise attacks on several depots holding key resources. Zachariel Steelblood and his Bloodsworn led the charge, attacking multiple warehouse complexes at once. Acting as a sub-chief, The Mongrel deployed vicious bogaranths to smash through the perimeter fences. However, the raiders soon found that the depots were better defended than expected. The Mongrel encountered the elite, crimson-armored soldiers of the Kainate, who killed many bogaranths and led a brutally efficient defense. And these soldiers were not the only defenders.

Duels erupted across the Bloodwood of Enenpa as Ren and New Sith encountered the warriors and sorcerers of the Sith Empire. Zachariel Steelblood clashed with his old foe, the Eternal Empress Ingrid L'lerim-Vandiir, trading philosophical points as readily as blows. A four-way duel broke out in the deep forest, pitting the warlord Maestus and the Ren warrior Sinh against the deadly Sith disciples Quinn Varanin and Alina Tremiru. Perhaps most consequentially for the wider battle, the Dathomiri witch Tegan Starfall clashed with the nature-wielding Lady Marrow. Marrow summoned the planetwide forest's ancient roots, covering them in deadly thorns and wielding them against the raiders.

In response, Starfall animated the corpses of the dead and unleashed decaying power against the forest, enraging her rival and leading to a fierce duel.

Chaos reigned in the depot as thorns, corpses, marauders, and Sith legionnaires battled in close quarters. Fighting with fierce discipline and advanced technology, UX-0626 and the elite of the Kainate began to gain the upper hand, cutting through marauders and zombies alike. But the Brotherhood quickly unleashed its twofold contingency plan to turn the tide. First, the raid shuttles they had brought to load up the stolen raw materials did not arrive empty; instead they unleashed holds full of Moon Children, insane clones that helped push back the Sith troops long enough for the raiders to seize resources and escape. Despite their heavy casualties, they managed to accomplish their goal.

Second, the prototype WS-1 World Devastators developed by the Maw in secret streaked down on Enenpa, ripping fresh resources directly from the world's surface and crust in a devastating surprise attack.

At the same time, two Dark Lords squared off on Thule itself. Darth Solipsis, his shuttle crippled by a sorcerous lightning storm, crash landed in the streets of Hurom. Escaping the wreckage, he sensed the telepathic challenge of Sith Emperor Arctus Silmar, who waited at the top of the Great Ziggurat. Others clashed in the streets as he approached: Kyrel Ren fought Darth Mori, and Khaostra Devoid battled the Lady of Blood Nyxeris. The Brotherhood's allies among the Warlords of the Sith, and even the infamous NIO-affiliated necromancer Lord Halketh, also arrived and fought through Hurom's streets, hoping to seize powerful relics from the ancient Doomvault.

At the Great Ziggurat's summit, the Sith Emperor and the Dark Voice faced each other. Their clash shook the very foundations of Hurom, obliterating ancient stone as they hurled sorceries of terrifying power at once another. Many times each of them nearly struck down the other, and in the end only ruin was left all around them. Thule, already empty of people, was left even more desolate in the wake of their clash. Through Solipsis did not overcome Silmar outright, he held his own, proving the strength of his New Sith philosophy against the Sith Emperor even in his place of power. It was enough to force the Sith-Imperials back and allow the raid fleet to retrieve the raiders.

With the goals of the raid complete, the Brotherhood escaped into hyperspace, once again leaving ruin behind them.