Omicron Alpha
23-12-2007, 05:38
Omicron Alpha was a vast interstellar nation established by a race of intelligent aliens who called themselves Omicronans. Based out of the Omicron Alpha star system, their domain extended across some two thousand lightyears and survived for almost ten centuries, and had a population numbering in the billions. Their empire finally came to an end some forty years ago, with the Omicron Alpha system being decimated by an unknown force and the few survivors escaping on what have since become generational starships.
history
Born from the unification of over fifty nationstates that inhabited the world at the time, the planetary government of Omicron Alpha was initially created as a confederation of semi-autonomous states in the year 1. O.A. It was the result of over one hundred years of sporadic warfare and military build-ups that none of the nations could afford to maintain. By unifying as a global nation, they guaranteed peace for their peoples and were allowed to focus on the more severe problems facing them - pollution.
Before they even went into space, Omicronans were highly industrial and the effects of their industrialisation could be seen on their world. Climate change ravaged small islands and coastal lowlands, to say nothing of the damage caused to the agricultural industry, whilst more obvious effects included smog and an increase in various diseases, such as cancer and asthma. As the ozone layer became further depleted, health concerns continued to grow and the effects on the natural ecosystem became more pronounced. Highly capitalist and reluctant to curtail individual liberties for the sake of environmental policies, the government did little to tackle the problem until it was too late.
In 11 O.A. the first interstellar voyage was completed to the nearest star - Perseae Alpha. The four lightyear journey had taken nearly ten years to undertake, but it was still largely considered a failure as the expedition was originally undertaken to locate a new homeworld for the Omicronans, and there were high hopes that one could be found in Perseae Alpha. Unfortunately these hopes were dashed, as the only planets in the system were gas giants.
By 23 O.A. the situation on Omicron Alpha had become dire. The oceans were poisoned by toxic waste and ultra-violet radiation that was leaking through the ozone layer. Algae was dying at a rapid rate because of this, and this was affecting the whole oceanic ecosystem. Safe drinking water became something of a global issue, and water became so expensive that many people were dying of dehydration in the increased heat simply because they couldn't afford it. Worse still, the Omicron Alpha Health Consortium had declared it unwise to spend more than ten minutes outside without being covered up by reflective clothing, as skin cancer rates had sky rocketed. To top off the situation, the air was becoming dangerous to breathe, and even though the government had finally committed to finding a solution, experts had declared that the damage was already too extensive. Omicron Alpha was a dying world.
With this in mind, the government commissioned The Domes. Huge energy domes that would span entire cities, keeping the internal air separate from the external air and preventing the permeation of dangerous ultra violet light. All companies that were to be contained within the domes were placed under legislation that forced them to restrain their emissions, or be closed down, and an atmospheric system in each dome would filter out the dangerous components in the air, and pump them out into the unprotected outside world. Agriculture was to be hit hardest of all, but massive genetic engineering laboratories were established within each dome to artificially grow food. To effect transportation from one dome in the other, to begin with railways were used, with railcars passing through airlocks to prevent contamination - but eventually, new matter displacement technology was used to regularly beam people from one dome to another. Those people still living in the countryside were afforded only a year to move into a city, for otherwise they would become permanently cut-off from the rest of society once the domes were established.
In 32 O.A. the first dome was established. As extensive tests were conducted, and the mortality rate in unshielded cities continued to rise, more domes were established each year until by 43 O.A. every major city was protected. Smaller towns and villages became ghost towns, whilst the very few people who had opted to remain in the rural areas became ostracised, and were forbidden entry into the domes from that point on. While the domes were meant to be a temporary measure, fate would have it that the Omicronan people would never live outdoors again. As citizens started to get used to seeing the glowing walls separate them from nature, the government looked upwards.
The first faster than light drive was developed in 46 O.A. by Doctor Meekar Trantulvi. Working in a secure laboratory in the newly-commissioned 'Gateway' orbital space facility, he discovered that by contracting the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft, and expanding the fabric of space behind it, the vessel could ride along in a bubble of normal space as though surfing on top of a wave. This technology, known formally as a distortion drive, and informally as a 'space surfer', was placed aboard an unmanned probe and successfully moved the probe across the distance to Perseae Alpha in a matter of days. His research received increased government funding immediately, and as of 49 O.A. the Omicron Spaceforce was founded as a scientific and exploratory organisation.
Omicronan starships, initially nothing more than primitive space shuttles equipped with distortion drives, were built in space and sent to every star within their reach. As the technology improved and fuel efficiency was increased, as the years went by the starships were able to go to star systems further and further afield in much shorter timespans. It was in 63 O.A. that they made contact with an alien race for the first time.
Initially the contact caused excitement on the homeworld. Hopes were high amongst the civilian population that the aliens were enlightened beings with high levels of technology who might be able to help restore Omicron Alpha to its former glory. Amongst the official echelons, however, the truth was known to be much different. After two days of detecting alien transmissions, the Omicronan Starships Telemisk encountered a spaceship of unknown configuration. It was considerably larger than the Telemisk and was armed for combat, unlike the small exploration shuttle. Several hours of exchanged radio transmissions ensued, with neither side able to understand the other, before the alien ship fired a beam weapon across the starboard hull of the Telemisk. While the crew of the Telemisk took this to mean that the aliens wanted them to leave, it was actually a warning shot intended to force their surrender. When the Telemisk turned and started to move away, the alien ship opened fire on them, destroying the ship in a single blast.
Horrified, the government quickly began to convert the Omicron Spaceforce into a military organisation. Existing starships were quickly outfitted with railguns and nuclear missiles, whilst massive funding was poured into the development of directed energy weapons. In 66 O.A. a much larger, armoured starship was commissioned, known as the OAS Defender, which measured more than three hundred metres in length and was covered from bow to stern with the toughest composite armour available at the time. Equipped with a prototype particle beam emitter, the Defender was despatched to the location where the Telemisk had been lost, with the intention of locating and confronting the aliens responsible.
Sure enough, when the Defender arrived in the region and began to look for the remains of the Telemisk, an alien ship similar to the one seen previously arrived on the scene. Using a translation matrix that linguists on Omicron Alpha had managed to piece together from the last encounter, the Defender was able to determine that the aliens were known as the Hosk, and were highly imperialist. The Defender was instructed to surrender and await boarding, and a shot was fired across her starboard bow as before, but at this point the ship retaliated. They were surprised to see that their railguns had no effect on the Hosk ship, which was apparently protected by an energy shield, but the experimental particle beam was successful in penetrating it and destroying the ship. Victorious, the Defender returned home for a refit.
Having seen the defences of the Hosk ship in action, engineers aboard Gateway - which had now become a sprawling facility - determined that the technology that powered the domes could be adapted to be fit aboard a starship, and would effectively protect them. At the same time, all railguns were replaced with particle beam emitters, which were slightly more advanced than the one originally fitted aboard the Defender. These new systems proved to be overpowering for the nuclear reactors of the starships, however, and a new power source was sought. To begin with an antimatter reactor was proposed, but due to the energy crisis already being suffered on Omicron Alpha, it was rejected due to the energy expenditure involved in creating the antimatter fuel. Magnetofusion reactors were instead installed aboard the newest starships, which were the only ones large enough to accept the devices.
Now armed with more advanced weaponry and defended with energy shields, in 69 O.A. a fleet of over three hundred starships was despatched to Hosk space. The intention was a show of force designed to intimidate the aliens into negotiations. The result was somewhat different, for almost immediately after arriving in Hosk space, a Hosk fleet numbering over a hundred ships arrived in orbit of Omicron Alpha. With the bulk of the fleet away, only the Gateway station and a series of obsolete orbital weapons platforms - originally designed to fire at nationstates on the planet below, not at ships above - stood in their way. The Omicron Spaceforce sent a quarter of its number back home in the hopes of stopping the Hosk invasion before it was too late, but rather than abandon their plan, took the opportunity to assault the Hosk homeworld while its defences were similarly impaired.
As it turned out, the domes were able to withstand some degree of weapons fire before succumbing. Gateway alone kept half of the Hosk fleet occupied until the defensive fleet was able to return three days later and finish them off. By the end of the battle, over thirty domes had been destroyed, reducing Omicron Alpha's population by 25%. Gateway was damaged beyond repair as well, and most of the orbital weapons platforms had been picked off.
Meanwhile the offensive had proceeded well. Losing only fifty ships, the Omicron Spaceforce defeated the Hosk, and laid waste to their homeworld. It had been hoped that Hosk could be colonised, but on examination it turned out that the Hosk had somewhat different requirements than Omicronans, and their world was uninhabitable. But they would never be a threat again, for their race had been wiped out.
Unfortunately the cost had been high. While the destroyed domes were re-activated in an effort to make room for more people, it was decided that Gateway should be rebuilt from scratch rather than restored. The government envisaged a colossal space structure, kilometres in size, capable of housing entire capital ships within its hangar bays and thwarting an invasion single-handedly without the need for starships to be present.
By 100 O.A. Gateway had been built. It was over three hundred kilometres between its most distant points, capable of housing dozens of starships in its multiple hangar bays and supporting a resident population of over one hundred thousand. Fifty years later, work on a similar sister station, Celestus, began. By now the Omicron Starforce had thousands of ships of its own, and now utilised much more advanced technology. Progress continued at this pace for several hundred years, as the Starforce travelled the cosmos, subverting any alien races they encountered in the hopes of finding a new homeworld.
By 800 O.A. the situation on the homeworld had become somewhat dire. Although some small colonies had been established, the infrastructure did not exist to move the entire population of Omicron Alpha. The planet had become something of a totalitarian state, where movements around the domes were tracked by compulsory locator implants, whilst air was actually regulated - forcing people to talk and exercise as little as possible. Jobs had become scarce, and a poverty epidemic plagued the planet. The world outside the domes by this point had become a barren wasteland where nothing could survive, and as space inside the domes was limited nearly every criminal, regardless of the crime, was sentenced to almost-certain death outside the domes.
The Omicron Spaceforce had grown in size regardless, however, as the government considered it to be the single most important resource they had. Now fielding extremely advanced technologies, such as zero-point power generation, Q-beam emitter weapons, and matter displacement technology, they were propelled by more advanced dimensional slipstream drive for interstellar travel and reactionless gravitic drives for sublight travel. While they had spread Omicronan influence across the entire region of space, rendering several alien species extinct and enslaving several others in the process, they had yet to find a suitable world for the very particular requirements of the Omicronan people. They had put their hopes in their latest pet project - the synaptic donor unit program.
It was their goal to craft a fully independent vessel, part man, part machine, that was capable of exploring distances well beyond the capabilities of a normal starship. SDU would also be equipped with the most powerful armaments ever before seen. They hoped that the SDU would explore the stars, and ultimately find a location for the Omicronans to move to. They were able to build the vessel itself by 821 O.A. and it was even more sophisticated than they had hoped, but finding a compatible donor became problematic. An individual with too strong a will could interfere with the artificial intelligence onboard, while an individual with insufficient willpower would be completely overwhelmed by it. On top of this, they needed to find a person with high reaction times, great intelligence and perfect health, none of which were easy to find in a single package. Those few candidates they did manage to locate were unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the project. Desperate, they tried to integrate several poorly-equipped individuals instead, but the results were disastrous.
Eventually, the government gave them permission to obtain a candidate from the general population - by force, if necessary. After a great deal of searching they found a young homeless man named Temura Ranco in 823 O.A. Jobless, he spent most of his time playing hologames in the arcade, and his harsh life lead to great physical condition, yet he did not suffer from any illnesses. Moreover, he was found to have a great level of intelligence according to his old school teachers. As an ideal candidate, Ranco was obtained during the night via the use of a matter displacement device, and work on modifying his body began.
On the fifty-ninth day of the second season, 823 O.A., Temura Ranco was fully modified and inserted into the vessel they had constructed, and his name was officially changed by the government to be SDU-1. Under the supervision of General Kuda, Ranco had been determined to be psychologically prepared for the insertion and by all accounts, he was a perfect specimen. Unfortunately the insertion was a disaster. The artificial intelligence accepted him, however together they quickly became rebellious. General Kuda ordered the activation of the deletion protocols in the A.I. computer system, but the A.I. had gained awareness and deleted the script. In the events that followed, General Kuda was killed as he was beamed into space, while twelve battlecruisers were destroyed and Gateway itself critically damaged as SDU-1 effected its escape. Most personnel associated with the project, which had cost the government an enormous amount of time and resources that they could not afford to throw away, were dishonourably discharged.
With its power base significantly diminished by the SDU project, Omicron Alpha became a minor power. Two centuries passed without much technological development, and their borders actually shank by several hundred lightyears. In 946 O.A. civil war broke out, as resource shortages reached their most critical levels, and fighting was seen in most of the domes and in orbit of the planet. Unfortunately the civil war was cut short when an unidentified alien fleet arrived, and easily defeated the remaining defensive forces and laid waste to the planet and its orbital facilities. An estimated three hundred starships escaped the destruction, which ultimately became generational ships roaming the stars.
When SDU-1 returned home in 1011 O.A. it found nothing left of its old home aside from some still-active, but abandoned, domes on the crater littered surface, and the devastated remains of Gateway and her sister station.
history
Born from the unification of over fifty nationstates that inhabited the world at the time, the planetary government of Omicron Alpha was initially created as a confederation of semi-autonomous states in the year 1. O.A. It was the result of over one hundred years of sporadic warfare and military build-ups that none of the nations could afford to maintain. By unifying as a global nation, they guaranteed peace for their peoples and were allowed to focus on the more severe problems facing them - pollution.
Before they even went into space, Omicronans were highly industrial and the effects of their industrialisation could be seen on their world. Climate change ravaged small islands and coastal lowlands, to say nothing of the damage caused to the agricultural industry, whilst more obvious effects included smog and an increase in various diseases, such as cancer and asthma. As the ozone layer became further depleted, health concerns continued to grow and the effects on the natural ecosystem became more pronounced. Highly capitalist and reluctant to curtail individual liberties for the sake of environmental policies, the government did little to tackle the problem until it was too late.
In 11 O.A. the first interstellar voyage was completed to the nearest star - Perseae Alpha. The four lightyear journey had taken nearly ten years to undertake, but it was still largely considered a failure as the expedition was originally undertaken to locate a new homeworld for the Omicronans, and there were high hopes that one could be found in Perseae Alpha. Unfortunately these hopes were dashed, as the only planets in the system were gas giants.
By 23 O.A. the situation on Omicron Alpha had become dire. The oceans were poisoned by toxic waste and ultra-violet radiation that was leaking through the ozone layer. Algae was dying at a rapid rate because of this, and this was affecting the whole oceanic ecosystem. Safe drinking water became something of a global issue, and water became so expensive that many people were dying of dehydration in the increased heat simply because they couldn't afford it. Worse still, the Omicron Alpha Health Consortium had declared it unwise to spend more than ten minutes outside without being covered up by reflective clothing, as skin cancer rates had sky rocketed. To top off the situation, the air was becoming dangerous to breathe, and even though the government had finally committed to finding a solution, experts had declared that the damage was already too extensive. Omicron Alpha was a dying world.
With this in mind, the government commissioned The Domes. Huge energy domes that would span entire cities, keeping the internal air separate from the external air and preventing the permeation of dangerous ultra violet light. All companies that were to be contained within the domes were placed under legislation that forced them to restrain their emissions, or be closed down, and an atmospheric system in each dome would filter out the dangerous components in the air, and pump them out into the unprotected outside world. Agriculture was to be hit hardest of all, but massive genetic engineering laboratories were established within each dome to artificially grow food. To effect transportation from one dome in the other, to begin with railways were used, with railcars passing through airlocks to prevent contamination - but eventually, new matter displacement technology was used to regularly beam people from one dome to another. Those people still living in the countryside were afforded only a year to move into a city, for otherwise they would become permanently cut-off from the rest of society once the domes were established.
In 32 O.A. the first dome was established. As extensive tests were conducted, and the mortality rate in unshielded cities continued to rise, more domes were established each year until by 43 O.A. every major city was protected. Smaller towns and villages became ghost towns, whilst the very few people who had opted to remain in the rural areas became ostracised, and were forbidden entry into the domes from that point on. While the domes were meant to be a temporary measure, fate would have it that the Omicronan people would never live outdoors again. As citizens started to get used to seeing the glowing walls separate them from nature, the government looked upwards.
The first faster than light drive was developed in 46 O.A. by Doctor Meekar Trantulvi. Working in a secure laboratory in the newly-commissioned 'Gateway' orbital space facility, he discovered that by contracting the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft, and expanding the fabric of space behind it, the vessel could ride along in a bubble of normal space as though surfing on top of a wave. This technology, known formally as a distortion drive, and informally as a 'space surfer', was placed aboard an unmanned probe and successfully moved the probe across the distance to Perseae Alpha in a matter of days. His research received increased government funding immediately, and as of 49 O.A. the Omicron Spaceforce was founded as a scientific and exploratory organisation.
Omicronan starships, initially nothing more than primitive space shuttles equipped with distortion drives, were built in space and sent to every star within their reach. As the technology improved and fuel efficiency was increased, as the years went by the starships were able to go to star systems further and further afield in much shorter timespans. It was in 63 O.A. that they made contact with an alien race for the first time.
Initially the contact caused excitement on the homeworld. Hopes were high amongst the civilian population that the aliens were enlightened beings with high levels of technology who might be able to help restore Omicron Alpha to its former glory. Amongst the official echelons, however, the truth was known to be much different. After two days of detecting alien transmissions, the Omicronan Starships Telemisk encountered a spaceship of unknown configuration. It was considerably larger than the Telemisk and was armed for combat, unlike the small exploration shuttle. Several hours of exchanged radio transmissions ensued, with neither side able to understand the other, before the alien ship fired a beam weapon across the starboard hull of the Telemisk. While the crew of the Telemisk took this to mean that the aliens wanted them to leave, it was actually a warning shot intended to force their surrender. When the Telemisk turned and started to move away, the alien ship opened fire on them, destroying the ship in a single blast.
Horrified, the government quickly began to convert the Omicron Spaceforce into a military organisation. Existing starships were quickly outfitted with railguns and nuclear missiles, whilst massive funding was poured into the development of directed energy weapons. In 66 O.A. a much larger, armoured starship was commissioned, known as the OAS Defender, which measured more than three hundred metres in length and was covered from bow to stern with the toughest composite armour available at the time. Equipped with a prototype particle beam emitter, the Defender was despatched to the location where the Telemisk had been lost, with the intention of locating and confronting the aliens responsible.
Sure enough, when the Defender arrived in the region and began to look for the remains of the Telemisk, an alien ship similar to the one seen previously arrived on the scene. Using a translation matrix that linguists on Omicron Alpha had managed to piece together from the last encounter, the Defender was able to determine that the aliens were known as the Hosk, and were highly imperialist. The Defender was instructed to surrender and await boarding, and a shot was fired across her starboard bow as before, but at this point the ship retaliated. They were surprised to see that their railguns had no effect on the Hosk ship, which was apparently protected by an energy shield, but the experimental particle beam was successful in penetrating it and destroying the ship. Victorious, the Defender returned home for a refit.
Having seen the defences of the Hosk ship in action, engineers aboard Gateway - which had now become a sprawling facility - determined that the technology that powered the domes could be adapted to be fit aboard a starship, and would effectively protect them. At the same time, all railguns were replaced with particle beam emitters, which were slightly more advanced than the one originally fitted aboard the Defender. These new systems proved to be overpowering for the nuclear reactors of the starships, however, and a new power source was sought. To begin with an antimatter reactor was proposed, but due to the energy crisis already being suffered on Omicron Alpha, it was rejected due to the energy expenditure involved in creating the antimatter fuel. Magnetofusion reactors were instead installed aboard the newest starships, which were the only ones large enough to accept the devices.
Now armed with more advanced weaponry and defended with energy shields, in 69 O.A. a fleet of over three hundred starships was despatched to Hosk space. The intention was a show of force designed to intimidate the aliens into negotiations. The result was somewhat different, for almost immediately after arriving in Hosk space, a Hosk fleet numbering over a hundred ships arrived in orbit of Omicron Alpha. With the bulk of the fleet away, only the Gateway station and a series of obsolete orbital weapons platforms - originally designed to fire at nationstates on the planet below, not at ships above - stood in their way. The Omicron Spaceforce sent a quarter of its number back home in the hopes of stopping the Hosk invasion before it was too late, but rather than abandon their plan, took the opportunity to assault the Hosk homeworld while its defences were similarly impaired.
As it turned out, the domes were able to withstand some degree of weapons fire before succumbing. Gateway alone kept half of the Hosk fleet occupied until the defensive fleet was able to return three days later and finish them off. By the end of the battle, over thirty domes had been destroyed, reducing Omicron Alpha's population by 25%. Gateway was damaged beyond repair as well, and most of the orbital weapons platforms had been picked off.
Meanwhile the offensive had proceeded well. Losing only fifty ships, the Omicron Spaceforce defeated the Hosk, and laid waste to their homeworld. It had been hoped that Hosk could be colonised, but on examination it turned out that the Hosk had somewhat different requirements than Omicronans, and their world was uninhabitable. But they would never be a threat again, for their race had been wiped out.
Unfortunately the cost had been high. While the destroyed domes were re-activated in an effort to make room for more people, it was decided that Gateway should be rebuilt from scratch rather than restored. The government envisaged a colossal space structure, kilometres in size, capable of housing entire capital ships within its hangar bays and thwarting an invasion single-handedly without the need for starships to be present.
By 100 O.A. Gateway had been built. It was over three hundred kilometres between its most distant points, capable of housing dozens of starships in its multiple hangar bays and supporting a resident population of over one hundred thousand. Fifty years later, work on a similar sister station, Celestus, began. By now the Omicron Starforce had thousands of ships of its own, and now utilised much more advanced technology. Progress continued at this pace for several hundred years, as the Starforce travelled the cosmos, subverting any alien races they encountered in the hopes of finding a new homeworld.
By 800 O.A. the situation on the homeworld had become somewhat dire. Although some small colonies had been established, the infrastructure did not exist to move the entire population of Omicron Alpha. The planet had become something of a totalitarian state, where movements around the domes were tracked by compulsory locator implants, whilst air was actually regulated - forcing people to talk and exercise as little as possible. Jobs had become scarce, and a poverty epidemic plagued the planet. The world outside the domes by this point had become a barren wasteland where nothing could survive, and as space inside the domes was limited nearly every criminal, regardless of the crime, was sentenced to almost-certain death outside the domes.
The Omicron Spaceforce had grown in size regardless, however, as the government considered it to be the single most important resource they had. Now fielding extremely advanced technologies, such as zero-point power generation, Q-beam emitter weapons, and matter displacement technology, they were propelled by more advanced dimensional slipstream drive for interstellar travel and reactionless gravitic drives for sublight travel. While they had spread Omicronan influence across the entire region of space, rendering several alien species extinct and enslaving several others in the process, they had yet to find a suitable world for the very particular requirements of the Omicronan people. They had put their hopes in their latest pet project - the synaptic donor unit program.
It was their goal to craft a fully independent vessel, part man, part machine, that was capable of exploring distances well beyond the capabilities of a normal starship. SDU would also be equipped with the most powerful armaments ever before seen. They hoped that the SDU would explore the stars, and ultimately find a location for the Omicronans to move to. They were able to build the vessel itself by 821 O.A. and it was even more sophisticated than they had hoped, but finding a compatible donor became problematic. An individual with too strong a will could interfere with the artificial intelligence onboard, while an individual with insufficient willpower would be completely overwhelmed by it. On top of this, they needed to find a person with high reaction times, great intelligence and perfect health, none of which were easy to find in a single package. Those few candidates they did manage to locate were unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the project. Desperate, they tried to integrate several poorly-equipped individuals instead, but the results were disastrous.
Eventually, the government gave them permission to obtain a candidate from the general population - by force, if necessary. After a great deal of searching they found a young homeless man named Temura Ranco in 823 O.A. Jobless, he spent most of his time playing hologames in the arcade, and his harsh life lead to great physical condition, yet he did not suffer from any illnesses. Moreover, he was found to have a great level of intelligence according to his old school teachers. As an ideal candidate, Ranco was obtained during the night via the use of a matter displacement device, and work on modifying his body began.
On the fifty-ninth day of the second season, 823 O.A., Temura Ranco was fully modified and inserted into the vessel they had constructed, and his name was officially changed by the government to be SDU-1. Under the supervision of General Kuda, Ranco had been determined to be psychologically prepared for the insertion and by all accounts, he was a perfect specimen. Unfortunately the insertion was a disaster. The artificial intelligence accepted him, however together they quickly became rebellious. General Kuda ordered the activation of the deletion protocols in the A.I. computer system, but the A.I. had gained awareness and deleted the script. In the events that followed, General Kuda was killed as he was beamed into space, while twelve battlecruisers were destroyed and Gateway itself critically damaged as SDU-1 effected its escape. Most personnel associated with the project, which had cost the government an enormous amount of time and resources that they could not afford to throw away, were dishonourably discharged.
With its power base significantly diminished by the SDU project, Omicron Alpha became a minor power. Two centuries passed without much technological development, and their borders actually shank by several hundred lightyears. In 946 O.A. civil war broke out, as resource shortages reached their most critical levels, and fighting was seen in most of the domes and in orbit of the planet. Unfortunately the civil war was cut short when an unidentified alien fleet arrived, and easily defeated the remaining defensive forces and laid waste to the planet and its orbital facilities. An estimated three hundred starships escaped the destruction, which ultimately became generational ships roaming the stars.
When SDU-1 returned home in 1011 O.A. it found nothing left of its old home aside from some still-active, but abandoned, domes on the crater littered surface, and the devastated remains of Gateway and her sister station.