The Story of the Lost Fleet

Two hundred years ago, at the height of the Dominion’s power, the Seraphim Council created an armada called the First Expansionary Fleet. The fleet’s directive was simple: to explore, colonize, and conquer the unexplored regions of space beyond the Terminus Reach at the edge of the Far Rim. In addition to a million human colonists on the mothership (the Pride of Keledon), the fleet brought along millions more Seraphim embryos (kept in stasis) and several hundred thousand aliens representing many species, including the Kali, Kreen, Krosians, Neyris, Rakashi, Thursk, and Velothi.

The Veil

When the fleet attempted to cross beyond the Reach, however, disaster struck—its ships were pulled out of astral space by a mysterious phenomenon called the Tartaran Veil, a nebula-like cloud extending into both normal space and astral space. Inside the Veil, the Fleet discovered a new region of the galaxy, which it named the Tartarus Cluster—a hundred sectors of unexplored space spanning nearly ten thousand light-years. And it was not empty.

The Dowd War

The Cluster was already embroiled in a bitter war between three ancient empires: the Dowd, the Sillibar, and the Yarasi. By the time the Dominion fleet arrived, the Sillibar were on the brink of extinction, and the Dowd were on the verge of conquering the entire Cluster. Overconfident, the faceless aliens turned on their new foe…and finally met their match.

The Dominion’s psionic technology and formidable warriors slowly overpowered their enemy. The fleet liberated hundreds of colonies and drove the Dowd into the farthest depths of the Cluster. The Sillibar and Yarasi, intimidated by the show of force yet glad to be rid of a deadly nemesis, retreated to their own space. The Expansionary Fleet had secured a foothold.

And yet, the victory had come at a terrible cost: half of the original fleet—over fifty warships—had been lost to the Veil and Dowd. Worse, the fleet commanders soon realized that they had no way home. Their astral drives could not move their ships through the Veil, and even their most powerful telepaths could not contact anyone on the other side. The fleet was trapped and alone.

Possibly forever.