Carrier Command 2/Transcripts

Transcripts of the various communications you receive in game.

Transmission A
Welcome back, Commander Altus Gage. Your disorientation shall pass.

Your employer, the Draziw Industries Corporation has asked me to reiterate its gratitude for you volunteering to enter stasis on the Horus Satellite overwatch program.

I'm Captain Aparo, commander of UEC deep space colonies in this sector.

Please be advised, the terrorist STANZA Organization has breached the unmanned colony's firewalls on the planet of Telos, and is now in control of the ACC Omega carrier.

You are to take manual override command of the ACC Epsilon carrier and stop the Omega by any means necessary.

Draziw hereby grants a full liability waiver for your actions, and the United Earth Coalition has issued an anticipatory pardon.

Proceed to your landing pod immediately, it has been remotely programmed and is ready to go. Good hunting, Commander.

Transmission B
Welcome to the bridge of the ACC Epsilon carrier. The analysis of intercepted STANZA communications is completed.

The belligerents are using the ACC Omega to plant deep-crust detonators on each captured island. Once the entire archipelago is seeded, they will trigger simultaneous detonations.

This is likely to rupture the Treltor and Avapola tectonic plates, effectively ruining Telos as a viable resource for the foreseeable future.

Commander, given that the unmanned Telos colony is the largest supplier of materials to the UEC war effort on Earth, the potential ramifications are catastrophic.

You must recapture enemy islands to disable their detonators, or eliminate the enemy carrier.

Transmission C
Commander Gage, I asked UEC Combat Analytics to run monte carlo simulations on your campaign against ACC Omega. Given all the data we have available, we have some key statistical outcomes that may influence your tactical decision making.

First, in 73% of simulation runs ACC Epsilon would face material shortages - ammunition, fuel, drone craft. So you really need to keep an eye on your localized supply chain.

Second, in 32% of simulations the ACC Omega recaptured an island that had previous secured by Epsilon, so don't forget to stay vigilant.

Third, 23% of the time insufficient focus on repair systems would result in loss of operational capability at inopportune times. While automated balanced repairs are convenient, for maximum efficiency you may need to take a direct hand.

Finally, and I don't wish to alarm you, but the overall chance of success they calculated is only 13%. Best of luck, Commander.

Transmission D
Commander Gage, I'm sure this is unnecessary, but I've been asked to impress upon you the importance of your mission on Telos.

I know your past, and I also know you were given a 'bum-steer', so I'm confident you won't be taking your duties lightly, even though you're no longer a UEC officer. However, there are some details you may not be aware of that may add some urgency to your task.

STANZA's guerilla war surge against us has...well, it's not going well. Since the Third Empire, our combat forces have atrophied more than we ever admitted. We didn't take the threat from STANZA seriously enough. Localized terrorist actions, sure, but a global coordinated effort to bring down our entire governance structure?

Even their first incursion on Telos was only about ransom money. But in the shadows, they'd built an incredibly effective network here that has a genuine chance of destabilizing the UEC's peace.

We're at a flashpoint, Commander. We're now fighting hundreds of battles across dozens of nations simultaneously. We're stretched so thin. And our resources are dwindling so fast.

There's a time delay for shipments from Telos. But when the interruption from this latest incursion hits us, we're going to have some dark days. And if STANZA does succeed there, and cuts off our resources permanently?

I don't want to be alarmist, Commander, but all could be lost. Heh. No pressure.

Transmission E
Commander, I'm relaying a briefing on the history of STANZA that may assist you to anticipate their tactics. I understand you are already familiar with the enemy, so I will limit this to the salient highlights.

In the aftermath of the bloody battles that gave birth to what is colloquially known as the Third Empire on Earth, the defeated Asian Pacific Alliance was dissolved and its territories rejoined the United Earth Coalition.

A small group of holdouts, however, secretly formed the STANZA organization as an underground terrorist network intended to destabilize the UEC's peace efforts. Interestingly, the name STANZA was a floating acronym which local chapters created their own titles for instead of sharing one.

Overtime, STANZA's ambitions grew and its violent identity metastasized. It became increasingly modeled around hyperindividualism, an anti-globalist movement, which resembled the original APA's ethos.

This led to decentralized leadership cells taking advantage of local community knowledge and operatives familiar with the locales. The disastrous attempted ransom of the Telos Colony in 2166, however, caused some internal friction around a lack of coordinated operations.

This led to a period of relative public hibernation. However, behind the scenes, STANZA reorganized, developing a structure that both allowed their individualism to bloom, but also forged effective coordination between cells.

Instead of a hive with a single queen and many drones, the new STANZA is a hive of many queens, all working together.

Transmission F
Commander, I have recovered a section of the most recent geological survey on Telos, which may be relevant to your mission.

Despite Telos first being discovered by astronomer Dr. Emil Gage last century, it was quickly ruled out as a viable candidate for the original Gaea Mission due to the high sulfuric content detected in its oceans.

The first manned surveys here discovered the reason why - being, a vast amount of prior volcanic activity, but we're only now finding evidence of what form that took, and what that implies for the future.

They now believe that Telos once had Earth-like continental landmasses, though on a much smaller scale, and these have been broken up over millennia by intense tectonic activity. The resulting quakes and volcanic eruptions must have been on a catastrophic level to leave such a scattered archipelago.

Our latest survey indicates that the plates are more fragile than we first thought. While the planet in a period of relative tectonic stability, they believe that an event of sufficient magnitude could trigger a repeat of those extreme geological tipping points of the distant past. In short, our presence here would cease to be viable here for centuries.

Commander, I expect that STANZA somehow accessed a copy of this report. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they know that their plant will succeed if you do not stop them.

Transmission G
Commander Gage, I have just received your file from the UEC Department of Integrity. There is a letter in here from a Colonel Rashaka. It's quite old. I wonder if she's still alive.

Her division was tasked with reviewing dishonourable discharge cases to compile lessons learned for improved future command, and they reviewed your case.

First, I'll cite the relevant facts as originally recorded. During your reconnaissance mission off the coast of Laos, the UEC received intelligence that a structure within your ship's targeting range was being used as a staging area for an imminent STANZA attack on a UEC reconstruction convoy.

You were ordered by Rear Admiral Yarris to open fire on the building with all guns. You refused, and upon return, were arrested, tried, and discharged for insubordination.

Your defence was that before firing blindly at the transmitted coordinates, you chose to launch a recon drone based on intuition and ground experience. The drone footage did not reveal any of the typical signs of STANZA activity, and you were convinced that the intelligence was incorrect.

You believed that the building was populated by civilians only, and destroying it would be a war crime, let alone a human tragedy, so you refused the order.

During your hearing, Rear Admiral Yarris presented evidence the building was indeed occupied by STANZA and your decision was incorrect. It is with a mixture of profound regret and great pleasure that I can reveal to you that this new investigation proved this evidence was...fraudulent.

The building in question was, as you suspected, being used as a makeshift community hospital. You were right not to engage, Commander Gage. Yarris was stripped of her position.

While your charge of insubordination is not disputed by fact, the extenuating circumstances has resulted in the recommendation that the outcome be upgraded from a dishonourable discharge to an honourable one.

The UEC thanks you for your lengthy service and apologizes that the action was ever brought against you, Commander.

Transmission H
Commander, I have received an after-action report from Earth for a recent STANZA conflict that may be of interest to you.

A UEC anti-terrorism team was investigating reports of suspicious activity in a new urban construction project in St. Louis. It was an obvious target for STANZA, but due to the current shortages they only had limited drone passes for surveillance.

They had to go in on foot for a closer look. What they didn't know was that a series of sub-surfaces had been excavated illegally by the construction company before permits were granted. Somehow, STANZA did know, and used it to lay an ambush.

The UEC team had taken a line of formation to thread through a narrow fresh-laid plaza. They thought any threat would come from the partially-completed high rises creating a man-made canyon - not from under their feet.

STANZA had set synchronized charges along the plaza at stress points that brought the entire thing down. And us along with it. Half of the team was taken out in a fall. The rest were fish in a barrel.

Only three managed to survive, and drag themselves out of the rubble. By the time the UEC regrouped and launched a counterassault, STANZA was gone.

Pardon my bluntness, but we're getting our asses kicked with these hit and run attacks. They're stretching us thin, and sooner or later, we're going to snap.

Transmission I
Commander Gage, during a raid on a STANZA safehouse last week, we managed to secure an operative's personal computer. Seems the bomb she'd triggered to clean up any evidence fizzled.

We got lucky there. Anyway, we just cracked the encryption on its files, and I thought I should share some of the data with you for context of what you're trying to avert there.

First thing is, there were details that verified the intelligence we already had around the plot on Telos. The deep-crust detonators, the mass destruction - that all checks out as real. Oh, and they detailed the method used to infiltrate the system there, so we can patch it in the future. Not that it helps you now.

Most alarming, though, is what they're planning if you fail in your mission. We found references to a number of terrorist operations set for the day after their victory on Telos. To capitalize on the moods expected on both sides of the conflict - their exultation, our despair.

Now, unfortunately, all we have are names of those operations - "Onslaught" or "Matriarch" or so on - not the locations, or any details, so we can't even prepare against them, though it does give us leads to start chasing.

But what is truly horrifying, and what you need to understand, is the scale. Commander, the number of codeworded operations we found...it's over six thousand. Six thousand individual terrorist acts across the Earth launched at the same time.

Defeat/Self-Destruct
This is Captain Aparo, divison commander of UEC deep space colony command reporting to UEC command. ACC Omega completed its archipelago seeding soon after destroying the ACC Epsilon.

2.6 minutes ago, a synchronized detonation was triggered. I have already detected major tectonic upheavals on all landmasses and have calculated that at this rate, nothing will remain of the Telos colony within the hour.

Victory
Commander Gage, you have achieved the primary operational goal of your current mission. The ACC Omega has been defeated, and STANZA's only remaining link to the Telos network has been severed.

An engineering crew is already en route to defuse any remaining detonators and reestablish any damaged mining operations. Disruption to the UEC's war effort should be minimal, and the morale effect of your victory will boost troops in the interim. This has been a resounding success.

Draziw Industries human resources will be in touch shortly to discuss your bonus payments, perform medical checkups, and negotiate a...generous package for your next Horus overwatch stasis. Thank you for your service, Commander.