[LYON] Gravitational Wars - Lyon 2020 - English Report

At the request of several English-speaking members of the FB Fleet Commander group, I post here the beginning of the translation of Gravitational Wars 2020 ... The bulk of the work was done via Google Translate and I tried to correct / improve what I could.


After its victory at Omicron-69, the League of Phoebe wants to push its advantage by seizing a sector of the borders: Sikelía.
Claiming the disappearance of one of his commercial convoys, the League sent its Peace Fleets into the area to pacify it. But the Hegemony of Amyclès does not intend to abandon the sector and it mobilized its own forces ...

---

This is Mikayla Melnie aboard the cruiser "Discovery" of the Helios arbitration fleet cruising around the Sikelía sector.

It has been several days since all the war reporters have been brought together on the Discovery without the possibility of covering the end of the conflict between the Hegemony of Amycles and the League of Phoebe in the sector. An official complaint has been filed with Helios by a collective of independent media networks to condemn this gross violation of our right to inform the public.

A few hours ago, a Helios official who wished to remain anonymous confirmed to me that neither the Hegemony of Amyclès nor the Ligue de Phébé had managed to achieve a significant victory in the sector and that a ceasefire had been signed between the belligerents. Having seen no sign of withdrawal from the Amyclean and Phoebean fleets, these units must still station somewhere in the sector despite the end of hostilities.

At an improvised press conference, the spokesperson for the High Council of Helios announced the closure of the Sikelía Sector without giving any reason. According to information I have been able to collect on the Discovery, this quarantine seems to have been carried out with the active collaboration of the Hegemony of Amycles and the League of Phoebe.

I have been a war reporter for years, I have especially covered the recent conflicts of Epidamnos and Omicron-69 but I have never encountered such a situation! Something unusual happened during this military campaign and they are trying to hide it from us!

It was Mikayla Melnie for Helios News Network, the quest for the truth has only just begun ...

---

Special edition on HNN ! Be the first to know !

It has been several hours now since the Sector of Sikelía was blocked by the Hegemony of Amycles and the League of Phoebe by orders from the High Council of Helios.
All special interstellar media envoys were confined to the Discovery, the flagship of the Helios arbitration fleet, with no communication with the outside.

Apart from Amyclean and Phoebean military units, no vessel can enter or can leave the sector. The officials of Helios and the spokespersons of the two great empires that we were able to meet on Helios adopted the same elements of language: Sikelía will remain cut off from the rest of the universe until the policing operations are finished.

The situation is perfectly unusual.

HNN may well be able to unveil the mystery! Our special correspondent on the Discovery, Mikayla Melnie, has indeed managed to send us an exclusive document! Quite simply, they are extracts from Captain Alifred Cartr's logbook, which heads Helios' arbitration fleet!

Stay connected, this is a first extract !

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

FIRST WEEK
... a few hours late due to an unusual disturbance in the gravitational waves. The Amyclean and Phoebean fleets had already completed their deployment in the Sikelía Sector.

I immediately ordered the observation frigates to rejoin the positions assigned to them. Their reports enabled us to establish a first tactical projection.


> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> BEGINNING OF WEEK 1
The Amyclean and Phoebean forces were deployed in the Sikelía sector.
The front line stretched across the Pétrino Frágma asteroid field.


In keeping with tradition, the Fleet Commanders of both sides launched their challenges on the communication lines and skirmishes erupted quickly along the battle line.
It was obvious that the two empires were gauging themselves, at the end of this first week of fighting, neither of them had taken any significant advantage ...


> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 1
Amycleans and Phoebeans had made a symmetrical breakthrough beyond the Pétrino Frágma, the central asteroid field.
The League of Phoebe had taken advantage of its privileged links with the Forge of Fendrix to establish a Commercial Station in orbit of Segesta. For its part, the Hegemony of Amyclès preferred to reinforce the defenses of Syrakoúses by deploying there a Defense Station.

These first confrontations were only a prelude to the battles that awaited the two belligerents. The war was going to be particularly violent and I doubted that the  investigators sent by the High Council of Helios to solve the mystery about the disappearance of the Phoebean commercial convoy could change anything. The Hegemony and the League wanted to fight, whether on this pretext or any other ...

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

SECOND WEEK
... after a first week of intense fighting without observing a serious breach of the rules of war.
As the Amyclean and Phoebean strategos remained faithful to the strategic precepts of Helios, the sector's communication routes had become priority targets. Each of the two sides wanted to capture as many Portals as possible in order to maintain their capacity for rapid redeployment.

The League of Phoebe struck first and surprised the Hegemony of Amycles by seizing three quarters of the main Gravity Portals. The Amycleans narrowly escaped the debacle by managing to contain the assault of the League around a single Portal. This resistance was to allow the Hegemony to stay in the race even if the results of this campaign week compromised its chances of victory ...

> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 2
The Hegemony and the League consolidated their positions by erasing the enemy breakthroughs beyond the Pétrino Frágma. But the Phoebeans also struck in the south of the sector, isolating part of the positions defended by Amycles. It was also decided to establish a Defense Station along the Pétrino Frágma in order to prohibit a possible Amyclean progression.



Despite the intensity of the fighting, the investigators of Helios managed to locate the wreckage of the missing Phoebean commercial convoy. I assigned several ships of the fleet to their protection : if it was the League of Phoebe or the Hegemony of Amycles who was behind this attack, it was a safe bet that one or the other would want to kill any troublesome witnesses.

Special edition on HNN ! Be the first to know !

The following document is a new extract from the log book of Commander Alifred Cartr of the arbitration fleet of Helios.
He reveals the real reasons for the closure of the Sikelía sector by the Amyclean and Phoebean fleets. These revelations were a real shock for the entire editorial staff of HNN.
We are under extraordinary pressure from the authorities and we have lost contact with our Discovery envoyee, Mikayla Melnie. We fear that she was arrested and held incommunicado on her return from Pétrino Frágma where she was investigating strange rumors peddled by pirates and rebels hiding there.

Our first duty, however, is to keep you informed despite all the threats we face.

This is now the exclusive document which unveils the Sikelía Incident!

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

THIRD WEEK
... after the defeats suffered for the control of the Gravity Portals of Sikelía. The interception of enemy supply convoys was the logical continuation of these battles. Phoebe wanted to reap the fruits of its previous successes while Amyclrs hoped to demonstrate its ability to harm.
At the start of the week I received reports of incidents around convoys from both sides and once again the League seemed to take the advantage over its rival.
A Phoebean convoy thus escaped Amyclean forces by taking advantage of a lucky alignment of gravitational wells, transports literally jumped from well to well to escape the blockade of the Hegemony. At the same time the League intercepted an Amyclean convoy which tried to pass in force and only a civilian ship finally succeeded in crossing the enemy lines.
The war seemed to once again turn to the advantage of the League of Phebe. Then the incident took place.

It all started with the arrival of Professor Natlea Rebexi from the HXI on the Discovery bridge. She had joined the team of investigators a few days after the discovery of the remains of the Phoebean convoy near the Trýpa Beta gravity well. She was on the verge of hysteria and her words were very confused. She claimed that the fighting should be stopped urgently and the military forces of the two empires should be redeployed to face a new threat. Faced with such behavior, I was going to threaten to send her back to her Institute of Xenobiology when my communications officer also appeared. An Amyclean fleet and a Phoebean fleet had issued SOS, the messages indicated that they had been trapped by an unknown force. I was shocked by this blatant breach of the rules of war decreed by Helios which annoyed Professor Rebexi a little more. She literally started screaming that it was not humans who were attacking the ships of the Hegemony and the League !
I immediately dispatched several observation frigates at the coordinates of the two fleets in difficulty. They discovered there only the smoking wrecks of the Amyclean combat units and the ultra-perfected vessels that the Forge of Fendrix had put at the service of the League of Phoebe. It was indeed a first contact with a xenomorphic race and it had been devastating!


> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 3
The defeats inflicted by Phoebe on Amycles had made it possible to conquer two new territories south of the sector and beyond Pétrino Frágma. But these successes were offset by the discovery of an area infested by xenos not far from Segesta, in the heart of the League's positions.
Faced with this new threat, the two empires decided to strengthen their positions by establishing new Defense Stations around the Pétrino Frágma.


At the end of this third week, the military campaign for the Sikelía sector took on a whole new dimension. With the help of Professor Rebexi, I applied the level 9 procedures according to the Xenomorph Protocol.
The High Council of Helios was immediately informed of the situation, but its calls to the end of hostilities in the sector were ignored by the Hegemony of Amycles and the League of Phoebe. Against all logic the two empires seemed to believe that the conquest of Sikelía should remain a priority even under the threat of xenos. All the journalists present in the sector were gathered, sometimes manu militari, on the Discovery and their access to the outside network cut off. I did not have many illusions however, these reporters would find a way to communicate with their newsrooms but for the moment none of them were aware of the real situation.

The fights for Sikelía therefore had to continue but Professor Rebexi had warned me: the xenos would certainly strike again ...

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

FOURTH WEEK
... start of this fourth week. The fighting took place around the space colonies, the fleets of Amycles and Phoebe covered the landing of their assault troops aboard the stations. The fighting has raged and I have addressed several blames to both camps for the numerous collateral victims rendered by these operations.
After several days of battle, the situation ended on a pat, each empire managing to conquer as many colonies as its adversary ...

But even if the League of Phoebe and the Hegemony of Amycles did not give up their desire to conquer the Sikelía sector, they understood that the xenos threat should not be taken lightly. Since the loss of their fleets, the Amyclean and Phoebean authorities have regularly contacted me for an update on Professor Rebexi's research. Natlea and her team worked night and day on the Proto Myrmids. This was how the creatures were baptized. The "Proto" came from the exceptional capacity of mutation of the species, Natlea was convinced that the specimens which attacked us were only at the first stage of evolution of their race.
Another of the researchers' working hypotheses was that Proto Myrmids lived in gravitational waves or at least used them actively. In fact, they recommended that all gravity portals in the area be put under surveillance. Indeed, at the end of the week I was told of two Proto Myrmid raids against portals of the two empires.
As usual, the Amycleans reacted with extreme brutality. As soon as the Proto Myrmids were spotted, the Hegemony vessels attacked. The bio-vessels were quickly cut to pieces.
On the Phoebean side, things went less well. After numerous skirmishes and maneuvers, the bio-vessels eventually prevailed over wear ...


> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 4
To the dismay of the League, the area infested by Proto Myrmids had extended to the south of the sector. The hegemony of Amycles took the opportunity to nibble on the domain of his adversary by seizing a territory defended by a Defense Station and by absorbing the Phoebean bridgehead on the side of Pétrino Frágma. The League established a new Defense Station on the border between the infested area and the Amyclean battle line while the Hegemony set up a Battle Station in the Pétrino Frágma.

The raids of the Proto Myrmids proved to be a blessing for the Hegemony of Amycles, their intervention had indeed made it possible to restore the balance of power with the League of Phoebe. But Professor Rebexi was worried, she was still wondering about the hidden motivations of the xenos ...

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

FIFTH WEEK
.. from the rest of the sector. Fear grew within the team of Professor Rebexi who could not understand if the raids of Proto Myrmids were random or if they responded to a very precise plan. Both hypotheses were as worrying as the other: were we facing an unpredictable enemy or a calculating mind?

During this time the fighting had not decreased in intensity between the Amyclean and Phoebean forces. The conflict was now concentrated around the Pétrino Frágma, the asteroid field in the center of the Sikelía sector, where the two empires spent their time making breakthroughs and counter-breakthroughs. The entire area was now full of military installations, including defense and battle stations.
Observing space battles in such an environment was not without danger and two frigates of the arbitration fleet suffered serious damage as a result of collisions. The battles had been particularly violent between the Hegemony and the League, the commanders had learned to use the asteroids to their advantage both to protect their units and to put their enemies in danger. And again the two sides failed to gain the advantage.

In the middle of the week my attention was distracted by an even more serious subject. Professor Rebexi had finally decided on the Proto Myrmids. The creatures did seem intelligent and they were following a plan. The objective was certainly to test the defenses of Humanity and there was only a logical follow-up to their raids. The Proto Myrmids were going to attack the worlds of Syrakoúses and Segesta! This revelation froze my blood as I remembered the number of inhabitants of the two planets!

Thanks to the projections of Rebexi and his team, the Amyclean and Phoebean planetary defenses were ready when the Proto Myrmides attacked. Relying on battle stations reinforced by squadrons of interceptors, the human fleets opposed fierce resistance to bio-vessels. For a time Segesta's fate seemed uncertain when there was only one active combat station left, but the Phoebean defenses finally held up thanks to the deployment of numerous automated sentries. The Proto Myrmids were repelled and the two planets saved!


> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 5
For the first time in several weeks, the xenos infestation had been contained and was no longer progressing. The League of Phoebe took advantage of this to destroy the Amyclean Battle Station of Pétrino Frágma. The Hegemony launched an offensive north of the sector to reduce an enemy position. Colonies were established in orbit of Syrakoúses and Segesta.

The Proto Myrmids had almost pierced the planetary defenses of Syrakoúses and Segesta but the Hegemony of Amycles and the League of Phoebe still did not seem ready to suspend hostilities to face this threat. However, I deployed treasures of diplomacy to try to make the belligerents make peace, but it was a waste of time. The war continued to rage!

LOGBOOK OF CAPTAIN ALIFRED CARTR DISCOVERY'S COMMANDER CRUISEUR OF THE ARBITRATION FLEET OF HELIOS

SIXTH SEMAINE
... without explanation ! Reports from the Amyclean and Phoebean patrols confirmed those of the observation frigates. Except infected areas in Phoebean territory, there was no longer any trace of Proto Myrmids in the Sikelía sector!
For Professor Rebexi, this disappearance confirmed the theory according to which the raids were intended to learn more about Humanity and especially about its defenses. She was certain that the creatures would return one day and that it was necessary to prepare for the worst.
But for Hegemony and the League, the departure of the xenos had sounded hallali! The two camps gathered their forces and launched them into two large space battles on both sides of Pétrino Frágma.
South of the asteroid field, a Phoebean fleet supported by a fleet from the Forge of Fendrix faced two Amyclean fleets in an unstable area comprising no less than two black holes in formation. After heavy fighting, the Amycleans emerged victorious from the battle.





North of the asteroid field, two Phoebean fleets faced two Amyclean fleets. The Phoebe quickly took the advantage on the Hegemony vessels but the Amycleans gathered around a cloud of gas to organize a last stand. After having suffered heavy losses, the League of Phoebe dislodged its adversaries and gained the victory.









> TACTICAL PROJECTION
> SIKELÍA SECTOR
> END OF WEEK 6
The League and the Hegemony concentrated their conquests around the Pétrino Frágma. The asteroid field was now under Amyclean control, but Phébé had bypassed the obstacle and made a breakthrough towards Syracoùses.
The two belligerents had also established new colonies in the heart of their territory.


After five weeks of intense fighting, the League of Phebe and the Hegemony of Amycles had failed to make a difference. The situation could have been a perfect balance if the League of Phebe had not suffered the raids of the Proto Myrmids and lost two territories close to Segesta. But it was obvious that neither of the two empires would take over the other. I had received clear instructions on this matter and therefore made the decision to end the conflict.
Given the sensitive context of this campaign, I announced that the High Council of Helios had decided to close off the Sikelía sector, officially to carry out policing operations. The League and the Hegemony had no choice and could only provide assistance to the new military campaign that was opening: the pacification of areas infested by Proto Myrmids ...


This was the last extract from the Captain Alifred Cartr's logbook.

He attests that what specialists call a "first contact", the encounter with an extraterrestrial race, did take place during the military campaign in the Sikelía sector.

What do we know about Proto Myrmids as these creatures were baptized by Professor Rebexi's team? Are their intentions really hostile? Have we only tried to communicate with them to establish a cease-fire?
Is the civilian population safe knowing that these xenos seem to travel using gravitational waves ?

The authorities must ...



You're back on HNN, be the first to know!

Following the sharing of fake news and to put an end to any rumor, the High Council of Helios issued a press release on the events that took place in the Sikelía sector.

"For several days the media have been echoing events which would have taken place during the war opposing the League of Phoebe to the Hegemony of Amycles in the Sikelía sector. It is the duty of the High Council of Helios to find out the whole truth about these events and to put an end to rumor and false information.

It turns out that the so-called Proto Myrmids were just a big hoax. La Forge de Fendrix has confirmed that a band of Pétrino Frágma pirates have stolen experimental camouflage equipment which, skillfully adapted, has been able to deceive the best sensors and lead to believe in xenomorphic attacks.

The pirates are on the run and that is why the Sikelía sector is currently closed. With the help of the fleets of Phoebe and Amycles, we are currently carrying out operations aimed at restoring order.

In this context, several people have already been arrested. Among them are several war reporters who participated in disseminating false information in order to spread panic and thus facilitate the work of their accomplices."

It was an extract from the press release from the High Council of Helios.

It is with bitterness that the editorial staff of HNN admits having been manipulated by its special envoy, Mikayla Melnie, who is one of the accomplices of the pirates arrested by the authorities of the Sikelía sector. We apologize to our viewers for spreading false information during our previous special editions.

And now the sports page with the victory of Sporting Helios in Space Soccer ..