So it seems I am starting something of a habit of encountering stories that strike me as experiences to be shared. Takes a bit of time to write up afterwards, but I think the result is worth it. This time around our crew was pushed back to our warpgate, our only point of ingress onto the battlefield. With only one territory left on the map to defend, we made our last stand against the combined forces of the Terran Republic and Vanu Sovereignty. I decided to frame this story from the standpoint of a rallying cry for the troops, emboldening them as they march out to face down the enemy and protect our outpost.

After fighting in this war for ten years, you start to feel like you’ve seen it all. Every tank column carving through a continent, every air raid on an entrenched facility. The victories, the losses, they all start to blend together as you find yourself growing numb, becoming a statistic in a never ending tug o’ war over patches of dirt, grass, ice, and ash.
But still we press on, resolved in our cause to save humanity on Auraxis. To free it; from the oppressive reign of the Terran Republic and their unflinching disregard for human rights, all in the name of a false unity. To safeguard it; against the religious zealots of the Vanu Sovereignty, who would let themselves be consumed by technology so far beyond their understanding and control as to obliterate what little meaning is left to being human.

It’s nights like these that remind us of that resolve. Those that enkindle the flames of freedom, to set it upon our enemies like wildfire, and to keep the light in the darkest of nights. On this night we find ourselves beset upon by foes from all sides, seeking to take what is ours: our land, our lives, our purpose. They seek to cripple us, to drive us from this continent and claim the benefits for themselves. But even when working together against us, they will never be as strong as the New Conglomerate.

Where their numbers may prevail, their “virtues” will fail them. Where their tactics may give them the upper hand, their execution will falter. Why? Because unlike the brave men and women you fight alongside, they do not have the conviction in their resolve to see them through this fight. Even now, their tenuous border ebbs and breaks as dissension causes them to turn on one another. What you see before you now is nothing more than a facade, a dog and pony show of force designed to strike fear into hearts and minds.

They have blockaded our resources, encroached on our warpgate, and driven us to the brink of losing this continent. Our last bastion of hope, the Crater Firing Range, is where we now make our stand. A steel rain of drop pods constantly assaults the control point. Galaxies risk the skies, littered with anti-aircraft fire, to drop reinforcements on the point or strike teams in the field. Our Phoenixes will light up the sky as we drive back the enemy’s armored advance with the support of our outlying towers. What is then left will be a brutal and bloody fight on foot over the firing range itself.

A fight we are well prepared for. A fight that we will win, because we are resolved to accomplish nothing less. The other empires strive for control, through bureaucracy or technology, but we adhere to something far more powerful: an idea. Metal rusts, regimes are overthrown, but freedom; something as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend…it can go on and on. What we fight for cannot be destroyed, it cannot be killed, and we will show them out there that it can not be stopped!