Since the 20th century, the Earth had always been too small for its inhabitants to peacefully coexist. With the collapse of the planet's ecosystem imminent, the dream of human expansion into the solar system became a necessity. When technology allowed the planet’s gravity to be replicated in space vessels, and for wormholes to allow great distance to be crossed in a blink, man’s long dulled drive for exploration was returned.

Thousands of probes scoured the universe, returning discoveries that science could never have expected. Such discoveries enhanced technology all the more, which led to further discoveries, led to the discovery of primitive life, and to the most profound discovery of all, the habitable planet of HS-1, or as by the name it would soon become known, ‘Novus’.

With a fully developed ecosystem of flora and fauna, landscapes, oceans, and lands ripe for cultivation, humanity's next evolution had begun. Colonies rapidly infested the Novus surface, and those capital colonies quickly played hubs to many more settlements springing up in between. Farming and production techniques were rapidly adapted to local resources, and in little time robotic farms and factories were established to self sustain the surface colonies without further reliance upon the colonies in the Novus orbit.

Man’s future was brighter than ever, leading to endless possibilities and triumphs, until the day the launch of a single alien probe crumbled all such certainty to dust.

The research expedition exploring the Novus jungles only caught a glimpse before it jumped out of the atmosphere and away. They described it as fleshy, organic, and most distinctly wet, as if to be sweating. Neither its origin nor destination could be defined from the residue left with its launch, a residue soon found to be a by product of a heavy reliance upon water as a central life source. This new organic and apparently intelligent species was soon dubbed 'The Nautilids'.

Exploration of neighbouring solar systems immediately began, though no further sign was discovered. Contact probes were dispatched on mass, and Voyager class Caravel fleets were quickly following in their wake.

It was two years before any sign of the Nautilids was seen again. An Alliance Navy Caravel sent an abrupt message, telling of a ship as large as any of the Novus orbital colonies, en route to Novus itself. The message was the last that was heard and it arrived much too late.

The Nautilid ship arrived part of an organic armada, and any hails, or attempts at peaceful contact were soon abandoned with the rapid destruction of anything in it’s way. The spearhead of the dreadnought and capital ships upon its flanks merely palmed aside any blockades the Alliance could muster. It continued relentlessly along it’s chosen path, as the capitals and fighters splintered to engage all around, driving and widening the wedge through the Alliance Fleet’s defences, and slamming into the Novus surface.

Tremors from the impact were felt several hundred miles away, but the dust clouds and storms were nothing in comparison to the shock of what followed. An overwhelming tide of vehicles - or creatures, it wasn’t yet known - flooded from the depths of the new purple ocean now filling the impact crater. Within a month, five of the seventeen capital colonies were simply consumed, and it was by luck alone the Alliance surface armies were able to redeploy and halt the advance.

The Naval campaign was just as desperate, with Alliance fleets near Novus violently shoved back to a wedge to the planet’s far side. The orbital colonies able to relocate in time would now spend the following months in perpetual night. This lockdown of space over the Nautilid landing point led to the opening of a jump gate to what is believed to be the Nautilid home solar system, and the establishment of a service arterial allowing for a constant stream of resupply to the Novus surface.

It was soon deemed only a matter of time before the Nautilid surface forces would swell to uncontainable proportions, and desperate measures were needed. Upon a unanimous decision of the Alliance Council, the former Admiralty was asked to resign, and new 'radical' Grand-Admiral, Fedran Dyce, was given the unenviable charge of taking Alliance space back. Controversy was said to forever shadow Dyce, with his unorthodox thinking and sometimes overly-passionate outbursts, many felt wary of his sudden advancement. His history as the former chief of the Navy's experimental tech division Delta Mark four, the highest level security area of Alliance space, too amplified concern within the vastly conservative Officer ranks, and his immediate swing of funding towards new experimental systems at the expense of replenishing existing forces met much complaint.

Such a move, however, soon shone light upon the controversial ‘Sneak’ program for undetectable propulsion and jump drive systems, and a series of attempts culminated into the 5th prototype, the 'Sneak-class' Corvette, the ASX-05 Malice. Rigged to leave a very low signature, and capable of working alone at extreme ranges, this new weapon system, though very expensive to field, may play the perfect compliment to Grand Admiral Dyce’s unpredictable nature, something the mass swarming tactics of the Nautilids are already finding difficult to match.