Seems clear: We have the technology to remake Earth better. We'll reintroduce all of Earth's original fauna and the ones we've got from Olympia & our friends. Then we will settle it, and revive the old mission of the UN of Earth once more.
President Vir J'Dallot was the first Beldross to be elected President of the UN of Olympia, whose acronym is lovingly UNO. What was fabulous about his campaign pitch was that he promised to put his expertise to the forefront of the Prethoryn peacekeeping mission. He was a Battleship specialist, meaning his could cut the costs of all of our battleships by 20% without any compromise on quality or safety. It is obvious then why Olympians flocked to support his party.
Construction works of the Sentry Array, a great big sensor far superior to any planetary sensors, sees more progress. With each segment we gain more warning against prethoryn attacks and movements through the stars.
An ambush over Trappist V showcases the importance of the sentry array in stopping our forces from being surprised. The Peacekeeping Fleet would have been destroyed had it not been for the quick actions of Admiral Mira Petrenko, who kept the Peacekeeping fleet's batteries firing for as long as possible before calling an emergency retreat.
She would escape with the vast majority of the fleet intact, having destroyed a quarter of the prethoryn fleet while injuring the rest, allowing Taskforce 2 to clean up the remnants with lance battery fire - thereby avoiding a stalling in the campaign. It wouldn't take long to repair the Peacekeeping fleet and reunite it with Taskforce 2 to continue the mission.
As the Peacekeeping mission struck deeper and deeper into Prethoryn space, it also began wreaking a terrible toll upon the prethoryn's softer targets - their swarms of troop transports, sitting safe above their infested interior worlds, now easy pickings for the peacekeeping mission.
After a lengthy scouring process, by 2757 the Prethoryn swarm has greatly reduced in size. Although it is still capable of launching massive swarms, it does so with half the aggression and size it once regularly sent forth, and the scouring process begins to accelerate in pace. A forward base manned by brave citizens sitting upon a frontier outpost and small ring of forts keeps any stray prethoryn from wandering around the galaxy.
A landmark victory over the Prethoryn: In the year 2762, Admiral Bao Miroslav leading Taskforce 2 and Admiral Mira Petrenko leading the Peacekeeping Fleet obliterate the last prethoryn swarm and bombard the last infested world to slate and glass. They move to intercept two more prethoryn swarm fleets, and eliminate them. Once the sentry array is completed, it is confirmed that there are no more prethoryn warships. What follows is the silent phase of the Prethoryn campaign. Although the prethoryn warships were eliminated and the infested worlds scoured, throughout the void were prethoryn hives, scattered all over the galaxy. While they posed a small threat to our fortifications, they continued to produce infestors, troopships and hive constructors, and so the reconstruction process of the galaxy could not continue while they stood. For the next 23 years Agincourt battleships would wander the stars, systematically scouring quarter after quarter of the galaxy, trying to catch all the constructors and infestors spilling forth like oil over water.
With the sentry array the ability to locate the prethoryn hives was exceedingly easy: Like finding radiant torches in the dark.
Combat stats by the time of the silent phase.
By 2785 it was over. The prethoryn no longer existed in any living capacity, the swarm without number was now gone, and the cosmos was quiet. Our fortresses were dismantled, our battleships dismantled or converted into memorials, our efforts to repair the galaxy beginning at once. Dead prethoryn floated everywhere in the void, but as far as we could tell, it was now safe to go forth and find Earth.
By 2083, forward bases had been established to allow greater ease of terrafriending, with the first colony ships venturing forth to send refugee pops to the lands of their ancestors. One world would become many, as around the galaxy a network of 17 governor states and the central UN Olympian outposts rebuilt the wreckage left by the prethoryn. Although the distances between each world was vast, the psi-jump drives of the UN made each world a close neighbour, with travel from one end of the galaxy to the other taking weeks.
While exploring and rebuilding, in the year 2815 a science team discovered a tomb world. Long ago a civilization was born on this world, and it had entirely destroyed itself without anyone having noticed for hundreds of years. Even the prethoryn had not found this world, lost in the far northern fringe. Let us hope this is a painful memory of the past, and only that.
By 2862 all of the refugees had at last found their way home. Efforts to rebuild all of the cosmos continue.
______________________________
We've fulfilled all the victory conditions. After this, it's just the long process of terraforming all the remaining planets into gaia worlds, making all the governor-states into vassals and setting them free to colonize all the gaia worlds. I had considered simply allowing the governor-states to colonize worlds, but then I realized I'd have to manage the 17 states and that's a bit too much. Next post: A closer look at the state of the galaxy, and just exactly what the governor-states look like. Most excitingly, we've returned to Earth, although for now the administrative capital remains Olympia.
But now I have a problem for you guys to solve:
What is the fate of the UN of Olympia once the 17 governor-states are granted independence? What I mean by this, is that while it is obvious that all 17 states should be given independence so that the galaxy's species can once more populate the galaxy, I am not sure what should happen to the planets founded as prethoryn/terrafriending outposts. One planet is populated by so many species that if I were to grant it to one of the governor states, I don't know to whom it should belong, and if it were to be its own state I would not know whether to give it to the largest groups of the Vurxac or Humans, or one of the 1 pop species living within that system. I think the rest of the human colonies could safely be granted independence or transferred to the governor-states where appropriate, but the question of Earth, Mars and Olympia remains.
One obvious solution would be to have all three remain under one United Nation. This is a simple, no-fuss solution.
Another is to separate all into three different states. The UN of Earth, the UN of Mars and the UN of Olympia. The UN of Olympia would retain the sentry array, the science nexus and the star prism, thus it would require great thought before deciding to pick Earth or Olympia, but keeping all 3 independent states together in a federation. Of note is that the UN of Mars is populated by the different species of humans we rescued from the former Belmacosan Republic. Potentially, a compromise would be to grant Mars independence, but keep Earth and Olympia in a Union of United Nations, whilst federating both. The third option would be to return to Earth and grant independence to Mars and Olympia, forming a federation with them, leaving them to pursue their destinies. The danger here is that the UN of Olympia would possess immense power, unchecked by any balance, and would likely gain technological superiority over the entire galaxy very quickly. As the science nexus and star prism cannot be deconstructed, having an independent Olympia isn't really a viable option.
This is why I favour having a Union of United Nations of Earth & Olympia, while Mars is free to colonize its former territory.
Lastly, it's taken centuries, but we got the last hak hak hak in the end.