Post by Insano-Man on Sept 24, 2018 9:44:56 GMT -5
Profit, Power, & Pride
The Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance is the largest pseudo-national entity and private military organization in known human space, spanning no less than sixteen star systems with its influence over dozens of independent worlds within and private organizations without. Its role in interstellar affairs has dimmed since the conclusion of the tumultuous Screamer Plague of the late 2110s, but its place has been firmly secured by its ubiquitous ties across space. With its area of influence sheltering many private military, industrial, and commercial organizations alike, it is unlikely to disappear any time soon.
History
The history of the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance is clouded by its diversity and lack of central authority, but most place its formation in the wake of the Alvuncke Systems Confederation's break-up in 2087 A.F. The Alvuncke Confederation lasted only a few short decades before the war that crippled it - a conflict fought against a large fleet of Inkron generation ships dispatched hundreds of years prior - and its dissolution left a number of disenfranchised colonies in willing isolation from one another. It was during this time that many mercenaries sought their fortunes in former Alvuncke territory, from the now-infamous Arkson's Freelancers to the then-renowned Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla.
The turnout of private contractors filled the void of military power the Confederation left behind so effectively that, by 2091 A.F., only five of the twenty-six colonies - all former core worlds of Alvuncke - maintained their own standing fleets. Ten colonies had given up their own military spending entirely to various security firms and professional mercenary groups. New private military companies appeared on an almost daily basis as organizations merged and consolidated their power and strength to bolster their profit margins and secure their clients further.
The former Alvuncke colonies were no strangers to pirates and marauding Tsarova warbands. Indeed, the sharp escalation of contractors brought with it one of the greatest surges in pirate activity ever seen in the century. Just as contracts were being signed, targets were being picked, and not with deaf ears to the flagless war machine growing in the systems. Stronger pirates muscled many smaller mercenary bands into cooperation or fearful ignorance, while smaller groups of raiders bribed and ransomed their way into positions of power between the new independent defense forces.
The presence of the less scrupulous of privateers and ruffians was not to remain strong for long. While never completely destroyed - and still more dangerous than the pirate presence in Coalition space to this day - strikes against colonial raiders and opportunist slavers escalated as time went on. On September 23rd, 2093 A.F., the long-uncontested pirate base of Fort Dugan was wiped clean by naval elements of the Omnia Security Group's 17th Colonial Defense Force in a surprise assault, planned months in advance. The response by the outlaws in Alvuncke space was swift and unnervingly organized; the following year, on the 2nd of February, the mercenary battleship Steven Rorsk of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla was sabotaged on routine operations against local pirates by stowaways. Its engines and communications crippled, the ship was destroyed and literally ripped apart by raiders of the local Alvuncke & Company pirate clan. To this day, the Steven Rorsk's survivors - were there any - have yet to be found, leaving a total of 118 Harvestman contractors missing or dead.
The quick retaliation on one of the Omnia's chief allies in the Diettermann system stunned mercenary outfits across the former Alvuncke territories. Subsequent organized attacks on the Omnia Security Group itself, attacks that only grew in strength and planning with each strike, gave greater urgency to the situation; the pirate presence in the system was growing unchecked and ordinary measures had only enraged it. 2094 A.F. was to be a year of hurried negotiations, agreements, and joint defensive operations against an underworld threat that grew increasingly more bold with every successful attack.
With smaller mercenary units being destroyed or forced to disband as time went on, the well-publicized collective handshake of Jane Ming, Terrence Koff, Friederick Glandeset, Marcus Harvestman, and Georgi Zensdricht announced the creation of the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance on August 1st, 2094 A.F. was an expected and hoped-for development. What few knew was that the handshake, made public on that date, had actually taken place two months prior. August 1st was the day of the deployment of the HSIN Steven Rorsk II and the massive, asteroid-miner-turned-siege-cannon IMV Koskov together with the newly upgraded HSIN Frank Jessup, the partner vessel of the first Steven Rorsk before its destruction. August 1st was set to be their first combat deployment after a week of covert preparation drills.
The results were nothing short of a triumph for the newly fashioned Privateer Alliance. Three pirate bases that were once considered incontestable were raided, destroyed, and their defending fleets scattered by mercenary raids rapidly cycling through the targets. The Koskov siege cannon played a key role in the destruction of the mobile space station Vladiviy and the refitted cargo carrier Sascha's Whale, both primary targets and regular pirate gathering places.
Chaos set in among pirate factions that had once believed their growth would plateau rather than plummet and accusations of incompetence drove wedges between former underworld allies. Rapid follow-up operations in the weeks and months to come after the Rorsk's Revenge raids, as they came to be called, only continued to shake morale among organized raiders. Recruitment shortfalls damned many upstart raiding bands and the once-cooperative pirate alliances in former Alvuncke territory fractured. While the underworld presence remains today and its numbers remain strong enough to dissuade a full eviction from the colonies, the unity it once held is now but a distant, fading memory.
The success of the Rorsk's Revenge operation brought more positive news riding on its coattails. With a solidified alliance dedicated to maintaining the peace private contractors had fought hard for in Alvuncke territory and a famous triumph headlining the opening of its military history, mercenary outfits and private security fleets saw tremendous increases in new staff. The small, hundred-strong Woodshock Support Elements, employed on the colony of Hernesberg, saw an influx of at least twenty new contractors with experience in the Garrant Commonwealth's Stormtroopers. Similar turnouts among other organizations were hardly uncommon during the resurgence in major offensives against pirates.
The end of major pirate operations in late 2095 A.F. - both the strikes by Ming-Koff privateers and raids by pirates - heralded a time of relative peace. The outbreak of the Tharkadian War of First Contact shattered this peace, however, as the Alvuncke territories, once Commonwealth systems prior to the Confederation's breakaway, were made staging grounds for Coalition forces during the later half of 2100 A.F. Verinen raids into the system brought many of the complacent colonies into crossfires between Federal, Garran, and Verinen fleets. Without the unity to side with either Coalition or Independent Strategic Alliance, nor the desire in any of its participating colonies to fight an interstellar war, the Privateer Alliance remained silent during the ultimately brief conflict.
Peace returned just as the War of First Contact concluded, but five years later, falling just a week after the fifth anniversary of the war's end on January 9th of 2107 A.F., conflict broke out once more. The departure of the Coalition's naval forces from Ming-Koff-protected space was seen as a withdrawal of all military power from the Alvuncke territory by the most unwanted of opponents; Tsarova's Worldcorps. Four years of space travel passed for the several hundred thousand castaways from Tsarova after being assembled aboard a massive fleet of stolen and scratch-built space vessels. Four titanic carrier vessels formed the foundation of this fleet, nicknamed "Driftwood", "Seaborne", "Goose", and "Mallard" during the conflict that eventually followed.
January 9th saw the arrival of the four vessels and their transported fleet. Each appeared alone over a colony in the Palattock system; Driftwood near the shipyards of Port Marstell, Seaborne over the desert world of Salizreid, Goose over Kleinsholdt, and Mallard among the debris field that sheltered the planetoid Gevolnst. Upon arrival, in keeping with Tsarova "colonization" tactics since the invasion of the Faith system nearly a millenium prior, each craft disgorged its payload of dozens of smaller vessels. Each individual craft made quickly for landfall as their parent vessels remained behind to entangle the bewildered defense fleets. The conflict earned the name of "the War on Screaming" as one of the bloodiest defenses in the star cluster's history followed.
The War on Screaming, despite how comical its name may seem, was hardly given its title by accident. Tsarova was not a regular opponent of the former Alvuncke Systems Confederation, nor the succeeding Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance. Its assault by Tsarova castaways was almost by blind luck; members of the Blackcap Raiders, originating from Tsarova itself, had arrived just in time to observe Coalition vessels making their withdrawal from Ming-Koff's area of influence. The news quickly made its way back to the maddened world and the fleet that arrived was the first true Tsarova presence the former Alvuncke colonies had seen since their all but forgotten times as Garran colonies. Desperate ground battles against the first waves of Tsarova corpsmen and militiamen earned the conflict its name long before it had received it, as the cries of unwilling men and women forced without option into lopsided gun battles quickly set the tone of the long engagements to follow.
The battle in orbit proved just as bizarre as the ground war. The four carriers that had arrived at their destinations each gathered over Port Marstell after first contact with the startled defenders of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla and Jacob's Jackers Private Marines. When all had gathered, the most confounding of mobile fleet actions followed; deceptively strong, poorly armed, and still filled with Tsarova corpsmen and militiamen, the Tsarova carriers used themselves as spaceborne wrecking balls that the Ming-Koff vessels engaging them could do little to stop. At least sixteen orbital stations above Port Marstell were badly damaged and double the amount of mercenary and civilian ships alike were struck and damaged.
The Driftwood was the first ship of the four to finally fall and only after a withering hail of fire from three Harvestman battleships and an eventual seizure by Jacob's Jackers boarders. The Seaborne fell second after a head-on collision with a storage platform detonated several thousand tons of volatile liquids and crippled its engines. The Goose and Mallard, however, refused to follow suit and both vessels attempted crash landings on Port Marstell's surface. The Mallard was destroyed and its crew presumed killed in entirety after its descent vector skewed off-course and caused the ship to crash.
The Goose was the only ship to escape destruction or capture by Ming-Koff vessels in orbit and successfully land on Marstell's surface. Regardless of how debatable that success may have been considering its irreparable structural damage on landing, it eventually served as the rallying point for Tsarova corpsmen and their accompanying militia. While other Tsarova forces were more rapidly dismantled on Salizreid, Kleinsholdt, and Gevolnst, the proximity of the Goose's crash site to one of Port Marstell's major spaceports and cities prevented large-scale orbital bombardment. Faced with surprisingly tenacious opponents whose nature was as unpredictable as their arrival was to the former Confederate colonies, the fighting was undoubtedly the fiercest series of land battles against a foreign opponent the Ming-Koff Alliance had yet to see.
Months passed and the vastly depleted Tsarova garrison in the remains of the Goose - bombed out by aerial strikes to little more than a husk - reluctantly capitulated. From its original force of roughly sixty thousand gathered from other pockets of Tsarova corpsmen, little more than a hundred remained, all starved and broken by the expected lack of planning their invasion had been given. Eighteen committed suicide shortly before capture - all leading corpsmen - and the empty-eyed survivors left their new mercenary handlers clueless. Few had ever fought Tsarova, fewer still had seen them captured, and only a handful throughout the colonies had ever tended to living Tsarova prisoners. Twenty were eventually executed out of frustration as their mental illness appeared to be resistance and potential revolt, while the rest were given over to Garran Space Navy vessels in nearby Commonwealth space.
The War on Screaming was not to be the last encounter with widespread insanity that the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance faced. Indeed, its most confounding of struggles - the Screamer Plague of 2116 A.F. to 2119 A.F. - soon began to show its roots early on in 2112, yet another five years after its last major conflict. While the timeliness earned the five year lapse between each significant struggle the name "The Curse of Dugan" after the first pirate base destroyed in Alvuncke space nearly 20 years ago, this would only come after the Plague ended and closed with it the darkest chapter in the Alliance's history.
In early 2112 A.F., popular sentiment began to shift towards uniting the colonies - an act that had been scoffed at as a return to the commonly-believed incompetence of the Alvuncke Confederation and one that would throw whatever nation arose into war the handful of neutral worlds could have avoided with alliance over nationhood. Not only did public opinion invert itself in that time, it did so dramatically; widescale demonstrations for and against nationhood appeared practically overnight. As time went on, these demonstrations diversified themselves beyond unification and soon every politically sensitive topic became the subject of heated debate no matter what obscurity concealed it.
The following years did little to ease this wave of confounding rise in public voice. Even as efforts were made to quell the growing unrest - and unrest with little target - unthinkable changes of hearts swept across former Alvuncke space and the neutral worlds bordering the Ming-Koff sphere of influence. Previously silent mercenaries and other private employees abruptly deserted their contract holders, businesses flailed and shook apart as mismanagement rampaged through the cluster's economy, and pirate raids bounced between ferocious attacks on targets well prepared for their arrival and unprovoked surrender to understrength battle groups and commercial ships.
By 2116 A.F., madness had fully gripped Ming-Koff territory and few had answers. There was no longer cohesion in the places of power necessary to investigate its source and several colonies teetered on the brink of collapse. That same year saw one of the most bewilderingly unprovoked and disturbing attacks on the mercenary union in its entire history; the destruction of a Bengstell Naval Security Solutions cruiser group on patrol by the IMV Koskov, HSIN Steven Rorsk II, HSIN Frank Jessup, and their associated escorts - three ships with only a small piece of history in common with eachother. The absurd engagement with no provocation short of incapacitating madness began with little more than screamed curses recorded over communications channels from the captain of the IMV Koskov and ended with the complete annihilation of eight Bengstell cruisers. The "Screamer Plague" was soon after given its name thanks to the bloodthirsty rant of Admiral Vincent Shenders of the Koskov.
Events that followed threatened to destroy the Alliance from within as more and more ships followed suit and a civil war - could it be called much else - erupted across former Alvuncke space. More damning still were the aftermaths of each engagement; even after ordering the executions of sixteen marines of his own vessel on charges of treason and commanding his ship through the action that destroyed two other cruisers, Captain Michael Andresvelt of the FNSV Supergiant turned himself over to authorities, reportedly in tears after realizing what he had done. Riots and massacres continued unchecked across Ming-Koff territory and all typically ended with either suicide, surrender, or swift and fearful departure as those behind them came to realize their actions. Many of those that fled or surrendered were killed themselves by enraged captors, regardless of whether they had succumbed to madness themselves.
Four colonies fell to ruins as conflict tore apart the Alvuncke territory and at least sixteen hundred died during the Screamer Plague. Many more went missing, including the mysterious disappearance of the Koskov that remains unsolved to this day. Even as the Roggeford sector collapsed under the weight of the Verinen, whose nations held contracts with many of the mercenaries in Ming-Koff territory, none were allowed in or out of the star cluster the Alliance laid claim to. Despite this, even as skirmishes and riots sprang up like wildfire, October of 2119 A.F. saw an abrupt end to the plague. Like a switch had been thrown and the illness disappeared with it, reports of violence and behavioral abberations dropped to nearly none at all. Doggedly, the former Alvuncke systems began their recovery, a reconstruction and political and social healing that would take at least a decade to fully conclude.
To this day, the Screamer Plague has mystified even the most dedicated of researchers. In the time since it ended, as of 2203 A.F., not a single case of similar behavioral swings that could not otherwise be explained has been encountered. Theories abound from Tsarova biological warfare weapons leftover from the War on Screaming to similar accusations lobbed at the defunct Alvuncke Systems Confederation. The trigger that caused the Screamer Plague has remained elusive since it first began even despite the intense study given to identifying it. The thought of the Screamer Plague returning has worried the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance since the conclusion of the first outbreak - if the plague could even be truthfully called a plague - and all signs suggest that it is a worry that refuses to be dispelled.
It was only by 2122 A.F. that the Ming-Koff Alliance opened the quarantine it had unofficially placed upon the Alvuncke cluster and allowed mercenaries to fulfill their contracts to the nations embattled in the Roggeford sector. This proved too little, too late, and many contractors arrived to find their employers long gone. The Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla was particularly embarassed by its late arrival to Aysriga territory - which had fallen almost entirely to the Verinen by their arrival and vainly struggled for survival in systems far distant from the Harvestman group's contract zone. The mercenary union remained tight-lipped over the unexplained tardiness of its participating private military companies and remained so until 2152 A.F.
While the "Curse of Dugan" visited again in 2124 A.F., five years following the conclusion of the Screamer Plague, on the year of the Roggeford sector's capitulation to the Verinen and a time when numerous eyes were cast upon the Ming-Koff Alliance for its unexplained quarantine, it did not visit again. Years following 2124 remained peaceful in the Alvuncke star cluster and this was thankfully so. As 2180 A.F. dawned, many began to see the writing on the wall; war was coming. Tensions had steadily increased between the Independent Strategic Alliance headed by the Verinen Regentic Permanos and the Coalition of Human Systems led primarily by the Anchorage Colonial Authority since the conclusion of the Verinen offensive on Herben in 2170. The Privateer Alliance was given all the time it needed to ensure its member mercenary outfits were ready for the war soon to come.
When the Timosi War began, the Alvuncke systems were quickly made a shadow of their former selves. Mercenaries departed the colonies like startled flies and left little more than skeleton details shielding the now-distant union from pirate raiders and vengeance strikes against their home ports. Many would not return as the war exacted its heavy toll on all involved and their absence only intensified the courage of the pirates that had been frustrated long ago.
The raiders, however, were not granted a second chance to seize glory from the Privateer Alliance. Bereft of major contracts, a number of mercenary groups embarassed in the defeat of the Roggeford sector in 2124 remained behind, notably the founding Ming-Koff member of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla. While few ships were available to defend against the resurgence in raiders, the few that were available offered one of the most spirited defenses of the colonies that had been seen since the Alvuncke Systems Confederation expended itself into the Inkron colonial fleet. While the Confederation may have sacrificed itself to save its colonies, Harvestman and other mercenary groups needed no such martyrdom to prove their worth. Time and time again, privateer admirals and captains seized key moments with courage to turn expected retreats into pirate defeats.
Tall tales abounded during the time of conflict that ghost fleets of the old Alvuncke navy guided pirate raids into strong defenses, while rumors that the IMV Koskov had returned in a bid to earn forgiveness - rumors with unusual frequency and curious sensor logs to back up the claims - became favorites of mercenary, miner, and merchant alike. The continued victories and tales of heroism allowed the pride of the Privateer Alliance to be restored after its humiliation in the War of Inception - could it even have been called a participant in the Roggeford conflict.
In the ten years past since the Timosi War's conclusion and the return of the mercenary fleets and regiments to the Alvuncke systems, the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance has mostly fallen from public view. While still heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of nearly every interstellar empire's affairs, be it mining, shipping, or fighting, their presence remains a secluded one. Their role as a hub for independent militaries, merchants, and mining operations has solidified their place for years to come, while their hard-earned experience warding off pirates and their very own forces has cemented the value of their members to their contractors. With the shame of 2124 fading away and tales of mercenary exploits during the Timosi War beginning to take its place, that future is expected to grow brighter as time goes on.
The Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance is the largest pseudo-national entity and private military organization in known human space, spanning no less than sixteen star systems with its influence over dozens of independent worlds within and private organizations without. Its role in interstellar affairs has dimmed since the conclusion of the tumultuous Screamer Plague of the late 2110s, but its place has been firmly secured by its ubiquitous ties across space. With its area of influence sheltering many private military, industrial, and commercial organizations alike, it is unlikely to disappear any time soon.
History
The history of the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance is clouded by its diversity and lack of central authority, but most place its formation in the wake of the Alvuncke Systems Confederation's break-up in 2087 A.F. The Alvuncke Confederation lasted only a few short decades before the war that crippled it - a conflict fought against a large fleet of Inkron generation ships dispatched hundreds of years prior - and its dissolution left a number of disenfranchised colonies in willing isolation from one another. It was during this time that many mercenaries sought their fortunes in former Alvuncke territory, from the now-infamous Arkson's Freelancers to the then-renowned Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla.
The turnout of private contractors filled the void of military power the Confederation left behind so effectively that, by 2091 A.F., only five of the twenty-six colonies - all former core worlds of Alvuncke - maintained their own standing fleets. Ten colonies had given up their own military spending entirely to various security firms and professional mercenary groups. New private military companies appeared on an almost daily basis as organizations merged and consolidated their power and strength to bolster their profit margins and secure their clients further.
The former Alvuncke colonies were no strangers to pirates and marauding Tsarova warbands. Indeed, the sharp escalation of contractors brought with it one of the greatest surges in pirate activity ever seen in the century. Just as contracts were being signed, targets were being picked, and not with deaf ears to the flagless war machine growing in the systems. Stronger pirates muscled many smaller mercenary bands into cooperation or fearful ignorance, while smaller groups of raiders bribed and ransomed their way into positions of power between the new independent defense forces.
The presence of the less scrupulous of privateers and ruffians was not to remain strong for long. While never completely destroyed - and still more dangerous than the pirate presence in Coalition space to this day - strikes against colonial raiders and opportunist slavers escalated as time went on. On September 23rd, 2093 A.F., the long-uncontested pirate base of Fort Dugan was wiped clean by naval elements of the Omnia Security Group's 17th Colonial Defense Force in a surprise assault, planned months in advance. The response by the outlaws in Alvuncke space was swift and unnervingly organized; the following year, on the 2nd of February, the mercenary battleship Steven Rorsk of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla was sabotaged on routine operations against local pirates by stowaways. Its engines and communications crippled, the ship was destroyed and literally ripped apart by raiders of the local Alvuncke & Company pirate clan. To this day, the Steven Rorsk's survivors - were there any - have yet to be found, leaving a total of 118 Harvestman contractors missing or dead.
The quick retaliation on one of the Omnia's chief allies in the Diettermann system stunned mercenary outfits across the former Alvuncke territories. Subsequent organized attacks on the Omnia Security Group itself, attacks that only grew in strength and planning with each strike, gave greater urgency to the situation; the pirate presence in the system was growing unchecked and ordinary measures had only enraged it. 2094 A.F. was to be a year of hurried negotiations, agreements, and joint defensive operations against an underworld threat that grew increasingly more bold with every successful attack.
With smaller mercenary units being destroyed or forced to disband as time went on, the well-publicized collective handshake of Jane Ming, Terrence Koff, Friederick Glandeset, Marcus Harvestman, and Georgi Zensdricht announced the creation of the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance on August 1st, 2094 A.F. was an expected and hoped-for development. What few knew was that the handshake, made public on that date, had actually taken place two months prior. August 1st was the day of the deployment of the HSIN Steven Rorsk II and the massive, asteroid-miner-turned-siege-cannon IMV Koskov together with the newly upgraded HSIN Frank Jessup, the partner vessel of the first Steven Rorsk before its destruction. August 1st was set to be their first combat deployment after a week of covert preparation drills.
The results were nothing short of a triumph for the newly fashioned Privateer Alliance. Three pirate bases that were once considered incontestable were raided, destroyed, and their defending fleets scattered by mercenary raids rapidly cycling through the targets. The Koskov siege cannon played a key role in the destruction of the mobile space station Vladiviy and the refitted cargo carrier Sascha's Whale, both primary targets and regular pirate gathering places.
Chaos set in among pirate factions that had once believed their growth would plateau rather than plummet and accusations of incompetence drove wedges between former underworld allies. Rapid follow-up operations in the weeks and months to come after the Rorsk's Revenge raids, as they came to be called, only continued to shake morale among organized raiders. Recruitment shortfalls damned many upstart raiding bands and the once-cooperative pirate alliances in former Alvuncke territory fractured. While the underworld presence remains today and its numbers remain strong enough to dissuade a full eviction from the colonies, the unity it once held is now but a distant, fading memory.
The success of the Rorsk's Revenge operation brought more positive news riding on its coattails. With a solidified alliance dedicated to maintaining the peace private contractors had fought hard for in Alvuncke territory and a famous triumph headlining the opening of its military history, mercenary outfits and private security fleets saw tremendous increases in new staff. The small, hundred-strong Woodshock Support Elements, employed on the colony of Hernesberg, saw an influx of at least twenty new contractors with experience in the Garrant Commonwealth's Stormtroopers. Similar turnouts among other organizations were hardly uncommon during the resurgence in major offensives against pirates.
The end of major pirate operations in late 2095 A.F. - both the strikes by Ming-Koff privateers and raids by pirates - heralded a time of relative peace. The outbreak of the Tharkadian War of First Contact shattered this peace, however, as the Alvuncke territories, once Commonwealth systems prior to the Confederation's breakaway, were made staging grounds for Coalition forces during the later half of 2100 A.F. Verinen raids into the system brought many of the complacent colonies into crossfires between Federal, Garran, and Verinen fleets. Without the unity to side with either Coalition or Independent Strategic Alliance, nor the desire in any of its participating colonies to fight an interstellar war, the Privateer Alliance remained silent during the ultimately brief conflict.
Peace returned just as the War of First Contact concluded, but five years later, falling just a week after the fifth anniversary of the war's end on January 9th of 2107 A.F., conflict broke out once more. The departure of the Coalition's naval forces from Ming-Koff-protected space was seen as a withdrawal of all military power from the Alvuncke territory by the most unwanted of opponents; Tsarova's Worldcorps. Four years of space travel passed for the several hundred thousand castaways from Tsarova after being assembled aboard a massive fleet of stolen and scratch-built space vessels. Four titanic carrier vessels formed the foundation of this fleet, nicknamed "Driftwood", "Seaborne", "Goose", and "Mallard" during the conflict that eventually followed.
January 9th saw the arrival of the four vessels and their transported fleet. Each appeared alone over a colony in the Palattock system; Driftwood near the shipyards of Port Marstell, Seaborne over the desert world of Salizreid, Goose over Kleinsholdt, and Mallard among the debris field that sheltered the planetoid Gevolnst. Upon arrival, in keeping with Tsarova "colonization" tactics since the invasion of the Faith system nearly a millenium prior, each craft disgorged its payload of dozens of smaller vessels. Each individual craft made quickly for landfall as their parent vessels remained behind to entangle the bewildered defense fleets. The conflict earned the name of "the War on Screaming" as one of the bloodiest defenses in the star cluster's history followed.
The War on Screaming, despite how comical its name may seem, was hardly given its title by accident. Tsarova was not a regular opponent of the former Alvuncke Systems Confederation, nor the succeeding Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance. Its assault by Tsarova castaways was almost by blind luck; members of the Blackcap Raiders, originating from Tsarova itself, had arrived just in time to observe Coalition vessels making their withdrawal from Ming-Koff's area of influence. The news quickly made its way back to the maddened world and the fleet that arrived was the first true Tsarova presence the former Alvuncke colonies had seen since their all but forgotten times as Garran colonies. Desperate ground battles against the first waves of Tsarova corpsmen and militiamen earned the conflict its name long before it had received it, as the cries of unwilling men and women forced without option into lopsided gun battles quickly set the tone of the long engagements to follow.
The battle in orbit proved just as bizarre as the ground war. The four carriers that had arrived at their destinations each gathered over Port Marstell after first contact with the startled defenders of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla and Jacob's Jackers Private Marines. When all had gathered, the most confounding of mobile fleet actions followed; deceptively strong, poorly armed, and still filled with Tsarova corpsmen and militiamen, the Tsarova carriers used themselves as spaceborne wrecking balls that the Ming-Koff vessels engaging them could do little to stop. At least sixteen orbital stations above Port Marstell were badly damaged and double the amount of mercenary and civilian ships alike were struck and damaged.
The Driftwood was the first ship of the four to finally fall and only after a withering hail of fire from three Harvestman battleships and an eventual seizure by Jacob's Jackers boarders. The Seaborne fell second after a head-on collision with a storage platform detonated several thousand tons of volatile liquids and crippled its engines. The Goose and Mallard, however, refused to follow suit and both vessels attempted crash landings on Port Marstell's surface. The Mallard was destroyed and its crew presumed killed in entirety after its descent vector skewed off-course and caused the ship to crash.
The Goose was the only ship to escape destruction or capture by Ming-Koff vessels in orbit and successfully land on Marstell's surface. Regardless of how debatable that success may have been considering its irreparable structural damage on landing, it eventually served as the rallying point for Tsarova corpsmen and their accompanying militia. While other Tsarova forces were more rapidly dismantled on Salizreid, Kleinsholdt, and Gevolnst, the proximity of the Goose's crash site to one of Port Marstell's major spaceports and cities prevented large-scale orbital bombardment. Faced with surprisingly tenacious opponents whose nature was as unpredictable as their arrival was to the former Confederate colonies, the fighting was undoubtedly the fiercest series of land battles against a foreign opponent the Ming-Koff Alliance had yet to see.
Months passed and the vastly depleted Tsarova garrison in the remains of the Goose - bombed out by aerial strikes to little more than a husk - reluctantly capitulated. From its original force of roughly sixty thousand gathered from other pockets of Tsarova corpsmen, little more than a hundred remained, all starved and broken by the expected lack of planning their invasion had been given. Eighteen committed suicide shortly before capture - all leading corpsmen - and the empty-eyed survivors left their new mercenary handlers clueless. Few had ever fought Tsarova, fewer still had seen them captured, and only a handful throughout the colonies had ever tended to living Tsarova prisoners. Twenty were eventually executed out of frustration as their mental illness appeared to be resistance and potential revolt, while the rest were given over to Garran Space Navy vessels in nearby Commonwealth space.
The War on Screaming was not to be the last encounter with widespread insanity that the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance faced. Indeed, its most confounding of struggles - the Screamer Plague of 2116 A.F. to 2119 A.F. - soon began to show its roots early on in 2112, yet another five years after its last major conflict. While the timeliness earned the five year lapse between each significant struggle the name "The Curse of Dugan" after the first pirate base destroyed in Alvuncke space nearly 20 years ago, this would only come after the Plague ended and closed with it the darkest chapter in the Alliance's history.
In early 2112 A.F., popular sentiment began to shift towards uniting the colonies - an act that had been scoffed at as a return to the commonly-believed incompetence of the Alvuncke Confederation and one that would throw whatever nation arose into war the handful of neutral worlds could have avoided with alliance over nationhood. Not only did public opinion invert itself in that time, it did so dramatically; widescale demonstrations for and against nationhood appeared practically overnight. As time went on, these demonstrations diversified themselves beyond unification and soon every politically sensitive topic became the subject of heated debate no matter what obscurity concealed it.
The following years did little to ease this wave of confounding rise in public voice. Even as efforts were made to quell the growing unrest - and unrest with little target - unthinkable changes of hearts swept across former Alvuncke space and the neutral worlds bordering the Ming-Koff sphere of influence. Previously silent mercenaries and other private employees abruptly deserted their contract holders, businesses flailed and shook apart as mismanagement rampaged through the cluster's economy, and pirate raids bounced between ferocious attacks on targets well prepared for their arrival and unprovoked surrender to understrength battle groups and commercial ships.
By 2116 A.F., madness had fully gripped Ming-Koff territory and few had answers. There was no longer cohesion in the places of power necessary to investigate its source and several colonies teetered on the brink of collapse. That same year saw one of the most bewilderingly unprovoked and disturbing attacks on the mercenary union in its entire history; the destruction of a Bengstell Naval Security Solutions cruiser group on patrol by the IMV Koskov, HSIN Steven Rorsk II, HSIN Frank Jessup, and their associated escorts - three ships with only a small piece of history in common with eachother. The absurd engagement with no provocation short of incapacitating madness began with little more than screamed curses recorded over communications channels from the captain of the IMV Koskov and ended with the complete annihilation of eight Bengstell cruisers. The "Screamer Plague" was soon after given its name thanks to the bloodthirsty rant of Admiral Vincent Shenders of the Koskov.
Events that followed threatened to destroy the Alliance from within as more and more ships followed suit and a civil war - could it be called much else - erupted across former Alvuncke space. More damning still were the aftermaths of each engagement; even after ordering the executions of sixteen marines of his own vessel on charges of treason and commanding his ship through the action that destroyed two other cruisers, Captain Michael Andresvelt of the FNSV Supergiant turned himself over to authorities, reportedly in tears after realizing what he had done. Riots and massacres continued unchecked across Ming-Koff territory and all typically ended with either suicide, surrender, or swift and fearful departure as those behind them came to realize their actions. Many of those that fled or surrendered were killed themselves by enraged captors, regardless of whether they had succumbed to madness themselves.
Four colonies fell to ruins as conflict tore apart the Alvuncke territory and at least sixteen hundred died during the Screamer Plague. Many more went missing, including the mysterious disappearance of the Koskov that remains unsolved to this day. Even as the Roggeford sector collapsed under the weight of the Verinen, whose nations held contracts with many of the mercenaries in Ming-Koff territory, none were allowed in or out of the star cluster the Alliance laid claim to. Despite this, even as skirmishes and riots sprang up like wildfire, October of 2119 A.F. saw an abrupt end to the plague. Like a switch had been thrown and the illness disappeared with it, reports of violence and behavioral abberations dropped to nearly none at all. Doggedly, the former Alvuncke systems began their recovery, a reconstruction and political and social healing that would take at least a decade to fully conclude.
To this day, the Screamer Plague has mystified even the most dedicated of researchers. In the time since it ended, as of 2203 A.F., not a single case of similar behavioral swings that could not otherwise be explained has been encountered. Theories abound from Tsarova biological warfare weapons leftover from the War on Screaming to similar accusations lobbed at the defunct Alvuncke Systems Confederation. The trigger that caused the Screamer Plague has remained elusive since it first began even despite the intense study given to identifying it. The thought of the Screamer Plague returning has worried the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance since the conclusion of the first outbreak - if the plague could even be truthfully called a plague - and all signs suggest that it is a worry that refuses to be dispelled.
It was only by 2122 A.F. that the Ming-Koff Alliance opened the quarantine it had unofficially placed upon the Alvuncke cluster and allowed mercenaries to fulfill their contracts to the nations embattled in the Roggeford sector. This proved too little, too late, and many contractors arrived to find their employers long gone. The Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla was particularly embarassed by its late arrival to Aysriga territory - which had fallen almost entirely to the Verinen by their arrival and vainly struggled for survival in systems far distant from the Harvestman group's contract zone. The mercenary union remained tight-lipped over the unexplained tardiness of its participating private military companies and remained so until 2152 A.F.
While the "Curse of Dugan" visited again in 2124 A.F., five years following the conclusion of the Screamer Plague, on the year of the Roggeford sector's capitulation to the Verinen and a time when numerous eyes were cast upon the Ming-Koff Alliance for its unexplained quarantine, it did not visit again. Years following 2124 remained peaceful in the Alvuncke star cluster and this was thankfully so. As 2180 A.F. dawned, many began to see the writing on the wall; war was coming. Tensions had steadily increased between the Independent Strategic Alliance headed by the Verinen Regentic Permanos and the Coalition of Human Systems led primarily by the Anchorage Colonial Authority since the conclusion of the Verinen offensive on Herben in 2170. The Privateer Alliance was given all the time it needed to ensure its member mercenary outfits were ready for the war soon to come.
When the Timosi War began, the Alvuncke systems were quickly made a shadow of their former selves. Mercenaries departed the colonies like startled flies and left little more than skeleton details shielding the now-distant union from pirate raiders and vengeance strikes against their home ports. Many would not return as the war exacted its heavy toll on all involved and their absence only intensified the courage of the pirates that had been frustrated long ago.
The raiders, however, were not granted a second chance to seize glory from the Privateer Alliance. Bereft of major contracts, a number of mercenary groups embarassed in the defeat of the Roggeford sector in 2124 remained behind, notably the founding Ming-Koff member of the Harvestman Heavy Security Flotilla. While few ships were available to defend against the resurgence in raiders, the few that were available offered one of the most spirited defenses of the colonies that had been seen since the Alvuncke Systems Confederation expended itself into the Inkron colonial fleet. While the Confederation may have sacrificed itself to save its colonies, Harvestman and other mercenary groups needed no such martyrdom to prove their worth. Time and time again, privateer admirals and captains seized key moments with courage to turn expected retreats into pirate defeats.
Tall tales abounded during the time of conflict that ghost fleets of the old Alvuncke navy guided pirate raids into strong defenses, while rumors that the IMV Koskov had returned in a bid to earn forgiveness - rumors with unusual frequency and curious sensor logs to back up the claims - became favorites of mercenary, miner, and merchant alike. The continued victories and tales of heroism allowed the pride of the Privateer Alliance to be restored after its humiliation in the War of Inception - could it even have been called a participant in the Roggeford conflict.
In the ten years past since the Timosi War's conclusion and the return of the mercenary fleets and regiments to the Alvuncke systems, the Ming-Koff Privateer Alliance has mostly fallen from public view. While still heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of nearly every interstellar empire's affairs, be it mining, shipping, or fighting, their presence remains a secluded one. Their role as a hub for independent militaries, merchants, and mining operations has solidified their place for years to come, while their hard-earned experience warding off pirates and their very own forces has cemented the value of their members to their contractors. With the shame of 2124 fading away and tales of mercenary exploits during the Timosi War beginning to take its place, that future is expected to grow brighter as time goes on.
