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Description
Built in the waning months and years of the Terran-Vorla war, Incursion was the 3rd of the Tunguska-class Heavy Combat Cruisers. Fleet Marshal CJ Kincaid, commander of the 2nd fleet was severely injured in the event that came to be known as the Waypoint Ambush in which the Vorla deployed their own, new "supership", the Cauntaur-class dreadnought on the unsuspecting fleet who was at the time, rotating out of the area and believed they where well behind friendly lines.

His flagship, Matador which was set to be replaced by Incursion as the 2nd Fleets flagship anyway was damaged beyond salvage and rather than attempting to drag it home under fire, it was destroyed in place with a 15 kiloton nuclear scuttling charge after the survivors where rescued. Due to the relative ease of repair and speedy recovery process for artificial beings, and the fact that finding a temporary replacement would likely take longer to find and assign than just waiting for him to recover. The Navy decided it was best to just delay the launch and let the others in the roster go first. Despite being easy to repair, and healing quickly; CJ was still quite sore with severely decreased physical mobility but essentially forced himself to just scrape out a pass the physical tests required to be cleared for service, which even he has stated was a "bad call on everyone's part. Mine especially".

He only ever admitted it years later, but he doesn't even remember the first two or three days of being back in command because he was, in his own words "So out of my skull on painkillers, I remember physically being there but no details at all regarding what happened during that time."
What he wanted at that point was to see the treaty signed and the war be over for himself. After fighting in it from almost day one, loosing too friends to count along the way he wanted nothing more than to see it end. So much so that the ship wasn't even fully crewed when they departed. By the time Incursion arrived in orbit over the Vorla home world, the last of the imperial forces had already surrendered or fled and footage of the Emperors public torture and execution from every conceivable angle had made it to everyone corner of both galaxies.

After the Vorla treaty of unconditional surrender was signed and sealed, Incursion would return home to the Sol System from her short, maiden voyage so that she could receive the rest of her crew and so that CJ could undergo a total-body replacement, since the repairs made where insufficient to allow him to even walk without pain medication so much be in command of hundreds of ships with billions of lives at stake. The procedure went well, and even though it takes time for any mind be it biological or synthetic to fully adapt to existing inside a new limb so much an entire body, CJ was back on his feet, walking around the hospital ward and getting incredibly antsy only days after the transfer. Which is very fast even for an artificial being. It can take days before the average person can even sit up on their own.

During his stay in the hospital he actually had a room mate, an Earth-born Mi'arr pilot with the Navy who everyone just called "Adam".
CJ would find out that Adam lost both his parent and his two youngest siblings in a shuttle crash when he was about 2 years old. The only reason he survived was because their cushioned him from the impact with the ground just enough to not kill him instantly. He survived, but only because 95% of his entire body had to be replaced with synthetic components. The only thing that was original was most of his head and upper chest. Everything else was synthetic biology or cybernetic prosthetics. Over the years, he'd had over 100 surgeries to keep up with his natural growth and to correct issues that cropped up along the way. Despite that, he joined the Navy at 16 with his adopted parents permission and by 21 graduated from the Naval Flight Academy with the 3rd highest scores of all time.

He had qualifications on just about every starfighter the Alliance had and his record showed 6 confirmed shoot-downs of Vorla Vipers during the war; But Adam insisted it was closer to 30. He had been shot down twice and captured once after ejecting over a Vorla controlled planet, albeit for a very short amount of time, 45 minutes or so as the planetary defenses fell and the Vorla forces surrendered. However because he was such a mess of mismatched parts and touch-up jobs, he was starting to experience health issues, mainly that his body was so uneven and crooked from the years of alterations that his joints where constantly sore and sitting in the cockpit had started to become unbearable.

Because of his worsening health issues, the Navy had basically already discharged him but determined to get back into the cockpit, he elected to go full-transfer. Leaving the last of his original, biological components behind in favor of a machine mind and body. It would still be "Him" in ever sense of the word, his "soul" would still be his, it would just be moved into a new vessel. As complex as that sounds (and is) it's actually an extremely safe, and semi-routine procedure. You actually exist in both bodies for a few minutes while the process occurs. Once both bodies are fully "inhabited" the connection to the original is severed slowly. The actual, final transfer itself happens when the last sensations of the first body leave. It is a very noticeable, and can be a terrifying experience which leaves the patient fully awake and alert in the new body, but unable to move or communicate.

The paralyses lasts anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. After which basic functions will start to return. Adam was calm right up until the night before the transfer when he suddenly became absolutely terrified and even considered backing out at the last minute. He was convinced he'd be lost in some glitch or power surge which has happened maybe 15 times in recorded medical history, and not in the last several centuries. He went on for hours begging for every last detail of what it was like. CJ was in no pain at all for the first time in weeks and all he wanted to do was sleep but Adam was keeping him awake with the question after question, digging for every last drop of reassurance that he'd be OK. CJ grew frustrated and basically ordered him to shut up.

Feeling bad immediately after, CJ gave him the only advice he could think to give. "Remember SERE?"
He asked, to which Adam nodded in acknowledgement. "You got through that and I'd personally rather do this ten more times than go through that shit again."

Both had their procedures the next morning, and both went very well. Adam took much longer to regain function than CJ, who being more use to the process was able to speak within minutes and walk within hours. Adam wasn't able to even move his eyes for almost 4 hours, and it took him over a week to be able to stand up on his own. CJ was checked out after only 4 days, but left his contact info in case "The whole pilot thing doesn't work out" Adam had to stay for an additional two full weeks. By the time he was discharged from the hospital, he found out that he'd also been medically discharged from the Navy.

He appealed the choice but got no where and spent the next few weeks wondering aimlessly before he called the number CJ left him out of desperation. Until that phone call, he'd never considered flying starships. He had always been a fighter pilot and flying the big starships didn't seem as challenging to him. In his mind, it felt like flying a giant bus and any idiot could be proficient at it. And in a way, he wasn't wrong. Starships are easy to fly when they're not shot full of holes and not avoiding giant chunks of who the hell knows what in god-knows where. That's when a good pilot is needed. Someone who can feel what the ship is doing before it happens. CJ saw Adam as that guy, and though the Navy itself didn't want him anymore. There is no rule against using private contractors as pilots. So, CJ gave Adam a job at starlight as a "Test pilot" and stuck him in the HCC sim they had at their headquarters.

Adam beat the sim, which was suppose to be unwinnable. A trip through an ever-narrowing and increasingly complex tunnel. The problem was, they only programmed it to go so far because it was thought impossible to get past a certain point, Adam found a way to "worm-roll" (as he called it) the ship through the narrow opening which crashed the simulation because it wasn't suppose to be possible. The best part was, he didn't realize he'd done it, nor did he understand why everyone was staring at him with their jaws on the floor. Stating "Want me to go again? I know I can beat that time." thinking the stares where negative. He was offered the role of CJs personal pilot on the spot, which meant he would get to fly a little bit of everything so he gladly accepted.

With Adam frequently flying the 3 mile long warship like it was a small starfighter, doing things others didn't dare to try on a regular basis combined with CJs fleet tactics and unrelenting nature with good, well trained crews and experienced commanders across the entire fleet, Incursion and the 2nd Fleet quickly earned a reputation across the cosmos as THE premier fighting force among the stars. There where others, and they where damn good too. But the 2nd Fleet has a reputation for being the most ruthless and effective fighters in the known universe. But also, like any UESN fleet, they wanted those in need to not fear coming to them for aide. That's part of the reason Incursion is blue, as blue is almost universally the color of justice, law, and order. It's also why most Terran ships don't have big, sloping angles or aggressive stances. They're meant to look approachable while also being able to shred anything that dares fire on it or anyone the Alliance considers a friend. Case in point, Incursion shoots down a moon.

Incursion would spent the bulk of her life wearing her blue and white paint job. She wasn't the only UESN ship in her day to be painted blue. She wasn't even the only Tunguska-class ship to be blue, or have blue accents. But she was the only one that got the nick name of "The Blue One". A nick name that would be both used positively and negatively. If you where in need if protection or aide, run to them, they're obligated both legally and morally to help. However if you mess with Humans, or the friends of the humans. You're going to find out really fast that while matter and energy can't be destroyed, it can be spread so thin that it actually makes space emptier. (that's of course sarcasm)

Throughout the early 30th and 31st centuries. Incursion would spend much of it's time patrolling the distant boarders of Terran space where not much happened of major note. They where never not busy, but nothing of intergalactic importance happened during that time. CJ himself would not spend much time aboard during that time, only checking in parodically or when he was really needed as the crew he trained was more than capable of doing their mission without him looking over their shoulders constantly. He would spend much of his time during the next two centuries helping with the post-war fleet reconstruction efforts. Designing hundreds of new ships and building dozens of new shipyards all while tending to his own personal and family life which the war had caused him to miss out on.

In the early 3300s, Terran ships finally reached the region of the anomaly known today as The Great Attractor and began setting up colonies on worlds in the region. Just like before with the Vorla, it seemed that we had once again encroached into someone else's territory and they weren't exactly thrilled about it. CJ would reassume his position on his flagship and take the fleet out to try and stop a war before it began. They would make contact with the Unalli Federation, and semi-democratic inter-species federation not totally unlike the Alliance in many ways. A lot more statist and centralized though. Their grief was not that the Terran colony was built in their space, in fact they welcomed the new comers. However, to live in their space they wanted them to remove the series of one-off orbital-based planetary defense guns they had built, mainly to blast away incoming space debris in the extremely active system they'd chosen.

Now, had the system not been so volatile, the colonists may have obliged but to remove those guns would mean certain death for the colony and everyone on it. But, because the proper forms weren't submitted, they had no interest in hearing the plea from the Terran colony and the Unalli had sent a fleet of warships with orders to remove the guns by force if necessary... However the thing about guns is you can you them to prevent other people from taking them and it almost came to that. Had the Unalli believed it to be a bluff, they likely would have no ceased to advance when the guns took aim and started a second, intergalactic war. However no shots where fired and a stand-off of sorts ensued. Incursion arrived with a significant portion of it's fleet just days later and the Unalli acted as though they truly believed the Terran warships would unequivocally take their side.

They did not, rather ordering them out of the system at gunpoint while demanding they "Come and take it" which was extremely helpful during negotiations later... (sarcasm again). An uneasy agreement was reached with the Unalli Federation shortly after. At the end of the day, the peace lasted and the Alliance and Unalli have never had to engage one another. Although 9/10 credible military analysts would bet on the Unalli to loose handedly in a much shorter war ending in their surrender. The Unalli are an ancient race with records dating back hundreds of thousands of years, but they have no need to move fast. They only build exactly what they need, and war has never been something they have really had to do with a near-peer enemy force. Most of their warships fight pirates and nothing but.

Shortly after, the widely publicized Infinite Frontiers project to explore the farthest reaches of deep space began. The exploration vessel New Horizons XIV was one of dozens of the Calypso-class LRSE. sent out on into the stars and arguably made the most significant impact of all of them. She eventually found herself in the middle of a hopeless intergalactic war between two rival factions 10s of millions of lightyears from the nearest Terran colony. Though she was a superior vessel to anything she encountered along the way, she was not built for combat and only included minimal weapons including a decently powerful naval deck gun and a total of three multiple missile tubes; Two fore, one aft as well as shields and some armor plating around the crew compartments and engines.

She'd easily out-class all but the best pirate ships in a straight fight with her railgun alone, but she was no match for an even remotely competent warship. In that case, her engines where her main advantage. She was one of, if not the fastest class of ships known at the time and could out run and out endure just about anything else, even a Tunguska-class. She was so fast and small enough that many planetary sensor grids simply couldn't see her coming. The crew of New Horizons XIV made contact with over 10,000 species during their trip out. Many only through subspace communications but many in person as well. They would make both friends, and enemies along the way. Eventually meeting the first recorded machine-civilization, the Peno who where fighting for their right to exist and be free.

They where not, however fighting their creators, the Ier as one might assume, rather along side them against an alliance of anti-AI aliens who had built an armada of warships, only held back by a powerful shield. New Horizons XIV would travel around the region dozens of times over the next two years, doing everything they could to try and prevent a war, but they failed and the alien alliance began their siege. For months, New Horizons became an integral part in a sort of underground railroad in space, transporting Ier and Peno officials back and forth between their besieged home world and their new, secret colonies while helping construct a warp slingshot to move their entire population. All the while trying their hardest to make contact with the Terran Alliance in hopes they may accept the Ier and Peno as refugees, but alas, they where unable to make contact and the siege continued.

As their planetary shield finally fell and billions of troops began to invade from above, the remaining Peno androids, at least 30% of their population along with the few Ier who where brave enough to stay behind did the only thing they could to do in order to fully secure the location of their new colony and the slingshot used to get there. They dropped the gravitic confinement on a sample of about 30 billion tons of pure neutrons, taken from the interior of a neutron star.

When the explosion finally subsided days later. The only thing that remained of their home world, and much of the surrounding star system with a thick blanket of dust and radiation but even that wasn't enough. Soon one of their secret colonies was glassed, then another and before long it seemed that defeat was inevitable. The crew of New Horizons even offered to stay behind, allow the Ier and Peno to fill it with as many of their people as possible and send it towards Earth at maximum speed on auto-pilot. With any luck, at least their people would survive. Respectfully, both the Ier and Peno refused the offer. Stating the Terrans had done enough, that they should just leave them to their fate and they didn't need to die for a people they didn't know existed a few years prior.

Eventually, the armada came to the outskirts of the system that contained the last colony world. New Horizons would lead the desperate last stand with the last remaining Ier and Peno ships against the unstoppable alien fleet. Outnumbered 50,000 to 1, they did everything they could to bottleneck the alien force. Placing large asteroids around the planet and building as many space and planet-based defensive systems they could with the resources and time they had, but it wasn't much. Using the asteroids as cover, the small force was able to hold the advancing fleet off for several hours. New Horizons had taken several direct hits from plasma weapons and was venting atmosphere. Two more hits rocked the ship hard, incapacitating most of the crew. When they came to and regained their composure a few short moments later, they realized the fire had just stopped. New Horizons was basically drifting aimless with no cover at all in full view of the alien fleet. They shouldn't be alive. The ship had no power to most of her systems, but she was in one piece for the moment.

The captain was just about to say "What is going on?"
when one of the Ier who was on board "What is that!?"
from the back of the room, pointing out a small window facing aft. The captain ran over and looked out, nearly shoving the stunned Ier to the ground. The captain stared out the window for a second, blinking in disbelief before she began laughing hysterically. "It's the Navy!" she cheered repeatedly, he cheers turning to sobs as she fell to her knees and began to cry. In the short time the New Horizons crew had been dazed by the impacts. Incursion had arrived with nearly 200 Terran warships. Earth having received all, or at least the vast majority of the messages and calls for help, but for whatever reason, New Horizons was not able to hear their replies. When they saw the massive Terran capital ships, the alien armada tucked-tail and ran as fast as they could.

The 2nd fleet would then go around that region of space and spend and round up every single starship involved in the siege. Not the crews, not the people who ordered them there. Just the ships themselves. They where either handed over willingly, or taken by force and either destroyed or given to the Ier and Peno. Several colony worlds belonging to the most influential species of the alien alliance where also evacuated by force and the entire inhabitable surface of the planet glassed from orbit as retribution. That area remained a political tinderbox for centuries to come. The Ier and Peno became great allies of the Terran Alliance, as did many other species but the ones who's colony worlds Incursion destroyed would want nothing to do with Terrans well into the future.

The representatives of those worlds told CJ, to his face that "The moment you're gone, they're all dead." so he glassed several of their worlds to show them exactly what it felt like, and what would continue to happen to them if he had to come back. stating in as menacing but serious of a tone as he could muster "This was your first and final warning. Next time there wont be evacuations or these little meetings.. Just gonna be a flash in the sky and Poof! You're all gone."
When the 2nd Fleet left the region a few months later, no one ever showed up to the new home world of the Peno and Ier to make good on their promise. When asked later "how far was he really willing to take that threat?" CJ answered "All the way, but I was about pretty sure by the piss running down his leg that I wouldn't need to."

Later going onto explain that based on their scans, the alien system proximity sensors only had a fraction of the resolution that even Incursions sensors had, and the ones Earth had at the time made even those look like toys. Stating that his plan was to blow through the sensor grid at as high of speed they could manage, drop out of FTL nose first against the planets center of mass at close range which would cause catastrophic damage. They would then make a hard turn to face retrograde in the planets orbit, lock into a course that took it against the planets orbital infrastructure and open fire with a single barrage from the Mk-8s to the planet itself while using half of the secondary Mk-86 cannons armed with nuclear tipped rounds to decimate anything the Mk-8s missed on the surface. They would use the other half, along with the RG-6 plasma cannons to tear apart the infrastructure and ships in orbit.

He predicted Incursion could have taken the entire planet, it's defenses and everything in orbit above totally out in about 4 minutes. But also made it clear he was quite relieved he never had to do that and that he would have taken no pleasure in doing it. With the help of the Terran Alliance, the Ier and Peno where able to rebuild and build up their own small alliance of species which was eventually connected to the rest of Terran space with a warp slingshot installation. Because of the shear distance between the two civilizations, there is a small bubble of Terran controlled space known as the Frontier Outpost, it started a single system that contained a warp slingshot to act as a relay between the slingshot in the Ier and Peno region and the two that are within range inside Terran space, one is inside the Sculptor Galaxy, and another in the "Watchtower - 7" galaxy, which is a small, largley uninhabited galaxy on the edge of Terran space that is filled with long range sensors that peer into deep space as well as within Terran boarders to look out for threats of all kinds.

Some of the most zealous members of the now disbanded alien alliance that had brought the Ier and Peno to near extinction had stolen some of the new tech being built by the Ier and Peno that was based on Terran tech. This included a design for engines that where at least 20 times as efficient as the best they themselves had. When the construction of the Frontier Outpost slingshot began, the aliens began to launch surprise attacks against the supply ships, near-by mining operations, and the slingshot itself. The 2nd fleet would again be the ones sent, this time to protect the construction project and secure the supply lines, showing up with 126 of the best warships in the universe to fight an estimated 3000 ships with what amounted to home made (but fast) engines and simple, mid-tier weapons.

17 where shot down in the first three days, all from long range anti-starship missiles. The Terran fleet sustained no damage what-so-ever. The aliens quickly realized the Terran ships could see and track them much farther away than they could see the Terran ships and fled towards home, however that was anticipated and three Terran heavy cruisers, six destroyers and a heavy carrier where waiting for them. An RGI E/HPC-4000 Sentinel. was able to pull the bulk of the remaining ships out of FTL where they where captured. The few the Sentinel wasn't able to interdict where chased down by the destroyers and shot down.

Though no major wars took place for the next several centuries, Incursion would remain on near constant patrol. Her crew, with some exception would change many times over the years, entire civilizations rose and fell and rose again in the time Incursion was the flagship of the UESN 2nd Fleet. She fought bad guys, rescued more stranded crews than anyone could count, and ventured to some of the wildest places in the known universe. She safely escorted everyone and everything through some of the most dangerous and volatile locations from the Alliance President to ships carrying endangered animals and even on sad occasions, the bodies of the fallen find their way home. Military or civilian, no matter how far. In it's entire service life. Not a single person or vessel under the protection of Incursion and the 2nd Fleet failed to reach their destination alive and on time, ever. Though many did try to break that streak, not a single one succeeded.

The closest anyone ever got was in 4184 when the 2nd fleet would be escorting two fleets of civilian hospital ships to a world ravaged by XiXi harvesters. The XiXi Harvester fleet, which had itself suffered significant damage turned around without warning and made a B-line towards the approaching fleet, which they ambushed Terran warships and all. This caught everyone off guard and the civilian ships began to break formation as they panicked and tried to escape. Thankfully, they all seemed to remember the warships had combined all of their shields together which made them quite safe as long as they held. The Navy returned fire and began slowing the XiXi advance. Incursion and three other cruisers would put themselves in-between the civilian ships and the Harvester fleet and began returning heavy fire.

During the skirmish, a single XiXi missile made it through the shield and detonated on Incursions middle warp ring, tearing nearly a quarter of it clean off in a massive explosion. Incursion continued to return fire despite the damage and after a few more moments of intense combat, the remaining XiXi retreated. Incursion suffered heavy damage to it's middle ring, and a Terran destroyer was so badly damaged that, although it was originally brought inside Incursions hangar, it was eventually tossed into the nearest star to save room on the flight deck. 74 Navy personnel where killed, all but one on the lost destroyer. The other, an S-8 pilot who was shot down by XiXi point defense systems. However, both fleets of civilian hospital ships arrived undamaged with their crews fully in tact.

In 4444 her registry number of 101 would be stricken from the official registry and removed from her hull. Being the last of the original batch of HCCs still in service, it was widely believed she'd be retired and either sold off or, as the crew, past and present who'd served on her had hoped was her best bet; Become a museum ship. However CJ had other ideas and outright bought the ship from the Navy for next to nothing as they intended to scrap it and he couldn't bare to see that happen. She would go into dry dock and was finally seen again in public about seven months later having been totally overhauled, largley on CJs dime as well. Gone was her distinct blue paint job. She now bore the traditional livery for UESN ships, two-tone gray. Almost white on the top, darker at the bottom with the registry number 44321, but she still bore her original name.

Her engines had been upgraded and her hull extended slightly to fit inside the docking births of the Divinity-class Dreadnought-Supercarrier (DSC) (8k) as the later models are slightly longer. Her former XO would be promoted to Captain and assume command. Incursion would take on the role of the lead ship of the fleets cruiser element which consisted over between 24 and 36 Tunguska-class and Syracuse-class heavy cruisers during standard operations. The official stance as of 4445 by CJ is "Incursion will continue to operate for the foreseeable future."

Map (Old, needs to be remade and lore rewritten. but it shows enough.)

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This is sort of a deeper history of the starship Incursion as well as an update/remaster of the paint job, the old one can be viewed here:

Description
Built in the waning months and years of the Terran-Vorla war, Incursion was the 3rd of the Tunguska-class Heavy Combat Cruisers. Fleet Marshal CJ Kincaid, commander of the 2nd fleet was severely injured in the event that came to be known as the Waypoint Ambush in which the Vorla deployed their own, new "supership", the Cauntaur-class dreadnought on the unsuspecting fleet who was at the time, rotating out of the area and believed they where well behind friendly lines.

His flagship, Matador which was set to be replaced by Incursion as the 2nd Fleets flagship anyway was damaged beyond salvage and rather than attempting to drag it home under fire, it was destroyed in place with a 15 kiloton nuclear scuttling charge after the survivors where rescued. Due to the relative ease of repair and speedy recovery process for artificial beings, and the fact that finding a temporary replacement would likely take longer to find and assign than just waiting for him to recover. The Navy decided it was best to just delay the launch and let the others in the roster go first. Despite being easy to repair, and healing quickly; CJ was still quite sore with severely decreased physical mobility but essentially forced himself to just scrape out a pass the physical tests required to be cleared for service, which even he has stated was a "bad call on everyone's part. Mine especially".

He only ever admitted it years later, but he doesn't even remember the first two or three days of being back in command because he was, in his own words "So out of my skull on painkillers, I remember physically being there but no details at all regarding what happened during that time."
What he wanted at that point was to see the treaty signed and the war be over for himself. After fighting in it from almost day one, loosing too friends to count along the way he wanted nothing more than to see it end. So much so that the ship wasn't even fully crewed when they departed. By the time Incursion arrived in orbit over the Vorla home world, the last of the imperial forces had already surrendered or fled and footage of the Emperors public torture and execution from every conceivable angle had made it to everyone corner of both galaxies.

After the Vorla treaty of unconditional surrender was signed and sealed, Incursion would return home to the Sol System from her short, maiden voyage so that she could receive the rest of her crew and so that CJ could undergo a total-body replacement, since the repairs made where insufficient to allow him to even walk without pain medication so much be in command of hundreds of ships with billions of lives at stake. The procedure went well, and even though it takes time for any mind be it biological or synthetic to fully adapt to existing inside a new limb so much an entire body, CJ was back on his feet, walking around the hospital ward and getting incredibly antsy only days after the transfer. Which is very fast even for an artificial being. It can take days before the average person can even sit up on their own.

During his stay in the hospital he actually had a room mate, an Earth-born Mi'arr pilot with the Navy who everyone just called "Adam".
CJ would find out that Adam lost both his parent and his two youngest siblings in a shuttle crash when he was about 2 years old. The only reason he survived was because their cushioned him from the impact with the ground just enough to not kill him instantly. He survived, but only because 95% of his entire body had to be replaced with synthetic components. The only thing that was original was most of his head and upper chest. Everything else was synthetic biology or cybernetic prosthetics. Over the years, he'd had over 100 surgeries to keep up with his natural growth and to correct issues that cropped up along the way. Despite that, he joined the Navy at 16 with his adopted parents permission and by 21 graduated from the Naval Flight Academy with the 3rd highest scores of all time.

He had qualifications on just about every starfighter the Alliance had and his record showed 6 confirmed shoot-downs of Vorla Vipers during the war; But Adam insisted it was closer to 30. He had been shot down twice and captured once after ejecting over a Vorla controlled planet, albeit for a very short amount of time, 45 minutes or so as the planetary defenses fell and the Vorla forces surrendered. However because he was such a mess of mismatched parts and touch-up jobs, he was starting to experience health issues, mainly that his body was so uneven and crooked from the years of alterations that his joints where constantly sore and sitting in the cockpit had started to become unbearable.

Because of his worsening health issues, the Navy had basically already discharged him but determined to get back into the cockpit, he elected to go full-transfer. Leaving the last of his original, biological components behind in favor of a machine mind and body. It would still be "Him" in ever sense of the word, his "soul" would still be his, it would just be moved into a new vessel. As complex as that sounds (and is) it's actually an extremely safe, and semi-routine procedure. You actually exist in both bodies for a few minutes while the process occurs. Once both bodies are fully "inhabited" the connection to the original is severed slowly. The actual, final transfer itself happens when the last sensations of the first body leave. It is a very noticeable, and can be a terrifying experience which leaves the patient fully awake and alert in the new body, but unable to move or communicate.

The paralyses lasts anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. After which basic functions will start to return. Adam was calm right up until the night before the transfer when he suddenly became absolutely terrified and even considered backing out at the last minute. He was convinced he'd be lost in some glitch or power surge which has happened maybe 15 times in recorded medical history, and not in the last several centuries. He went on for hours begging for every last detail of what it was like. CJ was in no pain at all for the first time in weeks and all he wanted to do was sleep but Adam was keeping him awake with the question after question, digging for every last drop of reassurance that he'd be OK. CJ grew frustrated and basically ordered him to shut up.

Feeling bad immediately after, CJ gave him the only advice he could think to give. "Remember SERE?"
He asked, to which Adam nodded in acknowledgement. "You got through that and I'd personally rather do this ten more times than go through that shit again."

Both had their procedures the next morning, and both went very well. Adam took much longer to regain function than CJ, who being more use to the process was able to speak within minutes and walk within hours. Adam wasn't able to even move his eyes for almost 4 hours, and it took him over a week to be able to stand up on his own. CJ was checked out after only 4 days, but left his contact info in case "The whole pilot thing doesn't work out" Adam had to stay for an additional two full weeks. By the time he was discharged from the hospital, he found out that he'd also been medically discharged from the Navy.

He appealed the choice but got no where and spent the next few weeks wondering aimlessly before he called the number CJ left him out of desperation. Until that phone call, he'd never considered flying starships. He had always been a fighter pilot and flying the big starships didn't seem as challenging to him. In his mind, it felt like flying a giant bus and any idiot could be proficient at it. And in a way, he wasn't wrong. Starships are easy to fly when they're not shot full of holes and not avoiding giant chunks of who the hell knows what in god-knows where. That's when a good pilot is needed. Someone who can feel what the ship is doing before it happens. CJ saw Adam as that guy, and though the Navy itself didn't want him anymore. There is no rule against using private contractors as pilots. So, CJ gave Adam a job at starlight as a "Test pilot" and stuck him in the HCC sim they had at their headquarters.

Adam beat the sim, which was suppose to be unwinnable. A trip through an ever-narrowing and increasingly complex tunnel. The problem was, they only programmed it to go so far because it was thought impossible to get past a certain point, Adam found a way to "worm-roll" (as he called it) the ship through the narrow opening which crashed the simulation because it wasn't suppose to be possible. The best part was, he didn't realize he'd done it, nor did he understand why everyone was staring at him with their jaws on the floor. Stating "Want me to go again? I know I can beat that time." thinking the stares where negative. He was offered the role of CJs personal pilot on the spot, which meant he would get to fly a little bit of everything so he gladly accepted.

With Adam frequently flying the 3 mile long warship like it was a small starfighter, doing things others didn't dare to try on a regular basis combined with CJs fleet tactics and unrelenting nature with good, well trained crews and experienced commanders across the entire fleet, Incursion and the 2nd Fleet quickly earned a reputation across the cosmos as THE premier fighting force among the stars. There where others, and they where damn good too. But the 2nd Fleet has a reputation for being the most ruthless and effective fighters in the known universe. But also, like any UESN fleet, they wanted those in need to not fear coming to them for aide. That's part of the reason Incursion is blue, as blue is almost universally the color of justice, law, and order. It's also why most Terran ships don't have big, sloping angles or aggressive stances. They're meant to look approachable while also being able to shred anything that dares fire on it or anyone the Alliance considers a friend. Case in point, Incursion shoots down a moon.

Incursion would spent the bulk of her life wearing her blue and white paint job. She wasn't the only UESN ship in her day to be painted blue. She wasn't even the only Tunguska-class ship to be blue, or have blue accents. But she was the only one that got the nick name of "The Blue One". A nick name that would be both used positively and negatively. If you where in need if protection or aide, run to them, they're obligated both legally and morally to help. However if you mess with Humans, or the friends of the humans. You're going to find out really fast that while matter and energy can't be destroyed, it can be spread so thin that it actually makes space emptier. (that's of course sarcasm)

Throughout the early 30th and 31st centuries. Incursion would spend much of it's time patrolling the distant boarders of Terran space where not much happened of major note. They where never not busy, but nothing of intergalactic importance happened during that time. CJ himself would not spend much time aboard during that time, only checking in parodically or when he was really needed as the crew he trained was more than capable of doing their mission without him looking over their shoulders constantly. He would spend much of his time during the next two centuries helping with the post-war fleet reconstruction efforts. Designing hundreds of new ships and building dozens of new shipyards all while tending to his own personal and family life which the war had caused him to miss out on.

In the early 3300s, Terran ships finally reached the region of the anomaly known today as The Great Attractor and began setting up colonies on worlds in the region. Just like before with the Vorla, it seemed that we had once again encroached into someone else's territory and they weren't exactly thrilled about it. CJ would reassume his position on his flagship and take the fleet out to try and stop a war before it began. They would make contact with the Unalli Federation, and semi-democratic inter-species federation not totally unlike the Alliance in many ways. A lot more statist and centralized though. Their grief was not that the Terran colony was built in their space, in fact they welcomed the new comers. However, to live in their space they wanted them to remove the series of one-off orbital-based planetary defense guns they had built, mainly to blast away incoming space debris in the extremely active system they'd chosen.

Now, had the system not been so volatile, the colonists may have obliged but to remove those guns would mean certain death for the colony and everyone on it. But, because the proper forms weren't submitted, they had no interest in hearing the plea from the Terran colony and the Unalli had sent a fleet of warships with orders to remove the guns by force if necessary... However the thing about guns is you can you them to prevent other people from taking them and it almost came to that. Had the Unalli believed it to be a bluff, they likely would have no ceased to advance when the guns took aim and started a second, intergalactic war. However no shots where fired and a stand-off of sorts ensued. Incursion arrived with a significant portion of it's fleet just days later and the Unalli acted as though they truly believed the Terran warships would unequivocally take their side.

They did not, rather ordering them out of the system at gunpoint while demanding they "Come and take it" which was extremely helpful during negotiations later... (sarcasm again). An uneasy agreement was reached with the Unalli Federation shortly after. At the end of the day, the peace lasted and the Alliance and Unalli have never had to engage one another. Although 9/10 credible military analysts would bet on the Unalli to loose handedly in a much shorter war ending in their surrender. The Unalli are an ancient race with records dating back hundreds of thousands of years, but they have no need to move fast. They only build exactly what they need, and war has never been something they have really had to do with a near-peer enemy force. Most of their warships fight pirates and nothing but.

Shortly after, the widely publicized Infinite Frontiers project to explore the farthest reaches of deep space began. The exploration vessel New Horizons XIV was one of dozens of the Calypso-class LRSE. sent out on into the stars and arguably made the most significant impact of all of them. She eventually found herself in the middle of a hopeless intergalactic war between two rival factions 10s of millions of lightyears from the nearest Terran colony. Though she was a superior vessel to anything she encountered along the way, she was not built for combat and only included minimal weapons including a decently powerful naval deck gun and a total of three multiple missile tubes; Two fore, one aft as well as shields and some armor plating around the crew compartments and engines.

She'd easily out-class all but the best pirate ships in a straight fight with her railgun alone, but she was no match for an even remotely competent warship. In that case, her engines where her main advantage. She was one of, if not the fastest class of ships known at the time and could out run and out endure just about anything else, even a Tunguska-class. She was so fast and small enough that many planetary sensor grids simply couldn't see her coming. The crew of New Horizons XIV made contact with over 10,000 species during their trip out. Many only through subspace communications but many in person as well. They would make both friends, and enemies along the way. Eventually meeting the first recorded machine-civilization, the Peno who where fighting for their right to exist and be free.

They where not, however fighting their creators, the Ier as one might assume, rather along side them against an alliance of anti-AI aliens who had built an armada of warships, only held back by a powerful shield. New Horizons XIV would travel around the region dozens of times over the next two years, doing everything they could to try and prevent a war, but they failed and the alien alliance began their siege. For months, New Horizons became an integral part in a sort of underground railroad in space, transporting Ier and Peno officials back and forth between their besieged home world and their new, secret colonies while helping construct a warp slingshot to move their entire population. All the while trying their hardest to make contact with the Terran Alliance in hopes they may accept the Ier and Peno as refugees, but alas, they where unable to make contact and the siege continued.

As their planetary shield finally fell and billions of troops began to invade from above, the remaining Peno androids, at least 30% of their population along with the few Ier who where brave enough to stay behind did the only thing they could to do in order to fully secure the location of their new colony and the slingshot used to get there. They dropped the gravitic confinement on a sample of about 30 billion tons of pure neutrons, taken from the interior of a neutron star.

When the explosion finally subsided days later. The only thing that remained of their home world, and much of the surrounding star system with a thick blanket of dust and radiation but even that wasn't enough. Soon one of their secret colonies was glassed, then another and before long it seemed that defeat was inevitable. The crew of New Horizons even offered to stay behind, allow the Ier and Peno to fill it with as many of their people as possible and send it towards Earth at maximum speed on auto-pilot. With any luck, at least their people would survive. Respectfully, both the Ier and Peno refused the offer. Stating the Terrans had done enough, that they should just leave them to their fate and they didn't need to die for a people they didn't know existed a few years prior.

Eventually, the armada came to the outskirts of the system that contained the last colony world. New Horizons would lead the desperate last stand with the last remaining Ier and Peno ships against the unstoppable alien fleet. Outnumbered 50,000 to 1, they did everything they could to bottleneck the alien force. Placing large asteroids around the planet and building as many space and planet-based defensive systems they could with the resources and time they had, but it wasn't much. Using the asteroids as cover, the small force was able to hold the advancing fleet off for several hours. New Horizons had taken several direct hits from plasma weapons and was venting atmosphere. Two more hits rocked the ship hard, incapacitating most of the crew. When they came to and regained their composure a few short moments later, they realized the fire had just stopped. New Horizons was basically drifting aimless with no cover at all in full view of the alien fleet. They shouldn't be alive. The ship had no power to most of her systems, but she was in one piece for the moment.

The captain was just about to say "What is going on?"
when one of the Ier who was on board "What is that!?"
from the back of the room, pointing out a small window facing aft. The captain ran over and looked out, nearly shoving the stunned Ier to the ground. The captain stared out the window for a second, blinking in disbelief before she began laughing hysterically. "It's the Navy!" she cheered repeatedly, he cheers turning to sobs as she fell to her knees and began to cry. In the short time the New Horizons crew had been dazed by the impacts. Incursion had arrived with nearly 200 Terran warships. Earth having received all, or at least the vast majority of the messages and calls for help, but for whatever reason, New Horizons was not able to hear their replies. When they saw the massive Terran capital ships, the alien armada tucked-tail and ran as fast as they could.

The 2nd fleet would then go around that region of space and spend and round up every single starship involved in the siege. Not the crews, not the people who ordered them there. Just the ships themselves. They where either handed over willingly, or taken by force and either destroyed or given to the Ier and Peno. Several colony worlds belonging to the most influential species of the alien alliance where also evacuated by force and the entire inhabitable surface of the planet glassed from orbit as retribution. That area remained a political tinderbox for centuries to come. The Ier and Peno became great allies of the Terran Alliance, as did many other species but the ones who's colony worlds Incursion destroyed would want nothing to do with Terrans well into the future.

The representatives of those worlds told CJ, to his face that "The moment you're gone, they're all dead." so he glassed several of their worlds to show them exactly what it felt like, and what would continue to happen to them if he had to come back. stating in as menacing but serious of a tone as he could muster "This was your first and final warning. Next time there wont be evacuations or these little meetings.. Just gonna be a flash in the sky and Poof! You're all gone."
When the 2nd Fleet left the region a few months later, no one ever showed up to the new home world of the Peno and Ier to make good on their promise. When asked later "how far was he really willing to take that threat?" CJ answered "All the way, but I was about pretty sure by the piss running down his leg that I wouldn't need to."

Later going onto explain that based on their scans, the alien system proximity sensors only had a fraction of the resolution that even Incursions sensors had, and the ones Earth had at the time made even those look like toys. Stating that his plan was to blow through the sensor grid at as high of speed they could manage, drop out of FTL nose first against the planets center of mass at close range which would cause catastrophic damage. They would then make a hard turn to face retrograde in the planets orbit, lock into a course that took it against the planets orbital infrastructure and open fire with a single barrage from the Mk-8s to the planet itself while using half of the secondary Mk-86 cannons armed with nuclear tipped rounds to decimate anything the Mk-8s missed on the surface. They would use the other half, along with the RG-6 plasma cannons to tear apart the infrastructure and ships in orbit.

He predicted Incursion could have taken the entire planet, it's defenses and everything in orbit above totally out in about 4 minutes. But also made it clear he was quite relieved he never had to do that and that he would have taken no pleasure in doing it. With the help of the Terran Alliance, the Ier and Peno where able to rebuild and build up their own small alliance of species which was eventually connected to the rest of Terran space with a warp slingshot installation. Because of the shear distance between the two civilizations, there is a small bubble of Terran controlled space known as the Frontier Outpost, it started a single system that contained a warp slingshot to act as a relay between the slingshot in the Ier and Peno region and the two that are within range inside Terran space, one is inside the Sculptor Galaxy, and another in the "Watchtower - 7" galaxy, which is a small, largley uninhabited galaxy on the edge of Terran space that is filled with long range sensors that peer into deep space as well as within Terran boarders to look out for threats of all kinds.

Some of the most zealous members of the now disbanded alien alliance that had brought the Ier and Peno to near extinction had stolen some of the new tech being built by the Ier and Peno that was based on Terran tech. This included a design for engines that where at least 20 times as efficient as the best they themselves had. When the construction of the Frontier Outpost slingshot began, the aliens began to launch surprise attacks against the supply ships, near-by mining operations, and the slingshot itself. The 2nd fleet would again be the ones sent, this time to protect the construction project and secure the supply lines, showing up with 126 of the best warships in the universe to fight an estimated 3000 ships with what amounted to home made (but fast) engines and simple, mid-tier weapons.

17 where shot down in the first three days, all from long range anti-starship missiles. The Terran fleet sustained no damage what-so-ever. The aliens quickly realized the Terran ships could see and track them much farther away than they could see the Terran ships and fled towards home, however that was anticipated and three Terran heavy cruisers, six destroyers and a heavy carrier where waiting for them. An RGI E/HPC-4000 Sentinel. was able to pull the bulk of the remaining ships out of FTL where they where captured. The few the Sentinel wasn't able to interdict where chased down by the destroyers and shot down.

Though no major wars took place for the next several centuries, Incursion would remain on near constant patrol. Her crew, with some exception would change many times over the years, entire civilizations rose and fell and rose again in the time Incursion was the flagship of the UESN 2nd Fleet. She fought bad guys, rescued more stranded crews than anyone could count, and ventured to some of the wildest places in the known universe. She safely escorted everyone and everything through some of the most dangerous and volatile locations from the Alliance President to ships carrying endangered animals and even on sad occasions, the bodies of the fallen find their way home. Military or civilian, no matter how far. In it's entire service life. Not a single person or vessel under the protection of Incursion and the 2nd Fleet failed to reach their destination alive and on time, ever. Though many did try to break that streak, not a single one succeeded.

The closest anyone ever got was in 4184 when the 2nd fleet would be escorting two fleets of civilian hospital ships to a world ravaged by XiXi harvesters. The XiXi Harvester fleet, which had itself suffered significant damage turned around without warning and made a B-line towards the approaching fleet, which they ambushed Terran warships and all. This caught everyone off guard and the civilian ships began to break formation as they panicked and tried to escape. Thankfully, they all seemed to remember the warships had combined all of their shields together which made them quite safe as long as they held. The Navy returned fire and began slowing the XiXi advance. Incursion and three other cruisers would put themselves in-between the civilian ships and the Harvester fleet and began returning heavy fire.

During the skirmish, a single XiXi missile made it through the shield and detonated on Incursions middle warp ring, tearing nearly a quarter of it clean off in a massive explosion. Incursion continued to return fire despite the damage and after a few more moments of intense combat, the remaining XiXi retreated. Incursion suffered heavy damage to it's middle ring, and a Terran destroyer was so badly damaged that, although it was originally brought inside Incursions hangar, it was eventually tossed into the nearest star to save room on the flight deck. 74 Navy personnel where killed, all but one on the lost destroyer. The other, an S-8 pilot who was shot down by XiXi point defense systems. However, both fleets of civilian hospital ships arrived undamaged with their crews fully in tact.

In 4444 her registry number of 101 would be stricken from the official registry and removed from her hull. Being the last of the original batch of HCCs still in service, it was widely believed she'd be retired and either sold off or, as the crew, past and present who'd served on her had hoped was her best bet; Become a museum ship. However CJ had other ideas and outright bought the ship from the Navy for next to nothing as they intended to scrap it and he couldn't bare to see that happen. She would go into dry dock and was finally seen again in public about seven months later having been totally overhauled, largley on CJs dime as well. Gone was her distinct blue paint job. She now bore the traditional livery for UESN ships, two-tone gray. Almost white on the top, darker at the bottom with the registry number 44321, but she still bore her original name.

Her engines had been upgraded and her hull extended slightly to fit inside the docking births of the Divinity-class Dreadnought-Supercarrier (DSC) (8k) as the later models are slightly longer. Her former XO would be promoted to Captain and assume command. Incursion would take on the role of the lead ship of the fleets cruiser element which consisted over between 24 and 36 Tunguska-class and Syracuse-class heavy cruisers during standard operations. The official stance as of 4445 by CJ is "Incursion will continue to operate for the foreseeable future."

Map (Old, needs to be remade and lore rewritten. but it shows enough.)

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This is sort of a deeper history of the starship Incursion as well as an update/remaster of the paint job, the old one can be viewed here: