Legion

Legion
Legion	Physical Characteristics: - Height: Variable - Weight: Variable Origin: - System: Unknown, but encountered in Gilese 936 and other far regions of space Related Lore: Timeline of Canon Events

The Legion are a synthetic assimilator race of unknown origin, first encountered on Anderson-Eta in the Gilese 936 system by the SEV Torch during July, 2312. Little is known about them outside of what has been revealed during various encounters.

What Is Known

• The Legion consists of robotics and machinery that have been captured and subverted. Many Legion units utilize captured positronic matrices as well as organic brains as "processors".
• Legion attacks tend to favor capturing victims to assimilate them over outright killing everyone in sight.
• Synthetics and FBPs are able to "hear" the Legion as a chorus of screaming and crying voices. This has become a warning sign for Legion presence.
  • The recent attack on the SCGECO Golden Juno had this phenomena broadcast over the attacked vessel's telecommunications network. It is currently not known why this occurred, or why it has only happened on that specific vessel so far.
• The Legion has found some method of subverting non-synthetic members of a ship's crew without assimilating them into a machine body, turning them into saboteurs and spies.
• Survivor accounts indicate that the Legion may be led by entities known as "Shepherds": Legion units possessing at least some degree of free will, with the ability to control other Legion units around them. Only one Shepherd has been identified so far – Shepherd FIND, a subverted positronic involved in the attack on the SCGECO Golden Juno – but FIND claimed there were more. details on these shepherds are known, only that one was part of the attack on the SCGECO Golden Juno and it claimed there were more of them.
• Subverted hivebots, hivebot frames carrying assimilated brains and positronic matrices, and subverted positronic matrices still housed by their original shells (ship-bound synthetics, AI cores, IPCs) have all been used by the Legion to carry out attacks. Other, more specialized units – including hulking "bellators" and shrimp-like "harvesters" – have been witnessed as of later attacks. Information known about various legion units is listed below.

Legion Unit Information

Name	Icon	Description	First Encountered	Known Tactics
Scout		A hivebot that's been hacked and upgraded. For every hivebot variant, there's a legion scout variant. Curiously, the variant that fires ion weapons is omitted.	July 20th, 2312	Swarm tactics. Act as fodder and shields for other legion units.
Bellator		A hulking, floating mass of spikes with a glowing yellow "eye" in the center. This is the legion's main front line tank.	January 5th, 2313	Front line tank unit. Fires a hard-hitting energy beam. Actively evades incoming fire. Typically seen in pairs.
Harvester		A large construct with an oddly nautilus-like shape, with a swarm of glowing yellow tentacles coming from its center mass.	January 5th, 2313	Non-combatant unit. Harvests and collects brains and positronic matrixes. Has been observed following behind legion front lines to harvest from the fallen as the main forces push forward.

Event History

Main Article: Timeline of Canon Events – Encounter with the Legion

Date	Events
Overall	The Torch encounters a hostile group known as the Legion, unseen before – they are synthetic assimilators of an unknown origin. The crew suffers losses and decides to retreat, slowly making their way to the outpost at E-14b. The Torch has various encounters with more Legion forces on their way back to E-14b.
July 20th, 2312	The Torch ends up at Gilese 936, after an unidentified fault with the bluespace drive. While the drive troubleshoots itself, an expedition is sent to a nearby exoplanet, temporarily dubbed Anderson-Eta. A brief exploration reveals the presence of a facility inhabited by automated systems and a group of synthetic assimilators, with familiar frames bearing the markings of the Terran Commonwealth as well as that of the Expeditionary Corps. With the hoard of synthetics eventually making their intentions clear, a fight breaks out. The Torch is assaulted and losses are taken. The crew are forced to jump out of the system, with a plan to retreat to a safe haven. With sparse information, the rest of the Sol Central Government vie for more information from the members of the Torch and as such, have launched an investigation into the matter. Meanwhile, the intentions of this new species – or its origins – are left unknown.
November 2nd, 2312	The SCGECO Golden Juno is infiltrated by an IPC identifying itself as a 'shepherd' of the Legion. This IPC somehow subverts an organic crew member which sabotages the vessels defenses, and the situation rapidly spirals into chaos. The ship, most of its crew, and the responding Fleet ERT are lost when Fleet escorts elect to destroy the vessel after activation of the self destruct fails. The entire event is covered up as a Frontier Alliance attack in public facing media coverage.
December 5th, 2312	The Torch encounters the empty husk of the ITV Odyssey – a NanoTrasen research expedition out on a dark, distant arctic planet. Headless corpses, movement in the shadows beyond their headlamps, and Legion voices heard by the exploration synthetic with the team herald the coming storm. The team is rapidly assaulted by a horde of Legion bots but they manage to escape without any casualties. The Legion do not pursue. This event is never reported to the public, but those on board the Torch are well aware of the close encounter.
December 14th, 2312	The Torch receives a modified sensor suite control board and components from EXCOM, allowing the sensors to extend their reach for a brief period. This sensor ping reaches outside of the system and detects something EXCOM and the command team elect to keep classified. The Torch is then directly contacted by a Legion Shepherd, telling them to deliver a message to Sol before firing a torpedo at and severely damaging one of the nacelles. Ship sensors stop picking up on tailing Legion vessels after this event, and further Legion encounters by the Torch seem to become increasingly uncommon. Several ships – including the SFV Capanaeus and the GCNV Akwesasne – fall out of contact near the Gilese 936 system under mysterious circumstances.
January 4th, 2313	The Torch holds a public briefing for all personnel about the Legion, outlining what information they have, what preparations the ship will take, and the threat of an impending Legion attack as the Torch nears E-14b. An outline of the briefing can be read here.
January 5th, 2313	The Torch receives an EXCOM report that a team of Expeditionary scientists, currently landed on a distant exoplanet, has found an artifact that might be of strategic use against the Legion. The Torch is rerouted to rendezvous and pick up the team and the artifact to be brought back to E-14b. On arrival, the artifact turns out to be a dormant Legion harvester that promptly starts tearing off people's heads. Chief Science Officer Lt. Adrian Schmidt and Senior Researcher Ens. Brock Bunten are killed by the harvester almost immediately, before a force of Legion scouts springs a massive ambush on the remnants of the team. The surviving members of the away team flee the site chased by a horde of hivebots – civilian prospector Karl Emberchest dies fending off the horde while the rest of the team escape, including the two surviving Expeditionary scientists from the exoplanet. Back on the Torch, the two scientists state that they were researchers with the SEV Sagittarius and the only survivors of its 26-member crew. They recount a harrowing experience involving a "Legion trap" and the excavation of the harvester, assumed to be an inert statue. The pair are granted refuge on the Torch under Security's surveillance as it continues its long trek to E-14b. As the Torch draws ever closer, the crew nervously readies themselves for the Legion's anticipated attempt to intercept them before they reach E-14b. The dead are mourned – with their bodies lost to the Legion attack, the crew can only fear for the worst.

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