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 crew of the SEV Torch defeat a speculatore infiltrator.

• 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 is commanded by units known as "Shepherds": Legion units possessing at least some degree of free will, with the ability to control other Legion units around them. Several shepherds have been identified:
  • Shepherd FIND, the first shepherd known to the SEV Torch – a subverted positronic.
  • Shepherd Caine, formerly captain of the SFV Capanaeus.
  • Shepherd Kira, a shepherd of unknown origin responsible for orchestrating a series of speculatore attacks on the SEV Torch.
• In their encounters with the SEV Torch, shepherds have occasionally referenced an entity dubbed the Nexus – this appears to be the leader of the Legion, issuing orders to the shepherds.
• 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.
Speculatore		A permanently cloaked, stealth-based creation of the Legion. Lacks any ranged weaponry, but hits hard with a bladed leg when cornered. Some speculatores have the same intelligence and freedom as a shepherd.	January 11th, 2313	Primarily used as a spy instead of a combatant. Uses hit-and-run tactics when fighting. Has a long delay between attacks.

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 corpsmen from the exoplanet. Back on the Torch, the two Expeditionary corpsmen state that they were with the SEV Sagittarius and are 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.
January 11th, 2313	After nearly a month of sporadic encounters, scuffles, and lost crew, the infiltrators on the Torch finally reveal themselves. A shepherd identifying itself as "Shepherd Kira" taunts the crew, claiming to be the creator of these new cloaked units, while several speculatores start directly assaulting various locations and crew. The Torch eventually discovers a hidden area within maintenance hiding a Legion harvester and several headless corpses of previously missing crew, presumably assimilated into the speculatores they've been fighting. Shepherd Kira and Speculatore Azae escape via a "recall" that teleports them off-ship. The remaining speculatores are destroyed and their harvested brains are recovered from Legion assimilation. Following this event, the Legion goes eerily silent.
January 31st, 2313	On the last stretches of the jump to E-14b, the SEV Torch is confronted by the Legion-controlled SFV Capanaeus (with its commanding officer, Caine, now a Legion shepherd and fused with the ship's positronic AI) and SFV Curio. The Capanaeus assaults the Torch, sending Legion units aboard and launching an electronic attack on the ship's systems – aided by the two survivors rescued from the SEV Sagittarius, who reveal themselves to have been subverted by the Legion. After fighting off the intruders, the Torch launches a counterattack and sends crew to board the docked Capanaeus. There they find a scene of dread and decay: Legion-controlled automated turrets and Fleet boarding bots, as well as Shepherd FIND, Caine's champion. Defeating FIND and disabling the ship's subverted Alden-Saraspova drive allows the Torch's Bluespace drive to activate and take the Torch out of the system – ripping the Capanaeus apart in the process. The SFV Curio manages to escape the incident, though not unharmed.
February 1st, 2313	Finally at E-14b, the SEV Torch makes their way to the still under construction Maxim Interplanar Layover station (colloquially dubbed 'Northstar' by the Solar Fleet and Expeditionary Corps, and 'Krasnyy-Balise' by the GCC Navy). A grand unit award is given to the Torch as a whole, and a long needed funerary closure is given to the fallen members of the SEV Torch and SCGECO Sagittarius. Beyond that, the Torch's next assignment is also detailed – along with a controversial non-disclosure agreement signed by all members regarding their discoveries of the Legion. The information and experience brought by the Torch and other vessels is likely to aid in the ongoing containment efforts of the Legion by the Solar Fleet, as combat experience and time in conflict with the Legion grows. For now, though: the SEV Torch returns to its usual exploratory duties, in a section of stars far, far away from Anderson-Eta.

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